ISDN to xDSL provisioning system a joke

dahamsta

Be advised that this rant is prompted by my own experience with trying to get DSL, so if there's any sensitive types that'll be offended by a rant about Eircom, as happened recently when I called certain bands of Eircom personnel "biddies" on IIU, do us both a favour and go pick some flowers or hug a tree or something. Just cos I'm dahamsta doesn't mean I'm not entitled to a personal rant every now and then.

I ordered UTV's Clicksilver on the 24th of September. The UTV site said that there was a €199 fee for conversion from ISDN to xDSL, which I accepted because I presumed that, should my line not be suitable for xDSL, I would be immediately converted back to ISDN. As it happens, UTV only seem to have billed me €100, which confuses me.

On the 2nd or 3rd of October, I got a phone call from my local Eircom engineer, who wanted to arrange an appointment to downgrade me to PSTN on the Tuesday of the following week (the 7th). I said no problem. An hour later, he called me back to tell me that HQ had been on, and that he'd been told to rearrange the appointment for the 13th.

The reason he gave was that HQ has to have an appointment to convert the line, which I don't believe. I'm open to correction, but I'm pretty sure that there's no technical reason why the line couldn't be converted on the 7th, and that leads me to believe that Eircom wholesale is deprioritising third-party customers for xDSL installations.

I didn't hear back from Eircom, but yesterday at about 4pm, my line died. I guessed that it was the line being converted back to PSTN, but no-one took the time to let me in on the secret. I rang ISDN repairs to check up on it at 4:30, and they said they'd ring me back about it. When I hadn't heard back by 5:30 or so I rang again, to be told that ISDN repairs had gone home.

This morning, after I scrambled around the city looking for an analogue modem - I don't have one because, as you might remember, I was on ISDN - I got in touch with UTV who reckoned that yes, I'd been converted back to PSTN, and they'll know soon whether my line is viable for xDSL. Will they check up on it for me? Silence. They don't understand the concept. Will they call me to let me know what's happening? No.

Ok, so I was being totally optimistic in thinking this would be managed in a competent manner. Silly of me I know. But I just presumed that the blummin' Eircom engineer would do a line test while he was there, and put me back on ISDN immediately if the line was found to be unsuitable. I also thought UTV would have the gumption to send out the xDSL modem to people /before/ the conversion took place.

But no, here I am back on an analogue connection, until at least tomorrow and maybe the day after, since I have no idea when Eircom will send the daily line status spreadsheet over to UTV, and I have no idea how long the modem will take to get to me. It's just pathetic. The words "piss-up" and "brewery" come to mind.

adam

dahamsta

And another thing: Where's that €199 or €100 going? An ISDN to PSTN conversion costs €25 retail, which I would have paid if I'd known I wasn't going to be converted back to ISDN automatically straight away.

And another another: If I /don't/ need to be converted back, is the balance of that money just jam on top for UTV?

adam

SkepticOne

Originally posted by dahamsta
I ordered UTV's Clicksilver on the 24th of September. The UTV site said that there was a €199 fee for conversion from ISDN to xDSL, which I accepted because I presumed that, should my line not be suitable for xDSL, I would be immediately converted back to ISDN. As it happens, UTV only seem to have billed me €100, which confuses me.

Were you told that you needed to downgrade to PSTN before you could find out if your line is suitable?

I was under the distinct impression that you don't need to do that anymore.

dahamsta

So was I, but yes I was. Here's the email I received from UTV:

> Dear Adam,
>
> Your application has been entered into our system.
> Your Clicksilver account number is XXXXXX
>
> Because you have an ISDN line, Eircom will have to convert it back to a
> normal telephone line before enabling it for broadband usage. You will
> receive a letter from Eircom confirming this conversion order and arrange
> an appointment for an engineer to visit your premises to carry out the
> work.
> The extra work required to convert your ISDN line will increase the
> provisioning time for your broadband account to up to 15 working days.
> Your provider may charge a conversion fee for converting your ISDN line
> back to a standard Eircom phone line.
> These charges will vary depending on the type of ISDN line that you
> currently have. There may also be additional costs for the early
> termination of your ISDN contract.
> We will contact you with the results of the line tests once your line has
> been converted. If you have any other questions or problems regarding
your
> Clicksilver account please contact our team on 1890 926111.
>
> We aim to keep delays to a minimum and hope to have your account
activated
> as soon as possible.
>
> Thank you for your patience,
> UTV Internet

Note the line towards the end: "We will contact you with the results of the line tests once your line has been converted." Although yerman on the phone earlier told me they won't; he said that if my line passes, they'll send out the activation pack. A phone call wouldn't go astray bud.

adam

SkepticOne

Just to be clear.

