BBand disconnecting - Carrigaline!

aidanodr

Hi Guys,

I realise a number of threads were started last while on this Bband disconnect / dropping thing. I thought I would start a generic one for any of the service providers who use the Eircom exchanges and copper.

For the last month or two here in Carrigaline it seems people on Eircom, BT, Vodafone have been having daily drops / disconnections. Some of these only last for 5 minutes others for hours.

I an writing this via my O2 Mobile bband dongle. Here in kilmoney, carrig and for the last two hours or more ( since about 4 or earlier ) the Eircom BBand has been down - fully. I also got a call from another over in Bridgemount, same thing.

So - others having this Bband blackout at mo / today?

For anyone reading this outside of Carrigaline or Douglas area, please be aware this seems to be a continuous issue with both exchanges. It aint the routers. Yes, I have been onto my local politicians about this.

One of the main issues with these drops is one needs to be on the net for a reasonable length of time to see them. Some people say they are having no issues here but when asked, it turns out they were dipping in and out the odd time checking mail and did not notice. In my case I am on most days as I work on the net!

Aidan

RareVintage

Aidan, you must be telepathic! I just posted this on the nearest open thread I found:

RareVintage wrote: »

I've had frequent, almost daily, interruptions of my Eircom internet connection over the last couple of months. Most often this was late at night and for short periods.
Eventually I got tired of continually clicking "Restart Connection" on the router page and phoned up when it had been down for most of an afternoon. They wouldn't admit or didn't know that there was a fault. They even sent an engineer to my house - "must be a problem with your exchange" (CGI03 Carrigaline).
The help desk operators would never believe that I knew there was no problem inside of my house.

Recently when I called there was a recorded message - "fault in your area...." etc.
The last few days were ok, then today disconnections of various durations since about 5pm.
When I called the guy was almost rude, he just kept repeating "the problem was resolved" (at my exchange). I said the problem had returned to which he said "if the problem had returned there would have been lots of calls". I suggested that maybe I was the first of "lots of calls"! Though I doubt many people would wait 8 minutes for their call to be answered as I did.

So, in my case it isn't a DSL problem but an Eircom broadband connection problem.

Anyone else in Carrigaline had problems - Aidan - ?

Speed 3072/384 (kbps)
Line Attenuation 24/14 dB

(I don't know what the attenuation figures mean or if they've changed)

So mine is on now... in all the calls I've made I've been given no explanation for the dozens of interruptions.

danny004

Hi Aidan
Same story this evening in Ringaskiddy. I insisted on Vodafone raising a problem ticket on the vf forum and I got a call from an Eircom technician he said

The problem ticket was raised as a telephone fault because if it was raised as a broadband fault VF would have to pay Eircom to check it. If my phone line wasnt in trouble he could do nothing

He also said Eircom had a serious problem with BB in the general area of Carrigaline /Ringaskiddy and they werent quite sure what was wrong but were working on it.
It is amazing why VF just couldnt tell us that besides its your router ,its your filter.The guy on the VF forum even told me all the disconnects were user requested by me or the router. What a joke

I think most people are reasonable would just like to be kept informed on whats wrong and the progress being made.

One more thing is it possible to ammend the thread title to include Ringaskiddy

douglasman

I'm on the Douglas exchange, on Eircom Home Turbo ADSL2+ 24Mb and have no drops at all, DSL rock solid stable, PPPoE rock solid stable, have the same dynamic IP address for months. My next door neighbour has Eircom 3Mb ADSL and also no dropouts. Both lines use bras2 in Churchfield. Which bras are you guys on? Also I don't use that crap Zyxel modem that Eircom now ship, i got my own instead. My neighbour uses the Eircom Motorola/Netopia 2247-62.

aidanodr

danny004 wrote: »

One more thing is it possible to ammend the thread title to include Ringaskiddy

Hi Danny,

Thats done, at least once you get into the thread. For some reason and not like other forums, I cannot change the threads subject name thats out in the thread index / content area. Even when I edit the first message and GO ADVANCED! Sorry about this - a mod would need to change it I would say?

