Before I order it: Breeze - Yay or Nay?

PaddyofNine

We're a house of 4 students in Dundrum.

We don't want the hassle of paying for a phone line, but we need always on Broadband. While I briefly considered IBB Ripwave, I quickly extinquished that impulse after reading some of the horror stories on this board.


We'll be setting up a wireless network in the house, and while we'll mainly be using it for browsing and e-mailing, gaming and downloading big files (music, etc.) will happen from time to time. Thus, we're going for IBB Breeze.

I think the pros of this are:
- No download caps.
- Supposedly far more reliable and faster than Crapw-I mean, Ripwave.
- Installation shouldn't cost a penny as we have a DIT student in the house.

The two main cons are:

-Having to sign a twelve month contract is a bit of a pain in the ass, as we're a house of students and don't know for sure who's gonna be there in twelve months.
-Having to get an antenna installed on the roof - clearing this with the landlord, and waiting for them to do it, and actually having someone in the house when they arrive.

I'm not sure how fast they're gonna come and connect it for us: I'm posting the form this Friday.

So, does anyone want to confirm this decision/talk me out of it?

Whaddya think: Yay or Nay for Breeze?

OfflerCrocGod

PaddyofNine wrote:

- Installation shouldn't cost a penny as we have a DIT student in the house.

I dont understand this at all.....surely it's ALL students, why just DIT students!!!??? Do you know that they have to drill a hole in your wall to feed the cable into the house?

PaddyofNine

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

I dont understand this at all.....surely it's ALL students, why just DIT students!!!??? Do you know that they have to drill a hole in your wall to feed the cable into the house?

Yeah, I was a bit hazy on the salient details as well. I'd have thought it's all students but (a) all I've seen on boards.ie is about DIT and Griffith College students, and (b) I've neither time nor credit to ring and ask them.

As for the hole in the roof thing, I did actually know about that. I'm going to clear it with the landlord on Monday first, obviously (as I'm handing over my rent, which should grease the wheels nicely) but I don't see it being too big of a problem. Heard one or two bad stories about the installation process, though, so rest assured I'll be on hand with my digital camera to document proceedings!

Blaster99

The real problem is if you will get decent performance from IBB. They're not exactly renowed for their ability to run a consistent service. I also have a nagging suspicion that they bump up the performance during the seven day cool-off period to make sure you're satisfied. They clearly don't have any problems overselling the available bandwidth (based on my own experience), so nothing would surprise me.

Drapper

Blaster99 wrote:

The real problem is if you will get decent performance from IBB. They're not exactly renowed for their ability to run a consistent service. I also have a nagging suspicion that they bump up the performance during the seven day cool-off period to make sure you're satisfied. They clearly don't have any problems overselling the available bandwidth (based on my own experience), so nothing would surprise me.

for downloading its ok but gaming forget it !!!!

I moved from IBB to NTL........

BigMoose

What's wrong with Breeze for gaming? My pings (and others posted here for 5Ghz breeze connections) are consistently lower than any other ISP.

Dummy

I am based down the road from you in Dundrum and have breeze.

Breeze brilliant - No Issues.

Ripwave - mmmmm Not Brilliant. Loads of issues with it.

wanwarlock

i'm sharing this house with 7 other students. got breeze in mid december. it's been smooth... no probs with lags etc. very fast connection, maybe it's because i'm using the digital hub (i think... we live near there). dloads have been great. using bittorent + IE dloads +/- kazaa all at once, dloads seems ok...

so go for breeze!! we're using the linksys wrt54g wireless router on 1 x wired pc, 1 x wired laptop + 3 x wireless laptops just in case ur wondering

neokenzo

I have Breeze for a couple of months. Pings are generally good. Sometimes it does go as high as 100 on a UK server but most of the time its around 30-50 which is a lot better than the pings I had when I was Eircom's 1MB BB.

Mutant_Fruit

for all ye claming great breeze speeds at the moment, try downloading this: linky

I'm getting crap speeds off that site at the moment, and i can't see how its only me being affected. Irish traffic is full speed.

neokenzo

Yeah getting 30kbps of download speeds.

Blaster99

Same here. I tried it over an Eircom 2Mbps leased line as well, got about 75KB/s which is still quite slow but shows that it's not the UK site that's the problem.

CyberGhost

Drapper wrote:

for downloading its ok but gaming forget it

do you download much? they don't throttle right?

Blaster99 wrote:

Same here. I tried it over an Eircom 2Mbps leased line as well, got about 75KB/s which is still quite slow but shows that it's not the UK site that's the problem.

2Mbps the business line? why did you get only 75KB/s?

Mutant_Fruit

well, 75kB/sec is a hellofalot faster than 10kB/sec, i'll be in contact with IBB tomorrow about it. Its been going on too long. My connection itself is grand, irish mirror of debian is full speed 120kB/sec, but foreign sites are as slow as muck.

Lets see what they can do for me.

Drapper

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

well, 75kB/sec is a hellofalot faster than 10kB/sec, i'll be in contact with IBB tomorrow about it. Its been going on too long. My connection itself is grand, irish mirror of debian is full speed 120kB/sec, but foreign sites are as slow as muck.

Lets see what they can do for me.

tell them to move you to a quieter sector on the network !!! your dls will improve

CyberGhost

Mutant, you live far from the eircom exchange? cause with ADSL you should get the full speed, which is about 264KB/s

Legion

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

well, 75kB/sec is a hellofalot faster than 10kB/sec, i'll be in contact with IBB tomorrow about it. Its been going on too long. My connection itself is grand, irish mirror of debian is full speed 120kB/sec, but foreign sites are as slow as muck.

Same for me here,I'm getting about 10 to 8kB/sec from the UK and 120kB/sec from ftp.esat.net .

PaddyofNine

wanwarlock wrote:

i'm sharing this house with 7 other students. got breeze in mid december. it's been smooth... no probs with lags etc. very fast connection, maybe it's because i'm using the digital hub (i think... we live near there). dloads have been great. using bittorent + IE dloads +/- kazaa all at once, dloads seems ok...

so go for breeze!! we're using the linksys wrt54g wireless router on 1 x wired pc, 1 x wired laptop + 3 x wireless laptops just in case ur wondering

Sounds good. That's almost exactly our setup, in terms of what we'll be downloading etc. I'm gonna buy that router on Monday as well, heard good things about it. Probably Komplett is my best and cheapest bet? Anyway I'll be ordering Breeze on Monday also...

Ciaran500

Prepare to wait a long time before they install. I sent away my application form 3months ago and out of the blue got a phone call on last Friday asking when they can install.