Which broadband provider?

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Salvadore

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I’m currently with Virgin Media on a 500mb speed plan. I upgraded last year from a 250mb plan but to be honest I haven’t noticed any difference. I’m paying €70 a month.

The 12 month contract is coming to an end and I’m considering options. VM’s 250mb option doesn’t seem to exist any more so if I stay with them it looks like I’ll have to continue to pay €70.

I’ve tried bonkers.ie but the alternatives for my postcode in Dublin offer plans for just 100mb speeds.

Two questions:

1. For normal domestic use, would the difference between 500mb and 100mb be noticeable?

2. For 100mb plans, are there any recommended providers? The options include Sky, Vodafone, Pure, Eir, etc. the customer service in Sky in particular seems appalling if the reviews are to be believed.

Thanks in advance.
 
Salvadore said:
VM’s 250mb option doesn’t seem to exist any more so if I stay with them it looks like I’ll have to continue to pay €70.
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It's not advertised but they offered it to me recently when they tried to stop me cancelling my 500Mbps at the end of the 12 month contract period next month.

Regulatory notification - end of contract notification

I just received an email from VM informing me that my contract period ends next month. It starts with "Regulatory notification - end of contract notification". I never received this sort of communication in the past from any similar service provider. Is this a new thing/requirement? Great if it...
www.askaboutmoney.com
So if you want it ask them if they can offer it to you and for how much.
Salvadore said:
I’ve tried bonkers.ie but the alternatives for my postcode in Dublin offer plans for just 100mb speeds.
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And maybe not even that - still no fibre in my area so all of the "up to 100Mbps" providers actually only offer 12-15Mbps.
Salvadore said:
1. For normal domestic use, would the difference between 500mb and 100mb be noticeable?
Click to expand...
Depends on what you mean by "normal domestic use".
 
Salvadore said:
I’m currently with Virgin Media on a 500mb speed plan. I upgraded last year from a 250mb plan but to be honest I haven’t noticed any difference. I’m paying €70 a month.

The 12 month contract is coming to an end and I’m considering options. VM’s 250mb option doesn’t seem to exist any more so if I stay with them it looks like I’ll have to continue to pay €70.

I’ve tried bonkers.ie but the alternatives for my postcode in Dublin offer plans for just 100mb speeds.

Two questions:

1. For normal domestic use, would the difference between 500mb and 100mb be noticeable?

2. For 100mb plans, are there any recommended providers? The options include Sky, Vodafone, Pure, Eir, etc. the customer service in Sky in particular seems appalling if the reviews are to be believed.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Be careful of this 100mb offers as the other poster said it will be up to, and most likely not, 100mb
 
Salvadore said:
. For 100mb plans, are there any recommended providers? The options include Sky, Vodafone, Pure, Eir, etc. the customer service in Sky in particular seems appalling if the reviews are to be believed.
Click to expand...

We had Sky broadband with "up to 100mb" in a previous home. It was "fibre to the cabinet" and the cabinet was about 300 to 400 mtr from the house. We got around 80mb reliably via an ethernet connection and it was fine - but our general domestic use was fairly light.

We are with Virgin now - 500mb. I rang to cancel last year and they offered €15 pm off for 6 months with a 12 month contract renewal. I don't think the 250mb offering was much cheaper than 500mb even when it was available so a discount on the 500mg might be just as good.

SIRO has been run past our way since so I will switch to one of their providers when the current 12 month Virgin contract ends.
 
I used to have Virgin. They increase the price every year. I used to ring them, threaten to cancel and get a few quid off.
I moved to Vodafone Siro a few years ago. They've kept the price consistent since I got them. Now (on my phone on wifi) speedtest is showing 356mb down. I've 1Gb but the max the phone can do is a few hundred meg which is more than enough.
Up in the attic (a bedroom far from the router) I get about 20mb on wifi and it's fine for streaming.

For 4k streaming on Netflix you need about 20mb speed. When I connect to vpn for work I get about 50mbs for work through the VPN which is fine. Without connecting to VPN the same PC gets >100Mb/s
So the question is how many of these types of service do you use simultaneously.
 
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qwerty5 said:
I used to have Virgin. They increase the price every year. I used to ring them, threaten to cancel and get a few quid off.
I moved to Vodafone Siro a few years ago. They've kept the price consistent since I got them. Now (on my phone on wifi) speedtest is showing 356mb down.
Up in the attic (a bedroom) I get about 20mb on wifi and it's fine for streaming.

