nbb.ie discussion

Liber8or

Recently www.nbb.ie have started to offer Broadband via their 2 Way Satellite System through the ASTRA Satellite. People living in remote areas where Exchanges date back to the 1800's will benefit the most from this and being one of those people I was wondering if anybody can convey some info on Satellite Broadband.

In particular, their experiences with it. Does bandwidth fluctuate? Is reliability a factor for concern?

Also, as I play many games online I wonder as to the consistency of Satellite Broadband. Mostly because some Wireless Services can waiver in strength, is Satellite also affected in this way?

If anybody can offer some advice or share their own experiences I would be most grateful!

Cheers!

tullachBuí

Hi,
Having a look at their website, the download speed is 256kbs. I'm in a similar situation to you but personally, that is not what I would call 'Broadband.'

Frankly I am annoyed that they can sell the product under the term broadband. If your phone line is so bad that even dialup won't work then I can understand why your considering it. It's a steep initial outlay though

Liber8or

256Kb Down is certainly not a decent bandwidth, but I was looking at the next package up, Business, which is 512Kb. Only 10 Euro more afaik but I would like to hear from people who have had good/bad experiences with Satellite Broadband so I can weigh up the pro's and con's and ultimately make a decision on whether or not I should go for this package.

PogMoThoin

Liber8or wrote: »

Also, as I play many games online I wonder as to the consistency of Satellite Broadband. Mostly because some Wireless Services can waiver in strength, is Satellite also affected in this way?

Forget about gaming, your ping will be nearly a second at best.

Sponge Bob

Its not broadband , its only satellite

This should be in the satellite forum

jor el

They also advertise VOIP on the site, stating you can get rid of the land line. Two way satellite would have a latency of about 2s making your VOIP phonecall extremely crap.

bigpaddy2004

Its ok for the ordinary user whom wants to check emails, browse the net, download files without dialing up on Eircom.
If you were living out in the sticks, with no possibility of BB and only able to download at 3-4KB/s on dial-up, and then have this installed and be able to download at nearly 25KB/s, I think it would be a far cry from dial-up.
Remember not everyone can get BB. It's ok for the guys who have BB to put it down.

jor el

bigpaddy2004 wrote: »

Remember not everyone can get BB. It's ok for the guys who have BB to put it down.

I don't think those who have no alternative should be fooled into thinking this is broadband though. They're also paying as much, or more, than others pay for proper broadband too.

If anyone wants to use this, they need to be under no illusions as to what it is and what it's capable of. As you say, fine for email and general browsing, but I wouldn't want to try VOIP on it.

97i9y3941

i have used this sort of thing before with another company and i assume this is the same package again cause i think my previous crowd went out of business,you get a box and a sat dish,the service isnt too bad,like as was said there it isnt bad if you cant get bb,anyways it became dear the sat service and i cancelled it, so now im left with a good sat dish that i could use with sky box since other company never bother came back looking for the equipment

bigpaddy2004

Fred83 wrote: »

i have used this sort of thing before with another company and i assume this is the same package again cause i think my previous crowd went out of business,you get a box and a sat dish,the service isnt too bad,like as was said there it isnt bad if you cant get bb,anyways it became dear the sat service and i cancelled it, so now im left with a good sat dish that i could use with sky box since other company never bother came back looking for the equipment

It's a lot different, its 2-way sat as opposed to one way which is what I reckon you had before. No need to dial up, its always on.

digitaldr

Their TV channels look suspiciously like Free to Air ones that anyone can get free (as the name suggests:)) with a cheap dish and receiver.

richie.c

What bugs me about this is the price we have to pay, the same service in the other european countries listed on the astra2connect website are almost half the price. Surely it's not right that they can blatantly rip us off like that.
Also you are tied into their triple bundle, you can't get just the internet on it's own. All the TV stations are just free to air stuff which you can get free with your own sattelite set-up.
VOIP as other people have suggested would be very annoying with the latency being so high.

Anyway at their current prices they can keep their "broadband", I just guess I'm stuck with 3 for a while longer.

SonOfPerdition

unfortunately satellite broadband is the only option available to some people.

I can't pick up any of the mobile, wireless, or adsl broadbands .. satellite appears to be my only choice .. even my dialup is crap and max i ever get is 32kbs and average speeds of 28kbs. It's not that i live out in the remotest corner of the country, i'm less than 40 miles from Dublin.

nbb's package so far seems to be the best of the satellite options that i've found (i'm not considering one way satellite where you need a phone line to upload) . . compared to digiweb'shere. The packages offer different things so its hard to compare like with like but NBB's compares favourable imo. Yes the voip latency will be an issue, but from what i've read the satellite voip is improving, the main problem is jitter rather than latency (which you can get used to).
The TV channels are indeed all free to air and irish terrestial channels are not part of the package.

one thing to note with nbb, you're tied into their contract for 2 years.

i'd welcome anyone pointing me to other providers that provide the same type of service that i could research before i commit.

Liber8or, if you do go with nbb could you post here with your experiences, i'd be interested to read how you got on with them.



Ta,
SOP

Zaphod

richie.c wrote: »

What bugs me about this is the price we have to pay, the same service in the other european countries listed on the astra2connect website are almost half the price. Surely it's not right that they can blatantly rip us off like that.

