Who is your broadband/telephone provider and are they value for money?

muffler

I thought this might generate a wee bit of debate but also provide info to others as to what ISP's are operational in their areas. If I could get people to post a short comment as to which broadband provider they are with, are they happy with the price and service and are they aware of any other providers in their respective areas. This link may be of some help in identifying who provides broadband in various locations together with contact details and prices etc.

I will kick off with this.

Im in Stranorlar and use BTIreland. I have a 3mb broadband, phone and line rental package which costs about €66 per month which I find to be good value and overall I would be fairly pleased with the service.

Other providers in the area that I am aware of are Eircom, Digiweb and Perlico.

sesswhat

I'm over a mile out of Ballybofey but close enough to get Broadband over the phone line.

Provider is UTVInternet, 2Mb service for around €55 per month including line rental and a phone package. The phone package includes deals on calls to Ireland and UK so it suits me as a lot of my calls are to NI or UK.

After nearly 4 years, the broadband service has been generally very good. Any problems have usually been down to Eircom problems which affect all the other providers who are all using Eircom lines and exchanges. For example last week upload speeds slowed to a halt for a few days in Ballybofey and Donegal town as Eircom were upgrading exchanges for proposed speed increases due next month.

With the speed increases, many ADSL (the most common type of home Broadband over the phone) customers can expect a bit of a flurry of activity as everyone offers higher speeds for the same money we are paying now. After a couple of months though, the packages from each provider will end up being roughly the same.

There is a lot more information on the ongoing changes over at the Broadband forum.

Meanwhile the Regional Broadband Network buried under the streets of Donegal Town, Ballybofey / Stranorlar, Ballyshannon, Buncrana, Bundoran and Carndonagh should have been up and running by now. This would allow the povision of local wireless services around these towns if they can get anyone interested to take this on.

Senna

I was with Irishbroadband.ie for the last two years, it was the wireless service in Letterkenny, 2mb unlimited for €35 per month. It was a very good service, the network went 'down' only once in the 2 years, to my knowledge.
Also getting it up and going was very fast, 5 days from me first phoning them, to it being in my home.

I'm buying a house soon, so was at a loose end when it came to having BB. We haven't chosen a house yet, but it wont be in Letterkenny so i ended the contract with irishbroadband. I purchased the O2 'broadband on the move' a couple of days ago. It €30 for a 3.6mb connection (i'd say its more like a 2mb connection but that could be down to position in the house), limited 10gb :mad:.
So far so good, but after 3 days i 've used 4gb for my 10gb alloted for the month.
I went for O2 because of the network coverage, it covers all the areas where we will possibly buy a house in.

byte

Currently living in Letterkenny, and using Smart Broadband. Get 4mbit for around €40, uncapped. It has been a fantastic service, only marred for the period that I bought a Netgear wireless router (which was rubbish). Smart even lowered the speed of my line during this time to see if connection would stabilise. Good service via their forums, I found. I'd have Smart about 2 years or so now, and I'd say maybe 2 or 3 days downtime in that period.

Other operators in Letterkenny would include Digiweb (Metro or DSL), Irish Broadband (wireless or DSL), Eircom and various resellers, Smart, NWEWN (wireless).

I'm still waiting to move to new house in Donegal Town, where I will probably go with UTV with their "no-cap" upgrade. One thing is for sure, I'll miss Smart with it's good speeds, no caps and low prices when I do get around to moving

Brolly

Currently with BT Ireland also and the service is good. We are changing to UTV soon though. We used to be with UTV, but switched to BT when they first brought out the packages.
UTV are pretty good also - they have a great deal on at the minute - €33 per month inc line rental, calls, 2mb broadband for the first 3 months and then €49 per month after that.