Advice on a new provider please

NewFrockTuesday

Hi. Any help and direction appreciated. Thanks.
We are currently with Smart - no house phone, just the broadband. We want to change providers and dont really know anything about the other providers - good, bad nor indifferent.

I only use the computer for emails and surfing a few regular site. Himself plays Eve online and a few other games. We dont have a house phone and will not be getting one for at least another year.

Can you guys give us some advice on providers that are good value and reliable please? What/Who do you use , how much does it cost and are they reliable?

Thanks again.

Steffano2002

You don't have a house phone but you do have a phone line right?

NewFrockTuesday

Yes - got the phone line alright.

RangeR

Dellgirl2 wrote:

Hi. Any help and direction appreciated. Thanks.
We are currently with Smart - no house phone, just the broadband. We want to change providers and dont really know anything about the other providers - good, bad nor indifferent.

I only use the computer for emails and surfing a few regular site. Himself plays Eve online and a few other games. We dont have a house phone and will not be getting one for at least another year.

Can you guys give us some advice on providers that are good value and reliable please? What/Who do you use , how much does it cost and are they reliable?

Thanks again.

Where in Ireland are you? This will have a huge bearing on what providers you can choose from.

NewFrockTuesday

We are in Donneycarney in Dublin 9.

Steffano2002

But what are you looking for exactly? Why don't you want SMART anymore?

Seems you are not interested in phone services (like myself) and it looks like you need a decent connection for online gaming (like myself). For this, SMART is a very good option! Why change?

RangeR

Steffano2002 wrote:

But what are you looking for exactly? Why don't you want SMART anymore?

Seems you are not interested in phone services (like myself) and it looks like you need a decent connection for online gaming (like myself). For this, SMART is a very good option! Why change?

I agree. If you change to ANY other DSL supplier, you will be paying more as you have to factor in line rental. Even the BT all in one package costs about €45.

Other than that you would be looking at NTL [if they are in your area] or wireless.

Steffano2002

IrishTLR wrote:

Other than that you would be looking at NTL [if they are in your area] or wireless.

And (IMHO) going down the wireless route is suicidal if you're into gaming... Trust me, I made the mistake...

Steffano2002

Dellgirl2 wrote:

Ill get him to post his reasoning!

Please do

NewFrockTuesday

We are changing (when I say "we", I mean "he"!) due to their price going up and us not using the house phone. Im not bothered who we use but Im sure he has his reasons. We had problems with them at the start but for the last year its been fine. I think we just want a wireless service.
Ill get him to post his reasoning!

Steffano2002

Dellgirl2 wrote:

Ill get him to post his reasoning!

Please do!

Cabaal

If you can get smart I'd personally go with that and stay with that, best bang for your buck

jor el

Dellgirl2 wrote:

I think we just want a wireless service.
Ill get him to post his reasoning!

None of the wireless services (and the best of which is Metro) are as good as Smart's DSL offering. The combination of download speed, upload speed and no cap make it the best thing available. Reliability can become an issue for wireless services more often than wired ones so you may be shooting yourslef in the foot by changing.

landser

I'm the other half of dellgirl2

Anyway, I'm sick of Smart. The service isn't bad but their customer service is dire. Took me 25 minutes this morning to pay my bill, as the automated system had my bill amount wrong... too small. i tried to pay that anyway and when i'd finished all the button pressing, about five minutes of it, it would not accept that my laser card was valid:mad:

In addition, we dont use the landline phone. I'm self employed so most of my mobile bill is a write-off i.e. line rental and most calls, so the landline is superfluos.

Therefore, I was considering dumping the landline altogether and going for a cheaper package, and had considered wireless. I note what ye say re wireless and gaming. I didnt know that, hence the post by she who must be obeyed, dellgirl2


Seffano, I note what you say re smart, and I agree the service is good, but am i paying too much for what i get. I have heard some awful things re BT, and wont be touching them. What are NTL like? Is wireless such a bad option for online gaming????

All help appreciated,

Liam Byrne

Dellgirl2 wrote:

We are changing (when I say "we", I mean "he"!) due to their price going up and us not using the house phone.

