Smart Telecom - yes or no.

Dilbert75

In short have been a BT customer, got dumped with Vodafone (its been an unhappy alliance) and I'm getting ready to move through Vodafone's disinterest or inability to get my broadband sorted.

So Smart Telecom - worth a shot, yes or no?

jor el

I never had a problem with the broadband from Smart.

If you're not happy with Vodafone, and they're not resolving any of the problems, then you should not continue giving them your money. Change to another provider, any other provider. Smart, Magnet, UTV and eircom are probably all worth investigating.

PogMoThoin

But Smart aren't Smart anymore, they're Digiweb, the Kings of strict download limits and throttling

bk

It is a difficult question to ask at the moment, as Smart was recently bought by Digiweb and things have certainly gone downhill since then. Probably not as bad as Vodafone, but they certainly aren't the excellent premium ISP of old.

fergusb

I've been with Smart for the past year, and definitely recommend them, have had no issues, speeds are always excellent and no download limit (think there's a warning if exceed 160gb/month) all make it a good ISP.

I've yet to see any impact from the Digiweb takeover so fingers crossed they don't screw us in the future.

Spear

fergusb wrote: »

I've been with Smart for the past year, and definitely recommend them, have had no issues, speeds are always excellent and no download limit (think there's a warning if exceed 160gb/month) all make it a good ISP.

I've yet to see any impact from the Digiweb takeover so fingers crossed they don't screw us in the future.

The download limit is 170gig over a rolling 30 day period, with a warning at 80% of that. Go beyond the limit and you're throttled to a 100k connection, for which you need to pay €8.50 to get the limit reset.

Cabaal

Spear wrote: »

The download limit is 170gig over a rolling 30 day period, with a warning at 80% of that. Go beyond the limit and you're throttled to a 100k connection, for which you need to pay €8.50 to get the limit reset.

Dispite all of the above its still a pretty good offering when compared to many others on the market

watty

Smart's model (as I pointed out at the time) was simply not economically sustainable. If you want an ISP to stay in business, have > 20Mbps speed, no contention, no cap then expect to pay a lot more than ANYONE delivering via DSL can do.

The Digiweb rigorous cap and throttling is mostly on wireless, to ensure decent performance for average users on Wireless which has limited spectrum. Wireless systems without this allow 10% of users to eat 80% of traffic, causing throttle speed all the time for everyone.

On DSL the cap is x5 higher typically than on Wireless. Contention exists on the exchange backhaul in the cases where it's eircom. Also eircom backhaul is paid for per Mbyte each way.

pizzahead77

Cabaal wrote: »

Dispite all of the above its still a pretty good offering when compared to many others on the market

I agree and there have been rumours over on their forums (from one of the admins) that they are going to offer packages with higher caps or as add-ons soon.

chalkitdown

There was no reason to introduce a rolling cap on ADSL, it's simply profiteering.

If you have access to NTL go with them, they provide much better value than Smart.

Remember, a large part of your payment to Smart goes to Eircom, the company that has kept Ireland in the dark ages in BB terms.

makeorbrake

As the title says. I was with BT for 3.5 years without any problem. Then get turfed over to vodafone which I stayed with for 1.5months. Now with smart and the connection drops on average 2 times a day. Depending on what functionality you want, this might not be a big deal - but it is to me!

Who do I go with now??? (I have only the choice of whoevers offering bitstream). Can't believe I might have to go back to €ircon.

A friend from Latvia just gone home - living out in the back of beyond and their economy worse than Greece...10 Down/10 Up !! But sure we have them e-votin' machines..

d22ontour

chalkitdown wrote: »

There was no reason to introduce a rolling cap on ADSL, it's simply profiteering.

Don't exceed the cap is quite easy to do.

chalkitdown wrote: »

If you have access to NTL go with them, they provide much better value than Smart.

Price wise yes, reliability and performance, not a chance, only Magnet compares to Smart and even then i would think isn't quite as good judging by the threads here.It would depend on what you would rather so, unstable at times and cheaper then yes UPC might be a better option..

chalkitdown wrote: »

Remember, a large part of your payment to Smart goes to Eircom, the company that has kept Ireland in the dark ages in BB terms.

