Airwire wireless broadband in Galway

Rossi Boy

Hi,

im looking into getting Airwire wireless broadband in County Galway, specifically the Corrandulla area, has anyone had any reason good/bad experiences with Airewire in the Galway area. i think i would be connecting to the Moycullan base station...

thanks
paul.

yfaykya

I am on a diff base station but I imagine that would not make too much difference. I work from home and could not wait for ADSL so I got the 3Mb symetric package (was coming from 120Mb with UPC so took some getting used to!).

To be fair the service is spot on. Youtube does often stutter (I never use windows - linux head) but I have not as of yet diagnosed whether airwire or local issue (I have dropped quality etc).

funnyname

I find it alright for during the day but poor at night



Funny thing I get better speed test results (wrt to ping) from the Sligo server than the Galway one even though I am south of Galway

irishchris

To be fair had been good until recent times but now having same issues. At night when there is no support speeds are terrible. Last night 0.1mb in a 3Mb line made it unusable. As soon as support are open in morning speeds are 3Mb and perfect ping and support are oblivious to the fact that this is not the case at peak times when people actually want to use it . Now again this evening varies between 0.3 and 1mb and atrocious ping times

See attached for a test I just did. As you can see ping time leaves a lot to be desired
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/739362788

Airwire: Martin

yfaykya wrote: »

To be fair the service is spot on. Youtube does often stutter (I never use windows - linux head) but I have not as of yet diagnosed whether airwire or local issue (I have dropped quality etc).

Youtube stuttering doesn't have anything to do with our service, I'm afraid. It's a Youtube issue.

When they introduced DASH to save bandwidth, it actually made the service worse for most. What DASH does, is limit your buffering to about 10 sec or thereabouts. You can't buffer beyond that point anymore.

This is a problem on any connection, be it one of ours, a 24 mbit/s DSL line or a 120 mbit/s UPC connection. Doesn't matter.

You can install the "YouTube Control Center" in your browser. That will let you disable DASH then. http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/114002

Kind regards,
Martin
Airwire Ltd.

keno-daytrader

Lightnet.ie is another wireless provider around county Galway, I know several people with them and are very happy, and you wont get an "attitude" as they are a professional company.

yfaykya

Anyone notice a serious degradation in airwire recently? I am averaging about 20% packet loss (8.8.8.8) last few evenings/nights and some routes are just dead altogether at times (feedly.com for one).

Marlow

yfaykya wrote: »

Anyone notice a serious degradation in airwire recently? I am averaging about 20% packet loss (8.8.8.8) last few evenings/nights and some routes are just dead altogether at times (feedly.com for one).

Having packetloss to 8.8.8.8 doesn't actually say much. ICMP could be prioritized down at their side, as in less CPU power for ICMP and more for other tasks. As it's probably a very busy service, I'd say thats the case. So for a qualified answer there, you should do a traceroute. If the packetloss increases along that, then you can see, where it's caused.

As for routes that are dead alltogether .. again, a traceroute will show you, if it possibly is an Airwire problem or not. I've checked it from an Airwire connection and it dies in Telias network, which clearly indicates, it's outside of Airwire's network, so a problem elsewhere or on feedly.com's side.

Just resurrecting an old thread isn't a good idea either.

/M

yfaykya

reHaving packetloss to 8.8.8.8 doesn't actually say much. ICMP could be prioritized down at their side, as in less CPU power for ICMP and more for other tasks. As it's probably a very busy service, I'd say thats the case. So for a qualified answer there, you should do a traceroute. If the packetloss increases along that, then you can see, where it's caused.

As for routes that are dead alltogether .. again, a traceroute will show you, if it possibly is an Airwire problem or not. I've checked it from an Airwire connection and it dies in Telias network, which clearly indicates, it's outside of Airwire's network, so a problem elsewhere or on feedly.com's side.

I simplified. I used MTR. ICMP was degrading at airwire border router. Also you may be right about ICMP but I only looked as ssh conns and even random http reqs would fail.

Just resurrecting an old thread isn't a good idea either.

