Which Broadband Provider???

KERSPLAT!

I have seen so many threads, complaints about different BB providers and I am now in limbo as to which one to go with??
I live in Ratoath Co. Meath. As far as I know there are several ones to choose from but Im almost afraid ill choose the wrong one

Ill be using it mostly for gaming, X-Box, and was told 3Mb wold be fine??

Also I have a phone line but its not connected??

I hear Wimax and UPC are pretty good??

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

Ranicand

IPAM wrote: »

I have seen so many threads, complaints about different BB providers and I am now in limbo as to which one to go with??
I live in Ratoath Co. Meath. As far as I know there are several ones to choose from but Im almost afraid ill choose the wrong one

Ill be using it mostly for gaming, X-Box, and was told 3Mb wold be fine??

Also I have a phone line but its not connected??

I hear Wimax and UPC are pretty good??

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

For Xbox or Playstation 3meg will be very slow for downloading demos and updates.

Also you must think of the upload if your hosting a game online a bad upload speed will annoy other players.

Wimax is wireless the ping times will be very high and games will suffer bad lag.



There are my results for UPC if you can get it you would be daft to go for anybody else.

KERSPLAT!

Just went to the UPC site, do you think 15Mb would be enough for gaming or
would I be better off just going straight to 30 Mb, suppose I could always upgrade if nesessary?

Also are there any hidden charges? It shows €32 for 15Mb and €42 for 30Mb
then something about €7.75 if I dont have TV with them, is there anything else?

Thanks for the quick reply

Ranicand

IPAM wrote: »

Just went to the UPC site, do you think 15Mb would be enough for gaming or
would I be better off just going straight to 30 Mb, suppose I could always upgrade if nesessary?

Also are there any hidden charges? It shows €32 for 15Mb and €42 for 30Mb
then something about €7.75 if I dont have TV with them, is there anything else?

Thanks for the quick reply

15meg will be fine.

Your right €7.75 on top of any of those prices if you don't take tv.

There are no other hidden charges.

Edit so €39.75 for the 15meg if you don't take a tv pack.

KERSPLAT!

Sorry just one more question :P

Customer service... whats it like?? I visited the VF forum here and it seems
they are terrible and i have had terrible dealings with eircom?

I think ill take my chance with UPC, hopefully all goes well and ill be up and running as soon as possible

Cheers

PogMoThoin

You don't need 15mbit for gaming, 1mbit with decent upload is plenty for playing games online

KERSPLAT!

Just thought id post this Mobile BB... what a waste

Ranicand

IPAM wrote: »

Sorry just one more question :P

Customer service... whats it like?? I visited the VF forum here and it seems
they are terrible and i have had terrible dealings with eircom?

I think ill take my chance with UPC, hopefully all goes well and ill be up and running as soon as possible

Cheers

I have always found them polite but they are not loaded with brains.

One of the problems you may run into is getting the combined router and modem.

On this device the router firewall is turned on full by default and this can cause problems with gaming.
Turning off the firewall is very simple but finding out this bit of info from them forget it.:)

All the manuals for the modems are on the UPC site http://www.upc.ie/customersupport/manuals/

Ranicand

PogMoThoin wrote: »

You don't need 15mbit for gaming, 1mbit with decent upload is plenty for playing games online

I did say that in my first post the upload is important.

Gaming fine updates demos map packs movies on Xbox 1meg is not going to do it.

KERSPLAT!

Have a friend who is an IT engineer or somethin, he'd prob be able to sort that out, I wouldnt have a clue

Cheers for all the info, Ill let ya know how it goes

EDIT: Think ill go 15Mb, better to have it than to be left wanting + get free router and doesnt cost much more than the 5Mb

cable842

go with upc my friend.

They Have and offer a good service but they have awful Customer Service.

But I suppose you can't have everything.

KERSPLAT!

Is it better to order online or phone? or is there a difference?

Ranicand

IPAM wrote: »

Is it better to order online or phone? or is there a difference?

Not as far as I know.

By the way there is a fair usage limit 250gig per month on the 15meg or 40gig on the 5meg so you will be much better off on 15meg.

KERSPLAT!

It wont process online, availability issues, better be able to get it now pretty set on UPC even after just an hour of the OP

Ranicand

IPAM wrote: »

It wont process online, availability issues, better be able to get it now pretty set on UPC even after just an hour of the OP

Ring them 1908.

PogMoThoin

IPAM wrote: »

Just thought id post this Mobile BB... what a waste

Would probably be ok for gaming if the ping were under 100ms, which it never will be on mobile

KERSPLAT!

