Moving from Eircom to UPC is it wise

kamin99

I'm with Eircom BB on 3MB in Malahide ,and was wondering is it wise to move to UPC with 20 MB in view of the delay with eircom upgrade given the fact that I will only be upgraded to 7.6 compared to 20MB , are UPC service reliable and problem free as i seldom had a problem with eircom
Thanks

Paddy@CIRL

Pretty much the same boat as you mate, except moving from BT. Can't fault BT's service, think it only went down once in the course of four years but at the end of the day €30 a month for 2MB when I could be getting 10MB is a bit of a pain.

Would be interested in hearing peoples opinion on UPC/NTL. I knew folk who used to work in the call centre down here and they said not to go near the BB package as it was constantly down but that was a few years ago, so I'm wondering has it changed ?

bored888

There's alot of people in this boat, it really is crunch time for ISP's. I am also very happy with BT Ireland's service the last 4 years and it only went down once for myself too ; and they even rang me back up when it was fixed!

It just seems that BT Ireland is being held back 'big time' by shadowing Eircom. When Eircom upgrade, BT upgrade. I thought having all their own equipment in the exchanges would make them more independent.

I hate to say it but after all these years of NTL laying cable etc.. it looks as though it's finally come to fruition.

By the time Eircoms and BT Ireland's 12mb speeds or what have you even become affordable to the home user, UPC will be so far ahead they will have stolen a large customer base.

AlmightyCushion

BT do have their own equipment in exchanges but it's only in a small number of exchanges.

doodlbug18

kamin99 wrote: »

I'm with Eircom BB on 3MB in Malahide ,and was wondering is it wise to move to UPC with 20 MB in view of the delay with eircom upgrade given the fact that I will only be upgraded to 7.6 compared to 20MB , are UPC service reliable and problem free as i seldom had a problem with eircom
Thanks

Don't be misled by the the headline 20MB speed that is quoted by UPC. On Cable networks this bandwidth is shared amongst all users in the neighbourhood. Hence the 20MB capacity can be shared between 400 or more users! You could be lucky and be in a neighbourhood where there are not too many others. You could also find performance ok at the start, before others sign up. It will only get worse as more users sign up.

By comparison, DSL over your phone line guarantees you a dedicated cable pair all the way to the exchange. Depending on which product and supplier you choose, DSL can offer contention levels from 1:1 to max 48:1. On your product with eircom you should be getting 24:1 contention. Unlike UPC, the DSL providers state precisely what their contention rates are, and you will never exceed these rates. In practice, you usually get much better than the quoted rates. Moderate levels of contention (<50:1) should not be a problem on either DSL or Cable, but levels of 400:1 would be a major problem. The real problem with Cable is that there is no spec - and it will only get worse as more users are added. Try asking UPC how many customers are connected to your cable system? I doubt they will tell you, but without this info, there is no point in expecting your 20MB speed to mean anything.

I would stick with DSL. You can save money by getting rid of NTL for TV - almost all channels are now available free-to-air on Satellite or Digital Terrestrial. I have never used NTL for Broadband - not available in my area - but I used to have them for TV, and the service and their "customer service" was dire.

Also - if you give up DSL, eircom may re-assign your cable to another customer. If you discover that UPC service is poor in a couple of years time, you may find there are no telephone cable pairs left - all allocated to other customers. You might regret this. The Boards are full of people moaning that they can't get a cable pair that supports DSL. You are lucky to have good DSL at the moment - don't give it up unless you are sure that you can get something better.

JPA

Paddy@CIRL wrote: »

Pretty much the same boat as you mate, except moving from BT. Can't fault BT's service, think it only went down once in the course of four years but at the end of the day €30 a month for 2MB when I could be getting 10MB is a bit of a pain.

Would be interested in hearing peoples opinion on UPC/NTL. I knew folk who used to work in the call centre down here and they said not to go near the BB package as it was constantly down but that was a few years ago, so I'm wondering has it changed ?

I'm in Waterford and while I had some problems at the start (which were fixed pretty quickly) I haven't had any problems in about 2 years.
Maybe it would go down now and then but very rarely and only for a little while.

Seth Brundle

I have NTL/UPC BB & TV here and no faults with them apart from their lack of customer service. I will be moving the phone to them soon.

benson99

i find my 3mb eircom connection excellent..

