UPC offering 30Mbps broadband and problems with upgrade

John2009

If its at all possible try and ring tech support early in the day i'd say they are getting swamped in the evenings with calls from angry customers,
i'm not working at the moment so my calls were all during the early afternoon and the longest i was on hold was maybe 2-3 minutes.

Will your line and speeds make a miracolous recovery after 12am, i myself for awhile thought that they were traffic shaping or delibrately turning peoples speeds down low because at 11:30pm i'd be getting crap speedtest results of about 6 or 7meg and then about 12:30am or so it would double to around 14 or 15meg and give it till 2am and i'd be up to 25meg, it was frustrating at the time.

belmulletman

Anyone Else around D8 / The Coombe having problems today?
I know it's been a bit flakey since the "upgrade" but today, i'm not getting anything about 4mb!
like it's a constant 4mb... a solid 4mb connection! it's weird.
All was Ok-ish up till yesterday, but today... not matter what I do, nothing above that speed.

I was on to Customer Support, they couldn't see any wrong... hmmm.

FloatingVoter

belmulletman wrote: »

Anyone Else around D8 / The Coombe having problems today?
I know it's been a bit flakey since the "upgrade" but today, i'm not getting anything about 4mb!
like it's a constant 4mb... a solid 4mb connection! it's weird.
All was Ok-ish up till yesterday, but today... not matter what I do, nothing above that speed.

I was on to Customer Support, they couldn't see any wrong... hmmm.

I'm off Cork Street, Dublin 8 (beside Lidl). Heres what I'm getting (20 Mbs line)


It must be very localised in your case.

belmulletman

FloatingVoter wrote: »

I'm off Cork Street, Dublin 8 (beside Lidl). Heres what I'm getting (20 Mbs line)


It must be very localised in your case.

GAWD DAM IT!
Confused is right!
I've changed no settings, Moved nothing, just woke up this morning and it's like this... VERY Annoyong!

FloatingVoter

belmulletman wrote: »

GAWD DAM IT!
Confused is right!
I've changed no settings, Moved nothing, just woke up this morning and it's like this... VERY Annoyong!

If its any consolation, in the past I've had crap speeds while the Coombe proper was speeding away. Even though we're obviously inside a half mile of each other, we could be on two separate nodes.
Also, did you apply for the "upgrade" ?...because I certainly didn't.

belmulletman

FloatingVoter wrote: »

If its any consolation, in the past I've had crap speeds while the Coombe proper was speeding away. Even though we're obviously inside a half mile of each other, we could be on two separate nodes.
Also, did you apply for the "upgrade" ?...because I certainly didn't.

Yep...
I applied! I got it good. Was getting 26-30mbps down and 3mbps up, with it dropping to 15-20 at peak times!
Normally, at this time of day (I'm remote connected into my PC), I get the full whack, but not today.
The weird thing is the stability of the connection. Like, Normally after a reset, the speed fluctuates a bit, but today it's a ROCK SOLID 4200kbps connection with very little play in it!
It HAS to be something on UPC's end! Hopefully they do a bit of looking around and see what they can find out. I'll call again tomorrow and see if it's still like this.

FloatingVoter

Dum_Dum wrote: »

Looks like I've just been upgraded because my speed has dropped.

That should become the motto of this thread. Is there any way of NOT getting "upgraded" ?

belmulletman

FloatingVoter wrote: »

That should become the motto of this thread. Is there any way of NOT getting "upgraded" ?

HAHAHA... SOO True.
OH MY GOD!
I bet I know what's happened. They've done the AutoUpgrade and F'd it up for those of us who manually upgraded!
I'm gonna phone him back in a while and see what the deal-e-o is!

FloatingVoter

Just got this speed....:cool:

and we're back to normal...


They must be screwing about with the network around Cork St. area.

belmulletman

FloatingVoter wrote: »

Just got this speed....:cool:

and we're back to normal...


They must be screwing about with the network around Cork St. area.

55mbps... NICE... I'm gonna log back in now and check again

belmulletman

Hmmm... the puzzle gets a little more confusing, but at least I now know my connection is ok!

