Best broadband without paying line rental?

Rob113

Currently have Perlico 3mb which has always worked perfectly. Problem is its costing me €50 per month as part of a phone bundle. Im in the house on my own most of the time and rarely if ever use the landline.

Are there any decent alternatives out there that would give consistent speeds of 2-3mb that dont need a phone line.

Im really just looking to cut the cost of the phone and line rental if at all possible.

I had Vodafone and O2 mobile broadband before and didnt find either much use as performance lagged quite a bit at different times in the day - contention issues i reckon.

Currently living in laois if that helps.

evolutionqy7

got ntl 11mb broandband w/o limit + Cable tv...57 a month i think.
speed is always around 16 mbps though...sucky upload speed though 1.5 :mad: otherwise to that its perfect...lol at paying 50 quid for 3 mb

Rob113

I'll give you another laugh then. Just ran a Speedtest.net -

Current speeds -

Download - 0.91mbps
Upload - 0.19mbps

Are NTL the same asUPC? Slightly off topic but i had their Digital TV when i first moved into the house 4yrs ago and had to get rid because the screen kept freezing. Signal was shocking bad.

Have they improved. Did i hear all there data comes in through the phoneline now?

gav240

i have perlico 3mb in Co. Clare with phone bundle my god tis ****e. if i had decent broadband i'd get my local calls through skype.

i had Eircom on the phone the other day...... we can offer you 7mb broadband. ha ha ha what a laugh i said to the man on the phone what makes you think my broadband will be better than the quality i'm getting with perlico now, since ye provide the line. oh i will have to get on to the technical department...............................

watty

Fibre, UPC cable or Digiweb Metro

I've not paid Line Rental since Dec 2005

thebman

Rob113 wrote: »

Currently have Perlico 3mb which has always worked perfectly. Problem is its costing me €50 per month as part of a phone bundle. Im in the house on my own most of the time and rarely if ever use the landline.

Are there any decent alternatives out there that would give consistent speeds of 2-3mb that dont need a phone line.

Im really just looking to cut the cost of the phone and line rental if at all possible.

I had Vodafone and O2 mobile broadband before and didnt find either much use as performance lagged quite a bit at different times in the day - contention issues i reckon.

Currently living in laois if that helps.

I use Digiweb fixed wireless Metro service.

Its great except for the crummy caps on the service IMO. For the 35 or 40 euro a month, I get an 8Mbps connection which rarely gets contended and is always good enough for me to download stuff with. The lowest download speed I ever get is about 50KBytes which I suspect is a server side limit in those cases.

I am limited to 30GB a month though which makes the 8Mbps pretty much useless as I can't take advanatage of it or I'll go over the cap which they do enforce They don't charge for going over (mobile BB is terrible for that BTW) but they do restrict service to a barely usable 20kbps until you go back under the cap.

I play games online most of the time though and find that I can always play online with ping times to server regularly of 20ms which is stable and great. This means it will be great for VOIP if you wish to use Skype or another service to replace your landline phone if you want to use it.

Overall I'm reasonably satisfied with it but the cap means I can't stay on the service much longer. Thinking of getting a landline or UPC to replace it when they become available in my area. If your not going to use more than 30GB a month then I'd recommend them.

Rob113

thebman wrote: »

I use Digiweb fixed wireless Metro service.

Its great except for the crummy caps on the service IMO. For the 35 or 40 euro a month, I get an 8Mbps connection which rarely gets contended and is always good enough for me to download stuff with. The lowest download speed I ever get is about 50KBytes which I suspect is a server side limit in those cases.

I am limited to 30GB a month though which makes the 8Mbps pretty much useless as I can't take advanatage of it or I'll go over the cap which they do enforce They don't charge for going over (mobile BB is terrible for that BTW) but they do restrict service to a barely usable 20kbps until you go back under the cap.

I play games online most of the time though and find that I can always play online with ping times to server regularly of 20ms which is stable and great. This means it will be great for VOIP if you wish to use Skype or another service to replace your landline phone if you want to use it.

Overall I'm reasonably satisfied with it but the cap means I can't stay on the service much longer. Thinking of getting a landline or UPC to replace it when they become available in my area. If your not going to use more than 30GB a month then I'd recommend them.

Thanks for that bman. Just looked them up and they are in my area. I might give them a call in the morning. The 3mb for €29.95 pm would do me fine i reckon. I dont be down loading much in anyway. I would stream a good few matches though and was thinking of getting rid of the sports channels also. Does this class as downloading and would that eat into yourlimit?

thebman

Rob113 wrote: »

Thanks for that bman. Just looked them up and they are in my area. I might give them a call in the morning. The 3mb for €29.95 pm would do me fine i reckon. I dont be down loading much in anyway. I would stream a good few matches though and was thinking of getting rid of the sports channels also. Does this class as downloading and would that eat into yourlimit?

yeah everything is included in download and the cap includes uploads aswell so its 30GB total for my package. Streaming is downloading, it just goes to temporary space on your hard drive and gets deleted afterwards.

They don't restrict you at exactly 30GB though, they give you a few gigs extra I'm guessing in case their data counting is off slightly.

watty

The Metro cap basically means no video watching.