I disagree - I was looking for airwire users - especially ppl who may have commented on this thread. I appreciate the response though.

Marlow

yfaykya wrote: »

I simplified. I used MTR. ICMP was degrading at airwire border router. Also you may be right about ICMP but I only looked as ssh conns and even random http reqs would fail.

Well. The website you're referring to (feedly.com) clearly is a Cloudflare problem, not an Airwire problem. It's no packet loss up to Telia and then 98% packet loss from there.

If you used MTR, you would have spotted that.

/M

yfaykya

/M[/QUOTE]

Marlow wrote: »

Well. The website you're referring to (feedly.com) clearly is a Cloudflare problem, not an Airwire problem. It's no packet loss up to Telia and then 98% packet loss from there.

If you used MTR, you would have spotted that.

/M

I used MTR on google DNS. Not feedly. I only did some quick looking at feedly - It is up from www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ and a few external sites I have access to so I assumed routing issue. Anyways I am assuming that you have no issues what so ever! What basestation are you on?

Marlow

yfaykya wrote: »

I used MTR on google DNS. Not feedly. I only did some quick looking at feedly - It is up from www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ and a few external sites I have access to so I assumed routing issue. Anyways I am assuming that you have no issues what so ever! What basestation are you on?

I'm on their fiber network, but that shouldn't really make a big difference apart from maybe a bit less latency maybe.

/M

Marlow

yfaykya wrote: »

It is up from www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ and a few external sites I have access to so I assumed routing issue.

Because it's Cloudflare hosted (traceroute revealed that, once it responded the odd time), it can be assumed, that Cloudflare has more than one connection.

If they have problems with the connection, that is the shortest/best path that they have in common with Airwire, but that's different for the one to www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com, then it would be down on one and not the other.

Normally, if it was a normal router failure, you wouldn't notice it. Because the dead path would be removed. But this looks like a Cloud failure. I've seen Cloudflare do funny things before, so it wouldn't be news to me.

/M

fcio

Signed up to post this. I work from home for on 3mbit Soho package. Had this issue for week now, between 7 and 12 in evening half of sites become unreachable, example reddit,news.ycombinator,anything on cloudflare (including own sites, pro customer with them). Problem is definitely with Airwire since everything works fine via vpn or proxy at those times or via meteor. I'll ring tommorow this has gone on for long enough other than that it's good service not as good as UPC but not bad for country side location.

Edit I'm using 8.8.8.8 Google s dns, I'll try set it to airwires sms tommorow

Marlow

fcio wrote: »

Signed up to post this. I work from home for on 3mbit Soho package. Had this issue for week now, between 7 and 12 in evening half of sites become unreachable, example reddit,news.ycombinator,anything on cloudflare (including own sites, pro customer with them). Problem is definitely with Airwire since everything works fine via vpn or proxy at those times or via meteor. I'll ring tommorow this has gone on for long enough other than that it's good service not as good as UPC but not bad for country side location.

Edit I'm using 8.8.8.8 Google s dns, I'll try set it to airwires sms tommorow

It can't be with Airwire, when the fault is outside their network.

Trace from Airwire goes to Level3, then Telia, then Cloudflare. Failure happens between Telia and Cloudflare.

Hence the problem is with Telia or Cloudflare, but can't be with Airwire, as it's a good chunk outside their network.

Have you checked with Cloudflare, why it's dying between them and Telia ? If you're a customer with Cloudflare and have shell access, you could also test the other way. Might look different.

And it's not DNS related, because outherwise you'd get no DNS response.

Basically, it's either a fault at their side or Cloudflare doesn't buy enough bandwidth to Telia in comparison to what they need.

/M

Marlow

This is on Reddit, so you can't get to it right now: http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2mv4d3/cogent_fiber_cut_london_to_dublin/

The cut in the irish sea happened on the 18th and the fiber was not put back on the seabed after repairs until yesterday night.

This may very well still be an issue and part of the cause. It certainly caused Cloudflare and others massive contention, when nearly the same happened in May: http://blog.adamowen.co.uk/telia-transatlantic-cable-outage/

I know Cogent are currently affected. Telia may also. If that's what is causing it, it'll probably settle throughout the week.

