Getting Broadband

I a curious to know how many of you are connected to a Broadband service. I am considering getting Broadband and am interested to gather information about which providers you find good.. or other wise. I am considering Eircom, Esat BT, Digiweb and U.TV.

Comments welcome.

Liam

I've been with Eircom since Jan 6th last year. All in all it has been very good service, if perhaps a bit more expensive than similar broadband services on offer for people in UK, Australia and USA.

Problems
* I have had no real problems that I couldn't fix myself.

Downtime
* The amount of downtime (loss of connection) I had in the past 12 months would total around 15 hours. 2 outages, 1 long one of 12 hours caused by a JCB chopping a broadband cable nearby.

Support
* Support staff are fairly well clued in, but calls do take a few mins when you call.

Speed
Not exactly the lightning speed you see on TV - many of those adverts feature a simulated download of a file. But, a 1 Mb file would come down very fast, usually in around 1 minute. Most downloads would average between 14 - 40Kb/sec. (Depending on the server you are contacting)

All in all, its well worth getting, if only for the speed and the fact that you can chat on the phone while being on-line.

Overall 9/10

Liam, Here's an alternative if i may...I'm still on dial-up, however, I've just downloaded, and am now using Mozilla Firefox as my internet browser. It's so fast compared to your ordinary IE explorer, nearly as fast as broadband! :shock:

Free Too...4.7Mb download

www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Keith..

Hi,
I went for east bt broadband a few months and havent looked back since, they were offering a better deal then eircom, but thats over now.
Before, downloading 7+megs was a big thing, now 200+ megs is pure magic.

I use a PtP program called Limewire, is excellent and verrrry convienent.
I wouldn't touch kazza.

Thanks guys for the comments.

Keith, I have Mozilla Firefox and yes it is great.

I have heard very good reports of the wireless broadband provided by Digiweb. Very useful if your phone line is not up to scratch for regular Broadband!

If you are concerned about spyware, Microsoft has releases AntiSpyware (Beta 1) available from Microsoft site.

Liam

Liam

I've have Esat and think its great. Sign up for the free 3 month offer and test it. You can give it back if its not what you want. No wiring involved its simple to install. If you decide to take it up you get another month free. Change your phone account and the cost for broadband goes down and the modem is free.

On the wireless broadband I could be wrong but I think you'll need a line of sight to the watertower in Summerville Ave. to pick it up

Conor