That's me confused......Smart's package goes to 4MB and goes up by a fiver - still way below anyone else's price and way above anyone else's service, and he wants to switch ? If they'd upped the price to above someone else's, fair enough, but they've upped both the price and the speed and are still cheaper than most (all?) for the resulting service.

I think we just want a wireless service.

Wrong priorities there. Aside from the lack of line rental with wireless that would be a backward step. No matter how good a wireless service is, it won't be as good as the DSL service - it's the nature of the beast - and there's no way you'll get 4MB on a wireless connection, so it'll be cheaper but a lot slower.

And depending on your distance from the exchange, any other DSL provider could well be hard-pushed to give you a service - the ADSL2+ technology used by Smart and Magnet will work over a longer distance than any others.

Unless there's a serious reason/issue to cause a move, my recommendation would be to stay put. If you have cable TV, Chorus/NTL is an option, but again, you're going from the known (initial problems but "no problems for a year") to the unknown.

jor el

landser wrote:

What are NTL like?

From what I've read here, NTL have overtaken IBB in the 'worst possible broadband and customer service' stakes. Strange considering they were probably the best of everything only a few months ago. That's the Chorus influence on them I guess.

Do you download much? Digiweb strictly enforce their caps, and at 10G for Metro Lite or 30G for the 3Mb product, it might not take long to hit it. Price is pretty similar to Smart too.

Steffano2002

Well, there you have it Dellgirl2... As you can everybody here agrees. Going from SMART to any other ISP would be taking a big step back. My advice, stay with them and keep enjoying hassle-free broadband even though it's slightly more expensive than before

Cabaal

Steffano2002 wrote:

Well, there you have it Dellgirl2... As you can everybody here agrees. Going from SMART to any other ISP would be taking a big step back. My advice, stay with them and keep enjoying hassle-free broadband even though it's slightly more expensive than before

Agreed, if it wasn't so much hassel and so costly to get a PSTN line installed I'd switch from NTL to Smart as its available now (wasn't when I got NTL)

landser

Thanks lads. Cleraly, Smart is about the only show in town worth seeing. I reckon they'll be getting my €35 a month for the foreseeable.

watty

Liam Byrne wrote:

Wrong priorities there. Aside from the lack of line rental with wireless that would be a backward step. No matter how good a wireless service is, it won't be as good as the DSL service - it's the nature of the beast - and there's no way you'll get 4MB on a wireless connection, so it'll be cheaper but a lot slower.

Not quite true.

You can have a wireless link that is more reliable than a copper pair.

You can get 8Mbps Metro. Expensive though.
It's technically possible to have 30Mbps at 30km range with Metro, but unless you are filthy rich and can't get fibre, it's not a realistic option. If you paid to have the full capacity of a base station then even higher speed is possible at up to 60km (LOS).

Range is over 10km.
Basic metro is cheap about 20 Euro inc no line rental and 076. For a bit more you can port your existing number.

Liam Byrne wrote:

Unless there's a serious reason/issue to cause a move, my recommendation would be to stay put. If you have cable TV, Chorus/NTL is an option, but again, you're going from the known (initial problems but "no problems for a year") to the unknown.

Yes absolutely true

Steffano2002

watty wrote:

Not quite true.

You can have a wireless link that is more reliable than a copper pair.

You can get 8Mbps Metro. Expensive though.
It's technically possible to have 30Mbps at 30km range with Metro, but unless you are filthy rich and can't get fibre, it's not a realistic option. If you paid to have the full capacity of a base station then even higher speed is possible at up to 60km (LOS).

Range is over 10km.
Basic metro is cheap about 20 Euro inc no line rental and 076. For a bit more you can port your existing number.

But that's all on paper... In reality it can be quite different unfortunately...

Again: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

Liam Byrne

You can have a wireless link that is more reliable than a copper pair.

Sorry - should've clarified.....a bad copper pair can cause a nightmare; I was, based on the post, basing the post on the fact that they'd had a good BB service over the copper pair for the last while. Wireless suffers from LOS issues, atmospherics, latency and other factors, while "good" copper that's working doesn't vary much at all.

