Broadband in Drogheda Dublin Rd area.

ssmith6287

In woodford, front of wheaton hall and ive a great connection

ingen

over the last 24 hours my dsl went down and line degraded in quality, and i called eircom support, who put me back down from 5mb to 4mb dsl speed, as my SN margin was very low at 5mb.

my line seems to have degraded over the last 24 hours .... low SN margin...

in Drogheda, for real decent reliable broadband on the dublin road area, appears to be a monopoly!!

cant even get a decent speed dsl connection......:mad: ie above 4mb. im paying them €65 a month for NGB Advanced 250gb download, and line rental.

eircom are a joke!

KoKane

bah
Thats ****.

Did they tell you it cant ever change?


Next generation technology.... bam, enjoy your reduced speeds sir thank you please come again. Keep paying us.

ingen

KoKane wrote: »

bah
Thats ****.

Did they tell you it cant ever change?


Next generation technology.... bam, enjoy your reduced speeds sir thank you please come again. Keep paying us.

nothing will change in the near term, i gather 1-3 years.

i think i will switch back to mobile broadband and save a packet.

I made eircoms major shareholder aware too, of the issues, and they dont seem to give a F**ck either.
so basically where stuck in a broadband black hole!!

KoKane

Well this is a turn of events for me.

I rang today again.. I explained quicky that I had 3mb for 7 years or so. Now with NGB I got nerfed to 2mb... please put it back up.


"yeh no bother I'll stick that back up to 3mb for you"

Some chap named barry.

Last time (not to be racist or anything) I got a person who... didnt have great english. When I think about it, he was repeating something he was reading infront of him I'd say. Not even knowing he could 'break protocol' or something and just put me back up to 3mb... I dunno.

ingen

what alternatives for broadband do we have apart from DSL broadband from eircom or vodafone?


digiweb metro is out as there is no line of sight to dublin road area.


so are we stuck with either vodafone or eircom?

( i purposely didnt mention wimax )

ingen

folks i have a thread open here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056068303



with eircom, please feel free to post there too,

szines

I ordered Imagine Wimax two weeks ago. (Dublin Road, Woodford corner). It's fantastic. I ordered 7 megabit, usually I get 8-10 megabit. Allways perfect, don't slower in rain or peek time.

Great service!

ingen

szines wrote: »

I ordered Imagine Wimax two weeks ago. (Dublin Road, Woodford corner). It's fantastic. I ordered 7 megabit, usually I get 8-10 megabit. Allways perfect, don't slower in rain or peek time.

Great service!

have you got the outside antenna? is the connection reliable during peak hours? how long do you have it?

szines

ingen wrote: »

have you got the outside antenna? is the connection reliable during peak hours? how long do you have it?

I walked around with modem in the flat as a voodoo sorcerer, and I tried in every windows, every corner. I found a place, top corner of one window, where I get 4 bar strong signal. I have fixed the modem there with sticky tape. After that I called support to set up the maximum speed and it is working now... finger cross...

ssmith6287

Where is the wimax ariel? like which direction do you point the antenna

martin_g

Guys

Does anyone else have this problem? I live in the Bryanstown Manor area in Drogheda, am with Eircom and can only get 4.3 mbps on Next Generation Broadband out of a possible 8, have been on to Eircom (No help what so ever) They have told me my line can only support 5 mbps broadband, unable to get wireless broadband as Townhouses (3 Storey Apartments) block out the signal :mad: Really fed up broadband useless.

ingen

martin_g wrote: »

Guys

Does anyone else have this problem? I live in the Bryanstown Manor area in Drogheda, am with Eircom and can only get 4.3 mbps on Next Generation Broadband out of a possible 8, have been on to Eircom (No help what so ever) They have told me my line can only support 5 mbps broadband, unable to get wireless broadband as Townhouses (3 Storey Apartments) block out the signal :mad: Really fed up broadband useless.

hi there, no eircom dont seem interested, the issue is the length of the phonelines, being too long and connected to an exchange that is too far away to get a proper speed.:mad::mad: eircom are expensive for DSL,


what is the cheapest DSL provider in Drogheda for DSL? say with an 80-100gb cap? someone asked me today, and all i can think of is eircom/vodafone.......which i wont recommend...

