Smart BB disconnecting, Carrigaline

The Bouncer

Hi,
In Carrigaline area and over the past week smart has been dropping regularly (DSL is up) give it a few minutes and it is back but the drops are occurring more regularly also just discovered smart has NO TECH SUPPORT AT THE WEEKEND WTF!!! This is enough for me to change. Not a level of service I am prepared to accept:mad:, so recommendations for Carrigaline/Cork South please

aidanodr

Bouncer,

Upon a little bit of investigation - and not just you, but for everybody - their should be enough convincing evidence from recent OTHER threads here on this drop out problem. Ill make it easy for you:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055999751
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055999487
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055996005

It is happening in the Douglas and Carrigaline area to BT, Vodafone, Eircom customers. Now it seems the same from Smart. The one common thing with all these providers?? is they are using the Eircom exchanges to deliver their BBand?? ( From what I gather ). Co-Location of their equipment in Eircom Exchanges. Piggy backing on Eircom so to speak. The root cause of this issue is EIRCOM. They are upgrading their Exchanges in the last while to this next gen thing. This will not be admitted to via their tech support, all you will get there is ITS YOUR ROUTERS Fault.

Please look at other threads here. Looking for another Service will not solve this issue. The only other BBand provider I know have WHO IS NOT USING Eircom exchanges is UPC. You might have some luck with them, but again, if you read recent threads, they also are suffering from drop outs for some different reason!

Heres a thread on this - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055827236

Aidan

aidanodr

Separately I will say this issue appears to be more acute here in Carrigaline. Carrigaline has its own sub exchange. A few years back this bailed out for almost a month - where we had no or very slow broadband. Also the ISDN was dropped for stores connecting with their visa machines and through to online remote stock / accounting.

From what I gathered then this exchange is very old PLUS its barely handling the growth of this town who's population has risen to above 20k ( I think ).

From talking to other IT companies in my travels, their have been quiet a few callouts recently to Douglas and Carrigaline on this issue - too many to be coincidental OR dodgy routers!

Aidan

Arcto

Carrigaline here too mate. Having the same problem with a landline broadband connection from Vodafone.
Tech support are a shower of unmentionables. Did you find a solution yet?

Solair

Couple of issues to clarify here:

1) Smart Telecom provides two types of broadband:

Type a) LLU (Local Loop Unbundled). This is where Smart have their own equipment co-located in the exchange. They provide your DSL and your dial tone all eircom provide is the copper wire to your house. In general, this service is very fast and reliable.

This is available in all of the City Centre exchanges i.e. Cork Central (GPO), Quaker Road, Wellington Road, Churchfield (the main hub for a large chunk of Munster) etc. However, they never got as far as Douglas, Hettyfield and Carrigaline etc.

Type b) Bitstream - This is where Smart Telecom use eircom's DSL equipment to provide the service. They purchase wholesale capacity on the local exchange's DSLAM and eircom route the traffic back to Smart's backhaul at some co-location point (not necessarily at your local exchange). So, you're relying on eircom infrastructure for some of the route.

Carrigaline has no LLU operators as far as I am aware, so you're getting Bitstream DSL via eircom's network rather than a direct connection to Smart.

Second issue:

There are comments about the age of the Carrigaline exchange. Voice and ISDN is provided by an Ericsson AXE switch. It's modern and up-to-date and pretty much identical to all the rest of the exchanges in the 021 area.

The DSL services are nothing to do with the voice switch. They're piggy-backed onto the lines with equipment that is pretty similar to your DSL modem.

The issue in Carrigaline sounds like lack of backhaul capacity i.e. there isn't enough capacity on the fibre network connecting Carrigaline onwards to eircom's main hub for the Southside of Cork at Quaker Road.

Douglas exchange's DSL services seem to be horrendously bad too and I suspect that Carrigaline is part of that same network.

