Eircom's Outdated info

Cabaal

I'm looking into getting BB in a new location when I move in a couple of months soi I went to eircom.ie anc checked out the prices for a newly installed PSTN line (dam expensive imho)

Anyway I was bored so I decided to check out the FAQ section and I saw the following....

Q. When should I upgrade from PSTN to an eircom hi-speed line?
If you have a slow connection, you spend more time online downloading files. This can be costly. Upgrade to an eircom hi-speed and quicker download times generate cost savings.

An ISDN line is like having 2 PSTN lines. You get two telephone numbers,
this means you can surf the net and receive phone calls simultaneously.
ISDN has far more bandwidth capacity than PSTN, you can download data
and transfer files far quicker than with a PSTN line.

Monthly line rental of eircom hi-speed costs only 37.50 (inc. VAT), this makes it cheaper than renting two standard phone lines (2 x standard PSTN lines costs

It warms the heart to see that Eircom are still selling the dead horse that is ISDN instead of trying to get people on DSL

Johnny Versace

Well, some businesses are unable to get DSL.

Cabaal

Originally posted by Johnny Versace
Well, some businesses are unable to get DSL.

Indeed, but should they not being trying to sell there DSL products as well, this makes it seem like the *onlu* option is ISDN.

Bad business practice if you ask me....oh wait its Eircom..... :rolleyes:

Delphi91

Originally posted by Johnny Versace
Well, some businesses are unable to get DSL.

Some of us can't even get ISDN!!!!

Mike

Gonzo

I thought ISDN was available throughout the whole country on every exchange? me and my m8s had ISDN years ago and some of us are from the backend of nowhere.

Dar

isdn = more money for eircom, no?

Moriarty

ISDN costs slightly (a few euro) less than 2x normal analog lines. If you already have two lines for any reason, it's a good bet.. as long as you dont plan on ordering adsl on those lines soon.

Urban Weigl

Originally posted by Gonzo
I thought ISDN was available throughout the whole country on every exchange? me and my m8s had ISDN years ago and some of us are from the backend of nowhere.

Unfortunately, a significant number of people still can not get ISDN. The technology also has many of the limitations of ADSL, for instance it will not get around a line splitter.

_sheep

OMG OMG, how can you say bad things about Eircom, I love them

Our man in Havana

Originally posted by _sheep
OMG OMG, how can you say bad things about Eircom, I love them

Scarcasm overload:D

Gonzo

even people with split lines can get isdn because ISDN is the only product eircom take seriously as it makes them so much money! I had a 2nd phone line installed about 6 years ago and it gave me dire speeds of 14.4bps up to 28.8bps, ordered isdn a year after that and eircom said certainly sir but we'll have to upgrade your phoneline as its a bad quality and that they did, the ISDN worked perfectly at 64/128bps and anytime i used a normal modem onit i got 49bps!. Ive snice upgraded to broadband. Only reason i have bb is coz i originally got isdn. So it seems that eircom are more than happy to unsplit a phoneline if you order their highly expensive isdn service but if you plan upgrading from a split 56k line to broadband there aint a chance of eircom being interested to fix it as broadband makes them far less money id imagine.

Urban Weigl

Very interesting, this is proof that they do not want to sell ADSL.

Cabaal

Originally posted by Urban Weigl
Very interesting, this is proof that they do not want to sell ADSL.

This is exactly my thinking on this issue, I've heard that Esat are offering PSTN line's in Waterford city so I wouldn't have to pay Eircom money.

Is this true, anyone able to confirm this?

Ripwave

Originally posted by Urban Weigl
Very interesting, this is proof that they do not want to sell ADSL.

No, it's proof that they don't make enough money on DSL to justify the cost of replacing a phone line, whereas 6 years ago, when they were working under very different constraints (in other words, they had a much more long term outlook), they did make enough money on an ISDN line to justify an upgrade in this particular case.

If eircom didn't want to sell ADSL, then they wouldn't be selling it. They wouldn't have dropped the price from €108 to €54 to €40 in the last 15 months. (Whatever led them to change their prices, it obviously wasn't external pressure from the regulator or the Government).

Eircom don't want to have to provide DSL in areas where it's unlikely that they'll make a return on the investment.

Urban Weigl

That is why they kept the price at €108 for so long, and have only dropped the price to €40 as of a few months ago (under a lot of pressure from the Government, I am not saying that was a factor but think it is important to mention).

