Broadband Access - 4GB per month download capacity

D

Doogo

Guest
Hi,
Am not terribly familiar with this subject so any help would be much appreciated....

Looking at ditching land line in favour of broadband (coz the number of calls that we make from our home phone is minimal and the monthly charge a pain - all we use it for is internet access at the moment - mobile phone takes precedence for voice calls)

I see that eircom have their deal for 29.99 for broadband access - limiting at 4GB download, 1GB upload per month .... is this a good deal or not? what amount of surfing does this equate to? (and now the really silly question - do they mean downloading the web-page or actual physical data onto your machine? - sorry if i'm offending any people's intelligence here!)

tks
D
 
If you're only a light internet user 4GB a month is loads. You'll start running out of space if you're a heavy downloader of music and films/DVDs.

An entire DVD movie might take up 600-700mb.

1000mb = 1GB

I'd estimate that average surfing of webpages would only take up at most 200mb a month. That's just a guess. Every page you visit is a download. Each image has a file size etc...

If you do have problems with limits then you can upgrade to their 8GB package. Although personally I'd check to see if you can get NTL broadband before going with eircom. Better service and 16GB limit pm.
 
Gabriel, many thanks for that - very helpful

Is NTL the best available option? (only ask coz they seem to me to be on a very unstable footing at present financially?)
 
Remember that if you go with eircom - you'll still need the landline.

My own recommendation would be to go with UTV for broadband + phone rental + calls.


I have 8Gb cap with UTV, and only came close to even 4Gb once - my first month with broadband, when I downloaded lots of Windows and other software updates.
 
Is there an easy way of checking exactly how much you've uploaded/downloaded to date, or over a given billing period? I'm using EsatBT, but given that I can't even get them to send me out a bill I'm doubtful about them replying to email queries about something like this... :rolleyes

Would try 'phoning the tech support line, but a terrible sense of dread comes over me just thinking about it! ;)
 
I use an excellent little utility called Du Meter - see [broken link removed]

UTV also has its own version on my account page - and I find the 2 (UTV and DU) largely agree.
 
Thanks, euroDilbert. I see that costs $20 after the 30-day trial expires - would you know of any simpler 'freebies'? I don't really need all those features (data packets analysis, server traffic control, port filters, etc.), just a simple 'counter' to give me a rough idea of how close I'm getting to the 4Gb cap. I'm behind a firewall and not running any file-sharing apps, so I'm not too worried about uploading...
 
Weirdly enough - I'm still on my free trial. It is a 30 -day trial. However, I'm now just on day 11 after about 6 months !!!
I only use the simple counter version myself.

Give it a try !

I can't recommend others, because I never tried any. This one came highly recommended and I quite like it now - will probably buy it when the trial eventually expires in a year or so . I think I found the recommendation in Boards.ie - so have a look there for alternative suggestions (I can't look myself, because the site is barred via my work internet connection).
 
Thanks again, euroDilbert - I'll give it a try! :)
 
One side-effect I've seen with some programs is if you install it with admin privileges (NT,2K,XP) and then use it as a regular user it might not have sufficient rights to access the particular part of the registry where it keeps its registration info.
 
broadband

back on topic....

I'm having same issue, and I really can't see how anyone who has access to NTL broadband would consider anything else. €25 pm for the basic connection, with 1gb per day d/l limit, no line rental.

Any other co., the entry price seems to be min €29, and in most cases €39, + line rental of €25pm, as well as stricter download limits = €55pm+

Surprisingly, they also got overlooked completely in the sunday times review of broadband options

what am i missing???
 
Re: broadband

You're not missing anything mollser. NTL have the best broadband service in Dublin. I usually laugh upon reading IT related articles in newspapers - written as they are by journos who know how to turn on their computer and use Word and that's about it.
 
broadband

and if you go for the 1.5 mbit line from NTL for Eur50 a month you're talking 3 times faster than Eircom. I'm consistently getting downloads of files at a rate of 190 to 220 kb a second. Compare that to the 4 or 5 on a modem and life is pleasurable indeed!

Apart from that , when I was on the 512 service from NTL awhile ago (now 600) my downloads were measuring at 55 -60kb a sec and at the time some mates with Eircom's 512 service were lucky to exceed 38-40.
 
Eircom Broadband

i am living in Waterford city & when I test to see if broadband available on Eircom site the link will not work it will evntually advise to contact 1800 503 503 which recorded message tells number is not in use . Doesn't give much convidence in our 'national' provider. Any other way to access My home package on telephone calls is UTV.i have an ISDN 2 line connection but do not mind losing second number if necessary.
 
Re: Eircom Broadband

Unfortunately - I don't have access to any form of cable where I live (for various reasons, they never wired up my street). If I did, would strongly consider using it.

I suspect in a few years we'll all laugh at the puny speeds we use now, when every home has a direct fibre connection (or its successor).

Update

Maybe sooner than I thought see
 
Related to earlier post by Dr. Moriarty..I also have EsatBT Broadband. They do actually have a facility for monitoring your Broadband Usage on their website which I find very useful. Try the following link..
www.iol.ie/broadband/bb_use.htm
 
The broadband number for Eircom is
1800 503 303

and not 1800 503 503.

I made the same mistake originally reading it off the website - for some reason I kept reading 303 as 503.
 
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