Eircom Broadband Vs NTL

jillyb

Hi

i was wondering if anyone know which is better? i currently have Eircom 2mb option (€29.99) a month. Its v good but with line rental its dear, altogether bout €50 a month.
I saw an offer with NTL for €30 a month for 3mb.(half though for 1st 2 months). This can be packaged in with our Tv pack we already have with them, for €56 a month.
I was just wondering it worth it as Eircom say they'll be upgrading in few months to 3mb.
Thanks

doodlbug18

DSL Broadband is far superior to Cable as a technology. With DSL you have your own cable pair all the way to the exchange whereas with Cable you share a cable with all your neighbours. Also the NTL network tends to be very old (depends on your area) and is usually strung from gutter to gutter, so if someone decides to paint the gutters further up your road your service can be interrupted. In urban areas eircom's network is generally underground which is much more robust. NTL don't do rural areas on cable, so I assume you must be in an urban area. DSL can easily be upgraded to higher speeds - typically 15-20Mbps on a line using current ADSL2 technology, subject to the laws of physics based on your distance from the exchange. VDSL can bring this 50-100Mbps and there is even talk of new technologies pushing copper cables to 200Mbps. These speeds are all possible per customer pair - not shared like the speed upgrades on cable. Although the Internet routers can introduce sharing at the exchange and beyond, it is easy to add extra capacity at this level compared to running new cables to each house.

Regarding the pricing packages - why not get rid of NTL altogether for TV (unless you are in an apartment?). Almost all the key channels in the base-pack you refer to are available free-to-air on satellite and terrestrial TV. There are also many channels FTA that you can't get free on NTL. You can put up a satellite dish with receiver for as little as €90 once-off-charge if you do it yourself, or pay someone do do it for less than €200. You can get the Irish channels FTA on terrestrial analogue or digital (on trial). However, I recommend you pay a little bit extra for a combo satellite/digital terrestrial receiver. Satellite TV is far superior to Cable. The signal is better, channel changing is faster, and HD is available even on FTA (more expensive receiver though). Check the Satellite Forum on Boards for details on FTA.

Other advantages with eircom are they give a lot of extras such as free wireless router, wi-fi hotspots, Setanta sports video-on-demand, on-line storage vault etc. NTL don't have any extras and appear to have an appalling customer service. Have a look on Boards at the number of people complaining about NTL vs relatively few complaining about on eircom - considering also that eircom has vastly more customers on Broadband than NTL. One issue with eircom is their use of carriers on lines (line-splitting). Since you already have eircom Broadband you don't have this problem. However, if you give up eircom Broadband, your line may be given to someone else, and if you try to get it back in the future you may find you can only get a split line - no Broadband. You will really regret this if it happens.

Hope this is some help,

Ronan H

Personally I have been with Eircom for about 4 years now and found them great. I know the rent is steep but I've cut a bit of that by switching line rental to Perlico. I know there are deals out there that offer way cheaper options but I would be concerned about reliability etc... There has been a few new companies pop up that gave gone south as quick so thats my worry with going with new companies offering fantastic deals. I'm a believer in peace of mind over good value for the most part, so im perfectly happy to pay Eircoms prices. Plus they have doubled their speed twice since I joined them for no cost, with another on the way as you say... I know theres a lot of people who say Eircom are crap but that hasnt been my experience. A lot of people also say NTL are crap too so you gotta make up your mind about whether you think you will have peace of mind at teh cheaper price...

HTH.

Head

Seth Brundle

With VOIP, Eircom aren't needed for calls and as the OP already has NTL it would make sense to switch the broadband over to them and disconnect the telephone line altogether. Sign up with blueface and re-port your landline number. Even NTL are doing phone nowadays.

My 2Mb NTL service is comparable to Eircom's and there ahven't been any outages that I can think of. Customer support from NTL is pretty much non-existent but once everything is setup then you may not need to contact them.

Gonzo

Eircom I hate them as a company, most of the things they do is really bad but their Broadband is actually very good for what it is, good speeds and very low pings for gamers and is that little bit more reliable then the eircom resellers which have slightly higher pings and the quality of service sometimes dips with them more. However LLU competition is a different thing completely and if Smart were in my area I would jump to them in a flash. NTL Broadband used to be the best in the country, not anymore tho but are still an excellent broadband option if you can get it - faster than eircom at present, cheaper and no line rental.

