Eircom 1mb for XBox live?

RGDATA!

I tried searching to see if this had been answered before. Finally caved and got a phone line installed at home, largely to play XBox live. Now that it's installed Eircom are telling me that it will only support 1mb broadband.

Just looking for some feedback whether there's any point in signing up to a 12 month contract to try it out. Has anyone here used a similar connection successfully?
cheers guys

TheMooseInNam

RGDATA! wrote: »

I tried searching to see if this had been answered before. Finally caved and got a phone line installed at home, largely to play XBox live. Now that it's installed Eircom are telling me that it will only support 1mb broadband.

Just looking for some feedback whether there's any point in signing up to a 12 month contract to try it out. Has anyone here used a similar connection successfully?
cheers guys

You shouldn't have any problem playing online even with a 1mg line. Xbox Live only uses a fraction of that speed. Just make sure that you're the only person using your home network at the time and don't have any other PC or program sucking up the bandwidth on you.

However, you may only be able to join in other games with that speed and not be able to host your own games. In general, you should be fine though.

muff03

i had the 1mb for over a year before we were upgraded to 3mb, and i never had a problem with it. I think th eonly game that ever dropped out on me online was COD 3 and that was because the game's servers were useless.

Mossyman

I also have the 1MB package with eircom at home. I want to get an Xbox for Christmas (if Santa comes ).

How much of my download limit (I have 10GB) will be used, say for example I play for around 20 hours per week? This would probably be the maximum I would play.

TheMooseInNam

Mossyman wrote: »

I also have the 1MB package with eircom at home. I want to get an Xbox for Christmas (if Santa comes ).

How much of my download limit (I have 10GB) will be used, say for example I play for around 20 hours per week? This would probably be the maximum I would play.

probably around a gig a week then, haven't calculated the exact figures. XBL uses about 6-10 KB/s up and down. It'd take you about three hours to download a 700meg file at 120 KB/s. So you'll be using about a tenth of that speed. It shouldn't be an issue for you with a 10gig limit.

RGDATA!

guys, thanks for the quick replies on this, very helpful.

naughto

Mossyman wrote: »

I also have the 1MB package with eircom at home. I want to get an Xbox for Christmas (if Santa comes ).

How much of my download limit (I have 10GB) will be used, say for example I play for around 20 hours per week? This would probably be the maximum I would play.

10 gig a month man thats very low. i used to be on the 02 bband dongle and i had a 15gb a month cap.iam now with vodafone and have 40gb a month and its still not enough for me

siblers

Mossyman wrote: »

I also have the 1MB package with eircom at home. I want to get an Xbox for Christmas (if Santa comes ).

How much of my download limit (I have 10GB) will be used, say for example I play for around 20 hours per week? This would probably be the maximum I would play.

How much a month is that? Eircom guy said you can get Broadband for 9.99 a month but I never enquired what you actually get with it.

Shiminay

10 Gigs?!?!?! People need to learn that this sort of nonsense has to stop and stop supporting companies with such ricidulous restrictions. I'd use 10 gigs in a quiet week (i.e just my PC, no XBox or laptop online)

Anyway, anyone who's serious about playing online should have DSL or Cable - those Midband USB Dongle things are a farce. If you can't get it, then scream at Errorcom until they fix it. I moved away from Mayo because I couldn't get proper internets for gaming and work.

For the record, I currently sit on a 24Mb uncapped Magnet account for €50+ change a month and it's awesome

siblers

Eircom is so dear though, I changed to 3 midband because it's a lot faster and a heck of a lot cheaper with the same DL allowance. If I could get eircom for 9.99 a month for gaming I'd be sorted. Although 3 was the same as eircom when playing online in terms of performance but you can't rely too much on it staying stable.

naughto

iam paying 38 euro a month with vodafone line rental included with 40gb download cap they have options to buy more which i probly will in the near futher.

