# Primetel



## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

When we first switched to primetel we were very happy with their service. 
Lately we have had a nightmare with the internet constantly crashing, our televisions going down etc. slow internet, you name it it is terrible. 
We have spent hours on the phone trying to sort it but their helpline people are totally useless. We have asked them time and again to send out an engineer to find out what our problem is but they keep trying to sort it over the phone with no success at all.
We are seriously considering changing our provider and I no longer recommend that anyone goes to this crowd of cowboys.:smash::laser:


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## expatme (Dec 4, 2013)

We have no problems at all with CYTA. Once when we did have a snag last year it was fixed within 15 minutes.

Hope you get sorted Veronica.:fingerscrossed:


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## Baywatch (Mar 30, 2014)

expatme said:


> We have no problems at all with CYTA. Once when we did have a snag last year it was fixed within 15 minutes.
> 
> Hope you get sorted Veronica.:fingerscrossed:


We would love to have Cyta internet, but we miss 300 m cables and they want 2000 € to connect us


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## PeteandSylv (Sep 24, 2008)

Some while ago we had a similar situation with Primetel and, true to their script they tried the same old things over the phone. My reaction was to become very assertive and insist on escalating the problem to the operator's supervisor immediately. I managed to speak to a supervisor who was very helpful, gave me his personal mobile number and sorted the problem. The solution was to replace the modem.

I would also add that prior to switching to Primetel to save money we were with CYTA and perfectly happy with their service. 

Pete


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## PeteandSylv (Sep 24, 2008)

expatme said:


> We have no problems at all with CYTA. Once when we did have a snag last year it was fixed within 15 minutes.
> 
> Hope you get sorted Veronica.:fingerscrossed:


What's the difference between a snag and a problem?



Pete


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

PeteandSylv said:


> What's the difference between a snag and a problem?
> 
> 
> 
> Pete


A snag is a snag and a problem is a problem.


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## Hudswell (May 14, 2010)

Very Happy with the Primetel service and any problems we have had have been resolved effectively. The beauty of the Internet is that many of these technical issues can be resolved over the phone..the technicians have remote access to your devices and can carry out a multitude of tests and fixes...of course if it is mechanical failure then a home visit is probably required, our modem was diagnosed and replaced within 24hrs. Apparently Primetel have recently renewed their broadband provision contract....we were having a degree of buffering but that has stopped. Cyta is a bit like BT and "owns" much of the telecoms infrastructure in Cyprus..which companies such as Primetel utilise.


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## mta (Dec 29, 2013)

Had primetel for a year without any problems, apart from recently where they cut the internet from 8mbit to 4mbit. Initially I thought it was a noisy phone line but when I emailed them they replied to say they had "put it back to 8mbit". Strange.


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## Baywatch (Mar 30, 2014)

mta said:


> Had primetel for a year without any problems, apart from recently where they cut the internet from 8mbit to 4mbit. Initially I thought it was a noisy phone line but when I emailed them they replied to say they had "put it back to 8mbit". Strange.


Not so strange but horrible way to treat customers. Every provider try to press as any customers as possible into the network. If they can cut the internet to lower bandwidth without the customer noticing, then they can press in more paying customers.

Not very nice but they are not alone doing that


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## PeteandSylv (Sep 24, 2008)

Baywatch said:


> Not so strange but horrible way to treat customers. Every provider try to press as any customers as possible into the network. If they can cut the internet to lower bandwidth without the customer noticing, then they can press in more paying customers.
> 
> Not very nice but they are not alone doing that


Rather a harsh verdict without any evidence. Could it not have been a simple mistake? After all providers have setups for each customer which I know from the past can be affected by equipment or system upgrades at exchanges and elsewhere. Surely a possible mistake which was rectified should not be assumed as policy or do you have evidence of this being a regular occurrence with pressure on people to upgrade? This certainly is not my experience with either CYTA or Primetel both of whom gave free speed upgrades to customer 2 or 3 years ago.

