Is Ripwave that awful?

Jack B. Badd

I'm just after moving into a house near the centre of Cork city and since I've no phoneline I figured I'd try out Ripwave. The reviews I've read have been pretty bad so far but I don't know what those reviewers have been trying to use Ripwave for. I don't require a lot from my connection to the internet - I hang out on a few forums, chat on irc, do some downloading but not a massive amount. Is Ripwave so bad that it can't even provide me with a connection basic enough to do these things?
Please don't bother posting just to say that IBB and Ripwave suck, I've seen those posts already elsewhere. I just want to know if the connection will be good enough to do some basic surfing and downloading so if you have experience with Ripwave, please let me know if I'm expecting too much from it.
Thanks, Jack.

Polly~Flower

Ripwave works fine for me. I have had it about a month and I find it fast enough for it not to be frustrating. Downloading is slow but if you don't too much, it shouldn't bother you too much. For the cost, for me right now it is perfect. They delivered within 2 days, and it couldn't be simpler to set up. For what it costs I think it is worht it. one day last week I had a big problem trying to find coverage..had to leave it for an hour. So reliability-wise maybe not so good..

Diamondmaker

These wireless BB all work buy connecting via a line of site to a nearby base station, If you happen to have a good line of site and the base staion is close it should work ok for you. It is pure pot luck whether you you achieve a good connection therefore. IBB will send the box out to anybody reagrdless of whether there is a BS nearby hence the negative stories....They like all the wireless BB providers are contiuously acquiring and building new sites so the service should in theory always be improving, but some areas will always be blackspots to one or more of the BB providers.

watty

Though I have seen ripwave at 64K only 200m LOS from the base station, with 70ms to 1800ms pings. This happens if there are too many modems active on a base station.

If you regard it as a cheap flatrate ISDN speed alternative you will be happy, as long as your sector is not overloaded.

Not good for online games if the sector is heavily loaded.

Capt'n Midnight

check with people near you if you can. If they have problems with ripwave chances you will too.

as watty said the two main problems are the link to the antenna, being close and having a line of sight is a huge advantage here, and contention, the bandwidth is limited and if too many are connected you won't see much.

Jack B. Badd

Well, 'tis ordered now and either it'll work for what I want or it won't... Time will tell.

By the way, thanks Polly~Flower, I think thats the first positive reaction to Ripwave I've ever heard Nice to know it works in at least one case!

Jack B. Badd

Dum dum DUM...it arrived. Won't get a chance to set it up til this evening though. God, even the brown paper around it has an ominous look to it

Tabnabs

I had it working perfectly for three months and then one day it just gave up. No signal and no help at all from IBB customer service (I won't even go there!). So just 'cause it's working today is no guarentee it will be there tomorrow...

Jack B. Badd

Good sweet jebus, it works! :eek:

fifib

anyone tried using it in the harolds cross area? checked their website and apparantly i dont have coverage but on another site think was called switch4.ie it said i would get coverage?