It seems OK today ( Sat 21 Aug 2010 ). But then I have not used it much.

I concur with what you said. Just to be told YES their is a problem and keep people informed. This is all most want. Im just fed up of this blame the router / filter rubbish. Thats why I couldnt be bothered ringing any of the tech support lines - YOU WILL NOT GET THE TRUTH!

At least you got:

".. Eircom had a serious problem with BB in the general area of Carrigaline /Ringaskiddy and they werent quite sure what was wrong but were working on it .."

Thats something of an admission of the truth. Thats all we want for the moment!

Cheers
Aidan

Lamposts

Keeps cutting out for me as well. On eircom 3mb package. In Carrigaline.

corkandproud

I was told to ring the billing dept on Monday regarding a refund for the interrupted service.

Also got the line that they have no fix date...

RareVintage

My connection was down late last night and again today since about 4 until I tried it just now...

The more of us that phone up to complain the better. Is it possible to report a fault with broadband, as opposed to the phone line? The help desk can be obtuse but I'm going to put aside half an hour tomorrow to try and get something officially registered.

aidanodr

Good stuff,

The more that report here the better. It will allay the doubters and the dodgy router line type fans

Anyone with news from eircom tech also appreciated here to keep the rest of us in the loop,

Cheers
aidan

ShadowHearth

hmmm they started todayaswell for me. droped connection few times allready, internet light just goes red, then get back to green...

newer ever had any trouble with eircom... mallow btw

corkandproud

Eircom BB tech support.

They screen the numbers though and give a pre-record advising there's an issue in the area. Suggest you wait and get through to the tech desk.

Goldstein

Me too, with Vodafone in Carrigaline and it's constantly going down at random times. Been doing so for the last 2 weeks. Here is a summary of the times I noticed it down from just today:

went down at 14:40, back at 14:44
went down at 15:49, back at 16:30
went down at 16:31, back at 16:45

Rang Vodafone again (3rd time). Reset modem yada, yada, changed a number of settings in advanced (I humoured him, I'll be refusing to carry out any checks on my end from now on). After about 15 mins on the phone it came back on (Coincidence?)

He assured me that this now definitely fixed the problem as Eircom were in the area today carrying out repairs. Changing the standard password and few other tweaks were necessary after these repairs and the problem is now fixed.

The end of the call, and I quote: "I know what I'm talking about...it absolutely won't go down again save for a system wide large scale failure."

(Half an hour later)
went down at 20:06, back at 20:11
went down at 22:09, back at 10:30
went down at 22:43, back at 22:45
went down at 22:53, back at 22:54
went down at 23:30, back at 00:03
went down at 00:31, back at 00:38
went down at 00:57, back at 00:58
went down at 00:59, back at 01:04
went down at 01:17, back at 01:20
went down at 01:24, back at 01:27 (As I was typing)

I'm going to get a script tomorrow to ping Google.com at 1 minute intervals and log the results, the problem is obviously much worse than we are noticing.

I think it's time for waving of this months bill or at least a large reduction for those effected as this is clearly not "occasional" downtime.

Ludo

I'm in the Douglas/Rochestown area and my Vodafone broadband has been shocking for the last 6/7 weeks. It was rock solid for the three years I have been here until then.
Now it drops at regular intervals during the day and goes every night at around 7ish completely.
I have been onto VF a few times about this and they say it is simply contention and there is nothing they can do about it.
I happened to get a call from Eircom a couple of weeks ago asking me if I was interested in switching to them. When I explained my problem they said there is nothing they can do and it wouldn't be worth switching to them either.

So basically from the sounds of it, BB in the carrigaline/douglas/rochestown areas is way oversubscribed and the infrastructure can't handle it and there ain't nothing you can do other than hope the next generation product (available around oct/nov) sorts it out or move to UPC.

