When are we due a speed increase

regedit

It has been a policy of Eircom and all the other companies that resell theirproduct to give us an extra 1 MB once a yea. Now, I have forgotten when this happened last and do ye think they will up our speeds for the factor of 1?

aidan_walsh

AFAIR, its generally been after New Years.

Sponge Bob

No they won't , NTL have now stopped pushing the speed envelope and there is no new Smart out there either.

daveyjoe

yeah, that seems about right.

What do people want to see for the next update?
Personally I'd like to see a price reduction + increased upload. I'm more interested in a boost in upload speed than download.

I know that it's early days but here are my (Slightly Optimistic) Predictions:
2mb/256k -> 3mb/512k - €5 cheaper
3mb/384k -> 5mb/768k - Same price

Hopefully there will be increases in caps by the resellers too.

Anybody want to add their predicitions?

daveyjoe

Sponge Bob wrote:

No they won't , NTL have now stopped pushing the speed envelope and there is no new Smart out there either.

Really? You think that there wont be a speed-bump/price-reduction early next year?

kaizersoze

Sponge Bob wrote:

No they won't , NTL have now stopped pushing the speed envelope and there is no new Smart out there either.

I think you're right. There may be a slight price reduction but maybe a line rental increase to cancel it out. Alot of lines are creaking with the current speeds and most wouldn't handle much more.
The last upgrade happened on the 23rd of January. The next major upgrade will probably be ADSL2+.
BTW, I noticed a bit of a flurry in alot of exchanges in the last month or 2 so it may be a sign of something happening.

Creamy Goodness

abolishment of caps tbh. i'm happy with 3meg/384k tbh.

although that being said that doesn't mean i wouldn't take a price decrease and/or speed increase.

dub45

Smart's experiment with increased speeds over last Christmas showed a lot of lines creaking and there has been a lot of posts on boards relating to line problems since the last speed increases. I would say that the average bb punter (not your typical boardsie now:) ) is quite content with existing speeds.

daveyjoe

dub45 wrote:

Smart's experiment with increased speeds over last Christmas showed a lot of lines creaking and there has been a lot of posts on boards relating to line problems since the last speed increases. I would say that the average bb punter (not your typical boardsie now:) ) is quite content with existing speeds.

I'm quite content too but I still wouldn't mind a bit of a boost in upload speed and I'd like to see bitstream resellers increasing the caps. There should be a consumer broadband package with at least 512k up.

Sponge Bob

kaizersoze wrote:

Alot of lines are creaking with the current speeds and most wouldn't handle much more.

Corrrect, they would go to adsl2+ with the same packages in order that they could service more customers off the same exchange (actually its a copper bundle constraint) because adsl2+ lets them.

Basically given Irish line lengths 2 or 3 mbits is top whack for many if not most . They could maybe squeeze another 1 or 2 mbits down there but thats a 50% increase at best and at the cost of pissing people off if it goes wrong. A 1 - 2 mbits upgrade is 100% better.

BTW, I noticed a bit of a flurry in alot of exchanges in the last month or 2 so it may be a sign of something happening.

a flurry begod tell me more. Are you sure it was not a big union meeting and 11 o clock tea break in one ??

kaizersoze

Sponge Bob wrote:

a flurry begod tell me more. Are you sure it was not a big union meeting and 11 o clock tea break in one ??

Ha, could be. I haven't been driving around the exchanges at night btw, just keeping an eye on the service bulletins. Maybe it's just regular stuff but there's been alot more of them lately.
This one caught my eye:)
http://broadbandsupport.eircom.net/announce/announcement.asp?announcementid=167

rogue-entity

A rollout to ADSL2+ would be quite nice. All BT's Zyxel modems support ADSL2+.

exiztone

Yeah, I was curious about this myself. I thought Comreg force Eircom to upgrade each year and it automatically affects BT and UTV.

I would think the 3mb/384kb connection should go to at LEAST 4mb/784kb

ADSL2 would be lovely, but do all modems and routers support it?

byte

Like others I'd prefer an increase in upload speed. Not too bothered about an increase in download speed as 3mbit does me fine (Smart), though the upload I'd like increased to at least 512k.

