Eircom press release, 1M -> 4M DSL

CrowdedHouse

Khannie wrote:

Not me

They've only done this because they were forced to lower their prices by the regulators. Not wanting to lower their prices, they've forced 1Mb on people that don't need it (there will no longer be a 512k option).

Don't get me wrong....I'm delighted to be offered a 2 meg service....it's just a pity it had to come at the expense of those who have no need for a 1 meg service.

I agree with Khannie,while the higher speeds will be welcome,the 512 is perfectly adequate for my needs. 512 for €20 might have been better for me !

Superman

carrotcake wrote:

from using a 100mb connection most of the time, i can tell you that that is not the case!

yeah, I'm not gonna even ask how you got your hand on that (but your defo not in Ireland ), you can easily go full out on a 2mbit line, especially if you download something big and fast like a linux distro

RE*AC*TOR

Superman wrote:

yeah, I'm not gonna even ask how you got your hand on that (but your defo not in Ireland ), you can easily go full out on a 2mbit line, especially if you download something big and fast like a linux distro

university....

PiE

lomb wrote:

there is nothing to be happy about, 2 mbit is pointless without the upload to achieve it. very few servers can provide data at those superfast rates, so it is a pointless exercise, well actually it isnt, its a good marketing gimmick.

Oh dear, "superfast"? You do realise any decent website is running off gigabit connections right? And even smaller websites can easily upload at 200kb/s.

And even if they couldn't, 2mb would come in very handy if you were to download two files from different servers at say 100k/s each, no?

Stop talking gash.

Bubonic

I got a mail back from Netsource saying that my Origin + line will be upgraded to 2mb on the 4th or April.

It already, in theory, has no cap. No mention of upload speed.

Jammer

i use the net in university to get linux distro's from heanet, its instant, just like dragging something from folder to folder!

bring on the 2mbit. wish they'd up the uploads for xbox live though...

Ryaner

Bubonic wrote:

I got a mail back from Netsource saying that my Origin + line will be upgraded to 2mb on the 4th or April.

It already, in theory, has no cap. No mention of upload speed.

Thought the Origin Plus had a 16GIG Cap on it? And did they say if they'd be doing anything about upload speeds?

CyberGhost

OK people here's the bottom line

you were all expecting 1 meg update with 128k upload, right? I don't think anyone expected more from this upgrade? we got 2 meg instead of 1, aren't you happy? you can't ask eircom to become "perfect" in one day, but I said it once and I will say it again, God Bless Smart Telecom! now it's a good time for them to strike again, and upgrade their up speeds to 256

thejollyrodger

3. line rental is 10 euro overpriced, eircom is doing nothing about this.

I couldnt agree more. €50 bucks for 2 months?? That is far far to much. €10/month or €15/month is plenty. Is comreg looking at this????? RIP OFF IRELAND .

As for the increase of speeds, I just see it as Eircon keeping up with SMART. Smart are the only ones who are agressively pushing Eircon with the LLU. Since they are installing their own equipment they are a direct threat to Eircon. Every other company is just renting off Eircon and living off Eircon. They will never be able to bring the price down

LLU is the only real way that people in Ireland will have faster broadband speeds for cheaper. Comreg has to get the finger out to cut line rents and get on with LLU. 1Mb entry is ok, but lots of improvements can be made.

Jorinn

Ryaner wrote:

Thought the Origin Plus had a 16GIG Cap on it? And did they say if they'd be doing anything about upload speeds?

Their upload speed will be whatever eircom's is, which looks like 128, which is pathetic. Ridiculous lag when I use VOIP to call back to ireland and have to wait to hear what people are saying. And the problem definately is not with my end since I have 10mbit up/down.

For caps, pressumably their official cap will be 64gigs or so for the 2mbit service and 32gigs for the 1mb service. Though I was under the impression that if you signed up before they started capping it they technically (for legal reasons, though I could be wrong) have to inform you in writing of changes to the T&Cs.

Ryaner

Jorinn wrote:

Their upload speed will be whatever eircom's is, which looks like 128, which is pathetic. Ridiculous lag when I use VOIP to call back to ireland and have to wait to hear what people are saying. And the problem definately is not with my end since I have 10mbit up/down.

Yeah thats actually what I need the upload for. Anything running on the line and echo is mad on my VOIP line.

Jorinn wrote:

For caps, pressumably their official cap will be 64gigs or so for the 2mbit service and 32gigs for the 1mb service. Though I was under the impression that if you signed up before they started capping it they technically (for legal reasons, though I could be wrong) have to inform you in writing of changes to the T&Cs.

I had to change contact and actually signed the Orgin Plus one. I needed more ip's and that was how they got me on the new package. Download caps arent too much of an issue though as it's upload use most.

LFCFan

I take that Clicksilver Plus will now be 2 Mbits? If I upgrade from regular Clicksilver to Clicksilver Plus, will I be starting a new 12 month contract?

kleefarr

Megatron wrote:

as i see this move by Eircon as a knee jerk reaction . They are trying to jump ahead of smart and try and save as many accounts from changing over. Plain and simple.

An excellent point.

I think it has also kick started the other ISPs into competition, which can only be good for us. Not enough of it in this country I think. :rolleyes:

Couch Potato

Ryaner wrote:

Yeah thats actually what I need the upload for. Anything running on the line and echo is mad on my VOIP line.


Isn't that what Eircom want to do .. protect themselves from VOIP as much as possible ?

WellyJ

I would imagine that the amount of people using VOIP on a regular basis is miniscule compared to normal phone calls. If Eircom are using this as the reason for not incresing upload speeds they are even greedier then i thought. I just dont think it would have enough of an impact on their telephone call earnings for them to worry about it.