Shockingly bad service in this day and age.

ad_inky

I live in the Carrigaline area not far from the exchange. The Vodafone service was a shambles yesterday. It has been poor for the last month with short outages a couple of times a day and they are the ones I notice. My line quality is usually good and does not seem to have a problem. My problem is the many drops in service. Looking at the router and it's diagnostics I see may different responses. Sometimes everything fails, sometimes just the dns servers show a fail, sometimes the gateway is gone. It's getting beyond annoying.

corkandproud

Service has been good today - little or know drop out.

Could it be fixed???

aidanodr

Yes I will agree - a bit better today, but then Two drops so far this morning .. no more YET!

Aidan

RareVintage

It has been ok so far today, it usually is until 4 - 5 pm. I work a lot at night and most nights I've been having disconnections.... whatever the problem is, I don't think it's fixed.

So, Broadband support today:
luckily I had an understanding operative. He confirmed that there had been intermittent problems in this area going back weeks. He confirmed that there had been several other calls from this area. I got a reference number for a long term issue (6 or more weeks) and that's logged.
I asked about getting a refund and he said to call customer care on 1901.

Eircom's Automated Customer Repellent System (1901):
this took a few calls to work out how to get to a human:
"We know there is a problem with BB in your area, do you want to talk about this?", answer NO, then "Bill Enquiry", "Other".
I said I wanted to apply for a refund for a long term problem of BB disconnections. He faffed around a bit and then offered me one month's BB off my next bill (€30).
RESULT!

As to what is going on with our BB, the BB help desk man said there were a lot of separate logged faults, engineers had been here and there. Reading between the lines I'd guess there's some confusion as to what the problem is. It didn't sound to me like there is any concerted effort to investigate the long term issue as a whole. That might change if more people who have been affected call up to register a fault - as a long term sporadic fault.

As to BB users with other billing companies, I'd guess that you have to persist and oblige Vodafone (or whoever) to log it as a BB fault. As someone above said, that is likely to involve cost so you'll need to escalate it and insist. I don't know if a customer not billed by Eircom is able to report a fault to Eircom. Maybe writing a letter would, ironically, be the best way!

Ludo

Well it is 8pm here and this is the first time in over a month the BB has been working at this time for me. I am on the Douglas exchange though as far as I know.

Edit: Spoke too soon. Dropped there and took 10 mins to get back on.

Goldstein

Just went down from around 10:10 to 10:30 for me. It's the first time today (That I've seen) though.

aidanodr

23:03 23/08/2010 - Yip Gone for over 45 mins there - back about 10 mins ago ... As per Goldstein more or less.

Aidan

Funkyzeit

Not at home today but rang Vodafone who 'are now aware' of issue.

They are awaiting latest update from Eircom - last update was received last night to say investigations are ongoing....

aidanodr

Well,

Its utterly brutal today ( 24/08/2010 ). Particularly this avo. I would say the Packet Loss is unreal. Its either very slow to load pages or completely down.

Ill see if this will post!
Aidan

spooky donkey

well as far as I know, they are still working on the problem, they are having diffuculty determining what is causing it but it is being worked on.
Best ive heard they are going to try move some customers to other exchanges see if it helps. If I hear any more lads Ill let you know.

aidanodr

Thanks SP.

I am very curious as to what the problem is ..

Aidan

jonesL

imagine WiMax are now in the Carrigaline area. WiMax does not run off the Eircom exchange so would be perfect for people that have issues with Eircom. I was with Eircom before. The final straw was when my internet connection completely went and they told me it was my laptop after days of endless phone calls i went and spent the money on getting my laptop completely cleared and so called fixed. Anyway after spending all that it still did not work. And guess what it was never my laptop after all it was my router . Unbelievable .Do you think they refunded me for their error. Not a chance.

johnplayerblue

jonesL wrote: »

imagine WiMax are now in the Carrigaline area. WiMax does not run off the Eircom exchange so would be perfect for people that have issues with Eircom. I was with Eircom before. The final straw was when my internet connection completely went and they told me it was my laptop after days of endless phone calls i went and spent the money on getting my laptop completely cleared and so called fixed. Anyway after spending all that it still did not work. And guess what it was never my laptop after all it was my router . Unbelievable .Do you think they refunded me for their error. Not a chance.

douchebag

aidanodr

Now Now lads ... keep it civil

Over 1 hour offline now and counting .. back on my O2 Dongle.

jonesL - I would ask are you working for IMAGINE? Thats two threads so far you have advised a switch ..

