Exchange enabled, phoneline not capable

seregrail7

My local exchange is enabled for broadband, and my neighbour who is further from the exchange than I am can get broadband. So as far as I can tell the line going into my house isn't capable of carrying a broadband signal, so is there anything I can do about this? Who should I be contacting? I can't find anything useful on the Eircom website regarding this.

lucernarian

It's probably a carrier line problem. How fast is your dialup connection, at best?

Are you sure your neighbour and yourself are both on the same exchange? If you're a good distance from the exchange, the neighbour could be in a different exchange area.

Have a look at this post: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=61491382&postcount=3

seregrail7

We are on the same exchange, I checked on the BT 24MB test site. I used to connect to dial-up at 56.6KB/s back when I used dial-up.

I've sent an e-mail to some Broadband Questions link Eircom had on their site explaining the situation, I'll let you all know what they say to me.

Tim M-U

put your phonenumber in here: http://www.btireland.ie/cgi-bin/exchange_check24Main to find what exchange your on, then put your neighbours phone number in after pressing the back button on your browser. if yer on the same exchange, well you should be able to receive broadband, however, some lines may be very very poor quality which may be why you cant be broadband.

our exchange was upgradded in june, and took eircom a few days to update the map on broadbandatoz.ie.

theres not much I can help you with, with that information. check it on the bt ireland website if you can get it: http://www.btireland.ie/cgi-bin/exchange_check24Main .

lucernarian

The OP already linked to that site! So the neighbour is definitely on the same exchange and it's already enabled for DSL.

I've never heard of a poor quality line that could connect at 56600 bps. I've only seen 53300 once or twice between 1999 and 2006. Either that's a more modern pairgain which can deal with V.90 or else the computer's reporting the wrong speed.

seregrail, does it *always* connect at 56.6 kbps or did it ever fluctuate by any amount at all?

seregrail7

It used to fluctuate, but 90% of the time it was connecting at 56.6.

Just to add, the phone line has probably been here since the 70s when the house was built, hasn't been changed since we moved in here 22 years ago for definite.

lucernarian

Have there been any houses built within 200 metres of you in the last 5 or 6 years?

bijou

seregrail7 wrote: »

My local exchange is enabled for broadband, and my neighbour who is further from the exchange than I am can get broadband. So as far as I can tell the line going into my house isn't capable of carrying a broadband signal, so is there anything I can do about this? Who should I be contacting? I can't find anything useful on the Eircom website regarding this.

Hiya,

I'm in the same boat as you. I've been having infinate conversations with engineers/eircom sales etc etc to get broadband all to no avail.
I did go to the broadbandatoz website and posted a question there (didn't expect a response to be honest but thought I'd try anyway:rolleyes:)

Well...... a couple of days later I gets this reply:::

Dear xxxxxxxxxx,

Thank you for your enquiry to www.broadbandAtoZ.ie.

Your telephone service is provided on a carrier telephone line which has
prevented you from accessing broadband services to date.

A carrier line is where more than one customer is served on the same
line. This prevents each of these customers accessing broadband, but
does not affect the quality of their voice calls.

It is possible in some cases for us to replace carrier lines with a view
to supplying broadband to customers on these lines. Unfortunately, in
your case, there is no capacity for additional telephone lines on the
local network and therefore it is not possible to remove the carrier at
this time.

We will however monitor the capacity in the exchange in the coming weeks
and should this position change we will update you.

You might consider a satellite broadband service which does provide
universal coverage but which tends to be more expensive than other
solutions. eircom is exploring new satellite options that may be more
cost effective, and we hope to make progress on this issue in the coming
months. You can contact our satellite customer team directly at
fwapacketandsatellite@eircom.ie or freephone 1800 503 303 if you would
like to pursue this option.

Kind regards,

The BroadbandAtoZ Team


Well, I still live in hope as the only option I have at the moment is one of the mobile "broadband" which isn't bad but I would like to have something a bit more stable.

I'm going to contact them about the satellite option just to see what silly money they're talking about .

bijou

seregrail7

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Have there been any houses built within 200 metres of you in the last 5 or 6 years?

Yes, one was built across the road about 2 years ago.

I just went outside and had a look at the phone lines and there's a separate line going into my house and my neighbours, they're both detached bungalows.

Here's a crude diagram(the two vertical bits are the separate lines)

|-------------------------------|
|                               |
|                               |
[  neighbour ] [   me           ]

So I assume it's not a carrier line in that case? Or is that not how they work?

lucernarian

You could... write a letter of complaint to eircom, saying that you had a pairgain installed on your line without your consent or permission, in contravention to undertakings eircom have given to ComReg. Also mention that you have been waiting to order DSL for a number of years and this is something you cannot afford to continue waiting for, that you need it for work etc. Finally, tell them that you want the pairgain removed immediately or else ComReg shall be contacted.

One other thing, can you remember what the dialup was like before the neighbours came along, and are you in an area where you fall into the National Broadband Scheme?

seregrail7

I never noticed any difference, and I'm not in an NBS area unfortunately.