Darksaga87

Can anyone get digiweb metro in wheaton hall?

I had it in glenmore drive and I miss it.

Super service. Stuck with eircom now. :mad:

ingen

Darksaga87 wrote: »

Can anyone get digiweb metro in wheaton hall?

I had it in glenmore drive and I miss it.

Super service. Stuck with eircom now. :mad:

i know some people with digiweb metro in wheaton hall...its very nice and fast, compared to my eircom. ( soon to be gone)....


what part of wheaton hall are you in..

i am always puzzled as to why digiweb dont increase their availablity in the Drogheda area, if they had a second high site, they would get a lot more business... espically around the dublin rd area.





here are my DSL stats now


pretty s*ite really :mad:
Connected
DSL Mode: ADSL_G.dmt
Speed: 4096 kbps /384 kbps
Line Attenuation (Down/Up): 58 dB /31 dB
DSL Noise Margin: 9 dB /21 dB:mad:

martin_g

Does anyone Know if Wimax are any good? Thinking of getting, have heard excellent reviews, but am worried what way it would affect my Eircom Phone Watch Alarm System.

szines

martin_g wrote: »

Does anyone Know if Wimax are any good? Thinking of getting, have heard excellent reviews, but am worried what way it would affect my Eircom Phone Watch Alarm System.

Forget it. I wrote, how great was WiMax, but until 2 days. I don't understand. I have got almost 10 megabits for couple of days, but now I am happy if I can reach 1 megabit. But usually nothing... My modem shows 4-5 signal strength...

I called many times the tech support, and they are promising to fix it... but always so bad this service... I think, I change my connection to Eircom Next Generation Broadband...

szines

ssmith6287 wrote: »

Where is the wimax ariel? like which direction do you point the antenna

Unfortunately, I changed my mind, because the Wimax worst than ever... I have 4-5 signal, but the speed always so slow 0,5 and 1 megabit instead of 7...

I don't recommend this service... I am disappointed.

martin_g

szines wrote: »

Unfortunately, I changed my mind, because the Wimax worst than ever... I have 4-5 signal, but the speed always so slow 0,5 and 1 megabit instead of 7...

I don't recommend this service... I am disappointed.

Szines did you get sorted with Wimax?

szines

martin_g wrote: »

Szines did you get sorted with Wimax?

I call them every evening... but not better...

martin_g

szines wrote: »

I call them every evening... but not better...

Ok was just wondering am thinking strongly of getting wimax but just not sure, Eircom are brutal am living in Bryanstown Manor and can only get 4mb with Eircom. Have you tried digi web?

szines

martin_g wrote: »

Ok was just wondering am thinking strongly of getting wimax but just not sure, Eircom are brutal am living in Bryanstown Manor and can only get 4mb with Eircom. Have you tried digi web?

Eircom, Digiweb, Magnet use same ADSL line, simple wire. If Eircom can not provide good connection, than other company would be same problem. Nowdays, only one technology is reliable: cable. UPC cable connection would be the best. I used it in Dublin, it was perfect. I had cable internet in Hungary and I get always 100 (hundred) megabit for 40 euro.

lucernarian

szines wrote: »

Eircom, Digiweb, Magnet use same ADSL line, simple wire. If Eircom can not provide good connection, than other company would be same problem. Nowdays, only one technology is reliable: cable. UPC cable connection would be the best. I used it in Dublin, it was perfect. I had cable internet in Hungary and I get always 100 (hundred) megabit for 40 euro.

Digiweb's Metro service is wireless and is very good according to most reports on boards about them.

ingen

due to all the tall trees along the dublin road area, a lot of houses cannot get metro, due to digiwebs base station being on the lourdes hospital, and on lower ground than the dublin road area.. no proper LOS, and also digiweb use 10ghz range which is more problematic with say small amounts of foliage, than say 5.8ghz frequency.

so we are stuck with poxy dsl speeds of 2-4mb max as eircom wont bother their arse and connect us to the closest exchange.:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

and we can see from this thread, of what other users experiences of wimax are!!

so we are stuck.......

