Eircom exchange - lagged out 6 - 11pm - AGAIN!

Matt Simis

Hi,


I had this exact problem when I lived in Tyrrelstown (Dublin 15).

When DSL became available everyone got it. At first ok. As estate and population expanded quality took a nosedive. I could run a constant ping and as everyone got back from work (or weekends) pings would spike from 50ms to 300ms (at the time). I rang Eircom Support about 30 times over 4mths. I explained how it wasnt my router, PC, a virus etc everytime. Each call they wanted to do the scriptsheet troubleshooting. They would escalate the issue to the engineers who would do a speed/latency test during their working hours which was useless as the problem was after 6.

Eventually we got it sorted as several of us banded together and got the Eircom Broadband Manager's Secretaries email address. They confirmed fairly quickly that an exchange component wasnt working correctly/overloaded by local demand. They even gave us refunds for the months of crappy service. I canceled the connection anyway.

Ive now moved out to near Trim (Meath). We only recently have the opportunity (like everyone here) to get DSL.. And low and behold the same stupid damn Eircom exchange problem after 6pm:

Welcome to the eircom broadband Speed Test Site
Result: 1429kbps

Home Professional 7.6Mb
Maximum product speeds: Download 7,782kbps

tracert www.eircom.net
Tracing route to home.eircom.net [159.134.198.138]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 25 ms 24 ms 24 ms b-ras1.mgr.mullingar.eircom.net [159.134.155.13]
3 136 ms 132 ms 138 ms pos11-0.coreb.cra.dublin.eircom.net [86.43.243.218]
4 135 ms 131 ms 124 ms 159.134.125.15
5 154 ms 150 ms 152 ms 159.134.198.138
Trace complete.

Would seem to imply the problem is the Mullingar <-> Dublin exchange link.

Pinging www.jolt.co.uk [84.234.17.86] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 84.234.17.86: bytes=32 time=221ms TTL=123
Reply from 84.234.17.86: bytes=32 time=207ms TTL=123
Reply from 84.234.17.86: bytes=32 time=201ms TTL=123
Reply from 84.234.17.86: bytes=32 time=206ms TTL=123

Ping statistics for 84.234.17.86:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 201ms, Maximum = 221ms, Average = 208ms

If I ping during the day I get around 35ms Avg. After 6pm its 200 - 350ms. This type of performance is not even "competitive" with Ice Broadband (Wireless) which we also have, during the wind (which is nearly always).


Ive rang Eircom BB support. Ive explained I did this all already and Im not going through their BS again. They still insist on the scripted tests. He confirmed there is a problem but cannot do anything other than bounce it up the chain to the mysterious engineers.

Last time round this didnt work as the "Engineers" were not motivated to work outside their core hours (I was actually told as such). From the discussion today, I was told again they have no procedure to deal with this recurring problem, as last time Im allegedly the "only customer" with the problem. Ill have to wait to the end of the week for a status update.

Does anyone by any chance have the Email of someone "in charge" at Eircom DSL that can actually help here? It was so long ago I no longer have it but I would rather drive to (into?) the Eircom Exchange than sit through another 4mths of this back and forth scripted nonsense.

V6DEC

I'm with eircom and it seems perfectly fine for me (connecting from the North-East).

C:\>tracert www.eircom.net
Tracing route to home.eircom.net [159.134.198.138]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 32 ms * 32 ms b-ras2.srl.dublin.eircom.net [159.134.155.7]
3 33 ms 26 ms 25 ms ge8-0-0.coreb.cra.dublin.eircom.net [86.43.243.241]
4 32 ms 26 ms 26 ms 159.134.125.15
5 37 ms 29 ms 25 ms 159.134.198.138
Trace complete.


