How do I contact BBnet?

Support:
Technical Support is available from 09:00 to 17:30 Monday to Thursday and 17:00 on Friday
email : support@bbnet.ie
Tel :  061 512000 (Select Option 2)

Sales:
Our sales office is open from 09:00 to 17:30 Monday to Thursday and 17:00 on Friday
email : sales@bbnet.ie
Tel : 061 512000  (Select Option 1)

Accounts:
Our Accounts team is available 09:00 to 17:30 Monday to Thursday and 17:00 on Friday
email : accounts@bbnet.ie
Tel : 061 512000 (Select Option 3)

Generally the cables that form your BBnet connection should not be moved, or changed around. We do realise that sometimes this is inevitable but this guide should help you to reconnect your BBnet connection. The picture guide below should help you make sure the set up is correct.

Please note: If you only have the HAP unit ( Black Box ) as your only wireless router you don’t need to trouble shoot any further or look for any other router.

Please note : If your wireless router was not supplied by BBnet, you will need to contact your supplier or the manufacturer for guidelines on how this should be connected as we can not support any devices not supplied by BBnet.

If you cannot get online with your BBnet Jet / Life connection, you can call us on 061-512000 or email support@bbnet.ie. Alternatively, here are some steps to check that may get you back online.

Go to section – + Where do the cables go & what does my equipment look like? to find out more of what these devices look like to make your trouble shooting experience much easier.

Check your connections :

• Check the POE power adapter ( Black plug with an LED light )
• Check wireless router/ hap / wifi mesh unit.
• Restart your pc / laptop etc

Ensure WI-FI is on :

Quite a common reason for not getting online is that the wireless connection on your device is switched off. Some laptops have a little switch or key on the keyboard to turn this on and off. All mobile devices have wireless settings which should be checked and switched on.

Power :

Check that there is power going to all devices. There should be a green or blue light on the POE adaptor ( The POE adaptor is a black plug with a small LED light with two cables going into it labelled POE & LAN the unit is also pictured below this paragraph ). There also should be several lights active on your wireless router.

Reboot! / Turn it off and on again :

As obvious as it sounds, it can be just the right move to get back online. Fully power off your pc, laptop, tablet, mobile phone etc and restart, then try again.

Please note: turning off and on your screen, monitor, sleep mode or closing your laptop will not reboot your device. The device has to be turned completely off for a couple of seconds and then switched back on. For example if you are powering off your PC / laptop move the pointer over the Start button ( windows symbol ) and right-click. A pop-up menu appears select Shut Down on the pop-up menu to power off your computer.

Restart BBnet equipment:

Your POE adapter and wireless router should be powered off for 5-10 seconds. Once the equipment is powered on again It can take up to 5 minutes for this equipment to reconnect so be patient! Then restart your computer and try again. If unsure what the equipment looks like click here.

How to connect direct to the Router :

As shown on the picture below ports number 2-5 are available to connect your devices or routers, Port no.1 is already used so you can use the internet connection ( please do not remove ) . Insert any end of the Ethernet cable into any of the ports 2-5 and then insert the other end of the cable into the selected device. A Laptop is one example of many devices like Desktops, smart tv’s, Mesh units etc that can or need to be connected via cable.

How to connect directly to the HAP ( Black box ) 

There are 4 Ethernet ports available on the Router ( black box ) to connect a device directly to the internet. Some devices will require connecting directly to the router with an Ethernet lead. To connect a device directly you need to plug in the Ethernet cable into one of the available Ethernet ports. Once you have connected the cable into the port you then connect the other end of the cable into the selected devices Ethernet port.

Customers are provided with a standard wireless router. The average range of these routers is max 10-15 meters with a clear line of sight to the router.

Wi-Fi coverage can be reduced by mass concrete floors, old stone walls and even some types of insulation. Local interference from other devices like Bluetooth, baby-monitors, microwaves etc can also cause issues .This is why we cannot guarantee that all premises will have full Wi-Fi coverage / Signal. If you have a large house, you may need more than one wireless access point or other solutions to give better Wi-Fi coverage

For advice on wireless coverage / Wi-Fi solutions / we can do a wireless survey in your home, talk to our sales team on 061-512000 or email us here for more information

The following charts below will help explain how wireless coverage works and problems you can come across when using a wireless connection:

This is how wireless signal works if the router is located at one side of the house, the signal gets weaker as it travels further which will effect connectivity and speed.

This is how the wireless signal works when the router is placed in the centre of the house the signal is distributed better around the house but still gets weaker the further it goes.

We supply wireless mesh units which can be installed by us or by the customer. This is a very efficient method to improve wireless signal through your home. Contact us on 061 – 512000 to find out more and book a wireless survey with us. Any work will be quoted before it begins. Click here to watch a video explaining how the MESH system works!

