Fastcom anyone ?

chris254

animha wrote: »

Folks, on Fastcom's behalf, we have tried to contact everybody who here who mentioned customer service or network issues that were unresolved. If anybody else has an issue which is still unresolved please let us know!

We will look at creating a forum in the future, but in the meantime we will use the channels available to us.

Hi
Been a customer of Fastcoms now near four years it will be four years in september my first 2 and a half years with them was very good clean connection no lagg i had plenty of nice comments about fastcom very rarely had any trouble and when i did (not that often) dennis was a wonderfull guy who always helped. Sadley dennis dont work for them no
more. Over this last year the quality of the connection has been an all out nightmare its like a switch as soon as 5 o'clock comes all i get is lagg jitter and packet loss i am still gettin 2mb up n down was on 3 but seems they have put me back to 2meg again i have been emailing fastcom about the issue for 3 months now 2wice some1 was sent out to the house to check the antenna surprize nothing wrong with the antenna why the hell would fastcom think its going to work before 5 o'clock everyday ok then suddenly fail after 5 o'clock total waste of time of the guy comingout to the house
he tried reseting the antenna he tried putting me on a dedicated server wich was useless also. It is so obvious that it is a contention problem
after 5 in the evenings and at weekends it obvious. Out of about 12 emails to fastcom support not once did he mention contention share ratio was the issue or even possibly the issue for that matter.I would like to know does fastcom support think custumers were born yesterday well after 3 months of emailing them i give up all i was getting was try it this evening and let meknow how it is and after 3 months of that it does get abit much so i am looking about for differnt providers when i find a good one i will be canceling my fastcom connection as it is not what i am looking or what i had with them in the past im very dissapointed in them. hear is a recent ping test http://www.pingtest.net/result/16660477.png SHOCKING

BulliteShot

chris254, where do you live?

chris254

Hi i live about 3 miles from kilnlough north letrim beside lough melvin

duffy177

Hi guys, I too have fastcom broadband and just thought I'd share my experience with you.

I am with Fastcom now for little over a year, In this time I have used there 2mb upload/download broadband service, experienced there horrific VOIP service and am currently on there 3mb upload/download service for €40 a month.

So where to begin, I switched to fastcom due to having a poor DSL connection due to a bad line. The switch to fastcom has been a great improvement however its not prefect. Just taking a look at my emails I can see 26 different issues I've complained about.

1) My main issues with fastcom is there ping spikes and random packet loss. Most of my complains are about this issue, some of which are never answered. If any of you are interested here is the latest graph of my connectivity http://tuts4tech.net/isp/status.png (that graph is pings to 8.8.8.8 google public dns) (tuts4tech.net is hosted from a fastcom 3mb upload connection)

2) Speed, The speed of the connection overall is reliable, however once the ping spikes begin and random packet loss it becomes crippled

3) Support service, Sometimes this can be very lazyed, however if any of my issues haven't been responded to within 48hours they do get phone call this usually leads a solution, however with that said they lack weekend support unlike bigger isps.

4) The VOIP experience, this time last year we decided to try out the fastcom VOIP service and well it was a nightmare. You couldn't hold a conversation it broke up completely. We lived with this for about a month before requesting a refund which was granted.

Overall am I a happy customer?
Nope
Why am I still with them?
The only reason I am still with fastcom as there is no other alternative in my area. When using a DSL type provider I experienced 1/2 mb speeds and disconnects every 15mins.

chris254

Animha,
Can you tell us hear when we will be able to express are view's on a fastcom forum ? as i cant think of any other isp that doesent have a forum its just so outdated why isent there one ! fastcoms up and running 6 years now :eek: yes without a forum. I am very sure i will make good use of it as will many other members lookin a fastcom forum hear on boards.ie what is the hold up were isit its not like fastcoms not capable of getting a forum up n running.

chris254

Hi Just thought id pop in a recent ping test time 12.20 Am Saturday night/Sunday morning 38% packetloss .... Lovely



:mad:

animha

Hi folks

I'm not a Fastcom employee, as you can see from original thread, I started this thread when we were setting up a Fastcom customer focus group.

However, I do know that Fastcom is trying to work on a customer forum solution and hopefully we should have an answer to post here next week on where that forum will be. I can appreciate, from the posts to the forum that there is a need to be able to communicate transparently with Fastcom through a channel like this. Appreciate the continued feedback!

Cheers,
Aoife

magnumlady

Anyone else in Coolaney having problems?

