My eircom nightmare.

Dcully

Ive been driving everyone mad over on the broadband forum about my problem,i just thought someone here might have a means of contacting someone who can get things done in eircom.
Dont suppose anyone knows an email address for Rex Comb of eircom or a means of contacting him.

Im at the end of my thether from a 5 month long eircom bb issue.
Huge slowdown in our town EVERY evening for EVERYONE in the atrea because of an overloaded exchange.
Ive logged over 30 calls to eircom support,10 more to complaints,letters to comreg, still no solution.
Yes i am desperate at this stage, is there any way i can talk to someone at the top of eircom to get this resolved?

My head is wrecked and the stress levels are through the roof trying to get this sorted.

Ive emailed,prime time,Matt cooper,ray darcy, to see if theres any way of highlighting the problem or some sort of help on the matter.

Typical evening ping s below,
NOTE: all day long up until 5 pm the pings are supreb but once evening arrives im left with pings like these

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner>ping -t www.google.ie

Pinging www.l.google.com [64.233.161.147] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=412ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=393ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=418ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=344ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=418ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=377ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=325ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=343ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=427ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=381ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=315ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=415ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=379ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=383ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=382ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=400ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=341ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=319ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=390ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=410ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=297ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=303ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=319ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=262ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=293ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=247ms TTL=241




Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner>ping -t www.google.ie

Pinging www.l.google.com [64.233.161.147] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=412ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=393ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=418ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=344ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=418ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=377ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=325ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=343ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=427ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=381ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=315ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=415ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=379ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=383ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=382ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=400ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=341ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=319ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=390ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=410ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=297ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=303ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=319ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=262ms TTL=240
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=293ms TTL=241
Reply from 64.233.161.147: bytes=32 time=247ms TTL=241

viking

What do tracert results give you?

rediguana

Stop stealing my BT stories!

Dcully

Tracert results show the same massive pings at peak times, as i said i get perfect pings during the day.

This is an issue with everyone in the town,its not just me.
I cannot stress the lengths ive gone to to find out more info.

Ive spoken to over 20 eircom customers in the town who suffer the exact same problem,ive gone to some of their homes to confirm this for myself,ive done all sorts of tracert and ping tests both during the day and evening time,results are the same as mine.

The exchange is simply overloaded at peak times.

viking

Do a pathping now and then in the evening to compare results and see where the bottleneck is exactly.

If the problem is with eircom's network/infrastructure then having this information will it prove beyond a doubt.

Dcully

I have done so Viking,furthermore ive sent off countless emails and printouts in letter form to both eircom and comreg.
Ive sent printouts in letter form over other peoples results.

Still nothing done,i have proved beyond doubt that the local exchange is overloaded at peak times.

Trust me i have exhausted every avenue,every test known to man,done the same in close to 18 other homes in the area and the same results.

What more can i do?
This is so infuriating

Xennon

Hiya Dcully;

Could it be the DNS?

try pinging 64.233.161.147

which is google.ie

if you get decent pings to the IP and not to the domain name then the DNS in the modem may be wrong, ie its timing out on the primary and then getting it on the secondary. Just a thought


Dave_W

Dcully

Ive changed to and and back from opendns,also tried dns trhat other eircom users use.

Its definitely an overloaded exchange.

damien

I got this back from eircom. PMing you contact details:

The bottom line is that due to high take up of BB, the transmission capacity has to be increased into the exchange. The upgrade has been in the planning stages since November. Partial work completed and the network planners are fairly confident that the upgrade should be complete in about three weeks.

Dcully

Thank you so much Damien.
Did they actually state the above directly about the exchange in my town or a broader statement?

Ive emailed the contact you supplied,i cannot thank you enough for your efforts Damien,fingers crossed the above statement is indeed related to my towns exchange and it will infact be upgraded soon.

dub45

damien.m wrote:

I got this back from eircom. PMing you contact details:

If that is the case then surely Eircom are selling a product under false pretences? Has the Director of Consumer Affairs any role in respect of Eircom behaving in this way?

ednwireland

which package are you on ? if your on a 48:1 contention ratio i'd be amazed if eircom did anything if your on the 10:1 then you may have an argument. you dont get 2 or 3 mb to yourself if 48 people are sharing your connection then it'll be slower than dialup. as far as i know eircom lost a lot of business connections last year in letterkenny because of the same problem (i dont beleive this is purely an eircom problem i would think every supplier will suffer as margins tighten) anyone know how magnet do their uncontended service or are thei som terms an conditions their.

cgarvey

False pretences? They're selling a heavily contended product, with no SLAs, so probabaly not.

