Cann't get Broadband... Bandwidth problem

superhoops1973

I live in a town in Galway (Oranmore) which has a broadband exchange. However, I've been told that my line does not have sufficent bandwidth to support broadband. Proabaly because of distance to the exchange. I don't know where the exchange is in Oranmore, but I would be very surprised if it was more than 3.5 KM from my house.

I live in an estate on the edge of town with 127 other units, is it likely that they to will be unable to receive broadband?

Are Eircom exchanges using the most upto date broadband technology / switches

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/qanda.asp?faq=technical#Q211

Iago

is it a new or old estate?

It could be the copper wiring as well, either that it's old and degraded or if it's a new estate they may have carrier on each set of copper..

That's where they split the copper in two or more and then feed it into the houses, it still provides the same quality of voice service but it means that the line won't support a broadband signal, they've done it quite a bit in Dublun iirc

Moriarty

Try putting some of your neighbours phone numbers into the online checker on eircom website. If they pass, you'll know it's probably not a distance issue.

Blaster99

Disconnect everything from the phone sockets and ask for a retest. Anything from a wireless phone to a Sky box can interfer with the test.

Blaster99

And if you're really committed, try to simplify the wiring in the house, e.g. disconnect any extensions. The test is basically a pile of ****e and once you pass and have ordered ADSL, you can put everything back together again and your ADSL will work just fine.

superhoops1973

Blaster99 wrote:

And if you're really committed, try to simplify the wiring in the house, e.g. disconnect any extensions. The test is basically a pile of ****e and once you pass and have ordered ADSL, you can put everything back together again and your ADSL will work just fine.

thanks to everyone for replying. its a new estate - built within the last 2 years. but knowing that i live in a banana republic, wouldn't be surprised if eircom have put down prehistoric cable or split it multiple times. I have 4 telephone sockets in the apartment, but only 1 is live i think. I'll check. Muppets built the and wired the house, so it wouldn't surprise me if the screwed it up. blaster - is it easy to disconnect extensions?

the test was done while i was at work. i don't have phonewatch myself or sky. they didn't come to the apartment to do the test (well not inside it anyway), I rang up and a week later they told me the test failed.

Its an apartment block, would they have split copper into different appartments?

thanks again

superhoops1973

i'm going to call to neighbours over weekend and see if any of them have broadband or if they failed the test as well. that should help narrow down the problem anyway.

anyone know of where i could get an engineer to have a look if it came to it? prehaps I could send the bill to the developer

Blaster99

In a real country you would of course expect that an engineer would come out and fix it, but in Ireland no hope.

They run the test from the exchange and base their decision on that.

Re extension disconnection, it depends on how it's wired. In my house there are multiple loops that go to a central point outside the house so it's easy enough, but usually I think there's a master socket and wires go from it. Ideally you want the master socket isolated for the test. I think there are others here who have done this and can provide more specific details, might even be a sticky on it. Or search.

stiofanD

I'm a little confused about the whole 'line test' thing. What exactly does the line test involve and when do they do it?

I rang Esat and asked them if my line was suitable for DSL. The nice lady said she could 'test' it there and then and that the line passed. Was that a real test, or could the line subsequently fail when the port in the exchange is actually being activated ?

I'd hate to be contacted in 2 weeks time and be told that I'm close enough to the exchange but my wiring is sh*te....

Iago

the test is a prerecorded test which esat et al query when you give them their number. It is possible that it passes on the system but when you go to activate it it fails as the initial test was taken beforehand..

doesn't happen very often but it's possible..

Ciaran500

Has anyone succesfully got Eircom to send out an engineer to look at their line?

superhoops1973

funny, when i got line connected a few weeks back, i asked the eircom engineer about broadband, he told me that he was one of the old fella's and new nothing about that new stuff and he gave me the distinct impression that he was never going to bother his backside to find out about it either. employee of the year candidate i reckon, 10/10 for caring less

Moriarty

Ah in fairness now, every eircom engineer that I've met has been a very decent guy that's always given me the time of day. The main problem is that they're run off their feet these days with all the redundancies. More work than before with less people to deal with it while trying to keep standards up just doesn't work.

Your best bet is to check some of the neighbours numbers in the online checker (just use your account numeber and their phone number). The online checker just references a database of results and returns that to you. Next step is to remove all phones/faxes/digiboxes/etc from the sockets except for one basic phone with no display or extra gizmos on it. You may need to wait up to 6 weeks after you do that, continualy checking your results on the online checker. Once the test comes up as a pass, order the dsl straight away from whichever ISP you want. Once you have the dsl actually up and running you can connect all the other phones/faxes/whatever back up to the line no problem.

The actual test measures (among other things) voltage and resistance over the line.

superhoops1973

thanks moriarty.

would i be correct to say that eircom batch check numbers and its not necessary to request a test or worthwhile. i was told to check back in 4 weeks time, which i thought strange at the time and ignored it

regards

Moriarty

Yeah, the tests are run in batches (afaik each exchange has different dates, not sure). Generally if you phone up day after day, they'll just be repeating the same test result back to you over and over.

dub45

Just a point the age of the line is not necessarily hugely significant I am sure my line must be at least 18 years old and it passed.