Factoring in the "cheaper than €35/€39" (since they're apparently trying to save money due to Smart's price increase) I *think* my post is right ? IBB's €18 Ripwave is worse than dial-up (personal experience), while the Breeze product (which I gather from posts is miles better than Ripwave) is only 2MB by comparison to Smart's 4MB and only €4 cheaper, and you're still introducing everything mentioned above as well.

So basically what I meant was that to match Smart's currently "no problems" ADSL2+ with even a "perfect" wireless connection would be difficult and expensive.

Steffano2002

Liam Byrne wrote:

[...]IBB's €18 Ripwave is worse than dial-up (personal experience), while the Breeze product (which I gather from posts is miles better than Ripwave) is only 2MB by comparison to Smart's 4MB and only €4 cheaper, and you're still introducing everything mentioned above as well.

Breeze 2MB has actually been upgraded to 3MB recently but it's still cr@p compared to a working copper connection! Especially if you want to play online games!

Liam Byrne wrote:

So basically what I meant was that to match Smart's currently "no problems" ADSL2+ with even a "perfect" wireless connection would be difficult and expensive.

Absolutely!

NewFrockTuesday

Thanks for the help! As Landser said, Smart it is.

surveys

Dellgirl2 wrote:

Thanks for the help! As Landser said, Smart it is.

Having read all the posts here I am a little surpised at the outcome.
What about all the recent problems with Smart. ? Maybe I am out of date, although I did find a notice on the Smart web site apologing for all the downtime and asking customers to call them ?? !!
I am looking to change too, but I stayed away from Smart because of its apparant collapse ? Maybe, as I said, I am not uptodate ?

Liam Byrne

The "apparent collapse" was much exaggerated by eircom, ComReg, getbroadband.ie and yesterday by The Last Word. Smart threw their hat at reselling the voice-only service, so that's "collapsed" but (aside from eircom's temporary intervention in disrupting even the LLU subscribers temporarily) I've had no problems.

Some people who were completely disconnected by eircom (i.e. the cables were physically disconnected) have had hassle being reconnected, and there is an issue with the number of people available to handle support and service calls - average queue was previously about 4/5 and is now 10/12 - but from personal experience (5 calls to support in 9 months, 2 of which were necessitated by eircom) that's no more or less of an issue than what people have posted re other providers, and Smart have an excellent team behind their support forum - something I haven't seen anyone else do.

So overall, no - there is no significant reason NOT to go with Smart. But I'm not a Smart rep (just a very satisfied customer) and the advice above was to someone who's currently with Smart - the advice being "can't see a logical reason to move".

For new customers, I'd say shop around and compare the options (keeping Smart in mind, since some sites don't list them anymore); I've a feeling that you will have Smart in the final shakeup anyway, because of the speed/price/lack of contention (the only downside being the possible lack of number portability due to eircom/ComReg's couldn't-be-arsed attitude) but be sure to check all options available to you, and best of luck!

Steffano2002

surveys wrote:

Having read all the posts here I am a little surpised at the outcome.
What about all the recent problems with Smart. ? Maybe I am out of date, although I did find a notice on the Smart web site apologing for all the downtime and asking customers to call them ?? !!
I am looking to change too, but I stayed away from Smart because of its apparant collapse ? Maybe, as I said, I am not uptodate ?

Liam made some very good points here but I would just like to add one thing: the difference between you and the OP is that unlike you (I assume you are having problems with SMART seen as you are looking to change ISP), the OP does not have any problems with SMART.

dELLGIRL2 wrote:

We had problems with them at the start but for the last year its been fine.

That is why she has been advised to stay put and keep enjoying SMART.

surveys

Liam Byrne wrote:

The "apparent collapse" was much exaggerated by eircom, ComReg, getbroadband.ie and yesterday by The Last Word. Smart threw their hat at reselling the voice-only service, so that's "collapsed" but (aside from eircom's temporary intervention in disrupting even the LLU subscribers temporarily) I've had no problems.

