North West Electronics/BlueBox

chris_ie

Issues with some sites loading tonight. This happened before. Digg.com, Yahoo.com, GitHub.com, SpeedTest.net being some examples.

fooker!

yeah same here, nothing would load for me earlier today !

chris_ie

Is it working for you today? I'm at work at the minute so can't test. Hoping its back to normal as I need it for work!

fooker!

Seems to be working at the minute, but I wasn't home all day till now to check!

I seen on a few news websites yesterday that a lot of the wireless internet providers are complaining (and possibly suing) about the next National Broadband Plan and that they wont be able to compete if someone like Eircom fibre or the new SIRO fibre get the contract!

chris_ie

Yeah working for me since yesterday again too. They actually replied and said that the issue was not my internet service and said I probably need to update Flash in my browser and contact my work regarding VPN not working! After I told them in my intial mail that the sites that wouldn't load, loaded straight away once I knocked wifi off and used 4G.

Yeah saw the news regarding the WISPs suing. Its a bit ridiculous. They reckon its unfair that they could be put out of business. They'd rather us stuck behind everyone else, in our case we get around 3 or 4mb during peak times on a so called 50mb connection. I wouldnt have any confidence whatsoever on those percentages improving. And they believe that high packet loss internal is ok! Its already unfair on customers that there is no competition where these WISPs are based and people stick with them because they have no other choice.

fooker!

How's it going today? mines not loading sites but packet loss was like 36% after 300 packets!

chris_ie

That doesnt sound good! Will heading home in about half an hour, I'll check it out then.

chris_ie

Seems ok, usual packet loss of 5-10%. Sites are loading ok.

chris_ie

How is all your connections these days? Alot of the times I do a speed test in the evenings now I'm only getting around 2-4mb. Getting worse I think. Packet loss still the same old story.

chris_ie

Google search threw up this, new site by the look of it :

http://bluebox.network/

Unbeatable Speed

Tired of broadband that doesn’t keep it’s promises? Thanks to our WiMax technology, Bluebox easily outperforms competing services — and no matter how far your home or office is from a broadcast point, Bluebox keeps you up to speed.

:rolleyes:

fooker!

chris_ie wrote: »

How is all your connections these days? Alot of the times I do a speed test in the evenings now I'm only getting around 2-4mb. Getting worse I think. Packet loss still the same old story.

Mine is still awful so much so that I usually just use the 3 dongle most of the time now, though I'm just getting the final parts for a new pc then Ill use NWE a LOT to download some games on steam for it!

My town was one of the new ones announced to get fibre a few weeks ago, I haven't seen any more news about it since though! its gonna be a long wait :rolleyes:

chris_ie wrote: »

Google search threw up this, new site by the look of it :

http://bluebox.network/



:rolleyes:

maybe they are getting ready to make a push to get in the next broadband scheme? new site to impress!

Tommy Lagahan

fooker! wrote: »

maybe they are getting ready to make a push to get in the next broadband scheme? new site to impress!

Most likely whats going on here. Unlikely they will change their backhaul any, its utter dung these days up with me. Only keeping the connection alive in case the 3G goes down but I shelled out on a big feck off MIMO antenna and new unlocked stick for that and its been doing grand.

chris_ie

Currently getting 3mb on NWE and 12mb on Three (phone).

fooker!

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Most likely whats going on here. Unlikely they will change their backhaul any, its utter dung these days up with me. Only keeping the connection alive in case the 3G goes down but I shelled out on a big feck off MIMO antenna and new unlocked stick for that and its been doing grand.

same here, its pretty much just a back up now if the three goes down! and thankfully it doesn't happen often

chris_ie wrote: »

Currently getting 3mb on NWE and 12mb on Three (phone).

just done one,
NWE- 0.70 down 0.33 up 237 ping
Three- 9mb down 13mb up 42 ping

They are a joke!

m99T

NWEWN firewall has kicked in again. Seems to be dropping most of the net by null routing all OVH servers. Comreg report submitted again.

chris_ie

m99T wrote: »

NWEWN firewall has kicked in again. Seems to be dropping most of the net by null routing all OVH servers. Comreg report submitted again.

