Enough Is Enough

milkerman

What is it about Broadband Companies?
These pages are full of reports about various BB providers who advertise their products as the best thing since sliced bread, then you sign the contract & everything goes to sh**e.
I dont have much choice in my area. Went with the only wireless outfit at €40 pm for a 1Mb connection and €300 connection. The service was down more often than a rich whores knicks, I went mad, up a ladder & ripped out the lot & cancelled the cheque. Then I got a 3 modem. Advertised at 129, but when I went to buy had to cough up a 'deposit' of €50 as well. I was caught between a rock & a hard place and needed BB so I paid up. Initially the speeds were not bad, though I find reception very weather dependant. After a few weeks the speed has decayed to less than dial up, I still cant SEND emails though I can receive them if I can be bothered to wait. If I ring 3 I end up going through a list of options before getting to speak to a so-called technical expert. Believe me, my dirty socks are more technically capable.
Perhaps I am cynical. I have cancelled the direct debit to 3 pending resumption of service with an ACCEPTABLE MINIMUM STANDARD. Perhaps as customers we should make it clear to these companies that we are not interested in 'contention' type service, but instead a service measured on the basis of a GUARANTEED MINIMUM STANDARD.
Time to bite back.

Sponge Bob

"Fit For The Purpose" is the legal test and dialup is not BB is it ??

dag_t_on_tv

Touché Milkerman! An acceptable minimum standard is a good way of putting it. Com Reg is a toothless beast which hopes that enough alternatives to the incumbent monopoly may eventually pose enough of a threat to spur eircom into action. However all we've had so far are companies offering services which are attractive based on price but not on service quality. This is the legacy of a political cop out and a symptom of a lack of collective balls in government. It's not just broadband that's the issue, look at transport, roads, housing, professional services etc. etc. Someone in government should get the finger out and create a coherent plan with service target levels for customers, they are after all licenced!

Remember the days when a dual ISDN line was Euro50 a month. Not so bloody long ago.

Check out the attached graphic. Ireland is last for Broadband penetration by the way and will remain so for a very long time to come. Knowledge economy my arse! Never mind quality of service.

Let's hear what you have to say Boarders!

Dag_T

Rather_b_diving

Dag - your stats are out of date.

But lets now focus on the rural community that can't get broadband

Do you have a motor way to your front door? A luas stop, A 24hr Tesco's? No why? oh yes there isn't enough poeple to make it viable

Any urban area has decent coverage on the HSDPA network and is covered by many bb companies - why because it makes sense to supply an area with a large demand

Sell the bungalow and buy a 2 bed apartment in Dublin 2 and you'll have no problem getting decent broadband.

thebman

Rather_b_diving wrote:

Dag - your stats are out of date.

But lets now focus on the rural community that can't get broadband

Do you have a motor way to your front door? A luas stop, A 24hr Tesco's? No why? oh yes there isn't enough poeple to make it viable

Any urban area has decent coverage on the HSDPA network and is covered by many bb companies - why because it makes sense to supply an area with a large demand

Sell the bungalow and buy a 2 bed apartment in Dublin 2 and you'll have no problem getting decent broadband.

Your so right, we should all move to Dublin and use the two lane motorway or already packed trains to get into work. 4 hours commutes all round!!

In fact, why not move everyone in rural areas into camps or concentration camps if you will and that way they won't slow down Dubliners getting to work in the morning.

event

regarding the emails, id say its because you have to chage to three's smtp server

and regarding the issue with contention, they have to put that in as a lot of people seem to think that they have to download 50gig a month.

if people used broadband more sensibly, and didnt download the earth each month, contention would not be as much of an issue

milkerman

Firstly, If I buy a product, I want the product as advertised- not a half arsed facsimile of what was advertised.
Second, I gave my exact address when I signed up, 3 should know their own coverage. In any event I live 34 miles from Dublin City Centre - not the Hindu Kush.
Third, If I could download 50 Gig a month it would cost me €2020.00 per month. If I am fool enough to pay this that is my choice. I have a 10 Gig cap, I have struggled to download 1.5 Gig in 2 months.

