Receive a Broadband Upgrade offer today from IBB. The offer from 2Mb BreezeBroadband service up to 6Mb. They trottled it up automatically for December 2011. Have checked speeds and they are running at 5.5 Mb Download and 3.5 Mb approximately. Yes an improvement. They will charge Euro 4 extra from January 2011. If speeds stay at this level maybe reasonable offer.

Quite pricey and intermittent service. Customer support very slow and at times incompetent/incomprehensible. The speeds offered are not really broadband in todays world and very rarely you get what you pay for. But. I cancelled the contract with them 2 years ago and the line is still alive and I am not paying for it so that is quite good and the kids use it for their devices. I am on a fixed line with UPC instead and the speed and reliability is much better and the price in a bundle with TV and telephone really good.

Breeze service
I havent had many problems in more than 5 years its been down twice for more than four days (antenna problems )
and twice for 12 to 16 hours .
Support were fine ( more than 2 years since i had to call them (ie before they were taken over ))
Expensive for 4mb ( usually 2.5 to 3 download when tested ) but its nice to have 4mb upload ,as 256 and 512 is a waste of time for anything more than surfing .
Downloads arent unlimited , they do throttle.

I’ve had IBB for 4-5 years – not bad but expensive for max 4Mbps – I have only ever got 3 Mbps with contention rate of 24:1 When it goes down as it did 48 hours ago – due to their aerial problem – trying to get any sense out of them is impossible. Its expensive outside a business context. Thnking of transferring to satellite — using

…Oh and apparantly you cant leave ’0′ stars on here so i have clicked just one for each as it wont let me edit my post below. Dont be fooled by the one star, if I could give minus stars I would

I have been with Irish Broadband for over three years now. The only reason for this is I live in an area where nobody else will provide broadband without having a phone line.
In a nutshell…I would rather live the rest of my life never having internet access, oh and while waking up to toothpicks being shoved under my fingernails every morning, than have Irish Broadband/Imagine/WiMax, whoever they go by these days, as my ISP.

Their service is terrible…their customer care is horrendous…dont expect to get anything that you (over)pay for.

I now have no internet connection…not by choice but because they failed to inform me they are discontinuing service in many areas as they are transferring over to WiMax (which wont be available to me or many others for a long time). I come home, try to log on, no internet, call their Tech Support, get put on hold for ages, think about how my last phone bill had 30euro worth of calling to their care line, get through eventually, talk to Tech guy, he disconnects me by accident, I call back, explain to new guy about my internet being down, he tells me ‘oh did you not get our letter or email 45 days ago about us discontinuing service in your area?’….Assh*les.

If this review stops at least one person from going with Irish Broadband it will be well worth the pain I took to temporarily connect to the internet from one of those portable USB sticks that I’m reduced to using because of the ridiculous state of affairs regarding ISP’s in backwards Ireland.

I’ve been a Breeze (in other words a business) user for the last four years. I also switched to their VoIP service a couple of years ago – big, big mistake.

Over the years their service has declined to an unreliable farce. I live in Portobello, which is essentially Dublin city centre in broadband terms. Yet the loss of ALL service is virtually a weekly occurrence. Their tech support is staffed by brain-dead droids whose technical knowlege and ability is so dreadful that RS-232 would be a challenge for most of them. Their customer support are employed presumably on their ability to bullshit. Indeed the whole company makes Brian Cowen and the FF Party look like interllectual giants.

They really should rename themselves “Illusion” as their current name “Imagine” suggests creativity. The only creativity this bunch of smegheads has is a business model of the Irish banks – lies and incompetence. I could bore you with sob stories but you’ve read it all before.

My recommendation is to give them a very wide berth indeed.

I’ve had Irish Broadband now for over 5 years and at the start it was way ahead of everyone else. i have 2MB Breeze but its got so so bad in the last two years, basically around the same time Irish Broadband was bought by Imagine. The customer service is awful. I had a problem recently where water ran down the cable from the antenna and into radio (inside my house) which caused it to short circuit, resulting no internet for four days. I told by the customer service agent at the time this happen every so often? Crazy! Customer support finishes up at 8pm and isn’t availble on bank holidays. My download speed is nowhere here the 2GB even thou i’m pretty close to the mast and the service is constantly coming and going (with or without the router). At this stage the price is really uncompetitive. When i called imagine to switch to wimax they told there was a €150 install charge to switch!!! I will definitely be switching to another ISP. In my area i can now get 8GB uncongested for €30. Imagine/IBB need to wake up!

I have had Irish Broadband ‘Ripwave’-the wireless one for about 2 years, its been SHITE for the last year… I genuinely don’t think it gets much worse than this, I live in blackrock/stillorgan area, very close to their mast apparantly…
this service is a joke, customer care is a joke.
It is the most frustrating experience ever using the internet, have a lovely nu enuff Mac, so trust me its IR B. It literally cuts out every 2 mins.

Please don’t touch it.

update to my review of Dec 18th, since mid Jan I’ve had terrible performance issues, latency between my home and their upstream systems is just appaling when using the link at anything more than 20% of its capacity (3Mbps), up to 4000msec to ping RTE.

have mailed them, been on many phone calls to their customer support whom can at best be described as polite idiots, no follow up calls, no responces, I’ve had enough and am moving….. looks like magnet are about to get another customer…..

i have BREEZE 4MB and i’m happy enough, i had broadband in a box with them before and it was unusable, customer service was killing me but after i moved house i decided to stay with them and i’m happy now. online PS3 gaming without problems and i’m just thinking about add VoiP talk home bundle can someone say something about it. thx … kovo_one@vodafone.ie

Have the breeze package for about 5 years.
No complaints, very little downtime.
Added the phone service recently and the CS was very good at troubleshooting the router.

