Smart Telecom

Mighty_Mouse

Smart Telecom
Anybody have any recent reviews?
I'm in an area which cannot get UPC.

My options are Smart Telecom or Digiweb.
Unless anybody here has any other suggestions.

I'm inclined not to try Sky/Eircom/Vodafone due to hearing of poor experiences.

MagicBusDriver1

Where are you based? I have used them in Dublin on a LLU exchange without issues. They are cheaper than UPC as well.

Mighty_Mouse

Limerick city centre.
Broadband & Phone Smart Telecom offer is

24MB
350 Gigs
Free calls UK&IReland
30 mins calls to mobiles.

€39.95

RangeR

Smart Telecom and Digiweb are the same company.

Mighty_Mouse

Pffft! I'm comparing like with like!

Any other recommendations?
Am I wise to avoid Sky & Vodafone?

Cheers

pizzahead77

Smart Telecom provides the LLU service while Digiweb does the resold Eircom bitstream service so they are not the same products

Mighty_Mouse

Ok so the lie of the land is looking like:

Smart Telecom
24MB
350gigs of traffic
Free calls uK&Ireland
€39.95

Magnet
24mb
Unlimited downloaded
Unlimited local & National calls
Unlimited mobiles Ireland, UK, International
€69.99

Sky
€47.50
17.5mb (sales agent ran a check on the line )
Free calls to Landlines anywhere (including international)


I'm tempted by magnet. The calls part looks outstanding.

MM

Mighty_Mouse

Limerick City Centre

The offer provided by Digiweb & Smart Telecom which suits me best is as above.

Vodafone

24 MB
300 gigs cap download
free ireland UK landline calls unlimited
200 minutes nominated mobile
€49


If anybody has had good, bad or indifferent experiences with the above, I'd appreciate any advice.

Cheers

RangeR

I've heard bad things about ST since DW took them over. I cannot back this claim up as it's not exactly public.
Vodafone can be very hit and miss relating to getting the actual product installed. Can be delay after delay. No ones fault etc. Once in, though, not many issues.


Sorry if this doesn't help.

Mighty_Mouse

Has anybody any experience using magnet?

RangeR

I seem to be monopolising your time on this thread, so sorry etc.... I've used Digiweb fixed wireless. I did find the product excellent with the exception of the miserly bandwidth allowance.

Another one you MIGHT want to try and shouldn't cost you much, at least to try, is mobile internet. It all depends on what you expect to use your internet connection for. It all depends on which mobile carrier is strongest in your area, generally.

For example, I got Three NBS for my MIL just over a year ago. She lives in Laois. It was ****e. Three didn't know their arse from their elbow*. I then switched her to Meteor and she is getting faster speeds than most DSL [5Mb:3Mb] almost consistently. On the other side, I use Three in Naas and Bray and it's excellent. It all depends on area and coverage. Maybe get a cheap mobile internet router and a few PAYG sims and try that out. If you find one that works, you can get 60GB a month for peanuts off most of the providers. Some regular providers don't even give you that much allowance.

* I personally believe that Three actually KNOW that they can't provide a service in some areas but do their best to fob you off with excuses. UPC used to do that to their customers for a year or two into upgrading their network. Most of their network was broken, they couldn't provide service but still charged customers without providing service.

djsim101

Im with Sky for 2 months in Limerick.
Switched from Eircom. Speeds in the first couple of weeks were excellent, 11MB. Now, at weekends, getting 1.5MB, cant even stream standard quality youtube vids. Tried ringing Sunday evening, on hold for 20 Mins then batt died on phone.

Speeds again last nite were great, hope they can sort something out at weekends.

RangeR

djsim101 wrote: »

Im with Sky for 2 months in Limerick.
Switched from Eircom. Speeds in the first couple of weeks were excellent, 11MB. Now, at weekends, getting 1.5MB, cant even stream standard quality youtube vids. Tried ringing Sunday evening, on hold for 20 Mins then batt died on phone.

Speeds again last nite were great, hope they can sort something out at weekends.

1.5Mb is perfect for streaming non HD youtube. I would imagine that there are other facters in play.

Next time it goes slow, run a ping and post it back. It's probably ultra high latency or high packet loss, as well as the lower speed.

from a command prompt

ping -n 20 www.heanet.ie

Mighty_Mouse

Thanks to everybody for the feedback.

FYI,

I've decided to go with the magnet offer

Got them down to €61.50 per month
free unlimited broadband & calls (landline & mobile 20 international destinations)anytime.

They upgrade their service to NGA? in May & line speed increases to between 30-70mbs. When this happens I will get May,June,July free.

So in my monthly charge for the next 12 months averages out at €61.50 * 9/12 = €46

It's as good an offer as I can find out there.

bk

Mighty_Mouse I'm with Smart and it works very well, no problems at all.

If Sky say you will get 17.5mb, you will likely get the same from Smart and Magnet. Smart/Magnet/Sky all offer "up to" 24mb, they all use the same technology ADSL2+, but no one gets 24mb/s in the real world. You will get a lower speed based on your distance from the exchange and quality of line.

Thus you will get roughly the same speed from all of them (assuming they have the same amounts of backhaul, etc.).

