Advice sought for lousy Eircom connection

sideshowsue

I'd appreciate some input and advice to know whether there is anything else that I can do to improve my connection/download speeds before ringing up and pestering eircom to improve their service.

I'm subscribed to eircom for an alleged 3MB service, but the only time I can expect to see the sunnier side of 2.5MB is on a Sunday morning at 6am. For instance, I've just run a few tests on speednet and irishisptest that indicate my adsl connection is topping out at 800kb/s.

Since you guys seem to be big on router stats, I've copied the data from my router:

Line State Up
Modulation DMT
Data Path Fast


Downstream Upstream
Max Allowed Speed (kbps) 3072 384
SN Margin (dB) 25.50 22.00
Line Attenuation (dB) 3.50 0.50
CRC Errors 0 1


My set-up is the following: I'm using eircom's supplied netopia 3347NWG wireless modem (I've also tested with others and the speed never improves), but I'm not using it wirelessly since I prefer to use an Apple airport that is bridged with an airport express. At any one time there could be up to 3 apple macs connected to this secure network (it's a closed, MAC-address only access network and is WEP protected), along with an XBOX 360 which is hardwired to the airport express.

Now, I've obviously tested the the download speed with only one computer connected directly to the modem via ethernet. The speed is still lousy.
I've made sure that there are filters fitted to each of the phone sockets in the house even though there is only one socket with an actual phone connected to it. The modem is connected to the main phone socket in the house and I've even tried connecting the modem directly into the socket without using a filter. No joy. No phonewatch thingy is fitted nor do I have my sky box connected to a phone line.

Even though the connection speed is lousy on each of the networked computers and XBOX, I've recently reformatted my HD just to make sure there's nothing on the disk that could be messing with the download speed.

My feeling is that I'm suffering from severe contention issues and that I have the misfortune of being located on an over-subscribed line. In which case there won't be much I can do from my end and even complaining to eircom would prove fruitless. That said, perhaps someone here has got a brilliant idea that I haven't tried yet and that will make all my connection woes disappear.

I am also curious whether signing up with another provider might improve things, but considering the time necessary to set up a new connection with a different provider, I really wouldn't consider this unless the quality of service were significantly better. Unfortunately only eircom, BT and imagine service this area, so I don't have the option to go with smart, magnet or cable.

Any advice is much appreciated.

dub45

I suspect that you have transcribed your figures wrongly - have you mixed up the Line attenuation and the SN by any chance.

I suspect that your line is simply not up to the 3M - have you upgraded to that speed recently?

sideshowsue

Thank you for your reply, but there's no mix-up with the stats. I did a copy/paste from the stats page on the router. No error of transcription. I've attached a snapshot of the stats window.

dub45

If those figures are correct then it would seem that you have an amazing line - maybe some of the teccies on here will comment on that?

If contention was your problem it would not be be constant as it should vary during the day with traffic peaks. Are you far from the exchange?

Has your speed ever been consistently good?

Have a read here:

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/linestats.htm

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/lowSNR.htm

sideshowsue

I can get around 2.6, maybe 2.7 MB, very early in the morning--like before 7 am early. Thereafter, the speed just stagnates.

We've lived at this address for about year and the connection has never seemed as speedy as our prior address which, as a crow flies, is only about 500 meters away.

I live about 200 meters from the exchange which lies at the bottom of a very steep hill. I live at the very top.

dub45

sideshowsue wrote:

I can get around 2.6, maybe 2.7 MB, very early in the morning--like before 7 am early. Thereafter, the speed just stagnates.

We've lived at this address for about year and the connection has never seemed as speedy as our prior address which, as a crow flies, is only about 500 meters away.

I live about 200 meters from the exchange which lies at the bottom of a very steep hill. I live at the very top.

Its most unlikely that a load of people suddenly turn on their internet at 7 a.m. and cause massive contention:) With those stats your line would seem to be capable of a much higher speed never mind the 3M and you are virtually in the exchange distance wise! Have you checked with any of your neighbours who might also have Eircom bb to see if they have any problems?

sideshowsue

Unfortunately none of the neighbours I know has BB. As for the other residents of the street, I have no idea and I wouldn't be comfortable going door-to-door polling them for their BB experience.

rc28

Are you in a city or the countryside? Your line stats are amazingly good for ireland, that's the best line attenuation figure I've ever seen. As for the 7am thing I came across other people who had a problem when at the exact same time every evening their bb speeds would go really bad and the theory was that eveytime the streetlights were turned on they would interfere with the phonelines (they were wired underground with the electric ones) but obviously this isn't the case with you so I don't know what could be wrong.

rc28

sideshowsue wrote:

I've attached a snapshot of the stats window.

Lol, I'd remove that pic if I were you, it shows you've downloaded a certain very popular book by torrent:D

dub45

By the way given the quality of your line and the speed you are syncing at it really is very difficult to see what Eircom could do for you to improve your situation.

Are there any businesses in the area near you that might start operations around 7?

What speeds do you get during the day? Have you ever tried resetting the Netopia or upgrading its firmware?

Xennon

Deffo something up with your connection on the Eircom end Id say. I have similar stats and get a solid 3M all day every day....Give em a ring.

degsie

sideshowsue wrote:

my adsl connection is topping out at 800kb/s.

WOW so you have a 800 X 8(bits) = 6.5Megabit connection.... and you'r complaining

Xennon

800Kb/s = 800/1024 Mb/s = 0.78Mb/s not so WOW!

8b=1B

1Mb = 1024Kb = 1048576 bits = 131072 Bytes =128KB =0.125MB

hottstuff

Have you put in your connection settings manually?
Ip address , dns settings etc.

My eircom 3mb connection was pooh in the beginning untill i entered these settings manually.

rc28

hottstuff wrote:

Have you put in your connection settings manually?
Ip address , dns settings etc.

My eircom 3mb connection was pooh in the beginning untill i entered these settings manually.

Would switching to open dns help?:
http://www.opendns.com/
http://www.opendns.com/start/mac_os_x.php

lucernarian

I once saw attenuation of 0/0 posted here, but that was a Smart Telecom engineer plugging the modem into some sort of DSLAM in his office.

I'd guess it's a rural exchange as large, urban ones would simply have too much internal wiring to get an attenuation figure like that. In drogheda, houses neighbouring the exchange would often be 6 or 7 dB downstream. It's still possible to get figures like that, but the house would have to be right beside the access duct into the exchange itself.

Anyway, eircom seem to be fecking something up at their end. The line seems fine, so if it's an exchange problem, could it be possible to ask any neighbours to see if they have problems with speed??

Give eircom a call and see what can be done or if they're willing to help. They probably won't, so Rex Comb's postal address can be found in another thread. I expect the case would be escalated somewhat:)