Chorus announce 1 Mb service

Fionn

Got this in the post today, Chorus Cablenet are increasing their speeds with no extra cost!

From 26th April 2005

Download speed doubled from 512k to 1024k
upload speed doubled from 128k to 256k
Download allowance now 20GB per month

Competition.......it's a great thing eh?

Infini

Still not as good as NTL though.

julius

Are Chorus still only providing BB to 3 towns???

Got a letter from them over a year ago saying they were going to provide BB to the area(Bishopstown,Cork)...but nothing happened!!!!

chorus techy

That's mostly because the proposed upgrades to the cable infrastructure never went ahead, due to them being in such massive debt etc. etc. so they didn't expand much of their cable network, or upgrade much either.

Fionn

we don't get NTL here, so if it's cable.. it's chorus
any improvement without extra cost is always welcome!
seems to be only around here and kilkenny and thurles i think, is all they serve.
still it's not too bad for €35 a month. Cheaper than Eircom!

JNive

yah julius, i got that leaflet too lol, good think i advised the parents not to go with it lol. On it it said that 'Upgrades will be finished soon' lol, that chorus crowd really are crap at competition. There broadband was originally prices identical to eircom, and their cable ( about 40 channels or something ) was priced nearly the same as Sky's basic package ( maybe €3-5 less ), and with sky sports added on, again equal. They dont offer me any alternative to current offerings, and they are not trying to compete, partly due to the massive debt i guess lol.

Lockster

In the paper today it says that Chorus are rolling out the broadband service in Naas and that if you apply before 31st July you get free installation and broadband for €29.95 per month.

I'm in the Naas area and already have Chorus cable tv. I currently have the free trial from eastbt/iol. Does anyone have any experience of broadband from Chorus? If so how does it compare with the service from eastbt? Do you think that it would be worthwhile switching?

Thanks

Ishmael

julius wrote:

Are Chorus still only providing BB to 3 towns???

Got a letter from them over a year ago saying they were going to provide BB to the area(Bishopstown,Cork)...but nothing happened!!!!

They're actually in the process of rebuilding the chours network in cork at the moment afaik. :rolleyes:

Sponge Bob

The process of rebuilding Cork and Limerick started in 1994 ....just like that other well known and never ending 'process'

Ishmael

Yeah chourus and ntl are not the option if you want something done in a hurry.

I think, but don't quote me on this, that the techs who initally started the rebuild in 1994 made such an arse of the build there that the company started a rebuild recently with techs who actually know what they're doing.

JNive

quite possibly, and i do notice some new 'alpha' boxes around the place too, sometimes with a flashing red light on the side ( presumably a fault ) we had a chorus dude around last week, he calls and says how they are working around the corner and was wondering did we still have power lol, and be aware that we arent a chorus customer either lol. classic or what :-0

ravenhead

ok for a start - NTL & CHORUS will soon be one, Chorus are in the process of buying out NTL, Parts of CORK can already receive BB from chorus -CABLENET, but not all of the city has it yet, There hasn't been any complaint with it so far but it is early days.

I have to say that as a company chorus has come on it leaps & bounds from a couple of years ago, & with regards to competition with sky.. complain to sky about it - they charge chorus a annual return for all their channels that are broadcast in Ireland - they set the prices not Chorus, & that goes for premium channels also - sky actually audit chorus to make sure that they are charging the same rates as them for the premiums as this is where the money is made.

It really gets on my nerves that all people can do is complain about the company, I mean we are now again - thank god 100% irish owned - UPC ( they owned a cable company in nearly every country in europe now) Not bad concidering that they started out as Irish Multi channel! Chorus until company's that come into the country don't recieve any grants or finanical aid from the government, or tax breaks like these companies that come into the country for 5 years or so & then sod off when the tax relief is over...
So come on, give them a break ...... The Esb & Eircom are worse than them by a long shot

That's my 50c anyway!

JNive

ESB and Eircom are only worse cause they are incumbent, former monopolies lol.

As for Chorus, yes they have improved, and considering their debt they had to deal with, its been a good job. I assume you dont get put on hold for 2 hours anymore when you ring the customer service.

As for their tv packages, obviously i would understand the cost from sky-provided channels etc, but as for their broadband, its their network etc. and its bloody cable, so why did they offer 512K/128K with cap etc. for identical prices to eircom, thats all, they are in a position, and more-so after buying parts of NTL, to bring a real alternative to DSL, Smart are bringing an alternative to Eircom, so Chorus&NTL should together make cable an attractive, competitive alternative, and forget about these crappy 128K upload restrictions. cable has a far higher capacity/bandwith than DSL, so they should make use of that.

