Our 20Mb Service

We are one of the few wireless operators in Ireland to offer a 20Mb broadband service, the task is not an easy one as we could achieve a 10Mb service with little to no issues but we wanted to test ourselves, we knew it could be achieved and the technology is out there to do it but the jump to delivering 20Mbs is a costly one so not only had we to invest in the delivery but we also had to ensure that there was enough availability at the back end that when our customers wanted to avail of the 20Mb package we would not be congested going out to the internet.

One of the luxuries of our scheme is that proffit is a secondary concern, our primary goal is to offer the best possible service we can to you our subscribers, currently we are rolling out the availability of 20Mb packages to our customers. We can do this as we have invested heavily in infrastructure and ensuring that we have a more than adequate supply of internet to meet our needs, since this scheme started nearly seven years ago we have continually to reinvest profits back into the network as below.

• September 2011: Started the scheme on a shoestring budget, installed one transmitter and bought bandwidth from a provider in Ballymacoda
• August 2012 – March 2013: Paid back initial debt and reinvested all profits back into setting up new areas that had no service
• August 2013: Using all the profits generated for the scheme again we upgraded our main link to five times the capacity of the original speed and doubled all our customers speeds without any additional cost to the consumer
• August 2014: Moved to a more stable provider using funds generated from the scheme, updated all our transmitters to newer technologies so that we could allow for a better service to our customers
• August 2015: Once again using funds generated from the scheme we updated our core router, Updated our key locations with APC UPS Power supplies, updated our main transmitters batteries to cover 10hrs of electrical downtime
• August 2016: To stay ahead of our customers anticipated usage for 2016-2017 we tripled our bandwidth from UPC, this involved installing new radio equipment and acquiring a licence to transmit the signal from our location to the UPC Core network. As things were now getting more serious we became a limited entity(Localhost Ltd), also we had to register for VAT which meant a potential price increase for our consumers but as the users on the scheme increases so did the profits and we absorbed the cost in VAT which is currently 23% of all revenues.
• August – November 2017: Once again to stay ahead of our customers anticipated usage for 2016-2017 we tripled our bandwidth from UPC(Now virgin Media), this again involved installing new radio equipment, Storm Ophelia flattened one of our transmitting stations where we had to rebuild from scratch. We rubbished old transmitters at Claddagh and Kilamaloo to install newer technologies and started trialling our 20Mb service. Sponsored free wifi hotspots for public users in Piltown Hall, Clashmore Heritage Centre & Clashmore Old Schoolhouse.
• Going forward, January 2018: 20Mb service testing complete so now we continue upgrading of transmitters and further investmentment in our network to ensure that we can achieve transit for the 100’s of Mb to our substations within the network.

If conditions are optimal customers should receive the full 20Mb, however there are several limitations outside our control that may result in getting a lower speed than advertised.

1. We cannot control where people live and the further away they are from our transmitter the less the performance of the antenna on their home.
2. We have interference from other sources in some areas which is also out of our control.
3. The distance from people using the internet to their wifi router will also affect the users experience as will the fact that if they have some devices on your network receiving a poor signal will affect performance as your wifi router has to work harder to communicate with those devices

We are aware from our tests on the network that 40% of our users will not receive the full 20Mb but 60% of users will, which is why this is advertised as ‘up to’ 20Mbps and why the price point for our 20Mb is only €49.00 whereas as our 4Mb connection costs €29.00 a month, 8Mb for €39.99 and doing the sums if one was to double the speed again for the extra €10.00 it should really be only 16Mb for €49.99.