Yep noticing it here too. Cant get to alot of sites including our work server, so if I get called out I'm screwed. I contacted them about the speed as well and have had no reply.

fooker!

Looks like they have set up a new Facebook page!
Just search Bluebox Broadband and its the one with their new logo! you can review them on it too it seems

chris_ie

fooker! wrote: »

Looks like they have set up a new Facebook page!
Just search Bluebox Broadband and its the one with their new logo! you can review them on it too it seems

Yeah see that now. Already one review and it's not good.

They must have something up their sleeves. I'm hoping there are some big improvements coming as I have nothing against them personally, just how the support is handled and the terrible quality of service. The new site would suggest something is changing soon.

chris_ie

Removed old post. I had looked at the wrong FB page

Friends of mine on Facebook and their friends complaining about them for few days now.

utric

it`s 2015 and I`m sad to say the NWE service have not got better. Been with them for 3 months now, and the connection drops and comes back online so frequently that is not enjoyable. Sometimes it drops 5 times in just 5 minutes, i really do not recomend them to anyone.

fooker!

chris_ie wrote: »

Removed old post. I had looked at the wrong FB page

Friends of mine on Facebook and their friends complaining about them for few days now.

Yeah I see the reviews aren't good, not be long till they delete that page and start another again!

darth_maul

Lightening strike this evening major outage, could be a long one folks.

chris_ie

Yeah it's been down here since bout 8:15 roughly. Using 4G now.

Side Nite, I complained a month back about the speeds. Got one reply saying to do speedtrst attach to doc etc. Did all that and got no reply. Updated the ticket about 4 more times thoughout the month with no reply. Went to update it again last night as speed was 1mb and noticed they had closed the ticket without even getting back to me. Seem to just be ignoring me now. I've heard other interesting stories from people too.

For service outages they should have a Twitter account with updates. Did you get them on the phone darth maul?

Edit : Back up here now at 21:05

darth_maul

chris_ie wrote: »

Yeah it's been down here since bout 8:15 roughly. Using 4G now.

Side Nite, I complained a month back about the speeds. Got one reply saying to do speedtrst attach to doc etc. Did all that and got no reply. Updated the ticket about 4 more times thoughout the month with no reply. Went to update it again last night as speed was 1mb and noticed they had closed the ticket without even getting back to me. Seem to just be ignoring me now. I've heard other interesting stories from people too.

For service outages they should have a Twitter account with updates. Did you get them on the phone darth maul?

Edit : Back up here now at 21:05

Have a contact in there, they have got some backup links activated,

chris_ie

Ah right, not too bad a recovery time if it was a major issue.

chris_ie

How are the speeds for you guys these days? I know I've asked this question quite a few times now! Mine is getting slower. I'm down to most 1-2mb in the evenings now. Netflix qaulity keeps dropping. Notice some sites taking a while to load and downloads are slow. I still schedule any larger downloads for after 3am so as not to affect other users and so that its not affecting speeds in the house either but for downloads like a 120mb update it can be annoying wait.

The 4G connection during the same period at the house is usually around 7-10mb. Three have said it should get faster as more upgrades take place.

Tommy Lagahan

chris_ie wrote: »

How are the speeds for you guys these days? I know I've asked this question quite a few times now! Mine is getting slower. I'm down to most 1-2mb in the evenings now. Netflix qaulity keeps dropping. Notice some sites taking a while to load and downloads are slow. I still schedule any larger downloads for after 3am so as not to affect other users and so that its not affecting speeds in the house either but for downloads like a 120mb update it can be annoying wait.

The 4G connection during the same period at the house is usually around 7-10mb. Three have said it should get faster as more upgrades take place.

Honestly couldn't tell ye, think its around 1Mbit as well going off what the brothers laptop gets on the wifi. I'm on me 3G stick with a big antenna these days never drops below 3Mbit on 3G. Should be landed when 4G comes round, though when I was on 4G briefly at a mates place the 3Internet APN that grants open NAT was blocked.