Ours has been cutting out for the last month. Today was awful, more off then on. I phoned Fastcom early this afternoon, left a message. No one got back to me. Not happy about it at all, but they know we have no other choice.

fastcombb

There seemed to be a localized problem in the Coolaney area which was causing problmes for a handful of people, but this issue is resolved now, if anyone is having problmes please contact us on support@fastcom.ie

chris254

I have been having nothing but problem's and i have contacted fastcom about them as you know.... fastcombb.. and still the problem's are there this has been going on many many month's now. My connection use 2 b flawless this last 12 months it has dune nothing but go downhill after 5 in the evening's and all day on the weekend's its a total and utter disaster witch any1 with a brain would know its contention an overload of share/ratio and so far contacting fastcom support has not helped me at all i am reminded everynight how bad of quality the connection is.So far after 4 month's of emailing i am still having the same issue's... fastcombb can you tell me hear on the forum why this is ... ? Because i dont get any answer's from fastcom support by email about what the problem is or whats being dune about it.
The ongoing issue.. ref number is ref:00D2MPMw.5002ARTKh:ref
is there any light at the end of the tunnel at all ... its been 4 month's now
what is the expected time to get issue's resolved with fastcom ....

If there is any member's on boards.ie that is with fastcom and having the same issue's as i am could you please let me know in a pm or repley to this
thread as i am curious as to what extent this is happining and is other's having the same issue's i am having.To me this issue should have been resolve many month's ago.I will repost the progress of my issue from time to time on this thread.
Chris Kilnlough Area

cranog

Fastcombb.

The problem in South Sligo is still happening. One minute perfect signal next minute it cuts out and it takes 30 seconds to 4 minutes to kick in again. We have all blamed our routers etc but at a bar b q yesterday I got talking to other Fastcom customers. Everyone was having the same problem. Since the problem at the Coolaney transmitter a few months ago the service has been patchy to say the least. 3meg up and down is a good product, €39 is a bit pricey but I would be happy to pay it if I got a proper service. We all know that after 5 or 6 o'clock all the Bebos come out of the woodwork and contention ratio goes through the roof and therefore VOIP is impossible but even while posting this comment the service has cut out twice. I emailed customer support last week and am still waiting for a reply.

3 is rolling out it's service here and a few were talking about moving, most of us are waiting for Imagine's WiMax to go live here [7meg for the same price as your 3meg] and if it is a consistent service you could loose a large number of customers.

Please pass this on to the owners of Fastcom as most direct emails to them are ignored.

chris254

3 pay broadband

I live 4 mile out from Bundoran and am supposedly in a none 3 coveredge area
on my phone i have been noticing the 3g simbol appearing for 3 so i looked into it further
I ordered a 3pay broadband simcard took a week or so on it coming it was free from there website what was also very good about it was no contract just stick in your 10 euro and away you go for a week. I was in disbelief when i took mylaptop about 6 foot outside the kitchen window and got 2.8 meg on a speed test other test's in the house were averaging out between 1 and 1.5 mb youtube was going great and it was just nice to be able to try/test it for 10 euro thow i do have simcard slot n modem built in on my laptop so dident have to buy 3's modem but very encouraging result's from 3 and i am verysure i live nowere near there mast i can see why they are becoming very popular

fastcombb

Hi All,

Many thanks for your all comments. Over the past few months we have invested a considerable amount of money in upgrading our network specifically in the South Sligo area. Despite the recent investments, there have been a number of performance related issues. My apologies for the unacceptable length of time it has taken to resolve these issues. It has been extremely difficult to pinpoint the exact root of these problems at times.

On the speed front, there will be further upgrades later in the year with no plans to cap the usage limits. As a Fastcom customer you are entitled to free AVG Internet Security http://www.fastcom.ie/AVGAntiVirus . Later in the year we hope to offer free parental control software to all our customers. If there are any other services that you would like to see us offering please let us know.

Thank you all for your continued custom. As a local broadband provider your custom means a lot to all of us at Fastcom. We will continue to do our best to offer you a fast, consistent and enjoyable surfing experience.

Ross Palmer
Managing Director

chris254

Hi Fastcombb
Can you tell me what the price is for this NeedforSpeeed service ...
and it says on fastcom's site it is popular with gamers
can you guarantee that this service has no contention issue's .. ?
Regards Chris

bennyc

Hi , I see fastcom are running a 39.99 Jan offer with phone included. I am very tempted but its an 18month offer and if anyone could answer any of the following it would be great.