C:\>ping www.jolt.co.uk
Pinging www.jolt.co.uk [84.234.17.86] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 84.234.17.86: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=123
Reply from 84.234.17.86: bytes=32 time=47ms TTL=123
Reply from 84.234.17.86: bytes=32 time=47ms TTL=123
Reply from 84.234.17.86: bytes=32 time=48ms TTL=123

Matt Simis

V6DEC wrote: »

I'm with eircom and it seems perfectly fine for me (connecting from the North-East)

Yeah, you arent going through any of the same exchanges/servers, its meant to be like that. Pray no new housing estate opens up near you or you can kiss that goodbye!

Right now at 12.05am (ie off peak residentil use) I can ping 37ms average to Jolt and 26ms to Eircoms Dublin Route (pos11-0.coreb.cra.dublin.eircom.net) down from 132ms earlier. Nothing changed on my end, there is no troubleshooting or end user magic fix. Eircom just need to get their $hit together but they have no reliable facility to inform them of the problem.

Sponge Bob

But MATT ??!!!??

The great communications guru Noel Dempsey lives in Trim and would sort this out for ye in a day if ye would but ask !

Matt Simis

After I started this thread back in March it went good again for a few months, now again (past 3 weeks) we get this after 6pm:

Pinging www.jolt.co.uk [84.234.17.86] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 84.234.17.86: bytes=32 time=417ms TTL=123
Reply from 84.234.17.86: bytes=32 time=410ms TTL=123
Reply from 84.234.17.86: bytes=32 time=409ms TTL=123
Reply from 84.234.17.86: bytes=32 time=420ms TTL=123

Tracing route to www.boards.ie [89.234.66.107]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     3 ms     5 ms     1 ms  DD-WRT [192.168.1.1]
  2     4 ms     2 ms     1 ms  192.168.1.254
  3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  4   300 ms   291 ms   280 ms  86.43.245.78
  5   272 ms   271 ms   272 ms  86.43.244.153
  6   319 ms   317 ms   315 ms  to-inex-dub-deg-gw.digiweb.ie [193.242.111.20]
  7   319 ms   324 ms   336 ms  ip-89-234-66-107.dedi.digiweb.ie [89.234.66.107]

Pinging Eircom.net itself is fast (28ms) and download speeds are largely unaffected which mean Eircom's biddies will be useless as they hide behind download speed and are unaware of latency. Online gaming, VOIP are impossible (worse than 56k) and even web browsing is tiresome now. Pinging Jolt during the daytime is about 40ms.

What Im confused about however is I found one (out of many I tried) UK site thats pinging ok (Multiplay.co.uk) at about 38ms. I just cant understand it.. some sort of routing problem within Eircom (maybe Exchange specific)?

Sponge Bob

Looks like routing is congested . maybe they are dodging DDOS issues again ??

I would look at where the DNS attacks are coming from and announce a dreadfully congested route in ....were I them

Xcellor

I have the EXACT same problem with U.TV. My service was perfect up until 7 weeks ago when I believe the exchange that I am on reached a point at which a bottleneck occured. Broadband was only enabled in January and I think a lot of people are now subscribed to it.

Even though UTV have escalated the issue to Eircom, Eircom are saying there isn't a problem. It's always the same. Through the day the speeds are good and ping is fine as well. As soon as it hits 5-6 the ping spikes to 100ms then give it 30 minutes and it will be 400-500 and it will stay that until 12 some nights.

I've escalated the issue to Comreg. Phone Eircom and lodge an official complaint. Notify comreg, they have 10 days to resolve it before Comreg intervenes.

The more people complaining of the same issue the more likely they will figure out that it is a real problem instead of coming back with useless "unplug router" "check connections" responses.

Regards,
X

Sponge Bob

Sometimes moving to a business package sorts you while eircom sorts the exchange. If you are not in a bundle you can change package after 6 months !

TheDeficit

yep same problem here
strange thing is some evenings its fine, like once every 2 weeks or so but the vast majority of the time speeds and pings suffer after 5 or 6pm til midnight or later. i've called eircom, they took my number and said i'd receive a call within 5 days after an engineer visited the exchange, i never received that call and so i suspect that engineer never bothered to do anything. i'm going to have to call them again but it's beyond a frustrating experience, especially when they'll tell you anything to get you off the line.

