Im sick of it.

zonEEE

I’m sick of this country and its broadband. I’m living in Sligo, about five miles out side of Sligo town and I can’t get proper broadband. I’m on this wireless ****e which is complete and utter ****e. I use the net for mostly gaming. I play pretty competitively but I just can’t commit to a team or advance in gaming due to by internet. I have rang and rang and rang Eircom and still nothing they just wont update my local exchange its doing my head in. My net can sometimes be ok... pings of like 20-40 then out of nowhere boom up to 300-400 and that’s it for the night. The tech support is only 9-6 Monday to Friday. So if something happens on the weekend there’s nothing I can do till Monday. Is there anyway of getting Eircom to update an exchange? The government really should get a kick in the arse. What ever about speeds etc but it’s just a joke how in this day and age I can’t even get proper broadband.

Schism

You can't get proper broadband, I cant get broadband. Eircom is apalling in their unwillingness to open up exchanges.
Ireland is one of the worst developed countries in the EU for broadband services, and why doesnt that surprise me?

I live in Portobello, close enough to the centre of the city and I can't get broadband. using ****ty ****ty Clearwire which is woeful!

BostonB

I couldn't get it for ages in Dublin either. Your only option is to move to somewhere that has it already working. If you need it that bad. Though for gaming I can't see it being that important to you to "have" to move.

here.from.day.1

Have you tried shopping around? Many many BB companies around, its not just Eircom. My roommate is from Ballosadaire (sp?), I think its just outside Sligo city somewhere and he has wired BB there.

tried Magnet, NTL all the same. The area I live in has not been "enabled" yet

zonEEE

Nope eircom has to update my exchange as eircom owns it.

kippy

Hi Papa Smut,
I feel your pain, well not now, but in the past I've had the same issues.
Even now, I've been trying to get BB for some people I know in various parts of Mayo (some allegedly with BB enabled exchanges) only to be told by eircom that the quality of the cable to their house aint up to it or that "it wont work on the line".
The list of alternatives which are cheap outside of the main population centers is extremely limits.
I am only hoping that WiMax may solve the problems for some peope but arent overly confident.
Kippy

zonEEE

im on that atm and its really bad.

eoinok

strongr. I know you are passionate about it, but a bit of cold facts of life.

Government have nothing to do with upgrading exchanges. Eircom are no longer a semi state so there is nothing the government can do.

DSL will only travel a maximum of 5KM (3 1/2 miles) along a phone line. You may be on an exchange that is already DSL enabled, but are too far away from the exchange. If this is the case, then tough luck.

You may be on an exchange that does not have enough users connected into it within 5KM. Ericom will do a cost analysis and if they cant get a ROI (return on investment) within 18 months of upgrading the exchange, then tough cookie again. They have share holders to answer to, and are not a charity.

There could be another 3 or 4 reasons why u cant get DSL, main ones listed above.

amtc

move
adsl is a distance limited technology trying to make a copper wire what it was never designed to do.
reality!
i once had a guy call me living 8 miles from his exchange moaning as to why he couldn't get dsl
you choose to live in the sticks, you won't

btw any operator can ask for any exchange/cabinet to be unbundled and upgrade (called LLU) so you're not waiting on eircom.
if eircom upgrade then any other operator gets bitstream (managed broadband) out of it.

AlmightyCushion

The government should have never have sold off the network. They should have created a non profit organisation that controlled it. All line rental would get paid to this company and it would be reinvested back into the network. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

