The Irish Broadband Service Providers generally irritate me. As a small Irish Company providing IT Solutions, we are often asked to recommend to our clients where they should get their broadband from. I would love nothing more than to be able to say, “Try X Company – They are brilliant!”
The reality is much different. My current home broadband provider is from Eircom. I wanted to switch as I don’t need a house phone and I don’t like Line Rental. The idea of renting a phone line is ludicrous. So when I noticed that ICE Broadband were in my area I decided to give them a try. On paper it seemed like a good idea;
No line rental: No download limit: Speed offering of 3mb download and 1mb upload
Installation Fee is €0 if you take a 24 Month Contract. Price per Month €37.99
I made the call. By the end of the week I was genuinely impressed that the Engineer was on my roof installing the Broadband Aerial. The aerial itself is a bit oversized and indiscreet but overall the installation was professional. When it came to checking the quality of the service however, this is where ICE Broadband couldn’t deliver.
I insisted on doing a Speedtest as all broadband customers should and we learned that the speed was only 600kbs. Put simply, I was only receiving 20% of the service I had paid for. The engineer got on his phone back to the helpdesk, did what they could and stated that I should wait to “see how things go over the weekend”. I am usually an optimistic person but my hopes were low and rightfully so. Monday came and there was still no improvement. So I called ICE to let them know that my broadband connection was still Frozen. The joke didn’t go down well. Tumbleweed flew by..
We made a deal though. I made another joke which had broken the ICE. They promised me that they were working on improving their coverage in the area and that someone would contact me to let me know when things would pick up. That was my end of the bargain – That I would wait!! Their end was not to charge me until the service was working. I wanted to wait because in the end I still wanted to use their services. Not anymore though! They broke their promise when within 4 weeks of that conversation I had been charged 3 months in advance and I still had not even used their broadband. I was grateful that I had not cancelled my existing Eircom connection.
When I made the next call, the accounts department made another deal. They would get me the proper service and I would then have 3 months free. Sounds good but 2 more months have passed and I’m now cancelling my direct debit because lets just say I don’t trust them not to charge me for the fourth month. Since all this, I’ve sent several emails and I’ve heard nothing back and sadly, this is where ICE Broadband are just like most of the other Irish companies, selling is usually their only area of efficiency. I just wonder… How many people are receiving the Broadband they are paying for…? That’s one statistic i’d like to find out.
In summary, ICE Broadband leaves me feeling rather cold…
