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Check out below for all our Frequently Asked Questions...

How is Bandwidth Distributed?

When you subscribe to a Westnet connection you are provided with an amount of bandwidth determined by the package to which you subscribe. This bandwidth is shared between all users in the house and devices will compete for their share of the provided overall bandwidth. There is a common misconception that when subscribing to a package, for example 2Mbps, that every device in the property will get 2Mbps. This is not the case; they will share the 2Mbps and it's not always an even share between devices. One device can consume all the available bandwidth for a time before backing off and letting another device have a turn.

Coverage on a Wireless Router

Always ensure that there is a good signal from your device to the wireless router - performance will decrease considerably where signals are not strong enough and this can in some cases affect performance for other users on your home network too.

- The wifi router has a radio that broadcasts around your property. Objects such as walls that the radio waves have to pass through will reduce the signal strength to devices.

- Devices such as phones and tablets have very small wifi radio receivers in them. Some are stronger than others and will only have best reception in the same room as the wifi router. Remember these bits of electronics have to be stuck into something the size of a smartphone so they are very small.

Downloading Games & Updates

One of the biggest games this Christmas is Call of Duty WW2 -- it has a file size of 45GB. On a 2Mbps connection this will take 2 days 5 hours and 41 minutes to download. This is assuming the full 2Mbps bandwidth will be consumed by just the device downloading the game. Add into the mix another user who wishes to watch Netflix or Youtube and you will see very poor performance. Netflix will start buffering, and the game is now taking longer to download.

If you have a user in the house that is downloading large game files , ask them to restrict the download to times when other users aren’t using the network.

A lot of new gadgets we receive at Christmas time may require software updates. This can result in some hefty demands for bandwidth - both in your own home and from content providers such as XBox Network, Playstation network etc. If possible ask the elves to update devices prior to delivery!

Avoid Buffering on Netflix & Youtube

If two users in a home on two separate devices are using the wifi, one user is watching Netflix and the other is using Youtube, the two devices will demand their share of the bandwidth to deliver the service. On our fixed wireless connections 2Mbps and 4Mbps bandwidth this can cause problems for the viewers.

**For Netflix:

To select a setting that works best for your Internet plan, navigate to the Your Account page and select Playback settings in the My Profile section. Select the Low option. It can take up to 8 hours for these changes to take effect.

Referenced; https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87

*For Apple TV:

Switch to Standard Definition

If you tried the above steps and still can't play movies or TV shows from iTunes, switch from High Definition (HD) to Standard Definition (SD):

Apple TV (4th generation): Go to Settings > Apps > iTunes Movies and TV Shows > Video Resolution and select Standard Definition.

Apple TV (2nd and 3rd generation): Go to Settings > iTunes Store and select Standard Definition.

Your iTunes Store purchases and rentals will now be in SD. You might be able to switch between HD and SD content in third-party apps. Check the settings within the app or contact the developer for help.

*For YouTube:

Reduce the quality by clicking on the cog on the bottom right of the video > quality, then something below 480p.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/91449?hl=en

*For RTE Player

On the bottom of the video click on auto and select a lower definition.

1024k will consume 500MB per hour.

2048k would not be advisable on a 2Mbps connection in a house with multiple users as the bandwidth consumed will be too large. approx 1GB per hour. (reference Q16 on http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/help/faq/)

Downloading Movies From SKY

Sky downloads - one tv episode in HD is approx 1.8GB in size, it will take about 2 hours to download one episode.

If you subscribe to our 2Mbps or 4Mbps packages downloading in Standard Definition(SD) will increase the speed of the download.

IPTV

We do not support the use of IPTV on Westnet’s network. We do however know that they are out there and in use.

To be clear there are too many points of failure to manage these devices.

A few issues are:

Speed - We have researched the internet bandwidth requirements for these products & although there are varying figures quoted, the consensus is that ideally 10Mb/s+ would allow them to function reliably. Some even advise a speed of 25Mbps.
The standard Westnet rural fixed wireless services are 2Mb/s & 4Mb/s, neither of which have enough capacity to meet the requirements.

Local Traffic - Other users in the house using the Internet will consume bandwidth away from the IPTV box resulting in freezing. For example if someone else in the house watches Netflix the bandwidth used by Netflix will starve the IPTV box.

Busy Servers -This is one of the most common causes of issues, even seen on high speed 1Gb fibre connections. The servers that the IPTV boxes stream from can be congested. This is especially seen when there is a popular event showing. A football match or boxing event will have many viewers streaming from the same server, the server becomes overloaded and the viewer receives a freezing intermittent service.

Speedtest Results

Speed test applications are a way of showing you an approximate reference of the bandwidth delivered to the device it is ran on.

Our prefered speedtest application is www.speedtest.net

- To achieve the most accurate result we recommend plugging a laptop directly to your router. Speed tests can be inaccurate when ran over wifi due to wifi radio interference.

- Nothing else should be running on the device or network when running a test. Ensure all downloads are stopped, any applications such as NetFlix or YouTube are not running. If you have a 2Mbps bandwidth connection and Netflix is using 1.5Mbps a speedtest will show you a speedtest result of 0.5Mbps, the available bandwidth left on the network.

Watch out for “smart IPTV” boxes that may be consuming bandwidth in the background - it’s easy to forget to turn off the box and just turn off the TV - meanwhile the “box” is busily playing away to itself consuming bandwidth.