Again I say, ACCEPTABLE MINIMUM STANDARDS!
Cars must have brakes to an ACCEPTABLE MINIMUM STANDARD
Food quality is required to have an ACCEPTABLE MINIMUM STANDARD
So many other goods / services are subject to the same criterion, WHY NOT BROADBAND?
Ps I do know the difference between dial up & broadband

Rather_b_diving

Oh my god what comments!

I live well outside the pale also and can't receive any of the LLU players like BT & Smart, I can't even get a Digiweb service. That said I have a nice house at an affordable price ( plus a long commute) Its all about compromise.
I wouldn't sell up to move to the city centre for any amount of bb but I don't expect to be able to get the best service that is available its a trade off.

You have no automatic right to high quality broadband. 3 plus O2 et al all have a 3G service that falls back to a reduced service outside the urban areas - why cos it isn't their priority at present and the cost is too high - we could tell Comreg to allow the mobile operators to increase the output power and then they could increase the ranges of some cells. Might not have such a good impact on us though...

johnplayerblue

Rather_b_diving wrote:

Oh my god what comments!

I live well outside the pale also and can't receive any of the LLU players like BT & Smart, I can't even get a Digiweb service. That said I have a nice house at an affordable price ( plus a long commute) Its all about compromise.
I wouldn't sell up to move to the city centre for any amount of bb but I don't expect to be able to get the best service that is available its a trade off.

You have no automatic right to high quality broadband. 3 plus O2 et al all have a 3G service that falls back to a reduced service outside the urban areas - why cos it isn't their priority at present and the cost is too high - we could tell Comreg to allow the mobile operators to increase the output power and then they could increase the ranges of some cells. Might not have such a good impact on us though...

My previous post stands, even more so. Your posts read like something eircom or the dep of communications would release. Which are you?

sunny2004

Rather_b_diving wrote:

Dag - your stats are out of date.

But lets now focus on the rural community that can't get broadband

Do you have a motor way to your front door? A luas stop, A 24hr Tesco's? No why? oh yes there isn't enough poeple to make it viable

Any urban area has decent coverage on the HSDPA network and is covered by many bb companies - why because it makes sense to supply an area with a large demand

Sell the bungalow and buy a 2 bed apartment in Dublin 2 and you'll have no problem getting decent broadband.

LMAO... its the 21st century..... next you will be telling him he shouldnt have electricity...

We all pay taxes we deserve a proper service not something out of the 3rd world !!

The guy who supplies your milk is probable next door to him !! its a give and take situation..

Duiske

Rather_b_diving wrote:

Dag - your stats are out of date.

But lets now focus on the rural community that can't get broadband

Do you have a motor way to your front door? A luas stop, A 24hr Tesco's? No why? oh yes there isn't enough poeple to make it viable

Any urban area has decent coverage on the HSDPA network and is covered by many bb companies - why because it makes sense to supply an area with a large demand

Sell the bungalow and buy a 2 bed apartment in Dublin 2 and you'll have no problem getting decent broadband.

R_B_D, I think you should read Milkermans first post again. He is not asking that 3 provide him with his own mast, he is simply asking for the service he signed up for, which is "With 3's new 3DataModem, you have access to fast speeds of up to 3.6Mbps guarantee smooth Internet surfing and online video/audio streaming." If you had read the post properly, you would see that his speeds now are "Less than dial-up speeds". This is not broadband. This is not what 3 are advertising.

Rather_b_diving

The annoying thing about mobile broadband is that they can say what they want - it works in certain areas- the frustrating thing is it works very well in certain areas it just work less well when it down grades to GPRS in areas outside the 3G zones - another issue which will happen soon is that all 3 mobile companies have reasonably poor backhaul for their HSDPA zones so you might get a couple of meg to the mast but then you're sharing a much smaller pipe back to a fibre connection - fixed wireless backhaul. This works well now but as it gets popular they can't upgrade the backhaul as quickly.

Its frustrating to not have broadband I should know - try >1000 for satellite a few years ago.

We (the people) sold our telecom infrastructure in an IPO in June 1999. one concillation was the Universal service obligation for a telephony service this didn't include broadband - maybe it should but complaining here about commercial companies not providing services in unattractive areas is of little value and Ireland offline is being disbanded cos they feel they've achieved what they set out to do.

i do agree that broadband should have a proper definition - the DCMNR a few years ago stated broadband was 2mbps. I think that's a good bench mark that should be adopted and so you could use always on access for lower speeds but you need to have at least 2mbps to call it broadband. Now who do we get to implement this?

