What should I do? broadband provider woes.

nadir

Right, I posted about this before, but it's really getting out of hand now.
I moved into a new apartment building at the start of FEB in Dublin3, since then I have had NO internet connection, and there seems to be no way to get one.
NTL dont support the area, I cant erect a satellite dish or any type of wireless equipment. Building management rules.
I have rang smart easily twenty times to no avail, for the first 3 months or so they simply said, eircom refuses to connect your phone line because they don't know your address, even though when I rang eircom, they said they knew my address and could connect me within a month, for a fee of 200 euros and a phone rental contract of 20 or so extra a month. to the last two months smart hav said, eircom refuse to conenct your phone line for 'unknown reasons'
Now I don't want eircom because of the caps, and because they are total ****, I dont want to give them any money.
So what can I do, should I go for clearwire?
If I go for clearwire, or digiweb, wireless, the ones without large ariels, is the service any good?
also if you break your cap. what happens? do they charge you?
This is a really big problem, I'm not sure what to do.

Sponge Bob

nadir wrote:

Right, I posted about this before, but it's really getting out of hand now.
I moved into a new apartment building at the start of FEB in Dublin3, since then I have had NO internet connection, and there seems to be no way to get one.

Dublin 1 and Dublin 3 are notorious for sh1te internet provision. Is Tommy Broughan not your TD ???

NTL don't support the area,

No TV or no NOTHING all all from NTL , who supplies your TV ?

I cant erect a satellite dish or any type of wireless equipment. Building management rules.

You can hide sat dishes on balconies if south facing. see the sat forum on this. If you have LOS to the south to Ringsend you may be able to get Digiweb Metro from there .

I have rang smart easily twenty times to no avail, for the first 3 months or so they simply said, eircom refuses to connect your phone line because they don't know your address, even though when I rang eircom, they said they knew my address and could connect me within a month, for a fee of 200 euros and a phone rental contract of 20 or so extra a month.

do you have a phone line or not or is eircom playing silly buggers providing you with one ???

to the last two months smart hav said, eircom refuse to conenct your phone line for 'unknown reasons'
Now I don't want eircom because of the caps, and because they are total ****, I dont want to give them any money.

they own the lines but I suspect they have no cable available in your area. did you ask eircom for a simple phone line and what did they say ?

So what can I do, should I go for clearwire?

maybe it will work same for digiweb metro .

nadir

lots of questions . ., ok cool

1. I'm not sure who my TD is, ill find out. I'm from Galway myself, I'm not big on politics up here, but I'll be sure to check it out now that you mention it.

2. We have NTL TV, just they don't do internets here, I was sure when I saw the box in the wall when I moved in I would be able to get NTL BB< unfortunately that is not the case.

3.

You can hide sat dishes on balconies if south facing. see the sat forum on this. If you have LOS to the south to Ringsend you may be able to get Digiweb Metro from there .

yes cool, I have been thinking about this, there is another apartment blocking our main view though, so we can basically only look out in the direction of clontarf -> dock area. Possibly worth a shot though

4. We have a phone cable, but it's not connected, eircom have to enable the connection,

5. they just want to charge me 200 yoys for the pleasure, and sign a contract.

Sponge Bob

1. Leave that for now
2. NTL will have BB in your area _sometime_
3. Sats are all SE to SSE and not E or ESE .
4. Ring them up, cancel ordr in point 5. Ring them up again, tell them you are the homeowner. They will connect you free IF they have cable in the building and they may not.
5. €200 for what , connection is normally €125 or so if you have no line installed at all .

nadir

the bill I got was for 180 euros or 181 or something like that, and I didn't ask them for anything extra, I said I wanted a minimal install.
I may do what you suggest to get the free eircom line installation, or maybe try to get the management to allow me to put up an ariel, damn, this sucks.

Sponge Bob

Billed for WHAT or was that QUOTED €180 .

Do you or do you not have a phone line

With this vagueness you will never get anything

jd

nadir wrote:

maybe try to get the management to allow me to put up an

TBH, this would be a waste of time. Attachments to the exterior are banned under the leasehold agreement signed by owners when they buy the apartments (as well as other stuff like putting washing out on balconys etc

nadir

Sponge Bob wrote:

Billed for WHAT or was that QUOTED €180 .

Do you or do you not have a phone line

With this vagueness you will never get anything

I DON'T HAVE ONE

I got a contract in the post, which I didnt sign, it has stuff like fill in your bank details etc, which I havnt done, it also mentions the money they want me to pay for installation, which is something like180

jd: yeah, I know i'll try anyway though.

Foxwood

nadir wrote:

I moved into a new apartment building at the start of FEB in Dublin3, since then I have had NO internet connection, and there seems to be no way to get one.

Would you have moved in if the apartment didn't have electricity of running water?

Unfortunately as long as people are prepared to buy property that doesn't have up to date facilities, the builders won't install up to date facilities.

I don't mean that as a personal criticism, it's just a general comment. Unfortunately, with our bizarre property market, builders are still building for the 1990s, not pre-installing phones (because everyone has a mobile), and not wiring the builing for internet.