kippy

Eoinok and AMTC,
Points taken however, the government does have a responsibility in making sure the all areas of the country are as competitive as possible-it is common knowlwdge and it has been a well vaunted fact for many years that BB in this country is so far behind others in Europe. Ultimately that IS the governments fault.
As I mentioned a number of people I know, even though they are near BB enabled exchanges and live beside someone who actually has BB are unable to get it due to poor quality lines or some fault between Eircom and the end user. Not only does it stop these people getting Eircom BB but ANY form of DSL BB. Eircom will generally do NOTHING to attempt to resolve the issue. They "Own" the infrastructure sadly and because of its poor quality in certain areas they are not allowing other operators to provide a service either.
I used to live in Rathgar in a relatively new house. Eircom told us or line as repeatly failing the BB line test - they did nothing about it. Luckily we were in an area where we could get IBB wireless. Many other areas of the country have no feasable options.
I originally come from a relatively remote location where the IDA for many years have been trying to get factories set up. The area is ideal for a call center based workforce however it was only when a cheap form of BB came into the area that they managed to attract this form of investment. - This was only 18 months ago.
Kippy

eoinok

almightycushion.

Have a read off this.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082801990_pf.html
Most interesting bit is $2 for 3rd party operators to rent a line in an exchange. From other sources, I have read that the japanesse government has imposed a "ruling/law.what ever you want to call it" that NTT must allow 3rd party operators into their exchanges, but the "war" is still ongoing on this issue.

Problems we would have with the Irish govenment imposing such a draconion law is that Ericom would drag it through every court in the country and EU and hold it up for 20 years. To be honest, if I was Eircom, I would do the same If I thought I could get away with it, why should I allow my competitors into my exchanges and take customers from me?
Japanesse have their own way of imposing rules than Europe

What we have here in Ireland is 3rd party operators must give Eircom X amount of notice if they need to get into an exchange to move a customer over. Then they will insist engineer X goes on this & that & the other health and safety training (i.e stalling) before they will leave one into their exchange. Then, on the agreed time & date, they may not show up. If they do, then Eircom will charge the operator €300 per line to move over. Even though it is as simple as plugging a phone line into a dslam.

We could go on, but we all know.......

amtc

sounds great
but it's the same technicians who do both (kti) for eircom and other operators
not sure the conspiracy theory holds true

kaizersoze

Just to correct a couple of points made above.

1. Since the last phase of Eircoms 'Extended Reach' program, there are people qualifying for BB as far out as 5.5 miles (give or take). I know quiet a few. I know 4 that are 6 miles out.
2. No operator will unbundle (LLU) an exchange unless Eircom have BB there already.
3. The 'not economically viable' excuse is quoted by Eircom whenever it suits. Yet they have no problem upgrading an exchange as soon as they hear that a wireless operator is about to go live in the area. A month or 2 previous that same exchange was deemed 'not economically viable'.

@strongr, what exchange are you on?

mrs_kav

Hi i live 8 miles outside kilkenny city and cant get any sort of broadband from anyone have tryed everything the only one that is offered is satilite which is very over priced so unless you where very well off you could not afford it, this country needs to get its act together

ianblyth

3 miles from the local exchange.. and no broadband.. some guy down the road has it... but line keeps failing...

eoinok

A couple of interesting points coming up here which need to be answered.

Kippy, your point on your neighbour has it but guy next door to him cant.
That is a "common" issue. It is due to the "carrier" system. This is where 30 years ago the government ordered p&t (yes, I am old enough to remember the orange p&t vans ) to accelerate the rollout of the phone network in the country by introducing this system. This is where four phone lines were able to be carried on the one copper pair. Ingenious at the time as it meant less copper wire had to be laid down, costs were quartered (only had to buy 1/4 the amount of wire needed) and the phone network got rolled out quicker. Problem arises now with this system that only one household can get BB, and the other three houses on this carrier system cant.
It is amazing what one see's when one knows and can "read between the lines". It was published every now and again a year or so back that Eircom makes a "fresh appeal to the government to assist it in rolling out broadband to the country by giving it €650million to do so... yada yada yada". What is actually happening here is Eircom is saying "you made us 30 years ago run this carrier system. Now for us to undo this work, we will have to run those extra lines to each house in the country and this extra copper/labour cost is going to be €650 million."
Quite rightly, the government is giving them the two fingers as this would essentially be state aid, and we all saw the mess that Ryanair got into with the EU over state aid in Charleroi ariport. Anyway, every other operator in the country would take the government to court if they did so anyway.