Thor

i have ntl 20mb line and i know a few people in me area who also have it and i have to say its flawless.(speed in all my friends house's are perfect and we have been downloading at the same time aswell)

now i use to be on eircom 3mb but for the price i was paying it was a big hell no when i saw ntl offering a 12mb line for €40/month(wasnt waiting till june for an update to 7.6mb line(with hindsight im glad i did changeover).

now 3 month later its a 20mb line with no update from eircom yet.

really is a no brainer if you think about it.

when it comes down to it you cant say ntl are not realiable and eircom are when you look at the score.


eircom - promised 2mb to 3mb and 3mb to 7.6mb in june(july now and no one updated)

ntl - already had a 6mb line for cheaper(then eircoms 2mb line) before updating it to a 12mb less then a week after they annouced. then 3 months later they update the lines again and with no one expecting or demanding them to.

come on just ask yourself would you like to enjoy the comfort of a 20mb line.

think about it.

Moriarty

doodlbug18 wrote: »

Don't be misled by the the headline 20MB speed that is quoted by UPC. On Cable networks this bandwidth is shared amongst all users in the neighbourhood. Hence the 20MB capacity can be shared between 400 or more users! You could be lucky and be in a neighbourhood where there are not too many others. You could also find performance ok at the start, before others sign up. It will only get worse as more users sign up.

... in theory. Claiming that cable has a 400:1 contention ratio is disingenuous to say the least. In practice with a HFC network like UPC's it's fairly trivial to deploy additional capacity to any part of the network which needs it. A properly managed cable network will easily outperform a properly managed phone network for broadband internet access.

doodlbug18 wrote: »

The real problem with Cable is that there is no spec - and it will only get worse as more users are added. Try asking UPC how many customers are connected to your cable system? I doubt they will tell you, but without this info, there is no point in expecting your 20MB speed to mean anything.

No DSL operator will tell you how many customers are connected to the DSLAM you're on either. They'll quote a contention ratio, but they won't tell you where that contention applies or what your effective contention ratio will be in practice.

doodlbug18 wrote: »

I would stick with DSL. You can save money by getting rid of NTL for TV - almost all channels are now available free-to-air on Satellite or Digital Terrestrial. I have never used NTL for Broadband - not available in my area - but I used to have them for TV, and the service and their "customer service" was dire.

If you're happy to pay an 8:1 premium on a meg for meg basis (20meg for €40, 3meg for €48.40) with no difference in quality, that's up to you. Personally, I don't like being gouged.

doodlbug18 wrote: »

Also - if you give up DSL, eircom may re-assign your cable to another customer. If you discover that UPC service is poor in a couple of years time, you may find there are no telephone cable pairs left - all allocated to other customers. You might regret this. The Boards are full of people moaning that they can't get a cable pair that supports DSL. You are lucky to have good DSL at the moment - don't give it up unless you are sure that you can get something better.

Yeah, let's ignore the elephant in the room: that you're trying to reserve your very expensive and very mediocre spot on a decaying network. If you cancel your eircom line they'll be so desperate for a clean pair that you'll never see one again! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!1

JDxtra

doodlbug18 wrote: »

Don't be misled by the the headline 20MB speed that is quoted by UPC. On Cable networks this bandwidth is shared amongst all users in the neighbourhood. Hence the 20MB capacity can be shared between 400 or more users! You could be lucky and be in a neighbourhood where there are not too many others. You could also find performance ok at the start, before others sign up. It will only get worse as more users sign up.

By comparison, DSL over your phone line guarantees you a dedicated cable pair all the way to the exchange. Depending on which product and supplier you choose, DSL can offer contention levels from 1:1 to max 48:1. On your product with eircom you should be getting 24:1 contention. Unlike UPC, the DSL providers state precisely what their contention rates are, and you will never exceed these rates. In practice, you usually get much better than the quoted rates. Moderate levels of contention (<50:1) should not be a problem on either DSL or Cable, but levels of 400:1 would be a major problem. The real problem with Cable is that there is no spec - and it will only get worse as more users are added. Try asking UPC how many customers are connected to your cable system? I doubt they will tell you, but without this info, there is no point in expecting your 20MB speed to mean anything.

I would stick with DSL. You can save money by getting rid of NTL for TV - almost all channels are now available free-to-air on Satellite or Digital Terrestrial. I have never used NTL for Broadband - not available in my area - but I used to have them for TV, and the service and their "customer service" was dire.

Also - if you give up DSL, eircom may re-assign your cable to another customer. If you discover that UPC service is poor in a couple of years time, you may find there are no telephone cable pairs left - all allocated to other customers. You might regret this. The Boards are full of people moaning that they can't get a cable pair that supports DSL. You are lucky to have good DSL at the moment - don't give it up unless you are sure that you can get something better.