hargo

Supposed to be 3mb with Vodafone.
Yes yes
Very unstable
Stameen

Status: Connected

Modulation Type: ADSL2
Upstream Downstream
CurrRate(kbps) 379 3072
Max Rate(kbps) 748 3628
Noise Margin(dB) 19.5 5.3
Attenuation(dB) 63.0 34.2
Power(dBm) 13.0 0.0

fitzyp

1. Vodafone (Up to 8MB)
2. Probably
3. Stable
4. Wheaton Hall

Hi all,
Came across this posting while wondering why I couldn't get more than 2mb when I am supposed to have been recently upgraded to "up to 8mb."
I have a small bit of technical know how in this area but it took this forum to realise where my exchange was and thanks to all for your postings, in particular Ingen.

Would anyone be interested in looking into what options, as a community, we may have? For instance, how feasible would it be, both technically and economically, for say Digiweb to put some form of repeater on the southside of the town and give a much better coverage? Does anyone know if Drogheda has a MAN (I have a feeling it has) if so, could we connect to it? If we could, how would we do it?

In my opinion, the only way we can convince any of the main players (i.e. Eircom, Vodafone, Wimax etc) to stop taking their customers for granted and get them to improve their service is for them to see that their revenue streams are under threat.

At the very least, lets have a discussion about it!

Fitzyp

ingen

fitzyp wrote: »

1. Vodafone (Up to 8MB)
2. Probably
3. Stable
4. Wheaton Hall

Hi all,
Came across this posting while wondering why I couldn't get more than 2mb when I am supposed to have been recently upgraded to "up to 8mb."
I have a small bit of technical know how in this area but it took this forum to realise where my exchange was and thanks to all for your postings, in particular Ingen.

Would anyone be interested in looking into what options, as a community, we may have? For instance, how feasible would it be, both technically and economically, for say Digiweb to put some form of repeater on the southside of the town and give a much better coverage? Does anyone know if Drogheda has a MAN (I have a feeling it has) if so, could we connect to it? If we could, how would we do it?

In my opinion, the only way we can convince any of the main players (i.e. Eircom, Vodafone, Wimax etc) to stop taking their customers for granted and get them to improve their service is for them to see that their revenue streams are under threat.

At the very least, lets have a discussion about it!

Fitzyp

eircom are well aware of the situation along the dublin road, in terms of low broadband speeds, also this is because phone lines are cabled back to patrick street, and the result is phone lines 4km+ in length , and low DSL speeds from 2mb-4mb max.

also, if you only get say 2mb on an up to 8mb package, you are paying the same amount of money that the person who gets 8mb connection, the technical limitation is on eircoms side, but they are making the customer pay for their lack of forward planning!! so why should the person who only gets a 2mb connection, pay the same as the person that gets an 8mb connection?

i have contacted eircom senior management about this, and also senior management in their major shareholder, in relation to this issue, the net result is that they do not give a f**k!

so if you are on DSL you are most likely stuck with that max speed that you currently have, for years!

i called digiweb in relation to metro, and they were of no use, a lot of the dublin road area, has no coverage to metro, as there are lots of tall trees,
and also that the hospital, where their antenna is located, is on lower ground than the dublin road area.. so metro is not available for most.
( some houses are lucky to get metro signal along the dublin rd but the number is small)



what can we do??
eircom are expensive when compared to other DSL operators, you could move away from eircom, ditch them entirely, and move to a cheaper DSL provider to save a few €€€. of late i have noticed that eircom are very fast to issue bills lately....

we could also contact local TD's about this, and also why does Grangerath
have their own exchange?? in Grangerath you can get up to 24mb broadband!! for one housing estate!!! :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: so why does one housing estate get their own exchange, ??? this new exchange ( eircom call this exchange at grangerath CLXA) is much closer to dublin road residents than the patrick street exchange.

if you were connected to this exchange you would get a much higher DSL speed!!


so spread the word, we could set up an online petition? contact eircom management en masse, ? any ideas welcome,,,

Wolfe Tone

Anyone else have perlico? Im in stameen area and my connection constantly drops.

ingen

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Anyone else have perlico? Im in stameen area and my connection constantly drops.

what are your router stats? if you are in stameen, 2mb is likely your max speed, your router is probably dropping out due to bad line quality, post your router stats here and we can see how good or bad they are... just out of interest, what are perlico charging you per month? and what download allowance do you get?