On the distance that DSL will work. Please dont confuse KM with miles. It is always quoted in KM. ADSL will operate at maximum reach at 5KM. Some people then chose to mis quote this and change it to five miles which then becomes 8KM Have a gander at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.DMT Now, we know there will be once off cases and exceptions.
Another situation where somebody is "10 miles (16KM) from the exchange but can still get BB". Is this 10miles (16KM) by car by any chance? What about if "fly as the crow flies" how far is it? Phone lines and roads often travel very different paths. I must admit though, more often than not, and phone line travels the path of a road, but it does not adhere to one way systems More commonly, someone is within 1KM of an exchange (by car & by crow) but their phone line goes off out and around in a loop and suddenly they are over the 5KM by phone line distance.

The "non economically viable" is a very very valid excuse. I dont believe that they upgrade an exchange when they hear of a wireless operator in the area. Conspiracy theory. On the afore mentioned cost of €650 million to rewire the country would be at best, a very conservative figure. With the quite dramatic rise in copper recently (cat5 role that used to cost €60, is now €85) this figure would be up near the €1 Billion mark. Ericom as I have stated before are not a charity. They have to make money. Blowing 1 billion in upgrading a network to grab an extra 20K custmers say, is not a way to make money. The sooner that people come to terms with it, the better. No point in coming on here and hissing and moaning and crying like spoilt kids when they should realise themselves the truth and just get on with their lives :rolleyes:

I could type another 20 paragraphs, but I better go and do something.....

Sponge Bob

eoinok wrote:

Kippy, your point on your neighbour has it but guy next door to him cant.
That is a "common" issue. It is due to the "carrier" system. This is where 30 years ago the government ordered p&t (yes, I am old enough to remember the orange p&t vans ) to accelerate the rollout of the phone network in the country by introducing this system. This is where four phone lines were able to be carried on the one copper pair. Ingenious at the time as it meant less copper wire had to be laid down, costs were quartered (only had to buy 1/4 the amount of wire needed) and the phone network got rolled out quicker.

actually copper was rolled out in the 1980s , carriers are 1990s technology and some are 16:1 splits

there are of course adsl carriers in other countries , some with copper backhaul and some with fibre, copper is too expensive nowadays ...unlike the 1980s .

lucernarian

eoinok, I call bull**** on that line distance idea, whatever wikipedia might say. Line distance on its own means nothing. It's all to do with attenuation. There's various limits quoted as the maximum, but it depends on the quality and flavour of ADSL used. A version of READSL2 was able to sync at 89 dB without repeaters in a technical paper I read.

Eircom have a limit of around 98 or 100 dB, using repeaters I suspect. This translates into a distance of just over 8 km on the most common thickness of wire in the RoI.

Also, check out the oireachtas website to find out about the age of copper. Much of the rural lines and especially poles nationally were put up between 76 and 83. The dates are scribed into them. Telecom Eireann were at least investigating the use of carriers in 1988. From what I've seen in my area and others, 200 metres of cable can be enough to free up a dozen lines.

By the way, there are areas which should have had exchanges installed but back when the exchange locations were being planned (late 60s I think), they saved money by leaving the odd village on very long lines. Some of these in the East have mushroomed in size. And new RSUs only serve new estates in these places. Drogheda and Navan remain the worst places in Ireland for this sort of scenario, IMO.

And kaizersoze knows what he/she's talking about.

zonEEE

My exchange is only 5 mins walk away from me.

and kaizersoze its rosses point exchange.

lucernarian

Rosses Point has more lines than a few which have DSL, so you may get it in a year or two. Also, the national broadband scheme [should[/u] be in operation in a year or two.

zonEEE

i have been waiting since bb came out. Eircom used to make updates and now they just said they have no info on it

kaizersoze

strongr wrote:

My exchange is only 5 mins walk away from me.

and kaizersoze its rosses point exchange.