It really depends on, what backhaul provider an ISP uses, if this affects them.

Looking at a looking glass, Airwire sees Cloudflare through Telia in the case of Level3 and GTT. The Cogent route would go through NTT and nLayer, but as it's a network further away won't be taken.

Check out http://www.airwire.ie/index.php/lg , select Dublin, select IPv4, type in one of the Cloudflare IP adresses. For example: 162.159.254.4

Resolve the AS numbers on whois, to identify who is who.

/M

Marlow

Oh. And if you wonder, where the looking glass link can be found, try do a whois on AS42227 (Airwire's AS) or a websearch on "Airwire bgp looking glass".

A lot of ISPs have a service like that, especially the larger ones. It's a real good tool for figuring out, why one provider can't see another.

/M

irishchris

Have been with Airwire 3+ years. First 18 months were good but absolutely atrocious now. Fine in day time when office is open but unusable in evenings for most things. Latency everyday is 300-900+ ms, speeds average 0.1 to 0.5 from 6pm- 12pm EVERY EVENING! Support don't care and say that's just the way it is due to volumes on and have no plans to invest to increase bandwidth requirements. Not just me though. Many others I work with in other areas of Galway from different base stations all have the same issue. Unfortunately they will learn the hard way that they will become extinct if they just take and don't invest in improving their dire network. Thankfully in years to come with the NBP the like of these will be gone for good

Marlow

irishchris wrote: »

Have been with Airwire 3+ years. First 18 months were good but absolutely atrocious now. Fine in day time when office is open but unusable in evenings for most things. Latency everyday is 300-900+ ms, speeds average 0.1 to 0.5 from 6pm- 12pm EVERY EVENING! Support don't care and say that's just the way it is due to volumes on and have no plans to invest to increase bandwidth requirements.

If you have the figures, that you're saying, then there's something wrong. This can be on your end as well.

If Support doesn't care, then you must have pissed them off, because those boys are very committed to solve issues, if they are on Airwire's side.

irishchris wrote: »

Unfortunately they will learn the hard way that they will become extinct if they just take and don't invest in improving their dire network.

I think you've got the entire wrong picture there. With the your attitude, I certainly would understand, if they have no interest in helping you.

/M

irishchris

Marlow wrote: »

If you have the figures, that you're saying, then there's something wrong. This can be on your end as well.

If Support doesn't care, then you must have pissed them off, because those boys are very committed to solve issues, if they are on Airwire's side.



I think you've got the entire wrong picture there. With the your attitude, I certainly would understand, if they have no interest in helping you.

/M

Sounds very like martin from airwire, Blaming everything on things outside their control instead of investing in their service with the cash they take from their customers.
Again if you read ALL of my previous post you would see it is not just me but people I work with in corrundulla, athenry abbeyknocknoy etc. So different basestations and different setups but same result. Now twist that one to how it is not Airwires fault that ALL of these people in ALL of these areas suffer this degraded "service" between 6-12 EVERY day. This is along with all of the posters here and elsewhere on this forum who have reported this and are trapped (for now) in contract. And yes Airwire have the proof of this and the line tests but not working on improving this appalling service for its customers.

Marlow

irishchris wrote: »

Sounds very like martin from airwire, Blaming everything on things outside their control instead of investing in their service with the cash they take from their customers.
Again if you read ALL of my previous post you would see it is not just me but people I work with in corrundulla, athenry abbeyknocknoy etc. So different basestations and different setups but same result. Now twist that one to how it is not Airwires fault that ALL of these people in ALL of these areas suffer this degraded "service" between 6-12 EVERY day. This is along with all of the posters here and elsewhere on this forum who have reported this and are trapped (for now) in contract. And yes Airwire have the proof of this and the line tests but not working on improving this appalling service for its customers.

While I have a good insight into Airwire, I don't work for their Support.

And I don't know, where you get your reading from, but when I trawl through the posts related to Airwire here, I don't get the picture you're painting at all.

