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Other ProvidersDiscuss other Irish broadband providers. These include regional ISPs and wireless providers providing internet access solutions in rural areas.
The thread "Icecomms speed problem" has not received any replies for a month. It has been automatically closed as a result. You may start a new thread on the topic if the information in this thread is not sufficient.
I am wondering if anybody is experiencing a slow down with Icecomms .Since Dec 05 I have being getting an average speed of 100K down with a supposed 2 Meg Connection .Even at best before it struggled to reach 1.2Megs.All for €59 /month.
Have you contacted them re service. I am not paying them any more .There service is worse than ever,my 33k modem is quicker. I dont know who they get to write there testimonials for them.
Since @ June they installed new 5GhZ system and Its 1.5meg average. Unfortunatly I am in a area where there is no dsl line available.What is your position? My advice would be to hound them until you are satisfied?
Rang their call centre today,They tried to tell me 190k was a good download speed,I read them the riot act when I heard that,they apologized and told me that the router they supplied was the issue,they fixed that.Download speed is up to 1mb now,Not great but a lot better than it was
We're on Icecomms because there's no alternative out near Rolestown, Eircom have no chance from Swords, and apart from the occasional freeze where nothing happens for a few minutes, the average speeds here are not bad, I've just run a test and got a download of 844, upload 206, and that's pretty much how it is most of the time.
OK, it took for ever to get the thing installed, but since it came in, most of the time it works without me noticing any hassles, and I've broadband from Eircom, BT, Icecomms and Imagine all in the Ashbourne/Roatoth/Rolestown area that I'm using on a regular basis, so I do have something to compare it with. Of the 4, the most problematic over the last 6 months has been BT, though I think some of that was line related, so attributable to Eircom again.
As for Eircom, even if they could offer broadband here, no way, given the dire performance we've had on our PSTN lines over the last 6 months, there have been days when the only thing working in to here was Icecomms, all 4 of our PSTN lines have been down several times, on one occasion for over 10 DAYS!
MAybe we're lucky, in that we're not that far from the mast so the signal quality is high, but I can only speak as I find, for me, Icecomms has been the answer to a massive problem, which for me is that broadband is now the only way to access the net, given the overhead of OS patches, anti virus updates and firewall updates, before I start doing anything productive.
Just wondering which package you are on?.If its the 1meg its good.If its the 2meg its not so good,as there 2 meg package also includes a 2 meg upload as well as download .
Pretty sure it's 1 Meg, in that while I won't use dial up as such, our volumes are not massive, so 1 Meg is adequate. Today's speed is 814 - 224, which tends to confirm that. I was doing some serious digging on various boards over the weekend to try and solve a problem for a friend who's just got a wireless router, and needs to get it working with BT, and it seems that pretty much every Broadband supplier is getting grief over something. Icecomms are not brilliant at answering E-mail, that's for sure, but dealing with BT is as bad as trying to deal with Eircom, they are both dire, though at least BT will call back if the wait is too long, unlike Eircom.
Maybe one of these days we'll get some real competition in the telecoms sector, then things might improve. At the moment, they are all getting away with a nightmare in terms of quality.
best I've seen in Ireland is a 20:1 contended service offering. Don't know if anyone is yet offering less than 20:1, but I know that with most of the providers you get much better than 20:1 until they get busy.
Once a service gets busy, at 20:1 for a 2M service, guess what ! You get 100k.
You hope that the other people contending with you don't use as much of their share as you, and then you see higher and higher speeds. Lots of people downloading movies lately, and we all see slower speeds as a consequence.
You do have a choice. If you really want 2M, you have to get a leased circuit, but I for one couldn't afford that.
Anyone getting 100k from a 2M service at 20:1 contention, mightn't like the service, but you do get what you pay for.
What price are you paying per month?The 1meg is 39€ the 2Meg €59.
OK, we're on 1 meg, and I am guessing that during the day, there's not too many people around using the service, so we're getting good contention. I have noticed it drops off a bit last thing in the afternoon, which is probably people arriving home and starting to use the computers, but the bottom line for me is that Icecomms is the only option here, and as it's the only option, I'm using it, rather than trying to work on dial up, as that would not be good here, given our experience with the voice lines.
There are times when it will pause for a few seconds before painting the rest of the screen, and I'm guessing that's down to a lack of cache at the server end, so they're having to collect all the data rather than provide some of it from cache. I can live with that, it's giving me a service, which I can't get from any other provider in this area at the moment.
best I've seen in Ireland is a 20:1 contended service offering. Don't know if anyone is yet offering less than 20:1, but I know that with most of the providers you get much better than 20:1 until they get busy.
Once a service gets busy, at 20:1 for a 2M service, guess what ! You get 100k.
You hope that the other people contending with you don't use as much of their share as you, and then you see higher and higher speeds. Lots of people downloading movies lately, and we all see slower speeds as a consequence.
You do have a choice. If you really want 2M, you have to get a leased circuit, but I for one couldn't afford that.
Anyone getting 100k from a 2M service at 20:1 contention, mightn't like the service, but you do get what you pay for.
