Fiber Broadband.

element693

Naively i moved into student accommodation without inquiring about the broadband speeds after reading "Free fast fiber broadband internet access in every bedroom" I'm wondering if I have a leg to stand on in looking for my deposit back when i leave.

Torqay

Seems to be capped via bandwidth allocation. Do others get the same result? How many share this place?

element693

there are just three of us in the apartment but its in a block of maybe 150 people. at these speeds am i getting what i paid for is what im wondering?

Torqay

Did you talk to others? What is the speed they're getting?

element693

Just the guys i live with and their speeds are awful as well. How can speeds like this realistically be justified as "fast fiber Broadband"

invaderzimirl

well with student accommodation its all included, technically you do have access to fiber power broadband but you are sharing with X others as Torgay said prob limited per apartment. is it wired of wifi?

looking it is provided by http://www.imedia.ie/blackhome.html

it seems to be a fully intergrated system into the building (from what the site offers)

im unsure if you could even get a different broad band there but uswitch is a very good start for you, maybe a mobile BB would suit you better. as for debating what is fiber broadband thats tricky.

hope this helps

invaderzimirl

if your thinking of moving dont forget youll have to factor in other charges you may not get where you are like rubbish and or a telephone line,

element693

its hard wired via Ethernet and there is no wireless in the complex which doesn't bother me as i have a desktop.

element693

I understand that but being so dependent on the internet as i moved down here alone i cant bare spending the year without being able to stream,download and play games in my spare time. God that makes me sound like a socially inept loser.

invaderzimirl

ok then that really points to a central controlling system throttling your apartments connection, if you connect 2 devices and do a speed test at the same time do you get similar results. on both.

im wondering as you have a desktop could you bridge 2 connections to get double speed as thet system might be assiging X speed to ip Y and X to ip Z.

if you have Y and Z connected and bridged will you get 2 X

has to be tested and checked if it breached any legalities of the lease

Torqay

Awful??? I just had a look at the Revenue guidelines for the Student Accommodation Scheme (dated from 2007):

A minimum bandwidth of 64kb/s shall be provided by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) per each 30 student bedspaces.

You should consider yourself lucky!

Seriously, say, if they have one 50 mbps line coming into the block and it is shared with 150 students, a bandwidth allocation cap of 0.3 mbps per user sounds realistic.

They're legally required to give you 64kb/s in order to grab the tax benefits. I doubt you'll have a leg to stand on in asking for your deposit. You have free internet and (as p*ss-poor as it is) it is provided via fibre broadband, as advertised. If you were under the impression, you'd get 100 mbps, uncongested, unlimited... well, think again. Welcome to the real world.

Overheal

I had the same problem with my broadband at my accomodations.

Its actually the very topic that brought me to boards in the first shagging place.

I never pursued the matter very far. In our case, the broadband was reasonably fast but restricted the ports use for things like Skype and Online games. I petitioned the admin to let me use skype to make my overseas calls but they feigned stupidity even though she sipped coffee right next to the switch racks. Dumb bitch.

Wasnt worth fighting about. Didn't go back to that place again next year though. And my next place the web ran too slow to support skype, or I just didn't bother. I cant recall which.

You might have a leg to stand on if you really want to go grab a solicitor but no promises. Your decision was based on an advertisement that used the speed of the internet as a selling point after all.

Read somewhere that ireland defines a broadband connection as >2Mbps, and they do say that is available "in every room"...

Soundman

Have you tried doing a speed test when, in theory, the majority of the rest of the accommodation would be either asleep or out? See what you are getting then. If it is the same then it would appear that the connection is being throttled on a per IP basis.

invaderzimirl

it dose look like its a 50 mb line split and throttled

as you get on a perfect line (50Mb *1024 = 51200 KB/sec) /150 users = 341.3KBps (max)
so 270KBps would be good but the more surprising thing is the symmetrical upload speed

Torqay

invaderzimirl wrote: »

more surprising thing is the symmetrical upload speed

Whoever configured the bandwidth allocation management probably made a mistake, should be around 1/3 of the download speed. But then it's unlikely for all 150 users to be be online at the same time and outgoing traffic is usually much less anyway so it shouldn't be a problem... until they all start seeding torrents, that is.

invaderzimirl

well its DLS it will be symmetrical. opposed to the more popular and commonly used ADSL where you have a different upload and download speeds which is more usable in most circumstances where people download mostly and very little upload