As for contract, nobody is trapped in a contract with Airwire really. Airwire is 6 months contract, then monthly basis. Can't be any more relaxed. If you think it's so crap, why don't you get something better ?

Actually, from the limited amount of posts about Airwire here and the size of their coverage, it looks more like, that their service in general works.

What you however describe can be 2 things: either you're facing contention ... OR ... and this happens to more and more people: you've got background downloads dragging your connection down. Have you checked, when you test, that you've got nothing using your connection ? Cloud sync, cellphones downloading/sync'ing on your wifi, windows/mac updates, steam updates, other people in your household using the connection etc. If the pipe is full on your end, you won't be able to test properly.

/M

irishchris

Marlow wrote: »

While I have a good insight into Airwire, I don't work for their Support.

And I don't know, where you get your reading from, but when I trawl through the posts related to Airwire here, I don't get the picture you're painting at all.

As for contract, nobody is trapped in a contract with Airwire really. Airwire is 6 months contract, then monthly basis. Can't be any more relaxed. If you think it's so crap, why don't you get something better ?

Actually, from the limited amount of posts about Airwire here and the size of their coverage, it looks more like, that their service in general works.

What you however describe can be 2 things: either you're facing contention ... OR ... and this happens to more and more people: you've got background downloads dragging your connection down. Have you checked, when you test, that you've got nothing using your connection ? Cloud sync, cellphones downloading/sync'ing on your wifi, windows/mac updates, steam updates, other people in your household using the connection etc. If the pipe is full on your end, you won't be able to test properly.

/M

This has been tested connected directly to the cable entry to the house with all background tasks off. Again the part you keep accidently on purpose missing is that it is not isolated to individuals, individual settings or base stations just their overall dreadful service every evening from 6pm to 12am. Again if it is the same setup with single user connected with background task off why is it at 1pm or any time prior to 6pm is the service as it should be but with same setup after 6pm EVERY day it degrades to an unusable point.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=89584041&postcount=8
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=75488247&postcount=5
http://touch.boards.ie/thread/2057157603/2/#post89613450

I could post more but what the point just google Airwire and you will find out what they are like.

Only reason I posted here is so people got a true view of Airwire and not the rosetinted version you are trying to paint

Marlow

Erhh ?

You're referring to 3 posts. 2 of them is the same guy complaining. The other one has a perfect connection. One post is like over 3 years old. The other two are 9 months old and who knows, if that's still the issue.

That is 1 guy complaining, so 2 including you. And the 2 that had problems up here defo were unrelated to Airwires service.

I wouldn't call that a lot. I bet Airwire has more than 5 customers.

/M

Falconire

I see you have linked to my post from 2011 and yes as Marlow states my connection is working perfectly as per speedtest in your link

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=75488247&postcount=5

irishchris

Error selecting your postfalconeire but glad to see you too had a good connection back then in 2011. Could you post a speedtest now to show your speed and ping at 9pm in the evening.
Like I said I have these issues. 3 other coworkers in 3 areas have this issue all with different setups. Could you post a screenshot also of your perfect Airwire connection this evening marlow?

irishchris

Here is a quick speedtest I took using my phone as PC is off. Before you ask have tasked making sure all background task,sync etc is off and only data connection is through the speed test app.
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/1066095721

Falconire

Here you go

irishchris

Well I wish I lived in your area where you obviously must have very few users as contention does now seem to be an issue there. But unfortunately abbeyknockmoy athenry and lackagh all have contention problems due to the high volumes of users here and in those areas.

I could post reviews of other people with problems on the network but just even googling it here are the first two that came up. Granted there are a select amount of people like falcon who are lucky to live in a low contention area but unfortunately many many arent and would urge people to try to see what a neighbour's is like before you commit as without investment those areas will not improve. People here will make up their own minds on airwires shoddy service and unfortunately thanks to the search bar in this forum and elsewhere they will find out how poor it is

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=86352027&postcount=8208
http://touch.boards.ie/thread/2057266411/1/#post91699004

irishchris

Falconire wrote: »

