I’m moving house. Naturally, first priority after getting the keys is getting the broadband set up ;)
Current broadband: BT DSL. Supposedly “up to” 3Mbps — however, as with most DSL connections in Ireland, it’s rate-adaptive RADSL, which means it trades off connection speed against distance to exchange and line quality.
Sadly, this has really deteriorated since the last time I checked! A “bing” test between the BT-supplied DSL router and the far end looks like this:
BING 10.18.72.1 (10.18.72.1) and 193.95.142.243 (193.95.142.243)
44 and 108 data bytes (1024 bits)
193.95.142.243: minimum delay difference is zero, can't estimate link throughput
193.95.142.243: 6.966Mbps 0.147ms 0.143555us/bit
193.95.142.243: minimum delay difference is zero, can't estimate link throughput
193.95.142.243: 19.692Mbps 0.052ms 0.050781us/bit
193.95.142.243: 4.697Mbps 0.218ms 0.212891us/bit
193.95.142.243: 3.261Mbps 0.314ms 0.306641us/bit
193.95.142.243: 3.170Mbps 0.323ms 0.315430us/bit
193.95.142.243: 2.479Mbps 0.413ms 0.403320us/bit
193.95.142.243: 2.723Mbps 0.376ms 0.367187us/bit
193.95.142.243: 2.688Mbps 0.381ms 0.372070us/bit
193.95.142.243: 2.716Mbps 0.377ms 0.368164us/bit
193.95.142.243: 2.065Mbps 0.496ms 0.484375us/bit
193.95.142.243: 1.984Mbps 0.516ms 0.503906us/bit
193.95.142.243: 1.270Mbps 0.806ms 0.787109us/bit
193.95.142.243: 1.017Mbps 1.007ms 0.983398us/bit
193.95.142.243: 1.002Mbps 1.022ms 0.998047us/bit
193.95.142.243: 1.008Mbps 1.016ms 0.992187us/bit
193.95.142.243: 983.670Kbps 1.041ms 1.016602us/bit
193.95.142.243: 993.210Kbps 1.031ms 1.006836us/bit
193.95.142.243: 987.464Kbps 1.037ms 1.012695us/bit
--- 10.18.72.1 statistics ---
bytes out in dup loss rtt (ms): min avg max std dev
44 762 758 0% 2.524 3.858 19.083 2.194
108 762 762 0% 2.639 4.187 58.273 3.079
--- 193.95.142.243 statistics ---
bytes out in dup loss rtt (ms): min avg max std dev
44 762 761 0% 13.061 20.025 78.689 8.226
108 762 760 0% 14.213 17.954 61.137 4.697
--- estimated link characteristics ---
host bandwidth ms
193.95.142.243 987.464Kbps 10.536
987Kbps is not 3Mbps any more, not by a long shot. I’d say I now have a lot of new friends adding contention at the ol’ DSLAM. I’m paying way too much money for what I’m getting :(
(Update: actually, it may not be contention. Judging by boards.ie traffic, high-contention situations in Ireland are usually faster in the mornings and daytime, then slower from 4pm-9pm as the commuters and kids get home — however, this slowdown is pretty consistent across all times of day.)
(Update 2: as of right now, late afternoon on Apr 12, it’s the worst I’ve seen it — packet rates of 600Kbps, and packet loss of 5%-20%.)
On top of this, they have the really annoying daily disconnection policy, which I have hacked around with IPv6 and a VPN, but which still manages to waste my time and cause aggravation, even after frickin’ months of pissing about.
For this, and the packaged phone service, I’m paying just under EUR 60 per month, including all call charges and VAT.
At that price, Eircom are offering a pretty good bundle — free connection, free modem, 2Mbps downstream, 256Kbps upstream, unlimited free local and national calls at all times, 5% off calls to mobiles, 10c/min calls to the UK and US.
Now, a drop to 2Mbps may seem a lot, but bear in mind I’m getting just under 1 right now! I’m pretty sure the new gaff will have similar-quality lines and exchanges. Also, if I get the 2Mbps line, and the attenuation and S/N statistics indicate that it can support 3Mbps, I can always upgrade pretty easily.
The only problem now is getting over my revulsion at buying from Eircom, ugh…
Am I missing something? Does that Eircom bundle not include line rental maybe?