Yesterday I decided to see if I could find any details about the rumour that Eircom was to increase bandwidth for its ADSL customers. I had had one friend tell me that he had heard that the basic home broadband package was going to be upped to 1Mb, while others dismissed it as just a rumour. Well this rumour isn’t going to be covered by Snopes any time soon so if I was going to rind anything out I was going to have to find it myself.
That or I could just ask Google, who helpfully gave me Eircom’s press release about the increase:
Following extensive trials in recent months eircom is set to transform the speed of Broadband in Ireland by increasing the entry level or standard speed from 512kbs to 1Mb for all wholesale and retail customers by 8 April, 2005.
Good timing, huh? Okay, I don’t actually know when the upgrade happened but I’d wager it was sometime around last Tuesday when I was briefly disconnected. The press release also says that the bandwidth for higher specification residential lines will increase to 2Mb. A quick Web-based bandwidth test last night clocked me at 1.6Mb.
I’m genuinely impressed by this move. It wasn’t so long ago that broadband just wasn’t an option for Irish residents. Now there are more than 100,000 of us using it. Given how quick I am to criticise Eircom’s bad moves I feel compelled to spread the good word on this one.