What's the throughput like Dcully? I mean pings are bad, but what's stable throughput like? Worse than the speed expected for a fully-contended connection (whatever that is for your package)?

cgarvey

ednwireland wrote:

anyone know how magnet do their uncontended service

They, like any other residential ISP don't offer an uncontended service, because they simply couldn't afford to. What they do offer (and it is an improvement over Bitstream) is uncontended out of the exchange, but once you leave their NOC, you'll be contending for their international/INEX links. Smart are similar. Not a problem now (and you probably won't notice it), but when the cashflow tightens those links will be more oversold than they are now, so it may become a problem. Then again, 2 years ago was contention at the exchange level a problem?

Dcully

Here are my stats

Downstream Upstream
Max Allowed Speed (kbps) 3072 384
SN Margin (dB) 20.50 14.00
Line Attenuation (dB) 16.50 11.00

which package are you on ? if your on a 48:1 contention ratio i'd be amazed if eircom did anything if your on the 10:1 then you may have an argument. you dont get 2 or 3 mb to yourself if 48 people are sharing your connection then it'll be slower than dialup. as far as i know eircom lost a lot of business connections last year in letterkenny because of the same problem (i dont beleive this is purely an eircom problem i would think every supplier will suffer as margins tighten) anyone know how magnet do their uncontended service or are thei som terms an conditions their.
Today 01:07

Im on home profesional 3meg down 384 kbps up.
Im on contention of 24:1 as far as i know,im meant to be atleast for this package.

if your on a 48:1 contention ratio i'd be amazed if eircom did anything if your on the 10:1 then you may have an argument

If this is the case then how come i have friends in Kildare town and Newbridge ,towns close to me with huge populations compared to little Monasterevin and i assume more bb users yet they have no slowdown whatsoever any time of day.
My brother is on eircom 1 meg line in kildare town and has no problems at all,ive checked his speeds many many times al times of day.

From what i can see our exchange in Monasterevin has not had an equipment upgrade since bb was first rolled out in the town 2 years ago which back then had very few bb users on the network.

Obviously 5 months ago [ie this problem arose] the amount of users hit a stage that caused demand to cripple the still 2 year old capacity at the exchange.

Ive read the statement from eircom but why the hell wasnt i told any of this when i rang support over 20 times?
Why wasnt i told this when i rang complaints numerous times?
Why wasnt support notified of this issue for when folk in Monasterevin rang?

Surely it wouldnt be hard to impliment a message on the system they use at support so that support can actually tell the customers whats going on?
5 months, 5 long frustrating and stressfull months where i continued to pay my bill and continued to bang my head against a brick wall.

For months ive been banging my head against a brick wall and nobody in eircom listened.
Comreg never answered my emails or my online complaint messages.

It took an internet message board and a fantastic guy willing to do what comreg should be doing for me to get any word at all on this matter.

I hope to hear from or speak to the eircom contact Damien provided me with today but either way it seems i will still have to wait 3 weeks minimum,i wonder how long this 3 weeks will escalate into:mad:

Ah sure ive waited 5 months already whats 3 weeks to me

Having said that ,if the above word from eircom is indeed true atleast there is some light at the end of the tunnel.
Nothing is more infuriating than banging your head again a brick wall and nobody listening while all the time paying over the odds for a service.

cgarvey

Hang on, is anything actually wrong here, or are you just not happy with the service (even if it is as sold).

I mean, if you're on a 24:1 3Mb service then you can expect to get at least 128Kbps or 16KBps download. If it's going below that consistently to a local site, then you have grounds for complaint. Otherwise all you can do is plead with eircom to upgrade the backhaul capacity of the exchange to end the suffering of you and your neighbours (encourage them to all phone in). But, if you're getting 16KBps download, then eircom are serving their product as described, etc.

