Ice Brodband keeps its customers out in the cold

by mufti_el_ping - irishwan.ie Thu Jul 02, 2009 23:13 z at burren dot org Ahish, Crusheen, Co. Clare none

Don't keep waiting to be spoonfed by cowboys like IceBB, or the failed Birdhill scheme (J.B.Kennedy) or the incredibly brazen crooks at 'airwire.ie': underequipped, using hobbyist's equipment, and chronically underfinanced using the hookup charge to feed their pyramid scheme empires. Looking up their (non-existent) tax records speaks for itsself.

Why pay multiple times (between neighbours) for a connection that is shared anyway ? The infamous 'contention ratio' is basically nothing but a diluted service with dozens of people sharing a single line. The fact that one piece of equipment brings down an entire network says it all: you're all on the same modem.

Build your own setup: find some place with a bb connection and share it out via wireless or wirebound between neighbours. It's surprisingly simple and cheaper than a 'commercial' connection charge.

As long as it is neighbours helping neighbours, the taxman, comreg and all the other parasites can simply get stuffed in the face of basic grassroot cooperation. And it beats the cowboy operators who have jumped into the void left by a failed government and their corrupt telecom cronies. The unqualified amateurs thought they have been handed a licence to print money. Until something breaks.

There are several mailorder sources for equipment in Ireland : check out wi-pipe.ie or wirelessconnect.eu . 100 euro or less per client antenna gets you going, a simple 'base station' is as little as 250 euros. Everything can be put together with basic hand tools on the kitchen table. Don't forget to 'earth' the antennaI for lightning protection. I bet the cowboys did not do that either ...

Stefan Zalewski, Co.Clare

by johnd Thu Jul 02, 2009 14:28

Glad you brought this to the attention of indymedia readers. People out my way have ongoing problems with the T3 mobile network which is supposed to be broadband but usually is as slow as old cable connections before broadband. Unless you want to be on the computer at three in the morning when the service improves. The support line people say that it’s because the area I live in gets “too much traffic.” There would be less land line owners in this area of Dublin. It’s infuriating and the automated apologies make things worse - for me anyway.
People who live in posh parts of the city who have a mobile broadband connection get a much better service, because they don’t really need one; they all have landlines as well and so there are no problems with congestion.

by M. O' Thu Jul 02, 2009 11:11

this morning the download speed still hasn't improved 0.22mb/s. they have a hard neck calling themselves a braodband service. Customers should demand credit for the days (13 so far) that they have not got what they paid for

by broadbandmears Tue Jun 30, 2009 22:08

After taking ten days to repair what ever fault caused the outage (of course as Irate Murroevian pointed out they didn't fell it necessary to burden their customers withe the details - any details) they finally managed to get the service restored this evening. But the speed is total crap, 0.06 mb/s down and 0.05 up with a ping of 1230 according to speedtest.net and I think that being generous at the dial was stuck for ages and the speed indiactor never dropped.

We need to get wee willie o dea out with his gun and stick it up this crowd of sheisters who should never have been given a licence to operate.