Better broadband than Vodafone ?

I have recently had a second phone line installed by Eircom ( which took 5 months - but that is a story for another day).

My first line has Vodafone BB- to which I was moved after BT moved out of the market and the speed has since deteriorated - not on speedtest, but I do notice when downloading stuff or even surfing it has become a lot slower.

Was now thinking of trying out another provider on my second line, obviously not Vodafone, and was wondering what would be recommended by my favorite forum. I live in a pretty rural area, far enough from the exchange to not get great speeds anyway ( 0.8Mb according to speedtest) and notice a significant drop in the evenings (contention ?)

Should I go with Eircom or O2 or who ? Price is secondary, speed is primary.

It all depends on whats available on your exchange. If its just an €ircon enabled exchange, then you will just get them and resellers of their service ie. a bitstream product.

If the exchange has been unbundled (LLU - Local Loop Unbundling) ie. other isp's have their own equipment in the exchange, then your chances of getting a much improved product are greater.


I fall into the first category - but there can be still some variation in this category too. Like you, I was handed over to vodafone by BT in December - but moved within 1 month for the reasons you describe. Moved to smart - a good provider - but had 1 flaw in my experience (my dsl connection suffered from random disconnects - requiring a full router reboot). I have since moved to utv - no random disconnects - although their download/upload speeds are not as consistent as smarts were.

Check out all the providers (theres not really that many of them) and see what they can offer you.

serotoninsid said:

If the exchange has been unbundled (LLU - Local Loop Unbundling) ie. other isp's have their own equipment in the exchange

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How do I find out ?

I fall into the first category - but there can be still some variation in this category too. Like you, I was handed over to vodafone by BT in December - but moved within 1 month for the reasons you describe. Moved to smart - a good provider - but had 1 flaw in my experience (my dsl connection suffered from random disconnects - requiring a full router reboot). I have since moved to utv - no random disconnects - although their download/upload speeds are not as consistent as smarts were.

Check out all the providers (theres not really that many of them) and see what they can offer you.

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When I look up my number on smart website - I get referred to a bitstream product from digiweb.

Are you happy with UTV speeds compared to vodafone ?

Happy_Harry said:

How do I find out ?

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I don't think theres any easy way of finding out apart from checking with each operator to see what they can offer. Also, you should check and see if you can get digiweb's metro product. If your exchange isn't likely to be lucrative for the isps, then its likely you will just have access to bitstream ie. if it covers a low population.

Happy_Harry said:

When I look up my number on smart website - I get referred to a bitstream product from digiweb.

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Smart are now owned by digiweb..

Happy_Harry said:

Are you happy with UTV speeds compared to vodafone ?

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yes. They enforce a download cap strictly but this is not important to me - just bare this in mind.