Pete


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

Primetel did eventually sort out our problems after we had shouted at them a couple of times. They changed a setting which seemed to sort the problem out and then actually sent out an engineer to check that everything was ok. So now all is hunky dory again


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## wizard4 (Feb 3, 2013)

So here's the thing I live in a rural spot, I get 3mbs, I pay full whack same as someone whose on super fast broad band, and that's with BT supposed to be the number one in telecommunications, so with landline and unlimited broadband and free weekend calls it costs £35 a month how does that compare to your companies. And when I leave the UK to move to Cyprus I get charged £50 for them to disconnect the broadband.
Cheers


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## Baywatch (Mar 30, 2014)

wizard4 said:


> So here's the thing I live in a rural spot, I get 3mbs, I pay full whack same as someone whose on super fast broad band, and that's with BT supposed to be the number one in telecommunications, so with landline and unlimited broadband and free weekend calls it costs £35 a month how does that compare to your companies. And when I leave the UK to move to Cyprus I get charged £50 for them to disconnect the broadband.
> Cheers


We have 6 Mb wireless, here is no wires possible. We pay 35 € per month and because we pay 3 months at the time we get 15 days extra every time

It is very good connection, but it is a local provider in Pissouri


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## Hudswell (May 14, 2010)

Always a question that gets a lot of different points of view depending on who your provider is here in Cyprus. I am with Primetel who have provided an excellent level of service, Landline, 8MBs Broadband and Mobile, on average about €50 a month, generally a similar package from CYTA will be more expensive. Packages in the UK are considerably cheaper than here in Cyprus, more competion over there...BT generally being one of the more expensive....Telephony services are one of the things that are more Expensive in Cyprus...but Privitisation may change all that in the future.


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## Baywatch (Mar 30, 2014)

Hudswell said:


> Always a question that gets a lot of different points of view depending on who your provider is here in Cyprus. I am with Primetel who have provided an excellent level of service, Landline, 8MBs Broadband and Mobile, on average about €50 a month, generally a similar package from CYTA will be more expensive. Packages in the UK are considerably cheaper than here in Cyprus, more competion over there...BT generally being one of the more expensive....Telephony services are one of the things that are more Expensive in Cyprus...but Privitisation may change all that in the future.


But mobile calls must be cheap in Cyprus, or? If I compare with Germany it is very cheap


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## wizard4 (Feb 3, 2013)

I am sure I read somewhere that Vodafone did a deal with one of the providers there?
Cheers


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## Baywatch (Mar 30, 2014)

Hudswell said:


> Always a question that gets a lot of different points of view depending on who your provider is here in Cyprus. I am with Primetel who have provided an excellent level of service, Landline, 8MBs Broadband and Mobile, on average about €50 a month, generally a similar package from CYTA will be more expensive. Packages in the UK are considerably cheaper than here in Cyprus, more competion over there...BT generally being one of the more expensive....Telephony services are one of the things that are more Expensive in Cyprus...but Privitisation may change all that in the future.


One problem with privatization in Cyprus is the very small customer base. Will it be cheaper because of competition, I am not so sure. I compare with Sweden where pharmacies and MOT stations has now been privatized. Both areas now have significantly higher prices And Sweden has 9 million inhabitants.


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## Baywatch (Mar 30, 2014)

wizard4 said:


> I am sure I read somewhere that Vodafone did a deal with one of the providers there?
> Cheers


Cyta use the name Vodafone in Cyprus


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## DH59 (Feb 23, 2010)

wizard4 said:


> So here's the thing I live in a rural spot, I get 3mbs, I pay full whack same as someone whose on super fast broad band, and that's with BT supposed to be the number one in telecommunications, so with landline and unlimited broadband and free weekend calls it costs £35 a month how does that compare to your companies. And when I leave the UK to move to Cyprus I get charged £50 for them to disconnect the broadband.
> Cheers


Not sure if this will work in your situation, but we also got charged a disconnection fee when we cancelled our broadband service in the UK (with Plusnet). On reading the terms and conditions to see why they were charging this fee (I think ours was 'only' £35 but still), I came across the information that if we were cancelling to move to a new provider, and requesting a MAC key to pass to the new provider, this fee would not be charged. Perhaps you could try requesting the MAC - I'm not quite sure how they know whether or not you have moved to a new provider. Wish I'd been able to try it.