Xcellor

U.TV have just been onto me and advised me Eircom has said there is no fault and it is contention. Contention means that my connection goes from 7.6 to 0.5mbs per sec and pings exceed 500ms and I get packet loss.

This ping is WORSE than 3G connection. Hell its worse than dialup! It's ridiculous. To wait over 7 weeks to be told this is infuriating...

Can anyone who has issues like this please lodge a formal complaint. I don't believe it to be a UTV issue but rather Eircom are saturating exchanges to maximize profits while not carrying out necessary upgrades.

I have a complaint with comreg concerning it, I am not willing to accept that with a near perfect line, the lowest contended internet product on the market (12:1), I still get ths sh*t excuse for broadband.

Argh.

X

Xcellor

TheDeficit wrote: »

yep same problem here
strange thing is some evenings its fine, like once every 2 weeks or so but the vast majority of the time speeds and pings suffer after 5 or 6pm til midnight or later..

I had the same experience a week ago for two days it seemed to be fixed. THe pings were normal and download was consistent even through the evening. By Sunday the issue had re-emerged!

bernardo mac

Eircom broadband on Internet Explorer is a cursed, tedious and enraging experience! Damn and Blast!

TheDeficit

what i'd like to know is can eircom get away with using the good ol "speeds up to" line to excuse dropping 7mb to half a meg or less and crazy pings. In other words, do we even have a right to complain?

Hank Scorpio

TheDeficit wrote: »

what i'd like to know is can eircom get away with using the good ol "speeds up to" line to excuse dropping 7mb to half a meg or less and crazy pings. In other words, do we even have a right to complain?

Nope, there service is rape adaptive, meaning the furthur away you are from the exchange the slower speed you`ll be able to connect at. In my situation i could recieve 12MB broadband but someone a few miles away may only be able to recieve 1MB at the most.

Alot also depends on the quality of the line, where the SNR Margin and Line attenation are probably most important.

In ADSL2 technology, the data rate and reach and increased, sadly this technology isnt available on every exchange.

jor el

nuxxx wrote: »

there service is rape adaptive

Typo of the year, right there. Someone is raping the bandwidth alright, but it ain't adapting too well.

Matt Simis

If its a routing problem internal to EIrcoms network, chaning the gateway may help. However when I manually specify the gateway on the Netopia it doesnt change the one its using (auto assigned by Eircom) 159.134.155.13

Ive also rang Eircom and switched from the Home Professional 7.6Mb package to the Business Starter 7.6Mb package. The Business package has no Cap and potentially lower contention/different routing and costs exactly the same. There is no benefit at all to having the Home Pro over the Business package as far as I can see.
They say the change wont be active until tomorrow.

Sponge Bob

Tell me if it makes a difference Matt ....I suspect it will

Matt Simis

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Tell me if it makes a difference Matt ....I suspect it will

Well its 5:06 now and its 198ms to Jolt.co.uk, it was 40ms at 4:25 and has been rising since. So either the Business package offers nothing extra or hey didnt change it for me. Pinging Eircom.net continues to get low pings of 26ms.

Also, again, is it simply not possible to override Eircoms default "IP Gateway"?
The gateway they provide (159.134.155.13) pings fine (25ms) though is sometimes pings a full 10ms slower than the other Eircom gateway IPs Ive pinged. But no matter what I set it to, it always just uses the Eircom default.

Edit: It eventually ended up at 400ms to Jolt and most other sites, same as everyday... They have basically brought the country's Internet connectivity to worse than dialup levels, held to ransom by one company, its a travesty.

Xcellor

Matt Simis wrote: »

Well its 5:06 now and its 198ms to Jolt.co.uk, it was 40ms at 4:25 and has been rising since. So either the Business package offers nothing extra or hey didnt change it for me. Pinging Eircom.net continues to get low pings of 26ms.

