Ice Broadband steadily becoming even more terrible

runforcover

They must have read the forum and decided 2 do something about it
LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

tullachBuí

Hi,
I ordered Ice Broadband at the end of November. I'm in county Limerick. I still have not recieved an installation date. I have rang multiple times and was told that they have run out of equipment since the week before christmas and have not been able to do any installations.

Can anyone confirm this or have any idea if I am just being put on the long finger. I am in a rural area and they are the only broadband provider I can really get.

maninaskirt

Hi,
I'm not 100% sure, but I do know of two others, one in Dublin and one in Kildare, that were told the same, no radio's left due to the demand, they have launched a few new base stations in the kildare area that I know of that would have had a decent demand, so it does sound very likely that they have none at the moment, one thing about ICE is that they are very prompt at installing and have guys always in Limerick.

pm.

im with ice and find them great value for money €50 3 meg dl 1 meg ul and free land line calls to ireland uk and usa, any time i have a problem its sorted within a couple of days.

thegills

Lads,
Is this thread now slightly unfair on Ice? Reading the different comments it appears that they are in fact getting better.
thegills

Matt Simis

In the last 2 pages maybe, but thats just a very short term improvement. Im going to be moving near Kildalkey and ICE may be my only option (short of setting up or connecting to a community WAN), so I have a vested interest in how this pans out.

mrplop

thegills wrote: »

Lads,
Is this thread now slightly unfair on Ice? Reading the different comments it appears that they are in fact getting better.
thegills

A week where the service isn't utter dog turd doesn't constitute a great service.

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade but I can guarantee that the bulk of the folks with a decent service will see it fall apart again pretty soon.

I had five days where my connection was better than good followed by two weeks of sub 56k speeds.

My connection is still below what I should be getting - good luck to the rest of you, I'm canceling!

Longrangedriver

thegills wrote: »

Lads,
Is this thread now slightly unfair on Ice? Reading the different comments it appears that they are in fact getting better.
thegills

As John Giles says "you're only as good as your last win", we'll see.

maninaskirt

thegills wrote: »

Lads,
Is this thread now slightly unfair on Ice? Reading the different comments it appears that they are in fact getting better.
thegills

Just because we have a " week " of what we pay for doesn't make it acceptable, we had sub dial up speeds for too long, if it lasts then magic, but long standing customers seem to know that it will go back to less than dial up speeds again......only time will tell....as some one here said to me " one sunny day does not make a summer "

Irish Steve

The only thing I can say is that through necessity, one of my customers is using ICE between Swords and Ashbourne, and is reliably getting 3 Mb down and 1 Mb up, and has been with very few exceptions for close on 12 months. There have been a days where things were not working correctly, but some of them were due to things like power out at the mast, which no one had let ICE know about, and extreme weather conditions can cause short term problems with the speeds, but I'm talking very heavy rain or snow here.

OK, they are a nightmare to contact, and their admin side is not exactly lightning fast, but the bottom line is that this customer needs broadband, and they get an acceptable service quality for a reasonable price, which is about as good as most suppliers are going to get in Ireland.

Steve

MrVostro

Irish Steve wrote: »

The only thing I can say is that through necessity, one of my customers is using ICE between Swords and Ashbourne, and is reliably getting 3 Mb down and 1 Mb up, and has been with very few exceptions for close on 12 months. There have been a days where things were not working correctly, but some of them were due to things like power out at the mast, which no one had let ICE know about, and extreme weather conditions can cause short term problems with the speeds, but I'm talking very heavy rain or snow here.

OK, they are a nightmare to contact, and their admin side is not exactly lightning fast, but the bottom line is that this customer needs broadband, and they get an acceptable service quality for a reasonable price, which is about as good as most suppliers are going to get in Ireland.

Steve

Funny, We are on the same mast and its great for a week. Crap (worse than dial-up) for 3 weeks.