(ignore the Upload speed, I was remotely connected in and that uses my Upload speed).

heres the PingTest Results:


That result was taken from another machine on my network.
Both machines are hooked via ethernet into an Airport Extreme which in turn is hooked into one of the Modem Ports, so both in the same Modem Port.

Now the PC can only get 4mbps, but the MacMini can get 27mbps! WEIRD.
I've rebooted EVERYTHING and nothing. Will have to pull the power on the lot later tonight and see if that sorts things out, but at least I know my UPC connection is all good and I can see watch my SkyPlayer stuff!

I have to say, the guys on the phone in Tech Support were very good. Didn't try and BS me once they realized I knew what I was talking about, and they honestly said that If they could see a problem with the actual connection they'd say, but according to their system, everything is fine on my end.
So that just leaves the Windows PC to be the Problem. I've got a nice copy of Win7 Ultimate (legit version as well) lying about, my take the time and actually upgrade now!

Cheers for the feed back FloatingVoter, it was very much appreciated!

FloatingVoter

You're welcome. Good luck.

Edit: that 54 Mbs download came after I reset the modem / router etc. I was checking to see if the auto-upgrade had kicked in yet. So maybe a full reset is the answer to your 4 Mbs probs ?

rogue-entity

I rang them yesterday when I found out about the speed-increases and they're not auto-upgrading anyone until April-May, new customers get the speeds right off, the rest of us plebs have to request it through the website.

Now.. I was on 20Mbit.. and during the day.. SpeedTest results would vary between 10 and 15Mbit. Offpeak.. I'd get between 18 and 19Mbit. Downloads from US servers was typically 600K during those times.. and spot-on 2.5MB/sec if I tried the same downloads in the early hours of the morning. Downloads from HEAnet would average around 1-1.5MB/sec (never tried it in the wee hours of the morning though).
I applied for, and got the 30/3 upgrade and so far there is little difference performance. Downloads from US servers are averaging 400-500K.
SpeedTest generally reports between 11 and 15Mbit.
Downloads from HEAnet don't go above 2MB/sec, averaging at 1.8MB/sec.

I'm normally a night-owl, so I'm usually always online between 2am-5am. I'll run those tests again and see. If I get close to the full 30 and see a noticable improvement in upload speeds.. I'd say case-closed. If not, I'll politely tell them to do something about it.

Generally speaking, I've not found any ISP that can offer more than half of it's advertised speeds on a given package during 'peak hours' (roughly 5pm-11pm) when everyone's using it.. contention on Cable broadband often being a lot worse than DSL too.

Maj Malfunction

I'm with eircom at the moment however have had issues with them in past with respect to the service they provide.

What is UPC's cable broadband offering like? Good, Bad, Indifferent or run a mile?

I normally use the internet for gaming and downloading so low high and high speed is important, can UPC deliver on that front & when things go wrong what's the customer service like? In the past they used to be s**te is that still the case?

dub45

Maj Malfunction wrote: »

I'm with eircom at the moment however have had issues with them in past with respect to the service they provide.

What is UPC's cable broadband offering like? Good, Bad, Indifferent or run a mile?

I normally use the internet for gaming and downloading so low high and high speed is important, can UPC deliver on that front & when things go wrong what's the customer service like? In the past they used to be s**te is that still the case?

Can you not read?:rolleyes:

AnimalRights

I only stumbled onto the UPC website yesterday and discovered the free upgrade which they don't tell you about!
I phoned up and I was told that a new 12 month contract starts if I want it, I know I read earlier in this thread (I only got to page 5 or so!) that from March that shouldn't apply....anyway I went ahead, got the increase less then 24 hours later.



B4 the upgrade I was always a steady 17-18 d/l and 1.35 ish upload speed on the 20mb/1.5 package, wether peak or non peak times, I live in town, Dublin 1.
I'm chuffed at the upload now at over 3, I use upload a lot for upping videos/torrents and batches of Photographs.