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## zach21uk (Jun 26, 2014)

Up in Marathounta, I use CYTEL wireless internet. I get 12 megabits right now for 45 euros a month (I pay for 10 and get 12). They do have the ability to go faster though as a couple of weeks ago they had a glitch on their systems and for two days, I was getting 40 megabits from them. I am going to speak to them soon about bumping me up to around 20 megabits as I could use the extra speed to work more efficiently.


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## Baywatch (Mar 30, 2014)

zach21uk said:


> Up in Marathounta, I use CYTEL wireless internet. I get 12 megabits right now for 45 euros a month (I pay for 10 and get 12). They do have the ability to go faster though as a couple of weeks ago they had a glitch on their systems and for two days, I was getting 40 megabits from them. I am going to speak to them soon about bumping me up to around 20 megabits as I could use the extra speed to work more efficiently.


Pity we can't get it here in Pissouri. We can get max 10 mbit down and 2 mbit up for 60 €


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## zach21uk (Jun 26, 2014)

The upload speed is always very fast with CyTel - usually around 4 on average, but sometimes as low as 3 and as high as 5. Just speed tested now and I am getting 9.92 down and 4.27 up, and thats with 720p HD TV streaming on the TV BOX from USTVnow. If I stopped the TV it'd be faster obviously.

CyTel do cover a lot of areas around Paphos and the surrounding areas and they are expanding lately, so even if they do not cover Pissouri now, they may soon: CyTel - Leading Cyprus wireless internet service provider.


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

Zach do you mean Megabytes? Megabits are 1/8 as bit as megabytes so 12 megabits would not be very fast.


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## zach21uk (Jun 26, 2014)

I know the difference between a megabit and a megabyte  - I've been building computers since I was 9 ^_^ They're in my blood 

I am on 12 megabits down, meaning that my download speed is 1.53 megabytes per second and on average, 4 megabits up which is around 512 kilobytes per second.

The same service (12 megabits) on Primetel is 52/month on contract after the promo price ends and the upload speed they offer on that is only 1-2 megabits, so I am more than happy with CyTel  No contracts involved either.

Better yet, the kind of latency (ping) that I get with Cytel leads me to believe that their wireless towers are on fiber connections rather than ADSL. My ping with Cytel within Cyprus is always under 15ms and to the UK is under 30ms. You just don't get that kind of latency on copper-based ADSL.


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## Hudswell (May 14, 2010)

So is that a package you are paying for? Because my Primetel is €42 ish which is 8Mbs broadband, my landline and my mobile.....and in regard to reliability...call me old fashioned but I still prefer a hard line rather than wireless...


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## wizard4 (Feb 3, 2013)

Will look into that DH59.
Cheers


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## Baywatch (Mar 30, 2014)

Veronica said:


> Zach do you mean Megabytes? Megabits are 1/8 as bit as megabytes so 12 megabits would not be very fast.


Veronica, speed/bandwidth is always measured in Mbit, not in Mbyte. 12 is very fast for Cyprus


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## Baywatch (Mar 30, 2014)

zach21uk said:


> I know the difference between a megabit and a megabyte  - I've been building computers since I was 9 ^_^ They're in my blood
> 
> I am on 12 megabits down, meaning that my download speed is 1.53 megabytes per second and on average, 4 megabits up which is around 512 kilobytes per second.
> 
> ...


It is interesting because according to their web-page they only offer 8/2


Ping times are very good for Cyprus


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## zach21uk (Jun 26, 2014)

They do say they offer 10m/bit here: Our Pricing

The upload has never ever been as slow as 2. I actually really appreciate how fast their upload is because, as a developer, I upload files onto web servers every day. I also do a lot of media editing (video and audio etc) which requires the upload of large (2-10gb) files. Goes a lot faster with 3-4 megabit upload. Sometimes when I leave files uploading overnight, it averages 700 kilobytes per second, probably due to the reduced demand overnight.


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