Collating complaints against IBB.

sisyphus

I replied that contention is always an issue on any network but that the mean rate should be what is advertised. For example when I lived in holland I had a 1 Meg Cable connection, but I got 1 Meg constantly.

@Nadir. Can you please explain what your understanding of contention is?
For instance, if I have a 2 Mb line with a 10:1 contention ratio, then should I always be getting 2 Mbps, without any exceptions, or should I be getting at least 2 Mbps/10 = 200 kbps?
I'm not very clear on this issue...

aubhall

Graphs
a) for today
b) week
c) month
d) download speed today

arcane99

Heres a brief overview of the past month.

http://testmy.net/personal_stats_30d.php?user_name=dhaughton99&m=10&d=28&Y=2005

Anyone got more of these to post?

banquo

I'm on 3mbps Business Connection: sub 2k speeds for over a week; no reply to my 5 emails, and the tech help informs me that my problem has been 'passed on' to the 'higher' form of technical help. When will it be fixed?

'Hopefully soon'.

maples180

I posted against IBB a few weeks ago. I re-empahsize that I'm fed up. IBB Breeze Speeds are nowhere like advertised. Randomly the connection drops down to a 56k like dial-up connection and stays like that for days. I mailed multiple times the support. No answers at all. The support is non-existent. Sometimes I feel I have been scamed someting like the Nigerian scam mail. I noticed lately that four IBB aerials have srpung up in the roofs on a few houses in the estate where I live. Last week I was so pissed off about receiving no support from IBB and dialup style connection that I went to knock the doors of the houses with the aerial on the roof to ask if they were seeing the same problems. One guy told me he was not a heavy internet user but noticed latetly that the speed was very slow almost unusable. Same as his old dialup speed. There was nobody in two houses (I'll go back sometimes). The people living in the fourth house were students and they were like dragons to IBB. They had the same experience that I had and could use the connection to the college properly. Slow speed, sometimes no speed at at all, just connection down. They had only one month to go before the year was over......and certainly they will not dream of staying with IBB they said.....but I have 5 more months.....

I'm very busy during the day and have no time to chase IBB .
I'm a lucky guy though. My next door neighboor has a Eircom connection....
and my wireless card can access his wireless router with a strong signal (the walls are thin, paper like in the new housing estates in Dublin). I can even hear when he farts. I explained my problems and he gave me access without charge to his Eircom connection until my IBB contract expires. It has been great after I have been using Eircom for the last week or so. No problems at all, it's like a dream. Obviously Eircom are not a nice bunch, but at least there are no technical problems. IBB are useless.

So for the moment I'm paying IBB until the contract ends and use Eircom for free. In 5 months I will have my own Eircom line or Smart or Esat. No more IBB or Wireless again.
Thanks to my neighbor

Blaster99

What mast are you on?

dan99989

I'm on the Bray Mast, with the Breeze 1MB connection . I know the contention ratio is mega high (48:1), but that cant be used to cover the fact that i'm getting dial up speeds most of the time...

There's some nice screens and pings HERE

And the latest tonight is:


So yes, you can add me to one of the "very dis-satisfied customers" of IBB. I've sent 3 emails over the past 3 weeks, heard nothing back. I was even lucky enough to talk to an actual human being on their service line about 2 weeks ago - we did some crap tests, pings, modem cycles, ie: nothing i hadnt done before - all to be told that he would pass it on and that i would recieve a call back. I heard NOTHING. The whole reason i went with them (like many i suppose) was the fact that you can cut out Eircom and their rip line rental. I even signed up for Blueface (the IBB connection was fine for the first few weeks, so VOIP was working great), but now thats mostly unusable.

I am at a loss as to why they never reply to mails, barely ever answer their phones and never try and keep customers by showing some interest in their problems. I can honestly see myself crawling back to Eircom (or BT), tail between my legs, and take their DSL offerings. At least then i may be able to load Google!

Ugh, think i'll start saving these pings daily in the vague hope of getting an answer/resolution to the connection issues

Gaz25

I've just being reading through the threads. I would be interested in joining the mail list, but im not really sure what the fight is all about?

spooky donkey

They cant reply to youre emails cause they delete them. Any one that has ever put tracking on their emails has said that.