Give me wired anyday. I have the same speeds as IMAGINE on my O2 dongle at €15 a month. But give me wired anyday.

Of course we would all like Fibre, but that aint goin to happen down here for a while if ever. That dreaded last mile cost!

Aidan

RareVintage

My connection was down the last hour, back on now. Did you try for a refund Aidan?

aidanodr

I love your optimism RV

Its back, buuuuuutttttt ... still some micro drops.

No - nothing about refund as of yet. I must psyche myself up for the 5 hour call to Eircom Support / Accounts and listen to the BS as I go ...

Sister is goin doing that tomorrow!


Aidan

danny004

Have a look at the muppets the VF subscribers have to deal with still on about line faults.

Vodafone: wrote:

danny004 wrote:

Vodafone: wrote:

danny004 wrote:

Vodafone ) wrote:

danny004 wrote:

Hi
Can you please check why my broadband connection was dropping all last week. I am on the Ringaskiddy exchange my number is 021 ******. I have tried two diffrerent modems and neighbours are having same issue. My modem plugs directly into the main Eircom point and I have the correct filters installed . My ststs are
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 6144 kbps 512 kbps
Line Attenuation 31.0 db 17.0 db
Noise Margin 16.3 db 16.0 db

I am seem to Sync most of the time but the connection to the outside world drops but I am seeing a red light on my modem more frequently. There seems to be quite a few threads with the same issue over the last week or so especially around carrigaline ,my exchange is very close to that.
Can you also raise a ticket for this fault so I can proceed to comreg if not corrected after 10 days.

Hiya,
I can see the disconnections, but they're all coming up as "user request", which is the modem being powered off or restarted.

Would you mind checking the steps in my signature to see if there's something on the circuit that is interfering with the router itself?

All done
The only drop outs that are done at my end is to try reset the modem to try pick up an internet after I have experienced a drop or lack of connection which do not match the number of drops that I am having. Broadband went down again this evening from around 5 o'clock until near six and the same thing was in my neighbours. In any case just for going through the motions I have set the new DNS and I was an original bb @ home customer so I updated my user name and password as described on your signature. I can gaurantee the problem is not at my end as said previous I have tried 2 different routers and unplugged other devices etc etc.
Please check if there is any work or issues in my area ,a good place to start would be around 5 pm this evening. You will see a couple of user request drops as my router restarts after changing DNS and username/password as per your advice.
Please can you issue a problem ticket for this issue for tracking purposes

Hiya,
I've raised ticket: EIR-FTL-****** for the issue.
It's currently logged as a landline fault, so a visit may be required.

Hi
The guy from Eircom rang me on Thursday and as I am sure you are aware a line fault is for a telephone voice fault and not broadband fault as clearly indicated so there was nothing he could do. He did supply some information though confirming general status of broadband in my area that Im sure you already know. Can you please resubmit the ticket as a broadband fault

Hiya,
Grand, the lads in tech reckoned that there may be an issue on the line itself, but as it's been verified fault free, I've logged EIR-FB-****** as a broadband fault.

RareVintage

It only took me 10 minutes in the end to get a month's refund, see my post above.

I just had another drop there for 5 mins... If this goes on for another month I'll be asking for another refund!

Btw, whatever happened to "Carrigaline community broadband"? I think it was last year that all the streets were dug up and lots of cable laid. Is that now just buried money? Or is it in operation?