The 4 MB Breeze is just OK.nothing special for this money but at least it is a consistent service. I see there are now a lot of different ISP giving better product for the 55 EUR/month, so I think it is time to leave it. CS of IBB is a mistery for me as I have never used the CS help so far (for over 3 years). Onlu once at the beginning I had some connection problem, I needed to call them several times before the problem was fixed. If you have a chance to pick another ISP from the list, do it. IBB is just to expensive in my opinion.
Cheers

only so so at best, service quality seems to have deteriorated considerably of late, latency increases, and shaping of traffic esp p2p traffic. certainly never seeing the 3Mbps i’m paying for. probably time for a move tbh

…well, not much to say: CRAP … using Ripwave ( aka Ripped-of-wave ) couple years (had no other option till now) and have to say: people, be aware of … local Dublin pings over 240ms, upload speed less than 100kb/s, download max 450kb/s ( never reached )….. disaster !!!!! phone modem connection seems to be faster … and all this costs almost 20e per month. Forgot to say: somethimes workin somethimes not – very frustrated when tryin to buy something on ebay, lost so many auctions.

Had a frustrating time a little while back when my Breeze aerial needed fixing. My service was un available from Thursday to Monday. But, to be fair, speeds have been very good lately. See latest from speedtest.net here http://www.speedtest.net/result/548364731.png

Download 9.70 Mb/s
Upload 3.00 Mb/s
ping 46ms

I have IBB for nearly a year and i have had enough. When you want to use it it comes up cant find server. When you phone there customer service they are rude and hang up the phone on you . I would strongly reccomend to think twice before going with IBB

Irish broadband’s Ripwave service is patchy at best, worst than dialup at worst. However,things really go downhill when you try to cancel your account.

Despite paying the outstanding balance and sending back their modem, they have continued to demand money through their debt collection agency.

If you are considering using their broadband, I would strongly advise against it, use a reputable company.

I’ve had Irish Broadband for two and a haf years now and I’m very satisfied. Started out with 2MB. They moved to 3MB soon after for no extra charge and recently they’ve moved me to 4MB for additional €5/month.

I’ve had their Phone service since the beginning and it has performed well most of the time. A few months back it started to deteriorate in the evenings but for past few weeks it’s 100% (maybe due to 4MB upgrade).

Speedtest is consistently good. Just now: (3025 kb/s download 3100 kb/s upload)

I just wish they would provide coverage outside of urban areas. I live in limerick and I have friends nearby in Patrickswell that can’t get it – just a couple of miles out the road!!

IB are leaving money on the table.

I have fixed wireless business pack. Costs eu48.40 per month. Gives good service though I don’t have much need for mega download speeds etc! Overall fairly hassle free and the one time I needed support, it was quick and good. Price needs to be looked at as the ISP market hots up.

The best feature of Irish Broadband is their customer service. Response time is fast. The phone service is awful..the line is crackly and sometimes just not there at all. If you are on the internet while you are using the phone then it is like using your mobile in a bad coverage area
I’ve been with them for over a year and it’s only their customer service that keeps me there

i start by saying: a BB where u need to limit ur usage is not a broadband…

i think IBB’s strongest point used to be that they used to have no caps on net usage.
that was the main reason why i stayed with them for more than 3 years .

as it is now:

performance is ok until u use ur monthly allowance, afterwards speeds will be reduced dramatically between 6am and 11 pm.. i.e when most normal ppl are doing their stuff

customer service is a joke, and that is comming from a person from within that specific industry

i have to confess, service IS reliable… problems fixed most of the time without even calling them

value for money, not really. u can get much better performance with other ISPs for the exact same cost.. if u dont mind the strings attached…

Irish Broadband, have had their fare share of troubles as with all the ISP companies. They are slow to increase the bandwidth unlike other ISP, they haven’t made any changes to their tariffs, i.e. the 3MB Breeze fixed wireless has cost €48.80 for a number of years now.

Although they deny any network management of bit torrents, I have seen some cases where it appears there has been such management. They refuse to deal with any issues with downloading using bit torrent, regardless if it’s a legal or illegal download, stating they don’t support the product.

I’ve had some issues with the service, but they have been quick to fix them. I’ve used the in more than one location in the city, initially they had really bad service in the city centre but this seems to have been resolved.

It’s not the best value for money, on a positive note they do issue you with a fixed IP address, it’s a synchronise service, i.e. the upload is the same as the download, so it’s great for VoIP products. I regularly get close to my 3Mbs.

The support team are only average, often contradicting themselves, if you aren’t technical they can be very quick to dismiss any problems you have. It helps to ask to speak to a supervisor if you’re not satisfied with the help.

Be sure to pay your bill otherwise they will have the debt collectors after you. I’ve had to call into their office and have sharp words with them over their accounts team making massive mistakes with my account. I received a letter from their debt collection agency, which took a few days to resolve and the threat of legal action.

To sum up, they are no worse than anyone else. All telecoms companies are far from perfect.