Jimmyireland

What about this new Imagine Wimax product......any one got any experiences of it

evolutionqy7

Rob113 wrote: »

I'll give you another laugh then. Just ran a Speedtest.net -

Current speeds -

Download - 0.91mbps
Upload - 0.19mbps

Are NTL the same asUPC? Slightly off topic but i had their Digital TV when i first moved into the house 4yrs ago and had to get rid because the screen kept freezing. Signal was shocking bad.

Have they improved. Did i hear all there data comes in through the phoneline now?

well it does sometimes...you just ring up customer care and they sort it out...but like it freezes for a sec every hour or so other than that its grand

foxinsox

watty wrote: »

Fibre, UPC cable or Digiweb Metro

I've not paid Line Rental since Dec 2005

watty,

can you please elaborate? No line rental = no landline?
how much does that ^ cost you monthly?

thanks

Tusky

foxinsox wrote: »

watty,

can you please elaborate? No line rental = no landline?
how much does that ^ cost you monthly?

thanks

I assume hes on digiweb metro 8mb, which is 39.99 per month.

evolutionqy7

i got ntl = upc http://www.upc.ie/tvandbroadband/option3/ 57 a month



that was a speed test while torrent was running @ dl 385kbps and up 75kbps pretty good

no line rental cause it comes through copper cable the same one u use for cable TV

broadband wise i never recieve low speeds...when i had 3 mpbs broadband sometimes lag would be horrible but with 15 mbps hadnt had one lag since they upgraded the house to 15 mbps due to exceeding download limit

Rob113

Not sure how accurate this is but i checked Perlico to see what download limit i had with my current BB - 36gb.

According to their website that enables me to do the following -


36GB Download Limit

Downloading music files (i.e. MP3, WMA) - 1440 tracks
Streaming videos from sites such as YouTube - 36 hours
Online gaming on PC or consoles - 50 hours
Downloading films from sites such as LoveFilm or 4oD - 28 films
Sending and receiving photos from sites such as Flickr - 1100 images
Listening to streaming web radio - 72 hours


I dont think i have ever exceeded that or even come close. I have the broadband on 2 - 3hrs per day max.

I reckon the 30gb limit would do me fine.

Of the people who use it do you find it a good service. Anyone in the midlands (Laois specifically) use it?

thebman

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

i got ntl = upc http://www.upc.ie/tvandbroadband/option3/ 57 a month



that was a speed test while torrent was running @ dl 385kbps and up 75kbps pretty good

no line rental cause it comes through copper cable the same one u use for cable TV

broadband wise i never recieve low speeds...when i had 3 mpbs broadband sometimes lag would be horrible but with 15 mbps hadnt had one lag since they upgraded the house to 15 mbps due to exceeding download limit

UPC are great if the service is good but aren't great in all areas since last upgrade, see thread on it somewhere around here

ada4347

i hav vodafone modem 5gb cap i only use bout 2.5gb so i dont mind digiweb's cap but is de service good thats all i wanna know..

thebman

ada4347 wrote: »

i hav vodafone modem 5gb cap i only use bout 2.5gb so i dont mind digiweb's cap but is de service good thats all i wanna know..

Service is fine as I've said. It will depend on your area so see if there is anyone else in your area using it.

Usually what I find with Digiweb's products is they are a little more expensive than their competitors but they actually give a decent product as opposed to most of the people charging less than them.

Have had them over a year with little problems other than the cap. For 40 euro a month, I expect about a 80GB-120GB cap which is why I think I'm going to have to move from them.

What annoyed me most was when they increased the speed and charged more but didn't move the cap which was the same as not giving anything and asking for more money really as most people don't use 8Mbps especially with a 30GB cap. It was a cheap move IMO and they just want to make the speeds look better to people that don't realise how little 30GB is as a download allowance. I think any household would struggle to get by on it with a teen in the house and that it is designed for single person use but thats just my opinion.

ada4347

do u hav dsl digiweb im in carlow and im thinking a getting metro would it be wise?

thebman

ada4347 wrote: »

do u hav dsl digiweb im in carlow and im thinking a getting metro would it be wise?

I'm on Metro not DSL. The Fixed Wireless product.

ada4347

do u need to buy a router for that or is it wireless wlan enabled

thebman

ada4347 wrote: »

do u need to buy a router for that or is it wireless wlan enabled

You need to get a router I think although you could probably order one during the buying process if you want.

I wouldn't bother as you'd get a better router yourself by shopping around.

I use an old Linksys WRT54GS router but I don't think they make them anymore and it isn't an N standard router so out of date but never had any problems with it. Some of the other linksys ones aren't great though so read reviews about your router.

Some give memory leaks and need restarting every day or every other day which is a pain. Pays to do your home work.

ada4347

is netgear good?

gurramok

Whats the best alternative for the following?

A - tied to a UPC BB contract so whats the cheapest DSL solution?.
B - in an apartment where Digiweb Metro/anything that needs mounting ruled out

So basically, something free to air that is not restricted so I can access IRC or any webchat(as UPC block that). Nothing fancy, but has to be cheap and cheerful.

Clearwire I know blocks torrents so not much faith there, so anything else?

ada4347

is ur UPC working good? wat speed do u have?

gurramok

ada4347 wrote: »

is ur UPC working good? wat speed do u have?

Yeh, quite good even at this hour of traditional evening slowdown.