suburban Dublin BB woes....

martco

Howdy,
sorry if this isn't the right forum for this but I'm sure the moderator will repair...

the summary is that I've been hoping for proper bb for many years, UPC are showing up in my locale and I'm trying to get hold of an engineer/tech who knows my area on-the-ground and whom can tell me if a cable will actually be provided to me in the future or if I'm just living in fantasyland...if anyone can connect me to that'd be great! If not I think (from reading the many expert opinions on here) that the only real alternative is 3G mobile bb or (and I can't believe I'm saying this) Satellite dish


A few years ago I built a new house in an old and "established" area - Dalkey, Co. Dublin due to family commitments (that's Dalkey, the town beside Sandycove and Dun Laoghaire and next to the DART line as opposed to say Kabul, Afghanistan) and it seems forever that I have been fighting for some kind of reliable useable broadband.

Now however I am (like many people living in Ireland which is supposedly not a 3rd world country) disconnected. I have no broadband. GRRR!

DSL:
At the start of my battles I found that I hadn't a suitable phoneline for DSL. I fought with Eircom to get me a pair of wires that didn't go halfway around Dublin to get to an exchange and that wasn't shared by another customer, I won that battle (eventually, unofficially) by resorting to pleading with the local Eircom engineer on the ground who empathising with me circumvented the usual procedures to hook me on an alternative workable pair at the time which gets me just 4.1km short of Deansgrange...not great but better than Crown Alley I suppose. GRRR!

Next I fight for 6 months with Eircom to update their database (I kid you not) to flag me as green for DSL service. Despite the same local Eircom engineer proving it instantly. GRRRR!

so FINALLY after 3 years of fighting with Eircom I get DSL but next year I'm scrapping with them because I later discovered they were overcharging me and decide to move to BT whom proceed to give me my best ever period of service to date where I achieved nearly 2 years of uptime at a stonking 2Mb rate....am I supposed to be grateful? I read a recent OECD benchmark placing Ireland second slowest average broadband speeds at just over 6MBits/sec the slowest being Mexico @ 2.5Mb/s, I'm sure you know all the stats...but instead of improving things start to get worse...I start getting dropouts and slower perf. I investigate. For a start it takes me a day alone to discover that I'm now a Vodafone customer?! as nobody had bothered to tell me by letter or email...anyway nearly 40 support calls later it transpires that as Vodafone do their LLU works to upgrade their plant in Deasngrange to facilitate "next-generation-UP-TO-8Mb-broadband" my phoneline starts to show its true colours (the newer DSL gear more stringent on line noise apparently) and so now instead of being upgraded I'm downgraded to get stability?!?
Result: on the intermittent occasions when I have a DSL service (normally Tuesdays if there's partial cloud cover and wind around Force 2 SSW variable) I get 1Mb. and no apologies. GRRRR!

SO Motorola Wimax via Imagine:
I believed the hype. I've seen some of the detailed techno arguments offered by skilled people on here like Watty and others however it would be a way out of my woes! Or so I thought...their installer tells me "there's good news and there's bad news". He tells me his previous call to my installation just 30 mins prior (another like me, in the estate around the corner) has the exact same situation as I. I'm starting to get that sinking feeling again. So I elect to take the bad news first. The intended mast (Killiney Castle Hotel) is not picking up, I'm just 1km away and directly downhill from it BUT there's probably too much houses/trees/whatnot in the way. OK. I sortof understand the tech, fair enough it is what it is. Next the good news. The installer proceeds to tell me that when he points at their Dun Laoghaire mast I get 100% full-on 10mb service, wahey 10megs here I come....BUT HE'S NOT ALLOWED TO POINT ME TO IT. Er, what? Phones his manager etc. aiaiai! Jesus wept. (though Jesus probably had better data connectivity at the time even back then) He apologises, I write a couple of letters, get some sympathetic technically doubtful replies but seems they wont do it, game over.