In airness speed has been mostly good over the past few weeks, but its a regular thing for ice broadband to go to pieces and then not be able to contact anyone. We have gone months with rubbish speeds.
I would estimate that more than 50% of the time we've had ice (we've had it for 2.5 years) its been less than 1/10th the speed we pay for.

So fingers crossed ... AGAIN

How is your Clients VOIP?
ICE just cant do VOIP. Pings and packet loss are all over the place.

mrplop

Irish Steve wrote: »

The only thing I can say is that through necessity, one of my customers is using ICE between Swords and Ashbourne, and is reliably getting 3 Mb down and 1 Mb up, and has been with very few exceptions for close on 12 months. There have been a days where things were not working correctly, but some of them were due to things like power out at the mast, which no one had let ICE know about, and extreme weather conditions can cause short term problems with the speeds, but I'm talking very heavy rain or snow here.

OK, they are a nightmare to contact, and their admin side is not exactly lightning fast, but the bottom line is that this customer needs broadband, and they get an acceptable service quality for a reasonable price, which is about as good as most suppliers are going to get in Ireland.

Steve

Maybe you've had 3mb down and 1mb up for 12 months with few exceptions - I bloody haven't.
In the 8 months I've had Ice I'd say I've had about two weeks where I had a consistent service. The rest of the time it's been constant phone calls and unanswered emails.

My personal experience with them has been awful to say the least.

They're the most amateur outfit I've ever dealt with, they've outright lied to me on a multitude of occasions, they don't answer emails and they don't answer the phone 99 percent of the time.
€39.99 for what amounts to a Ripwave connection doesn't seem very reasonable to me and as far as I'm concerned they're about as bad as any provider can get in Ireland.

The bulk of stories I've read about Ice are like mine.

mrplop

double post.

mrplop

Reliably getting 3mb downloads for a reasonable price ?


This is a good result for me, normally it's worse.
I've called and they can't do a thing as they don't know what's causing the problem.

As far as VOIP is concerned it's impossible for me, it always was.

Packet loss up the kazoo.

Here's another couple of speedtests done later on in the evening just to show everyone how 'reliable' and 'acceptable' my '3mb' connection is.





Great 'value' for money, eh?
Right at the moment I'm trying to download a 45mb file and I've only got to wait another 41 minutes before it downloads - it's lightening fast, folks!

I feel like I've been mugged by these pricks.


Two weeks more and I'll never have to think about them again...

rightman

Mrplop!
Its really not to hard to see that You are completely unhappy with this kind of service (many many posts about them..) but I still can't understand one thing - why You're with the service still?
Do You try to be a kind of sufferer or what? Thats very simple - if service is so bad and You have all of those proofs (speedtsts, phone bills, etc.) You should cancel the service long long time ago... but Your still in and trying to feed up their bad name.
Looks like th problem isn't in general with the service...

And a second thing is that some people just can't use the internet anymore - only speedtest, speedtest, speedtest....
Sad,

maninaskirt

MrPlop...you're totally correct, I got the same issues as you last night, I was using Skype to the states but due to the complaints on the other side I had to use my landline, very unstable, could not get onto xboxlive never mind play it, and rightman we can use the internet but not with this service, I have to wait until I'm in work where we have a fibre connection with no contention......also we have to do Speedtests as some of us are still in a contract and legally we have to prove why we want out and have to show we're not getting what we are paying for as a contracted consumer.....ICE are so good they made it onto newstalk consumer show in the morning.

mrplop

rightman wrote: »

Mrplop!
Its really not to hard to see that You are completely unhappy with this kind of service (many many posts about them..) but I still can't understand one thing - why You're with the service still?
Do You try to be a kind of sufferer or what? Thats very simple - if service is so bad and You have all of those proofs (speedtsts, phone bills, etc.) You should cancel the service long long time ago... but Your still in and trying to feed up their bad name.
Looks like th problem isn't in general with the service...

