DSL, on ancient dublin phonelines?

gothakane

Alright fellas,

Wireless isn't available in my area yet, and I've been chasing DSL for almost a year now. I've done the standard Eircom etc line check, all have failed.
Phoned Eircom broadband sales to have them double check (haha, as if I'd actually get Eircom capped broadband ), they told me the line had never been checked, it was assumed therefore to be a fail! However my exchange was broadband enabled and others in my area have broadband (I rent a house in Clontarf, Dublin3 by the way)
So I gave them a weekend and phoned back, they gave me the old "your line is not suitable" which other forum members seemed to have experienced. The girl on the phone, being not the most technically minded person in ireland told me to phone eircom faults, which I proceeded to do.
After doing some proper checkups the guy at faults told me that my line was a "carrier" and therefore wasn't suitable for dsl, even if it did pass there would still be no guarantee it would work, he told me the only solution was to phone sales and pay 130 euro to install a NEW PHONELINE :eek:
I phoned sales and the girl told me I should leave that as a last resort, I should keep phoning broadband every week to check if the line passes, and pounce on it there and then (the problem being I don't want Eircom broadband) She also said that there was still no guarantee that it would pass even with the new phoneline!

So, any suggestions guys?
Does my "carrier" line leave me high and dry?
The lines here were definately once ISDN, as there are dual lines beside each other, and one is inactive at the moment. I read in another thread this might cause their tests to fail?

Cheers guys,
Never give up!
-Diarmaid

zoro

Oh - and be sure not to have your line tested on the eve of a full moon, or if your spidersenses tell you that there's a 52.3% chance of rain within the next 14 hours and 6 minutes! It'll fail!!!

*kicks eircom*
Shower of f*cking c*nts

maxheadroom

The Ireland Offline committee were looking for stories like this for an RTE news report. Maybe you should get in touch with them?

Ripwave

gothakane wrote:

After doing some proper checkups the guy at faults told me that my line was a "carrier"

A carrier line is another name for a split, or pairgained, line. It means that a single wire from the exchange to a telephone pole on your street is shared between 2 or more customers. There is no discount for this service :eek:!

DSL won't work through a pairgain, so "carrier" lines won't work.

gothakane wrote:

She also said that there was still no guarantee that it would pass even with the new phoneline!

Ordering a new line probably would work, because the problem isn't "ancient" phone lines. If you specify that you want the new line for broadband, then they have to make a reasonable effort to provide an unshared line, or inform yoy if that's not practical (in which case you can tell them you don't want it). If you're within range of the exchange (if other people on your street have DSL), then it's likely that a new line would work.

LoBo

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=179839 (broadband horror stories thread) - add ur experiences.

Also, why not try emailing the head of Esat BT (check around the threads, his email has been posted before) explaining you want IOL BB and eircom keep failing your line. Apparantly he sorts it out.

Ciaran500

Does anyone know a way I can tell if my line is a "carrier" line without phoning eircom?


When we got the pone line installed a couple of months ago the "engineer" just took another phone cable from a small box on my neighbours house.

I had trouble getting a test result and failed when I eventuly did just like gothakane's.

Ciaran500

Just found this interesting thread on dublin.ie boards about carrier lines. http://www.dublin.ie/forums/showthread.php?t=158

Fenster

I had exactly that problem with Eircom. I told them I was cancelling all of my landline services on both phonelines in the house due to their shoddy treatment...I had broadband installed and running two weeks later.

Ciaran500

So when you threatened to cancel the service did they say they would fix the problem or what happened?


More info please.

Fenster

Basically I was getting the runaround from Eircom, the same as gothakane was. I rang sales, they tell me to ring CS, I ring CS, they tell me to ring tech, etc. There was also the usual crap like "you should get a new line", and so on.

On top of that I was being failed on the Eircom website...even though literally my entire area was turned on (I live in the middle of Galway city). All of our neigbours, were passed according to the Eircom website...except for our lines.

So I phoned customer service and straight out told them I was sick getting bounced around by various people at Eircom with no attempt by them to adress my issue and that unless someone actually tried to deal with my case here and now, they could consider this phone call the cancellation of both phone lines in my house (I was paying a rather hefty dialup bill at the time, so you're talking a fair bit of money).

I'll point out here that I work in retail and I will never accept sub-standard service, knowing that it doesn't take any effort at all to provide good service. I would have gone through on the cancellations.

Lo and behold, our phone lines (one for the house and a dedicated line for the PC) came up as approved two hours later and inside of two weeks my DSL was turned on and running.

I have a dirty, nasty suspision that I was getting failed simply because I was using dialup. Even though I went through UTV for a bulk package, they were making a fair whack of money from me. Why give that chump cheap dsl when we make more money from him on dialup?

huge

I cant get broadband either so i have isdn still preety good i have isdn with the 150hrs a month but most months we go over the 150 hrs shame there aint a higer package if the dont get there act together everytime i see the eircom broadband on tv they say whats stopping you well i tell you what stopping me its eircom being a binch of idiots

Ripwave

huge wrote:

I cant get broadband either so i have isdn still preety good i have isdn with the 150hrs a month but most months we go over the 150 hrs shame there aint a higer package if the dont get there act together everytime i see the eircom broadband on tv they say whats stopping you well i tell you what stopping me its eircom being a binch of idiots

If they're such a bunch of idiots, why are you using their 150 hour package, instead of the 180 hour packages from IOL or UTV (Both of which are cheaper than eircoms package, as well as offering 30 extra hours per month).

MaireadM

Fenster wrote:

I had exactly that problem with Eircom. I told them I was cancelling all of my landline services on both phonelines in the house due to their shoddy treatment...I had broadband installed and running two weeks later.

Fenster,

I have just added a contribution to this forum. I live in Salthill and notice that you are in Galway too. Do you really think that asking for a disconnection will work.

Collina

I'd keep bashing away to get the problem resolved.

Before I got IOLBB, I kept on trying the Eircom linetest on their site, getting the fail result consistantly.

Eventually I found a link on their site to their "trigger program" , through which I was able to find out which exchange my line was connected to.
This also told me BB was available in my area.

Shortly after doing this, I tried the linetest again and it passed. Ordered BB through IOL that day and got it in about 3 weeks.

Funny thing is, if I try the linetest now for my BB enabled line, it comes up fail. :rolleyes:

Don't trust anything that company says....