For 4k streaming on Netflix you need about 20mb speed. When I connect to vpn for work I get about 50mbs for work.
So the question is how many of these types of service do you use simultaneously.
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You have a 500mb connection I take it, the WiFi speeds are different due to devices or distant from the router, if you were wired in all locations you'd get 500mb or so.
 
I'm with Vodafone on their "simply broadband" which is fibre to the cabinet, which I think is about 200Mtrs from the house
We consistently get speeds of 90 down and 20 up both wired or WiFi on a very reliable service
We renewed there in March for €30pm down from the €55pm they were looking for and am very happy with the price and service
A friend of mine just moved from Eir to Vodafone last week and was able to get the same deal

In terms of usage, we've two computers on the go for most of the day, a 4K TV which we use to stream Netflix and others in UHD
I also play a lot of "Call of Duty" on the Playstation in 4K while Mrs C might be streaming a UHD film on her laptop and have never noticed any connectivity issues while I'm fighting for my life in "Al Mazrah" but having said that there is only two of us here, if we had a couple of kids with their computers and consoles running at the same time it might be a different story
 
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Cervelo said:
I'm with Vodafone on their "simply broadband" which is fibre to the cabinet, which I think is about 200Mtrs from the house
We consistently get speeds of 90 down and 20 up both wired or WiFi on a very reliable service
We renewed there in March for €30pm down from the €55pm they were looking for and am very happy with the price and service
A friend of mine just moved from Eir to Vodafone last week and was able to get the same deal

In terms of usage, we've two computers on the go for most of the day, a 4K TV which we use to stream Netflix and others in UHD
I also play a lot of "Call of Duty" on the Playstation in 4K while Mrs C might be streaming a UHD film on her laptop and have never noticed any connectivity issues while I'm fighting for my life in "Al Mazrah" but having said that there is only two of us here, if we had a couple of kids with their computers and consoles running at the same time it might be a different story
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Thanks for that @Cervelo

My usage would be similar to yours which makes me wonder if the 500mb deal I’m on is really just unnecessary.

According to the Vodafone address tester, I can get speeds of up to 86mb for half of what I’m paying at the moment.
 
qwerty5 said:
When I connect to vpn for work I get about 50mbs for work.
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The slowest link there will almost certainly be the VPN and whatever nodes the traffic is being routed through, so no reflction on your provided or internal network.
 
Leo said:
That is how all operators work, none of them will guarantee a consistent rate.
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Yes - but not only that, many of them advertise "up to 100Mbps" when, in fact, the upper limit is actually the 12-15Mbps that can be achieved on DSL which is all that some people (including myself - c. 3km from Dublin city centre) can get.
 
Salvadore said:
Thanks for that @Cervelo

My usage would be similar to yours which makes me wonder if the 500mb deal I’m on is really just unnecessary.

According to the Vodafone address tester, I can get speeds of up to 86mb for half of what I’m paying at the moment.
Click to expand...
I'd say give Virgin a call and see what they are willing to offer you
If you're not happy with what they are offering give Vodafone a call and see if you can get BB for in and around the €30 mark
As far as I remember there is a cooling off period of 14 to 30 days so if you find the service isn't working for you, you can cancel
and maybe go back to Virgin as a new customer on a better deal

Siro hasn't reached me yet but when it does I will certainly enquire about upgrading but only if the service and the price can be justified
And now if you'll excuse me I have to go to Al Mazrah to extract a GPU and 2 Golden Skulls to unlock my third insured weapon :rolleyes:
 
Leo said:
That is how all operators work, none of them will guarantee a consistent rate.
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Up to 100mbs where you can get anything from 5mb to 100mb (with no hope for improvement) is not quite the same as your 500mb fibre being patchy the odd time
 
ClubMan said:
Yes - but not only that, many of them advertise "up to 100Mbps" when, in fact, the upper limit is actually the 12-15Mbps that can be achieved on DSL which is all that some people (including myself - c. 3km from Dublin city centre) can get.
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Very true, they'll specify the theoretic limit of the connection, for DSL they assume a perfect connection between the cabinet and your router which is impossible in practice. The longer the distance and older the copper, the worse it gets.
 
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