Up and Down - Irish ISP Test - Broadband Forum

#1 (**permalink**) 24th May 2004, 06:03 PM

Hi - I am on the 1 meg IBB product with 8:1 contention. I notice arund 6 it slows to a crawl - although this is when thye say the contention is supposed to come down to 4:1.
Anyway thought I would make the first post on this section.

anybody else got any comments on IBB?

#2 (**permalink**) 9th June 2005, 05:59 PM

Im have a " 2 Mb " up and down, When testing with the speed test the best it returns is 700-800 K down and 80 - 350 K up. Is this a case of false advertising

blacknight · #3 (**permalink**) 10th June 2005, 11:27 AM

The speed test will give the most accurate results when you are not downloading or uploading anything else (ie. even your mail client is not running)
If you are on a wireless network in your office/home you may notice slightly "worse" results than if you are using a physical network.

See: http://www.irishisptest.com/about.php

Polar Ice · #4 (**permalink**) 10th June 2005, 03:39 PM

If you have 2mb broadband you should, provided you follow blacknights suggestion be getting about 1.4 - 2mb down. Your upstream speed is about what it should be I think.

The company advertises 2mb down, but that is if you are sitting right ontop of where you are getting your broadband from. The further away from the station you are the slower your speed is.

It isn't a case of false advertising. They offer 2mbps its just a case of if you are capable to avail of all 2mbps.

With relation the the upload speed they probably don't give you 2mbps for you don't need that type of upload speed for home use. I know with eircom you get 128kbps upstream on all but their business packages.

blacknight · #5 (**permalink**) 10th June 2005, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Polar Ice

With relation the the upload speed they probably don't give you 2mbps for you don't need that type of upload speed for home use. I know with eircom you get 128kbps upstream on all but their business packages.

That's why they call it asynchronous

#6 (**permalink**) 10th June 2005, 07:28 PM

I'm on the IBB Siac mast in Clondalkin, supposed to be "Mb up and down.

I have been getting about 20% packet loss doing a ping, when tested with irishisptest i get 280k down, 128 up, QoS of 28%, Round Trip of 4597ms, Max Pause 580ms. This has been for the last few days. I logged a call with them yesterday evening and chased them again this afternoon.

I was told that it is a problem with the backhaul and it won't be rectified until a new high site comes online at Park West in at least 2 weeks. He stressed 2 weeks was not definite so could be longer, (knowing IBB it will be). In the mean time, the engineer admitted that I and others, will be paying for a broadband service we're not getting.

Can anyone explain how a new high site would solve this problem, to me it just sounds like over-subscription. I did ask the engineer but he said it wasn't his area of expertise so didn't know.

Any help appreciated. :?:

Polar Ice · #7 (**permalink**) 10th June 2005, 07:35 PM

I can really only take a guess at this one so don't hold me to my word.

If they provide your broadband from a mast by LOS (line of sight) and you no longer has LOS with your current mast then you won't be getting any proper service. Now thats just a guess. I@m sort of like that engineer in this cast, its not my area of expertise.

#8 (**permalink**) 10th June 2005, 07:42 PM

Thanks for your reply polar, but I can confirm I still have Line of Sight. I'm quiet close to the tower and have absolutely nothing in the way. The engineer did say that every one on the SIAC mast would be experiencing these problems until the new site went live.

blacknight · #9 (**permalink**) 10th June 2005, 07:57 PM

It could be the amount of backhaul available to them. Putting in another mast may help ..

#10 (**permalink**) 10th June 2005, 08:02 PM

Thanks for the reply BN. Would you be able to explain what backhaul is because I have no idea. To me it sounds like they have over-subscribed if the only way to fix a problem is to expand their network. You'll have to forgive me if it's a silly question, I don't know much about this sort of thing.

blacknight · #11 (**permalink**) 10th June 2005, 08:03 PM

Backhaul in layman's terms is the bandwidth or pipe they have available. If they don't have enough of it in an area or if there are issues you would see problems.

A techie would be able to give you a more precise explanation

Adey · #12 (**permalink**) 10th June 2005, 08:08 PM

Thanks for the help Blacknight, much appreciated.

#13 (**permalink**) 12th June 2005, 04:13 PM

Backhaul is simply a term for the capacity they have to route traffic from and to their own network to the internet at large.

So, for IBB, you will connect to them via wireless at whatever speed you have. Your connection will terminate in their equipment. They will then have leased lines connecting their equipment to something like this:

http://www.inex.ie/

In short, you could have a fantastic connection to you ISP but if they don't have good backhaul you connection to anything outside of the ISPs network will be very poor.

MrP

#14 (**permalink**) 13th June 2005, 01:20 AM

So in effect, they have over-subscribed if it's affecting the end user, and putting another mast onto their ring is going to make no difference what so ever?

Polar Ice · #15 (**permalink**) 13th June 2005, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anonymous

So in effect, they have over-subscribed if it's affecting the end user, and putting another mast onto their ring is going to make no difference what so ever?

Yes, they have over-subscribed for their service, but by putting up a new mast they will be able to route more traffic onto the internet.

#16 (**permalink**) 12th July 2005, 11:39 PM

well i for one have had it with them. 2 months of farting about with tech no suport. Wasters the lot. Wasting my time and money calling these gangters time and time again, they run the esat test and say its fine. well its not. they mightgive u a little more signle so it looks good, but as soon as ur off the fone. it crap again, well i think its time every one with faults and not being looked after, well stop paying. told them today to got f**k them self im not paying an other sent till its fixed. if enough people stop payment they will have to take notice.and if i get no joy well im sure they can see me in court as their not giving what their selling

Nitram · #17 (**permalink**) 23rd July 2005, 08:14 PM

I got the 1Meg Breeze. It worked fine at the start over 900kpbs down and
around 840kbps up. now its still fine Down but I am getting upload speeds of an Amazing 0.55kbps. (no it's not a misprint) I rang the Famous customer support waited half an hour on hold and rang friday evening. Nothing wrong here was the answer. They are also charging me for 1meg and 2Meg. But can i get an answer as to why they take money out of my account NO. Maybe oneday they will answer. :evil:

blacknight · #18 (**permalink**) 24th July 2005, 07:20 PM

Nitram - Do you mean that you think they are overcharging you?

#19 (**permalink**) 24th August 2005, 07:35 PM

I just got IBB "2mb" up/down today and its great so far, fingers crossed, I spoke at length with the engineer, he said line of site is critical but once minimum signal strength is achieved the speed should be fine, weather does affect it but not much, I'm on the outskirts of the coverage radius in the west and just achieved minimum signal strength, I got 1.8 down and 1.9 up on average over tests today, I'm on a business connection, dont know the contention ratio but if this if example of future performance they wont have me on the phone, time will tell i guess!

andmor · #20 (**permalink**) 25th August 2005, 12:15 AM

Congratulations! That was the way our connection was for the first month. Since then it has totally gone to the dogs. Slower than ISDN for most of the time (meant to be the 2Mb service). We have made countless phone calls and reported them to ComReg. See www.boards.ie under Broadband for all the horror stories on Irish Broadband.