Ardent

Macker1 wrote:

I left IBB as a customer back in Sept after 2 months of ****e service. I'm still owed a refund but I'm not holding my breath. You can tell Mr Nel that he's in denial and despite sticking his head in the sand like an ostrich the issues unless recitfied will not disappear. Furthermore as a former customer I have no hesitation in warning off other potential victims away from IBB. Its the very least that can be done so that other people will not suffer.

Echo that. I left in September as well. I have the same advice for anyone thinking about IBB.

spooky donkey

I dont think IBB will care as long as their new sign ups are coming in faster than loosing customers. Its easier to sign up than sign off.

gavjd

I'm on ripwave in dublin city centre. Service was fine until about two months ago. Last month it was basically unusable - unable to maintain a connection during the day. Now, the connection is more stable, but packet loss is high and speeds are literally dialup speeds (3kb/s). Looking forward to returning the heap of junk soon as I can manage a replacement. I continually advise everyone I know looking for broadband to steer clear of these cowboys.

jesus_thats_gre

Surely they realise the cost of keeping an existing customer is considerably less than that of getting a new customer?

Anyway, I am in Leopardstown and working off 3Rock.. Am actually a happy customer:

C:\Documents and Settings\Luke>ping www.boards.ie

Pinging www.boards.ie [82.195.136.250] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 82.195.136.250: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=57
Reply from 82.195.136.250: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=57
Reply from 82.195.136.250: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=57
Reply from 82.195.136.250: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=57

Ping statistics for 82.195.136.250:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 17ms, Maximum = 26ms, Average = 21ms


For along time I had very severe packet loss but I complained and literally threatended to take the arial down myself and **** it through their front window unless they fixed it. They did fix it and since then my pings and download speeds have been perfect. I honestly think they have prioritised my traffic or something to be honest. Everytime I call now I get put straight through to a team leader of somesort..



On the other hand, I actually got a few mates in Dundalk to get the service. To say the service is a disaster really would not be doing it justice. We have called about 17 times now and were primised call back everytime. We are yet to receive a callback. I can see why Dublin would be a problem as there is likely alot of users of each high site. But Dundalk?

aubhall

spooky donkey wrote:

They cant reply to youre emails cause they delete them. Any one that has ever put tracking on their emails has said that.

Well all i know, the only direct reply to an e-mail i have got was the 1st one i sent. Although any i sent since were reaf back to me over the phone.

Was onto them again today.... no update

They thanked me for my patiance.... i almost exploded.....:mad:

nadir

sisyphus wrote:

@Nadir. Can you please explain what your understanding of contention is?
For instance, if I have a 2 Mb line with a 10:1 contention ratio, then should I always be getting 2 Mbps, without any exceptions, or should I be getting at least 2 Mbps/10 = 200 kbps?
I'm not very clear on this issue...

10.1 contention means afaik on a basic level, you are being routed through with the same priority as if there were 10 people using the line.
It does NOT mean there are 10 people using your 2 Meg line, I find IBB would have you think this.
For example they should provide a 10 Meg line (probably more) between 10 people, if everyone is using it, you will get one meg, you will be capped at 2 most likely (in this country anyway).
So on average you should be getting 2 Meg considering it's unlikely more than half the people will be using your cell at the same time.
Now in Europe and such, like when I was in Holland, they would have a 10 Meg line between 10, they say you have a 1 Meg or two meg connection, however you are not capped at one or two, you get whats available, so if no one is using it you get all 10 Megs, this is fair queuing.
One thing about contention afaik, statistically related; the larger the contention scale the better the performance , eg 10.100 is better than 1.10 , although you are unlikely to get stats like that from a company.

edit: even IBB agree http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=319482

Turner

Threads merged as both were along the same lines, also re-sticky'd

Chief.

scsa

I'm living in Clontarf and I've got ripwave and it's gone to utter ****e in the last month.

I haven't been able to connect for more that a couple of minutes at a time for the last few days, and the irishisptest.com usually rates it at around dial-up speeds. I've emailed IBB twice; yesterday and last saturday and I've got no response. Also tried to phone them yesterday and I gave up after being on hold for over half an hour.

I left a ping to google.com open for a few hours last night and the stats said 94% packet loss!! Online now with an o2 GPRS card, at 48k it's slower than a 56k modem but at least it's working...

What's worse is since I'm renting I can't get a phone line in, so I don't have any options but IBB! I can only pray NTL or clearwire expand their networks...

ilovehoovering

i've been on IBB Ripwave for 2 whole days from the city centre and i'm sick of it already. it's barely faster than dial-up.