Magnet looks expensive to me. What I'd personally go for is Smart:

24mb, 350GB cap, no calls €30

And then pair this with a cheap mobile phone package for instance 48 months:

€20 per month
Unlimted calls anytime to any mobile network
Unlimited texts to any network
3GB 3G internet on your phone
50 minutes calls to landlines

Or seemingly three.ie will be launching a new deal this week:

€20 per month
Unilimited calls to any network including landlines
Unlimtied texts to any network
15GB 3G internet on your phone

So with either of these plans, you end up paying a total of €50 per month, saving you €20 per month over Magnet and in my opinion having free calls on your mobile is much more useful then on your landline.

I bet you would probably save even more money as you probably have some sort of mobile contract too that you would save on.

The only question in my mind is what will Smart Telecom do for the upcoming rollout of VDSL2 by Eircom.

Will they continue to offer the cheap 24mb product?
Will they start to resell Eircom's VDSL2 products and how much will it cost?
Will they start to roll out their own VDSL2 LLU network? *

* The last one is extremely unlikely, BT might do this, but I doubt Digiweb/Smart have the money to do it.

Bohrio

bk wrote: »

Will they start to roll out their own VDSL2 LLU network? *

* The last one is extremely unlikely, BT might do this, but I doubt Digiweb/Smart have the money to do it.

I heard somewhere BT will be rolling out and reselling VDSL2 soon, probably around summer. As far as I know only Eircom wholesale and BT will be doing this but I could be wrong.

bk

Bohrio wrote: »

I heard somewhere BT will be rolling out and reselling VDSL2 soon, probably around summer. As far as I know only Eircom wholesale and BT will be doing this but I could be wrong.

I fully expect BT to wholesale Eircoms VDSL2+ product and resell it via Vodafone and Sky. The question is will they install their own VDSL2+ cabinets in some places alongside the Eircom ones.

This is how BT currently work. Sky and Vodafone use the BT network, where BT have their own ADSL2+ DSLAMS installed in exchange they use those, everywhere else they just resell the Eircom Bitstream product.

But what will they do with the VDSL2+ rollout:
- Will they just resell Eircoms VDSL2+ Bitstream product, not using their own cabinets anywhere. While easier to do, seems like a dangerous ploy as if this is the case it would probably be cheaper for Vodafone and Sky just to buy directly off Eircom.

- Or will BT install their own cabs in the highest denisty places, offering cheaper prices in those locations then Eircom and resell the Eircom VDSL bitstream product everywhere else?

The exact same questions apply to Smart and Magnet who currently have their only LLU ADSL2+ gear.

Bohrio

bk wrote: »

I fully expect BT to wholesale Eircoms VDSL2+ product and resell it via Vodafone and Sky. The question is will they install their own VDSL2+ cabinets in some places alongside the Eircom ones.

Sorry, this is exactly what I meant. Most logical thing for BT will be to upgrade some of their current DSLAMs with newer VDSL equipment. Probably providing both ADSL2+ and VDSL2+ at the same time, and then move to FTTC.

The way FTTC works is simple, first come first served. It will be up to BT to decide which is the best strategy. They are probably in a good economical position to try this. Eircom are currently using Huawei VDSL2+ dslams, they are affordable enough and should do the trick however, although the fact that they are affordable doesnt mean they are cheap, I'd say around 40-50k per cabinet. So you want to make sure you chose the right cabinet! :S

bk

Bohrio wrote: »

Sorry, this is exactly what I meant. Most logical thing for BT will be to upgrade some of their current DSLAMs with newer VDSL equipment. Probably providing both ADSL2+ and VDSL2+ at the same time, and then move to FTTC.

Putting VDSL2+ cards in their existing LLU exchanges should be relatively easy enough, but won't really be much of an improvement, as it will only benefit people within 300 or 400 meters of the exchange.

To really compete with Eircoms new network, BT need to do a similar big FTTC rollout. But that seems like it could be very costly, much more then the previous ADSL2+ LLU rollout (far more civils involved). So I'm not sure if BT will make this sort of investment. Certainly no indication yet that they will.

Well I have no insight at all, what I expect will happen is the following:

- Eircom will move as many of their costumers as they can onto 70mb VDSL2+ as soon as possible, charging them the same €50 to €60 they charge and then try to upsell them on a IPTV add on package.

- BT and Smart will continue to offer ADSL2+ "up to" 24mbps from their LLU exchanges for €30 to €40 to more price conscious customers.

- BT/Smart/Magnet will also resell Eircoms 70mb VDSL2+ at the €50 to €60 range and also try to upsell IPTV to them.

- BT will probably VDSL2+ their LLU exchanges. I'm not sure Magnet and Smart will do this or have enough money to do this.

- BT much further down the line might start doing their own FTTC cabs in high density locations, allowing them to undercut Eircom with VDSL at the €30 to €40 price point. But I get the feeling that this maybe well down the line (more then two years from now *) and I highly doubt Smart and Magnet will follow suit.

* After Eircom completes their full VDSL2 rollout. All the KN network, etc. guys are already very busy with the Eircom rollout, so probably too costly for BT to get them to do the same now. Better to wait till the Eircom rollout finishes and BT can probably get them for a cheaper rate then.

BT will have to use their existing ADSL2+ LLU and resell Eircom VDSL2+ as a stop gap till then.

lud

http://www.getbroadband.ie/provider_package_details.php?packageID=212

29,95/month. 24MG (we actually receive around 12GB - was told it's because of old cables)
anyways, we've been with them few years now and it's been always a good service, they don't block ports like most providers in Ireland do!
And they provide good tools for port forwarding