Wolfe Tone

Eh, how do I find my router stats?

I rarely get over 2mb download. I dont mind the slow speed, its the fact tha my connection drops every 40 mins or so which annoys me. Not entirely sure on the price, but I get a 32gb limit.

lucernarian

It's fairly obvious why Grange Rath has its own exchange. A large development like that which is so far away from the exchange would cost maybe hundreds of thousands of euro for the cabling alone, with the price of copper back then. Fibre is much quicker and easier to put in and having the RSU (and now a larger exchange) on site means that DSL will work very well in the estate if and when they're upgraded.

Having to re-route cables is a fairly hefty job, so existing lines wouldn't have been touched. Quite a lot of south Drogheda has already had this done in relation to the Donore Rd exchange which had various cabinets re-routed there from patrick st.

Why eircom don't install another RSU or two around the Dublin Road is another question however...

Stameen would be pushing the limits for 2 mbps, especially in an electrically noisy environment which exists all the way back to the exchange. If it keeps dropping, ask them to put you back down to 1 Mbit. Also, fixing up the house's internal phone wiring can make a big difference. Search boards for more on that. Basically, the fewer the number of joins and extensions in use, the better for broadband. Also, long lengths of flat telephone extension lead can really hamper speeds/stability.

ingen

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Eh, how do I find my router stats?

I rarely get over 2mb download. I dont mind the slow speed, its the fact tha my connection drops every 40 mins or so which annoys me. Not entirely sure on the price, but I get a 32gb limit.

try putting the following into your browser address bar and press enter


192.168.1.254


what make model router are you using?

Wolfe Tone

DSL Up 2048 kbps / 251 kbps
LAN Up 100M/FullDuplex
WLAN Active 54M

That it?

Its a zyxel one, my 2nd one. They are so crap its unreal.

ingen

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Quite a lot of south Drogheda has already had this done in relation to the Donore Rd exchange which had various cabinets re-routed there from patrick st.

the dublin road area is still connected to drogheda exchange DBC on patrick street, and not the donore rd.

lucernarian

ingen wrote: »

the dublin road area is still connected to drogheda exchange DBC on patrick street, and not the donore rd.

I didn't say "all of south Drogheda" for a reason:)

fitzyp

I was thinking along the lines of doing something ourselves. It is extremely unlikely that we will get transferred to another exchange, no matter how many people sign a petition or TDs we contact.
However, if we were to speak to the likes of Digiweb (and we should not restrict ourselves to just them) maybe they could be convinced of the financial benefit of putting another transmitter on the south of the town. I’m not familiar with the technology they use, but perhaps a more locally based transmitter would overcome the issue of trees blocking the signal?
I’m going to have a look for information on what happened to the ESB’s investigation into putting a broadband signal through the electricity supply. If it is still alive perhaps it may be a viable alternative.
There are other options open to us, I just think we need to look for them and examine their feasibility.

Fitzyp


P.S. Anyone know roughly how many potential customers are affected? Wheaton Hall has 320 houses in it, could we collate housing numbers in the other estates that are affected?

fitzyp

Had a sales call from Imagine this evening. I said to the chap that Wheaton Hall didn't have the best reputation for WiMax and he asked if the users I knew had the indoor or the ourdoor antenna? (I didn't realise they did an outdoor antenna).
He then said that they have an outdoor antenna that is installed for a one off fee of €150.
Has anyone tried the outdoor antenna as opposed to the indoor one? And if so, how was it?

Thanks

positron

fitzyp wrote: »

Had a sales call from Imagine this evening.

The sales girl who rang me from Imagine was absolutely certain that there was a vodafone/eircome employee on boards trying to tarnish Imagine WiMax by posting ridiculous things. As if they are not doing enough to ruin it themselves :rolleyes:

fitzyp

You're right, had a look at ratemyisp.ie last night and couldn't find one post that had a positive to say about Imagine / Wimax. They are to ring me back Thursday evening so I'll see what they have to say.
On the surface its a very attractive package, but bugger all use if it doesn't work! :eek:

positron

irishjig69b wrote: »

u should contact me......i can give u 8meg next generation broadband

Whoa, must be my lucky day - pm on the way..!