Cabaal

johnplayerblue wrote:

Horse ****. I'm gona be quiet "lower working class" about this and say that if i ever meet you i will beat you so ****ing bad......Prick... (Banned)?

johnplayerblue, banned for a week for personal abuse and threatening other users, cool off and PM me or one of the other mods in a week to get unbanned!

If you don't agree with other users fair enough but you don't need to threaten them,

CuLT

sunny2004 wrote:

LMAO... its the 21st century..... next you will be telling him he shouldnt have electricity...

We all pay taxes we deserve a proper service not something out of the 3rd world !!

The guy who supplies your milk is probable next door to him !! its a give and take situation..

Without electricity, you would have to resort to 19th century forms of cooking and heating. Some of the most basic essentials of living would become cumbersome tasks.

Without broadband you can't download the latest "funny videos" check your mates bebo page every thirty seconds, download vast quantities of porn and your Internet rants might be limited to once or twice a day.

Your "third world" analogy is frankly disgusting. People die in their droves over filthy water and lack of medical supplies every day in the third world. They're not concerned with looking a video of a dog on a skateboard, because oh man that dog is so silly.

Broadband is a non-essential, and is not provided by goverment bodies. Economically, it is a luxury service that we choose to avail of to make our lives that bit easier.

If you live out in the back-arse of nowhere, and cheap broadband is all that essential to you, perhaps you shouldn't be living out in the back-arse of nowhere. I can't get ten acres of green fields in my Dublin apartment; it's called a trade-off.

hallelujajordan

I think a number of people are missing the point of the initial post. I'm sure that most people that live outside of the big urban areas can accept the compromise in terms of what services are or are not available, but the fact of the matter is that many of the bb companies are selling a service that they simply CANNOT DELIVER. Regardless of where I live, if I buy a service it should meet the standard that I signed up to. . . If the provider cannot deliver the service, they should not be selling it.

thebman

Rather_b_diving wrote:

The annoying thing about mobile broadband is that they can say what they want - it works in certain areas- the frustrating thing is it works very well in certain areas it just work less well when it down grades to GPRS in areas outside the 3G zones - another issue which will happen soon is that all 3 mobile companies have reasonably poor backhaul for their HSDPA zones so you might get a couple of meg to the mast but then you're sharing a much smaller pipe back to a fibre connection - fixed wireless backhaul. This works well now but as it gets popular they can't upgrade the backhaul as quickly.

Its frustrating to not have broadband I should know - try >1000 for satellite a few years ago.

We (the people) sold our telecom infrastructure in an IPO in June 1999. one concillation was the Universal service obligation for a telephony service this didn't include broadband - maybe it should but complaining here about commercial companies not providing services in unattractive areas is of little value and Ireland offline is being disbanded cos they feel they've achieved what they set out to do.

I think our government sold it and didn't look at the mistakes other countries made as weren't the first to do it. Vote FF for crap infrastructure and services.

i do agree that broadband should have a proper definition - the DCMNR a few years ago stated broadband was 2mbps. I think that's a good bench mark that should be adopted and so you could use always on access for lower speeds but you need to have at least 2mbps to call it broadband. Now who do we get to implement this?

Comreg, our inbred regulator.

sunny2004

CuLT wrote:

Without electricity, you would have to resort to 19th century forms of cooking and heating. Some of the most basic essentials of living would become cumbersome tasks.

Without broadband you can't download the latest "funny videos" check your mates bebo page every thirty seconds, download vast quantities of porn and your Internet rants might be limited to once or twice a day.

Your "third world" analogy is frankly disgusting. People die in their droves over filthy water and lack of medical supplies every day in the third world. They're not concerned with looking a video of a dog on a skateboard, because oh man that dog is so silly.

Broadband is a non-essential, and is not provided by goverment bodies. Economically, it is a luxury service that we choose to avail of to make our lives that bit easier.