NTL/UPC are a different company now, and are going after the market aggressively. I was like you and thought their products & customer service were dreadful and always slated them, but I do think they've turned a corner and are a changing company now.

I would not get too hung up about the potential contention on cable. It's just the serial uploaders / downloaders that cause problems on cable networks - and I don't think NTL are shy in throttling their connections.

...and I certainly would not hold back on changing just in case Eircom reassigned your telephone pair in a few years!! At the rate people are disconnecting, there will be plenty of capacity on their system soon.

watty

It's quite permissible to use Satellite (free or Sky) for TV, Mobile for phone and UPC/ NTL only for broadband

200 people on a cable segment is NOT 200:1. Cable has up to about 90 8MHz channels, certainly 60. EACH channel can be one Analogue TV, 12 digital TV channels (24 Digital TV channels if they switch to MPEG4) or a number of modems sharing over 40Mbps of data. So Engineered contention is actual capacity (a lot more than 20Mbps / (sum of users packages).

I don't see much future for Analogue TV on cable as users are added.

L31mr0d

OP, i'd just move to UPC, I moved to them last week and will never look back. Maybe if enough of us jump ship from BT and Eircom they might finally get their act together and start offering a decent service at reasonable prices. It seems like they are sitting on their hands like a lot of US ISP's, waiting to see which way the whole "net neutrality" argument pans out before piping optical cable into peoples homes.

UPC is a breath of fresh air in this quagmire of telecomms in Ireland at the moment. With everyone firmly sitting on top of Hotelling's law

kamin99

great info here lads, I'm really fed up paying top dollar for eircom where i can get 7 times the speed with UPC ,i have 2 laptops on a wirless network and a (Skype )wirless phone on same network as well ,would it be possible to operate all wirlessly using UPC cable modem!

Ciaran500

For anyone that has it how long did it take for UPC to set up their connection?

kamin99

Ciaran500 wrote: »

For anyone that has it how long did it take for UPC to set up their connection?

I just called them now and they said wedensday in malahide

AntiVirus

doodlbug18 wrote: »

Don't be misled by the the headline 20MB speed that is quoted by UPC. On Cable networks this bandwidth is shared amongst all users in the neighbourhood. Hence the 20MB capacity can be shared between 400 or more users! You could be lucky and be in a neighbourhood where there are not too many others. You could also find performance ok at the start, before others sign up. It will only get worse as more users sign up.

By comparison, DSL over your phone line guarantees you a dedicated cable pair all the way to the exchange. Depending on which product and supplier you choose, DSL can offer contention levels from 1:1 to max 48:1. On your product with eircom you should be getting 24:1 contention. Unlike UPC, the DSL providers state precisely what their contention rates are, and you will never exceed these rates. In practice, you usually get much better than the quoted rates. Moderate levels of contention (<50:1) should not be a problem on either DSL or Cable, but levels of 400:1 would be a major problem. The real problem with Cable is that there is no spec - and it will only get worse as more users are added. Try asking UPC how many customers are connected to your cable system? I doubt they will tell you, but without this info, there is no point in expecting your 20MB speed to mean anything.

I would stick with DSL. You can save money by getting rid of NTL for TV - almost all channels are now available free-to-air on Satellite or Digital Terrestrial. I have never used NTL for Broadband - not available in my area - but I used to have them for TV, and the service and their "customer service" was dire.

Also - if you give up DSL, eircom may re-assign your cable to another customer. If you discover that UPC service is poor in a couple of years time, you may find there are no telephone cable pairs left - all allocated to other customers. You might regret this. The Boards are full of people moaning that they can't get a cable pair that supports DSL. You are lucky to have good DSL at the moment - don't give it up unless you are sure that you can get something better.

By the time you can get these sorts of speed on eircon we'll be using jet packs instead of cars

kamin99

well lads i just signed up to UPC 20MB and goodby Slow Eircom .Happy Days

JDxtra

kamin99 wrote: »

great info here lads, I'm really fed up paying top dollar for eircom where i can get 7 times the speed with UPC ,i have 2 laptops on a wirless network and a (Skype )wirless phone on same network as well ,would it be possible to operate all wirlessly using UPC cable modem!

