My Broadband...or not.
My Broadband...or not.
So I live in rural Ireland, we have none of your fiber optic cables, none of your high speed telephone lines, what we do have is the NBS (National Broadband Scheme) This is a government backed scheme to provide broadband via the mobile phone network to rural areas. The company that won the contract was Three. The terms of the contract is that they provide a broadband service to areas that can get it in no other way. On their web site the say minimum speeds at edge of cell will be 1.6Mbps and customers in reality will receive much higher. I am not at "edge of cell" and am getting minimum speeds of 0.25 Mbps.
Today I phoned technical support, this is in India. I went through the TIOTIO palaver...at least I said I did 
and the Speedtest.net tests for them, I was then asked to keep doing this for the next three hours. I pointed out that I had been doing this on a regular basis for weeks and three hours was going to make no difference. The speed I got was 0.73Mbps on that test. The guy on the phone tried to tell be that was a good speed! and he could not escalate the call...Not good enough, not good enough by far. So I started reading out the terms and conditions of their license and the guaranteed speeds from their own website. I also carried on doing speed tests the whole time during which my speed dropped to 0.25Mbps with a ping of 180. (I will say at this point my reception bars were full)
The guy on the phone kept insisting that speeds were going to vary, and everything was fine. I pulled up a youtube clip and made him listen to it buffering every five seconds for up to 30 seconds at a time, told him I was a Sim racer and explained I was unable to race at all because of lag, and this was an unacceptable state of affairs and unless something was done I would be contacting the government ombudsmen and my local TD.
This seemed to change his attitude a little, and he decided he would escalate the case. So tomorrow I will be receiving a text a fucking text! from the tech department.
I have had a decent connection in the past, when I first joined the clan I had no problem with lag, or joining servers, before that I spent several months in the hoppers with no problems, but as those of you that race me know, of late I cannot hear anyone because their audio is choppy, and I sit at the back because I don't want to lag into anyone...making my participation pointless...This I hope goes some way to explain why Knight has been a little off colour of late, and not my usual enthusiastic self, what with the issues with the game, the wheel and MSL compounded by my shitty internet, I have not really been enjoying myself for some weeks. To date I have invested the best part of €2000 in Sim racing, and that is weighing heavily on my conscious, we have gone without a holiday this and probably next year so I can pursue this hobby and unless my online problems can be sorted it is all wasted.
So bear with me, I hope the internet issues will be sorted, and I can get back to having fun again, but until then I will not be continuing with my Tuesday night series, and the EUSL...well not even bothered to sort out my cars and certainly not painted one...
Shit dude. That sucks! Your enthusiasm has been blessing here and it's been great to have you around. You are one of the many folks that "gets it". (not that others don't, mind you) Hope you can get this sorted soon and you can SIM race once again. Let us know.
Been thinking what to type for the past two hours Knight.
I really hope you get it sorted out fella. It so annoying how when you first started here your connection is totally fine. Now days its seriously bad.
You never know they might sort it tomorrow and you can finish the last race off in your Healey cup.
Thanks guys, and one way or another this will get sorted. When it does I will be back on full form. Though I may have been lured over to the PC, it was here I found my love of this hobby and you guys that just opened the doors and said come on in...So I'll be back...well I'll keep turning up so I'm not going away, and with a bit of luck it may get sorted sooner rather than later.
Keep you're chin up mate. I hope you're able to get it sorted soon.
Hope it gets sorted quickly for you m8 and your back up and running ASAP
Damn Poidsly that is poor, guess like me you too get frustrated by all those adverts for super hi speed, unlimited download bla bla bla.
Well so far I have hit the blank wall of Three's "customer service" The text from tech support never arrived...of course, I never really expected it to, the guy I was talking to on the phone was 100% there as a buffer between me and anyone who could actually do something. So another email has been sent rather strongly stating my dissatisfaction with the situation. I think what the need to do is put a booster box on the roof, of course as this is at their expense they will try hard to avoid it.
Yes, usually they try to talk you into buying a booster box. Our cell provider here has that option but our cell service is good in some parts of the house, as we have a rather large hill and 15 acres of hard woods running interference. They have actually said they would provide one if we request it, but we're good enough not to bother. I'd say if we were net dependent on the cell, we'd already have done it.
Well I would not have to buy it as it is in their government contract that it is their responsibility to ensure access. Curiously my connection seems good today, makes me wonder if they had me throttled...I'll have to see if it stays good over the next few days.
You have been doing a lot of downloading lately chap.
Nah I spoke too soon it's back to 0.25 on last check.
