Broadband Cap Poll

Praetor

yeah I like Magnet... I will be moving soon and I was thinking of getting one of their packages but I have heard that TV is a bit Crap.

I know NTL will be upgrading customers to 16 mb soon and next year to than 60 and then I think is ~160 mb finally providing good quality HDTV but my experience with then has been pretty bad (Customer Care).

But those speeds are very tempting!

Marlow

Praetor wrote: »

yeah I like Magnet... I will be moving soon and I was thinking of getting one of their packages but I have heard that TV is a bit Crap.

I know NTL will be upgrading customers to 16 mb soon and next year to than 60 and then I think is ~160 mb finally providing good quality HDTV but my experience with then has been pretty bad (Customer Care).

But those speeds are very tempting!

I had NTL in Galway a few years ago. When they doubled the speed on everybody things went to crap. 3 mbit before meant 3 mbit. 6 mbit afterwards ment max. 2 mbit most of the day.

In regards to Magnet, their TV service runs within your broadband, which means, that by heavy broadband usage you will affect your TV service. Dunno about the TV quality. They are using Sky and then re-coding the stream themselfes.

/Martin

Nehaxak

I'm still on a 56k modem and like paying by the minute

I find it hard to believe anyone defending Eircom, their practices and prices, in any way whatsoever, unless they themselves either work for or play some other part in Eircoms business in some way or another. I also find it extremely hard to believe anyone is defending caps imposed by ISPs.

Far as I'm concerned, caps are only imposed by ISPs so they can make sure they get enough business and money into them from as many customers as possible without having to pay more for the bandwidth themselves. Arse to all of that to be honest, another rip off in the great many rip offs in Ireland these days. Try pull the wool over someone elses eyes please.

Would also be nice if others here would declare any interests they have as Marlow/Martin has done and fair dues to him for that.

Praetor

Marlow wrote: »

I had NTL in Galway a few years ago. When they doubled the speed on everybody things went to crap. 3 mbit before meant 3 mbit. 6 mbit afterwards ment max. 2 mbit most of the day.

In regards to Magnet, their TV service runs within your broadband, which means, that by heavy broadband usage you will affect your TV service. Dunno about the TV quality. They are using Sky and then re-coding the stream themselfes.

/Martin

Thanks thats what I suspected, unfortunately I know nothing about products outside Eircom's infrastructure.

And no Nehaxak, I dont work for Eircom and I am not happy with them but I have accepted the current network structure.

For example. I have seen people complaining about BT, Eircom... and their slow speeds, DNS problems, latency... blah blah blah... That could be caused by overuse.

Maybe its because they let people on their own and forgot to keep them under control... or they thought people were going to behave...

So dont be selfish. I have never ever controlled my usage and I do go over the limit but never close to 400, 500 or 600 gb like some people do, only a few gigs. So if you want extra usage be ready to pay for it.

This is like speeds limits, yeah I know, the main reason for it to be there is to save lives but I for example, some highways in Germany have no speed limit, why? probably because their roads can handle it.

I bit off I know but it does have some logic!

When Ireland will be ready we will have it

Nehaxak

I'm still on a 56k modem and like paying by the minute

Praetor wrote: »

but never close to 400, 500 or 600 gb like some people do, only a few gigs.

Fair enough, that's just taking the piss running at 400 to 600GB, maybe at one stage I'd run up 60gb a month due to downloading some TV episodes from the states but 400gb is just mental.
Still though, would rather see proper traffic management in place rather than the lazy option of caps being imposed. If it's a few running up those mad download figures then why is it still the case that their abuse is used as an excuse of sorts to impose a cap on everyone else ?

Marlow

Praetor wrote: »

For example. I have seen people complaining about BT, Eircom... and their slow speeds, DNS problems, latency... blah blah blah... That could be caused by overuse.

Sorry. There is no such thing as overuse. There is only the product being oversold.