Tazz T

Can someone enlighten me as to how to test your ping so I can display my results?

Cheers

RangeR

Tazz T wrote:

Can someone enlighten me as to how to test your ping so I can display my results?

Cheers

There are a couple of things you can do. I wouldn't use the straight ping

ping www.boards.ie

As this only give 4 pings and isn't a true reflection

Make it do more pings by typing

ping www.boards.ie -n 1000

This will force it to do 1000 pings, giving you a more acurate average. Substitute 1000 for a higher or lower number. The higher the number, the longer it will take. If you are gaming, surfing, downloading, the pings will be affected.

You can also download pingplotter. When you set this up, it will piong a site at regular intervals until you stop it. Give nice results and easily read.

The normal pings above, are run from the command line [DOS prompt].

Ping Irish sites, that have their wserver hosted in Ireland to give a good representation of good Irish pings.

Anyone else?

Nevyn

well i got an email today, and I think i will share it.

---

Original Message

---

Subject: IBB
Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2005 12:19:09 +0100
From: *****************@irishbroadband.net>
Reply-To: <***********@irishbroadband.net>
Organization: Private
To: <theadydal@eircom.net>


Dear Theadylal,



I suggest that that people monitor a) signal strength b) signal quality c) antenna hopping within the modem and d)

Download speeds at. Do all at the same time as this will give some indication as to whether it is a signal problem due to location / buildings /weather etc. or IBB cannot handle what they are supposed to. IBB are licenced from ComReg to use their spectrum in an efficient manner – they cannot get a licence to use that bandwith and just hoard it, not provide the service and expect to keep that licence – when they are using bandwith at a particular frequency in a given location and this

this excludes anybody else from attempting to provide a service within this spectrum. That’s one of the reasons you need a licence in the first place – THEY MUST USE THE SPACE they are licenced for efficiently and not just buy it and exclude a capable ISP from providing a proper service.



I suggest the compilation you have kindly offered to do should be well edited and a complaint outlining the situation

to:



a) IBB board of directors



and at the same time copied to



Minister Noel Dempsey (comms minister – he seemed eager in his TIF ANNUAL CONFERENCE – TELECOMMUNICATIONS FOR EDUCATION speech a couple of days ago)



and also to the consumer protection ombudsman in Brussels, Belguim


****

Turner

Fair play to him for responding in such a way.

sisyphus

*************@irishbroadband.net>

Who is this guy? Does he work for IBB? Thought all the internal email addy's had .ie extensions?

damien

That guy is so fired!

Tomohawk

That guy is so illiterate!

RangeR

Thaedydal wrote:

well i got an email today, and I think i will share it.

You could have at least taken his email address out of it.

askit

I as an IT professional regularly get asked about matters relating to computing, broadband, etc by friends, family, neighbours, teammates and others as i'm sure alot of people on this forum do also. My word is my bond and always will be.
I can safely say that when anyone asks me about broadband offerings in Ireland i will reply "Do not touch Irish Broadband with a barge pole" as the carry on reported on this thread is unacceptable. Support is the biggest issue from my experience and i sure as hell would not wish anyone to have to call IBB support if they carry on the way they do.
Funny thing is I have been warned off IBB by some of my IT friends so word is spreading about their incompetence!!!

Turner

IrishTLR wrote:

You could have at least taken his email address out of it.

Done

Tazz T

OK.

I've just done an ISP Test. Don't know how to post the graph but it looks pretty pathetic with my download nestled below a 28.8 modem and my up load in the very corner of the chart.

Download 24.0 kbps
upload of 11.0 kbps.
Quality of service 7%
Round trip time 4834ms
Max Pause 3375ms

Dr Bolouswki

I was thankful to ahve Irish BB as I had no alternative... however, reliability was awful - I had really poor service until I complained and even then it was still patchy. I kept ping records etc for 3 months to have a strong case against them, but eventually I jsut let the year run out (I moved house anyway) and then sent them an email discontinuing the service and informed my bank to refuse all direct debits from them.

They replied to my email 14 weeks after I unsubscribed, and they have still nto contacted me about collecting their modem (I assume the mast is still sittingon the roof of my old rented accomodation).

If you're in a hideous jam and have no other way of getting broadband, my experience was that it was intermittantly good - but if you face any problems, you might as well sing rather than expect a response from them....