UTV Broadband Problems

Fogmatic

I'm glad you didn't waste time looking out that old dialup modem, Aepos! I'm on dialup with UTV and having similar problems.
I'm familiar with that recorded message; checked again this evening but it was engaged...

I pinged UTV just now,, but 'unknown host' (when it doesn't time out). Same with Eircom, but all other servers I tried responded fine.

I gather from various forums that this stuff coincides a lot with an ISP bringing in new anti-spam measures, and discovered that UTV did this recently.

Guess where on UTV's site I found the info?
Nope.
It was in a FAQ I unintentionally reached, called 'What is spam?...'. Not the first FAQ most of us would head for.

Fogmatic

Forgot to mention I'm in W. Donegal. Wonder what exchange(s) are affected?
We're between Killybega & Ardara. Just to confuse things, our wires come from Ardara (074 95, Dungloe code) but when we moved here Eircom gave us an 074 97 number (Donegal Town area).

Maybe that's why Eircom sent me an individually addressed leaflet 3 years ago, congratulating me on being enabled for broadband. They were still insisting I could get it until just recently, though they couldn't seem to tell me where 'my' broadband exchange was...

byte

Maybe you're on Killybegs exchange (0749731xxx)?

patrickc

Onikage wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055269922

Another thread on this. In fairness, this is not normal for utv.

i'm on utv 3 years and since ive changed my dns settings to open dns have only had one outage for a half a day, I can't complain with that really

EKRIUQ

I've been with them for over 4 years, 3mb no limit and to be honest they have been pretty solid except when they start trottling torrents.

Fogmatic

Killybegs exchange, Byte? Maybe - I just don't know (my number starts 074 9751...)
The wire comes from the opposite direction though; when we ordered the phone 15 years ago we watched the the poles coming up the valley from Ardara way.

When I first looked into BB a few years ago, I went to Eircom's website (my ISP at the time), entered my number on their 'check availability' page, and got a page stating 'Donegal is enabled for Broadband'.
Donegal Town? County Donegal? Some place in County Donegal, like Letterkenny? Who knows?
The only links from there were 'Order Broadband' (from a small choice of companies).

At the time (about 3 years ago), there was no BB in Ardara, my nearest exchange (about 5 km away). The local counciller was campaigning to try and make Eircom's community BB scheme happen there, and I wanted to get a vote in even if I turned out to be just out of reach. But Eircom's voting page blocked me - it required an Ardara phone number, which they hadn't given us for some reason (all the locals assume we have one until we tell them we don't).

Cue lots of call to Eircoma - sorry, Eircom, to try and make sense of it all, talking to a succession of people who didn't seem to know much about comms. During the last one, she said my broadband exchange was coming up as Letterkenny. I was curious to know how that worked, what with having to be within a few km of the exchange, and Letterkenny being about 50 km away. I wasn't convinced she understood the question, but anyway she said she'd find out and get back to me. I'm still waiting...

A couple of line checkers at ISP sites (BT & UTV I think) came up with a positive for BB a year or two ago, but not for long. They consistently say No now (even Eircom's).

Fortunately, we can now just see the top of a mast over the hill - the local wireless broadband scheme; a test got a signal, and I'm about to order it.
Maybe I'll finally be able to read that bells-and whistles council page, the one that boasts 'Made For Broadband' (so much for being accessible to all!)

Glad some people's UTV connections are now back in business. Light at the end of the tunnel maybe. The wireless BB will take about a month, and I'd still like to keep the my UTV dialup/talk

sesswhat

I'm on the UTV 2Mb package in Donegal and normally I get consistent speed tests of around 1717kb download and 212kb upload. Since yesterday the upload speed has dropped to single figures (7 or 8kb) where it is almost impossible to use the service for anything other than browsing. After making me jump through the usual hoops UTV said they have logged a fault but I've heard nothing since.

Anyone else notice a sudden drop in upload speed?

lmimmfn

sesswhat wrote: »

I'm on the UTV 2Mb package in Donegal and normally I get consistent speed tests of around 1717kb download and 212kb upload. Since yesterday the upload speed has dropped to single figures (7 or 8kb) where it is almost impossible to use the service for anything other than browsing. After making me jump through the usual hoops UTV said they have logged a fault but I've heard nothing since.

Anyone else notice a sudden drop in upload speed?