Please note: Wifi coverage can still be reduced by size of the house,  mass concrete floors, old stone walls, local interference and even some types of insulation.

The chart above shows the recommend signal strength for different tasks and how stable the connection would be at different strengths. The chart above is a rough guide to the amount of signal needed. Even with excellent signal strength you can the odd connection drop / buffering when watching high resolution streaming. Click here to watch a video that explains Wi-Fi is a balancing act of both speed / bandwidth and range.

Difference between wireless MESH system and Signal Repeaters 

The picture above is a graph that explains the difference between a wireless MESH system & signal repeaters also known as – “power-line adaptors” / “Boosters”

1. First part of the graphs shows 3 nodes all in blue, this is showing the wireless MESH system. The wireless MESH systems consist’s of two or more router-like devices that work together in order to blanket your house in Wi-Fi. The MESH works on extending the wireless coverage by creating a separate wireless network to your main wireless router. This is a more effective method then repeating the wireless signal from the main router which can cause issue’s which will be explained in the next bullet point.
2. The second graph on the bottom is showing how signal repeaters work. Signal repeaters can only communicate with your main router. What this means is it can only repeat the signal from the main router meaning there is going to be drop off in connectivity and speed as shown in the picture above especially if the extender picks up a bad signal. If you set up multiple Wi-Fi extenders you can run into more issues.

Bad apple:

It only takes one device that is connected to your Wi-Fi to make the entire network suffer as your wireless router has to work much harder to get the signal to that device.

One example of a bad apple scenario are smartphones and tablets that are lying around when charging where the signal strength is poor, while downloading updates for apps or firmware in the background. These are far from the only reasons bad apple situations happen, however.

Multiple factors can cause devices to get poor coverage and become bad apples:

• Being too far away from the nearest wireless access point.
• Old / cheaper hardware and Old firmware that don’t support the latest and fastest standards for wireless communication which will cause a bottleneck.
• Anything that generally blocks, interferes with, or weakens wireless signals. Building material is the most common factor for poor WI-FI signal click the link to find out more on how building materials affect Wi-Fi signals

Any combination of the above points will of course increase the risk of having poor Wi-Fi signal. In a home where a router in the living room is the only wireless access point, a smartphone charging in a bedroom upstairs still downloading the latest app / device updates in the background can easily become a bad apple.

The speed of your connection will depend on a few factors:

– The package you are subscribed to: You can check which package you are subscribed to by E-mailing: support@bbnet.ie

– The number of devices: The more devices that are connected to the internet at any one time, the more you are splitting the bandwidth to each device so the less each user will get!

– Time of day: BBnet provides a contended service to its wireless customers. i.e. it is shared. At peak time, there is increased demand from all internet users and as a result services can be slightly slower during these times.  Peak time is generally between 5pm – 11pm.

– Fair usage: BBnet operate a daily fair usage policy on customer connections. If you download above what is considered fair usage, the speed of your connection will be automatically reduced for the remainder of the day.  It will reset itself at the end of the day. BBnet fair usage policy can be viewed here. You can also find out the fair usage amount for your package by emailing us here

– Weak WI-FI signal! : BBnet can not guarantee wireless signal coverage in any house but a weak Wi-Fi signal effects both connectivity and bandwidth received by the wireless device. Click here to find out more about how WI-fi works and WI-FI solutions.

– Your own equipment! : The performance of your pc, laptop or tablet may be slow and this will effect the performance of your browsing experience. We would also advise all customers to have a valid up to date anti-virus program and firmware on all their devices.

– File transfer rate: When downloading data ( Video, Music documents etc )  the file transfer rate doesn’t reflect the quality of the internet connection. The reason for this depends on your own hardware and the server you are downloading from can bottle neck your broadband connection performance. Click here for more info on file transfer rates.

– Speed testing your connection: The only accurate way to test you internet connection speed is to connect a device directly to one of the LAN ports on the Black HAP unit with a laptop or pc and going to www.speedtest.net. If you speed test from a wireless device ( i.e phone ) or IPTV box or browser this wont give you an accurate result. Make sure the the device you are testing with is the only active device on the network as other devices using the same network if using the connection will also effect the result of the speed test. Click here to find out how to bypass your WI-FI connection and connect direct to the HAP ( black box ) if you have another router or other devices connected to the black box make sure this is disconnected as well while testing.

– Changing server: Changing the server is important as a lot of the servers can be congested by other users and effect the result we recommend changing the server to one of these options Blacknight – Carlow or Cork Internet eXchange Cork these options can be found below the GO button, once this option has been changed to begin the test press the GO button.