Not available in the area

Any other sugestions??

Ranicand

IPAM wrote: »

Not available in the area

Any other sugestions??

Sorry about that getting your hopes up.

You said there is a phone line unused in your home.

Could you get this turned on and get Eircom?

Eircom if the line is decent should be fine for gaming.

Think about cars UPC is a high powered BMW Eircom is a Lada but it will still get the job done and mobile broadband is a shopping trolley with a broken wheel.

If you really want to play games on line and with no UPC you will NEED and Eircom line.

Ranicand

Also the Eircom number is 1901 and here is their site.
http://www.eircom.ie/cgi-bin/bvsm/bveircom/bladerunner/showContent.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1753696754.1275835122@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccciadekikmdfgfcefeceiedfgodfik.0&site=Res&cid=ProductService1Res&chanId=-536882378&storeChanId=-536882378

cable842

theres no difference buddy.

the Customer service with ntl is awful but the service is good.

if you want a example well Ive been told since christmass that ntl fibre wire broadband is being installed in my apartment block.

Now I seen the company in december putting down the lines and then 3 weeks ago I seen a van installing it in the first block of apartments.

Now since christmas Ntl still state that they dont know and dont know when and can;t even give me a date or confirm anything that I have seen.

so thats what there customer service is like.:)

IPAM wrote: »

Is it better to order online or phone? or is there a difference?

KERSPLAT!

It was eircom before so would just be a case of getting it reconnected, eircom just seems a bit pricey, its like €50 for 1Mb, Ill keep looking around and ask few mates, see what they have..

KERSPLAT!

Ranicand wrote: »

Eircom if the line is decent should be fine for gaming.

Do you mean the physical cable/line? if so its about 20 years old more bad news

Ranicand

IPAM wrote: »

It was eircom before so would just be a case of getting it reconnected, eircom just seems a bit pricey, its like €50 for 1Mb, Ill keep looking around and ask few mates, see what they have..

Thats seems very expensive I agree.

However times have moved on why don't you ring Eircom on 1901 and just check out their prices at least?

It can't hurt.
Line rental is the killer with Eircom.

Tofu

Hi IPAM - how did you get on? Did you go with Eircom? I'm having the same problem trying to find any provider around the ratoath area
Thanks:)

KERSPLAT!

Contract is just up with VF mobile BB so switching to eircom very soon, its bout €50a month inc line rental 3MB

Will let ya know how I get on

Solair

I've never found UPC's customer service particularly bad, unless you ring them at peak times, they're also pretty good at getting back to customer service request via email and twitter.

Chorus' customer service, pre UPC, was brutal and it had a long history of being absolutely terrible going right back to the days of Cork Multichannel. However, things have changed and in general their network is now much better as is their customer care.

Smart Telecom's not bad if you're on a Local Loop Unbundled line (i.e. connected to their equipment) We've been getting great speeds with them and no congestion.

Same goes for Magnet if you can get them.

After that, maybe look at the other DSL providers who use eircom wholesale local exchange access, e.g. UTV etc etc.

Then eircom itself

Wireless options:

Then maybe look at Digiweb Metro (although be ware of their download caps, they're significantly lower than DSL, but the service gets good reviews for speed and ping times)
(Also includes a phone line)

WiMax - Imagine ... it's pretty OK.
(Also includes a phone line)

Mobile Broadband - particularly Vodafone and Meteor (excellent speeds in areas that have new 3G coverage).

Clearwire's speeds aren't great for the price.

The only word of warning is that Vodafone at Home seems to have some really serious problems at the moment with congested networks i.e. very slow speeds and their customer service is the worst I have ever experienced anywhere. I wouldn't go near them with a barge pole. It's just taken us since MARCH to get a refund from them when they took our line over from BT. We switched to Smart Telecom at the time and Vodafone didn't seem to get the message and just continued to bill us for months. We complained, got ComReg involved etc etc and it still took months to resolve.

There are also a lot of threads on here and on their own forums about very slow broadband speeds. I really wouldn't go near them despite the flashy advertising etc.

degrassinoel

worth noting, that eircom have been charging the standard flat rate for (next gen lol)broadband, plus anything over 30gig you download per month is added onto your bill. disgraceful pricing for a crappy service in my experiance with them.

Keanosmagic

I use xbox live......have 2mg unconvected from a small local provider and its perfect......never have lag!!!!!have been with with upc and while service is generally good the speed can vary!!!!customer service poor unless your buying something

Avoid Eircom live the plague.....terrible terrible company!!!!and mobile broadband definite no no for gaming