Losing Eircom connection

gungo

I know people have posted on this topic before- but my Eircom connection has been really frustrating lately- while it stays connected the speeds I get are fine but it automatically disconnects every couple of minutes. I've spent hours on to their support checking splitters, IP addresses, resetting my modem but nothing has solved the problem permenantly. Just wondering has anyone had similar problems or got a solution? I ideally I'd like to know i anyone has had an eircom technician out- just can't face another support call!!

chopperbyrne

What package are you on?

Your router could be set up the way it is for their BB Time customers.

It's set to automatically disconnect if left idle for a few minutes.

Use this Eircom broadband support page to help you turn off that feature.

dub45

Have you confirmed that the modem is not faulty? Have you upped your package lately. The symptoms you describe are often those of a bad line - what are your line stats? They are on the router set up page in the form xx/yy.

And of course all the usual stuff filters on phone lines etc etc. Are you using wireless or ethernet to connect?

ChessHacker

I had the same problem with multiple disconnections and resyncs (usually only during evenings).

If you are on the 3Meg package, downgrade to 2Meg or persuade eircom to rewire your line (easier said than done).

Xennon

The reason people are getting disconnections in the evening is due to street lighting. The phone lines are normally run parallel to the street lights and these being sodium lamps are noisey in an RF manner. This is then induced into the phone lines raising the noise levels experienced by users and thus causing the drop outs in the evening/night.

A mate of mine has charted the noise levels on his line and on another lads line for the past 6 months, and the drops in SNR coincide with the daylight times from the met office. At first we thought this may have been caused by the fact that the mains supplying the exchanges is taken from the supply to the street lighting, but after contacting a lad in Eircom and getting an insight to the PSU arrangement of an exchange it is unlightly that dirty mains is the cause.

This leaves RF induction from the street lights. Changing the wiring route for build up areas is not really an option, perhaps theres some form of noise supression they can use, but I would say they would have if there was. Basically Eircom have inherited a giant noise antenna. :rolleyes:

As the lads say, dropping to a lower bandwidth package may give you a more solid conenction as the SNR requirements arent as high as the higher bandwidth requirements.

Sponge Bob

Good point xennon , its a possible reason in some cases but not all. Once everyone comes home and hammers their line after 7 you can also get crosstalk within a 100 pair cable which is eircoms problem . Neverthless its worth looking into in some cases.

At this time of year the traffic builds during daylight so you can differentiate between bundle crosstalk (starting to happen at say 7pm) and discharge lamp EMI which would not start till c.10pm . The problem of course is getting something done by the owners of the HID lamps ...usually but not always your local council .

You could always ask the local council to replace ALL their high intensity discharge lights with another technology ( LED anyone ?? :D ) or to systematically audit the rf output to find out if one 'dirty' one was putting out a disproportionate amount of rf interference and fix that one culprit and therefore your line and your neighbours lines .

As the local council will most likely do absolutely nothing lest they be held liable for having this nformation and not acting on it....meaning that not having any information at all is a jolly good strategy ....you are best off to scan the spectrum yourself in the affected bands and to localise the source(s) of interference.

As this interference ,

a) if present ..and
b) if in excess of standards or guidelines such as IEEE or CE

is analagous to an accidental pirate radio station broadcasting noise you then contact the wireless spectrum department of Comreg and tell them to do some enforcement on the local council...without mentioning telephone wires or dsl at all....simply focus on the spectrum pollution and its resolution .Comreg also have the right gear. It cost a bloody fortune I hear but could smell out one dodgy street lamp in Navan and track it down in an hour .

This is quite a technical argument and requires proper use of at least a good scanner to capture the incriminatory data and levels of interference .

Some notes on applicable standards may be found here if you have to go scanning for the problem. Page 11 contains an observation that HID/Ballast combinations must be designed with some EMI suppression but after that it is beyond me , soz . IANAP .

Of course you could always wait for eircom to install fibre to your house instead , sent Pierre a nice email and ....wait

Xennon

Hiya Bob of the Sponges,

Yip agree with everything there, but we're pretty sure its tied to the street lights, I live outside limerick and my exchange is enabled. Now we also monitored this exchange and it yields a nice steady flat line. The difference between this one and the other two is that its in the countryside, no streetlights.It takes its power drop form its own transformer.

Regarding the noise issue being caused by usage, I would say its possible but what drew our attention was that the other two modems monitored, both incur SNR drops at the same times, and regain their normal SNRs at the same time, which happens to coincide with daylight hours as provided by the met office. I'll ask him if he wants to stick up the mrtg graphs on a server somewhere for you to have a look at.

The disconnects that some people may be experiencing could be caused by this if theyre on the limits of the Noise-Margin for the package their on.

ooh fibre...nice...now that would be the future proofing of housing estates that should have been made compulsary years ago, just run fibre to each house in an estate out to a service hut at the front of the estate, run phone, tv, BB, home alarms, etc etc over this..ahh no... lets just keep digging up roads.

ok Im ranting again...Id better stop before I start on about tetrapaks lack of quality.

Dave_W

Sponge Bob

I would be very interested in any further steps you take ...by PM if you feel its delicate , I would further advise you to talk to Watty if he takes any interest in this issue as he would know his RF inside out.

You may be sure that if the problem starts at 10-1030 pm in May then its not usage in a bundle and you are on the right track.

Are any particular tones showing a loss or blip down , ADSL is a series of parallel frequencies (tones) like parallel modems warbling

perfect 2mb line Zyxel is like this in downstream diagnostics

noise margin downstream: 32 db
output power upstream: 18 db
attenuation downstream: 36 db
carrier load: number of bits per symbol(tone)
tone 0- 31: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 32- 63: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 55 66 66 66 56 77 77
tone 64- 95: 07 77 67 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 76 67 77 66 66 66
tone 96-127: 66 66 66 66 65 66 55 55 55 55 55 44 44 44 44 44
tone 128-159: 43 32 23 33 22 22 22 22 22 22 00 00 00 22 22 22
tone 160-191: 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22
tone 192-223: 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 20 00 22 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 224-255: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 256-287: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 288-319: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 320-351: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 352-383: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 384-415: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 416-447: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 448-479: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 480-511: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00


My gut instinct is that you have to prove this yourself.

( please hurry its getting dark now )

watty

The RF from a normal Sodium lamp should not be a problem...

However, CFL use electronics instead of traditional large choke (inductor or magnetic ballast). Some "energy saver" lamps almost "wipe out" LF, MF and HF radio reception.

It's possible that some street lights are now using compact electronic ballast. These don't need a Power factor Correction capacitor either. I've seen 1000W rated parts for High Pressure Sodium Lamps.

You don't need expensive test gear. Drive past with LW radio on a German, French station or BBC R4 and note noise level. To be affecting DSL, R4LW reception would have to be totally blocked.

France Inter 162kHz
Germany Europe1 183kHz
BBC R4 198KHz