Wireless broadband providers - a couple of questions...

[Apocalypse_Wow]

I'm looking to make a long overdue change to wireless broadband in my apartment, but I'm unsure on how best to proceed, with regard to which provider to go with and the practicalities of sourcing the wireless box and changing over from my current telephone and old-fashioned (wire connection) broadband.

For reasons I cannot recall, I chose to go with UTV's Clicksilver service when I first moved into my apartment back in 2006. I've been unhappy with the service for quite a while now. Between the line rental and the separate broadband charge, my monthly bills frequently exceed €70, which strikes me as way too high compared to deals I could get elsewhere, and that's even before you consider that it's 2MB broadband, so, for example, trying to watch Youtube clips after a certain point of the day is more or less a waste of time, what with all the freezing and buffering.

Anyway, so I'm looking to go wireless, hoping to save a few quid on the bills, and also looking to improve the MB speed, so suggestions on which provider to go with will be gratefully received. I know not all providers can offer a service in every apartment building, but when I have names I can explore that side of things.

Also, and here's where I expose my ignorance a little, is it as simple as just buying a wireless box over a counter or will the provider have to post it to me?

Cheers in advance!

 

[BullBlackNova]

The sum total of my experiences have come with UPC and Vodafone so can only talk about them.

Vodafone have launched a new wireless broadband only service for €29.99 / month, router will cost you €20.32 on top of that on your first bill. Sign up in store and they post out the modem to you via registered post. You getup to 24MB speed and 15GB usage limit. Their next one up is €38 / month but the speeds are slower as it's part of a homephone package. It's still up to 8MB speed so it's an improvement on what you already have.

They use the same infrastructure as Eircom so if you are going for either of those, you may as well go Vodafone. Cheaper bills for the same service.

I have UPC myself and the speeds are incomparable - fibre power broadband is the way to go if you can get it. You will pay considerably more for it though. I'm paying close to €50 a month now that they've upped the speed, they also post the modem out to you and I think there's a charge on the first bill but it's going back quite a while so can't remember offhand. Never had a single issue with UPC though and would happily recommend to anyone.

 

[Apocalypse_Wow]

The sum total of my experiences have come with UPC and Vodafone so can only talk about them.

Vodafone have launched a new wireless broadband only service for €29.99 / month, router will cost you €20.32 on top of that on your first bill. Sign up in store and they post out the modem to you via registered post. You getup to 24MB speed and 15GB usage limit. Their next one up is €38 / month but the speeds are slower as it's part of a homephone package. It's still up to 8MB speed so it's an improvement on what you already have.

They use the same infrastructure as Eircom so if you are going for either of those, you may as well go Vodafone. Cheaper bills for the same service.

I have UPC myself and the speeds are incomparable - fibre power broadband is the way to go if you can get it. You will pay considerably more for it though. I'm paying close to €50 a month now that they've upped the speed, they also post the modem out to you and I think there's a charge on the first bill but it's going back quite a while so can't remember offhand. Never had a single issue with UPC though and would happily recommend to anyone.

Cheers for the reply. My own preliminary sniffing about online certainly highlights UPC as the provider of the fastest connections. The downside is I'm pretty sure they don't provide a service for my building, or at least that was the case the last time I looked at making the change. That was well over a year ago, so it's probably worth checking out again. I don't recall what the rationale was at the time for why they couldn't provide the service, I think it may have been something to do with how the building is wired.

Anyway, cheers again for that!

 

[BullBlackNova]

Cheers for the reply. My own preliminary sniffing about online certainly highlights UPC as the provider of the fastest connections. The downside is I'm pretty sure they don't provide a service for my building, or at least that was the case the last time I looked at making the change. That was well over a year ago, so it's probably worth checking out again. I don't recall what the rationale was at the time for why they couldn't provide the service, I think it may have been something to do with how the building is wired.

Anyway, cheers again for that!

UPC have very specific requirements as to whether they can service you or not - I've just been lucky enough that both my last two places have had UPC before I got here, so just needed to connect a box to it!

 

[toosexy]

Used UPC in Cork and Dublin. It is the fucking dogs bollix.

 

[Apocalypse_Wow]

Checked in with them this morning, and UPC definitely isn't available in my building. Bollocks!

 

[frankeechops]

Try airwave. Based in Little Island and cover a fair portion of East and North Cork.

 

[Apocalypse_Wow]

Try airwave. Based in Little Island and cover a fair portion of East and North Cork.

Cheers for the tip. My head is fucking spinning from all this. It seems like there are loads of providers, all offering differnt things, and even when they say 'no download limits' there's apparently fair usage costs to watch out for. Jesus, it would be so much easire if UPC was available!

 

[Del]

I was in the same situation as yourself with no upc available in my building also. I went for three's broadband and it was incredibly bad. Luckily I managed to cancel it and am now with vodafone.

38 per month with 40gb download limit, it was by far the best deal out there

 

[Rebelred]

Try airwave. Based in Little Island and cover a fair portion of East and North Cork.

Using them myself, very reliable and decent enough speeds. Far better alternative to Eircom for us country bumpkins. Line of sight to their transmitters required though.