Huge growth in population in that area and the fact that it's wealthy demographic which probably has a very high uptake of broadband seems to be choking the network

It's basically a failure by eircom to plan their network to cope with projected traffic.

Someone needs to start contacting local TDs and local journalists to get the whole thing investigated. It's an utter disgrace that a suburban area of Ireland's second city is suffering from broadband congestion that is so serious that it's making the service unusable.

With regard to Smart's Technical support. I've found the best way of reaching them is via their forums : http://support.smarttelecom.ie/forums/index.php

Sponge Bob

Banjaxed exchange , nothing to do with Smart

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055998150

Solair

Maybe eircom are hoping that the demand will go down in Douglas as all their customers migrate to cable broadband to escape their congested, slow service!

The Bouncer

Hi All, Thanks for the info I appreciate it, I take the point on the piggybacking this is a pain given the size of carrigaline you would think the ROI would justify LLU. I suppose, as usual, we'll just have to suck it up!

However I still think no phone tech support from SMART at the weekend is a bit Irish...

makeorbrake

Even if your on bitstream, it might still be worth moving. When I was with them, I had ongoing issues with dsl disconnecting. They couldnt sort it out and were blaming the line (the line was fine with bt previously) - so i left. Now with utv - and no disconnects. Its a shame as their upload/download on equivalent package averaged out higher ...

Funkyzeit

Something defo up with exchange(s) in Carrigaline - serious deterioration in services - started last week sometime.

Connection bombing out the whole time.

Whats interesting is I'm on Kilmoney exchange but know of 2 people on the 021 43X exchange (and also someone else on Kilmoney exchange) also experiencing same problems.

Also several Visa machines (I assume ISDN) out in the village

Will ring Vodafone tonight but defo not local to my router/pc's.

aidanodr

Hi Funkyzeit,

I am here on lower kilmoney rd - this avo BBand completely gone now ( Eircom ). DSL Light on but nobody at home. This started up like this about three years ago BUT was gone / slow / unusable for 1 month. ( Didnt get a refund by the way ). All the ISDN's were gone too in the village. Bank machines not working and local supermarkets had issues with registers and stock levels ( no connection to likes of musgraves ).

This time though I have an O2 Mobile BBand stick so thats how I am on at the moment. I work on line to make a living so at least I have this fallback.

Ah yes - this country is really at the coal face of this nebulous knowledge economy, its a joy to behold!

EDIT: 16.15pm - seems its back, but for how long?

EDIT 2: Upps, gone again ..


Aidan

danny004

Same in Ringaskiddy. Emailed Vodafone and they said they can see the drops but that they are all user requested initiated by either me or my router lol. Carigaline area must be on some hypnotic drug at the moment where we all disconnect our routers at the same time and then complain to the ISP's

aidanodr

Yes,

The router fairies are let loose in the Carrigaline area it would seem.

Its such an easy thing to blame and very convenient to do so.

At the moment the net is on and off like christmas lights ..

Aidan

Solair

It could be a very serious capacity issue or a fibre failure somewhere.

I am getting the distinct impression that eircom's network is just choked up due to lack of investment in backhaul to Carrigaline/Ringaskiddy.

The service in Douglas is bloody awful too.

The MAN maps are here : http://www.e-net.ie/selected-map.html

eircom have their own fibre networks though which are totally separate to these.

aidanodr

As i said I am with EIRCOM, but in same boat me thinks as those on other providers here in Carrigaline.

While net is up I just ran a test here: ( Its google tools project ):

http://www.measurementlab.net/measurement-lab-tools

** Starting test 1 of 1 **
Connecting to 'ndt.iupui.donar.measurement-lab.org' [ndt.iupui.donar.measurement-lab.org/217.163.1.88] to run test
Connected to: ndt.iupui.donar.measurement-lab.org-- Using IPv4 address
Checking for Middleboxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Done.
Checking for firewalls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Done.
running 10s outbound test (client-to-server [C2S]) . . . . . 270.0kb/s
running 10s inbound test (server-to-client [S2C]) . . . . . . 2.16Mb/s
Your PC is connected to a Cable/DSL modem

Interestingly I notice my INBOUND TEST say I am at 2.16Mb/s - This is interesting because I am paying Eircom for 7Mb/s.