If you live out in the back-arse of nowhere, and cheap broadband is all that essential to you, perhaps you shouldn't be living out in the back-arse of nowhere. I can't get ten acres of green fields in my Dublin apartment; it's called a trade-off.

You missed the point but I am glad you got that off your chest !

LoLth

Wasnt the original post something along the lines of "If I buy X service then I want to have X service".

Doesnt seem too difficult a concept to me. Trade off on rural vs urban provision of service. Again fair enough ... but , why should someone in the arse end of nowhere pay the same as everyone else for a service thats only 1/10th the quality ?

I have a choice of Eircom or BT. Not allowed any external antennae and the signal where i live is crap for wireless.
I hate eircom. Have had bad experiences in the past. (dead phone line and no repair unless I paid for it when the issue was in their exchange!)
BT broadband keeps dropping for up to 15 minutes at a go , no pattern to it (once it dropped for 3 hours while I waitied for it to reconnect. eventually I gave up and rebooted the router and it connected again).

Should I say "well, thats that" and accept that while I can browse the internet i cannot:
Download any file that will take more than 5 minutes to complete - unless I use a download manager that supports resumes and even then the DL time is waaaaaay more than it should be

Play online games as the disconnects knock me out of the servers. BF 2142 I can put up with but I regularly get 6 or 7 disconnects in a 3 hour playing session.

Access my home pc from work to copy over data/tools that I use on a daily basis. there is no guaranteet hat the PC will be contactable so I cant rely on it - I have to lug a hard drive around with me with a copy of anything I might need.

Work from home: I have to stay in the office to get everything done. Server patch applications and restarts take several hours of unpaid overtime followed by a long bus ride home. would be great to do this remotely from my own PC but I cant take the risk that the conenction will drop when I'm in the middle of something delicate.

Now, most if not all of the above were advertised to me by BT and are also touted by the other Broadband companies (along with the phrase "always on" which is a joke). BTs response to my complaints have been "live with it. but you are under contract for a year".

And there's no comeback. No way to make the service provider answerable for this complete disregard of service quality and customer satisfaction. No yard stick by which to measure a service and no penalties for service providers who fail to meet their advertised level of service.

So, yes, arse end of nowhere users should not expect equal service levels but neither should they have to pay the same as other users for a lesser service. And in the above example , I am not living in the arse end of nowhere. I live in dublin.

Gandalf23

CuLT wrote:

Without electricity, you would have to resort to 19th century forms of cooking and heating. Some of the most basic essentials of living would become cumbersome tasks.

Without broadband you can't download the latest "funny videos" check your mates bebo page every thirty seconds, download vast quantities of porn and your Internet rants might be limited to once or twice a day.

Your "third world" analogy is frankly disgusting. People die in their droves over filthy water and lack of medical supplies every day in the third world. They're not concerned with looking a video of a dog on a skateboard, because oh man that dog is so silly.

Broadband is a non-essential, and is not provided by goverment bodies. Economically, it is a luxury service that we choose to avail of to make our lives that bit easier.

If you live out in the back-arse of nowhere, and cheap broadband is all that essential to you, perhaps you shouldn't be living out in the back-arse of nowhere. I can't get ten acres of green fields in my Dublin apartment; it's called a trade-off.

This is simply stunning stuff ... I'd laugh if these comments were not so pathethic and ill-informed.

I seriously doubt that many people (who actually have a clue about what they are saying) would consider broadband a "luxury service" and a "non-essential".

You are right about one thing tho, those incredibly funny "dog on a skateboard" videos are the ONLY reason I really really really want broadband. I have absolutely no need for VOIP, the ability to access VPN, no need for reliable email and attachments, definately no requirement to upload/download material to my colleges virtual learning platform, and perish the thought that I could maintain my websites in an efficient and reliable manner. I also hate the option of working from home the odd day, and have not the slightest desire to (gasp!!!) even think of a video conference or working collaboratively online with anyone.

Each and every Irish person should be ashamed of the Broadband infrastructure in this country. This is an issue which will ultimately effect our economy and competitiveness over the coming years.

For those you you (who have broadband of course...) who may disagree with my comments, I have included this link for your amusement...

Xennon

Broadband is a non-essential, and is not provided by goverment bodies. Economically, it is a luxury service that we choose to avail of to make our lives that bit easier.

