At Long Last: An Irish Alternative! (Internet Service Providers)

Member Name: kenjohn

Product:	Internet Service Providers
Date:	15/10/05 (1558 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast internet connection . No limit uploads and downloads . Saves me money .

Disadvantages: Not a thing!

~ ~ Some of the older members here at dooyoo will be aware that the mad cabbie has been attempting to acquire a Broadband internet connection ever since he first put finger to keyboard here at dooyoo way back in December 2000. In fact, my quest to acquire Broadband goes back further than that. When the then incumbent State telecom provider (Eircom) first introduced DSL Broadband here in the Republic of Ireland back in the late 1990's, I was the first in line to sign up.
Now, 7 or 8 years on, there are a plethora of different suppliers of Broadband services here on the Irish market. The telecom market has been deregulated, and this has seen a multitude of other companies such as BT and Smart Telecom joining Eircom in vying for the lucrative business and consumer market, both for telephone services and for Broadband.

~ ~ So you would imagine that the mad cabbie has been enjoying a fast Broadband connection on his old 'puter for some considerable years now. Of course, you would be wrong, as it's only in the past couple of months that I've (finally) managed to acquire what other people, especially subscribers in the UK, have been taking for granted for yonks!
So what has been the problem? Why is it that someone who was mad keen to acquire a Broadband connection, and at almost any price, (within reason!) has been unable to do so for quite literally years? The problem in my case, and for lots of other potential Irish broadband users, has been the very poor copper wire telephone connections into our homes, many of which were installed way back in the mists of time. (In my house in the 1950's) These old copper wires are simply unable to sustain a DSL Broadband connection, consequently the mad cabbie (and many thousands of others) was unable to acquire a broadband connection at any price!

~ ~ Eircom, of course, being the totally obstructive and reactionary company that they are, were (and still are!) totally unwilling to upgrade the copper wire telephone connection to my home. Not only that, because they still own the so-called "local loop", they wont allow any other telecom company to do so either, despite other companies being more than willing to do so!
What this has meant for me is that I struggled along for years with a slow 56K dial-up connection. Up until a couple of years ago this was supplied by Eircom on a "pay per minute" basis, which meant that my telephone and ISP bills were absolutely colossal, often topping the €400 per month mark! Three years ago I invested in a second phone line, and availed of an ISDN connection. This cost me a whopping €200 plus to install, and, of course, it also meant that if I was using both phone lines to achieve an internet connection speed of 128,000 kbps, that my "per minute" ISP charges instantly doubled.

~ ~ Then I managed to break free from Eircom, and was among the first to subscribe to UTV (Ulster Television) in the North of Ireland when they became the first ISP here in the Republic of Ireland to offer a flat rate internet connection. (€29.99 per month) I say flat rate, but in fact you were limited to 180 hours per month, although to be honest I found this more than adequate for my needs. This also came at a price because part of the deal was that I also had to use UTV for my telephone calls, (yearly contract) although it wasn't a great hardship as they were (and are) considerably cheaper than Eircom. Of course, I still had to continue to pay Eircom for renting their totally inadequate and antiquated telephone lines at a monthly cost of €38, even though I was now not using them for any service, either telephone or ISP!
But at least my monthly outgoings were now more reasonable. My average telephone bill was about the €100 a month mark, plus my €29.99 subscription for the Internet, and €38 to Eircom for line rental. How's your maths? That's a grand total of approximately €168 a month for telephone and Internet services.

~ ~In late 2002 a new ISP company called Irish Broadband began to market their service here in Ireland. A *WIRELESS* broadband connection! Through the air, no wires, no need for a telephone line at all. Oh joy of joys, thinks the mad cabbie, at long last I'm going to be able to break free of the stranglehold of Eircom and begin to enjoy the pleasures of Broadband. Unfortunately, it was a false dawn, as at that time their service didn't cover my area of the city. So I was STILL stuck with an ISDN connection. To be honest, I got the impression at the time that they were more interested in obtaining new business users for their service rather than domestic subscribers.
Then a couple of months back I noticed (on the Irish Broadband website) that they were offering a free connection to any domestic customers who signed up before the end of September 2005. (Normally about €100 for the antenna and the box) Instead of applying online I instead visited their business premises in a local industrial/office park (Sandyford) here in Dublin. At last, they now covered my area of the city, and all that was required was for me to fill out a monthly direct debit for my subscription fees and they would have me up and running within a month. Two weeks later I get a call on my mobile phone to ask if I'm free the following morning, and the next day the installation team arrive (right on time!) to install my equipment.