Whats customer service like at the minute ?
Are the speeds consistant ?
Does the weather cause any issues ?
Are you able to stream live TV ok ie sopcast or any other live footie streams ?
Are you using PSN XBox Live or PC gaming and if so have you any lag issues ?

I have vodafone at the momnet and not really happy at all. I cannot watch sky player for example between 9 and 12 every night due to slow connection speeds. It is supposed to be up to 3meg but I would reckon 1.2 at the best.

EverEvolving

Not sure about Fastcom but I use Smart and never had a days hassle with it, good consistant speed too (5.4 meg) but that usually depends on distance from the exchange.

Streaming and downloading are fine, never get delays, I don't game so wouldn't know about that. Takes ages to get through to their CS though so I always ring sales and get a transfer. Costs between €40 - 45 per month depending on phone calls made.

Radharc na Sleibhte

I have fastcom maybe two or three years now.

Customer service - absolutely no complaints from me.
Speed - I consistently get 3.5-4mb up and down. More than the advertised speed.
Weather has never caused me any issues and it gets quite stormy here.
I watch live football regularly via sky player as i dont have my own sub and its perfect.
Play fifa on ps3 with it. Also perfect.

All in all i would more than highly recommend it. They are my only real option as i dont have a phone line, but my neighbour has eircom 'broadband' and its brutal down here anyway.

You will get people on here slating fastcom. See the previous threads. It may be hit and miss but im sure if it doesnt turn out to be what you were expecting you can get your money back.

I can only speak for myself, and i have to say i am delighted with it (so far anyway).

bennyc

MikeySligo wrote: »

I have fastcom maybe two or three years now.

Customer service - absolutely no complaints from me.
Speed - I consistently get 3.5-4mb up and down. More than the advertised speed.
Weather has never caused me any issues and it gets quite stormy here.
I watch live football regularly via sky player as i dont have my own sub and its perfect.
Play fifa on ps3 with it. Also perfect.

All in all i would more than highly recommend it. They are my only real option as i dont have a phone line, but my neighbour has eircom 'broadband' and its brutal down here anyway.

You will get people on here slating fastcom. See the previous threads. It may be hit and miss but im sure if it doesnt turn out to be what you were expecting you can get your money back.

I can only speak for myself, and i have to say i am delighted with it (so far anyway).

Thanks for that. Where about are u . I am close to ballympte am am looking directly at the mast. I have been messing with the in laws fastcom and never under 3meg. they are a lot further away than me. They are more Facebook users than anything so wouldn't notice a poor connection. If ur managing sky player and not lagging online then that's good enough for me. At the min I can't use sky player before midnight in the evening.

Simi

I know two peple who have it. Both started having QoS issues in the last 6months or so & were unable to play games because of it.

Download speeds were fine, but because the datastream kept cutting out, gaming was impossible.

Neither of them had any luck rectifying the situation. Customer service wanted proof from them that it was actually happening, before they'd send out an engineer?

In the end both ended up switching back to dsl, which involved a really long line 1mb connection for one of them
Before this both had been with fastcom for over 2 years with only very minor issues.

Lucyfur

I was with fastcom before I moved and I can't praise them enough. Customer service was second to none. Lovely bunch of people working there. I'm with eircom now and I've never encountered such a shower of sh1tes:(

Radharc na Sleibhte

bennyc wrote: »

Thanks for that. Where about are u . I am close to ballympte am am looking directly at the mast. I have been messing with the in laws fastcom and never under 3meg. they are a lot further away than me. They are more Facebook users than anything so wouldn't notice a poor connection. If ur managing sky player and not lagging online then that's good enough for me. At the min I can't use sky player before midnight in the evening.

Im in grange.
Id say im about 3 miles from the mast as the crow flies.
I dont work for fastcom or know anyone who does etc, but i would be absolutely utterly lost without it and like one of simis friends id be on a less than 1mb connection with eircom otherwise, which isn't even worth bothering with.
I had a bit of trouble setting up fifa on ps3 with nats and ports and a whole load of crap i dont understand, but that wasnt fastcoms fault!

Son Of A Vidic

I've been with Fastcom 3 years now and I'm in the process of leaving them. I'm testing a 3G router at the moment and upload and download speeds are averaging about twice that or more of Fastcom speeds. So it's a no-brainer for me to switch now. One thing is consistent though for both providers, upload speed never get's close to matching download speed.

