Advice on UPC please

Lynfo

Hi all, I recently moved to a new house and signed up to UPC for TV & internet. They sent us out a self install Horizon box which works fine for TV but was terrible for wifi.
They then sent us a modem to use for wifi, while using the Horizon box for TV, which isn't what we wanted but took it as we needed to sort out the wifi.
The connection was terrible, constantly dropping and so they sent out an engineer a couple of weeks ago to try to fix it. It worked fine while he was in the house, and about an hour after he left it stopped working.
We can now no longer connect to the modem at all, but our phones can connect to the original Horizon box. Smart TV, laptops and Wii cannot connect at all.

They are sending out another engineer this week - they were to send somebody out last Friday but the appointment somehow got cancelled, which I wasn't advised of until late Friday afternoon - after I had taken the day off work to be there.

Basically, what I'm wondering is, if the engineer is successful with fixing our wifi issues - can I cancel my TV package and just keep the internet with them or will I incur a cancellation charge?

slimjimmc

If you cancel the TV package you are liable for and will be billed for the remainder of the minimum term of the contract which is 18 months if you got their current discounted offer.
The wifi issue has nothing to do with the TV service and UPC are actively trying to resolve it anyway so that's no grounds for cancellation on the basis of poor service, etc.

Lynfo

Thanks for the reply.

Supposing the engineer cannot fix the wifi issue, can it be said that as the original Horizon box supplied is not fit for purpose - ie TV & broadband, that this is a breach of contract?

ssmith6287

Out of interest how old are the devices that cant connect and what phones have you. Can you see 2 networks. Im not familiar with the hardware upc use but it might be dual frequency. Your older devices would connect to the 2nd network. I think Iphones after 4s can use the higher frequency. Wii wouldnt be able, id imagine the tv cant, and it would need to be quite a high spec laptop, windows 7 or later to see the 5mhz frequency

slimjimmc

I assume (as it's a common complaint and the fact UPC installed an external modem) that your issue is due to poor range whereby you can get a good signal near the box but poor signal further away in the house. If that is so then again you have little grounds for rejecting the TV service. Don't forget there may be external factors (microwaves, foil backed plasterboards, ) within your house that affect WiFi reception and would be beyond the control and responsibility of UPC.

The Horizon box seems to be working fine for TV as you've mentioned no complaint there. Yet you want to get rid of the bit that works and keep the bit that doesn't.

As above some devices won't connect even some Smart TVs, that's often down t the device not necessarily down to the Horizon box though.
There's lot's of discussion on Horizon WiFi over in Cable & MMDS & IPTV

Lynfo

We can see 2 networks on all devices.
The Wii and Smart TV both connected to the modem until the engineer came out, now neither will connect. They can see both the Horizon box and the modem, but cannot connect.
The iphones are both the 5 model, and will only connect to the Horizon box.
One laptop is old enough, but again, they connected fine until the engineer came out.

Lynfo

slimjimmc wrote: »

I assume (as it's a common complaint and the fact UPC installed an external modem) that your issue is due to poor range whereby you can get a good signal near the box but poor signal further away in the house. If that is so then again you have little grounds for rejecting the TV service. Don't forget there may be external factors (microwaves, foil backed plasterboards, ) within your house that affect WiFi reception and would be beyond the control and responsibility of UPC.

The Horizon box seems to be working fine for TV as you've mentioned no complaint there. Yet you want to get rid of the bit that works and keep the bit that doesn't.

The issue isn't poor range as we cannot connect to the modem at all - even when sitting beside it.

When we originally bought the package, the wifi was contained within the Horizon box so we went with the TV for convenience more than anything.

If I'm perfectly honest, I'd rather get rid of the whole thing at this stage and start afresh with another supplier.

zl1whqvjs75cdy

slimjimmc wrote: »

If you cancel the TV package you are liable for and will be billed for the remainder of the minimum term of the contract which is 18 months if you got their current discounted offer.
The wifi issue has nothing to do with the TV service and UPC are actively trying to resolve it anyway so that's no grounds for cancellation on the basis of poor service, etc.

They've been "actively trying to resolve it" since the Horizon box was released. The Wifi on the box is muck, there's no two ways about it, as well evidenced by a heap of threads on here complaining of the issue. But UPC will ignore this thread too so why bother.

On the engineer cancellation thing my parents had the same thing happen to them last week. When the engineer did turn up I was at home so was chatting to him. He said that the scheduling dept. has recently been outsourced to India from Ireland and that they don't have a clue what's going on. He said that on a normal day he can do 8 visits but he is always booked in for 11 calls per day. He said they also regularly book him to do installations in Donegal, despite the fact that he lives in Kildare.