Squaker

i also want xbox live for christmas
i have a 3g wireless router with a built in modem (its the B260a)
i usually have an download speed of 1 - 1.5 mb, and if i get up a 10 its 2 mb.. and an upload speed of usually 1mb. would i be able to get xbox live with this wireless connection ?

Squaredude

yup u should have no problem with xbox live with the 3g router

Squaker

thank you very much for your reply

siblers

What's your ping when you do speedtests? 90ms or under and you're grand, sometimes you can have good speeds but your ping will can be anything from a 100ms to 300ms if not more. You should be grand most of the times but there's no stability with 3, especially when it's windy and rainy it'll be pretty much unuseable.

Squaker

it varys sometimes as low as 65 and very rarely does it go over 100 tho

Squaker

i just did a speed test there and my download was 2.11
my upload was 1.56
and my ping was 83 ms

naughto

you sound so .u will prob get a certain amount of lag.

thats a nice upload speed:D

Squaker

nice one man:)

.E_C_K_S.

Speedtest can vary largely with the results so if you want to test your ping speed open up a command propmt and type

ping <enter website name here> and press enter


it will show a list of your times!

TheMooseInNam

WALSHY16291 wrote: »

Speedtest can vary largely with the results so if you want to test your ping speed open up a command propmt and type

ping <enter website name here> and press enter


it will show a list of your times!

Speedtest.net isn't that accurate, I find. I generally find www.irishisptest.com much better. It'll also show your jitter and packet loss which are more relevant to online gaming than actual upload and download speeds. What you want is 0-1% packet loss and a low jitter, below 8ms at least. This shows that your connection can maintain a constant stream of data, which is as important as having a low ping time.

siblers

Squaker, I just had a bash on Fifa and my ping was about 80ms and it ran as smooth as when I had DSL, so you'll be grand. Like I said, it's not exactly stable so be prepared for some frustrating evenings when you randomly lose connection

Squaker

TheMooseInNam wrote: »

Speedtest.net isn't that accurate, I find. I generally find www.irishisptest.com much better. It'll also show your jitter and packet loss which are more relevant to online gaming than actual upload and download speeds. What you want is 0-1% packet loss and a low jitter, below 8ms at least. This shows that your connection can maintain a constant stream of data, which is as important as having a low ping time.

just did it there and my packet loss was 0% and my jitter was 7.1 .
would i be able to play smoothly with that ?

Squaker

siblers wrote: »

Squaker, I just had a bash on Fifa and my ping was about 80ms and it ran as smooth as when I had DSL, so you'll be grand. Like I said, it's not exactly stable so be prepared for some frustrating evenings when you randomly lose connection

sound
are you on a landline tho ?

TheMooseInNam

Squaker wrote: »

just did it there and my packet loss was 0% and my jitter was 7.1 .
would i be able to play smoothly with that ?

That's perfectly fine. You should have no problem with those figures. As long as you have a ping of less than 100ms, you shouldn't have any issues at your end.

AdMMM

I'd be very worried about the quality of your line if 1mb is the maximum it can support! If you do opt to get it, I'd monitor the connection like a hawk and if it's dropping at all, cancel straight away. You have a 14 day cooling off period (see here) that you can use to evaluate the performance.

Owen

Back in the days of the v92 56k modem, we used to play quake iii online without problems. When you've copies of the game locally, all you usually end up transmitting/receiving is co-ordinates of players/ordinance and scores (Unless you've maps/textures to download for that specific game). Very little data is consumed, which is why it's hilarious when you see the ads on TV telling you that 30MB broadband is best for gaming. My arse.

Squaker

thanks for the help guys

siblers

Squaker wrote: »

sound
are you on a landline tho ?

Was on eircom, cancelled and am with three at the moment. I presumed you were with three/02/vodafone because of your 3g router, who are you with?

Squaker

im with three. what is your download speed ?

siblers

Varys really, usually between 2 and 4 meg, upload is usually 1mb. Ping is usually 80 or 90ms.