Freddie59

doodlbug18 wrote: »

DSL Broadband is far superior to Cable as a technology. With DSL you have your own cable pair all the way to the exchange whereas with Cable you share a cable with all your neighbours. Also the NTL network tends to be very old (depends on your area) and is usually strung from gutter to gutter, so if someone decides to paint the gutters further up your road your service can be interrupted. In urban areas eircom's network is generally underground which is much more robust. NTL don't do rural areas on cable, so I assume you must be in an urban area. DSL can easily be upgraded to higher speeds - typically 15-20Mbps on a line using current ADSL2 technology, subject to the laws of physics based on your distance from the exchange. VDSL can bring this 50-100Mbps and there is even talk of new technologies pushing copper cables to 200Mbps. These speeds are all possible per customer pair - not shared like the speed upgrades on cable. Although the Internet routers can introduce sharing at the exchange and beyond, it is easy to add extra capacity at this level compared to running new cables to each house. ,

I fail to understand your logic. Docsis 3 Cable can also produce similar speeds. And while NTLs cables are strung 'gutter to gutter', as you put it, I have had no trouble with them - and I have their Broadband for 3 years (phone from Blueface).

doodlbug18 wrote: »

Regarding the pricing packages - why not get rid of NTL altogether for TV (unless you are in an apartment?). Almost all the key channels in the base-pack you refer to are available free-to-air on satellite and terrestrial TV. There are also many channels FTA that you can't get free on NTL. You can put up a satellite dish with receiver for as little as €90 once-off-charge if you do it yourself, or pay someone do do it for less than €200. You can get the Irish channels FTA on terrestrial analogue or digital (on trial). However, I recommend you pay a little bit extra for a combo satellite/digital terrestrial receiver. Satellite TV is far superior to Cable. The signal is better, channel changing is faster, and HD is available even on FTA (more expensive receiver though). Check the Satellite Forum on Boards for details on FTA.,

FTA is indeed an alternative. But it's worth remembering that many channels that people enjoy (like Sky One, Discovery, et al) are not FTA.

doodlbug18 wrote: »

Other advantages with eircom are they give a lot of extras such as free wireless router, wi-fi hotspots, Setanta sports video-on-demand, on-line storage vault etc. NTL don't have any extras and appear to have an appalling customer service. Have a look on Boards at the number of people complaining about NTL vs relatively few complaining about on eircom - considering also that eircom has vastly more customers on Broadband than NTL. One issue with eircom is their use of carriers on lines (line-splitting). Since you already have eircom Broadband you don't have this problem. However, if you give up eircom Broadband, your line may be given to someone else, and if you try to get it back in the future you may find you can only get a split line - no Broadband. You will really regret this if it happens.

Hope this is some help,

Your last remark highlights the gulf between both systems. If you give up your Broadband you can't get it back??!! WTF? Are they rationing it or something?!:D

Packages will vary between the two always. CHECK THE SMALL PRINT! Then decide which suits you best from a technical and cost perspective. Here's my monthly bill:

Analogue NTL €23 p/m

Digital NTL (Max): €9 p/m

6 Meg BB €40 p/m

Blueface €15 p/m (unlimited calls 24/7).

Total €87 p/m. You can reduce that further by dropping the BB speed as required. For that €87 all my TV, broadband, and phone costs are covered. Sweet! I remember a time when my old Eircom phone bill was coming in at €80 some months - and that was watching the bloody usage!

But it's down to your own personal taste. I hope you're happy with whatever system you go with.

jillyb

Hey everyone, thanks for all your responses. Its my dad that wants to change from Eircom to try n get a cheaper deal. He however doesn't use broadband at all. So i will let him know about the comments. Thanks again

doodlbug18

Freddie59 wrote: »

I fail to understand your logic. Docsis 3 Cable can also produce similar speeds.

I agree that Docsis can do similar speeds - but as I mentioned the difference is that the resulting capacity is shared by all the other users on the cable in your area - could be 200 houses or more. DSL gives each user their own bandwidth on their own cable pair. While sharing on DSL (contention) can be (and is) introduced at the exchange or elsewhere on the Internet, it is much easier to introduce extra capacity at these points if needed rather than with cable which needs a complete re-wiring to house level. Who knows what we bandwidth we might need in the future - 3D-HD videophones, 3D-HD video-on-demand etc? Evidence of how serious the sharing problem on Cable is shown by the high level of download capping that cable operators such as NTL apply. They can't afford everyone to be using the bandwidth on the cable at the same time.