If you live out in the back-arse of nowhere, and cheap broadband is all that essential to you, perhaps you shouldn't be living out in the back-arse of nowhere. I can't get ten acres of green fields in my Dublin apartment; it's called a trade-off.

To a degree you are correct, but to a much larger extent you miss the point of broadband.

When people are first exposed to it they are the bebo, youtube etc kings. But after a while they get bored with this and start to see what it can really do for them,their work and their livelyhoods. Broadband allows you to educate yourself which is probably the most important function it provides. It allows us to communicate with people in other countries for a relatively low cost, to gain knowledge of their lifestyles, to research news topics beyond the slanted reports given by most news sources in the western world. Education is a right that everyone has, and broadband provides a route to the current thinking in all areas. If Ireland is going to maintain its level of standards in its educational standing then it is imperative that we have access to this information, and not just urban areas.

To say that we should only have a decent broadband society in an urban area is a typically irish attitude of 'ah sure isnt it grand'. Your post rings of a FF TDs quote to the effect of 'Sure why would you set up a company in a rural area if you need broadband'. The world is moving on and we are falling behind rapidly.

Dave_W

thebman

One massive advantage of broadband is that it lets people work from home. The more commuters that can work from home one or two days a week, the less people on the roads and public transport each day so everyone it takes a little pressure off our other infrastructure. Sure probably not a lot, especially with bad management that refuse to trust employees to work from home but hey that's not something technology can be expected to sort out.

That's just one benefit of widespread, reliable, fast broadband. Some people get to work from and other people get into work a little faster or can actually breath on our overcrowded trains.

Then you have the other benefits which is enhanced entertainment and new markets with online purchasing, banking etc.. being much more accessible to broadband users which opens oppourtuities for new businesses.

Also children can learn online and adults too. I'm not going to get into that because its such a big area but a lot of major companies are really starting to push e-learning now and we are missing out.

milkerman

Thank you for the contributions, heated debate and threats (whats with that guy?)

Some of you have missed the point.
My point is very simply- I bought a product as advertised. If 3 had advertised openly along the lines of ' Technically capable of 3.6Mbps down load but equally as likely to do 30kbps, with hidden charges (€50) and technical back up with the verbal ability of an amoeba' I would have been suitably informed and passed on the purchase.
Contention Broadband = A company put in place some infrastructure to allow X number of customers enjoy an adequate broadband service at times of peak usage. They then sell broadband to several times over the capacity of their infrastructure/bandwidth. Then some tecchie explains that you can have your great connection off-peak like 4am. GODDAMMIT- Give me what I paid for, my money is the same colour regardless of where I live.
Do not confuse this issue with the trade off involved in city/country life- different topic completely and for a different forum.
I just want what I paid for, I want the product 3 sold me as advertised. Until we as customers adopt a more aggressive response to poor service the situation will not change.
So, if your service is crap - cancel the DD mandate/ standing order and tell the company you agree to pay them on the basis of one month in arrears and only if they provide the goods - NO BULLS**T thank you!

Gandalf23

milkerman wrote:

I just want what I paid for ... Until we as customers adopt a more aggressive response to poor service the situation will not change. So, if your service is crap - cancel the DD mandate/ standing order and tell the company you agree to pay them on the basis of one month in arrears and only if they provide the goods - NO BULLS**T

Well said sir ... could not agree more with you !! I salute you and your attitude to this. This kind of action is the only thing that might change the pathetic situation we currently find ourselves in regarding infrastructure of all kinds.

sunny2004

I also agree !!

event

milkerman wrote:

Contention Broadband = A company put in place some infrastructure to allow X number of customers enjoy an adequate broadband service at times of peak usage. They then sell broadband to several times over the capacity of their infrastructure/bandwidth. Then some tecchie explains that you can have your great connection off-peak like 4am. GODDAMMIT- Give me what I paid for, my money is the same colour regardless of where I live.

i agree with most of what you said, except for all of this part. Again, while some broadband companies over subscribe, not all do. This can also be caused by people downloading like mad, thus putting strain and unnecessary use on the network.