If you could get me consistent 4gb+ broadband without having to move home - you would be cooler than Spiderman and Superman combined..!! Seriously.!!

ingen

irishjig69b wrote: »

u should contact me......i can give u 8meg next generation broadband

i seriously doubt that.

szines

fitzyp wrote: »

Had a sales call from Imagine this evening. I said to the chap that Wheaton Hall didn't have the best reputation for WiMax and he asked if the users I knew had the indoor or the ourdoor antenna? (I didn't realise they did an outdoor antenna).
He then said that they have an outdoor antenna that is installed for a one off fee of €150.
Has anyone tried the outdoor antenna as opposed to the indoor one? And if so, how was it?

Thanks

I live by Wheaton Hall and Dublin Road corner. I get strongest signal in my window, instead of great signal is it impossible to use this Wimax internet service. I should get 7 Mb, but in peak time I have to use my mobile broadband sticky if I would like to read some news...

irishjig69b

IF U HATE EIRCOM SO MUCH WHY DONT U JUST **** OFF AND GO SOME WERE ELSE FOR UR BB SERVICE.........EIRCOM THIS,, EIRCOM THAT,, JUST **** OFF....GO 2 WIMAX,VODAFIONE,IMAGINE OR EVEN TRY PURE...U WILL FIND THE SAME SERVICE OF BB OR A LOT LESS NGB WILL BE THERE WHEN IT'S THERE....ENOUGH NOW ITS BORING.........

delly

irishjig69 banned for a week for abusive posting.

irishjig69b

i stand over what i said............the 1 person moaning here bout eircom.....alot......what service u using for ur posts????? is it eircom maybe???? would that be the same company u are moaning bout????the same company witch is providing u with a phone and bb????and u are cripping and moaning bout them????? pot and black comes to mind....:D

ingen

irishjig69b wrote: »

i stand over what i said............the 1 person moaning here bout eircom.....alot......what service u using for ur posts????? is it eircom maybe???? would that be the same company u are moaning bout????the same company witch is providing u with a phone and bb????and u are cripping and moaning bout them????? pot and black comes to mind....:D

do you work for eircom?

positron

irishjig69, in fairness, thank you for trying to help me with a better connection. Unfortunately it didn't work out as your contact confirmed to me (I am not sure if he updated you or not), the distance problem with the underlying telephone line infrastructure is going to be a bottleneck even if I sign up to NGB. So with the speed and connection reliability issues remaining as they are, switching to NGB would have done nothing me, other than reducing my current Vodafone download quota of 30 GB to NGB's 10 GB.

(Speaking of the download cap, yesterday DICE released a patch for Battlefield Bad Company 2 on PS3 and it was nearly 1800 mb - and I had to download it twice. With sizes like that I am sure you can see how NGB's 10 GB limit would be a bit of a problem for me - and I don't even torrent movies or anything like that.)

The general dissatisfaction that broadband users of Dublin Road area like Ingen and I share is purely to do with the underlying telephone line infrastructure - that all ISPs are effected by at the moment. We are hooked to an exchange too far away, and there are newer exchanges nearby and I was told that they have the additional capacity to handle more volumes as well, yet eircom won't do anything to improve the situation for us. So unless cable internet providers like UPC comes to Drogheda, we are stuck with existing eircom infrastructure. I agree what eircom is providing now is crucial and very important, there is no denying the fact that it is way behind what it should be, or what it could be, and it's particularly sad when our neighbors down the road (Grangerath) or other side of the road (Bryanston/Martello village etc) enjoy nearly 4-8 times the speed we get!! This is basis of the general bitterness towards eircom, it's not personal to anyone like yourself who works in eircom, so please don't take it that way, and like I said, thank you for trying to help!

JHet

Hi Guys,

I too am one of the beleaguered ppl on the dublin road area who has to suffer the woes of substandard dsl broadband on the dublin road. Having read most of the thread I'm just astonished at the amount of research you guys have done on this!! Amazing stuff. It just pisses me off how incompetent eircom are and how poor the service is they provide for the high price that they charge. We really are third world in terms of our broadband infrastructure in this country especially outside dublin.