Not inlcluding their digital service, we were on their older 'Black Box' system, and the reliability was crap ( not just use by the way, all bishopstown at least), and it was still in mono, which is the damn dark ages ( this is was only 2 years ago at the most )

Ishmael

I'm not complaning about the work they're doing now,
I think the work they're doing down there is great and fair play to them for buying out ntl aswell. I was just having a laugh at how foolish they were in the past.

JNive

lol, likewise :-) they got their act together too late though, cause for many people in cork and other places too, they still carry the burden of the reputation they had before the digital services.

bk

ravenhead wrote:

ok for a start - NTL & CHORUS will soon be one, Chorus are in the process of buying out NTL

Chorus are not buying NTL. Last December UGC Europe purchased Chorus, now UGC is in the process of purchasing NTL Ireland also. There is a big difference, UGC Europe should have plenty of money to invest in the Chorus and NTL networks, Chorus on it's own wouldn't.

I'm originally from Cork and now live in Dublin. I can tell you there is absoluletly no comparison between Chorus and NTL, it is like night and day.

Take for instance NTL Digital TV: about 140 digital TV and radio channels compared to 60 from Chorus. I have 3 digital TV boxes, it cost a total of €20 per month and they are giving me the analogue TV (17 channels) free for 12 months. Also the analogue service is far superior to Chorus, there is no black box, just a cable and I can plug it into as many TV's or videos that I like, very handy in rented accomadation.

As for Broadband, NTL are exepcted to increase their services to 1/2/3m for €25/€35/€45 per month and they also give free install, free modem and first 3 months free.

There just isn't any comaprison. Chorus is a complete rip off, all my family in Cork have gone to Sky Digital, it costs about the same with twice as many channels and far better picture quality.

BTW There is some very interesting info about UGC's technology at:
http://www.ugceurope.com/Technology/

JNive

thanks for the post bk, now i know im not mad lol.
but yah, chorus may be getting better, but they offer no real advantage in any aspect of their service, over any existing ones, unless you are one of those people who would get them, purely cause you dont like other companies, you have no other option available, or for some strange reason, you are loyal to them

chorus techy

Chorus are set to increase their channel lineups once they get some cable networks sorted out and upgraded. At the moment, the cable lineup has the same as MMDS - obviously MMDS has a lot less bandwidth for digital TV and analogue signals take up over half of this. Once analougue ceases, the chorus lineup should increase to well over 100 digital channels, and the cable services should start to look more like ntl.

podge3

I have had Chorus Cablenet for about six months now with no problems - €30 per month.

While Chorus have come on in leaps and bounds in recent years , old habits die hard. When all the DSL providers recently announced they were increasing the standard bandwidth to 1M, I rang Chorus to enquire if they were doing likewise.

I was informed that they were not doing so, had no plans to do so, and would be unlikely to do so in the near future.

Two weeks later we get the letter in the post saying the upgrade is coming!!

Good ol Chorus - still 1M bandwidth and 20 GB cap for 30 yoyos aint bad

sirlinux

Chorus have many years to go before most people would trust them, it's not to long ago they left cable service off for days in many areas. I know quite a few people on the malahide/swords service who have given up hope of ever getting a decent picture on all channels, as mentioned earlier they never even bothered with nicam, they even tried to turn it off on the bbc/itv when they started sourcing their analog MMDS at the head ends till comreg intervened, note this is the company that was using consumer sky boxes also at the head ends when comreg audited. Finally they must be the only company that shut down a cable broadband service, they originally had one in swords/malahide but shut it down. How long have they been telling people digital is on the way, more channels are coming, must be at least 6 years. Definitely a case of ill believe it when i see it.

JNive

lol, yeah, i remember the times when the reception would go off etc, and their 'technical fault' screen would come up etc.

Looked like a digibox screen sometimes with errors such as 'please insert your viewing card' LOL. wow, and it would take them an hour to do that.

tuxy

julius wrote:

Are Chorus still only providing BB to 3 towns???

Got a letter from them over a year ago saying they were going to provide BB to the area(Bishopstown,Cork)...but nothing happened!!!!

i got a letter 4 years ago saying the same , they told me they would keep me updated
so i expect to hear back any day now...... :P

Moriarty

Off topic ESB related posts have been moved over here.