We don't sell faster than 1.5 mbit to residentials currently, because our infrastructure needs to scale with the amount of customers that we let loose on the network and we can't have people monopolise the bandwidth. Other ISP's just deploy more and more speed to look "better", even if their backbone can't handle it. And to remedy that then, they start cap'ing people. Either that or to generate more income.

A business user, pays for having specific hardware in place to accommodate them and their bandwidth needs. That's exactly why business users pay a good bit more than Joe Blogs.

/Martin

Praetor

Marlow wrote: »

Sorry. There is no such thing as overuse. There is only the product being oversold.

We don't sell faster than 1.5 mbit to residentials currently, because our infrastructure needs to scale with the amount of customers that we let loose on the network and we can't have people monopolise the bandwidth. Other ISP's just deploy more and more speed to look "better", even if their backbone can't handle it. And to remedy that then, they start cap'ing people. Either that or to generate more income.

A business user, pays for having specific hardware in place to accommodate them and their bandwidth needs. That's exactly why business users pay a good bit more than Joe Blogs.

/Martin

Not true. When someone signs a contract and it is stated that the limits are 30 gb and a contention of 24:1 and speeds of 3072/384 you have to hold on to that contract.

If you exceed your usage you are over using it.

24:1 means a max guaranteed speed of ~25 kBps on a 3mb line, remember this.

You dont sell more than 1.5 simply because you cant give more than that. Your infrastructure cant handle it.

But if you want to ask and complaint do it right, demand not 6 nor 12 but 100 mb connections, no caps and no contention.

Praetor

Nehaxak wrote: »

Fair enough, that's just taking the piss running at 400 to 600GB, maybe at one stage I'd run up 60gb a month due to downloading some TV episodes from the states but 400gb is just mental.
Still though, would rather see proper traffic management in place rather than the lazy option of caps being imposed. If it's a few running up those mad download figures then why is it still the case that their abuse is used as an excuse of sorts to impose a cap on everyone else ?

Thats entirely the point. What we should be asking for is more international bandwidth, better contention and better speeds.

But at the moment its not possible. Those upgrades take time.

Just picture Ireland DSL map 5 years ago, prices and compare it to what's coming.

I do also agree that now that speeds will be upgraded so should be the CAP.

Eircom wholesale has the bad habit of never saying no to new customers, then, they overload exchanges like Balbriggan or Nenagh.

That is just not acceptable. I prefer ISP like Smart, they offer a good quality service by not going over what they can handle.

Unfortunately now its all about the money...

Marlow

Praetor wrote: »

Not true. When someone signs a contract and it is stated that the limits are 30 gb and a contention of 24:1 and speeds of 3072/384 you have to hold on to that contract.

Well, ok, to that point you are correct. It's just that I wouldn't sign that contract .. I'd be looking for something that doesn't impose those limits or do a better myself.

Wait, I did !!

/Martin

Praetor

Maybe that is what we should all do! Have our own ISP!

Marlow

Praetor wrote: »

Maybe that is what we should all do! Have our own ISP!

I certainly recommend it. Because then you'd be sitting on something this:



With no cap and no worries. And that's 30km's outside of Galway in rural Ireland.

/Martin

Praetor

Wow... I can go as high as 24mb for download and get a 1:1 contention but my upload will go nowhere close to that upload speed

Even your ping time is brilliant

Marlow

Praetor wrote: »

Wow... I can go as high as 24mb for download and get a 1:1 contention but my upload will go nowhere close to that upload speed

The beauty of wireless is, that it is symmetric. We can get up to 16 mbit uncontended full duplex out of low grade regular kit, but not on point-to-multipoint. If you pay the bucks, wireless can deliver up to gbit speeds, but not on far distances.

Praetor wrote: »

Even your ping time is brilliant

I consider 24 ms bad. Most of the time my ping times are between 6 and 10ms.

/Martin

Praetor

Thanks, now I am depressed...

CuLT

I'm pretty sure we could all get those speeds if we were willing to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of euro per year too

Praetor

Then that's the problem... we need more money... we have to ask the goverment for more money not better lines!