Well as I have said in another thread I have lost patience with Three and contacted my TD (MP) he replied to my lengthy mail only minutes after I sent it at 11PM! and said he would get on the case. This dude is hot on getting technology out into rural areas and will give the arseholes at Three a going over. Our national government may be a shower of numptys but at a local level we have far more access to our local politicians than is the norm. Every vote counts for these guys and they take care of the local voters. I remember when we first moved here he personally took care of getting us registered to vote, actually bringing the forms to us when he saw us out shopping and dropping by our home to pick them up when we had filled them in...now that is the personal touch, it got him my vote that year. He is well on his way to getting it again.
The reason I have done this is Three have a government contract to supply broadband so it is to them they are ultimately responsible...feels good to have them on my side, it is as it should be for a change. I expect a call from Three quite soon
Great! I feel local government is where all our problems should start to be addressed. I wish people on our side of the pond would embrace the same philosophy.
I agree, unfortunatly for the bigger picture that is not the case here either. It is all about the vote, we are a small community with a lot of people trying to get our vote so they do work a little harder to get you on side. This is one of the few times that works for me. Our TD is one of the better ones, but the Government as a whole are a shower of bastards lining their pockets and dragging the country down the drain.
Yes, sounds quite familiar. The newer X-Boxes have wireless built in, my boys use it from their room. They don't race but they do MW and Black Ops quite well.
Yes I going to get one, one less cable in a room somewhat dominated by them
Noooo
Dont use Wireless for the Xbox. EVER
In regards from the router / Hub / Switch to your Xbox
Well I have been using wireless for as long as I have been doing online gaming, so there you are it works fine as long as your sodding internet is working. So yah boo sucks to all you naysayers.
"yah boo sucks" racing...hmmm...
If cable was available to Knight he would get it I'm sure, he is making the most of what is available to him. Unless you want to move to an area with cable broadband which might be a little extreme just to get better connection and speeds.
Race night at Fitzy's?
Rural areas can be horrendous for access. Doesn't matter where you are, rural is rural.
Absolutely, everyone is invited except Oldschool and I'll have to think about letting Parcells come along.
You know me, I'll crash the party anyway...
I will say mine is hardwired, even though the wireless is 450 mbps....I think.
No way, that is what you are actually getting? Measured with speedtest.net?
Church mate, that is the way it has been for the last three years, and as you know I had no problems with lag when I started here, or in other games before. My sole issue is bandwidth, I have been monitoring my connection closely for the last five days. During the day I have reasonable speeds and low ping, so that is why I have been able to go iRacing with GBR, its late afternoon. Now as we come into the evening my speeds plummet and my ping goes through the roof, this is because more people are accessing the cell and as a result my bandwidth suffers as it is shared out to more and more devices. So by the time it come to 2O4E series races or track night it is so low now I cannot race.
Now what is to my advantage in this is, because I am on NBS, Three by the terms of their contract had to publish minimum speeds they would deliver to NBS customers. I am getting below these speeds much of the time so they are in breech of contract. Interestingly my upload speed tend to remain higher, so when racing, you guys see me stable on track but I see cars flying, submarining and jumping around.
The upshot of this is, unless there is a hardware problem at the cell and it is operating below spec, this is not going to be sorted in the short term. The cell needs an upgrade to cope with the extra traffic it has been getting of late. Though why it is getting all this extra traffic in what...the last month? well that is worth them looking into.
My internal wireless network is fine, works like a charm I can do all the thing on the xbox during the day you can with a hard wired one, stream movies, game...whatever no problem.
Church is correct, WIRELESS = BAD, WIRED = GOOD!
Its probably OT here, since Knight is having trouble getting decent bandwidth, but it nonetheless bears repeating as often as possible. Even the best wireless connections are not nearly as fast and reliable as hard wired.
Yeah it does seem that many are convinced that wireless=bad but still doesn't alter the fact it has worked fine for me and I have no intention of trailing a 30mtr cable that is not going to solve anything through the house. Whatever happens I end up with a wireless connection to the Cell and trust me if I could drag a cable there I would LOL It's a puzzle to me as a couple of my mates (same deal as me but in a different area) do the same and use the same kit and have no trouble either. Maybe it is the Xbox wireless system that is the issue? I dunno, like I say no problems
I have a 54mbps link to my modem and at last test a fantastic all time low 0.07mbps connection to my Cell...still no call from three.
Lawyer, I haven't tested the wireless outright, the router (Linksys E4200) claims 450 mbps, most are 300 mbps, and it will be less, but the one I tossed out was a 300 and my kids are very happy with the newer model. As for my wired I did test it, and I might be getting my nomenclature mixed up, but I hit a 36+ download and a consistent upload just over 4.
BTW, I avoided the "smart app" models as there is some uproar over the "cloud" crap Linksys/Cisco is pushing atm...
Disclaimer, it hasn't improved my driving, but it IS easier to race without the flying/submarining/lag spike chaos. And should be less dangerous to the community at large...