CuLT

Yeah, my apologies it was late and I'd had a few drinks; old memories of working for one of the big bad providers getting to me

OP, you are, of course, quite right. You're not getting the service you paid for. Check your contract; with enough bluster you can at least get your money back. Find the email or address for their complaints department and CC the email to Comreg. Comreg might not have much bite, but it sends the heeby-jeebies up the backs of whoever gets the email and might spur them to some action.

milkerman

Event!

I have a 10 Gig cap, everyone that bought a 3 modem has a 10Gig cap, after that cap is reached you pay €50 for every Gig. Now really, how many 3 customers are going to 'go mad' at those prices?

I would like the opportunity to go mad though, but with a top download of 60 kbps today I havent had the opprtunity.

Contention BB. Companies in this field must accept that most people live to a cycle. Work, come home, have dinner, bit of TV, SURF THE INTERNET, nookie if you are lucky, then sleep. Therefor, most people will use a service at certain times - PEAK TIMES. THey should base their bandwidth requirement on the number of customers online during peak times- simple. If there are those who 'go mad' they can always impose a limit on individual or all addresses but that doesn't look as good on the ads- does it?

Of course this might lessen profits, but it will remove the need for intemperate lunatics like me to be posting on fora like this

event

milkerman wrote:

Event!

I have a 10 Gig cap, everyone that bought a 3 modem has a 10Gig cap, after that cap is reached you pay €50 for every Gig. Now really, how many 3 customers are going to 'go mad' at those prices?

I would like the opportunity to go mad though, but with a top download of 60 kbps today I havent had the opprtunity.

Contention BB. Companies in this field must accept that most people live to a cycle. Work, come home, have dinner, bit of TV, SURF THE INTERNET, nookie if you are lucky, then sleep. Therefor, most people will use a service at certain times - PEAK TIMES. THey should base their bandwidth requirement on the number of customers online during peak times- simple. If there are those who 'go mad' they can always impose a limit on individual or all addresses but that doesn't look as good on the ads- does it?

Of course this might lessen profits, but it will remove the need for intemperate lunatics like me to be posting on fora like this

im not talking about you specifically

i presumed you were talking about all companies, not just 3.
i have no experience of 3, nor do i want any, if their phone service is anything to do by. but as far as i know, there is no contention on 3, but am open to correction

i was talking about other broadband companies, not just 3

and realistically, harsh and unfair as it is, its rare for ANY company in ireland do anything to lessen profits

milkerman

But I am still an intemperate lunatic!

BYE-BYE

Xennon

To the OP, I completely agree. Contentions are a cop out by some ISPs as far as Im concerned. Advertising a 3M connection what will only give you 3M at off peak periods if you are the only one on the connection at the time is mis-advertising as far as I'm concerned. But, you are actually informed of all this in most ISPs T&Cs, the little words 'up to' are used alot.

Most ISPs don't want heavy users that like to use torrents etc, it kills their networks and so they throttle or filter P2P completely, to maintain their network. Again, in T&C this is covered by the magic words 'fair usage', a term left completely open to their interpretation and thus gives them complete control over your usage.

Another issue I have serious problems with is this 6 or 12 month contract bull. I cannot comprehend how this is allowed. I mean if I hire something from a company and it doesnt suit my needs, I can and will return it. I will certainly not be paying for its hire for the rest of the year nor will I pay an early return fine.

If I get Broadband from a company and I find that after a period of time that it doesnt suit or as in most cases cant meet my needs then I should be able to discontinue that service without paying a 'fine'. But no, companies are allowed to put all this crap in T&C and screw people. As far as I can see, these types of terms allow sub standard providers to exist. Once you take out the contract they know you are going to pay a minimum of X as dictated by the contract. Say a minimum of 12 months at €30 a month, thats €360 per customer, grab a few thousand customers and you have a nice float. Who cares about what service you provide as long as it gives 'up to' the advertised speeds. 7kbps is in the bracket up 'up to' 3M.
So now all the company has to do is keep turning over customers.

This doesn't apply just to ISP's, there are many industries out there using this method of business, and something the trading standards body should look at.

Dave_W

thebman

Most ISP's don't just not want torrent users but they don't want streaming users either judging by a lot of these companies speeds and attitudes.

Basically if you want to do more than browse the web and check email, they consider you a virus on their network.