To quote a hugely ironic advertisement "That's the dirty little secret" of contention.

If the speed is below that, then you've every right to question why you've not been informed, etc.

Dcully

Download speeds at peak times drop to lower than 6 kbps and thats downloading from heanet and other irish servers.
During the day i get 300kbps

Pings rise to 500-800 ms at peak times.
During the day im looking at 30 ms.

Hang on, is anything actually wrong here, or are you just not happy with the service (even if it is as sold).

So yeah there is a huge problem.
Do you think id go to such lengths if there wasnt?
Ive had a flawless service for 2 years,i think i know a massive drop in service when i see one.
Ive had various broadband services abroad, again i think i know a drop in service when i see one.

Head of communications at eircom rang me yesterday and explained what they are doing about it, his network guys are confident they will have upgraded our exchange in 3 weeks.
Furthermore he said they had recognised the problem and began planning this upgrade last November.

Hang on, is anything actually wrong here

Yes indeed there is sir

cgarvey

Dcully wrote:

Download speeds at peak times drop to lower than 6 kbps and thats downloading from heanet and other irish servers.

6KBps or 6Kbps? Either way that is not the service you signed up for. Have you talked of a refund, or partial refund? You can argue that even allowing for full contention, you are getting nowhere near the service you're paying for. You could take it further, if you were so inclined, and I'd imagine you have a very strong case, given the duration of the problem.

Dcully wrote:

Pings rise to 500-800 ms at peak times.

Unfortunately there's no gurantee, or claims of expectation of ping times, but that is pretty bad alright.

Dcully wrote:

Do you think id go to such lengths if there wasnt?
Ive had a flawless service for 2 years,i think i know a massive drop in service when i see one.

You personally? I don't know. One, in general, yes! A lot of people (most?) simply have no concept of contention, and may think something is wrong when in fact there isn't. Until your last post, you had not demonstrated that you'd ruled that out, which is why I asked.

Dcully

Just to update on this.
This afternoon i got a call from head of communications @ eircom to inform me the upgrade has been completed at the exchange.
From monday next the 12th they will begin the configuration process which could take a few days.
If i dont see an improvement in things by next Friday i have to ring back.
I must admit it was nice to get an update call on the matter from a senior figure,in that respect fair play.

Any experts here know what the configuration involves?
Would it be a couple of days work?

To say im delighted about this is an understatement but that doesnt hide the hassle ive gone through trying to make my problem known and addressed.

Liam Byrne

cgarvey wrote:

They, like any other residential ISP don't offer an uncontended service

News to me......I was under the impression that Smart and Magnet's offerings were 1:1 contention (and the overall consistency of my connection speeds seem to back this up).

What makes you think that "any other residential ISP(s) don't offer an uncontended service", cgarvey ?

watty

They only offer an almost 1:1. Their backhaul makes assumptions about the amount of usage. 1:1 contention doesn't exist. In practical terms it will look like 1:1, but if everyone in your area started running Joost you would see slow down on backhaul and probabily 1:20 contention experience.

cgarvey

Liam Byrne wrote:

What makes you think that "any other residential ISP(s) don't offer an uncontended service", cgarvey ?

I've posted a good bit about this, try a search on my posts. No residential ISP offers an uncontended connection, as it doesn't make sense. Smart and Magnet offer an uncontended connection at the DSLAM/exchange level (which is a big plus, granted, but not truly uncontended). Smart/Magnet customers have so few customers that contention on the backhaul is unlikely to be noticed / be a problem for a while yet.

Dcully, good to hear on progress. Have you been offered any means of a refund / credit?

watty

100% agreed.

Dcully

Well its Tuesday evening,work was meant to have commenced yesterday to configure the exchange.
Lastnight and tonight the pings are exactly as they were ,ie total and utter rubbish.
200-500 across the board,whether it be Irish or UK game servers or pinging ireland.com.eircom.net,google.com etc.
Same dire results with speedtests yet these speedtests during the day gave great results.
All day as usual things were fine but once 5 pm hit its slower than 56k even for browsing.

Anyone know how long it takes for this so-called configuration?
Whats involved?
Should i be seeing signs of improvement if work began yesterday or not until its completed?

