Ice broadband in Swords. Help!

[Patrick de b2]

Hello,

I am currently an Ice Broadband customer in Swords Co. Dublin, and I'm having continous problems with my connection. Im with them for about 6 months now and for the last 4 months the connection has been very erattic/unstable, with high ping times and very low QOS (1% to 25%).

I have rang their tech support line so many times now that it is getting beyond a joke, adjusting settings and resets with no fix.
Eventually last week they sent out a guy to have a look at it, and he changed my radio to a bigger "more powerfull" one, and also pointed it to a different transmitter. It made no improvement.

Talking to tech support today and they said there was trees in the way and made some more setting changes with yet again, no change.
Just fobbing me off every time.....

I just want to know if anybody else is having, or has had the same problems with Ice, and if so, how did you get it fixed?
Or would you recomend changing providers alltogether?

I mainly use BB for VOIP and online gaming, something which my connection can very rarely support.....

[ssatelle]

I'm living in Celbridge, been with them for about 9 months with similar probs as your self, sometimes a good service, mainly crap. I've been down the tech support rabbit hole as well and heard all the same as youself, transmitter to weak, to old, upgraded catchments, point me to the new one, sun spots, flying pigs, week old carrots blocking a small path in china causing the issue, blah, blah,.....
The only reason I'm still with them is the no download limit ,but I'm starting to question the usefulness of no download limit when my connection is to slow to download anything
Take a look on comreg for the broadband comparison thingy

Hey, maybe if everyone else left ice My connection would be great again, everyone leave them!!! :->

[paul.whelan@gmail.com]

I was an ice customer and I had to leave after the same thing happened to me, they even admitted they where oversubscribed, yet they where still signing up new customers that very evening in the local shopping center. I was not on the swords mast but I have left and have not looked back since switching to dsl.

pings times solid 13ms to esat.net
downloads exactly what I am paying for.
I have never once had to ring tech support since I switched they same cannot be said for ICE. Do yourself a favour and move provider.

[Patrick de b2]

Thanks for the advice folks, I think I will have to bite the bullet and get a land line in for DSL. I have been looking at BT's 2Mb service for 40 a month including line rental, which is the same as what im paying at the moment.
If the quality is as good a you say it is,then I would be very happy...
My last speed test was:
27/06/2007 21:39 140 kbps (18 KB/s) 187 kbps (23 KB/s) 10 % 129 ms 1061 ms

For a 3Mb down 1Mb up connection, this is really poor...

Any views on BT's service?

[PanEuropean_SKD]

I've been with ICE for 18 months now. I live in Leixlip. Generally the d/l and u/l speeds have been OK, but I have never been able to get a satisfactory VOIP service. I’ve been with ICE for 18 months now. I live in Leixlip. Generally the d/l and u/l speeds have been OK, but I have never been able to get a satisfactory VOIP service. Originally, my VOIP provider was blueface - who I would highly recommend - they really tried to sort the problem ()which was bad quality, intermittent upstream audio i.e. I couldn't hear conversation - other person could usually hear me OK). Anyway, Blueface concluded that the problem was with ICE. Three months ago, I switched VOIP to ICE - so now ICE are my ISP and VOIP provider - there has been no improvement despite numerous problems i.e. they are going to put a more powerfully transmitter near me, they can out and extended the length of my roof aerial, numerous other tweaks, none o which worked - basically my VOIP phone is unusable. So, I am going back to a DSL line now because I have concluded that radio broadband cannot support VOIP - I think there are too many round trip delays and, as I said, they have not been able to fix it in 18 months!!! Anyway, in my experience, ICE are OK if you just want reasonably reliable 2MBit/s download/ 256KBit/s upload with no download limits. Don't even consider using their VOIP - It doesn’t work. Finally, the most disappointing thing is that their tech support is really poor - they basically ignore your emails and phone calls and they promise you the moon and just don't deliver - they seen nice enough on the phone but they are obviously just over swamped with work and unless you keep pestering them with daily emails, you will get no where. It's a shame really, as they could be a really good Irish provider originally, my VOIP provider was blueface - who I would highly recommend - they really tried to sort the problem ()which was bad quality, intermittent upstream audio i.e. I couldn't hear conversation - other person could usually hear me OK). Anyway, Blueface concluded that the problem was with ICE. Three months ago, I switched VOIP to ICE - so now ICE are my ISP and VOIP provider - there has been no improvement despite numerous problems i.e. they are going to put a more powerfully transmitter near me, they can out and extended the length of my roof aerial, numerous other tweaks, none o which worked - basically my VOIP phone is unusable. So, I am going back to a DSL line now because I have concluded that radio broadband cannot support VOIP - I think there are too many round trip delays and, as I said, they have not been able to fix it in 18 months!!! Anyway, in my experience, ICE are OK if you just want reasonably reliable 2MBit/s download/ 256KBit/s upload with no download limits. Don't even consider using their VOIP - It doesn’t work. Finally, the most disappointing thing is that their tech support is really poor - they basically ignore your emails and phone calls and they promise you the moon and just don't deliver - they seen nice enough on the phone but they are obviously just over swamped with work and unless you keep pestering them with daily emails, you will get no where. It's a shame really, as they could be a really good Irish provider
SeI've been with ICE for 18 months now. I live in Leixlip. Generally the d/l and u/l speeds have been OK, but I have never been able to get a satisfactory VOIP service. I’ve been with ICE for 18 months now. I live in Leixlip. Generally the d/l and u/l speeds have been OK, but I have never been able to get a satisfactory VOIP service. Originally, my VOIP provider was blueface - who I would highly recommend - they really tried to sort the problem ()which was bad quality, intermittent upstream audio i.e. I couldn't hear conversation - other person could usually hear me OK). Anyway, Blueface concluded that the problem was with ICE. Three months ago, I switched VOIP to ICE - so now ICE are my ISP and VOIP provider - there has been no improvement despite numerous problems i.e. they are going to put a more powerfully transmitter near me, they can out and extended the length of my roof aerial, numerous other tweaks, none o which worked - basically my VOIP phone is unusable. So, I am going back to a DSL line now because I have concluded that radio broadband cannot support VOIP - I think there are too many round trip delays and, as I said, they have not been able to fix it in 18 months!!! Anyway, in my experience, ICE are OK if you just want reasonably reliable 2MBit/s download/ 256KBit/s upload with no download limits. Don't even consider using their VOIP - It doesn’t work. Finally, the most disappointing thing is that their tech support is really poor - they basically ignore your emails and phone calls and they promise you the moon and just don't deliver - they seen nice enough on the phone but they are obviously just over swamped with work and unless you keep pestering them with daily emails, you will get no where. It's a shame really, as they could be a really good Irish provider originally, my VOIP provider was blueface - who I would highly recommend - they really tried to sort the problem ()which was bad quality, intermittent upstream audio i.e. I couldn't hear conversation - other person could usually hear me OK). Anyway, Blueface concluded that the problem was with ICE. Three months ago, I switched VOIP to ICE - so now ICE are my ISP and VOIP provider - there has been no improvement despite numerous problems i.e. they are going to put a more powerfully transmitter near me, they can out and extended the length of my roof aerial, numerous other tweaks, none o which worked - basically my VOIP phone is unusable. So, I am going back to a DSL line now because I have concluded that radio broadband cannot support VOIP - I think there are too many round trip delays and, as I said, they have not been able to fix it in 18 months!!! Anyway, in my experience, ICE are OK if you just want reasonably reliable 2MBit/s download/ 256KBit/s upload with no download limits. Don't even consider using their VOIP - It doesn’t work. Finally, the most disappointing thing is that their tech support is really poor - they basically ignore your emails and phone calls and they promise you the moon and just don't deliver - they seen nice enough on the phone but they are obviously just over swamped with work and unless you keep pestering them with daily emails, you will get no where. It's a shame really, as they could be a really good Irish provider
Seán

