Need broadband asap, who's the quickest?

Liquid155

I'm living in the Dublin 14 area and I need broadband hooked up as soon as possible. Looking at Vodafone, Eircom and Chorus NTL (Though not sure if it's available in my area) and am wondering who will do it the quickest, anyone have any experience with these companies? Particularly in Dublin?

I have to get a guy from Eircom in to reconnect/reactivate the phoneline. Would the quickest way be to get broadband with Eircom aswell?

egan007

you could get Metero 3G Broadband to go off the shelf and start using it today. Of course you would have to be in a 3G area

http://www.meteor.ie/plans/coverage/

jor el

3G is not broadband, especially from Meteor given their patchy 3G coverage, and should be a last resort after ruling everything else out.

UPC would probably be the quickest, if it's available. Avoid eircom, problems, censoring, etc all make them quite poor right now, not to mention they are the most expensive.

If you get the line activated, you'll need your UAN to apply for any other provider, so you're basically looking at 2-3 weeks of a delay before it will be active. If you stick with eircom for the lot, you're still looking at up to 2 weeks.

Liquid155

The Eircom package I was looking at was actually cheaper than the Vodafone one, what exactly are the problems with Eircom? I heard they were blocking access to Pirate Bay, have things gotten worse?

EDIT: Also, my parents would have an account number. Would it be possible to get the line activated and use their account number instead of waiting for Eircom to send out another one?

jor el

Liquid155 wrote: »

The Eircom package I was looking at was actually cheaper than the Vodafone one, what exactly are the problems with Eircom? I heard they were blocking access to Pirate Bay, have things gotten worse?

Check out the stickies at the top of the forum. They've had severe DNS issues lately.

Liquid155 wrote: »

EDIT: Also, my parents would have an account number. Would it be possible to get the line activated and use their account number instead of waiting for Eircom to send out another one?

If you want broadband on your parents phone line, then yes, that's fine. If you want it on your own line though, you'll need your account number.

hobochris

Liquid155 wrote: »

The Eircom package I was looking at was actually cheaper than the Vodafone one, what exactly are the problems with Eircom? I heard they were blocking access to Pirate Bay, have things gotten worse?

EDIT: Also, my parents would have an account number. Would it be possible to get the line activated and use their account number instead of waiting for Eircom to send out another one?

To put in bluntly, they are a crap isp, Speeds are very slow in comparison to others(in fact they are crap),contention seems to be high on their exchanges, DNS issues happen frequently as do unexplained service issues(often resulting in lack of service) and then on top of that they charge you the same as a Decent Isp offering a superior connection.

Oh and then there is also the censorship they're bringing in.

Take your pick.

ISPs I would look into if I were you are : Magnet,Digiweb, Irish Broadband, Chorus/ntl.

Liquid155

Thanks for the help guys. When I get the phone line reactivated/reconnected, will I have to start paying line rental to eircom on top of whatever broadband service I get?

EDIT: Looking at the 10Mb UPC offer it says there's no phone line required O,o can anyone explain this to me?

jor el

You need UPC cable. If that's not available in your area, then you can't get it. Digiweb Metro and Imagine Breeze are also worth considering. Wireless, no phone needed.

If you activate the line, you start paying rental to eircom straight away. If you port to another provider for broadband, you'll either pay the rental to them, or continue paying eircom. Either way, it has to be paid, and eircom get it.

Liquid155

Thanks for the help Jor El, I'm sure these are the sort of things that get asked every day, I just happen to be quite clueless

If that's the case with line rental, then Vodafone seems like the best choice since it's €48 a month including line rental. How exactly does cable work? There's 3 of us in the house who all want broadband.

egan007

jor el wrote: »

3G is not broadband

Correction - 3G is broadband. 3G supports up to 14.4 Mbit /s making it a good contender for the broadband tag. I already pointed out that coverage is required.

jor el

Liquid155 wrote: »

If that's the case with line rental, then Vodafone seems like the best choice since it's €48 a month including line rental. How exactly does cable work? There's 3 of us in the house who all want broadband.

You just need a router, with Wifi is probably best. All ISPs provide them, often free. UPC give a free router with the 10 or 20Mbs product. You'll have to check availability with UPC.

egan007 wrote: »

Correction - 3G is broadband. 3G supports up to 14.4 Mbit /s making it a good contender for the broadband tag. I already pointed out that coverage is required.

Maximum possible speed to a single user at the centre of the cell doesn't make it broadband. 14.4Mbps is only available to a very few areas yet, and even then that's the total speed of the entire cell, not per individual user. 3G is not, and never will be, broadband.

egan007

jor el wrote: »

Maximum possible speed to a single user at the centre of the cell doesn't make it broadband. 14.4Mbps is only available to a very few areas yet, and even then that's the total speed of the entire cell, not per individual user. 3G is not, and never will be, broadband.

Be as technical as you want but the problem is that by 'broadband's' loose definition that speed does allow it to qualify. If there was any doubt then the very obvious Broadband advertising by Meteor http://www.meteor.ie/bbtg

Now if we were saying that 3G is not equivalent DSL or ADSL then you would be correct.

Liquid155

So if I go with somewhere like UPC will I still need an account number from Eircom? And if I do, can I get one without paying them €120 to come in and reconnect me? -_-'

DingDong

Liquid155 wrote: »

So if I go with somewhere like UPC will I still need an account number from Eircom? And if I do, can I get one without paying them €120 to come in and reconnect me? -_-'

UPC don't use phone line like eircom so you won't need an UAN. You can order online its free installation or order over the phone which will probably get you a faster install usually about a week but cost 30 euro if I remember correctly.

Jumpy

egan007 wrote: »

Be as technical as you want but the problem is that by 'broadband's' loose definition that speed does allow it to qualify. If there was any doubt then the very obvious Broadband advertising by Meteor http://www.meteor.ie/bbtg

Now if we were saying that 3G is not equivalent DSL or ADSL then you would be correct.

There is a reason that Boards has a Midband forum.
Dont try to argue whether 3G is broadband, its all been done before. Post it in Midband.

jor el

egan007 wrote: »

Be as technical as you want but the problem is that by 'broadband's' loose definition that speed does allow it to qualify. If there was any doubt then the very obvious Broadband advertising by Meteor http://www.meteor.ie/bbtg

Advertising can say what it wants. 3G is not always on, has uncontrolled contention, minimum speed guarantee is zero, connection not at all guaranteed, latency between 150ms-1000ms, with 200ms being typical. All of this means it's not broadband. Quoting the max speed for a single user at the centre of a cell is meaningless marketing nonsense.

The problem is that the definition of broadband is ignored by mobile operators, the ASAI, Comreg, government and pretty much anyone that should not be allowed to ignore it.

Liquid155

What exactly do Digiweb mean by 'Traffic Quota'? Is it the combined Download/Upload quota?

Would using VoIP or streaming videos affect it?

Liquid155

Also, would streaming videos and voip count towards the download limit? O,o

jor el

Quota is your usage limit, and it's down/up combined. Everything counts. VOIP would use very little, video will depend on the quality.