With the above in mind I'm just wondering if anyone have considered getting on to Conor Pope about the situation. For anyone who doesn't know he's the consumer affairs guy who appears on the today fm show most mondays, not on today cos he's sick! He also writes for the Irish times I believe. The guy seems to have a lot of clout and a lot of the companies seem to be scared of him!!!.....especially the banks!!! We could do up some generic email and all send it to him.
Way i see is the problem is quite simple:

1. Dublin road users are connected to the DBC exhange on patrick street street which is only 4mb.
2. CLXA Exchange in Grangerath is closer and faster @ 24mb.
3. Eircom need to put infrastructure in place to allow us to connect to this exhange.

What do you reckon guys?......i reckon we'd have more chance of getting something done quickly with him on the case than any local politican!!

I know others have suggested Digiweb etc but to honest I think we all know good quality DSL broadband is the only way to go here, lower pings, faster (when right infrastructure in place!!!) and finally more reliable (probably the most important aspect)

Thanks

lucernarian

Eircom can't go about rerouting thousands of copper wires to a smallish shed at Colpe Cross!

The solution is for eircom to start investing in their network generally by providing fibre-fed cabinets for areas such as along the Dublin road. This would be cheaper than digging up the entirety of the Dublin road and having to rebuild an exchange etc. It would also offer better speeds than shortening lines from 5km to 2km. Though I think that Five Oaks should be moved to Colpe Cross or indeed the Deepforde fibre-fed cabinet if there was capacity.


This idea of rerouting copper cables is from a bygone era. The future now is for fibre being brought closer to customers, not the other way around.

Ignoring eircom, the provision of some sort of cable TV network in this part of the world would be fantastic but I don't think UPC are going to pull the finger out any time soon. Net1 once offered Grange Rath residents the option of a cable broadband network (back in the days before eircom offered service there) but the residents didn't want the required cable strung from roof to roof. It could have been unsightly on the poor wee fascia board. Ignorant luddites. I've literally heard of someone in Dublin who had to argue with a neighbour because the neighbour stopped UPC from upgrading the last bit of their street:rolleyes:

JHet

Hey To_be_confirmed, thanks for your reply. I think we are on the same page here mate. You certainly know more about the semantics of exactly what needs to be done but I think we are both agreed that its going to require some infrastructure investment.
My point is that as is always the case in this wonderful little country of ours, those who shout the loudest usually get what they want quicker. The problem is as a nation we generally do not complain enough. My intention would be to put some pressure on eircom from whatever resources we can leverage. The way i see we potentially could leverage a couple of different avenues:

1. Knowledge is Power. A quick google search revealed that eircom have rolled out some of the said fibre-fed cabinets in most of Dublin and most likely other counties. To_be_confirmed you could probably correct me on this.......but If we could get some ideas of the costings etc to add a couple of cabs on the dublin road, we could certainly make a case for ourselves about the inconsistancy of eircoms service in such a close proximity of housing estates, why people just a couple of hundred metres down the road are paying the exactly same price for a worse service. It really is crazy when you think about it, it wouldn't be accepted in, in France, in the Uk etc, and when you think about it guys we are one of the bigger towns on the east coast.
2. Its not what you know its who you know: we need to have someone on our side who is a) eircom will listen b) is willing to make a case for us based of the information we gather from point one. Whether thats Conor Pope or a local TD, i don't care, whatever gets the job done, but we need someone who's willing to make the case for use (Fergus and Jed seem like the most likely candidates in that regard or certainly the ones who have bigger sticks than the other politicans at the moment!!! ).

I'd like to get some feedback from everyone who's contributed here or if you haven't feel free to put down your two cents. How far did we get with leveraging the old local politicians!!!! Fine Gael have committed to the improvement of the BB infrastructure and its going to be a big part of their plans for growth in the next 4 yrs. This is good, as what we want is in line with their agenda so we're really only asking for things that they have already agreed to improve. There's no reason why we can't put a bit of pressure on and get bumped up the list on this, after all Drogheda is one of the larger towns on the east coast so i don't see why they wouldn't want to have a good infrastructure base here in that regard.


Thanks