Chris_5339762

Anyone any word on when the 'general' 30mb upgrade will happen? Cant do a new 12 month contract so anxiously waiting for the free speed boost

TheDoc

Man my upc being dropping frequently and randomly last two days, so annoying

FloatingVoter

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Anyone any word on when the 'general' 30mb upgrade will happen? Cant do a new 12 month contract so anxiously waiting for the free speed boost

Someone said earlier in this thread it was being held back until April. Whatever is true.. the "free speed boost" might well be a speed drop if upc are true to form.

huggs2

FloatingVoter wrote: »

Someone said earlier in this thread it was being held back until April. Whatever is true.. the "free speed boost" might well be a speed drop if upc are true to form.

I agreed to extend my contract for another 12 months so i could go from 10 to 15megs. and like you say it was a speed drop since then.Early one morning last week i got 18.5 megs down and less than 1 meg up.(should be 1.5 megs up)
Anytime its busy it drops way down. Obviously a contention issue.Beats me why upc cant make sure they have enough bandwidth before they offer upgrades?:(

Also my ping used to be 26.

jos22

my 20mb line in waterford is






what speeds are others in Waterford getting.

TheDoc

interesting problem.

My pc keeps discing from the net, keeps dropping, for about 5 seconds then back up, however ive got an ipod touch running wireless that never drops.

Freaked out beyond belief

FloatingVoter

TheDoc wrote: »

interesting problem.

My pc keeps discing from the net, keeps dropping, for about 5 seconds then back up, however ive got an ipod touch running wireless that never drops.

Freaked out beyond belief

More about that here....

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055827236

hightower1

TheDoc wrote: »

interesting problem.

My pc keeps discing from the net, keeps dropping, for about 5 seconds then back up, however ive got an ipod touch running wireless that never drops.

Freaked out beyond belief

hey doc, i'd say cause both devices are using the same wifi signal if that signal was dropping both devices dependent on it would drop, try installing or re installing the wifi driver on your comp.

cbr900

I have now reverted back to 15mb from 30mb and receiving credit to my account for this sham of an "upgrade"

Dirr-Durr

Online Upgrade here: http://www.upc.ie/about_us/Price_Changes/Speed_Changes/

KenH

Hi. I just upgraded to UPC 15mb broadband. They didn't ship out a wireless adapter for my desktop so I had to use my laptop wireless. It worked great.....12mb/s....not too shabby. Then the scientific atlantic/cisco usb adapter came for my desktop. I installed the software and plugged it in.......0.5mb/s. What the!!?!?

Long story short, I finally fixed it with new drivers I got off the net.....now my desktop is up to 14.5mb/s. The drivers were the problem. Maybe this will help others. My adapter is the RT73 model and I can send/post the working driver should it be requested.

PhilKearney

I have been using Eircom Broadband for about 2-3 years now I am on the 3mb down and 384k up, anyways as everyone knows they suck now so i want to move on to UPC. Can people give me a simplified " They are good, Connection for Broadband is good etc" I dont care about tv. I just want to play games online without bad ping.

Also i noticed on the site it says for the 5mb package "No Free Wireless Router" This means you will have to get your own router or will they send you out a router that has not got Wireless Connection on it?

el dude

How reliable are those speed tests on speedtest.net? I ask because i regularly, always even, am able to max out my 20MB connection whenever i download something from rapidshare. Yet speedtest.net might tell me i'm only getting 11MB down.

the_law

I find speedtest.net pretty accurate. Most antivirus interferes with it if it's set to scan data in and out - that can give you artificially high results.

With disabled antivirus and clean network settings, it'll be as accurate as speedtests can be - they're only an indication of the speed available between you and their server, the rest of the internet could be a different story.

However, has anyone else here got a letter from UPC offering to discount the broadband by 50% for two months (so it's effectively a month free) in light of the issues?

Personally, I am receiving at least 50% of the service, ss happy to pay 50%. I'm quite glad of the wording of the letter - it's basically 'here's a discount while we sort it out'. Which sets a nice precedent - they can keep giving me a discount until they do sort it!

I am mystified by how it is taking so long to sort. The problem in my area is now that the new UBR has issues with DCC - or moving modems around channels to balance load. As first installed, it didn't work - then it did work - now it doesn't again. It's probably something to do with the various different generations of CPE on the network - what works for my SciA modem probably screws up someone else.