Please note: 

It should also be noted that the bandwidth available on one device ( Smart phone, tablet, desktop, laptop etc. )  is not the maximum bandwidth coming in to the house. All your device connected to your internet connection share the bandwidth you are subscribed to. The more devices connected in your home, the less bandwidth each device will receive . Click here to find out more about the differences between WI-FI and internet

When video sites buffer (seen by the user as stuttering, pausing or stalling) it can be frustrating as it interrupts the user experience. Often, rebooting ( turn off & on again ) all of your equipment can help.

We don’t not recommend to stream wireless / cast from a mobile device (chromecast)  if at all possible as this method can be prone to intermittent connection or buffering especially if the signal gets interrupted or the WI-FI  signal is poor.

However you should keep in mind the following:

– How many people are using the same internet connection at the same time? the more people sharing the connection, the less bandwidth each device is going to get.

– The performance of your PC/Laptop/Tablet may be affecting video streaming. Older devices can struggle with new media.

– Ensure that your anti virus program is up to date. If you have picked up some malware on a device it can cause problems with your device and the performance of applications.

If you stream a lot of video, you may have exceeded your daily fair usage amount. In this case the bandwidth available to you will be reduced. Video Streaming requires the download of data to your device via your internet connection. The more video you watch, the more information you will download. While you do not get to keep a copy of this information, it will use any data allowances or fair usage amounts that may be specified on your internet package. This may in turn affect the performance of your internet connection. Netflix, for example estimate 0.7 Gb usage for every hour of standard definition viewing. For High Definition viewing this is estimated at 3GB per hour. BBnet fair usage policy can be viewed here.  or click here for our guide to fair usage.

We recommend if it is possible to connect the devices you are using to stream i.e Smart tv, Netflix, sky box etc. directly to the router to one of the LAN ports with a Ethernet cable for the best experience. There are solutions / workarounds if this isn’t possible we supply wireless mesh system which improves wireless signal through your home with a built in LAN port to connect your streaming device directly or you can get power line adapters to create a direct connection through the power sockets. When using power line adaptors the devices use the electrical grid of the house to transfer data. Depending on how the electric grid / fuse box is laid out & age these factors could effect the performance / bandwidth reaching the connected device.

Please note:

It should also be noted that the bandwidth available on your device is not the maximum bandwidth coming in to the house. This does not mean this level of speed is available to each device.
The more devices connected in your home, the less bandwidth that will be available to each device.

We have created a list of recommended bandwidth / speed to stream for popular platforms / streaming services. The data listed is also listed through these streaming providers FAQ’s aswell. The Figures shown are the minimum requirement for what ever resolution your streaming meaning these figures are not the optimal especially if there are other devices connected and using the connection. There is also some helpful info for gamers who use gaming consoles.

YouTube Video Resolution recommendations

Recommended sustained speed*

4K – 20 Mbps
Full HD 1080p – 5 Mbps
HD 720p – 2.5 Mbps
SD 480p – 1.1 Mbps
SD 360p – 0.7 Mbps

Netflix Video Resolution recommendations

Recommended sustained speed*

4K – 25 Mbps
Full HD 1080p – 10 Mbps
HD 720p – 5 Mbps
SD 480p – 3 Mbps
Recommended broadband connection speed 1.5 Mbps

Apple TV – Video Resolution recommendations

Recommended sustained speed*

Ultra HD 4K – 25 Mbps
Full HD 1080p – 8 Mbps
HD 720p – 6 Mbps
Standard definition 480p – 2.5 Mbps

RTE Player :

RTE Player uses HTTP Adaptive Streaming which allows the video stream to change in quality depending on the speed of your broadband connection.RTE currently offer streams at up to 2 Mbps. Select programming on RTÉ Two live streams at HD quality. If you wish to manually adjust the quality of the video you can do so via the menu which is located at the bottom right of the video player window.

Sky on Demand :

Sky On demand works best with a broadband line speed of more than 2Mbps. The faster your broadband, the faster your downloads.

XBOX:

Xbox recommend the following for gaming or video streaming on Xbox Live.
Keep in mind that these are the minimum requirements in order for a game or an app to have a “Certified” experience.
The higher your connection speed, the better your experience will be.

Online gaming SD video streaming HD video streaming
Download speed 3 megabits
per second 1 megabit
per second 3.5 megabits
per second
Upload speed 0.5 megabits
per second N/A N/A
Ping Less than
150 milliseconds Less than
150 milliseconds Less than
150 milliseconds

Taken from (http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-360/networking/random-disconnect-solution)

Playstation:

Sony recommend a connection speed of at least 3Mbps downlaod and 1 upload game requirements may vary . More information from Sony Support Guide
http://ie.playstation.com/ps4/support/guides/detail/item749710/NP-37668-0/

Please note: These are the minimum requirements meaning the more speed available to your device i.e the less devices that are connected to your network the better your user experience will be when gaming online. Note BBNet will not support port forwarding this has to be done by the customer and will effect the warranty on any equipment provided by BBNet.

