BBnet (wireless in County Limerick and Clare)

[dopa]

BBnet

Anyone else here who uses this BB provider? At the moment I'm not happy with them at all. We use the home office package and should be getting up and download speeds of 2mb.
This is what we get at times. It's not always like this but especially in the evenings and during the weekends we seem to have speed problems. I do realise that they always promise more than they can deliver but these speeds are rediculous.

Date Download Speed Upload Speed Qos RTT Maxpause
19/11/2006 17: 09 103 kbps (13 KB/s) 3 kbps (1 KB/s) 13 % 184 ms 1642 ms
19/11/2006 17: 07 151 kbps (19 KB/s) 6 kbps (1 KB/s) 1 % 134 ms 3545 ms
Total Averages:
127 kbps (16 KB/s) 5kbps (1KB/s) 7 % 159 ms 2594 ms

I phoned them again about it and let ye know if there's any improvement in their services.

[lanzecki]

Originally Posted by dopa

BBnet

Anyone else here who uses this BB provider? At the moment I'm not happy with them at all. We use the home office package and should be getting up and download speeds of 2mb.
This is what we get at times. It's not always like this but especially in the evenings and during the weekends we seem to have speed problems. I do realise that they always promise more than they can deliver but these speeds are rediculous.

Date Download Speed Upload Speed Qos RTT Maxpause
19/11/2006 17: 09 103 kbps (13 KB/s) 3 kbps (1 KB/s) 13 % 184 ms 1642 ms
19/11/2006 17: 07 151 kbps (19 KB/s) 6 kbps (1 KB/s) 1 % 134 ms 3545 ms
Total Averages:
127 kbps (16 KB/s) 5kbps (1KB/s) 7 % 159 ms 2594 ms

I phoned them again about it and let ye know if there's any improvement in their services.

Yep I use them as well (I have to as they are the only provider in my area)

The service was down from Friday PM Till Friday AM. My conact said that they were having problems.

I get 400kpbs on a normal day. This evening I was getting less that a 56k modem. It's increased over the evening and I'm currently gettin 262k..

I run my business from home and often play online games that I used to play overa 56k modem. Normally their service is OK, but accasionally the lag is so bad that I use the dial up.

[knotackas]

I use them as well the service is variable at best, Speed drops at evening time when the system is being used heavily. Wonder can we pay by percentage? 50% service average would mean 50% fee?.

[lanzecki]

I suspect that their offically declaired contention rate are not as described. How you can have differant contention rate on the same network I'll never know..

A friend of mine has a 3mb link and gets more like a 2mb link on a good day.. I presume that we are all linked throught the Knockfirnna (pls excuse the spelling). Where the bottleneck is I don't know but I do know that their connection to the outside world is in Shannon..

You may have a 2mb link, but if their link from knockfirnna to Shannon is say 10mb it don't leave luch for everyone!

That said, it's generally better than dialup, and in my area the only option..

[dopa]

What pisses me off is that they don't inform you about maintenance work.
You only find out when the network is down. We phone them whenever it is down or extremely slow, just to let them know and maybe to get them to do something about it. My girlfriend uses it for work (translation and proofreading) and needs a reliable connection. A while ago it was down for most of the day due to planned maintenance. I think it would be common courtesy to send a mail to all customers, at least a day beforehand, to let us know. We had to revert to dial up cause my gf had to get her work in and out again. She also lost some work because of the connection being down. We told them that we expected a lower bill that month (that would be the December bill). Haven't seen the bill yet.

[knotackas]

I agree about the maintenance issues

We are not getting any where near the 1G we signed up for, when we ring /mail regarding this we are always promised it will be sorted but it never is.

[berch]

Yep, i use them as well, same story as all the rest of you here, crap speeds and when i talk to them they say "oh yes we are aware of a "bottleneck" and will be sorting it this weekend"....hmmmmmm ok!

[mobex]

I also have the BBnet 2 Meg package, On speed tests I average out at approx 200kps down and 300kps up. I have never at any time of the day or night seen a speed test record over 1Meg in either direction. Raised it with them lots of times and no use.

[tpodonoghue]

I use BBnet and it has been the only service provider in my area but things could change in the near future as outside interests have already expressed in providing quality services. After appalling average speeds, I began using Irishisptest and over a period of a few months and kept a log which I sent to them. When they were confronted with the incontrovertible proof of "well below promised speeds", they undertook some upgrade work in late October and early November, and since then reception has been excellent, just slightly less than 1 mb, which I can live with. But I was persistent in my barrage of criticism and kept sending them the "logs" which seemed to swing it for me, and all those in my area.
Tpodonoghue
Kilmallock

[hookah]

I've had BBnet installed for nearly 2 weeks. I'm an IT Consultant, and trainer, and needed broadband for VOIP. So far the BBnet connection is absolutely disasterous, just about better than dial up. I've recorded connection stats every 30 mins, for the last 2 weeks. From the stats I've recorded, it's quite obvious that the stated 40:1 contention rating that BBnet Advertise is completely false. During peak hours, the connection is just pathetic. BBnet, Barry in particular has told me this is down to some obstruction in line of sight with the mast. Yet come 2am until 10am, the speed is on or near the 2mb they are supposed to provide me. It seems that some twig or leave only obstructs the signal during peak times and not for the rest of the time. I've tried contacting this company on several occassions but to no avail. It seems they are more than willing to take the money for installation and first months payment, but offer no after sales support of any kind.