NOT a happy camper here,6 months and STILL waiting :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Liam Byrne

Fair points, guys.....no network can offer uncontended (and even then you're relying on the bandwidth vs number of users of the website that you're visiting).

"Almost 1:1" is still a hell of a lot better than 48:1, though.....and in layman's terms it's a lot easier to understand 1:1 from source.

If you're sharing from the first leg of your connection (even being kind to eircom and allowing for averages in saying that you shouldn't be sharing with 48 people, you'll still surely be sharing with 5 or 6).

It's a lot easier to say "you're not sharing", particularly if the backhaul pipe of every provider is going to be similar and while eircom may possibly have a bigger overall capacity on paper, as cgarvey points out, the number of subscribers to the others more than compensates for this (and probably will do for some time to come, since most people are still of the opinion that Smart Broadband went bust and are surprised when I tell 'em otherwise.....maybe I should stop correcting 'em so that I can keep my "Almost" 1:1 for the full length of the route ).

watty

It's more like 20:1, but more people, so sharing works better on a larger scale. Nothing like 1:1

Actually contention only really a problem if there are a lot heavy downloaders or torrants users. I've set up (via local Proxy Server) training rooms of 10 PCs on 128k ISDN and class rooms of 50 (2x25) on 128k ISDN (close to a hypothetical 200k dialup in throughput) and it was fine for browsing, very like ADSL experience.

If everyone was using Joost instead of Cable/Sat/TVaerial then Magnet/Smart would crawl as slow as anything else.

Dcully

Well tonight im having pings that i havent had in 6 months.
Ingame pings are excellent,pinging boards consistently 15-17 ms.
Download speeds are what i used to get before overloaded exchange ie excellent.

Got a few calls tonight from friends and neighbours ,they too are getting a huge improvement.

Very happy and fingers crossed it is indeed sorted after so long.

netwhizkid

I had the experience of using Eircom's FWA "broadband" :eek: service this week and did some pingin while I was on it. I got while ping boards 48ms and while pinging google.ie around 75 to 78ms. It was averaging 60kbps upload and 500Kbps download.

The service is 512K down and 64K up with no download limit. This was 16Kms out from the Transmitter on an Antenna about the size of two third that of an A4 sheet of paper. This service is available to large majority of people who can't already get broadband.

How do these pings fare compared to ADSL and would they suitable for Online Gaming or Voip?

oscarBravo

Don't forget to mention the installation and ongoing costs.

watty

When I contacted eircom they denied FWA existed. Then they said it was only if you couldn't get a phone line, that they would not sell it if I could get a phone line.

Then they offerred me ISDN. 7 weeks later they admitted they could not supply ISDN "due to lack of space in the exchange". When pressed they addmitted if I could find enough other people that wanted ISDN they would fit a new shelf in the exchange.

I think that FWA is an older version of IBB's Breeze. They maybe have an older system too intended for voice only (sort of Wireless ISDN speed). They are replacing some FWA sites with Fixed WiMax, which is a little faster / some more clients than IBB Breeze.

netwhizkid

watty wrote:

When I contacted eircom they denied FWA existed. Then they said it was only if you couldn't get a phone line, that they would not sell it if I could get a phone line.

Then they offerred me ISDN. 7 weeks later they admitted they could not supply ISDN "due to lack of space in the exchange". When pressed they addmitted if I could find enough other people that wanted ISDN they would fit a new shelf in the exchange.

I think that FWA is an older version of IBB's Breeze. They maybe have an older system too intended for voice only (sort of Wireless ISDN speed). They are replacing some FWA sites with Fixed WiMax, which is a little faster / some more clients than IBB Breeze.

FWA does exist and is available to a sizeable proportion of the country. Eircom denying it is no notice, I'd say 1 in 10 Eircom Staff know about it. FWA is also used to deliver a wireless phone service and the equipment is much the same. Eircom are obliged to provide FWA at DSL prices but are refusing.

I have contacted ComReg and they told me they are powerless, however according to them the Competition Regulator Amendment Bill if passed into legislation will give them the powers to regulate this and enforce the terms of Eircoms FWA Licence.