However I'll be sure to write a letter and mention what you told me to. You're being very helpful, thanks.

lucernarian

Well it's not guaranteed that you're actually on a pairgain. You'd need to follow the wire that goes from your house and see where it goes to/what boxes it ends up in. Then report back with the results.

seregrail7

Ok, first the line from my house goes to here:



Then that goes on to here:

TouchingVirus

I wonder about that white box there in your second picture....

ttm

TouchingVirus wrote: »

I wonder about that white box there in your second picture....

Your not the only one, I too can only guess, I do hope someone can say for sure?

Redshift

The white box or grey box in the 2nd picture is a pairgain.

lucernarian

That whitish box is indeed a pairgain, looks like the newer style pairgain. They can also be coloured grey. The older ones I refer to are more common and look rather "80s-ish" and always a creamy colour.

Anyway, not *all* the lines in the photo go to the pairgain. But I highly doubt that you're failing the test for another reason.

So yeah, write to eircom if you wish. You might have more joy with asking the local eircom techies for a favour, but if they installed the pairgain without your consent then I'd doubt they'd give as much of a damn as they often do. It's the way that works for people I know in the south louth area, before most of the pairgains were removed in upgrade works.

Good luck anyway!

Edit: Did not see redshift's post, me being a rather slow poster.:D

TouchingVirus

Pairgains are illegal, no?

Firetrap

Don't think so. As far as I know, all Eircom needs to do at its end is to supply a phone line that's suitable for voice calls. A pairgain is adequate for that.

seregrail7

According to here they are.

lucernarian

Pargains, in and of themselves, are not banned. But the new installation of them is pretty much banned. They can now only be installed on existing lines when it's economically unfeasible to provide a a free pair. I also thought eircom had to ask for permission off neighbours now when doing so, and had to ask the new customer if it was okay to have such a line installed.

It wouldn't take a lot of searching on the IrelandOffline forum to see just how often the 2002 "rule" was broken since.

kaizersoze

They're covered by the wording regulation/ruling/agreement/whatever....

'Use of pairgains will be avoided where possible'

seregrail7

Well it took Eircom about 2 and a half weeks to get back to me, and the response was as expected saying that there is no capacity to remove the pair gain and blah blah blah.

So I e-mailed ComReg and just got a response saying that Eircom are under no obligation to remove the pair gain and there's nothing they can do about it. I'll get in touch with a local politician and see if they can help.

lucernarian

Did you point out to comreg that it was installed without your consent and after their 2001/2002 moratorium on the use of pairgains where possible??

Also, do you want to try the new line install trick, as in order a new line with broadband in a bundle, and transfer your phone number over if it works? I should point out that if they can't install the line without the pairgain then you can cancel the line install without any cost, as you explictly ordered it with a broadband package.

Only problem is that it costs €121 to do that. (this includes 2 months line rental on the new line I think)

seregrail7

After all that nonsense of Eircom and ComReg not really giving a damn, I got in touch with 2 local TDs asking them to contact Eircom on my behalf about the problem and... they got fobbed off with the same "no additional capacity" excuse that I did and sent me a letter telling me about the wonders of Three, who's service I used to use but left because it was so completely awful.

This is ridiculous, Eircom are such a bloody useless company.

Is there anyway I can prove there is additional capacity on the exchange? Surely if I request a new line and they install it without a pair gain I can just say to ComReg "Hey look, there was additional capacity all along! They just lied about it so they didn't have to work."?

Sponge Bob

I see you were silly enough to contact a Fianna Fáil TD Was it John the porker with his face in the trough by any chance ??

Did you try to order a completely new line ( free install) and cease the old one ?? Not a problem unless you want to keep your number.

See the PSTN standard connection promotion ( NOT for business lines , please note)

http://www.eircom.ie/About/Activities/internet_special_offer.pdf

If the cost of provisioning service exceeds €7,000, the applicant will be required to meet the costs above that threshold in order for the service to be provided.

1. The offer applies to Residential Standard PSTN Connection and Residential Standard PSTN Removal Orders received during the promotional
period.

A maximum of one order per account may avail of the promotional offer.

(where connectable linework is not fully insitu or pending available and
manual technician intervention is required)
where connectable linework is not fully insitu or pending available and
manual technician intervention is required)

eircom Residential PSTN Standard Connection Promotion
Promotional Period : 18th September 2009 to 26th March 2010 (inclusive)

seregrail7

Sponge Bob wrote: »

I see you were silly enough to contact a Fianna Fáil TD

Contacted a Fine Gael one as well and haven't heard anything back from him aside from he's looking into it, perhaps he's not taking no for an answer? I'll leave any further actions until he gets back to me, but more suggestions are welcome so I can get cracking as soon as he fails.

seregrail7

And now all the sites are telling me that my line is suitable for Broadband, so they must have done something about it. I'll try ordering and let you all know how it goes.

Sponge Bob

Did you order a new line ??

seregrail7

No, haven't done anything since being told they wouldn't be removing the pair gain unless there was a change on my network in the next few weeks. Just decided to check if my line was now capable and it was on both Vodafone and Eircom's websites. Going to order a package tomorrow, hope it's not just an error.