Aidan

aidanodr

I also ran the Network path & application diagnostics test. For those interested here are the results ( abridged ):

Target host TCP configuration test: Fail!
Warning: TCP connection is not using RFC1323 timestamps.
Critical Failure: Did not negotiate window scale, it should be 1.
Diagnosis: The target (client) is not properly configured.

Data rate test: Fail!
The maximum data rate was 3.214456 Mb/s.
This is below the target rate (10.000000 Mb/s).

Loss rate test: Fail!
Fail: loss event rate: 0.692905% (144 packets between loss events).
Diagnosis: there is too much background (non-congested) packet loss.
The events averaged 2.280000 losses each, for a total loss rate of 1.579823%.
FYI: To get 10 Mb/s with a 1452 byte MSS on a 43 ms path the total end-to-end loss budget is 0.165563% (604 packets between losses).

Might not make any sense but .... Show fair amount of packet loss, a symptom that was also very bad back 3 years ago during the last bad dose of disconnections!

Aidan

Solair

Might I suggest contacting:

1) Evening Echo - http://www.eecho.ie/newspaper/contactus.asp
2) Cork Independent http://www.corkindependent.com/contact/ or http://www.twitter.com/corkindo is best
3) Cork News http://thecorknews.ie/?q=content/contact-us
4) 96fm Newsroom 021 455 1496 (Ask for news team)
5) RedFM news(at)redfm.ie
6) All of your local TDs !

jonesL

I just switched to imagine WIMax. I m from the same area. They are in the are at the moment. They have a very good offer. You should look into it. they dont run off the Eircom exchange

jor el

jonesL wrote: »

I just switched to imagine WIMax. I m from the same area. They are in the are at the moment. They have a very good offer. You should look into it. they dont run off the Eircom exchange

Imagine Wimax is in no way comparable to DSL, fixed wireless or cable though. It's a sub-par alternative for people who don't need broadband.

The Bouncer

jor el wrote: »

Imagine Wimax is in no way comparable to DSL, fixed wireless or cable though. It's a sub-par alternative for people who don't need broadband.

Why so if the speeds offered are the same? I have heard mixed reports on WiMax so curious on the collective opinion

jay93

The Bouncer wrote: »

Why so if the speeds offered are the same? I have heard mixed reports on WiMax so curious on the collective opinion

Well to be honest the speed they offer can never be guarenteed as imagine use a mobile system for wimax which means it can degrade alot with the more people connected to it .can be as bad as 3G at times or even worse.you will either get an ok connection from them or a terrible one service cannot be guarenteed also their download cap of 30GB sucks.if imagine used fixed wimax instead of the mobile version of it ..it would then be comparable to a DSL if not better..

Goldstein

The Bouncer wrote: »

Why so if the speeds offered are the same? I have heard mixed reports on WiMax so curious on the collective opinion

I concur with other views, imagine are a laughing stock of broadband providers, always were. Contention is a deal breaker with WiMax.

The sales guys they have calling around are hilariously uninformed. Did you ask them what your usage cap was? They'll say "unlimited" and that's your first warning sign because, as we all know, there's no such thing. Read Imagine's own privacy policy to confirm that their marketing is, how shall I put it, "factually incorrect":
http://www.imagine.ie/imagine_wimax_acceptance_usage_policy.html

(And I quote) "No system has unlimited resources. If you consume excessive resources on our system we may suspend your access at any time without prior notice." Hmm, that's not what the brouchures / sales guys say. SO which one of them is lying?

I wouldn't trust any company that avoids being upfront with their customers and committing to a definitive download allowance like every other respectable provider does - because that number, in Imagine's case, would be really low in comparison to their competitors.