Sponge Bob

exiztone wrote:

I thought Comreg force Eircom to upgrade each year

ROFLMAO

Comreg :eek:

No! Smart Magnet and Digiweb Metro and NTL make them upgrade and thats in no particular order

Otherwise we would be where we only 3 years back, 512/128 for €100 a month

Foxwood

Sponge Bob wrote:

512/128 for €100 a month

€? I thought it was £?

(How time flies, etc.....)

exiztone

I'd like some insider information anyway. Anyone work for Eircom? ;0

kaizersoze

exiztone wrote:

I'd like some insider information anyway. Anyone work for Eircom? ;0

Who'd want to admit to that?
Gombín was the man for inside info but he hasn't posted here for a while.

DonkeyStyle \o/

byte wrote:

Like others I'd prefer an increase in upload speed. Not too bothered about an increase in download speed as 3mbit does me fine (Smart), though the upload I'd like increased to at least 512k.

Same here exactly.
Though for a few days Smart had somehow set my download speed to 8Mb :eek:
It was most agreeable
But yeah, increased upload speed is more needed IMO.

BlackWizard

Im on BTs 2mb/256k

Id like to see the upload increased to 512 on my package and 768 on the next
one up.

Gonzo

I would love if eircom followed BT's appraoch on the next upgrade and put everybody up to 8mb download speeds and you get what your line can handle, the different packages would be graded by pricing, different upload speeds and different download limits. Eircoms business packages should be put up to 16mb or 24mb.

Fighting Irish

daveyjoe wrote:

I'm quite content too but I still wouldn't mind a bit of a boost in upload speed and I'd like to see bitstream resellers increasing the caps. There should be a consumer broadband package with at least 512k up.

the only people who want increased upload speed are torrent users, fu(k upload speed just use newsgroups

Fighting Irish

Gonzo wrote:

I would love if eircom followed BT's appraoch on the next upgrade and put everybody up to 8mb download speeds and you get what your line can handle, the different packages would be graded by pricing, different upload speeds and different download limits. Eircoms business packages should be put up to 16mb or 24mb.

BTs approach?

are BT increasing anything?

im on BT+

Mutant_Fruit

the only people who want increased upload speed are torrent users, fu(k upload speed just use newsgroups

remote admin-ing my pc from college works so much nicer with 512kbps upload than with 128. Wow, a non-torrent use of upload.

How about being able to play games without making skype calls skip? Games need a lot of upload these days. 2 people playing WoW and an xbox live game would murder 128kbps upload.

Of course there's the WoW patches which are distributed through bittorrent, but of course as soon as anyone says bittorrent someone else says bittorrent = warez.

So the point of my rambling story is that anyone who wants faster upload (or download) is obviously only needing it to keep their ratio up in their highly illegal bittorrent client downloading highly illegal files.

Shame on you people!

kaizersoze

Fighting Irish wrote:

BTs approach?

are BT increasing anything?

im on BT+

He means BT in the UK.;)

DaSilva

Is everyones Eircom 2mb+ now? Mines only 1mb d/l.

Started off as 512, then it went to 1mb, then it went to 2mb, and about a month later it was back to 1mb

JNive

3mb solid since it was upgraded lol.

Fighting Irish

JNive wrote:

3mb solid since it was upgraded lol.

same here, BT ftw

exiztone

How soon do you think we'll know? I'm very anxious.

Btw, better upload doesn't necesserily fuel warez and pirating. We share our Internet connection throughout the house and it goes to **** when somebody sends an e-mail with file attachment or something.

Kristok

We already had an upgrade this year so wouldnt be expecting a new one till at least next year but if your looking for specifics your out of luck no one knows that.

daveyjoe

Fighting Irish wrote:

the only people who want increased upload speed are torrent users, fu(k upload speed just use newsgroups

I want a better upload for making video calls. I make a lot of video calls each week, if the upload was pushed to 512k then it would make everything a lot smoother.