Broadband in remote Donegal

[andmor]

Hi all,

We are up here in Donegal on the border with Strabane in a complete broadband desert.
Last year we splashed out on a satellite connection with Digiweb, at vast expense, then this year in April we discovered that Irish Broadband (or their Northern equivalent NTR broadband) were providing a wireless broadband service from the TV mast overlooking the town of Strabane. We took another leap of faith and threw out the satellite dish for a 2Mb service. When the engineers had finished they showed us a test page on their laptop showing a download speed of 1700 and a great upload speed. All went well and we checked occasionally on ADSL guide.org.uk and ZDNET uk on their speed test websites (didn't know there was an Irish ISP test site!).

Then just in the last month the speeds have dropped off to 512 or less which was no better than what we were getting with Digiweb. After days of frustrating phone calls and unanswered emails to Irish Broadband in Dublin and NTR in Belfast we finally got talking to a techie who told us to log onto ftp.esat.net or ft.heanet.ie. This was 9.30 in the morning approx. and the download speeds were way up 130 - 140 KBps, which the guy told us was v. good.

What we don't understand is that when we run any of the website speed tests the results are pathetic and if we try the same ftp sites at any other timeof the day or night the speeds are 60 - 70. Is this a contention problem? Should we ring them back late in the afternoon?!?

Judging from all the posts we have read in this forum it seems that our faith in IBB may be misplaced! Just for the record we have just run your test and speeds are 560 down and 54 up. To add insult to injury we spoke on Skype to a guy in Lisbon, Portugal the other night who was practising his english. He just dropped into the conversation that he was on a 10 Mb connection (didn't have the nerve to ask him what he was paying for it!!).

Andrew

:x

[Polar Ice]

I'm not exactly sure what your situation is. Calling the technical support number and asking them what is wrong is your best bet. You tell them your connection is very slow. They will send you to a website to test yourr connection speed. If your connection speed really is slow complain to them untill you get some answers. You are paying them so thay should be able to tell you what is wrong.

With regard to the guy in Portugal. Internet connections in mainland europe are faster. There is a better infrastructure in place. In the US you could get 1mbps 7 years ago for only $20 dollars a month. Irelands Brodband service is lacking compared to lots of other places throughout the world. In south east asia in places such as Hong Kong a regular family can afford 100mbps+ For people in south east asia to be getting 2mbps would be a joke. For them that would be nothing.

[andmor]

Hi there,

Ok I take your point about mainland Europe.

Our own experience is that when the engineer installed IBB in April the download speeds on ADSL guide.org.uk were 1500 - 1700 and upload speeds of over 1000 and stayed in that range until about 4 - 5 weeks ago.
We phoned technical support in Dublin. First guy had very poor english, took our number and said someone would phone back. Waited another week and no phone call so tried again. Second guy had us hanging on the phone while we logged onto ftp.heanet.ie. After a good while he told us he couldn't monitor our connection and to phone the next day for someone called Graham. He made us do the same thing and told us that download speed of 120 - 130 KBps were ok (this was 9.30 a.m.). At any other time of the day or night this speed drops to below 100.
Surely this should be nearer 217 for a supposed 2 Mb up and down service?
(In an ideal world, you should be able to see in your browser download window, during a sustained transfer, a rate equal to your purchased speed, divided by 8 (to get bytes), less 13% (TCP/IP and ATM header overhead (http://www.dslreports.com/speed)

Still doesn't answer our question as to why speeds have dropped so dramatically. This evening on ADSL guide.org.uk are (True Speed) 681 Kbps downstream and 235 Kbps upstream.

We are being charged €160 monthly. Is this not a ripoff?