What's the latest on the broadband upgrade (originally for June 08)?

flamegrill

The information is correct as of end of May as was communicated by eircom to the people in each OLO (BT, Magnet, Strencom, Perlico, Imagine etc). Today there was an announcement that there will be no upgrades in June.

As for speculation, the fact is Eircom could change their mind and go "testing has shown that 80% of upgraded 3meg test lines encounter issues on RADSL" and the fix could be to move them to ADSL2+.

But as I said above, as of end of May it was RADSL for the "mass unwashed" and ADSL2+ for business customers on 4mbit or higher (current packages).

lmimmfn

flamegrill wrote: »

The information is correct as of end of May as was communicated by eircom to the people in each OLO (BT, Magnet, Strencom, Perlico, Imagine etc). Today there was an announcement that there will be no upgrades in June.

As for speculation, the fact is Eircom could change their mind and go "testing has shown that 80% of upgraded 3meg test lines encounter issues on RADSL" and the fix could be to move them to ADSL2+.

But as I said above, as of end of May it was RADSL for the "mass unwashed" and ADSL2+ for business customers on 4mbit or higher (current packages).

where?

kaizersoze

lmimmfn wrote: »

where?

Internally and to the OLO's most likely.

Bohrio

flamegrill wrote: »

The information is correct as of end of May as was communicated by eircom to the people in each OLO (BT, Magnet, Strencom, Perlico, Imagine etc). Today there was an announcement that there will be no upgrades in June.

As for speculation, the fact is Eircom could change their mind and go "testing has shown that 80% of upgraded 3meg test lines encounter issues on RADSL" and the fix could be to move them to ADSL2+.

But as I said above, as of end of May it was RADSL for the "mass unwashed" and ADSL2+ for business customers on 4mbit or higher (current packages).

This is apparently true. Eircom has postponed indefinitely the upgrade as they have encountered problems with their trial customer when upgraded to 7.6 mbps. The problem, as it has already been said, is to do with RA (Rate adaptive) ADSL.

Apparently they wont be using ADSL2+ with all customers. This is probably due to the cost involved. A high percentage of their routers wont work with ADSL2+. So the procedure will be if you are a new customer and your exchange has an adsl2+ DSLAM then you "might", and only might, be given ADSL2+, if you are an old customer then you will stay on ADSL1 (g.dmt).

This will explain the problems they said the encountered as RA g.dmt (ADSL1) is less permissive than RA ADSL2+, this is most of the times due to the quality of the copper wires (unstable lines). In order for a person to obtain 7.6 mbps on G.DMT the line has to be fairly close to the exchange, also, ADSL2+ deals much better on RA than on G.DMT.

I find this a bit sad, I think there is a lack of ambition from Eircoms side. I dont know, maybe is just me but I was hoping that, as others ISPs (such as Smart, Magnet and even BT) had already started offering this service, Eircom was planning a major counterstrike but apparently that's not possible.

Bad news I am afraid. At the moment Eircom wont be giving any more explanations until July. I will see what I can find out.

Blindpew

If the government hadn't stupidly sold Eircom and had put money into building a proper infrastructure for broadband we wouldn't be so far behind the rest of the world today. The money they would have made from all the providers would have paid for it over time. It's no good blaming private companies now for not doing what our own shortsighted leaders wouldn't do.

Gonzo

I take it then that Eircom really have gone back to the drawing board on this and it could be anything up to a year before we see our upgrades now:(?

azzeretti

Bohrio wrote: »

This is apparently true. Eircom has postponed indefinitely the upgrade as they have encountered problems with their trial customer when upgraded to 7.6 mbps.

Are you having a laugh? Postponed? You mean canceled?

smellslikeshoes

Overreactions and speculation, that is what this thread is entirely composed of.

Fingleberries

I wonder how they will communicate this to their customers (and how all the other BitStream ISPs will do it, too). I know BT sent a fancy pack telling everyone of the 'free' upgrades - I'm sure they got a bunch of people to change to their 3MB packages to get up to 7.6.

Probably won't even get a mention from them.

Bohrio

azzeretti wrote: »

Are you having a laugh? Postponed? You mean canceled?

Just postponed, at least until July.

Personally I think that 7.6 mbps on adsl1 is aiming to high... for Irish standards at least... 6 mb will be more reasonable.

Nevertheless I was expecting Eircom's upgrade to be a bit more ambitious... I mean, I knew they were not going to upgrade all their Exchanges to ADSL2+ and that they were going to use adsl1 in some of them but not the other way around.

tripswitch

Fingleberries wrote: »

I wonder how they will communicate this to their customers (and how all the other BitStream ISPs will do it, too). I know BT sent a fancy pack telling everyone of the 'free' upgrades - I'm sure they got a bunch of people to change to their 3MB packages to get up to 7.6.

Probably won't even get a mention from them.

That's an interesting situation for BT and the other providers. As a BT customer I received the same letter recently. I'm now a hair away from switching to Smart because of this. Just as you suggested, I've been on the hook since Eircom's vapourware announcement back in Jan/Feb. Foolishly back then when I upgraded to 3mb I let BT talk me into staying on Eircom's equipment instead of taking the few days down-time and switching to theirs (my exchange is LLU). Dumb move in retrospect.

(BT's broadband service is very good, but their billing system is still so inaccurate that it'd almost be worth it for that alone.)

Sponge Bob

Bohrio wrote: »

Just postponed, at least until July.

Personally I think that 7.6 mbps on adsl1 is aiming to high... for Irish standards at least... 6 mb will be more reasonable.

Well it was supposed to be 6 but the chairman, danon, wanted parity with BT who once fired him. BT were selling 8 .

So it had to be 7.6 . now danon has just gone and a flurry of internal emails indicate it may actually be 6 when it eventually does goes ahead ....soon enough I hear .

flamegrill

They just as easily go with 8Meg ADSL2+ which if they have upgraded any kit at all then they might aswell continue with the 3Meg people. That package was originally for home offices anyway, so potentially it's a business product. I know that's what we give all our engineers for when they're on-call and stuff.

Sponge Bob

They _could_ but they have enough ADSL1 Line cards bought for the Alcatel Chassis to service about 500,000 connections and they have no intention of chucking them out .

(all aggregate figures are eircom wholesale including resold Bitstream)

They only have enough ADSL2+ Line cards to do at most 200,000 connections and have bugger all money to buy any more this year .

350,000 of their customers only have a 1mbit connection so the ADSL1 gear has plenty of life left in it

They need to shoehorn the 3 Meggers onto those ADSL1 cards somehow .