Were you able to determine that the line would probably pass before downgrading (e.g. from one of the websites)? Or did the presence of ISDN prevent this (e.g. indicating a 'fail')?

dahamsta

I could be wrong, but I'm convinced at this stage that none of the websites (UTV, Eircom, EsatBT) do live line tests. I think they just check to see if the line is on a live exchange, and do the rest manually.

The IOL test clearly operates in this manner anyway, if not even more simplistically. As far as I can remember, and again I could be wrong, the UTV and Eircom sites both told me that DSL was available in my area.

adam

SkepticOne

Originally posted by dahamsta
The IOL test clearly operates in this manner anyway, if not even more simplistically. As far as I can remember, and again I could be wrong, the UTV and Eircom sites both told me that DSL was available in my area.

The Eircom one at least should be reading from a database of periodic line tests. Does your ISDN line pass?

If you follow the links on the heavily sessioned Eircom website you will find two links:

On the front page:
"Can you get eircom broadband"

Click on this. Then on the side bar you should have "Can I get broadband". This should lead to the two links:

"You can check to see if your line is suitable for eircom broadband here.

You can check to see if your area is enabled for eircom broadband here"

The first of these should read from a database of line tests. Does your current ISDN line pass?

dahamsta

It's not ISDN any more, and it says fail. They keep changing this around, I came at it via mmm.eircom.ie before and all I got was "broadband is available in your area", style of fing.

There's nothing wrong with this line, I've watched a local engineer performing a test in my gaff. I hope that the line just hasn't been tested yet, but if it has and I can't get xDSL after all this hassle, I'm kicking someone's hole.

EDIT: It doesn't work the way you outlined either SkepticOne. When I click on the link on the front page, it pops a window.

adam

SkepticOne

Originally posted by dahamsta
It's not ISDN any more, and it says fail. They keep changing this around, I came at it via mmm.eircom.ie before and all I got was "broadband is available in your area", style of fing.

I think you got the correct window. If you go www.adsl.ie, you should have access to the two types of query. One of them is "broadband in your area", the other is "does your line pass".

The result you got probably dates back to a periodic test done when you had ISDN.

I would be interested if you could check with Eircom to see if they 'fail' ISDN normally. Otherwise you may be in trouble.

dahamsta

Apparently not.

Dear Adam Beecher,

Welcome to CLICKSILVER!

Your account is now active so you can start using your new broadband
access now.

You are just a few simple steps away from High speed access to the
internet.
You will need to install your ADSL Modem and connect an ADSL micro filter
to your Eircom master socket and any wired extensions.

Your ADSL modem is due to be delivered on 15/10/2003. Please ensure
someone is at the address you provided us with to receive the item.

I live by the idealogy of your handle though, I'll believe it when I see a green light on the modem.

And I still want to know where my setup money's going. I think it might be simply that the site is inaccurate, but I'm almost certain I told someone from UTV about this /before/ I ordered.

Here, technical question while I'm here: These filters, do they have to go on /every/ extention or just the ones that will connect to the Internet? Presumably my modem would have blown up by now if the former?

adam

SkepticOne

Originally posted by dahamsta
Apparently not.

What I meant was whether Eircom routinely indicate 'fail' on ISDN lines even though the line may be perfectly good when downgraded.

This may be of interest to others who may believe they don't qualify.

Here, technical question while I'm here: These filters, do they have to go on /every/ extention or just the ones that will connect to the Internet? Presumably my modem would have blown up by now if the former?

The one with the modem on it does not need a filter. The filter is to stop voice from interfering with the DSL signal.

Filters need to go on every extension with a phone other than the extension with the modem.

You may optionally have a splitter filter on the extension with the modem if you want both phone and internet. The other extensions just need inline filters.

An extension with just a modem does not need a filter, however.

Da Man

I'm a bit confused about the above, but if the question is "Can an ISDN line be checked for ADSL suitability before it is downgraded?", then the answer is "yes".

I went through this downgrade, but I figured the only way to do it and remain sane was to get Eircom to do it all. Which they did. The engineer showed up in the morning and said he was heading down to the exchange to switch back to PSTN and install whatever is needed for ADSL. He then came back and removed the ISDN box and gave me a filter instead. Job done.