CustomPCs1

chris_ie wrote: »

How are the speeds for you guys these days? I know I've asked this question quite a few times now! Mine is getting slower. I'm down to most 1-2mb in the evenings now. Netflix qaulity keeps dropping. Notice some sites taking a while to load and downloads are slow. I still schedule any larger downloads for after 3am so as not to affect other users and so that its not affecting speeds in the house either but for downloads like a 120mb update it can be annoying wait.

The 4G connection during the same period at the house is usually around 7-10mb. Three have said it should get faster as more upgrades take place.

Not good I'm on the 50 meg package and my speeds are between 0.5 and 2megs in the evening. I have been in contact with them and have sent in some speed tests just waiting to hear back from them. My speed are getting slower and slower every month and anytime i contact them they never do anything about it.

Does anyone know of any better broadband services in the St Johnston area?

chris_ie

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Honestly couldn't tell ye, think its around 1Mbit as well going off what the brothers laptop gets on the wifi. I'm on me 3G stick with a big antenna these days never drops below 3Mbit on 3G. Should be landed when 4G comes round, though when I was on 4G briefly at a mates place the 3Internet APN that grants open NAT was blocked.

Have only used the 4G on the phone. Although I've tethered it to the iPad a few times when watching Netflix. Works fine, no quality drops or anything. Have had to do that a few times this last while.

CustomPCs1 wrote: »

Not good I'm on the 50 meg package and my speeds are between 0.5 and 2megs in the evening. I have been in contact with them and have sent in some speed tests just waiting to hear back from them. My speed are getting slower and slower every month and anytime i contact them they never do anything about it.

Does anyone know of any better broadband services in the St Johnston area?

I'm still getting around 1-2MB or so at the minute. They sent me a big mail about contention (again) that kind of backfired. In the mail they were talking about how its 48:1 etc. Mentioned that speeds would drop massively if all 48 were downloading at the same time "but this in reality never happens". And also in another paragraph mentioned it was "exceptionally rare". They even gave an example stating if the ratio was 4:1 on a 10MB connection and everyone was on download at the same time then each would get 2.5MB. So in that case if we're all getting around 1MB most evenings on a 48:1 contention 50MB package, going by their logic, then everyone is on downloading at the same time, every evening, all evening which you know is "exceptionally rare".

They say they're going to send an engineer out but doubt much will be done. As you said, it has been getting slower and slower as time goes on.

fooker!

chris_ie wrote: »

How are the speeds for you guys these days? I know I've asked this question quite a few times now! Mine is getting slower. I'm down to most 1-2mb in the evenings now. Netflix qaulity keeps dropping. Notice some sites taking a while to load and downloads are slow. I still schedule any larger downloads for after 3am so as not to affect other users and so that its not affecting speeds in the house either but for downloads like a 120mb update it can be annoying wait.

The 4G connection during the same period at the house is usually around 7-10mb. Three have said it should get faster as more upgrades take place.

speeds seem to be getting slower and slower for me too, I just checked and its actually not working at the minute, I pretty much only use the 4G now anyways unless I want to download stuff even then its useless unless I leave it till the early hours!

chris_ie

Seeing as quite a few of you use the Three broadband, just wondering if any of you use it for gaming at all? I used to do some gaming on the XBox but not as much now as the connection is crap for it. I tried through the iPhone tether at one point a long time ago and it was kind of the same, alot less packet loss though. Just wondering if using something like the Mifi would handle it better than the iPhone tether (I would hope so).

Tommy Lagahan

chris_ie wrote: »

Seeing as quite a few of you use the Three broadband, just wondering if any of you use it for gaming at all? I used to do some gaming on the XBox but not as much now as the connection is crap for it. I tried through the iPhone tether at one point a long time ago and it was kind of the same, alot less packet loss though. Just wondering if using something like the Mifi would handle it better than the iPhone tether (I would hope so).