As they are just resellers of an SES Astra product, it might be no harm emailing the parent company and highlighting the price gouging discrepancies between what's being offered in Ireland versus other European countries.

richie.c

Zaphod wrote: »

As they are just resellers of an SES Astra product, it might be no harm emailing the parent company and highlighting the price gouging discrepancies between what's being offered in Ireland versus other European countries.

I took your advice and sent them a mail, it will be interesting to see what they have to say.

Dysman

Liber8or,

I was thinking about going with nbb buy the high price and the 2 year contract put me off. If you check out the SES Astra website and follow the links you will see the prices from other Astra2Connect vendors.

I have seen in another post where someone queried if one they could buy from one of these suppliers and the answer was no as nbb has the contract for Ireland.

I have have been using a "download acceleraor" since last October (no hope of proper broadnabd) for €15 a month and it's ok. Most sites come in around 250/300kb per sec but the system can shoot up to 2Mb if you are downloading a plug in or something like that. The only thing is that I still have to pay Eircom for the line rental and I also have to pay for call to the internet (not to Eircom though)

stewie23

i have NBB broadband and they promis 1mb/s but im only getting 25-30kbps download and upload of 60-70 kbps constantly can anyone help
:mad::mad::mad::mad:

48nico

once you go over 5gb the cut your speed

stewie23

once you go over 5gb the cut your speed

is that stated in there terms and conditions and if so where ?

Sponge Bob

stewie23 wrote: »

is that stated in there terms and conditions and if so where ?

Tis and Tis not , I detailed the Step Throttling policy in effect in the MIDBAND forum some time back


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58444657&postcount=5

NBB do not mention caps or limits anywhere in their package descriptions .

They once had a fair usage policy but got rid of it it seems !!

http://www.nbb.ie/terms.php

( last item. click)

elsewhere they say

http://www.nbb.ie/faq.php#q7

"Is there a download limit?

There is no download limit but we operate a fair usage policy."

but there is no fair usage policy is there ...or is there ??

2Gb a month is utterly unreasonable for a product marketed as Broadband , even 3 Mobile BB is not that bad , and 3 are deplorable

I did some more investigating and found that Astra 2 Connect ( the Mothership product resold by NBB) have a step restriction policy . A tightening throttle .

ANOTHER A2C reseller publishes it in full, see link below . I fail to see why NBB are not as forthcoming . This other resellers does not offer the 2mbit package but I suspect the throttling starts at 4gb and is full on 64kbits at 10Gb if you have that one .


1. 1024k package 1024k to 2 GB then 768 kbit/s to 2.5 GB then 512 kbit/s, to 3 GB to 64 kbit/s from 5 GB .

2. 512k to 1 GB then 320 kbit/s to 2 GB and above 3GB is 64 kbit/s.

see

http://www.sosat.at/faq.html#095

Quote:
Was ist die ASTRA2Connect Fair Use Policy??

Da grundsätzlich kein Datenlimit bei ASTRA2Connect vorgesehen ist, muss dafür Sorge getragen werden, dass nicht einzelne User das ASTRA2Connect Netzwerk übergebührend beanspruchen.

Das heißt, dass so genannte Poweruser, die ein extrem hohes Datentransfervolumen verursachen, in der Übertragungsgeschwindigkeit gedrosselt werden. Dies passiert jedoch nur während der Spitzenauslastungszeiten.

Z.B. in der Nacht, wenn das Netz nicht belastet ist, sind auch solche User von der Drosselung nicht betroffen. Grundsätzlich werden von der Drosselung betroffene User im 30-Tage-Rhytmus wieder auf den Standard zurückgesetzt.

Wir reduzieren bei unseren Flatrates die Geschwindigkeit nach dem Fair-Use-Prinzip, um auch denen mit wenig Downloadvolumen die nötigen Bandbreiten zur Verfügung stellen zu können. Die Geschwindigkeit (Up- und Downstream) wird schrittweise wie folgt entsprechend des Downloadvolumens reduziert (dies geschieht allerdings nur, sollte die Bandbreite durch zu viele gleichzeitige Nutzer eingeschränkt sein):

Bei dsDSLcompact (oder ASTRA2Connect flexxx) 1024 ab 2 GB auf 768 kbit/s, ab 2,5 GB auf 512 kbit/s, ab 3 GB auf 384 kbit/s, ab 3,5 GB auf 256 kbit/s, ab 4 GB auf 128 kbit/s und ab 5 GB auf 64 kbit/s.

Bei dsDSLcompact (oder ASTRA2Connect flexxx) 512 ab 1 GB auf 320 kbit/s, ab 2 GB auf 160 kbit/s, ab 2,5 GB auf 96 kbit/s und ab 3 GB auf 64 kbit/s.

Bei dsDSLcompact (oder ASTRA2Connect flexxx) 256 ab 1 GB auf 128 kbit/s, ab 1,5 GB auf 96 kbit/s und ab 2 GB auf 64 kbit/s.

Diese Drosselung wird aber nicht bestehen bleiben, es findet jeden Monat ein Reset statt. nach oben

Furthermore there is a German forum where the Astra 2 Connect 'FUP' policies are regularly discussed, were anyone inclined to seek further information in it

http://www.kein-dsl.de/forum/showthread.php?&t=11083