UrbanSea

We had fastcom but left cos got a better deal on Wimax.
Fastcom were much quicker. Had some hassle for xbox but a phone call sorted that. The customer care I found was excellent,I'd rather fastcom to Wimax atm.

El Weirdo

I've been with them for about 18 months now and I have to say that I have no complaints.

I get decent, consistent speeds and any time I've had an issue I've found them to be very helpful. I had a problem downloading from newsgroups a couple of times and they were quite prompt in returning my call and getting the problem sorted.

I find the upload speeds handy as I use BitTorrent.

I'm in west Sligo and I don't seem to have any contention issues.

Comparing it to Eircom, it's a no-brainer.

Edit: Although the price isn't exactly extortionate, I do feel that it could be a little lower. Either that or another speed upgrade for the basic package would be nice.

Pete M.

Have had Fastcom in north Sligo for three years and have always been happy with it.

A whole lot better than this 3 thingie :mad:

Watch footie on sopcast a lot and it's grand.

Don't know about Ballymote, but I have a nice line of sight to the mast, so that helps.

Son Of A Vidic

I had no complaints with Fastcom over the last 3 years really just the inconsistency, especially with upload speed. I was reluctant to switch I must admit, but I checked out the NBS scheme by 3G and the speeds are better. Signal strength is max with 3G, I think both Fastcom and 3G are feeding of the same mast a couple of miles from me. Here are some sample speeds from both.

Fastcom worst.


Fastcom best.




3G Worst


3G Best


Fastcom charge me €39.99 month for broadband only, 3G will only cost me €20

Son Of A Vidic

bennyc wrote: »

1)Whats customer service like at the minute ?
2)Are the speeds consistant ?
3)Does the weather cause any issues ?
4)Are you able to stream live TV ok ie sopcast or any other live footie streams ?
5)Are you using PSN XBox Live or PC gaming and if so have you any lag issues ?

1) Customer service: I used to email them and they'd never reply. So I rang them back in November very angry, after the aerial was blown of the roof of my house. They got moving pronto after that, but it still took two visits after they gave me an 'old' receiver first time around.

2) Speeds: No speed is not consistent, I gave some sample speeds in my last post. I was monitoring speeds from Sept to Jan quite regularly so I can safely state they're not consistent.

3) Weather: This isn't very clear, except for the wind ripping the aerial of my roof. otherwise I haven't detected clearly if weather is an issue.

4) Streaming: live streaming never really worked for me, not that I've tried it much. So again I can't be sure about this.

5) Gaming: Online PC gaming became impossible as speeds fluctuated so badly. Then I tried PS3 online gaming and that was even worse. The lag for both formats is so bad. So I don't even bother trying now.

magnumlady

We've been with fastcom since they first came to Coolaney. Over the years we have had problems mainly with speeds or dropouts.
We've had a couple of occasions where we were without broadband for a couple of days.
Customer service could be better. We've never been offered any discount for the times when we have had problems and always been charged full price when we've moved house.
We have no other choice though.

bennyc

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

I had no complaints with Fastcom over the last 3 years really just the inconsistency, especially with upload speed. I was reluctant to switch I must admit, but I checked out the NBS scheme by 3G and the speeds are better. Signal strength is max with 3G, I think both Fastcom and 3G are feeding of the same mast a couple of miles from me. Here are some sample speeds from both.

Fastcom worst.


Fastcom best.




3G Worst


3G Best


Fastcom charge me €39.99 month for broadband only, 3G will only cost me €20

Thanks for all that , is that 3g with three.ie ? do you get a wifi router with that on a 3g signal, does the router have any ethernet ports ? I see on the coverage map I am covered so might be an option. Also your worst on fastcom would be my average at night at the minute. Was that a once off or did you have that speed at the same time all the time ?

gigino

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

I had no complaints with Fastcom over the last 3 years really just the inconsistency, especially with upload speed. I was reluctant to switch I must admit, but I checked out the NBS scheme by 3G and the speeds are better. Signal strength is max with 3G, I think both Fastcom and 3G are feeding of the same mast a couple of miles from me. Here are some sample speeds from both.

Fastcom worst.


Fastcom best.




3G Worst


3G Best


Fastcom charge me €39.99 month for broadband only, 3G will only cost me €20

I agree. I have no connection, commercial or otherwise , to 3g / three.ie, but I must say I find them better value, faster and more convenient than Fastcom. Its a no brainer. With three its only 19.99 per month and no connection fee / no cost for the modem ( if you sign up for 18 months ), and no mess or holes drilled in walls. Plus its mobile - really handy sometimes.