Freddie59 wrote: »

Your last remark highlights the gulf between both systems. If you give up your Broadband you can't get it back??!! WTF? Are they rationing it or something?!:D

One could make the same point about the lack of availability of cable outside of cities and even in some urban areas - are NTL "rationing"? I guess both cable and DSL operators will only invest where it makes economic sense. If eircom can serve 95% of the population with Broadband on DSL and 5% with voice-only on carriers, it hardly makes economic sense to dig up the streets to serve the last 5% on DSL. Likewise with Cable - it probably doesn't make sense to run cable TV in towns less than a certain size - hence NTL only do cities. These companies aren't charities - they have to balance their books, and they probably aren't helped by the disgraceful lack of planning for housing developments in Ireland.

jimmycrackcorm

I've NTL BB and I find it fantastic with the added bonus that I was able to get rid of my eircom line and replace it with a VOIP service over the broadband.

fozz

Hi Jillyb. I used to have Eircom ADSL and their wifi modem and never had a day's problem with their service. However, I wanted to be rid of the line rental so I dropped Eircom altogether, ported my number to NTL Phone and got NTL BB and haven't looked back. I am saving on the line rental and on cheaper calls and I have essentially the same service so it was a no brainer. I have had very few issue with the NTL BB and would count myself as a happy NTL customer. I pray that continues as I know their service is second to everyone!

So I would say that it makes ecenomic sense to switch to NTL but the Eircom BB service is a fine package if money is not an issue.

Snake Nose

As someone who has had both (NTL > Eircom > NTL > Magnet), here is my summary:

Eircom - slow speeds. So bad, I actually switched back to NTL (whom I HATE as a company!).

NTL - very fast, TERRIBLE customer service, they throttle torrent downloads (which also seems to effect FTP upload speeds to a crawl), so don't expect to download a simple TV episode in less that 4 or 5 days.

I just switched to Magnet at home (which I've had in the office for 18 months now), and it's flawless - ticks all the boxes.

Info:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055132322
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/42133-do-ntl-throttle-torrents.html

stevenmu

Is it certain that NTL throttle torrents? I'd often download a 700MB file in 2 hours or less. And that's from a public tracker well known people leeching. I'm on their 3MB service.

fozz

They do throttle torrents but just switch on encryption and away you go. Once I set up Azureus to use encryption I am getting my full bandwith allowance if needs be.

stevenmu

Ah, I have encryption switched on alright, that must be it.

Cabaal

From the price side of things I'd go with NTL, from the performance side of things I'd go with ADSL but I personally wouldn't go with Eircom.

I'm personally with NTL and have been for two years now and I find them fine, although I experience alot more downtime then I did with BT Business...when I was with BT Business I experienced about 20min downtime during two years I used it.

NTL I've experienced about a total of a week I'd say, its worth noting that BT Business was provided via there LLU kit

Ronan H

I dont think that the interview with NTLs top man on Ray Darcy's radio show during the week will have done them any favours!

Head

Seth Brundle

Tell us more!

Ronan H

Im surprised someone hasnt mentioned it here already to be honest, although maybe its in another thread somewhere...

Anyway, i didnt hear the whole interview but i heard enough. He seemed to be on for half the show and was fielding questions from Ray and from listeners. In the bit i heard he did himself no favours when asked very direct questions about their terrible record for customer support etc... as he continually skirted around the questions in true polititian style and never gave a proper answer to anything. Ray had said that he himself had been on hold for an hour and then for 40 minutes on two occasions on the same day in the past week. The guy just said that they are very busy at peak times and are hiring new people. He also tried to qualify it all by saying that they inherited a very bad system from Cablelink all those years ago! What a pathetic excuse. If a big company like NTL cant make changes to improve a service over the course of 5+ years thats pretty bad if you ask me.

It continued like that, with the guy avoiding questions and you could actually feel the frustration that Ray was feeling, in fact from the short piece I heard i was frustrated listening to the man. Its incredible how he skirted around everything, totally frustrating. If I was Ray I would have just asked him to leave because IMHO he was a wasteful addition to the show.

This is in stark contrast to the Eircom guy that was on last year. He admitted their mistakes and acknowledged peoples frustrations etc... and gave out his personal Email address so that people listening to the show could Email him their issues directly and he promised to get them sorted ASAP. According to Ray he did fulfil his promise and did what he said he would do.
Fair play...

Thats my take on things anyway based on hearing about 20 minutes of the show. Maybe someone who heard it all can make some additional comments but I dont think that the information will be much different to the above.

I know this thread is about Broadband but I think this is all relevant in the grand scheme of things.