That's only for resold bitstream i thought ?

Have Smart years and performance wise it's outstanding.Is dearer than UPC but i don't mind paying for reliability.Cap isn't a problem for me and many others too i would say as downloading what i want when i want works for me.If you can get Smart adsl2 i would get it or Magnet if that was possible.

chalkitdown

d22ontour wrote: »

Don't exceed the cap is quite easy to do.

I don't have a problem with agreed caps being in place but I do have a problem with a rolling cap. It's completely unnecessary on the platform that Smart use, it's clearly profiteering.

If you pay for a months broadband that's what you should be entitled to. A rolling cap does not provide that.

slipstream

Two words - no contention.

makeorbrake

slipstream wrote: »

Two words - no contention.

Two words - random disconnects

pwd

vodafone barely worked for me at all, because the contention was so high.
Smart I've found very good, both before and after the takeover. There are occasional random disconnects since the takeover; but they are not frequent enough to be a significant problem, even when using bb for gaming.

makeorbrake

pwd wrote: »

There are occasional random disconnects since the takeover; but they are not frequent enough to be a significant problem, even when using bb for gaming.

Lucky you. For me, they average 2x per day at the moment. Bad enough when i'm here - but if i'm not here, my connection knocked off all day and an essential application goes offline...

I only got random disconnects very occasionally with BT and as bad as vodafone were (and from a contention point of view, they were), I didn't get any with them. That suggests to me that Smart have an active policy of disconnects - to 'improve' the capability of their network?

Is this the case?

bk

d22ontour wrote: »

Price wise yes, reliability and performance, not a chance, only Magnet compares to Smart and even then i would think isn't quite as good judging by the threads here.It would depend on what you would rather so, unstable at times and cheaper then yes UPC might be a better option..

In UPC upgraded areas, UPC now have reliability equal to or better then Smart.

d22ontour wrote: »

Have Smart years and performance wise it's outstanding.Is dearer than UPC but i don't mind paying for reliability.Cap isn't a problem for me and many others too i would say as downloading what i want when i want works for me.If you can get Smart adsl2 i would get it or Magnet if that was possible.

You don't mind paying €260 to €360 a year more for Smart then UPC (24mb/1mb Smart versus 30mb/3mb UPC)!!!

slipstream wrote: »

Two words - no contention.

Smart has contention also, all BB products do, it is just at different points in the network.

d22ontour

bk wrote: »

In UPC upgraded areas, UPC now have reliability equal to or better then Smart.

Upgraded ? Their basic 24/1 against any adsl2 smart package is what i was referring to,judging by the lack of threads here i think not.Infact when i see a megathread relating to the poor service from Smart then i will agree with you but don't hold your breath.UPC can be good or awful, there is no taking from that.Smart adsl2 is pretty flawless.

bk wrote: »

You don't mind paying €260 to €360 a year more for Smart then UPC (24mb/1mb Smart versus 30mb/3mb UPC)!!!

I only have 6mb package and yes performance/reliability wise it is the better option for me and many others.Only problem peeps have with Smart is the cap and throttling that follows as i am sure you know.

bk wrote: »

Smart has contention also, all BB products do, it is just at different points in the network.

Of course but it's how they workaround it to satisfy is what is the plus point.UPC doesn't offer that luxury, no ?

makeorbrake wrote: »

Two words - random disconnects

You are on resold bitstream i thought ?That doesn't count tbh.It's Eircom who give you the dcs.Am sure if you went back to Eircom the dcs would discontinue more than likely, and they are allowed get away with doing that too... Go Comreg. :rolleyes:

makeorbrake

d22ontour wrote: »

You are on resold bitstream i thought ?That doesn't count tbh.It's Eircom who give you the dcs.Am sure if you went back to Eircom the dcs would discontinue more than likely, and they are allowed get away with doing that too... Go Comreg. :rolleyes:

Yes, your quite right - I am on resold bitstream. However, whilst I did have some occassional disconnects with BT and none that I remember of for the 1.5 months I was with Vodafone, I had 4 today alone with Smart. The stats are showing NO errors ....so maybe theres another reason for the disconnects...?
go figure...

bk

d22ontour wrote: »

Upgraded ? Their basic 24/1 against any adsl2 smart package is what i was referring to,judging by the lack of threads here i think not.Infact when i see a megathread relating to the poor service from Smart then i will agree with you but don't hold your breath.UPC can be good or awful, there is no taking from that.Smart adsl2 is pretty flawless.

