Opinions on UPC broadband service and installation

Matthewthebig

100%? my dad uses a VPN for work. So if he ever couldn't use it, the **** would hit the fan

Hygro

got ultra installed on thursday, 20 mb me bum. Managed to get almost 17mb on speedtest at the highest and 9 at the lowest.

My major gripe though is that I can't download anything faster than I was getting using the 1mb eircom broadband that was in the house previosly. Originally I thought it was the netgear router they supplied (we got the standard ntl moden along with a router), but I've removed that and now I can't even get a connection on a torrent. Never mind a slow one!!

If I can't get it sorted out within a week I'm gonna get it busted down to the lowest speed available. I mean who needs to 20mb just to browse the internet?!!

Has anyone had any trouble like this with theirs?

Samba

I've found this thread very helpful in making my decision. I think upc still have quite a few problems to Iron out.

I was strongly considering changing over after the eircom upgrade fiasco but I cannot afford to have a faulty or unreliable broadband service as I work from home. I really hope they get their act together soon.

Anyone using their connection for xbox live pc gaming how are the pings in general?

I think i'll give them a bit of time before considering switching over myself.

koHd

Samba wrote: »

I've found this thread very helpful in making my decision. I think upc still have quite a few problems to Iron out.

I was strongly considering changing over after the eircom upgrade fiasco but I cannot afford to have a faulty or unreliable broadband service as I work from home. I really hope they get their act together soon.

Anyone using their connection for xbox live pc gaming how are the pings in general?

I think i'll give them a bit of time before considering switching over myself.

Think I'm in the same boat as you. Really glad my impulse for the cheap 20Mb didn't take me to buying before reading all the info from current customers.

Just found out they have a contention ratio of 17:1, which basically means up to 16 other people are on the same 20Mb bandwidth stream as you. Which explains the varying results people are getting in their speed tests.

Think I'll hold off.

Was really lookin forward to 20Mb down and 1.5 up though

It seems we're still a decade or so off the rest of the developed world when it comes to broadband.

Kotek Besar

koHd wrote: »

Just found out they have a contention ratio of 17:1, which basically means up to 16 other people are on the same 20Mb bandwidth stream as you. Which explains the varying results people are getting in their speed tests.

Better than almost every residential ADSL broadband provider in Ireland. Eircom's is 48:1.

koHd wrote: »

Was really lookin forward to 20Mb down and 1.5 up though

It seems we're still a decade or so off the rest of the developed world when it comes to broadband.

I dropped to 10mb because I couldn't justify the extra €10 a month for my needs. Still, when I had the 20mb package it was great. Here's a speed test result from before I changed to 10mb:

koHd

benifa wrote: »

Better than almost every residential ADSL broadband provider in Ireland. Eircom's is 48:1.

Yea that's why I'm not with Eircom or any of the other providers. I'm with Smart Telecom and have zero contention.

I know 17:1 isn't terrible, but I'm just so used to having zero contention, and the exact same broadband speeds at all times. It's just a bit of a off put to think 16 other people can be using the same bandwidth as me and lowering my speeds considerably.

Elessar

koHd wrote: »

Yea that's why I'm not with Eircom or any of the other providers. I'm with Smart Telecom and have zero contention.

I know 17:1 isn't terrible, but I'm just so used to having zero contention, and the exact same broadband speeds at all times. It's just a bit of a off put to think 16 other people can be using the same bandwidth as me and lowering my speeds considerably.

I've been on 24:1 contention with BT for the past 6 years and have never had speeds other than what I was paying for, and this is in a built up area.

Tooorbooo

i can agree too, i am using 20meg (broadband ) but the speed is crap at the day time very slow, i was using smart 4 meg was better, night time ok speed is good, torrents very slow, ftp slow, if you always sitting at night maybe this 20meg package suits to you...

gabbo is coming

Just ordered the 3 MB. I was going for the 10, and then she said it would be 10 euro to downgrade. So I'll start cheap and work up.

I've only ever had UTV 2MB and it was crap. Work VPN kept disconnecting. Then they charged me 59.99 to disconnect + 30 for the modem. Robbery.

I've also had VF 3G - really good, but you're always wary that you're going to get a bill for 8,000 euro because you inadvertenlty stayed logged in to Skype while someone send you a chat message containing the entire text of wikipedia over and over and over again.

So will the 3MB do for a bit of surfing. downloading the odd song or two (from wholly legal sites of course).

Can you get the phoneline with the 3MB service?

Kotek Besar

gabbo is coming wrote: »

So will the 3MB do for a bit of surfing. downloading the odd song or two (from wholly legal sites of course).

Ya, 3mb will be lovely for all these.

gabbo is coming wrote: »

Can you get the phoneline with the 3MB service?

