I now have the Omnitel Service for almost 18 months. At the start it took Omnitel about 12 weeks to get the service working… with about 5 days service during the first 8 weeks or so. Since that time I have had too many outages to be able to even begin to list them all; during the first year a minimum of 1-2 days without service per week (without any improvement or refunds). It is not just the complete outages, but the speed often can drop slower than 14kbps (yes less than 1/2 dial up speeds), which basically means you may as well have no service at all.

I do think that the reliability has improved, especially in the past 6 months, however it is still often sketchy. There is a low-call support number, but from a mobile phone this still works out at between 6-15 euro per call, as one can expect to be on hold in the queue for anything from 5-40 minutes (last 6 months average has been maybe 8-15 minutes).

Omnitel do not give you a public IP for your connection, but instead use a private IP subnet and NAT the connection of all subscribers through 1 (or very very few) public IP addresses. This means that many things will not work properly. For example, you can completely forget being able to play any online games either from PC or PS3, as lack of Public IP and no way to create an Application port map on the external interface (read the Public IP used to access the internet) means games cannot establish the required connection to the server which hosts the online game. The same holds true for any peer-to-peer connections for file sharing. I know many in the industry frown on file sharing apps, however realistically this is a motivating factor for many end users who sign up to a 12 months broadband contract.

I have scored the customer service higher than the other metrics, as just above average… despite the long queues and often ending up with VoiceMail after waiting for ages to speak to tech support… my higher rating is mainly due to the now good relationship and communication I have build up with the technician who always answers the phone. I am not sure whether I can post a name here, but Mr T who answers the technical support line is very helpful, especially since he can talk “techy” with me (yes I have more than 10 years advanced IT experience, which helps when trying to resolve technical issues).

It may be possible that in other regions the service is more reliable. Omnitel uses 2.4Ghz and 5.8Ghz spectrum wireless equipment, so depending on the distance between the user and base-station, as well as number of connected users and weather conditions, there may be areas where they perform better than what can be expected in my region. Between relatives and neighbours there are another 4-6 people I know who use Omnitel in the Kiltegan / Rathdangan Co. Wicklow area. Their experiences are comparable.

So… you may ask why sign up… why continue paying for this service if it is so poor? Simple… until now there have been no alternatives other than 56kbps dial-up. However… for all in the Kiltegan area the joyful news heralds: Eircom is upgrading the phone-switch with ADSL in the coming month with the view to start signing customers from Oct/Nov 2009. 3-broadband is now available too at a lower cost and probably better service level.

In Summary: Residents of Kiltegan and surrounding areas finally have a choice of different broadband providers. More choice will lead to better pricing and improved service as broadband providers start to compete for our business!