Unless the building management has a telephone contract with someone else, you'l have to order your phone from eircom, and then get your DSL from whatever company will provide service (any of the eircom resellers or Smart or Magnet of your exchange is unbndled).

In the context of an apartment that probably cost between €150-250K, you'll have to treat the €200 as a "moving in expense".

nadir

Foxwood wrote:

Would you have moved in if the apartment didn't have electricity of running water?

Unfortunately as long as people are prepared to buy property that doesn't have up to date facilities, the builders won't install up to date facilities.

I don't mean that as a personal criticism, it's just a general comment. Unfortunately, with our bizarre property market, builders are still building for the 1990s, not pre-installing phones (because everyone has a mobile), and not wiring the builing for internet.

Unless the building management has a telephone contract with someone else, you'l have to order your phone from eircom, and then get your DSL from whatever company will provide service (any of the eircom resellers or Smart or Magnet of your exchange is unbndled).

In the context of an apartment that probably cost between €150-250K, you'll have to treat the €200 as a "moving in expense".

well to be fair/honest. I didnt pick the apartment, my friend did, I was in Japan at the time, and I told my mate, I don't care so long as I can get an internet connection. He thought the NTL box would be enough, and to be fair I don't blame him. This is Dublin 3 ffs.



EDIT: on the satellite conenction, looks like that would cost 1000 yoyos, would be cool, but no thanks.

Foxwood

nadir wrote:

well to be fair/honest. I didnt pick the apartment, my friend did, I was in Japan at the time, and I told my mate, I don't care so long as I can get an internet connection. He thought the NTL box would be enough, and to be fair I don't blame him. This is Dublin 3 ffs.

As I said it's a general comment, not a personal criticism. Why would you assume that you can get broadband in Dublin 3 unless you know that most people would walk away from a property that didn't have it? As long as it's only an "optiona extra", there's going to be extra expense invlved in getting it. (This is even more true for apartments than for houses, where the "building management" will impose additional restrictions on the options available to you).

jor el

nadir wrote:

4. We have a phone cable, but it's not connected, eircom have to enable the connection,

OK, so there is a physical line coming into the apartment and a phone socket, it's just not active. Am I right in saying this? If so, it costs about €25 for eircom to activate it. It's €130 to install a new line, where there is no line already available or where you want a 2nd one maybe, but if the line is already wired up then it should only be €25. If this is the case you can move to any other provider once the line is active and you have your account number.

Now, maybe the apartment building is wired up for phones internally but Eircom haven't connected anything yet, and hence they're charging you for this. That's a bit of a con by Eircom if that's what they're trying to do, so no surprises there then.

looks like that would cost 1000 yoyos, would be cool, but no thanks.

Cool? I don't think so. Satellite is the last place you would want to get Internet access through. It's certainly not broadband.

If I go for clearwire, or digiweb, wireless, the ones without large ariels, is the service any good?
also if you break your cap. what happens? do they charge you?

I don't think Digiweb do non-aerial broadband, only Clearwire and IBB. Anyway, with download speeds of up to 10kbps it would be nigh on impossible to break the cap on either of these services as they're both crap.

nadir

I think I'm going to cry, is it the case then that , I have to fork out the cash for eircom!!! and then try to switch.

yes I would like to clarify also, There is a phone cable in the house, but it's not attached to anything and we got no number, when I rang eircom , they said they would need to charge me an installation fee.

jor el

OK, it seems the apt has phone sockets but Eircom never connected them up, so you need to get a whole new line installed. The only way to get this is through Eircom, and the cost should be €130, not €180. It's on their website somewhere, but that can be like looking for needles in haystacks.

So yes, you need to pay Eircom to install the line. Then you need to get your account number, which they won't give you over the phone by the way, but you can insist on getting it in a letter. Say you want to set up on billpay.ie or something. Once you have this then you can apply to Smart.

Of course, the sting in the tail is that there's still no guarantee that the line will be broadband capable. Approximately 25% of lines fail, though I believe Smart would have a higher probability of success due to ADSL2+. Just something to bear in mind before you start to cry.

nadir

I'm crying already.

bullfrog

Go with Digiweb you get broadband and phone for 19.99 a month, no phone line required, its a cable modem with a small antenna that could be hidden, if they have line of sight. line rental with eircom is what?? 24 euro plus bb total 35 euro, save youself the money and time. I had it when I lived in dublin no bother, I had 3mb down and phone service.:)

Blaster99

Most every provider charges in the region of €100 to get you installed, so it's difficult to see the big deal. Smart is better than any other wireless providers too.

nadir

Blaster99 wrote:

Most every provider charges in the region of €100 to get you installed, so it's difficult to see the big deal. Smart is better than any other wireless providers too.

yes but they want me to pay this money, and then they will tell me if my line quality is good enough, anyway yes.
I will try Digiweb,a nd if not i will sign up with eircom, and switch to smart afterwards.