UPC - Before I Bite the Bullet...

pandamoanium

Ok, so in no small part thanks to you guys I think I'm gonna bite the bullet and sign up to a 12 month contract for the 10Mb package with UPC.

However before I commit myself for the next 12 months is there anything else I should know about them?

On trawling through the forum there appears to be a lot of posts of people having issues with them (or well NTL) is this still the case?

Their pricing for the 10Mb package is pretty good plus not having to pay line rental is a nice bonus also!

I'm thinking of getting rid of our landline altogether - if I do would I be able to use a Skype phone with UPC?

I'll be going for the DD option (Well that E3 per month is better in my pocket than theirs! ) Is there still issues with billing with UPC?

So, as they say guys... Speak now or forever hold your silence before I take the plunge!

Thanks!

Oooh.... and one more thing! Anyone know roughly how long they take to get you connected from the time you place an order?

Ranicand

pandamoanium wrote: »

Ok, so in no small part thanks to you guys I think I'm gonna bite the bullet and sign up to a 12 month contract for the 10Mb package with UPC.

However before I commit myself for the next 12 months is there anything else I should know about them?

On trawling through the forum there appears to be a lot of posts of people having issues with them (or well NTL) is this still the case?

Their pricing for the 10Mb package is pretty good plus not having to pay line rental is a nice bonus also!

I'm thinking of getting rid of our landline altogether - if I do would I be able to use a Skype phone with UPC?

I'll be going for the DD option (Well that E3 per month is better in my pocket than theirs! ) Is there still issues with billing with UPC?

So, as they say guys... Speak now or forever hold your silence before I take the plunge!

Thanks!

Oooh.... and one more thing! Anyone know roughly how long they take to get you connected from the time you place an order?

UPC service is very good they had a problem with high ping times for about a week which they fixed in the end.

High ping times are a disaster for games so it was a major pain.

As regards phone UPC are good but unlike Eircom if the power goes so does your phone.

As regards Skype it will work fine but the audio quality on the UPC phone service will be much better and 400 mins of international calls is included in their anytime package at 18 euro per month might be worth a look.
That is 5 euro for the phone service and 13 euro for the anytime package total 18 euro.

I have had their phone package a year and never any issue.

darraghn

I'm very happy with the 20Mb service. There are occasional speed and ping issues but I have only lost service once (in 4 years) for a few hours. I have dumped my landline and use Blueface for telephone. Cheaper for me than UPC's phone package and now only €10 to transfer your phone number to Blueface.

I have no connection to either company - other than as a customer.

vibe666

they used to be brutal as a company to be a customer of (had tv with ntl and then with chorus before upc took over and many nightmwares with both companies) but just recently they've improved a lot imho. i used to be a heter, but i'm starting to come round just recently.

i'm not saying they're perfect, anyone spending much time here will see that there are still problems, but the % of those types of issues seems to have dropped quite a bit over what they used to have.

i had some minor problems with the phone service a whiole ago, with it not ringing on incoming calls sometimes, but i called them and they sorted it out very quickly.

i was a very unhappy ntl customer twice and a very unhappy chorus customer once, all due to necessity of them being my only option.

i came to upc as a broadband and phone customer voluntarily and i have to say, despite a large part of me not wanting to say it publicly (or privately) i'm actually a pretty happy upc customer with very little to complain about.

oq4v3ht0u76kf2

I'm also thinking of getting UPC broadband but I would like to keep my existing Eircom broadband as well - at least for a couple of months so I can be sure I'm happy with UPC.

Is this possible?

bk

Cason Dazzling Bowling wrote: »

I'm also thinking of getting UPC broadband but I would like to keep my existing Eircom broadband as well - at least for a couple of months so I can be sure I'm happy with UPC.

Is this possible?

Yes, UPC BB and phone comes in over the TV cable and has nothing to do with the Eircom phone line. You'll just ned to pay for both at the same time.

Chris_533976

I've been with them for a year and its been down once, for four hours. No ping issues at all. Speeds arent 20mb all the time, thats the only thing. But in general internetting (and not a speedtest session) you wont notice as often its the server or other connections slowing things down, and not UPC.

Stevek101

Don't forget the speed increase by the end of the year!

pandamoanium

Hi all,

Thanks so much for the replies - they're most helpful!

I was about to place an order with them yesterday however I then came across the P2P Mega-thread and reading through it all it seems there were (are?) a lot of disgruntled customers who found that UPC were throttling their torrents and P2P applications - is this still the case?

Part of the reason for going with the 10Mb package is to take advantage of somewhat decent speeds for P2P however it now appears that UPC may be the worst ISP to go with for this?

How do all of you find UPC re: torrents etc...?

Btw, Stevek101 didn't know about any increases due towards the end of the year so that would be a nice bonus!

Don't suppose you have a link re: this so I could have a little read up on?

Thanks again everyone!

Still in two minds now after reading about the throttling... aaaaghh!

Ranicand

pandamoanium wrote: »

Hi all,

Thanks so much for the replies - they're most helpful!