And a second thing is that some people just can't use the internet anymore - only speedtest, speedtest, speedtest....
Sad,

As stated several posts ago I've canceled and I've got two weeks left.
I'm pretty much entitled to feed up their bad name - I paid enough for the privilege.
I think you'll find my problems are pretty much in general with the service.
The people that get a proper service from them are in the minority generally.

Funnily enough I didn't go near Speedtest or Irishisptest before I subscribed to ICE because before them I had a decent provider and my connection wasn't crap.
You've had a good experience with them which is great but you should realise that there's a lot of folks out there that have had a awful time with them.

If I can stop them from getting even one new customer I'm happy.

They're dishonest money grabbing cowboys who couldn't give a sh!te as long as they're getting your money.

That's my opinion and from my perspective I'm bloody well entitled to it, same as you are.

mrplop

maninaskirt wrote: »

ICE are so good they made it onto newstalk consumer show in the morning.

maninaskirt,
What did they say about Ice on Newstalk?

ironingbored

mrplop wrote: »

As stated several posts ago I've canceled and I've got two weeks left.
I'm pretty much entitled to feed up their bad name - I paid enough for the privilege.
I think you'll find my problems are pretty much in general with the service.
The people that get a proper service from them are in the minority generally.

Funnily enough I didn't go near Speedtest or Irishisptest before I subscribed to ICE because before them I had a decent provider and my connection wasn't crap.

If I can stop them from getting even one new customer I'm happy.

They're dishonest money grabbing cowboys who couldn't give a sh!te as long as they're getting your money.

That's my opinion and from my perspective I'm bloody well entitled to it, same as you are.

Although I sympathise with you as a result of speedS which are a little slower than you might expect, I do not think you can vouch for every other ice customer.

Why the hell did you change your previous provider if it was so good? One would have to call into question your sanity after a decision like that.

You really need to get out more if your one goal in life is to stop them getting customers. Have you ever been to the Guggenheim or watched the sunrise at the Taj Mahal in Agra? If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen!

You are the first poster on this thread complaining. If I had a crap service from any provider and it wasn't resolved I'd cancel the direct debit and get someone else as opposed to constant and pointless moaning.

mrplop

I changed my provider because I moved to arse end of nowhere - this was when I became prey to ICE!
I've actually seen things you people wouldn't believe,etc,etc.

My traveling days are over and all I want now is to pay for Broadband and not get violated in my bottom, that's not too much to ask is it?

ironingbored I'm definitely not the first person in this thread to complain either!

Aren't the threads here designed to help people make an informed choice about the right service to subscribe to?

Normally I'm a happy camper but these bastards have messed my head up!

Didn't like the Guggenheim by the way...

maninaskirt

MrPlop, it was some " customer " that was questioning the legality of the contract on two subjects, 1 was he never actually signed a contract as the installation was done when he was not present and a family member dealt with access to the house, point 2 was how watertight the contract was when we/you can prove we are not being supplied with the product we " purchased ". Their legal person agreed that the contract is far from watertight and any judge will side with the consumer provided you have the proof and not just being petty.
I for one have a life ironingbored, but what is wrong with using a forum and informing others about the issues that will be arise if people decide to take up this service, isn't that what DISCUSSION forums are about? I for one have admitted that when its running correct, it's brilliant, but it's down more often than up.....I don't add pointless, childish comments in forums that are discussing matters, like get a life.

Anyway back to subject, apart from yesterday I have had good stable speeds, both down and up 2900kbps down and 950ish up, with a ping of around 50ms, I just hope it continues as my exchange is supposed to be enabled next week, if you believe eircon......and I don't really want to give them any money, believe it or not I would rather give it to ICE!?!?! Although I might find myself the same as MrPlop, left with no option but to leave ICE......

MrVostro

ironingbored wrote: »

mrplop wrote: »

As stated several posts ago I've canceled and I've got two weeks left.
I'm pretty much entitled to feed up their bad name - I paid enough for the privilege.
I think you'll find my problems are pretty much in general with the service.
The people that get a proper service from them are in the minority generally.