Also, again, is it simply not possible to override Eircoms default "IP Gateway"?
The gateway they provide (159.134.155.13) pings fine (25ms) though is sometimes pings a full 10ms slower than the other Eircom gateway IPs Ive pinged. But no matter what I set it to, it always just uses the Eircom default.

Same problem, hit 5 ish and the pings. I'm with u.tv but the same problem seems to be plaguing s both


PING www.boards.ie (89.234.66.107): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=0 ttl=59 time=201.7 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=1 ttl=59 time=209.3 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=2 ttl=59 time=208.2 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=3 ttl=59 time=214.3 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=4 ttl=59 time=210.3 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=5 ttl=59 time=214.1 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=6 ttl=59 time=220.7 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=7 ttl=59 time=224.8 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=8 ttl=59 time=245.3 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=9 ttl=59 time=230.3 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=10 ttl=59 time=216.5 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=11 ttl=59 time=201.0 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=12 ttl=59 time=181.3 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=13 ttl=59 time=176.9 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=14 ttl=59 time=164.5 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=15 ttl=59 time=158.4 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=16 ttl=59 time=159.3 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=17 ttl=59 time=167.4 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=18 ttl=59 time=197.4 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=19 ttl=59 time=183.7 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=20 ttl=59 time=204.7 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=21 ttl=59 time=190.1 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=22 ttl=59 time=190.7 ms

--- www.boards.ie ping statistics ---
23 packets transmitted, 23 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 158.4/198.7/245.3 ms

Sponge Bob

Matt, Jeez , sorry to hear that . It did work for others I know as in an improvement over the residential package.

PogMoThoin

I'm on business with the same issue. In fact, being on business has always meant that I never felt any contention at all in the evenings up until these problems. I've usually gotten the full speed my line is capable of (6.5Mbit).

My pings had settled shortly after 10.30 last night

tribulus

I have this problem too. Connection went down late on Wednesday night, not a peep since then, even during the day.

When I diagnose the problem it says it can't ping the host DNS (I'm using openDNS) then gives openDNS' IP address. ?

Hank Scorpio

Had this problem for months, used to ring every single day, gl OP Eircom are a joke

Grommet

All - as I mentioned on a couple of other posts a few days ago, I know that eircom are having congestion on their Aggregation node in Mullingar that is likely to be the cause of the grief for some of ye. I also know that they are planning an upgrade on that link in a couple of days - so I am pretty certain you will see a big improvement by mid week or so.
I know they have similar (though not as bad) issues off their Portlaoise and Waterford aggregation points and those should also be fixed within a few weeks.

Grommet

tribulus wrote: »

I have this problem too. Connection went down late on Wednesday night, not a peep since then, even during the day.

When I diagnose the problem it says it can't ping the host DNS (I'm using openDNS) then gives openDNS' IP address. ?

What exchange are you on? This sounds like a specific issue that is unrelated to all of the other posts about slow speeds and high ping times. You should definitely ring support about that one.

tribulus

Grommet wrote: »

What exchange are you on? This sounds like a specific issue that is unrelated to all of the other posts about slow speeds and high ping times. You should definitely ring support about that one.

Sutton - which was being upgraded on the 18th but mine went down before that. It's now been five days and I still have nothing, I called support three time, they went through all the usual stuff and eventually on the third call they didn't try to fob me off because I don't use a netopia router and agreed to send someone out.

Still though, five days without absolutely no connection, such a joke.

Zimmerframe

Yeo it's a joke, every evening without fail, the ping times get up to 900ms on speedtest.net, but the eircom pings are less than 30ms. My local exchange was only broadband enabled in July, and two months later the service is unusable in the evening. :mad:


Ping ....eircom.net
64 bytes from 159.134.198.138: icmp_seq=0 ttl=60 time=29.256 ms
64 bytes from 159.134.198.138: icmp_seq=1 ttl=60 time=30.243 ms
64 bytes from 159.134.198.138: icmp_seq=2 ttl=60 time=28.223 ms
64 bytes from 159.134.198.138: icmp_seq=3 ttl=60 time=29.551 ms
64 bytes from 159.134.198.138: icmp_seq=4 ttl=60 time=30.110 ms
64 bytes from 159.134.198.138: icmp_seq=5 ttl=60 time=29.506 ms