[mrplop]

They're an absolute bunch of chancers who really don't give a damn about their customers as long as they get your cash every month.
I estimate I've phoned them around 150 times to get them to fix my dire connection and it's still crap.
They only have ONE tech support guy on during the evenings plus contention is also way higher than it's supposed to be.
When I've called them on a few occasions I've received an automated message giving tech support hours - this means there's no one manning tech support AT ALL.

It amazes me how a company like this can get away with such a piss poor service and not get closed down...
The best solution for everyone is to get the hell out and find a different provider - they're never going to improve.

[joemgreene]

I signed up with Ice Broadband in the Carrickmacross area of Co. Monaghan at the end of November. I had been and fortunetly I still am using DSL on Digiweb. I decided to use Ice (they were new in Carrickmacross) because of their Game package (4mb down and 2mb up for €60/mo) as it looked to meet my needs for running a small Internet Consulting business at a reasonable rate. Big mistake, from the day it was installed the speeds did not come close and the Quality of Service was and continues to be absolutly horrendous (ping times almost always in excess of 200ms, QOS continuously less then 50% and a very unreliable download experience with long pauses and timeouts).
After contacting their tech support on numerous occasions and being promised that upgrades would fix the problem in the next week, that is every week it is to be fixed next week I quickly switched back to my original provider. I continue to test the Ice service daily in the hope that they are actually fixing the problem
It is now 7 weeks and the service is worse then ever, I have just told them I will not be paying the bill I received in the last few days and plan to continue testing the sevice. After reading the comments on this thread I don't really expect them to improve so I suspect I will be telling them to take down their arial in the next few weeks.
My advice to anyone considering ICE - Don't wast you time!

[patz46]

I use ice bb for internet and voip and have no problems so far.I have used a few different tweaks and settings readily available on the web which has helped to improve it.I am supposed to have 3mb download and 1mb upload and after a few alterations i have 2.85 dwnld and 890kbs upld which isn't bad considering the price and the unlimited download limit.Obviously customers should be getting what they pay for from the start so why can't ice address this ,would contention be an issue in some areas?

[joemgreene]

patz46

Can you tell us the tweaks that made the difference - I am curious to know if the problem is my side as I do not have same issues with DSL connection...

[tomra01]

...I bit the bullet after months of frustration, I had paid for a 2 MBps 20:1 service and was routinely getting less than 10 Kbps d/l here in Ashbourne, with a 12 ft pole perched on my house. Took ages for them to stop trying to debit me each month afterwards as well.

I switched to eircom and its been great, even more reliable than both the water and electricity service here. I would have liked to back David instead of Goliath but, in this case, David is a cowboy.