Opinions on UPC broadband service and installation

Soundman

Just had BB and VOIP installed from UPC. They arrived a little early as it was supposed to be between 1pm and 5pm. The Tech arrived at 10.30am.

I was home so no big deal. Tech was a nice, friendly Polish(?) chap who knew exactly what he was doing and was in and out in no time. Neat and tidy too.

Before he left I checked the speed of the BB to make sure all was well.

D/L: 3286
U/L: 268

Ping: 96ms

With the exception of the ping, it seems spot on for a 3MB line.

Phone line is crystal clear as well, which is more than I can say for Eircom's.

All in all a good first impression made by UPC.

Get0fix

Sounds good SoundMan When you say "In and out in no time" - how long are we talkign here? Reason I ask is that I will be meeting the installer during my work hours, so need to know how long I'm gonna be.

I already have the points installed, as a previous tenant had TV+BB - so no need for more points, just need hardware config'd and service switched on.

Can't wait! Very excited!

DingDong

Get0fix wrote: »

Sounds good SoundMan When you say "In and out in no time" - how long are we talkign here? Reason I ask is that I will be meeting the installer during my work hours, so need to know how long I'm gonna be.

I already have the points installed, as a previous tenant had TV+BB - so no need for more points, just need hardware config'd and service switched on.

Can't wait! Very excited!

If you already have a point install he should be able to have you up and running in half an hour all going well.

Soundman

For me it took him maybe 15 minutes at most. That is including having to go on the roof as our points were connected to the old cable system so he had to switch us to the updated. That in itself took about 2 minutes.

TestTransmission

Been checking for a few months and UPC is available in my area now,if i was to cancel my eircom broadband what would i have to pay?

PAU

Hi guys,

Just got a bill from Chorus which was 54Euro for the month.Im currently on the 6mb speed but got a phonecall from Chorus saying im entitled to the 10mb upgrade.I had a quick look at their website and I think im entitled to the 20mb speed.Anyone in a similar boat with their bills? or with this new speed upgrade?

Hi all.

Do they give you a call before hand to confirm installation.

Blindpew

NoDrama wrote: »

Hi all.

Do they give you a call before hand to confirm installation.

Yes they do. They ring you twice. The first time it's only a robot that calls asking you to confirm your online order. He tells you to press button one on your phone to confirm or zero to cancel the order. The second call will be from a real live person, a rare thing to encounter over a phone line these days, this will be the day before the final installation and you will be told to expect someone with a foreign accent the next day with your broadband. They seem very quick to install, lets hope their service is as quick.

IsThatSo?

I got the upgrade to 10 mb and speeds are good. Ping is gone bad though, it was always 20-22 ms but now its up at 80 or thereabouts

PAU

IsThatSo? wrote: »

I got the upgrade to 10 mb and speeds are good. Ping is gone bad though, it was always 20-22 ms but now its up at 80 or thereabouts

How much are you paying for it mate?

calmoo

Was wondering what do they actually set up when you order Ultra. Do they have to change your phoneline aswell and can you keep your number? Or is line rental even involved at all?

guil

its 10pm for the phone and to keep ur number ya have to stay with ur current provider for 1 month after gettin upc

calmoo

guil07 wrote: »

its 10pm for the phone and to keep ur number ya have to stay with ur current provider for 1 month after gettin upc

10pm, what do you mean? And what do they do when they 'set it up'.

AlmightyCushion

calmoo wrote: »

10pm, what do you mean? And what do they do when they 'set it up'.

Probably €10 per month.

guil

yeah thats what i meant

calmoo

guil07 wrote: »

yeah thats what i meant

Ok, so you don't HAVE to take their phone service aswell? I'm happy with the eircom on phone, but not with their speeds.

guil

well no ya can just get the bb from upc but y pay eircom 25 just for havin the phone when upc will provide it for 10, plus upc charge 6 euro extra if ya only get bb from them

calmoo

guil07 wrote: »

well no ya can just get the bb from upc but y pay eircom 25 just for havin the phone when upc will provide it for 10, plus upc charge 6 euro extra if ya only get bb from them

Right, so I'd be better off switching the phone aswell, would I have to change the number?