~ ~ So how much does Irish Broadband cost, and what services do they offer? First off, the price. This depends on whether you're a domestic or business user.
Business users have the choice of connection speeds of between 2Mb and 4Mb, with prices varying from €40 per month to a whopping €250 per month.
Domestic customers are offered a basic Broadband connection called "Ripwave" for only €18.95 per month. This is a simple antenna connection that simply plugs into the back of your computer, and off you go. The problem with Ripwave is that it really isn't that much better than an ISDN connection, offering download speeds of only 512K and uploads speeds of a measly 128K. Another problem is what is called the "contention ratio". With Ripwave this is 48:1, which means that you share your internet connection with another 48 subscribers. What this means is that if all the other 47 subscribers who share your connection happened to be browsing the Web at the same time, then you could potentially have a connection speed of only 10 kbps, which is incredibly slow. (A lot slower in fact than your standard dial-up 56K connection!) Now this is unlikely to ever happen, but I'm sure you get my drift, and why I was discouraged from investing in this option.
In my opinion the next two options offered to domestic users are far better. This is a product called "Breeze", and you can opt for a 1Mb or 2Mb connection. In both cases this involves Irish Broadband erecting an outside antenna on the roof of your house, usually to the chimneystack. The 1Mb connection offers you both download and upload speeds of 1Mb, and costs €35.99 per month. This isn't bad value, but once again the contention ratio lets the product down somewhat, again being a measly 48:1. So I opted for the top product currently on offer, the 2Mb upload and download. This costs €48.40 per month, but has a lower contention ratio of only 24:1. Ripwave is available without signing up with Irish Broadband for a set period, other than the monthly subscription obviously. The other two Breeze options require you to sign up for a minimum 12-month period, which in all honesty is no great hardship.
So far I have been totally delighted with my new Broadband connection. The installation was quick and easy, with the lads only taking three quarters of an hour or so to do all the work necessary. I had no problem getting it up and running. A few small changes to my "internet connection" settings to facilitate the new ISP number, and a few tweaks to my Zone Alarm firewall to allow the connection through was all it took. Easy peasy, even for a total technophobe like the mad cabbie. (Although I'm getting a wee bit better at all the techy stuff these days!)

~ ~ By the way, there ARE some technical limitations in regard to the specification of your PC. You must have the following minimum spec, or Irish Broadband simply wont work.

· 133 Mhz processor
· 16MB RAM
· CD-ROM drive
· USB or Ethernet Port
· Windows 98 or higher, or MAC OS7.5 to MAC OS9.2.

~ ~ What a difference Irish Broadband has made to my online browsing. For a start, most web pages now load almost instantaneously. (Dooyoo and |Ciao certainly do!) Also, there are no monthly caps on the amount of information you can download or upload. What this has meant to me is that for the first time ever I am able to download vast amounts of music (legally, from a subscription site called Limewire) and burn them onto CD's. And now I don't have to wait forever for the album or track to download as in the past. With Broadband, the download times are very quick. I usually leave Limewire working away in the background while I browse the web, and when I go back the downloads are invariably complete!
Since getting my new Broadband connection I've run various speed tests at different websites, and the results are great. It seems that most of the time I am achieving upload and download speeds in excess of 1.5Mb, which is fantastic.
I've also purchased a Lynksys router, and configured my old laptop to my new ISP, which means we can have both the PC and the laptop connected at the same time, and more than one person can browse the web simultaneously. (Wonderful!!)

~ ~ The other main difference Broadband has made is that it is actually saving me a considerable amount of money, despite the higher monthly subscription cost I am paying when compared to my old ISDN connection. (€48.40 compared to €29.99) I've now signed up for a VoIP telephone connection with another Irish company called "blueface.ie". This allows me to make unlimited telephone calls over the Internet to any land line (through my Lynksys router) to anywhere in Ireland, the UK, the European Union, the United States and Canada, and Australia and New Zealand, and all for only €24.99 per month! (But that's another upcoming review)
What it DOES mean is that as soon as I can get my existing land line number transferred over to my new VoIP telephone service, I'll be able to finally tell Eircom just exactly where they can stick their antiquated and obsolete land lines, thus saving myself the line rental of €38 per month. I'll also be able to get rid of my existing telephone provider (UTV) and save myself a further €100 per month.
You have absolutely no idea how much I am looking forward to telling Eircom exactly where they can go! The pleasure will be truly orgasmic!!!

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~ ~ Obviously, this review is aimed more at the Irish consumer, as Irish Broadband is not available in the UK other than in Northern Ireland where they trade under the name of "NTR Broadband". To access the Irish website go to "http://www.irishbroadband.ie" and for the Northern Ireland website "http://www.ntrbroadband.com".

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© KenJ October 2005.

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Summary: Fast internet connection . No limit uploads and downloads . Saves me money .