Here you go

Any chance of a ping test.net result of the packetloss etc as sounds like you are one of the lucky ones in a low user area. Also notice you are only getting less than half of the promised upload speed but could live with that if there weren't such a poor service that we are getting in these areas

Falconire

irishchris wrote: »

Any chance of a ping test.net result of the packetloss etc as sounds like you are one of the lucky ones in a low user area. Also notice you are only getting less than half of the promised upload speed but could live with that if there weren't such a poor service that we are getting in these areas

Mayo Yid

irishchris wrote: »

Here is a quick speedtest I took using my phone as PC is off. Before you ask have tasked making sure all background task,sync etc is off and only data connection is through the speed test app.
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/1066095721

For proper troubleshooting you need to use a laptop or pc over a wired connection, remove the possibility of a wireless problem, better to disable wireless completely and only have one wired device connected.

irishchris

Mayo Yid wrote: »

For proper troubleshooting you need to use a laptop or pc over a wired connection, remove the possibility of a wireless problem, better to disable wireless completely and only have one wired device connected.

Correct you are. That's the way I always test but just as an example used a mobile test as an in bed and PC is off downstairs.

irishchris

Falconire wrote: »

Thanks for that. Unfortunately your jitter is bit on high side but would be more concerned by packet loss as that is what I suffer from also but looks like problem your end with something on PC like Java as its not testing it

Falconire

irishchris wrote: »

Thanks for that. Unfortunately your jitter is bit on high side but would be more concerned by packet loss as that is what I suffer from also but looks like problem your end with something on PC like Java as its not testing it

You have to remember there are others using my connection when I run the tests

Mayo Yid

Don't use pingtest, it's not a great indication, use ping and traceroute to various addresses from the command line. Set the count parameter to 1000 to give a better indication over a longer time.

Rob Thomas

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I was looking for a little feedback on Airwire internet quality in Galway, specifically in the Lackagh/Corofin area. I am with Eircom and speeds are brutal, mainly due to congestion and a limit on the line and recent notification of a price increase has been the trigger to finally change.

I don't need it to be especially quick but a reliable 2-2.5mb would be needed. I need to go wireless as I've been finally told that my land line can only support up to 1.8mb due to the exchange being out of date. My Eircom service was limited by them to 1mb for the same reason.

I'm told that Airwire now utilise a mast at a quarry in Corrandrum so that has increased the quality of their service. But I'm also told it can be hit and miss at different times.

I'm working more from home and in the evenings than ever so I need it to be reliable at all times if possible.

Thanks for any feedback

Mikegalway2015

Hi Rob,

I'm with Airwire for some time now and if I had any other options I'd move away from them. What worries me the most from your post it that you work from home - that is a serious concern should you go with airwire. I am based in the moycullen area so am unsure of how my experience would translate to your area.

The signal drops on a very frequent basis and I don't mean for seconds or minutes. Last weekend it dropped from Saturday 1pm right through to Monday 11am. Tonight it dropped from approx 5pm to literally now (10pm). I don't use the internet much during the week (not during the day at all) so dread to think what you might run into. I have been in touch with airwire on numerous occasions in months gone past but just give up to be honest. They find it perfectly acceptable to state that they repair the signal as soon as it's possible - it's important to note that they have no engineering support whatsoever on weekend (as quoted on my last call with them recently). So if there are any technical issues on Friday evening it's well into the week after before you can expect them to be rectified.

I hate to say it but I'd prefer to use eircom, sky, UPC, etc. if only I could. Airwire do not think a lack or complete drop of the service warrants any action from their part - you will still get charged the full monthly payment, not questions asked!

Finally , you have unlimited broad band with airwire but that's is completely misleading- the speeds are so so so slow. If ping means anything I get 34 to 62 in ping tests. I presume this to be poor but don't fully understand it.

I could go on and on but what's the point, your probably get my opinion of airwire by now.

Regards
M

Mikegalway2015

Apologies, let me requote the Ping results - 434 to 462. Is higher better I don't know. Highest result I have on the test is 1112

yfaykya

Their service where I am near lackagh is generally much better during the day than post 6pm. But they have some serious routing issues. Twitter in the evening is a no no. As is any cloudflare hosted service.

