Net connection

Posted by maca on October 19, 2005 Leave a comment (13) Go to comments

I love having a fast net connection, it makes life so much easier if you’re maintaining websites, into heavy surfing or, as in my case, searching for animal porn.
At home I have a 1Mb connection (Eur30 muntly) which I consider to be decent-ish, I couldn’t imagine working with anything slower. At work here I have a 3Mb connection which is flippin’ deadly (but by no means the fastest available).
I was downloading the latest Fx Beta earlier, started the download, went to take a swig of my coffee but before I’d taken a sip the download was complete! Gifted! Back home-home we have a stone age Eircom dial-up connection which is the absolute pits, I can’t even send hate emails that way, it’s just so frustrating. It’s one of the first things i’ll do if I move home-home, sort out a decent net connection.
How much are ye paying at home for your connection and how fast is it? Just curious.
(maybe I asked this before…)

Internet, Seafóid
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13 Comments.

  1. Winds and Breezes October 19, 2005 at 11:41 pm

    Hi maca,

    eircom is my supplier and I’m 1MB (apparently) downstream and 128k upstream. That costs me 29.99 a month. Broadband plus gives you 2Mb and apparently that’s 42.35. per month. I think EsatBT might have a slightly better deal though.

  2. maca October 20, 2005 at 12:59 am

    Thanks winds! It’s much the same as mine so. I presume you’re in/close to a city? Do you know does much of the country have broadband now?

  3. Mick October 20, 2005 at 1:29 am

    In Boston I pay $35 for a 1.5m down and 768k up. My sis in Dublin has 1.5 down and 128 up and almost unlimited phone calling with the Republic for about 60e, I think it’s with Esat?

    DSL coverage is available in most towns in the republic:
    http://www.comwreck.com/images/blog_images2/dsl_coverage_map_big.jpg

    But, if your outside of town, forget it … but satallite links are available.

  4. Mick October 20, 2005 at 1:51 am

    Intersting article here:

    http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/45969

    Most Japanese consumers can get an Internet connection that’s 16 times faster than the typical American DSL line for a mere $22 per month. Across the globe, it’s the same story. In France, DSL service that is 10 times faster than the typical United States connection; 100 TV channels and unlimited telephone service cost only $38 per month. In South Korea, super-fast connections are common for less than $30 per month. Nations as diverse as Finland, Canada, and Hong Kong all have much faster Internet connections at a lower cost than what is available here.

    Seems to claims Finland has faster cheaper service?

  5. maca October 20, 2005 at 9:28 am

    Thanks for the info Mick … and for the links!

    Here’s some figures for Finland.

    Sonera
    1 Mbit/s / 512 kbit/s – €31
    2 Mbit/s / 512 kbit/s – €46
    8 Mbit/s / 1 Mbit/s – €59

    Elisa
    ADSL – same as above
    Cable & “home port”:
    1 Mbit/s / 512 kbit/s – €24
    2 Mbit/s / 512 kbit/s – €29
    4 Mbit/s / 1 Mbit/s – €39
    10 Mbit/s / 2 Mbit/s – €48 (home port)

  6. Winds and Breezes October 20, 2005 at 11:40 am

    I’m in north Dublin.

    I know that my parents’ line is broadband capable and that’s about 25 miles out of Limerick. For the rest of the country, there have been a lot of figures bandied about – apparently something like 80% of the lines should be broadband capable but I gather take up is not as high as it could be. Eircom prices came down a tenner a month during the year and they now have a time-limit offering which is borderline crazy.

    IrelandOffline is probably your best source of info: http://www.irelandoffline.com/home/ I think there’s a table of the different operator charges there

    Hope this helps.

  7. maca October 20, 2005 at 12:17 pm

    It helps alright, thanks Winds.

  8. Gerry O'Sullivan October 21, 2005 at 2:30 am

    I’m using the basic UTV Broadband package at home, which is a little flaky at the best of times. 1Mb down and 128 kbps up is the advertised speed, but a 48:1 contention rate means that it frequently lapses into dialup speeds. This costs me €30 per month + line rental, etc. I’m going up to the 2Mb service from next month for a tenner extra, and a contention rate 24:1. The nice thing about UTV is the bundled TalkTime phone package, where all evening and weekend phone calls to Irish and UK landlines are free.

    At work, we have 3Mbps down and 512kbps up from Eircom. I did a bit of research on this recently, as we were installing a new network, and needed to upgrade the existing broadband connection. To my surprise, Eircom came top of the pile. There are some wireless/satellite options on the market, but they weren’t suitable.

    I was hoping that I could get something from Smart, which unlike most of the other ADSL operators use local loop unbundling (i.e. don’t just resell a wholesale deal from Eircom), but one of our offices can’t access it.

    A coupla links that might be useful:

    Irish ISP Speed Test

    Get Broadband (comparisons of the main deals on offer)

  9. Antonio from Italy October 23, 2005 at 1:00 am

    Here at home I have a 4 Mb/s download connection with TIN, the first Italian web operator (it should be 256 kb/s upload).
    The cost is 39 euro/month, VAT included, modem included.
    When I first subscribed it was a 640 kb/s for 49 euro/month, but then the speed increased and the price went down.

    The speed is almost correct, every now and then I run a speed-test and it’s really very close to what declared.

  10. maca October 25, 2005 at 10:02 am

    Thanks for the info Gerry. Btw how much is “line rental, etc”. We don’t pay any line rental here.
    I just changed suppliers yesterday, switched to Elisa ADSL 2Mb. Unfortunatly they’re putting their prices up in January so I only get the cheap rate for 2 months, bastards!

    That sounds good Antonio! 4Mb/s .. lucky you! :)

  11. Antonio from Italy October 25, 2005 at 1:36 pm

    “That sounds good Antonio! 4Mb/s .. lucky you! ”

    Maca, 4 Mb/s isn’t the best service we have in Italy, but it’s the most suitable for me for the mere reason that I am faithful to this operator :-)
    The best ADSL service so far it’s a 12 Mb/s download (1 Mb/s up) from a different operator for 35 euros/month and Wi-Fi modem included.

  12. maca October 25, 2005 at 1:41 pm

    12Mb/s ! Orgasmic ! You’re making me jealous now.

  13. Tiernan OToole October 27, 2005 at 2:01 pm

    Heay, maca. Looks like NTL will be offering a 10mb internet connection to all their users, including irish users. i am currently on their 3mb package for 45EUR a month, which eventually will stay at that price, but tripple in speed! :) 3 mb rocks, but 10 is sweet!