Chorus BB - Cúpla Questions

jArgHA

i am signing up for chorus bb this week (€29.95pm, 1.5Mbps, 20GB Monthly Quota) and getting rid of the old eircom line in da house as we hardly ever use the phone (will now use skype/voipstunt). i am a bit concerned about the 20GB quota that chorus have with the package i am looking at. i rang a chorus sales rep and he tells me they do NOT have any traffic monitoring system in place where users can login and see their usage etc. but he suggested that there are some software packages which you can install to do the job locally (anyone know of these?)

this doesn't seem like an ideal solution either as there will be 3 ppl sharing the connection wirelessly in d house and would be a bit of a nightmare having to be checking on 3 machines that we don't go over the limit. the chorus T&C states that 3c is charged for each MB after the quota which could be very steep, eg. a 750MB dl would cost €22.50. does anyone know how strict chorus/other bb providers are on enforcing this quota?

also does anyone have another suggestion on how to monitor the traffic usage of 3 pcs in the house?

finally could anyone recommend a wireless router that can take in a cable bb connection?

all the best,
jAH

dizzywizzard

I'll let someone else answer the rest of your q's but on the wireless router front I find the D-Link Di-624 extremely good value for money and very reliable..

http://www.expansys.ie/product.asp?code=107948

is a bit pricey, do a google and you should find it cheaper

All the best..

DW

watty

There are two versions of 624, one with Ethernet WAN port and one with ADSL port.

For a NAT/Firewall with DMZ suitable for PS2, Inward port forwarding, port blocking / parental control and up to 108Mbps with Dual band and MIMO and 4 port Ethernet switch it is reasonable value at 119 Euro. It also does adaptive stealth when "port scanned" by time the 3rd port scanned.

It works well too. Aviod the 125Mbps and Belkin gear though. Linksys are also usually good.

Fighting Irish

jArgHA wrote:

i am signing up for chorus bb this week (€29.95pm, 1.5Mbps, 20GB Monthly Quota) and getting rid of the old eircom line in da house as we hardly ever use the phone (will now use skype/voipstunt). i am a bit concerned about the 20GB quota that chorus have with the package i am looking at. i rang a chorus sales rep and he tells me they do NOT have any traffic monitoring system in place where users can login and see their usage etc. but he suggested that there are some software packages which you can install to do the job locally (anyone know of these?)

this doesn't seem like an ideal solution either as there will be 3 ppl sharing the connection wirelessly in d house and would be a bit of a nightmare having to be checking on 3 machines that we don't go over the limit. the chorus T&C states that 3c is charged for each MB after the quota which could be very steep, eg. a 750MB dl would cost €22.50. does anyone know how strict chorus/other bb providers are on enforcing this quota?

also does anyone have another suggestion on how to monitor the traffic usage of 3 pcs in the house?

finally could anyone recommend a wireless router that can take in a cable bb connection?

all the best,
jAH

My girlfriends house has chorus, not sure which connection they have but i've never seen it go above 30kb/s :eek:

bk

My friend has Chorus 3m, gets full speed all the time and goes way over the cap. He has never heard from them and never been charged for going over cap.

Fighting Irish wrote:

My girlfriends house has chorus, not sure which connection they have but i've never seen it go above 30kb/s

Call Chorus Customer Support, my friend was only getting 1.5m at the start, he rang, complained and they were able to fix it with a lcick of a button.

MunsterCycling

They would be on very shaky ground if they tried to charge for going over the cap but didn't have a user viewable stats system in place IMHO, otherwise how the heck are you to know how much you've DL'd

BTW ask them if that cap is just down or is it up and down?

jArgHA

Thank you for all d replies, I will take a look at the suggested routers.

Very good point on the cap, I guess if they do come back to you after dl'ing 60GB n 1 month (quite possible with 3 of us in da house), you can always say "how were we to know what traffic we had generated..."

Also, a point of interest - I just placed the order 10 minutes ago and was enquiring about the 12 month contract. I mentioned that I may have to change address at some point and they tell me you can either take the contract with you (don't need to start a whole new one), switch it to someone else in the house's name, or even cancel the contract (provided you give 1 months notice). this seems very flexible in comparison with some of the other companies - and indeed does not tie you down to 12 months as I thought.

cheers,
jAH

thund3rbird_

all I can suggest on this is to install bandwidth monitors on each PC and add up at the end of the month

here's a few links to get you started:

shareware b/w monitor:
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22423,00.asp

free:
http://www.shareup.com/Emsa_Bandwidth_Monitor-download-17729.html


google search for free b/w monitor - take your pick


you may be able to get a router which monitors traffic - dunno if one is available tho

jArgHA

I ordered the recommended D-Link router from Elara, I hope I ordered the right one: http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=ECE873504&productID=78791

Chorus tell me they are sending out a technician tomorrow afternoon, this has all been extremely fast in comparison with some of the BT/Smart/IBB horror stories I have been reading on this forum of lonnng wait times before service begins. If Chorus do get it up and running tomorrow, it will be a mere 2 days from ordering the service.

jAH

jArgHA

Just to let ye all know of my experience with Chorus so far - cable BB has just been installed, ~ 48 hours after I ordered the service. I just did a quick test on irishisptest.com (not sure how accurate this is, but I guess it gives a good approximation), which tells me I have 1.33Mbps DL and 376kbps UL.

Now just need to get the Wireless router up and running...

jAH