WellyJ

Ryaner

I do doubt that eircom are using VOIP as a reason not to upgrade upload speed. From my experience with BT in the UK, they recently but everyone on the same pricing plan and gave them 2 meg (provided they could have it) and their upload speed has stayed the same.
It is alot harder to increase upload speed than download as loop loss tends to be higher on the up stream so I can understand why they arent blanket increasing the speed. The only issue I see is that some people wont be able get 1 meg and then have massive problems come upgrade time in april.

dglancy

I noticed the following on the eircom.ie news page:

We will be upgrading our Broadband service on 15th and 16th March 2005. If you are an eircom broadband customer and live in the areas below, you may experience a short disruption.

Wednesday 16th March 2005
20 minute disruption to your broadband service starting at 0100hrs.

* Whitehall.
* Swords.
* Malahide.
* Sutton.
* Clontarf.
* Eastpoint.
* Custom.
* House.
* Merrion.
* Ship St.,North Main.
* Phibsboro, Cabra.
* Blanchardstown.
* Finglas, Santry.
* Belcamp.
* Coolock.

Does anybody know if these exchanges will have the upgraded 1Mb/2Mb service from tomorrow then?

Or is it more likely that they will upgrade the equipment and switch on the service at a later date?

cgarvey

dglancy wrote:

I noticed the following on the eircom.ie news page:



Does anybody know if these exchanges will have the upgraded 1Mb/2Mb service from tomorrow then?

Or is it more likely that they will upgrade the equipment and switch on the service at a later date?

The latter, if previous upgrades are anything to go by.

Jammer

didnt think they had to upgrade equipment?

might be fitting boosters, the blanchardstown exhange covers quite a distance, so i'd imagine they would need to have strong signal comin' outta that one!

I live a stones throw (litteraly) from my exchange so hopefully the 2mb will be fine Dont see my exchange on that list.

LookingFor

LFCFan wrote:

I take that Clicksilver Plus will now be 2 Mbits? If I upgrade from regular Clicksilver to Clicksilver Plus, will I be starting a new 12 month contract?

I'm wondering about this too. My contract is up at the end of April..I'm hoping I can switch to Clicksilver Plus then and still be able to go over to a monthly rolling contract then. They've had me locked in for 18 months now! (partly my own fault - I didn't realise downgrading to their cheaper offering last april would lock me in for ANOTHER twelve months).

dave oc

This could possibly be for smarts planned unbundling of exchanges as there are a few areas mentioned on that list that are due to go live march/april......

WellyJ

Actually these upgrades have been going on for a few months in all the exchanges, the list can be found here. And it contains lots of exchanges that are unplanned for Smart so i dont think they have anything t do with them. I reckon they are for the new eircom products. They said they have been testing lately too

http://tinyurl.com/4buxe - List

dglancy

Dave6195 wrote:

This could possibly be for smarts planned unbundling of exchanges as there are a few areas mentioned on that list that are due to go live march/april......

But wouldn't LLU only effect the individual lines being moved over to SMART?

i.e. unpluging a new SMART customer from eircom switch and over to a SMART switch.

dub45

LookingFor wrote:

I'm wondering about this too. My contract is up at the end of April..I'm hoping I can switch to Clicksilver Plus then and still be able to go over to a monthly rolling contract then. They've had me locked in for 18 months now! (partly my own fault - I didn't realise downgrading to their cheaper offering last april would lock me in for ANOTHER twelve months).

Unless UTV change their attitude (most unlikely) you will need to commit to a further 12 month contract to switch products. Its an outrageous requirement - given that to change someone up costs them nothing and to change someone down costs a measly 15 euros - it is not formally a T&C yet they claim it is and they have never notified customers formally of it even though their own T&C's require them to provide such notification.

It seems that they rarely inform people of the 12 month contract when people are requesting a change.

Willymuncher

People are saying about them possibly not being able to get 2mb or 1mb because of distance? this is hardly the case is it?.....i doubt an upgrade would come into place if it was only available to some within a certain distance :-/

seamus

Willymuncher wrote:

People are saying about them possibly not being able to get 2mb or 1mb because of distance? this is hardly the case is it?.....i doubt an upgrade would come into place if it was only available to some within a certain distance :-/

It's all about distance. The further you are from the exchange, the less maximum bandwidth you can get. But I don't think Smart would be putting so much effort into launching their product if they didn't think they could get it to anyone already using ADSL.

In fact, the conspiracy theorists among us might even speculate that eircom's overly strict line qualifications were to ensure that when this day came, they wouldn't look like complete tossers when a shedload of people couldn't get more than 512Kb because of their distance from the exchange.

As it is, it's quite likely that anyone who currently has broadband would have no problems being pushed as high as 4Mb even with standard ADSL, given eircom's strict qualification.

WellyJ

If you are able to get 512k with no problems then 1,2 even 4 mb will work fine, when you head towards 6-7 thats when it gets dodgy as you are getting towards ADSL's theoretical limit. Anyone on 512 will get 1mb/2mb no problem.

WellyJ

WellyJ

It's all about distance. The further you are from the exchange, the less maximum bandwidth you can get. But I don't think Smart would be putting so much effort into launching their product if they didn't think they could get it to anyone already using ADSL.

Aren't Smart Telecom running their own Adsl+2 lines to theses exchanges? or am i crazy? Thought that was their plan

WellyJ

seamus

WellyJ wrote:

Aren't Smart Telecom running their own Adsl+2 lines to theses exchanges? or am i crazy? Thought that was their plan

WellyJ

D'oh! Forgot that

CrowdedHouse

WellyJ wrote:

Aren't Smart Telecom running their own Adsl+2 lines to theses exchanges? or am i crazy? Thought that was their plan

WellyJ

yes but they'll be using eircoms existing cables to get to your house.their equipment will be directly connected to the cable in the exchange