I was about to place an order with them yesterday however I then came across the P2P Mega-thread and reading through it all it seems there were (are?) a lot of disgruntled customers who found that UPC were throttling their torrents and P2P applications - is this still the case?

Part of the reason for going with the 10Mb package is to take advantage of somewhat decent speeds for P2P however it now appears that UPC may be the worst ISP to go with for this?

How do all of you find UPC re: torrents etc...?

Btw, Stevek101 didn't know about any increases due towards the end of the year so that would be a nice bonus!

Don't suppose you have a link re: this so I could have a little read up on?

Thanks again everyone!

Still in two minds now after reading about the throttling... aaaaghh!

I don't think this is an issue anymore I have no problems with The Pirate Bay all legal stuff however:D.

darraghn

I get good speeds on torrents. There are a lot of other factors with torrents that people don't really understand, Port Forwarding, Upload Speed, Number of Seeders, Router Limitations etc. If you take the time to read through forums such as these you will get decent speeds. However, Usenet is even better. I can max out my 20Mb connection with Astraweb...Very handy for dowloading new Linux releases :D

vibe666

darraghn wrote: »

I get good speeds on torrents. There are a lot of other factors with torrents that people don't really understand, Port Forwarding, Upload Speed, Number of Seeders, Router Limitations etc. If you take the time to read through forums such as these you will get decent speeds. However, Usenet is even better. I can max out my 20Mb connection with Astraweb...Very handy for dowloading new Linux releases :D

i'll second that.

i'm pretty sure now that my speed problems with torrents could have been contention related, but it was only happening in the evenings anyway so it wasn't even a real issue as every other time i have always gotten good speeds on torrents.

if you look at the last page (page 53 if you have the default post number setting) i posted in there about using an opensolaris iso as a good test of your speed, i was able to max out my connection downloading that particular (well seeded) torrent on it's own and anyone else should be able to as well.

i was torrenting last night and my torrents peaked (using public trackers, so not particularly well seeded) at 5282.17 kbit/s (644.80 KB/s) at around 9:45pm, so even if UPC have been throttling in the past, they do not appear to be doing so now.

dub45

pandamoanium wrote: »

Ok, so in no small part thanks to you guys I think I'm gonna bite the bullet and sign up to a 12 month contract for the 10Mb package with UPC.

However before I commit myself for the next 12 months is there anything else I should know about them?

........................

I'll be going for the DD option (Well that E3 per month is better in my pocket than theirs! ) Is there still issues with billing with UPC?

So, as they say guys... Speak now or forever hold your silence before I take the plunge!

Thanks!

Oooh.... and one more thing! Anyone know roughly how long they take to get you connected from the time you place an order?

This is not strictly a billing issue but if you miss your dd payment UPC (like a number of other companies) will charge you a 'fee' of €12.50! This is particularly galling in a number of ways. Firstly they certainly don't afaik bring this to your attention when you are signing the direct debit mandate.

Secondly every time you pay your two monthly bill you are paying them in advance thereby contributing to a huge interest free loan which they get from their customers every billing period. So to 'charge' a customer a so called late fee when that payment is for services not yet provided is really pushing it as far as I am concerned. (By the way your bank will also charge you a fee if you miss a direct debit payment).

As UPC have over 500,000 customers if say 1/10 miss a direct debit payment - not unlikely in the current economic climate - UPC could be making over €500,000 per billing period for absolutely nothing.

jocko4

I'm trying to research dropping BT Broadband + phone and moving it all to UPC broadband. My question is how best to get phone service - Blueface or UPC phone?

I've looked at both but like all these packages there are so many options it gets confusing - can anyone, who has trodden this path before, simplify it for me and advise me on any gotchas that I might miss or are hidden in the details (lose phone if power goes, etc)

bk

jocko4 wrote: »

I've looked at both but like all these packages there are so many options it gets confusing - can anyone, who has trodden this path before, simplify it for me and advise me on any gotchas that I might miss or are hidden in the details (lose phone if power goes, etc)

Well it depends on exactly what you want.

First both services won't work if the power goes out.

UPC will give you a free cordless phone with the service, for Blueface you will need to buy an ATA or IP phone starting from €59.

Then it depends on what type of calls you make, do you make a lot of landline calls? what about international landline calls? do you make calls weekdays or just evening and weekends?

UPC is probably the cheaper and easier option unless you make lots of international calls.

jocko4

Thanks BK,
My daughter just bought me an nice Panasonic cordless phone set with 3 handsets & I want to use it (to keep her happy as much as anything). I think I need an ATA to use this? I'll be going 10mb B/B so UPC provide one, free of charge, don't they - but you have to buy the Blueface one?

B/B + Phone on UPC = 50/mth (Free ATA)
BUT if I go B/B only on UPC = cost 32/mth - buy ATA (85) - pay as you go
Difference of 18 euro/mth

SO I guess the question is do I make more than 18 euro worth of calls a month?

Most calls are either local or to mobiles.

Edit: Looking at the bill most calls are to mobiles - is there any diff in charges to mobiles between UPC & Blueface?