Arrgh.. The phone bill will be huge or else no Email.

shoegirl

Originally posted by oscarBravo
Depending on how much your Internet access is costing you, you could be cutting off your nose to spite your face - it's not that hard to clock up a tenner on Internet access. That is, of course, your prerogative. Fair enough, but that's not what you originally said.

I have to agree here. Thats part of the joy of flat rate (I estimated back in the bad old days when the services offered on dialup were truly diabolical that I was paying an extra 20% in failed connections and dropped connections). Even 2 failed connections a day will cost you €3.50 per month. Only another €6.49 will get you flat rate and it will bring the bill down.

In the meantime I would write to Comreg and the minister for communications stating your case clearly. You might see some action then!

watty

I timed Chorus circuit while we had it.. Best was 10seconds, worst was 21 seconds, typically it connected first time.

When we re-connected to Eircom best was 1 minute and now it is 10minutes typical to get a connection that allows Email / Browsing.



Got phone call from Tech bod in Eircom today.. He said line tests OK.*

I asked how did he test it without test equipment at my end? I explained I used to test voice circuits as a Communications Engineer in BBC and that no-one has been to the house with test gear. What noise level and frequency response has it got?

Did he take into account apparent "intermittent" nature of problem? How long and often did he test for?

I explained problem and how it has worsened to a typical 10 minutes of re-trying to get a functional logon on Internet.

He said he would do "more tests" and get back to me.....

Tonight I am disabling all automatic Email pickup and Internet Access on our LAN, the phone charges will be prohibitive. And even on a "flat rate" system, the performance is unusable now.





* Did he mean Okay or Zero Kilo bits?

DMT

Apparently telling them that your "fax machine you need for business" won't work on the line will get them to fix it. If you mention the word internet at all, they'll do nothing....

watty

Generally true...

But actually they don't altimately seem inclined to make those work reliably either.

Maybe I'll borrow one. Their "solution" is still to offer me ISDN "HiSpeed". Since this is effectively an 144K "modem" on the same line and actually cheaper connection at exchange, they make more profit on the line rental.

The ISDN wall box provides a special kind of LAN called an "S" bus. What most people call an ISDN modem, is in fact a Data Terminal Adaptor, converting either Ethernet, RS232, ISA slot or PCI slot signals into S-Bus digital data, not analog Modem tones at all.

An internal ISDN card appears both as a Network card like an Ethernet NIC and *ALSO* a Modem and ASLO a CAPI2.0 port on NT4/Win2000/XP. The "modem" part lets a network connection dial a number, the CAPI part allows the PC to automatically differentiate Voice, Data, Analog Fax and Digital Fax calls and what incomming number was requested.

If ISDN was cheaper or I needed a second phone line I'd get it at once.

query

Lines are tested remotely from the exchange to the NTU/NTP at your premises - no need for anyone to call.

watty

Originally posted by query
Lines are tested remotely from the exchange to the NTU/NTP at your premises - no need for anyone to call.

That can do VERY LITTLE testing.. I know as I have even designed remote subscriber phone outlets that aid testing for BT. (which eircom does not use).

A "proper test" of Noise, distortion, Intermodulation and frequency response can *ONLY* be done by connecting test gear at both ends.

The remote testing only gives a most basic "pass" for voice only and can be misled by an number of fault conditions. It basically just tells them there is a circuit and maybe a on-hook phone is connected. If the phones are *VERY* standard you might even know if one or two are connected. Given the variation of phones, modems. fax, answering machines, Cordless systems and standalone ringers that can be plugged in now, I wouldn't bet on how many phones are connected from a remote test anymore.

Eurorunner

I hope you reconsider the irishwan option watty. There seems to be plenty of activity in that respect down your way.

watty

Some progress...

Helpful friendly Eircom Techie actually tested line from my house!!!

His tester showed a fault 29m away. The pair from my house was connected to "legs" of two different pairs at one point! He also pulled in a new cable from my house to the local cabinet.

His Laptop connected 1st time ....

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At 28K

My modem still needs lots of attempts to connect. I will reprogram it to pretend to be a 28k Modem. At present when it does succeed it is 41K approx. Each attempt is answered and then line dropped by Exchange end ISP.

56K mode needs special equipment (not a modem) at the exchange. 33K and slower is a totally different mechanism. This is why 56K (35 .. 44 typical) is ONLY into a digital exchange and not between two users modems ever (max for that is 33K).

Perhaps the local exchange has a problem with 56K mode or a lack of equipment (some sort of contention ratio?).

I'll let you know how the 28K mode goes!

Re Irish WAN:
Last I looked none of the local nodes offered any actual Internet Gateway. I'm not into FTP server "file swaps" or Tuesday night "network Doom". I pickup/send email and occasionally check a device info etc.


Other Options:
Exchange is only 900m away, but Broadband trigger level is set to be higher than assumed possible demand (and is too costly anyway).


If analog line rental goes up again with ISDN staying the same, I might go ISDN.

Eurorunner

Watty,
Its a shame if its not available through the local nodes of the wan. However, as fars i know, it is (broadband) a possibility through the WAN in Limerick City - net access is being shared.

This is what seems to be suggested on
this thread as posted by zed (3rd April 2004, 06:51 PM):


"... i am already getting stick here in limerick for piping
net access from limerick to galway for several
parties, therefore congesting the backbone through clare.

i have no problem with connecting users to the net via the limerick proxy:
this is intented to get them off the ground, and also to have some backup in
case eircom in galway is on strike/fire/etc. it is not a long term solution."


maybe i have this arsewayz but i thought its worthy of a mention anyway.

watty

Originally posted by Eurorunner
This is what seems to be suggested on
this thread as posted by zed (3rd April 2004, 06:51 PM):

....... it is not a long term solution."

I know Zed. I talk fairly regularly with him. Sometimes eyeball, sometimes via R5.

I may have a node sometime, but it would be part of a WAN strategy to link to Spur Hill in Cork, not specifically for Internet.

Eurorunner

Ok. Not to worry. Just thought it might be a solution for ya. Hopefully, you will get it sorted out by other means.

watty

Well he only connect one wire of the pair of cable going to attic phone point..

Works better and mostly connects 1st go now at 41K but droppingt out very often..

Not good enough but hugely better.

Now why did Eircom not find that *OLD* line fault 2 years ago?

watty

Its like Franz Kafka's the Castle.

"You can't expect to use analog for the Internet. Buy our Eircom Hispeed"

Sorry you can't have ISDN even though you are only 900m from a state-of-the-art Digital Exchange. No subscriber equipment is available.