I can't say anything for a Mifi modem or tethering, I've only used USB modems myself.
No 4G coverage here yet either.
I'm gaming on 3G most nights, but only non competitive/twitch shooter games. I've spent a good 300 beans on getting the best possible signal I can but its still no fixed line. Using an unlocked Huawei E3276S-150 3G/4G USB stick with a MIMO antenna plugged into it. http://i.imgur.com/iadFb6P.jpg (cuppa tae for scale)

The ping is relatively low nowadays for 3G, much better than the old NBS system days when it used to be a minimum of 120ms.
Nowadays, whatever they did, I'm getting 40-60ms to google.ie, 55ms to some BF4 UK servers, round 60-80ms to Europe on the same mast I've always used.

The speeds with this yoke are generally mighty for 3G, minimum 3Mbit at peak and average of 14Mbit from 1am to 11am, the main problem is the ping spikes at peak time. (6-10pm)
Spikes sporadically between every other second to every few seconds up to around 120ms that makes CS:GO or CoD insufferable for me, but I can get away with games like Borderlands that I've been hosting co-op on with a mate the last 2 weeks, and I usually have no bother with Elite:Dangerous either.

4G is supposed to be way better with latency though so you might be landed, though unless you really need the Wifi or your best 4G signal spot is too far away from a machine you can use to internet connection share to a router I'd recommend a USB stick because Huawei cheap out with their 3G/4G antennas so I'd imagine they've got really cheap routing software / wifi antennas too. Can use Mobile Data Monitoring Application (MDMA - lol) for getting a hard number for signal strength instead of x/5 bars with the USB sticks as well.

TL;DR: spent **** tons of cash and time on getting a good 3G signal to do basic gaming on, 4g may or may not be better, stick to USB sticks to be safe.

fooker!

chris_ie wrote: »

Seeing as quite a few of you use the Three broadband, just wondering if any of you use it for gaming at all? I used to do some gaming on the XBox but not as much now as the connection is crap for it. I tried through the iPhone tether at one point a long time ago and it was kind of the same, alot less packet loss though. Just wondering if using something like the Mifi would handle it better than the iPhone tether (I would hope so).

Yep, I have the Three 4G broadband with the AC762S, I use it with my desktop through the usb and connect the Playstation to it with wifi, I find it a great job to be honest as above ping is usually 40-70ms on most games but I don't have ping spikes as bad though, its usually very stable! I think its great the only thing I'm planning on changing is the AC762S as it has a habit of restarting itself every now and again!

chris_ie

Cheers lads! Might give that a shot. I have two Asus RTN66U routers in the house that can take 4G sticks so I might give it a go and see how it works out.

Tommy Lagahan

fooker! wrote: »

Yep, I have the Three 4G broadband with the AC762S, I use it with my desktop through the usb and connect the Playstation to it with wifi, I find it a great job to be honest as above ping is usually 40-70ms on most games but I don't have ping spikes as bad though, its usually very stable! I think its great the only thing I'm planning on changing is the AC762S as it has a habit of restarting itself every now and again!

Out of interest, what kind of NAT Type are ya getting on 4G? On 3G I have to use the 3internet (NBS) APN to get open NAT, and the one time I managed to pick up a very weak 4G signal from the mast over the hill it wouldn't let me connect on the 3internet APN so I had to use the 3ireland.ie APN that traditionally gives me strict NAT. Couldn't stay connected long enough to test a game on it.

fooker!

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Out of interest, what kind of NAT Type are ya getting on 4G? On 3G I have to use the 3internet (NBS) APN to get open NAT, and the one time I managed to pick up a very weak 4G signal from the mast over the hill it wouldn't let me connect on the 3internet APN so I had to use the 3ireland.ie APN that traditionally gives me strict NAT. Couldn't stay connected long enough to test a game on it.

Mine is moderate using 3internet APN!

NIMAN

Any updates from BlueBox users here, whats the service currently like?

Speeds?

Tommy Lagahan

Up and down lately, was down for a few hours 2 nights last week. Very slow on average still, as low as 1mbit at peak times.

NIMAN

I had considered applying to them again, but not filled with much excitement hearing that.
Might be better sticking to my VF line with 4-5meg guaranteed.

CustomPCs1

NIMAN wrote: »

I had considered applying to them again, but not filled with much excitement hearing that.
Might be better sticking to my VF line with 4-5meg guaranteed.

If I were you I would stay well clear of them. My speeds are terrible and I'm on the 50 meg package, when i contact them about the slow speeds they do nothing.