I wonder if the OP wishes they had never asked the question now .

Head

Rowley Birkin QC

I have an NTL 6mb connection in the college house, as previously said customer service is shocking but once it's set up it works perfectly, never had a problem.

At home theres a 2mb connection with a Netopia wireless router, have had nothing but problems. My laptop will connect for maybe 15mins to an hour wirelessly and then lose the signal to a local only connection, it connects perfectly to all other wireless networks. Their support lines only suggestion was to reinstall Vista, when I said it was a bit extreme he admitted that they have no knowledge of Vista, disastrous.

Ranicand

If one is bad the other must be good is crazy logic.

I have NTL because it is the best I can get as the Eircom line to my house can not give me a proper Broadband signal.

I got the 2meg connection from Eircom and it was very hard to get a signal so they changed me to 1meg and things improved a bit but it was still very bad.

DSL is only as good as the phone line to your house and I think that Eircom shoud get their act together and replace all bad lines.

For a lot of us NTL is the only way to get real Broadband and yes I do know about wireless providers and they are crap.

ardmacha

If your DSL connection is working fine, you can easily enough change from Eircom to BT, UTV etc and save a bit on the overall cost.

BostonB

Ranicand wrote: »

If one is bad the other must be good is crazy logic.

I have NTL because it is the best I can get as the Eircom line to my house can not give me a proper Broadband signal.

I got the 2meg connection from Eircom and it was very hard to get a signal so they changed me to 1meg and things improved a bit but it was still very bad.

DSL is only as good as the phone line to your house and I think that Eircom shoud get their act together and replace all bad lines.

For a lot of us NTL is the only way to get real Broadband and yes I do know about wireless providers and they are crap.

Same here. NTL is my only option as I've ni way of getting phone line fixed. NTL for me is just ok. I have problems with lag, even with good pings and its not unusual for the connection to be down hours.

Can never get through to support and they don't reply to emails.

Roel55

I have NTL Ultra (6Mb connection)here in Tyrrelstown (DUB 15).
During weekdays when everyone is working i actually do get the 6Mb. However: after 18.00 hours the speed collapses completely!
Called numerous times with NTL but that is like talking to a brick wall.
Once I got thru to a 'technician' and he told me that the max connections in one group should be 24, but for me it was well over 200!

Here are the results I got from speedtest when I connect to the Dublin server:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/232417430.png

If you are playing online games stay well clear from NTL!

I am going to switch over to an ADSL provider.

Roel

Ranicand

Roel55 wrote: »

I have NTL Ultra (6Mb connection)here in Tyrrelstown (DUB 15).
During weekdays when everyone is working i actually do get the 6Mb. However: after 18.00 hours the speed collapses completely!
Called numerous times with NTL but that is like talking to a brick wall.
Once I got thru to a 'technician' and he told me that the max connections in one group should be 24, but for me it was well over 200!

Here are the results I got from speedtest when I connect to the Dublin server:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/232417430.png

If you are playing online games stay well clear from NTL!

I am going to switch over to an ADSL provider.

Roel

Well I am on 3meg from NTL and I always get full speed.

I Guess NTL is like Eircom their sevice is good in one area and bad in another.

I am in Tallaght and NTL replaced all the cables a few years ago so maybe that's the problem in your area.

dub45

Roel55 wrote: »

I have NTL Ultra (6Mb connection)here in Tyrrelstown (DUB 15).
............................................
Called numerous times with NTL but that is like talking to a brick wall.
Once I got thru to a 'technician' and he told me that the max connections in one group should be 24, but for me it was well over 200!

................................................

Roel

I emailed them some time ago asking what their contention rates were - needless to say I am still awaiting a reply!

It is disgraceful that they are not required to state the contention rates when advertising the product or in their terms and conditions.

derra

am with eircom 1Mb speed and gonna upgrade to 2Mb , whats the craic with this though
this link says it is 29.99 ..
http://www.eircom.ie/cgi-bin/bvsm/bveircom/bladerunner/showContent.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0127236636.1202763240@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccccadedfjegelicefeceiedffndffj.0&cid=BBHomePlusOnline&site=Res&chanId=-536889573

and the link in the support section to upgrade shows this ..
http://broadbandsupport.eircom.net/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/&/?St=43&E=0000000000109050606&K=864&Sxi=16&Case=obj(8377)

or maybe i am just missing something , is monday after all

and for what its worth , i have never had a problem with eircom broadband , always get extremely high service rate with this speed test ..
http://www.irishisptest.com/

best to run those speed tests with no other programs running i.e downloading/uploading etc apart from anti virus

watty

Roel55 wrote: »

I have NTL Ultra (6Mb connection)here in Tyrrelstown (DUB 15).
During weekdays when everyone is working i actually do get the 6Mb. However: after 18.00 hours the speed collapses completely!
Called numerous times with NTL but that is like talking to a brick wall.
Once I got thru to a 'technician' and he told me that the max connections in one group should be 24, but for me it was well over 200!

