which broadband service should I try?

modmo

Hi, I have three boys in my house with 2 X-box's and 1 PS3, as well as 2 laptops and 2 ipods.
My son who plays the PS3 says its always crashes and there's lots of lagging when the other two are on their x-boxs at the same time. He says it even happens when only one of them is on at the same time.

I was thinking of switching from my broadband provider (we are with O2 at the moment) to see if this will help.
My friend said UPC are the best cause's its fibre power.
Has anybody got any advice/suggestions of which would be the best option for me please?

Cheerful Spring

modmo wrote: »

Hi, I have three boys in my house with 2 X-box's and 1 PS3, as well as 2 laptops and 2 ipods.
My son who plays the PS3 says its always crashes and there's lots of lagging when the other two are on their x-boxs at the same time. He says it even happens when only one of them is on at the same time.

I was thinking of switching from my broadband provider (we are with O2 at the moment) to see if this will help.
My friend said UPC are the best cause's its fibre power.
Has anybody got any advice/suggestions of which would be the best option for me please?

Fibre UPC, i would choose but you have to be living in a certain location to get it. Were you live?

02 is too bad ( mobile broadband is crap) for the bandwidth been used by your boys. 02 is only good for browsing web pages really.

cunnijo

modmo wrote: »

Hi, I have three boys in my house with 2 X-box's and 1 PS3, as well as 2 laptops and 2 ipods.
My son who plays the PS3 says its always crashes and there's lots of lagging when the other two are on their x-boxs at the same time. He says it even happens when only one of them is on at the same time.

I was thinking of switching from my broadband provider (we are with O2 at the moment) to see if this will help.
My friend said UPC are the best cause's its fibre power.
Has anybody got any advice/suggestions of which would be the best option for me please?

Hi

Where you live is key. If UPC cable is available to you then their fibre power broadband is for you. With speeds up to 150Mb you cannot go wrong. If however this is not an option then there is fixed wireless in the likes of Imagine WiMax or Digiweb Metro to name 2 (I know there are other companies out there that cover certain parts of the country). These would have speeds up to 30Mb and like UPC would be much better than O2 mobile broadband (I assume this is what you are currently using but could be wrong) The only other alternative after that is DSL and that is virtually controlled by Eircom and it really is not worth it unless you are a reasonable distance from your local telephone exchange or your area is upgraded/enabled to avail of it but unlike the other alternatives speeds can really fluctuate and the average is around 8Mb.

Tar.Aldarion

UPC is the best by far. Especially with all those users

PogMoThoin

Have you tried plugging some or all of the devices in to run on ethernet, sounds like you have a lot happening on your wireless network, this will not change no matter which provider you go with.

modmo

Thank you for your replies. I've just rang UPC and there are not in my area.
Pog Mo Thoin - how do you connect the devices up with ethernet? Is that the yellow cable that comes with your modem box? Would it mean I would have to plug the cable from the PS3 into the modem box?

Sorry if I sound dumb, I haven't got a clue about these things!

Simi

Is this what you have now?

If so, it's only really designed for basic web browsing on a single laptop. It's simply not up to the task of servicing so many devices. The same goes for all other mobile offerings i.e. Vodafone, Three, Meteor and E-mobile.

You'll have to give us a clue of where you are in the world if you want a good recommendation. If you can't get UPC, you'll probably need to get DSL or fixed wireless from somebody. Both of which are considerably more expensive than what you have now.