I use my phone as a hotspot and can get 5-10 megs no problem.

NIMAN

Thanks for that.
Think I'll stick with VF for now. My neighbour got in the 50meg a few months back, must pop in and ask him how he's finding it.

darth_maul

Outage since yesterday evening, downtime is increasing hugely lately, they really need to invest in network in donegal

chris_ie

Not out with me but still slow in the evenings and terrible packet loss. I've been in contact with them and was told by a different guy that they were working to improve the perception of the service.

But again I fear its just another attempt to pacify people for another while. There have been alot of things like that, "upgrades taking place over the next few months" etc. After which things got worse.

I can't see them improving it, gradually getting worse the past few years with no signs of improvement whatsoever. Then you see them in the press talking about setting up new areas for broadband when they can't even cope with what they have.

darth_maul

chris_ie wrote: »

Not out with me but still slow in the evenings and terrible packet loss. I've been in contact with them and was told by a different guy that they were working to improve the perception of the service.

But again I fear its just another attempt to pacify people for another while. There have been alot of things like that, "upgrades taking place over the next few months" etc. After which things got worse.

I can't see them improving it, gradually getting worse the past few years with no signs of improvement whatsoever. Then you see them in the press talking about setting up new areas for broadband when they can't even cope with what they have.

Their major problem is they lost their main engineer about 18-24 months ago, and there have been numerous replacements since, each lasting less and less time and with less and less competency.
They need a major upgrade of all masts and links between them, internet usage has changed hugley with high bandwidth applications like Streaming, P2p and gaming downloads. So the model of one main mast in a town serving 60+ customers per Ap isn't going to work, he needs more mini masts closer to people with less customers on it, he has plenty of bandwidth at the source but bottlenecks prevent it getting to the clients especially at peak times.

Also his installer model all based out of Derry isnt feasible, when there is an outage in Nw Donegal the lead time for repair is too long, he needs to outsource that locally.

Basically they have a licence to print money but seem very reluctant to do it, he is blackening the company name and wisps in general that when the NBP tenders go out the gov won't touch them with a barge pole.

Darth Maul

chris_ie

darth_maul wrote: »

Their major problem is they lost their main engineer about 18-24 months ago, and there have been numerous replacements since, each lasting less and less time and with less and less competency.
They need a major upgrade of all masts and links between them, internet usage has changed hugley with high bandwidth applications like Streaming, P2p and gaming downloads. So the model of one main mast in a town serving 60+ customers per Ap isn't going to work, he needs more mini masts closer to people with less customers on it, he has plenty of bandwidth at the source but bottlenecks prevent it getting to the clients especially at peak times.

Also his installer model all based out of Derry isnt feasible, when there is an outage in Nw Donegal the lead time for repair is too long, he needs to outsource that locally.

Basically they have a licence to print money but seem very reluctant to do it, he is blackening the company name and wisps in general that when the NBP tenders go out the gov won't touch them with a barge pole.

Darth Maul

Yeah, I think I know the guy you're on about (engineer that left). Its a pity, I was recommending them to everyone at the start.

On a brighter not, have you looked at eircom (eir) new fiber route map to see if your on it? Runs just past our house. So fingers crossed..

darth_maul

Mass outage again, seems to be down a lot lately.

CustomPCs1

darth_maul wrote: »

Mass outage again, seems to be down a lot lately.

Yeah things seem to be getting worse.

I started using Vodafone 4G and I'm getting really good speeds. I get between 30 to 60 megs download and about 15 to 25 upload.

Bluebox need to sort their **** out soon or there going to start loosing a lot of customers.

Tommy Lagahan

Was down for me last night and down for 10 minutes in the middle of the day today. The NBP map from Eir is showing our house as having fiber run to it, hope to hell we get it within 3 years so I can dump all this wireless crap!

Burnt out me 3G modem from the sheer amount of bandwidth I was pumping through it. Lasted 4 months. Goddamnit.

darth_maul

Still down for everyone here since Friday.

NIMAN

That's it, its definitely off my list of potential providers.

I'll stick with my reliable 4meg.