I only got mine connected in February so it may not be the same thing, sometimes i can get 3Mb download and 384kb upload, that got rarer and rarer and now i get 3Mb download and 64kb upload no matter what i do, only thing i can put it down to is interference on the line as my SNR margin is crap when i get 64k upload( SNR Marigin will be 5 or even 1 ).
Theyre going to downgrade me to 1Mb connection for a day or two to see if that will fix my upload( should do as should gain 10db's for upload, meaning its >5 which should be stable )

sesswhat

These are the figures my modem is showing now but I don't know what they were before the upload speed problems. They don't seem bad so I don't think its the same problem in this case.

SN Margin (dB) 31.00 / 11.50
Line Attenuation (dB) 37.50 / 20.00

lmimmfn

sesswhat wrote: »

These are the figures my modem is showing now but I don't know what they were before the upload speed problems. They don't seem bad so I don't think its the same problem in this case.

SN Margin (dB) 31.00 / 11.50
Line Attenuation (dB) 37.50 / 20.00

no its definitely not the same problem as me( although youre remote SNR margin is only okish ), mine are:
Local Line Atten(dB) : 31.5 Remote Line Atten(dB) : 28.0
Local SNR Margin(dB) : 7.5 Remote SNR Margin(dB) : 7.0
After downgrade to 1Mb( still crap, but above 6 which is okish ), hmm, its weird, the DSL sync is with the switch, so its not UTV, its Eircom, when i had decent broadband last year, the odd time i would get crap synchs, i rang about it and they said it could be one of the slots on the switch was a bit duff and to try resynching 15 minutes later, that fixed it 99% of the time.

My current guess is that theyre all fecked in Mullingar and that its now a switch issue and not my line( although SNR margin for me is terrible ), but the odd time i get 384kb upload i get 19 for SNR margin values

ednwireland

just in case anyones having trouble in donegal town eircom have upgraded the exchange for the speed upgrades unfortunately theyve screwed the upload speeds its taken our business 2 daysto get eircom to admit that they have an issue its affecting anyone using an eircom line not just eircom customers we've lost three days work at the moment. (were on the top package)

-simon-

I'm in south donegal and for the last 3 days my download/upload speed has been no faster than dial-up. Anyone else having this problem?

Guess I better call them up again. :rolleyes:

byte

ednwireland wrote: »

just in case anyones having trouble in donegal town eircom have upgraded the exchange for the speed upgrades unfortunately theyve screwed the upload speeds its taken our business 2 daysto get eircom to admit that they have an issue its affecting anyone using an eircom line not just eircom customers we've lost three days work at the moment. (were on the top package)

Ah, that'd explain why sending emails has been a nightmare!

sesswhat

I'm back on dial-up at this stage in Ballybofey as my 2Mb service has ground to a halt. My neighbour on BT is also affected.

Not much chance of being kept informed unless there are any local Eircom Engineers out there?

EDIT: Just checked at 11.30 and broadband is back at normal speeds again!

ednwireland

both our office lines went at 11:00 am and when they came back up they were back to normal my home one is back to normal (i'm in donegal town)
wonder what major routing software issue they had ?
apparently 2 exchanges in donegal town and ballybofey were affected

halcyon-days

I've been experiencing problems with UTV for the last 2 weeks roughly. My download speed is fine but my upload speed is barely above 20kb/s. Dialup is faster at uploading than my 3MB connection i have with UTV. I've rung them and complained but they said there must be some issue with my telephone line even though its a new house and recently had my line put in by Eircom, after they stopped blaming my house they said the issue was with my router, i eventually just hung on them as i could only put up with so much BS.

Really considering cancelling my subscription now and paying off the cancellation fee and opting for a different ISP but in Donegal from what i've seen so far my options are rather limited. Most ISP's offer 1MB with 3MB considered fast and top of the range.... :eek:
Anyone know of a ISP that offers 8MB in Donegal (killygordon) or if Cable NTL/UPC chorus would be an option?

ardmacha

Cable NTL/UPC chorus would be an option?

Do you have cable, is there cable in Killygordon?

byte

Dunno of anyone offering 8Mbit in Killygordon! Smart offer speeds up to 15Mb, but Letterkenny is the only town in Donegal that has Smart broadband .

Bear in mind that any provider reselling eircom's broadband (BT, UTV, Perlico, etc) will have speeds upgraded in June. 3Mbit will be upgraded to 7.6Mbit (if line can handle it).

UPC/NTL don't have any operations in Killygordon, so they're out.