For 100k at 20:1 with 2 meg.Everybody would have to be accessing at the same time which would be very unusual,but probly does happen.How would it affect upload at 2meg ,would everybody have to be uploading at same time ?and why is 2meg upload worse than 2 meg down?
I am on the 3 Mbps download, 16:1 contention Business Standard package €66 per month. As I write my download speed is 4.2 Kbps. It has been as low as 2.4 Kbps. In the interests of balance, I should say that I have had 1.2 Mbps download, but I had to get up very early on a Sunday morning for that.
Thanks to BlacKnight for the speed check, I don't like complaining unless I have some proof that its not just me in a bad mood :-)
I emailed them the BlacKnight report a week ago and got no reply. So I think I'll be cancelling unless there's a dramatic improvement tomorrow. I'd appreciate any recommendations!
here is a copy of a tread i just posted today monday 23rd Oct 06, elsewhere in this site..........
Hi John,
I got connected with ICE broadband last weekend.
I am on the home package so the speed should be up to 2MB.
A number of things have gone wrong to date, but I cannot write ICE off totally yet. They are still trying to rectify the problems.
Heres how it went,
1)They called out to install the radio receiver on a sat and whilst doing so knocked a big chunck out of the front of my house. it now looks cat. The guy installing/drilling never once checked to see the ornate plaster on the outside of the wall as he drilled out from inside.
2) I was told at the cold call sales pitch the package was completely wireless and included all equipment (i.e. wireless router) for e37.99. ........only to be told that they had no wireless routers in the van on the day of connection and I would have to purchase one on Monday ..... ha.
3) Initially speed was adequate to good between 1MB and 1.8MB however it never reached 2MB. ....worse was to come, within 4 days speed was down to an average of 300Kbps ..(fluctuating.wildly).... which is way to slow for my work. since then its been a struggle to get any decent speed at all.
In fairness to the lads in support they are trying every modulation they can think of to stabilise the speed but I think it is just that the contention ratio is to high at 40:1.
I have asked to be upgraded to ‘homeplus package’ to see if the lower contention ratio of 20:1 will improve the situation. If something positive does not happen soon I am of to get a phone line put in and headin to SMART.
Has anyone else got any views on ICE ?
Later......................
below is a copy of a reply i posted earlier today (Mon 23rd Oct 06)
Have I made a mistake joining them or will they redeem themselfs !!!!
I got connected with ICE broadband last weekend.
I am on the home package so the speed should be up to 2MB.
A number of things have gone wrong to date, but I cannot write ICE off totally yet. They are still trying to rectify the problems.
Heres how it went,
1)They called out to install the radio receiver on a sat and whilst doing so knocked a big chunck out of the front of my house. it now looks cat. The guy installing/drilling never once checked to see the ornate plaster on the outside of the wall as he drilled out from inside.
2) I was told at the cold call sales pitch the package was completely wireless and included all equipment (i.e. wireless router) for e37.99. ........only to be told that they had no wireless routers in the van on the day of connection and I would have to purchase one on Monday ..... ha.
3) Initially speed was adequate to good between 1MB and 1.8MB however it never reached 2MB. ....worse was to come, within 4 days speed was down to an average of 300Kbps ..(fluctuating.wildly).... which is way to slow for my work. since then its been a struggle to get any decent speed at all.
In fairness to the lads in support they are trying every modulation they can think of to stabilise the speed but I think it is just that the contention ratio is to high at 40:1.
I have asked to be upgraded to ‘homeplus package’ to see if the lower contention ratio of 20:1 will improve the situation. If something positive does not happen soon I am of to get a phone line put in and headin to SMART.
Has anyone else got any views on ICE ?
Later......................
if i do not start gettin over 1MB download consistantly i am outta ICE. And damned if i will pay for the 2 weeks i have had at 300 kbps. (I joined on a first 2 months free offer)
My 2 meg connection is really bad at the moment .Timing out all the time, even downloading email' I Have got crazy ping rates between 3ms and over 2000ms with constant time outs. Been on to them for the last 6 weeks and still nowwhere.They are talking about new ip address.I think its an interference problem because as a soon as users come on in the evening and weekends it gets really bad even lower than contention rates.I wiil let you know how I get on this time The only time its good its really early in the morning .
My 2 meg connection is really bad at the moment .Timing out all the time, even downloading email' I Have got crazy ping rates between 3ms and over 2000ms with constant time outs. Been on to them for the last 6 weeks and still nowwhere.They are talking about new ip address.I think its an interference problem because as a soon as users come on in the evening and weekends it gets really bad even lower than contention rates.I wiil let you know how I get on this time The only time its good its really early in the morning .
I heard from a different ISP that Ice's problems are being caused by interference from other providers who are also using unlicensed links.
The thread "Icecomms speed problem" has not received any replies for a month. It has been automatically closed as a result. You may start a new thread on the topic if the information in this thread is not sufficient.
Icecomms speed problem 
Can only speak as I find, Icecomms OK here 
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