If you read the UPC megathread you will see the most people are happy and getting close to maximum speeds. Most of the complaints were due to people not being upgraded quick enough.

UPC in areas where the network has been upgraded are generally excellent.

The same is true with Smart, if you are on a poor quality phone line or far from the exchange then equally Smart will have problems.

d22ontour wrote: »

Of course but it's how they workaround it to satisfy is what is the plus point.UPC doesn't offer that luxury, no ?

UPC have a better long term solution, they can upgrade their network, by putting more fibre in and new nodes, reducing the number of users per node.

And most importantly that is exactly what they are doing.

Look, on both cable and dsl, people mightn't get the advertised speed they are paying for. But for different reasons.

On DSL you mightn't get the advertised speed due to the distance from the exchange and quality of the line.

On cable you mightn't get the advertised speed due to congestion on the local node.

I'd rather be on cable for two reasons:

1) At least at offpeak times you will get closer to the advertised speeds due to less contention. With ADSL you will never get faster then the quality of your line allows, no matter what time of day.

2) The cable contention problem can be relatively easily and cost effectively fixed with new nodes, reducing the number of users per node. With DSL the only way to fix line quality problems is to run new lines or fibre to each home and that is much more expensive and very unlikely to happen here in Ireland.

BTW how are you on 6mb with Smart, they don't do 6mb, it is either 5 or 7mb?

Don't you see the irony of you mocking people on UPC for not getting their full speeds, when you are paying the same for a 5mb line from Smart as a UPC customer would pay for a 30mb line!

Even if the UPC customer only gets 15mb at peak times (and closer to 30mb off peak) due to contention, they are still getting almost three times faster connection then you for the same money!

Are you still going to argue that Smart are better value for money when UPC launch their 120mb/s products later this year?

dub45

bk wrote: »

If you read the UPC megathread you will see the most people are happy and getting close to maximum speeds. Most of the complaints were due to people not being upgraded quick enough.......

What planet are you living on??????? If you read the UPC megathread that's exactly what you will not see!:eek:

https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/25640/107265.JPG

bk

dub45 wrote: »

What planet are you living on??????? If you read the UPC megathread that's exactly what you will not see!:eek:

https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/25640/107265.JPG

I hadn't looked at it in ages, as I'm not on UPC anymore. But just read the last 10 pages and it looks like many people are getting full speed, but many people are also having issues.

And it looks like exactly what I said, those with good speeds are on upgraded sub-divided nodes are getting excellent speeds, while those on older areas are having problems. But interestingly reading the recent responses from UPC it sounds like they are scrambling to sub divide those nodes to fix it. I know it mightn't seem like it, but it takes time as it involves a lot of physical work.

In the long term you are much better off with UPC as they control their own network and can upgrade it as demand increases.

drewbie

Spear wrote: »

The download limit is 170gig over a rolling 30 day period, with a warning at 80% of that. Go beyond the limit and you're throttled to a 100k connection, for which you need to pay €8.50 to get the limit reset.

I've gotten the warning before, but today I found out that I passed on into the throttling realm. To quote from the email "it will be limited to 128Kbps download and 128Kbps upload". That is crazy - it's only slightly more than dialup speeds! And they expect me to pay the same amount for much less service. It's not that hard to hit 170GB, but it takes quite some time to get back down below the cap.

In short, there's no way I'd recommend Smart anymore. I used to love them, but now I'm just waiting until NTL/Chorus upgrades my area so I can get broadband. It's an added bonus that Eircom won't be getting any more of my money via line rental.