Tl;dr? UPC are ****e.

ssmith6287

Can you connect to either of the networks with the laptop?

Ive seen alot of issues with Vista software and efiber from eircom. Eircom released a patch and it works fine after it. UPC may have something similar. The engineers are great with external problems but when it comes to consumer devices theyre generally a few years behind.

Like I said the iphones will pick up the 5mhz signal. the older devices work on 2.4mhz. which is the frequency fro pretty much any wireless communication. The router, if its sending out a 5mhz, should also send out a 2.4mhz signal which the devices can connect to.

As slimjim said, if theres metal ined walls or even thick walls it will seriously comprimise the signal.

Lynfo

ssmith6287 wrote: »

Can you connect to either of the networks with the laptop?

No, the laptop isn't connecting to either network.

ssmith6287

any chance did the engineer reset the modem and change the password? this would mean the laptop has stored the name but the password isnt matching so its not connecting. If you delete the networks from your laptop history and try and connect then. It may help. If the iphones are connecting then its a sign that theres nothing wrong with the UPC hardware, its your devices

Lynfo

ssmith6287 wrote: »

any chance did the engineer reset the modem and change the password? this would mean the laptop has stored the name but the password isnt matching so its not connecting. If you delete the networks from your laptop history and try and connect then. It may help. If the iphones are connecting then its a sign that theres nothing wrong with the UPC hardware, its your devices

It would make sense, however, my sister was down yesterday and she could connect to the horizon box using the password that I gave her (ie the original one).

I'll try deleting the networks anyway and see what happens.

ED E

Lynfo wrote: »

It would make sense, however, my sister was down yesterday and she could connect to the horizon box using the password that I gave her (ie the original one).

I'll try deleting the networks anyway and see what happens.

If you got a modem the Horizon box is disabled for internet services.

Ask them for a Cisco 3925, they claim they have none left but its not true.

Lynfo

ED E wrote: »

If you got a modem the Horizon box is disabled for internet services.

They seem to have done it the wrong way around.

I'll ask about the Cisco 3925, thanks for the advice.

brownej

ED E wrote: »

If you got a modem the Horizon box is disabled for internet services.

Ask them for a Cisco 3925, they claim they have none left but its not true.

I have the Cisco EPC3925 on UPC. I've had it for ~8 years. I ended up disabling the Wifi on it and connecting a separate wifi router as the Wifi on it is not that stable. It works fine for me just as a cable modem though.
If you do get one and do use it be aware that it has 802.11G wifi only. That means its limited to 54MBps. As about half of that bandwidth is signalling overhead you will only get ~20MBps out of it.

The original Cisco EPC3925 modems had a safety issue with the plugs. 2 years ago UPC insisted on sending me a replcement plug as the originals were faulty. They wouldn't take no for an answer even when I told them I had already replaced it myself 3 years prior to that as it had died.:rolleyes:

pred racer

Lynfo wrote: »

No, the laptop isn't connecting to either network.

we had the same problem, could connect Ipad, phones etc but not laptops (ethernet cable worked fine but not wifi).
got a standalone router from them, still the same. wifi signal strength was good but speed varied wildly over the course of 30 mins and no laptops could connect (we never got to the bottom of this). engineers reported everything working fine even though i was standing there watching him struggle to refresh a web page.
Cancelled UPC and went with sky.
could be better......................ill let ye know.

MarkAnthony

ED E is here so I'm redundant but maybe have a read of some of the threads in the broadband forum. Very helpful folks and more technical knowledge than a Star Trek convention.

UPC stuff if great when you tweak it. One box solutions are sh1te - avoid.

TheDoc

You might just need to tweak the router, or as above ask for that model. My Father got horizon in on release and they moved the internet through it and he knew no better. Was a disaster. I got involved(I'm named on the account) and they were more then happy to send out a Thompson router(they took it back when Horizon was put in) and I set it up.

Initially was still poor, but I changed the wifi channel and a few other tweaks and they have been happy out since.

I know when I moved into my current house last year initially the wifi was pants, and again just changed the wifi channel and was fine again. Remember most of them come with a default selected wifi channel, and if you are in a built up area, no doubt you will have multiple nerighbours trying to operate on the same wifi channel. Changing it to something else is usually a good fix.

Also just double check what the wifi is broadcasting. Some of the latest router have a multi channel broadcast that carries G and N wireless signals/speeds, but I've found from troubleshooting neighbours and family, its not very reliable and causes some derps in speeds. Personally I just run it on N mode as all wifi devices in the house are N enabled, but if you have some stuff that can only work on the G band, you might be running into some issues with the router downgrading the speeds etc when it conflicts with G and N devices.