Ping ...boards.ie
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=0 ttl=59 time=432.161 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=1 ttl=59 time=441.211 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=2 ttl=59 time=473.811 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=3 ttl=59 time=477.654 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=4 ttl=59 time=442.804 ms
64 bytes from 89.234.66.107: icmp_seq=5 ttl=59 time=446.807 ms

ping ...google.ie
64 bytes from 66.102.9.147: icmp_seq=1 ttl=248 time=427.277 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.9.147: icmp_seq=2 ttl=248 time=451.635 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.9.147: icmp_seq=3 ttl=248 time=477.406 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.9.147: icmp_seq=4 ttl=248 time=459.814 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.9.147: icmp_seq=5 ttl=248 time=398.782 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.9.147: icmp_seq=6 ttl=248 time=430.625 ms

thefinalstage

Matt Simis wrote: »

I rang Eircom Support about 30 times over 4mths.


Ive rang Eircom BB support. Ive explained I did this all already and Im not going through their BS again. They still insist on the scripted tests. He confirmed there is a problem but cannot do anything other than bounce it up the chain to the mysterious engineers.

Last time round this didnt work as the "Engineers" were not motivated to work outside their core hours (I was actually told as such). From the discussion today, I was told again they have no procedure to deal with this recurring problem, as last time Im allegedly the "only customer" with the problem. Ill have to wait to the end of the week for a status update.

For slow speeds such as this every person including the person on the other end of the phone knows its an overloaded exchange the second you mention between six and midnight or at weekends. If the setup is the same and you were getting full speeds during the day it makes no sense for it to be anything else since the connection itself is the only variable. One problem with your bashing though of the support. They cannot say anything about an exchange being overloaded to the customer. Its actually something that an agent can get displinary action against them for. Having gone through the mill in there I know all too well.

tribulus wrote: »

Sutton - which was being upgraded on the 18th but mine went down before that. It's now been five days and I still have nothing, I called support three time, they went through all the usual stuff and eventually on the third call they didn't try to fob me off because I don't use a netopia router and agreed to send someone out.

Still though, five days without absolutely no connection, such a joke.

How many days after the connection went down did you call? Were the 3 calls on the same day?


By the way, go into the router info page, 192.168.1.254 with the cable connected not over the wireless and do some pings from there. Then disable the firewall and wireless, unplug your computer from the modem and ping your modem from another connection (one thats ok in the evening). Write all the results down. You eliminated your equipment as a cause using these tests. If you do that and the pings are still high say it to tech support because they cannot fob you off then. If they do, speak to a manager.

Matt Simis

thelastangryman wrote: »

One problem with your bashing though of the support. They cannot say anything about an exchange being overloaded to the customer. Its actually something that an agent can get displinary action against them for. Having gone through the mill in there I know all too well.

That may be true, but thats not my problem with their support agent, its their problem with their support procedures and entire platform now isnt it?

The last time round I was told by a more senior agent the problem was the exchange and he explained there was no point in ringing again to be put through the troubleshooting 101 exercise again. I was able to get the contact details of someone more senior and myself and others sorted it that way.

koneko

So, little update.
The line went down yesterday morning. Down all day. Still down. Eircom, very helpfully, say there's a line fault and they'll send someone out... next week. No phone or anything in the meantime. Real nice.

thefinalstage

Matt Simis wrote: »

That may be true, but thats not my problem with their support agent, its their problem with their support procedures and entire platform now isnt it?

The last time round I was told by a more senior agent the problem was the exchange and he explained there was no point in ringing again to be put through the troubleshooting 101 exercise again. I was able to get the contact details of someone more senior and myself and others sorted it that way.

Its amazing how some people treat others. Oh well, consider why you were put through 101 so often.

Remember, if you annoy the guy on the other end of the phone they will go exactly by the bok and nothing more.