UPC:
Next UPC show up in the locale (in the form of Sierra Communications) and just 60m from my house start working on a new Fibre-based-bb box (no expert but it looks like a patch panel perhaps) Can't tell me when they'll be laying cable however TO MY house. I've made too many phone calls now trying to understand when/if they will lay cable. On the phone the conversation is normally that a girl eventually tells me that my address is "marked for release July 2011" but nobody seems to clearly state if the cable will be a reality - and I know how cable works technically, it has to be laid (and is expensive and suffers serial planning objectors especially in places like fukcin' Dalkey etc.) and beyond this new patch box I don't see any digging happening so I'm starting to doubt the girl has the facts.

But this remains my only real prospect (and I recognise also the very best available technically, I know I'd be well sorted compared to most) SO I'm asking anyone out there who might given a map location know the TRUE score to help me figure it out?

Otherwise its a 3G dongle or that Satellite like the fellas out in Afghanistan use...

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Anecdotally, there are people all around me in Dalkey faced with similar tales- on the occasions when I try to escape the office to work from home regrettably I cannot achieve this IN my home and instead have to resort to the local web cafe (remember those? late 1990's?) where I meet up with my fellow passengers...there will be at least 5 others there because they struggle to get decent broadband service, many tales like the guy who "got sorted" because he found this man who runs a private mast in Bray that he pointed up to...he could pass me his number if I'm desperate?!? like a drug dealer...like something you'd hear out of Fr. Ted. But if there ARE any privateers out there who can help I'd gladly pay for a fix

thanks!
Martin

bealtine

martco wrote: »

Howdy,


the summary is that I've been hoping for proper bb
Otherwise its a 3G dongle or that Satellite like the fellas out in Afghanistan use...

[/SIZE]

According to the mandarins in the DECNR everybody now has broadband...and now they want to tax it.

mmurphys

martco wrote: »

Howdy,
sorry if this isn't the right forum for this but I'm sure the moderator will repair...

the summary is that I've been hoping for proper bb for many years, UPC are showing up in my locale and I'm trying to get hold of an engineer/tech who knows my area on-the-ground and whom can tell me if a cable will actually be provided to me in the future or if I'm just living in fantasyland...if anyone can connect me to that'd be great! If not I think (from reading the many expert opinions on here) that the only real alternative is 3G mobile bb or (and I can't believe I'm saying this) Satellite dish


A few years ago I built a new house in an old and "established" area - Dalkey, Co. Dublin due to family commitments (that's Dalkey, the town beside Sandycove and Dun Laoghaire and next to the DART line as opposed to say Kabul, Afghanistan) and it seems forever that I have been fighting for some kind of reliable useable broadband.

Now however I am (like many people living in Ireland which is supposedly not a 3rd world country) disconnected. I have no broadband. GRRR!

DSL:
At the start of my battles I found that I hadn't a suitable phoneline for DSL. I fought with Eircom to get me a pair of wires that didn't go halfway around Dublin to get to an exchange and that wasn't shared by another customer, I won that battle (eventually, unofficially) by resorting to pleading with the local Eircom engineer on the ground who empathising with me circumvented the usual procedures to hook me on an alternative workable pair at the time which gets me just 4.1km short of Deansgrange...not great but better than Crown Alley I suppose. GRRR!

Next I fight for 6 months with Eircom to update their database (I kid you not) to flag me as green for DSL service. Despite the same local Eircom engineer proving it instantly. GRRRR!

so FINALLY after 3 years of fighting with Eircom I get DSL but next year I'm scrapping with them because I later discovered they were overcharging me and decide to move to BT whom proceed to give me my best ever period of service to date where I achieved nearly 2 years of uptime at a stonking 2Mb rate....am I supposed to be grateful? I read a recent OECD benchmark placing Ireland second slowest average broadband speeds at just over 6MBits/sec the slowest being Mexico @ 2.5Mb/s, I'm sure you know all the stats...but instead of improving things start to get worse...I start getting dropouts and slower perf. I investigate. For a start it takes me a day alone to discover that I'm now a Vodafone customer?! as nobody had bothered to tell me by letter or email...anyway nearly 40 support calls later it transpires that as Vodafone do their LLU works to upgrade their plant in Deasngrange to facilitate "next-generation-UP-TO-8Mb-broadband" my phoneline starts to show its true colours (the newer DSL gear more stringent on line noise apparently) and so now instead of being upgraded I'm downgraded to get stability?!?
Result: on the intermittent occasions when I have a DSL service (normally Tuesdays if there's partial cloud cover and wind around Force 2 SSW variable) I get 1Mb. and no apologies. GRRRR!