We can not support Smart Tv’s, Firesticks IPTV boxs etc or trouble shoot any equipment not supplied by BBnet :

Smart TV’s:

Smart TV’s are like very big smart phones the devices comes preloaded with apps software & services that you may not use but can effect the amount of bandwidth your smart tv takes up especially when the tv updates apps and software. Always make sure the tv is on the latest firmware as this can cause issue with performance. The reason why we recommend a wired connection direct to the smart tv is because the wireless unit / antenna on most smart tv’s are not the most effective and digital noise from Smart tv doesn’t help with range i.e even if there is a strong wireless signal getting to the smart tv there is still a small chance that the stream could buffer a little bit.

Amazon Fire sticks, Chromecasts etc:

If you are using a  chrome cast, firestick etc  these devices do not come with Ethernet ports so these devices will need a strong WI-FI signal to work efficiently. If these devices are picking up anything less then an excellent signal you will most likely run into trouble with these devices. Another thing you need to know is that Wi-Fi extenders can cause interference with these devices resulting in a poor experience. Go to our wireless section of this support page “ Why is my WI-FI signal poor “  to find out more on how Wi-FI works and our wireless solutions.

IPTV:

IPTV box’s are an “alternative” to traditional tv boxs / tv services and this is a device BBNET can not support. Reason being is IPTV stream program’s, movies, live sport etc from unknown sources through the internet and even if you are connected direct to the router and getting the bandwidth required to stream it can still buffer or loss signal. How much it buffers depends and what server the the IPTV box is connected to i.e if you are watching stream off a European server performance will be better then streaming off a server in the USA which will result in more buffering as the server located further away.

These potential issues listed above with video streaming does not reflect the quality of the BBnet internet service.

BBnet packages are essentially unlimited. However, in the interests of all our customers we do operate a fair usage policy on our connections.

BBnet Jet / Life  wireless packages have daily fair usage amounts, representing combined upload and download daily traffic

If your overall traffic exceeds these amounts on any day, the system will automatically reduce the speed of your connection for the remainder of that day. You can still continue to traffic, but it will be at a reduced speed. This resets at the end of the day ( Midnight )
To find out more about our fair usage policies or your usage, call us on 061 512000 or email us support@bbnet.ie

BBnet fair usage policy can be viewed here.

No – we do not charge extra if you download too much. The worst that will happen is that the speed of your connection may be reduced, for the remainder of that day ( Midnight ). Your bill should be the same amount every month.

You can not log into the HAP router we provide. The HAP is not configurable and resetting the device or trying to log into it will effect your internet connection and if unit has to be replaced because of this or if the unit is physically damaged there will be a charge to replace the device.

If you are using another wireless router connected to the HAP provided by BBnet By default, we don’t allow access. We do not give administration passwords for wireless routers to customers. If you want to log into the router contact support on 061-512000. This will void the BBnet warranty supplied and support for the wireless router as well.

For applications where port forwarding or other settings are a concern, you will need a static IP address.
Any router that has been reconfigured, reset or has had settings changed, will not be covered by BBnet warranty / support.  There may be a charge for a service call / replace equipment to resolve any issues.

If you are having problems with your router or wish to talk about settings call: 061-512000 and press option 2 or E-mail : support@bbnet.ie

We do not issue static IP addresses unless requested. Customers may have a specific requirement for a static address, in which case it will be issued from our office on request. Common reasons for needing a static Ip is for a DVR, CCTV, gaming or applications where port forwarding may be required.

Please note: You will need to apply the static IP to your own router yourself ( You can not use or log into the HAP device ). If the router was provided by BBnet this will void the warranty supplied and support for the devices aswell.

There is a charge from €7.50 per month for the static ip address chargeable on issue.
To find out more about static ip addressing, get in touch!

Customers using BBnet need to use our outgoing mail server for outgoing email traffic.
Users should set this in the server settings for your email account on your email program( Outlook, Windows Mail,  Apple Mail etc)
The outgoing email server or smtp server is relay1.bbnet.ie
Outgoing port is : 25
SSL should be disabled for outgoing SMTP

BBNET customers should use the following server address : relay1.bbnet.ie.
Outgoing Port should be set to 25, and SSL should be disabled for outgoing SMTP

As much as possible, BBnet try to inform customers 24 hours in advance of any planned downtime. This is sent via SMS ( text message ) to the primary / valid Irish mobile number of the account holder . If you are not receiving these notifications, it is likely we do not have a valid Irish number or an old number on your account. To update this info you can contact us on 061-512000.