Aquos76

No you will not need to change your number, they will issue you with a temp number while you wait for your own number to be transferred over to your UPC phone. Usally takes 2 weeks.

If you take two additional services from UPC eg, TV and BB, then line rental is only €4pm otherwise it is €10pm, with just the BB service.

If you are only taking the BB and phone service from them, then you are likely to be paying €46p/m for 10mg BB and a phone service which breaks down to €30 for the bb, €6 for not taking TV service from them and then €10 for the phone service, where as for an extra €8 you could get the TV package from them. In that case, you would be paying €30 for BB, €20 FOR tv, and €4 for phone.

nohopengn

Contacted them by phone and the sale team were very responsive. They gave me a date for the install, but no one turned up. That was a few months ago, the may have improved since.

Blindpew

I ordered it online, I picked the date and time. I was contacted within a few days and the guy showed up at 11am, I chose between 9am and 1pm. He had it installed in 15 minutes and it has worked fine since. So long as they don't start throttling I'd say the service is perfect.

KNO3

I got mine installed on Friday, I ordered it about a week before that. I had an appointment slot between 1-5pm on Friday, the guy phoned me beforehand and said he would be there at 1pm and sure enough he was.

I got all 3 services installed, digital TV, broadband and telephone, happy so far, broadband is slightly faster than previous Eircom 3MB package, ping has increased slightly. Tv reception is definitely better on digital than my old analogue UPC package, phone works perfect, reception clarity is as good as previous Eircom landline .

It took the guy about an hour to install everything, I wanted the TV connection in one room and the broadband connection in another room, this was no problem, he had to drill through a wall and do a good bit of cableing but he did a neat job and didn't grumble at the idea of the extra work involved.

Overall very smooth exit from Eircom so far, cancelled my Eircom broadband on Friday and sent back the telephone number port form today to UPC, you don't have to do anymore, UPC do the rest, just don't cancel your Eircom or other phone provider before you port your old number over because you won't get your old number back.

Anyway just adding my experience to the thread, it was in this thread that I figured out how to make the move in the first place;)

Get0fix

I got mine installed around 10 days after I ordered. I ordered all 3 services, digital TV, telephone and 10mbit broadband.

The engineer called before hand, and was very friendly. He setup all the hardware, and checked the configuration before leaving.

I'm pretty happy with all the services, but I must say the 10mbit broadband seems a bit slower than the previous 6mbit that I had. When I say slower, I refer to latency. Pages dont load as "snappy" as when I was on the 6mbit. However, when downloading large files, I do tend to get 1.2mb/s - which is great!

All in all, I'm happy with what I have, and the DVR with the digital TV is just the greatest!

dodzy

I was with NTL on a digi TV basic pack and jumed ship on BTIreland when they told me that the most I could get was 6-7mb due to the fact that I was 3km from the exchange so 24mb was a no-go.

Anyhows, made the booking for the engineer for a thursday ( they said between 9 - 1pm and I said "Super!" ) Received a call the day before to confirm.

Guy turned up at 10.00am - One point to UPC

Seemed knowledgeable; decent skin, up running in 15mins - having said that, the TV point was already for him. Still........ another point to UPC ( Thats 2 points for UPC ;-)

Set the desktop up with wireless adapter upstairs in no time ( I know, this isn't rocket science so no extra score here )

Tested the setup connected to the netgear stock router via ethernet and told me that I was set up on 10Mb so I'd have to contact tech support to inform them - I thought he could have rectified this with a call to a pal at base much quicker that the queue I would inevitably have to join when I dialled later. UPC - 1point.

Tested on Speedtest.net - 9000 down and approx 800 up so not bad you would think.

Made the call to tech support and the guy told me that ( following a test he maintained he could do from base ) that the modem - Scientific Atlanta - was displaying a higher power output than was normal so he scheduled a engineer call for the following Monday. OK I says, no bother.