Yes, either UPC's expensive service or Blueface's cheaper service. Either would work well on the 3mb service.

neacy69

Any problems with downloading from rapidshare using UPC?

token56

Tonight is just crazy for me, in maynooth, on the 20Mb package and I am currently getting 120KB/s down and 200KB/s up. This is just crazy. I rarely get anywhere close to full speed on the line too.

gsxr1

token56 wrote: »

Tonight is just crazy for me, in maynooth, on the 20Mb package and I am currently getting 120KB/s down and 200KB/s up. This is just crazy. I rarely get anywhere close to full speed on the line too.

I know a person in UPC well. We drink together. She cant understand why people are complaining. she says if the customers are having contention issues , they just add more band width.

cant wait to talk to her . I really regret leaving digiweb now.

ellobee

neacy69 wrote: »

Any problems with downloading from rapidshare using UPC?

I have the 20mb package with UPC for about 4 months now and I've never had a problem with rapidshare I also use flashget as my download manager
I'm not techie so don't ask me about speeds all I can tell you is it takes about 5 to 6 mins to download 700mb.

neacy69

ellobee wrote: »

I have the 20mb package with UPC for about 4 months now and I've never had a problem with rapidshare I also use flashget as my download manager
I'm not techie so don't ask me about speeds all I can tell you is it takes about 5 to 6 mins to download 700mb.

That'll do for me!

gsxr1

I was on the phone with them today to complain about a low transfer rate on download.

after looking at my settings they put it down to a modem problem and are sending a tech out to fix it next week.

Lenny

I'm really annoyed at the moment with ntl. I think ill be calling them tomorrow or monday to show them how bad there service gets after 9pm every night.
this is my results to the frankfurt server on the 20mb

gsxr1

Lenny wrote: »

I'm really annoyed at the moment with ntl. I think ill be calling them tomorrow or monday to show them how bad there service gets after 9pm every night.
this is my results to the frankfurt server on the 20mb

should we not be using the server close to us. ie Dublin??

dear god . I never had this trouble with Digi web.

look at the best of 3 tests at 11.15pm friday.

Lenny

I have used the dublin one aswell but read from other posts that when you ring them the frankfurt server is the one they tell you to use.. but here is the dublin one


But I am downloading now off rapidshare and maxing out the connection(but I have many downloads running at once)

christophicus

Yup, ****e atm. Safe to say its not contention at this time on a Friday night.


Rapidshare is really slow too, only getting 500kb on a premium account.

Snake Plisken

Glad I'm not the only one getting crap speeds, was wondering why the update download for my PS3 was taking so long? Are they doing maintenance or something?

DingDong

Looks like something major has happened. Odd enough magnets speedtest site( http://speedtest.magnet.ie/) rates my connection at 16Mb while speedtest.net puts it roughly at 1Mb which seems to closer to the truth.

Snake Plisken

Seems to be coming back up although would want nearer to the 20meg mark if thats what I'm paying for

christophicus

Yeah, my speeds are about the same as yours now Snake.



One of my mates that works in the UPC sales call centre has said that he is hearing it will be upgraded to 50Mb in the next few months. Now I don't know how true that is, but maybe they are making some of the change overs now to their equipment.

Kotek Besar

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Seems to be coming back up although would want nearer to the 20meg mark if thats what I'm paying for

+1

Jilm

My 20Mbit connection continued to disappoint so I downgraded to 10Mbit, which comes in ~10Mb/s.

PotBelly

I am thinking of changing to Chorus/upc. I live in the swords area of dublin, anyone living in that area with problems.

What is the upload speed they offer with the 20Mb and the 10Mb broadband packages?

Simi

1mb on the 10mb package, 1.5mb on the 20mb package. I have the 10mb package and rarely have any issues. It does go down briefly from time to time (once every couple of weeks) and can slow to a crawl sometimes (again once every couple of weeks). I'm pretty happy with it overall.

I routinely max out my connection on steam or rapidshare downloads. I also downloaded an obscene amount this month as I was sick for a few days (think half a dozen HD movies in 3 days ) not heard a peep out of them regarding how much I'm downloading.

Ping times in games are also excellent. Often amongst the lowest on cs source servers. Rarely experience any packet drops.

Then again every1's experiences vary.

gsxr1

PotBelly wrote: »

I am thinking of changing to Chorus/upc. I live in the swords area of dublin, anyone living in that area with problems.

What is the upload speed they offer with the 20Mb and the 10Mb broadband packages?

If you have a good ISP already then keep them on the hook.

NTL are ****e. No harm to any of there supporters but one should get at least near what they pay for. (after 7.00pm in Naas is 56k slow) And when they want to querry it by phone, they should not be kept on hold for 30mins.
they suck . avoid if possible.

they should really look at the way there customers if they want to get a good reputation. really upset with there lies. now im locked into a contract

Skidmcmarx

Is there any extra charge on the 10mb package i.e. They say 30e a month, will it actually be 30e a month. I'm currently getting 4mb bb from smart for a set fee of 30e, no hidden charges. Will this be the same for upc( i currently have digtal t.v with them too)