My advice for anyone considering signing up with this company is DON'T. They provide an extremely poor service ( the worst I've experienced in the country so far ), they have no after sales support and have completely over sold the capabilities of the equipment and masts they own. Wait for some other company who can provide broadband in your area, and don't go down the same road I have.

Can anyone living in the west of Limerick, in particular on or near the N69 please pm me with any information or complaints that you may have of this companies service. Due to the fact that their service is so poor, and after sales, almost completely non-existant, I wish to take this matter further and have the service that this company claims to provide audited by a professional company. I will be getting as many officials involved in this investigation and the more information that disappointed customers can provide, the sooner something can be done with regards to this pathetic service, and company.

Summary: BBnet ISP and Connection. About as stable a 3 legged horse, and about as reliable as an underwater hair dryer. Don't make the same mistake I have.

[doolerb]

I agree that they dont notify users of downtime etc, even if they just posted a message on their website, at least it would be something. But anyway I have to say that I must be one of the lucky ones, Im on a 2 meg package and generally get 1 mg or over in download speed, Im just outside newtownshandrum and Im happy enough with the service, speeds are decent. compared to dial up I used to use, its great. But compared to other providers, it is expensive etc, and Ive had problems with voice over IP, but Im assured that will be fixed soon.Barry in support has been helpful also, Im just glad to finally be able to get broadband

[hookah]

I'm glad you've found the company good to deal with, as you say, you must be the lucky "one". I've spoke to 30 plus people in my local area who use or have used their services and not a single one has a good comment to make. With regards to the person you've mentioned as being helpful. I've left message after message this week to be contacted by that same person, and they have blankly ignored the messages. Never have I dealt with a company who has had messages left on their system over 10 days ago, and not even bothered to reply within 7 days. Count yourself lucky, or priviledged.

[tpodonoghue]

Originally Posted by hookah

I'm glad you've found the company good to deal with, as you say, you must be the lucky "one". I've spoke to 30 plus people in my local area who use or have used their services and not a single one has a good comment to make. With regards to the person you've mentioned as being helpful. I've left message after message this week to be contacted by that same person, and they have blankly ignored the messages. Never have I dealt with a company who has had messages left on their system over 10 days ago, and not even bothered to reply within 7 days. Count yourself lucky, or priviledged.

I guess we in the Dromin/ Athlacca area are lucky as speeds are exactly what was promised, although when I was visiting a neighbour a mile away, the speed actually dropped while we were online, from 960 to 440 but picked up again an hour later, at 10-30 pm. Mine has rarely dropped below 960 for the last 3 months and when you take into account the signal is coming through trees on top of the local walled estate, i must be the luckiest user around. The reason originally given last October for my appalling rates was a dedicated bitorrent user behind me, uploading and downloading huge files. I'm a novice in this area but I am led to believe his activities were curtailed and a cap set on his usage; the result anyway was my speeds shot up and have been constant for the last 3 months, and this is at any time of the day or night. I actually rang Barry and his office and got instant action. That is why I am surprised and disappointed by Hookah's experience. I also happen to work in a business of over 600 people in the greater Limerick area and our provider is BBnet and service has been very satisfactory; otherwise we would have switched straightaway. However, the no.2 in the business had been using BBnet at home, but once speeds declined in his Kildimo area, he ditched BBnet and went back to Eircom and has had no problems since. I will continue to ask neighbours how they are doing in my area. BBnet knows that other service providers are now active in the area and the new service from Bruff is said to be excellent; I think they are called Ice or something similar. Will keep all posted.

[hookah]

My main reason for signing up to BBnet was after speaking to one of the guys in their company , and explaining my sole reason for requiring DSL was to teach online IT classes as I am an IT Trainer and Webdesigner, I was told, "Oh yes Sir, our signal is extremely stable, and you should have no problems using VOip etc etc". Not true. My students pretty much spend most of their time waiting for me to reconnect. From the stats I've recorded. Come 1am until 8am, the speed is exactly what I'm looking for, and stable, but times outside that, there is no stability in the connection. I've noticed during peak times the connection goes from about 1.5mb down to 2 or 3 Kbps. Seriously, even dial up was better than that. I have only recently moved into the area, and would rather not have to connect back up with eircom, as I've spent thousands with them in the last few years, but for all my complaining about the cost, the service was 2nd to none, and since I had it install in late 1999, I can honestly say, in 7 years, I was only disconnected maybe a handful of times. I would at this stage drop BBnet like a hot brick, but have no other option as of yet. Sooner Eircom pull the proverbial finger out and enable the local exchange the better. Considering if you do a google search for info on the exchange, it's something that they were supposed to enable in late 2004! TYPICAL

[doolerb]

i take my complimentary comments about BBNET back, for the past 2 months the service has been pathetic, went from a pretty constant 700 plus kbps to dial up speeds, now the speeds are crap until about 12 or 1 am. Rang them many times only to get different answers each time. I work in IT myself and its pretty obvious they dont know what the problem is. Or the do and dont give a sh*t. Getting no feedback from them,even if they dropped me a mail to let me know what was happening it would be something. If I had any other option I'd get rid of them. They are very good at taking money out of my account though , yet cant provide a basic support service for people wo are already paying them too much.

[doolerb]

update on the speed problems I had - after 3 months of crap speeds , they have manged to sort out the problem, in the end they had replace the antennae with a long range one. Speeds are pretty good and steady again, most of the time it's around 1 meg . To be fair to them they replaced it for free, the long range antennae normally costs extra to install but because of the problems I had they installed it for nothing. Hopefully that will be the end of it.