I'm sure Eircom gives their competitors the run-around.

dahamsta

What I meant was whether Eircom routinely indicate 'fail' on ISDN lines even though the line may be perfectly good when downgraded. This may be of interest to others who may believe they don't qualify.

Yeah, I got what you meant, I just don't rightly know. I'd say "surely they wouldn't be allowed get away with that", but that would just be silly of me. I'd think of this type of thing as another reason OLO's wouldn't use live data though.

The one with the modem on it does not need a filter. The filter is to stop voice from interfering with the DSL signal.

Ah, that's interesting now. So it's just an interference thing, it has nothing to do with the high voltage of DSL? That is, running it without filter isn't in any way dangerous, it just gives better quality connections? (Pardon my ignorance on this, I never really looked into it before. Never thought I'd have DSL. )

adam

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Da Man
I'm a bit confused about the above, but if the question is "Can an ISDN line be checked for ADSL suitability before it is downgraded?", then the answer is "yes".

Just wondering, did it come up that way on the web page or did you phone in and ask for a test?

It is interesting, because dahamsta here is registering a fail.

Da Man

It showed up on the web page.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by dahamsta
Ah, that's interesting now. So it's just an interference thing, it has nothing to do with the high voltage of DSL? That is, running it without filter isn't in any way dangerous, it just gives better quality connections? (Pardon my ignorance on this, I never really looked into it before. Never thought I'd have DSL. )

I did not say 'better' connections, but my understanding is that it is mainly separating the frequencies that is the important thing. Voltage may be an issue too. A good splitter may protect the modem from 'ringing' voltage from the phones.

dahamsta

When I said "better connections", I was just alluding to the suggestion that they would be, well, worse without the filters. It doesn't matter anyway, I'll read up on it tomorrow.

By the way, is it just me or is it silly to inform an ISDN customers that they've been set up via email? Or do most people keep an analogue modem in their computer too? Perhaps it's just me.

adam

Da Man

In my case, using i-stream, everything was done within the space of an hour and the engineer informed me beforehand. You'd expect it to work the same way with UTV, given that Eircom is presumably doing all the work for them too.

If they're telling you that they need to downgrade to do the test, that's bollocks. So I would request the reinstatement of the ISDN connection until they're ready to install ADSL. You shouldn't have to suffer because of whatever politics is going on between UTV and Eircom. It should be a seemless transformation from ISDN to ADSL.

dahamsta

Can anyone tell me what the UTV ISDN to DSL conversion process is supposed to entail? I had no Eircom engineer out and had to remove the ISDN bosca meself, I thought this was supposed to be covered as part of it.

adam

vac

What I meant was whether Eircom routinely indicate 'fail' on ISDN lines even though the line may be perfectly good when downgraded.

This may be of interest to others who may believe they don't qualify.

Yea, i assumed this a few months ago when alot of the isdn users (gamers) in my area where failing, but i just assumed we were too far from our exchange and i accepted the fail. So last night i read that eircom have removed the need for an account number when checking the database of line results on their website, so i decided id look up the phone book and test a few lines on my road (out of interest).

Out of the houses i could get numbers for on my road (seven), the only fails where myself and the guy across the road and we're both on isdn. The other five homes all pass.

Another friend of mine with isdn, a few roads back failed aswell so we just checked his two neighbours, left and right and they both pass.

This is something to do with the isdn, and it can't go overlooked tbh..

STaN

Originally posted by vac
Yea, i assumed this a few months ago when alot of the isdn users (gamers) in my area where failing, but i just assumed we were too far from our exchange and i accepted the fail. So last night i read that eircom have removed the need for an account number when checking the database of line results on their website, so i decided id look up the phone book and test a few lines on my road (out of interest).

Out of the houses i could get numbers for on my road (seven), the only fails where myself and the guy across the road and we're both on isdn. The other five homes all pass.

Another friend of mine with isdn, a few roads back failed aswell so we just checked his two neighbours, left and right and they both pass.

This is something to do with the isdn, and it can't go overlooked tbh..

Well they only recently could test ISDN lines and the information on the lines with ISDN with regards to passing DSL is not contained on those sites. You have to ring up and get an engineer to go and check and run a full line test as these lines would not be a part of the current DSL database. Its the same with me, there was "no test result" when i rang up, but a fail on the site. Just ring em.

vac

Man, i rang them months ago when my exchange was first upgraded, then a few months later when they said "ISDN can be tested" and then every few weeks out of hope. I've always failed, never any other result..

Da Man

Except my ISDN line showed "pass" on the Eircom site and no further testing was necessary. In fact, my other PSTN line showed "fail" and still does.