SO Motorola Wimax via Imagine:
I believed the hype. I've seen some of the detailed techno arguments offered by skilled people on here like Watty and others however it would be a way out of my woes! Or so I thought...their installer tells me "there's good news and there's bad news". He tells me his previous call to my installation just 30 mins prior (another like me, in the estate around the corner) has the exact same situation as I. I'm starting to get that sinking feeling again. So I elect to take the bad news first. The intended mast (Killiney Castle Hotel) is not picking up, I'm just 1km away and directly downhill from it BUT there's probably too much houses/trees/whatnot in the way. OK. I sortof understand the tech, fair enough it is what it is. Next the good news. The installer proceeds to tell me that when he points at their Dun Laoghaire mast I get 100% full-on 10mb service, wahey 10megs here I come....BUT HE'S NOT ALLOWED TO POINT ME TO IT. Er, what? Phones his manager etc. aiaiai! Jesus wept. (though Jesus probably had better data connectivity at the time even back then) He apologises, I write a couple of letters, get some sympathetic technically doubtful replies but seems they wont do it, game over.

UPC:
Next UPC show up in the locale (in the form of Sierra Communications) and just 60m from my house start working on a new Fibre-based-bb box (no expert but it looks like a patch panel perhaps) Can't tell me when they'll be laying cable however TO MY house. I've made too many phone calls now trying to understand when/if they will lay cable. On the phone the conversation is normally that a girl eventually tells me that my address is "marked for release July 2011" but nobody seems to clearly state if the cable will be a reality - and I know how cable works technically, it has to be laid (and is expensive and suffers serial planning objectors especially in places like fukcin' Dalkey etc.) and beyond this new patch box I don't see any digging happening so I'm starting to doubt the girl has the facts.

But this remains my only real prospect (and I recognise also the very best available technically, I know I'd be well sorted compared to most) SO I'm asking anyone out there who might given a map location know the TRUE score to help me figure it out?

Otherwise its a 3G dongle or that Satellite like the fellas out in Afghanistan use...

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Anecdotally, there are people all around me in Dalkey faced with similar tales- on the occasions when I try to escape the office to work from home regrettably I cannot achieve this IN my home and instead have to resort to the local web cafe (remember those? late 1990's?) where I meet up with my fellow passengers...there will be at least 5 others there because they struggle to get decent broadband service, many tales like the guy who "got sorted" because he found this man who runs a private mast in Bray that he pointed up to...he could pass me his number if I'm desperate?!? like a drug dealer...like something you'd hear out of Fr. Ted. But if there ARE any privateers out there who can help I'd gladly pay for a fix

thanks!
Martin

You should try <mod snip>

Michael

martco

thanks Michael,
presumably these guys in <mod snip> can reccommend one of those underground privateer solutions that are rumoured to exist?

bealtine

martco wrote: »

thanks Michael,
presumably these guys in <mod snip> can reccommend one of those underground privateer solutions that are rumoured to exist?

I'd check out digiweb metro if I were you

lucernarian

Ouch... If it's any good I suggest to you that you email the new minister to help make him acutely aware of the practical problems that is experienced by the IT sector and users in this country, not only in rural areas. And email primetime or pat kenny or somesuch show that have covered this issue before. Even the media would take interest in such a shocking story.

About Crown Alley, you must be joking surely... I didn't think a PSTN or even a pairgained phone line would work at that distance on ordinary 0.5mm copper pairs.