Rosses Point is one of 6 exchanges in Sligo on the last list released by Eircom back in April. They announced a list of around 330 with no time frame for launch but they have said in the recent past that they plan to have 400 more upgraded by the end of 2008.

Ballinafad
Ballintogher
Calry
Dromore West
Gurteen
Rosses Point

This list was released just before the gov announced their national broadband plan so it probably won't be included in it. Word at the time was that Eircom announced these 330 exchanges so they would be excluded from the NBS.

To_be_confirmed wrote:

And kaizersoze knows what he/she's talking about.

Why thank you. I'm a he btw.:)

@eoinok, I'm talking MILES not KMs. I know the difference.:rolleyes:
It's no conspiracy theory about the wireless scenario. It has happened, and still happens, especially around the time of the GBS. Up to 12 or 18 months ago Eircoms story was that any exchange with less than 1000 lines was "not economically viable". I reckon about 80% of the 450 odd exchanges earmarked for upgrade by Eircom fall into that catagory. What has changed to make them viable all of a sudden?

Sponge Bob

Kaiser is quite correct , the changes made byu eircom to their line test in the past year and a half mean that their service range has increased hugely.

In rural exchanges their coverage is now 4 times greater than it was in early 2006 and they now cover out to the service limits in many areas.

Exchanges are usually placed so that the max line length is c.5 miles....and I KNOW there are longer exceptions to that. If your line is OK eircom could give you DSL at 5 miles since their last test change in June.

This does not mean they have enough copper in all of these areas of course .

bushy...

kaizersoze wrote:

It's no conspiracy theory about the wireless scenario. It has happened, and still happens........

Plenty of examples around , but it is a great idea by Eircom , much more reliable ( and free! ) gauge of demand in an area. The old joke about the young bull and old bull on top of the hill comes to mind.

jimmy2shoes

i feel your pain, however i have found a way round it. i've had enough, my partner is dutch and at the end of september we are moving to holland. not just due to the broadband issue, but many other rip off's that daily take its toll on my finances and my sanity. just back from a holiday in holland, found a flat, the landlord said he would sort out internet for me so its on when we move in. gave me a list of options and asked if i wanted 4,8, or 15mb broadband. gone for the 8mb, 35euro a month. the great thing about broadband in holland is that you can have it as a stand alone package, you don't have to have a telephone line with it, so the line is purely for broadband and as such no telephone line rental for something i won't use.

so, the key is, move, whether its to a city, or another country.

altered121

jimmy2shoes wrote:

the landlord said he would sort out internet for me so its on when we move in. gave me a list of options and asked if i wanted 4,8, or 15mb broadband. gone for the 8mb, 35euro a month. the great thing about broadband in holland is that you can have it as a stand alone package,

so, the key is, move, whether its to a city, or another country.

good luck with Your move, Jealous of the fact 15Mb available MORE jealous that Landlords are so helpful, try to imagine asking L/Lord here to provide goodies before you move in:rolleyes:

JMURPHY3

I live in the country area outside Enniscorthy and I cant get broadband from anywhere, not even Eircom cos we are outside the exchange.I rang Eircom bout it a few months ago and the operator told me it was Eircom's goal was to provide phone network for Ireland and thats it.
Only way I can get broadband is from O2 mobile, which I am only getting GPRS coverage in my area.Its bloody ridiculous in this day and age that all Ireland cant get broadband, I have to laugh when I see the Eircom broadband ads.....would be nice if you could get it.
Have tried all the providers around and we are in a bit of a valley where I live and for most providers you would have to see the Forth mountain, which I cant see.Glad tho there are others in the country that cant get it at leat I aint alone...

Sponge Bob

You are alone jmurphy, Karlin Lillington would consider you one of them whingers she is whinging about nowadays

http://www.techno-culture.com/?p=78

"some like to whine about how everything is always the government’s or Eircom’s fault with broadband, I stand firmly by my long-standing opinion that while supply has been a (slowly improving) problem, this country has a very serious problem with demand. "

so you got to PROVE you want it ...not whine please. Karlin don't want to hear you mate .