The top package comes with a free wireless router, so yes. Otherwise, you can pick up your own wireless router to plug into their modem cheaply enough.

kamin99

JDxtra wrote: »

The top package comes with a free wireless router, so yes. Otherwise, you can pick up your own wireless router to plug into their modem cheaply enough.

thanks roll over wendesday..

everdead.ie

doodlbug18 wrote: »

By comparison, DSL over your phone line guarantees you a dedicated cable pair all the way to the exchange. Depending on which product and supplier you choose, DSL can offer contention levels from 1:1 to max 48:1. On your product with eircom you should be getting 24:1 contention. Unlike UPC, the DSL providers state precisely what their contention rates are, and you will never exceed these rates. In practice, you usually get much better than the quoted rates. Moderate levels of contention (<50:1) should not be a problem on either DSL or Cable, but levels of 400:1 would be a major problem. The real problem with Cable is that there is no spec - and it will only get worse as more users are added. Try asking UPC how many customers are connected to your cable system? I doubt they will tell you, but without this info, there is no point in expecting your 20MB speed to mean anything.

ntl/chorus/upc have a 17:1 contention ratio compared to 48:1 for most 1mb products and 24:1 for most products over dsl. That said im not saying upc are the best their customer service is diabolical but the price point and higher speeds are hard to ignore. If the gov ever open up their fibre assets to isp's you could see speeds reaching 50mb/s max. this is presumming they fit fibre to the green boxes dotted around the place. When ntl switch off their analogue television stations we should see more upgrades in broadband speed. I know this is of topic so short answer yes take upc over eircom for now at least you can always switch back in 12 months if worst comes to worst. ........ Who do you work for doodlbug18 btw.

kamin99

Any idea what is UPC (DNS) numbers are in case i need to input them in my existing Router

stanley1

89.101.160.4

89.101.160.5

kamin99

stanley1 wrote: »

89.101.160.4

89.101.160.5

cheers Stanly1

Clover

kamin99 wrote: »

Any idea what is UPC (DNS) numbers are in case i need to input them in my existing Router

DNS Servers: 89.101.160.4 , 89.101.160.5 is what i'm getting from UPC.

Doh ! did not see Stanley1's post.

kamin99

Clover wrote: »

DNS Servers: 89.101.160.4 , 89.101.160.5 is what i'm getting from UPC.

Doh ! did not see Stanley1's post.

Thanks Clover

Freddie59

doodlbug18 wrote: »

Also - if you give up DSL, eircom may re-assign your cable to another customer.

Doesn't that say it all? Rationing of phone lines. How very 21st Century.:rolleyes: If you went from UPC to Eircom and back would your cable TV line be allocated to someone else? FFS.

dgently

Moriarty wrote: »

... in theory. Claiming that cable has a 400:1 contention ratio is disingenuous to say the least. <snip> A properly managed cable network will easily outperform a properly managed phone network for broadband internet access.

Can I gently suggest that you are countering one disingenous statement with another (ie proposing the notion of a cable BB service that is managed in the interests of existing customers). Surely you're not suggesting that earlier aggregation of cable customers is irrelevant to a decision?

In my opinion, cable broadband is good, and it can be very good. UPC's offer is a big step forward in the Irish market, but there is a reason why DSL still outsells cable in cities that have had high speed (>10Mb) cable for years.

IMHO, it is best considered at the standalone price. You may or may not consider their price for TV service to be good value. You may also question the value of the bundled fixed line service. Your current assessment may change in the short term if and when DTT comes to pass.

Their t's & c's (last page) disclaim the normal service guarantees associated with telephony service, instead pretending that their "digital telephone" service should be though of as a VoIP service. Enough said.

Time will tell how good they are at maintaining ISP service levels to a fast growing subscriber base. But for the moment, as a standalone broadband proposition, they have no competition.

If you're already a UPC customer, it's even more attractive.

Don't be too quick to write off DSL though.

DG. (Who works for a telco, but is trying to be balanced.)

Hank Scorpio

People seem to be writing off dsl alot
Well good for you if you can and live in a town/city thats supposed by cable.

But for the _MAJORITY_ were gona be stuck on either poor dsl, wireless or mobile broadband for the foreseeable future, me included (eircon)

Its not a arguement as to which is better its an arguement over what you can get.

Tar.Aldarion

You have the choice between eircom and tl, what are you doing on eircom!
Good luck with the switch.
Eircom also have ~25e line rental for the phone, ntl is either 10e or 4e based on the package. Don't know much about difference in call prices though.

paulm17781

Tara Le d'Arion wrote: »

You have the choice between eircom and tl, what are you doing on eircom!
Good luck with the switch.
Eircom also have ~25e line rental for the phone, ntl is either 10e or 4e based on the package. Don't know much about difference in call prices though.

But with UPC (ntl) you also need TV so it is fair to say the "rental" is more like 30 (is that what they charge now?) with TV or 6 without. Either way, I think in this country cable is and always has been the better product.