Although I sympathise with you as a result of speedS which are a little slower than you might expect, I do not think you can vouch for every other ice customer.

Why the hell did you change your previous provider if it was so good? One would have to call into question your sanity after a decision like that.

You really need to get out more if your one goal in life is to stop them getting customers. Have you ever been to the Guggenheim or watched the sunrise at the Taj Mahal in Agra? If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen!

You are the first poster on this thread complaining. If I had a crap service from any provider and it wasn't resolved I'd cancel the direct debit and get someone else as opposed to constant and pointless moaning.

I think you'll find that almost everyone who has posted in this thread has complaints about ICE. You should read it.

We fall into the category also of ICE being our only provider for broadband as we are too far from the Eircom exchange which is enabled.

While our speeds have been good for a few weeks now, i think it will take a lot more to restore our faith in ICE. We will move providor as soon as there is another provider that can provide the following:

1 - Consistantly give us the speeds we pay for.
2 - Anser the phone when we call them when things arent working
3 - Answer our emails
4 - Enable us to use VOIP
5 - Give us steady low pings without packet loss.

Which is almost all of the other providers bar a few notable exceptions.
I think its reasonable to expect that level of service from an ISP.

TouchingVirus

MrVostro wrote: »

2 - Answer the phone when we call them when things arent working
3 - Answer our emails
5 - Give us steady low pings without packet loss.

Which is almost all of the other providers bar a few notable exceptions.
I think its reasonable to expect that level of service from an ISP.

It would be great if ICE provided these things, and they arn't entirely unreasonable. 2 years ago you could actually get through to many's a salesperson/tech support in ICE with no hassle, since they've grown though it's gone to the dogs

mrplop

I've just read back through this thread to see how many people have had problems - definitely the majority.

Do they need to get out more too?

It's easy to dismiss complaints when you don't have any problems yourself.

There probably needs to be a thread started about Icecomms happy customers to address the balance. There definitely are people out there getting a reasonable service, very few happy customers that have had a consistent service though.
That's always been the problem - lack of consistency.

Did you know that they've had three different technical managers in the last eight months?
It seems as if they're trying to straighten things out but the first thing they need to sort is their ability to communicate with their customers.

This means employing more tech support people so you don't have to call 25 times before you get though.
Not responding to emails is also completely unprofessional and so is not informing their customers of outages.

If they've run out of Radios business must be good - now they need to beef up their infrastructure to accommodate all of their customers properly.

These are business basics and ignoring them will spell disaster for them sooner rather than later.
Apparently they got a pasting on the Newstalk consumer show the other day - bad press like that can be very harmful indeed.

ironingbored

mrplop wrote: »

I've just read back through this thread to see how many people have had problems - definitely the majority.

Seriously, you do need to get out more.

MrVostro

ironingbored wrote: »

Seriously, you do need to get out more.

And you need to get out of that ICE office

rightman

I expect some new threads: "MY NEW FABULOUS ISP" in the nearest future...
Thx!


...

mrplop

ironingbored wrote: »

Seriously, you do need to get out more.

That's your best answer?
Retorts aren't a strong point of yours are they?
Your service is okay so sod anyone else that has a genuine problem with their connection, eh?

Did you notice the thread was called 'Ice Broadband steadily becoming even more terrible'?

At least the folks complaining are making true and relevant observations.

Personally I think fanboys are worse than complainers;)

mrplop

rightman wrote: »

I expect some new threads: "MY NEW FABULOUS ISP" in the nearest future...
Thx!


...

If it's about Ice I expect it will be on the third page within a day.

Barlow07

mrplop wrote: »

Did you know that they've had three different technical managers in the last eight months?

I'd love to know how you know this? I've often heard of employees passing the phone to one another pretending to be the manager or a supervisor.