Monday comes and Engineer 2 enters at the correct time. Sweet Jasus, he was no more an engineer than my mother ! Told him the problem....he changed out the modem..... that did not work at all ! Changed it back... Went to the main splitter point at the side of the house..... fiddled around....came back in..... I entered the router config via 192.168.100.1 and indicated that the power was registered at 61 somethings - he told me to monitor it over a few days and "see what happens" UPC -1 point.

Here we are, supposedly on 20mb ultra - Speedtest.net shows very eratic results. sometimes 19000 DL / 1.2 UL (via ethernet ) but this can change to 12 DL / upload seems stable at 1-1.2.

Sorry for the novel, folks.

Q1. A previous post mentioned problems with the power on the Scientific Atlanta modem. Any elaboration on this ?

Q2. another previous post indicated a link to download a large file - I am achieving 2-2.2mb solidly on this - this reduces to 1mb on wireless when ethernet cable is disconnected. However, any other downloads, Rapidshare for etc, rareley exceed 400mbps. Strange?

Q3. Speedtest.net. A true test.... or not ?

Kensington

Ordered the phone service Monday morning from them (after months of them arguing it wasn't available at my address) and had an appointment for Wednesday morning. Guy got it set up in about 10 minutes (the broadband and Scientific Atlanta modem was already in place). Quality is just as good as a Smart line and a good bit better than a Blueface line.

As it turns out, their website is a little misleading on pricing - it claims line rental is €10/month when you take two services, or €4/month when you take three. This refers to existing TV customers though - line rental is €10/month if you take only TV and phone. However, if you take phone and broadband together (regardless of TV) it's only €4/month. So I'm paying €50/month for 20Mbps and phone (€40 for BB, €4 for phone, €6 for not having cable TV off them) - happy days!!! :pac:

dodzy wrote: »

Q1. A previous post mentioned problems with the power on the Scientific Atlanta modem. Any elaboration on this ?

I think some SA modems report incorrect power reading - 61dBm is crazily high though, 55dBm or more is generally when you run into big problems. What's the SNR reading like?

dodzy wrote: »

Q2. another previous post indicated a link to download a large file - I am achieving 2-2.2mb solidly on this - this reduces to 1mb on wireless when ethernet cable is disconnected. However, any other downloads, Rapidshare for etc, rareley exceed 400mbps. Strange?

Rapidshare is dog slow at the moment, and has been for the past month or two, especially at peak time, apparently due to massive upgrade works going on at their servers.

dodzy wrote: »

Q3. Speedtest.net. A true test.... or not ?

Seemingly not!

dodzy

Cheers Kensington.

I'll definitely get them back as all indications are that 61dBmv is very high and may be the cause of some issues. ( Sorry cant check the SNR now as I'm in work ;-)



Not too bad here though. If uploading was your thing.....:(

Glad the phone is working out for you. They told me its not available in my area either. Dublin 15. Anybody advise differently ?

Jilm

I got the 20mb broadband and tv package installed on Monday. Speed tests averaging 12-16mbps.

I'm thinking of downgrading to 10mb and ditching the tv. Will Chorus/UPC be alright with that?

Kensington

Jilm wrote: »

I got the 20mb broadband and tv package installed on Monday. Speed tests averaging 12-16mbps.

I'm thinking of downgrading to 10mb and ditching the tv. Will Chorus/UPC be alright with that?

Give em a buzz and see - they may have a "cooling off" period. Do it quickly though, normally you would be hit with a €10 downgrade fee for dropping your broadband package. And TV comes with a 12 month minimum contract.

Matthewthebig

Is it true you can't use VPN on upc?

jimmycrackcorm

Matthewthebig wrote: »

Is it true you can't use VPN on upc?

Nope. They do have that in their terms and conditions but it stems from an era when it was believed that people only surf a few web pages and they wanted to dissuade heavier use such as vpns and running home servers. It's not enforced.