Fastcom v Digiweb in Sligo - Irish ISP Test - Broadband Forum

makalele · #1 (**permalink**) 25th June 2007, 07:44 AM

I am currently moving house in the periphery of Sligo
Wireless is the only show in town
Has anyone comments on the choice of Digiweb or fastcom?
Digiweb dont have an installation charge if you pay annually
Fastcom charge 149 connection
Service speeds?
At 7.30am Fastcom speed is 1.8mb up and down but at peak times seems quite slow. Is digiweb faster ? better service?

atkin8 · #2 (**permalink**) 29th June 2007, 12:03 PM

I have Digiweb Metro Lite download limit 10Gb per month.The cost 19.95 euros and that includes the the telephone rental.The download speed is 1mb and it is correct as I used a test site to check it.
I find downloading files is dependent on the web site but 125 kb per second is usual. The cost increases with speed.
I have no complaints but international calls can be expensive so I use yahoo phone.

Regards,
Atkin.

mcgahon · #3 (**permalink**) 29th June 2007, 01:21 PM

I have Fastcom in South Sligo. The service is very good with good speeds, when the airheads are not on Bebo, contention ratio, but the voip quality with Blueface is rubbish. Blueface are not a fault it is the consistency of the Fastcom connection. We can hear only parts of the conversation but the caller can hear us perfectly. We have done the whole QOS setup and jitter checks but still no improvement.

Good luck with your BB

crozon01 · #4 (**permalink**) 21st July 2007, 11:52 PM

If you live in or about the City of Sligo you should be able to get Broadband through a land line service. It is more reliable and should cost less than wireless versions of Broadband.

mcgahon · #5 (**permalink**) 22nd July 2007, 09:58 AM

What is with the "City Of Sligo". The Weekender is at it the whole time as well. Do you really believe that Sligo town is a city. The City of Sligo could fit in to one of the housing estates in the Town of Dundalk.

crozon01 · #6 (**permalink**) 22nd July 2007, 09:10 PM

Is that Dundalk in the suburbs of Dublin, which has an abundance of Broadband providers including a reliable wireless version. Unfortunately the Capital of the North West, the Gateway City of Sligo is still struggling to achieve a basic Broadband service through the lineland system and barely has a wireless system of note. 3G is a laugh, just dosn't work on this side of the Island mush the same as the other PROVIDERS?? of wireless operations.
City or Town of Sligo, it still deserves the same respect to services as does the EASTERN Capital and its satalite towns of this land..

mcgahon · #7 (**permalink**) 22nd July 2007, 10:13 PM

Quite right.

baco · #8 (**permalink**) 6th August 2007, 11:41 PM

I have just signed up to 2mbps service with fastcom €40.00 per month! (south sligo) and have used the irish isp speed test, the results where a download speed of 275kbps and the upload speed of 1.91mbps.
this test was taken at 23.40pm monday night
is this good or is it bad i dont know?

mcgahon · #9 (**permalink**) 7th August 2007, 08:53 AM

download 1.6 upload 1.2 8.50 monday morning.

Your speeds are quite good considering it is a wireless system. For music files, pics and browsing they are great but for VOIP the connection is not stable. Remember that the BEBO generation clog up the system in the evenings.

stuartbloom · #10 (**permalink**) 7th August 2007, 09:39 AM

Well, I have used Digiwebs satellite service, and now use Fastcom; I am in Leitrim close to the norther border with Sligo.

Firstly, although Digiwebs service are OK, if you are a bit of a download freak, be warned that they do have a fair usage policy. If you go over your allowance, you have to wait for the month to roll on before they reset your speed (which they will half). Now you may think that this will occur on the anniversary of the contract or something, WRONG. This starts from the moment you go over the limit, so to get your speed back, you in effect have to stop using your connection. Plus there is no way of checking where you are in terms of your allowance, so you will be unable to ration your usage before you blow your self up. Just before I canceled my contract with them, I was down to a dial up connection speed.

Now I am with Fastcom, and I could not be happier with the service, although tech support could be quicker to answer the phone. Just tried my speed this morning, and I seem to be getting 1.87Mb down and 1.51 up, which is better than I have been getting, although they were talking of doing some work on a transmitter.

As for VOIP, I tend to use SKYPE or Yahoo, and find them both acceptable, after all I know I'm not talking down a line, and chances are I have something downloading somewhere

.

My advice, Fastcom may be more expensive, I have found the whole customer experience a whole lot more pleasurable.

Hope this helps in your decision.

thebrother23 · #11 (**permalink**) 7th August 2007, 12:11 PM

I've been using Fastcom in North Sligo for a few months. I've really only run into serious problems on Sat and Sun evenings when the connection grinds to a halt (or will not even connect at times). The contention rate advertised on the Fastcom website of 24:1 for 2Mbps (i.e. up to 24 computers sharing 2Mbps bandwidth at peak times) seems reasonable when compared to other providers.
I was getting p***ed off with the weekend speed, but having read about Digiweb's limits above, I suppose I should be counting my blessings. That said, as soon as anything better comes along, I'll be switching, especially if Vodafone's 3G coverage improves around here.

stuartbloom · #12 (**permalink**) 7th August 2007, 12:25 PM

I agree with 3's service, however, you won't be able to run a router using their modem as it plugs into a USB port...

mcgahon · #13 (**permalink**) 7th August 2007, 01:08 PM

Just to show how far behind we are with broadband, I have new neighbours who have moved over from the Manchester area. They had 8mg speed and no limits for a fixed monthly fee.

Do you think we should wait for that service over here or will we be too old to use a computer.....?

dingding · #14 (**permalink**) 20th September 2007, 08:05 PM

Is smart telecom an option, I think ADSL2 can reach farther but you have to be connected to the rathedmond exchange.

Getting 6M down 0.5 M up constantly, no contention.

thefreddy · #15 (**permalink**) 15th January 2008, 05:04 PM

Anyone using Smart in this area??
It would be good to get some reports of range & speed.

Regards

dingding · #16 (**permalink**) 15th January 2008, 11:07 PM

I am using Smart in Sligo, about 1.5 miles from the Rathedmond exchange.
I paid a fiver extra for their 6M down 0.5 M up and I am consistently getting these speeds.

I can recommend Smart in Sligo.

thefreddy · #17 (**permalink**) 17th January 2008, 08:48 PM

Thanks Dingding, i am 6(six)! mls and smart cant give any indication of range of adsl2.
regards

dingding · #18 (**permalink**) 18th January 2008, 02:16 PM

Freddy,

Smart have a support forum and some of their technical staff are there with other users. If you posted there they might be able to give you a better indication of range that a sales person.

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