Currently my broadband provider is Eircom, I have tried them all from BT to Perlico and although Eircom’s service is terribly slow, i found that the other Internet Service Providers (ISP) were just as bad, the main problem I have is to do with the download usage allowance, Perlico and BT both have set limits and enforce them, so as soon as I went over my limit I got an extremely high bill.

However, with Eircom even though they say they have a download limit, they do not enforce it, if I go over my limit nothing happens. This is why every time I switched to a different provider I ended up switching back to Eircom.

When I first heard about the new WiMax service that Imagine are rolling out across Ireland I decided that I would get it as soon as it becomes available in my area. My current broadband speed is 3mb (up to) and Imagine are offering 7mb (up to) at a cheaper price with unlimited usage allowance. It was the selling point here for me, I could get  a great boost in download speed for a cheaper price, why wouldn’t I switch? Apparently the unlimited usage allowance of Imagine WiMax is not actually “Unlimited”, I didn’t expect it to be.

Imagine WiMax deem anything over 35gb a month to be excessive usage! That is a terrible cap to put on as excessive usage, that is just 5gb over my current cap with Eircom of 30gb which I do go over and do not get charged.

Since finding out about Imagine WiMax I found out that Eircom are also rolling out a new broadband service, they call it NGB (Next Generation Broadband). Eircom’s NGB has a standard download speed of 8mb (up to) with unlimited usage allowance. All current 1mb, 3mb and 7mb users will be upgraded to the Eircom NGB for free! I looked up what Eircom actually deem to be fair usage and I have to agree it is a great cap, I definitely do not see myself going over it.

Eircom are setting their fair usage cap to 250gb a month 😀 . This download cap is only available on the highest end of the NGB packages, the high end NGB package costs about €10 more than my current broadband package. Also the maximum that Eircom will be charging for broadband is €50, so if you go really far over this cap, your bill will only run up to €50, no matter which NGB broadband package you are on 😀 .

I think for now, I will hold out and wait for the new Eircom service, the map on the Eircom NGB website says it should be available in my area between September and December of this year.