<snip>

Roel

The contention on Cable or Fixed Wireless is Total Bandwidth/ (sum of users @ bandwidth each). Not the number of users on a segment.

It's likely only a small number of people know what the contention is.

On DSL the contention is artificial at exchange, usually similar to cable to avoid overload the backhaul, which is the real contention on DSL.

On Mobile 3G "contention" in the Cable and DSL sense is meaningless as there is no speed control. Also a max of 24 users altogether for the total 3.6Mbps. But unlike DSL or Cable you don't get 1/24th, the 3G degrades as more users (up to 24 added) and you can get 3.6/(24 *4) as speed!

Cable contention should only be noticable if there is more than 200 users on a segment. One segment might be fed with 100Mbps. Contention would normally be in range 3:1 to 4:1 worst even if in theory 25:1. At 5Mbps 5:1 contention is 1Mbps. Real live 20:1 contention would be like 250kbps on a 5Mbps package.

If everyone was running torrents to the max you would see real 48:1 or 20:1 contention on DSL or Cable.

torrents and Cable do not go together well. Hence Comcast reseting requests to seed.

Automan

Roel55 wrote: »

I have NTL Ultra (6Mb connection)here in Tyrrelstown (DUB 15).
During weekdays when everyone is working i actually do get the 6Mb. However: after 18.00 hours the speed collapses completely!
Called numerous times with NTL but that is like talking to a brick wall.
Once I got thru to a 'technician' and he told me that the max connections in one group should be 24, but for me it was well over 200!

Here are the results I got from speedtest when I connect to the Dublin server:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/232417430.png

If you are playing online games stay well clear from NTL!

I am going to switch over to an ADSL provider.

Roel

Im also in Tyrrelstown and have had the same speed results as yourself since before christmas, only times I was getting full speed was after 3am to about 4pm.
I did not ring them till Saturday as I did not want to deal with there crap CC and also in the hope that they were working on it.
When I did ring I was told there was over 300 people connected to it the CC guy said there was nothing he could do and suggested I ring there premium broadband support center that they might be able to help or escalate it, he did not tell me how much it cost so I went on to UPCs web site before I rang and discovered they charge 95cents per min. So I rang the CC again and another CC guy promised a supervisor callback on Monday to see if they could do anything about it, still waiting.

Ranicand wrote:

I am in Tallaght and NTL replaced all the cables a few years ago so maybe that's the problem in your area.

Tyrrelstown is about 7 years old so it should have new enough cables.

seamus

I've experienced NTL in five distinct areas (Lucan, Clondalkin, Tallaght, Terenure and Knocklyon) and there are no speed or contention issues. I haven't used much of any of the DSL offerings.

NTL and eircom's customer service are both ****e, but I would imagine NTLs is worse. I can't see it being possible to have worse customer service than NTL. When NTL works, it's great. When it stops working (happened twice for me in two years), just make sure you have a speakerphone and the patience to sit on hold for 15 minutes.

I think the real key though is price.
I get NTL digital & 3Mb cable for €56 per month. With eircom the same deal would cost you €72.58 (once you factor in your line rental), and then you have to pay NTL €26 for digital tv, which brings you to €98 per month. Which is almost twice the cost of going completely with NTL. A VoIP phone deal will cost you €10 and you'll get cheaper calls than eircom.

CallMeMiss

Anyone know what the NTL service is like in the Swords area??

Hellrazer

Im in a similar postition to the OP--Just got an eircom bill for 200 euros(for 2 months).Only 22 euros of that was call charges (to mobiles),the rest was standing charges ie line rental,package deal,BB.

Works out at 65 pm +vat for the talktime package-the one with the 7.6meg BB and all local calls all day and free meteor calls.

Ntl are offering me 10mb + phone service for 40 pm (I think)

Im just nervous of all the talk of bad customer service/downtime/throttled torrents/crap pings.Another thing stopping me is whether it will work with the ps3 as well as Eircom does(nat1)

Are NTL really that bad?