Some people who were completely disconnected by eircom (i.e. the cables were physically disconnected) have had hassle being reconnected, and there is an issue with the number of people available to handle support and service calls - average queue was previously about 4/5 and is now 10/12 - but from personal experience (5 calls to support in 9 months, 2 of which were necessitated by eircom) that's no more or less of an issue than what people have posted re other providers, and Smart have an excellent team behind their support forum - something I haven't seen anyone else do.

So overall, no - there is no significant reason NOT to go with Smart. But I'm not a Smart rep (just a very satisfied customer) and the advice above was to someone who's currently with Smart - the advice being "can't see a logical reason to move".

For new customers, I'd say shop around and compare the options (keeping Smart in mind, since some sites don't list them anymore); I've a feeling that you will have Smart in the final shakeup anyway, because of the speed/price/lack of contention (the only downside being the possible lack of number portability due to eircom/ComReg's couldn't-be-arsed attitude) but be sure to check all options available to you, and best of luck!

That was very interesting info.
"The cables were physically removed". ! The cables in the house, or the exchange, or where ? If thats true then its quite remarkable. ! Presumably Smart could not pay Eircom's bill, so Eircom went around to Smart customers removing the cables. ? Surely thats illegal ? The law states that ones 'domain' (house) :-) is sacrosanct and nobody may enter without the owners (residents) invitation. !
Anyway, I think the whole broadband provider issue is a minefield. I have been checking around and ended up with 'Magnet' who suddenly proclaimed 'out of the blue' "oh we can't provide internet in your part of the country"
Eircom is 'no go' territory as far as I am concerned. I tried Digiweb and was appalled at their sales attitude. I'm now looking into 'Perlico' (has anyone experience of them ?) Are there any other 'good' providers, who will give one what their paying for, such as 2Mb charge for 2Mb supply, 3Mb etc, correct billing and billing on time, good support and good 'tech', and Irish support as opposed to an Indian support centre. ? Plus of course a really competitive monthly price. ?

Liam Byrne

so Eircom went around to Smart customers removing the cables

No. Apparently (and this is gleaned from posts and comment on the boards and on Smart's support forums) eircom disconnected some Smart subscribers at the exchange end, leaving the cable from the house going nowhere. The exchange and the cable are eircom's (hence your "line rental") and while there's an argument that eircom were entitled to since they weren't paid by Smart, the end-user HAD paid for the service, so it's debatable whether eircom were entitled to do this; any argument between Smart and eircom should have been dealt with more professionally than the "brute force, screw the customer" method that eircom used, particularly as it left many people with nothing - not even 999 calls (which supports the story, as no telco - even mobile or payphone - disables those unless you have no connection/signal/dial tone).

There are also stories of people who were eventually reconnected being reconnected to the wrong connection, giving them the wrong phone number; as Smart use the phone number as the username, this caused extra confusion - "you're reconnected" - "no, I'm not, I've no service - feck that, I'm going back to eircom"

I have to add a caveat - my personal experience was lucky, as I only lost incoming calls - my cable was intact. But from posts here and on Smart's support forums it seems that many others weren't so lucky. I don't know enough to say how this was done, as it's a separate issue from disconnecting the cable and must be something to do with routing the calls, but the loss of incoming calls was another sneaky tactic as no-one was aware of it - I wasn't, until people told me on the mobile - and any business customer of Smart's would have lost business as a result when people ringing couldn't get through. That's assuming that businesses had switched to Smart, as the need to change phone number is a huge issue for them.

The "give one what they're paying for" is open to debate, as the offering could be perfect, but the phone line quality and length could be unable to cope with it. As long as you don't have high contention sharing with high-use neighbours, you are getting more-or-less what you pay for.

Smart's 3Mb offering sees me connected at between 2.6Mb and 2.8Mb, which is fine by me as the cable is long (eircom couldn't give me BB over their 5km limit) but I wasn't able to avail of the free 6Mb upgrade Still, I'm getting what I paid for within technical limitations, and at a great price, so I'm happy.