Yesterday their whole network died from 2pm till 8pm. I have flaky 3g here so tried to Google support number (I work from home too mainly). Of course their website was down but got number from Google cache. Ends up phone was dead too so I guess its a VoIP which is crazy!! I eventually found them on twitter that explained their was a switch dead in Dublin. So seems like they operate their whole network on a single point of failure.

I generally get about 15-20% packet drops after 6pm. Fine during day so would assume contention.

Hope this helps.

Rob Thomas

Mikegalway2015 wrote: »

Apologies, let me requote the Ping results - 434 to 462. Is higher better I don't know. Highest result I have on the test is 1112

Thanks for your feedback. Yes my biggest problem would be an unreliable service and it appears that Airwire won't suit for what I need.

Thanks again.

fcio

Rob Thomas wrote: »

Thanks for your feedback. Yes my biggest problem would be an unreliable service and it appears that Airwire won't suit for what I need.

Thanks again.

It wasnt working at all yesterday for whole day due to faulty switch or something in Dublin

Rob Thomas

yfaykya wrote: »

Their service where I am near lackagh is generally much better during the day than post 6pm. But they have some serious routing issues. Twitter in the evening is a no no. As is any cloudflare hosted service.

Yesterday their whole network died from 2pm till 8pm. I have flaky 3g here so tried to Google support number (I work from home too mainly). Of course their website was down but got number from Google cache. Ends up phone was dead too so I guess its a VoIP which is crazy!! I eventually found them on twitter that explained their was a switch dead in Dublin. So seems like they operate their whole network on a single point of failure.

I generally get about 15-20% packet drops after 6pm. Fine during day so would assume contention.

Hope this helps.

Thanks a million for this. My biggest issue would be reliability of service, and it appears that Airwire's network is not for me on that basis.

farmer johnd

Any information available on Airwire Broadband in Co. Galway?

TerrorFirmer

For what it's worth, I used Airwire a few years ago in Oranmore and the quality was absolutely appalling. It was like being back on dial up, and often worse - random outages all the time, unusable when it did work except crazy hours in the middle of the night, etc. They also gave us so much hassle trying to cancel it, I swore I'd make it my mission to warn everyone off them. Total disaster and they were really unhelpful.

Falconire

I have a much better experience with airwire in Loughrea area

irishchris

Falconire wrote: »

I have a much better experience with airwire in Loughrea area

Is that their wireless service?
Reason I ask is that when I was with then 2 years ago the max speed they offered was 6mb/s and my service was appalling with then with low speeds in peak times due to contention

Falconire

irishchris wrote: »

Is that their wireless service?
Reason I ask is that when I was with then 2 years ago the max speed they offered was 6mb/s and my service was appalling with then with low speeds in peak times due to contention

Yes it is wireless and as far as I know they offer the best possible speed in you area now.

irishchris

Falconire wrote: »

Yes it is wireless and as far as I know they offer the best possible speed in you area now.

I would be off the abbeyknockmoy mast so would 20 mb/s be available from that one? Would be interested in seeing some results from someone from this mast.

Would you mind providing a pingtest.net result from your connection as it's mainly the low ping that is attracting me to looking again at airwire but concerned of possible packet loss again at peak times

irishchris

I think I am going to ring and order this to try it out and see if has improved since my last time with them. I would love anyone with this service to provide another speedtest before I pull the trigger and order it. Thanks

funnyname

Well you do have the 14 day cooling off period so that should give you time to test it out properly.

Just check when the start the period from, might be the order date rather than the install date.

irishchris wrote: »

I think I am going to ring and order this to try it out and see if has improved since my last time with them. I would love anyone with this service to provide another speedtest before I pull the trigger and order it. Thanks

farmer johnd

funnyname wrote: »

Well you do have the 14 day cooling off period so that should give you time to test it out properly.

Just check when the start the period from, might be the order date rather than the install date.

I eventually plumbed for 3 broadband. Excellent upload speed which is what I required to stream a calving camera. They have a 30 day refund offer if you find the signal is not satisfactory.