In the UK, BT have a policy of removing pair gains/splitters if your line is not suitable for ADSL for that reason. The profit is clearly there. I think we're both halfway right though. One of the problems is that since they are making such a lot on dialup (expensive subscriptions, most people paying per minute rates, etc) that they really do not care whether someone upgrades or not. So in a way, they do not want to sell ADSL. Or at the very least, they are dragging their feet (since they have the capability to remove pair gains relatively easily, if what Gonzo posted is true). That is really what I meant.

Our man in Havana

I had an Eircom engineer out to me last month to install ISDN and he said that I was one of the few in my area that doesn't have a split line. I asked him about getting splitters removed and he said they are not supposed to but that he would do it if asked nicely.

He said the policy on this varied regionaly and that in some parts splitter removal was a big no no.

I asked about BB and he said come back in 5 years.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Urban Weigl
That is why they kept the price at €108 for so long, and have only dropped the price to €40 as of a few months ago (under a lot of pressure from the Government, I am not saying that was a factor but think it is important to mention).

Pressure, schmessure. Remember all that posturing from Dermot Aherne a few months ago about WLR? Do we have WLR? Has Mr Ahern followed through on any of his threats?

Or at the very least, they are dragging their feet (since they have the capability to remove pair gains relatively easily, if what Gonzo posted is true).

They can only "remove a pairgain" if there are spare pairs available. And if there are spare pairs available, then it's not that big a deal to get a "clean line" - it happens all the time, and all it takes is a few minutes of an engineers time. But if there aren't any spare pairs available in your immediate area, then eircom aren't going make the sort of investment that would be necessary to put in completely new infratrsucture just to provide you with DSL at €40/month. The best you can hope for is that they swap your line with someone elses line, and stick the pairgain on someone else. Which wouldn't be a big deal if people weren't paying full price for "half a phone line", as any neighbour that wasn't interested in connecting to the internet would probably be happy enough with a split line for voice calls, if it saved them a fiver or a tenner a month in line rental.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Bond-007
I had an Eircom engineer out to me last month to install ISDN and he said that I was one of the few in my area that doesn't have a split line. I asked him about getting splitters removed and he said they are not supposed to but that he would do it if asked nicely.

The issue isn't really about removing splitters - it's about capacity.

Splitters cost eircom money, and they don't install them if they have enough pairs to provide service without using a splitter. So if they're using splitters, it's because they didn't put enough wires in place (30 years ago) when they first wired your location. Sometimes they can "juggle" lines around to free up an "unsplit" line for a specific need. But that just passes the problem on to some other poor sucker. If he (or she) is not using the internet, (or had a ****e connection anyway), he might not notice. Or he might notice and not complain. But the only real solution to the problem is to run extra wires from the exchange or subexchange to that location. And eircom aren't going to do that under anything but the most exceptional circumstances (the Minister of State with responsbility for Telecommunications first cousin twice removed lives next door, for example).

Gonzo

if i remember correctly this is how eircom unsplit my line, i live in a cul de sac area about 2.3km from dunshaughlin in county meath and eircom came out about 3 days before my isdn installation date and sed that they have to fix my line to make it isdn capable. they spent at least an hour or two on it, they removed the line coming from the pole outside my house to my room and then they went about 2 or 3 poles away and wired a fresh line all the way down the street into my room from there. then they came to install my isdn and said that the line was now 'proper' and he put the device in the wall and then my isdn was up, that was about 5 years ago.

This January gone by my area got actived for broadband and my isdn was failing the bb tests. the guy at eircom bb support said no data was coming from my line at all and sed more or less tough sh*t u cant get broadband so, theres nothing we can do for you. I spent about a week or two complaing about this and eventually eircom rang me back and passed my line and sed there were no problems at all. After all this im now happy with my connection untill the next time:) when eventually i will want to upgrade to 1mb or whatever i'll prolly be told im too far away to get those speeds:)

Our man in Havana

ISDN is termed an incompatable product when it comes to ordering ADSL. In order to get ADSL you must have ISDN removed from your line.

watty

ISDN is a FAR better solution than analog for small buisness and mixed voice / fax/ dat dialup usage.

They ought to offer VDSL for ISDN users. Unlike ADSL, it allows the ISDN to co-exist. Ordinary ADSL, while good for Internet always on, gives a 19th Century telephone connection.

At 256K or 512K the VDSL + ISDN goes as far or further than ADSL.

Gonzo

so basically this vDSL goes anywhere ISDN goes which is up to 7.5km from most exchanges throughout the country?