Ongoing Eircom broadband problem...

doubledown

Hi all,

Apologies for the long post but I have completely lost my patience with this...

I live in the D4 area I have had Eircom broadband and a landline for many years now and have never had issue until November 2011. Since then my DSL sync has been dropping about 20 times a day. I have the 24mb package and the Zxyxel modem. I have spoken to Eircom Support COUNTLESS times and have done everything they suggested. I have been sent four new modems in the last three months and the problem persists. I have had engineers at the apartment about three times and they have not been able to resolve it. One of them monitored the line and said there was a lot of static and noise on it. They have switched ports at the local exchange (which is only about 1km away) and support even dropped my speed temporarily to see if that made a difference. I currently have the modem plugged DIRECTLY into the phone line (no filter) and nothing else is connected to the line. I do not have Sky or a cordless phone that might interfere with the signal.



The last time the engineer called out he suggested that the physical line may have to be replaced and he asked me to ring the Repair Department. I did this and told them of my problem but nothing has been done and the problem persists. When I rang them to see what the current situation was they told me to speak to Support again who said they can't do anything about it and they said I have to talk to sales now to get my line replaced.


Even as I have typed this message the DSL light has gone off twice and my connection has dropped. Last night was the final straw. I tried to watch a movie on Apple TV and my connection dropped four times during the first 20 minutes of the film.


Needless to say this is incredibly frustrating. I work from home a lot and it is impossible to get anything done without interruption. Has anyone else in the area experienced a similar issue? I am considering switching to UPC fibre power broadband. How do they compare?

Thanks for reading!

hoodwinked

Not sure if it helps you but I was having massive issues with our broadband when we first moved to our new apartment eircom did roughly the same as you dropped the speed on the line, tried sending out new filters..etc but there was still noise on our line and our Internet would drop constantly.

In the end they sent out an engineer, he tested the line and found a lot of noise on it, he checked our house set up, he said it was fine no interference there, he checked the exchange found nothing wrong there, he was about to leave and he told me we would probably need to get the line replaced, I told him these were newly built and surely the line couldn't be that bad already?

After this he checked some box outside our property and by some luck found a frayed cable apparently the box was left open when it was being built and water had corroded part of the line, he said only for him seeing it he would have never believed it he would have assumed no signal would have gotten through once one wire had frayed but apparently we were unique in that some signal had gotten through enough to feed us phone or broadband but not both.


Is there any chance heavy rain in November frayed some of your phone line? My engineer said they normally wouldn't check that as it could technically be anywhere on the line and the standard is to replace the whole thing.

doubledown

Thanks for the quick response!

One of the theories we came up with was that it could be caused by water damage from the flooding in this area (Ballsbridge) at the end of October. Our apartment wasn't affected but the line could have been. My problems started around that time so the timing seems to fit. They suggested that the line may need to be replaced in January but it still hasn't been done and they keep bouncing me from one department to the other and can't seem to give me a straight answer! I have just given them an ultimatum - get it sorted this week or I go to UPC.

(As I typed this my DSL dropped twice!)

lucernarian

Honestly, I'd move to UPC (if possible in your specific part of Ballsbridge) anyway but copying your post and pasting it in a new post on the Talk to: eircom forum might be a good idea. It could be the quickest way of getting this problem resolved.

doubledown

UPC is available in my are alright but the landline isn't. Don't really need it though. I'll try that forum you suggested.

Many thanks.

bealtine

doubledown wrote: »

UPC is available in my are alright but the landline isn't. Don't really need it though. I'll try that forum you suggested.

Many thanks.

Why are you wasting your time with what is obviously a faulty line? I doubt eircom will fix it, they might but it seems unlikely.

If UPC is available get that, even the most basic UPC broadband is far superior to eircom broadband

doubledown

I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt I guess. They said in January they would replace the line but have done nothing about it since despite numerous emails and phone calls. Going to cancel it and get UPC.

jay93

If you have UPC in the area seriously dump Eircom i know alot of people in Ireland would love to have UPC broadband services available to them!

dlynes83

would love to have UPC paying 70euros p/m for eircom 24mb but only gettin 10mb at best of times:mad: hate it

bronn

doubledown, this is almost the exact problem that happened to me with Eircom (I'm in D14). Only difference is that I actually went ahead and got a whole new line put into the house. It still made damn all difference with the DSL sync and it drove me insane. Then, after months of engineers, tests, new modems etc etc it just... worked. And it kept working perfectly - full speed ahead with no problems. Until one day it stopped again and the DSL sync issues returned. I hadn't changed a setting, added nothing, never touched a blessed thing. At that point, I'd been on contract for year so, seizing at the chance to escape, I changed provider and switched the whole lot to UPC (phone, telly and broadband).

At first, I had a lot of problems with the broadband and phone - random drop-outs again but, in fairness, I did get through to a service manager and she kept in touch daily until the issue was finally resolved; it was a faulty cable somewhere out on the main road near the Dodder at Orwell. I was so frustrated by Eircom that I'd never, ever, go back. UPC are not perfect, and when the connection drops (v occasionally) their customer service leaves a lot to be desired but on the whole, they're a lot better than the complete head wrecking experience I had.

CptSternn

I live in Clare and have the EXACT same problem with Eircom. I have three routers, the Eircom Netopia, one made by Buffalo, and a Belkin. All three have the same issues. I went round and round with Eircom as well, and they also suggested paying to have a new line installed.

A new twist to this story though, I moved house last week and guess what? The new house (built in 1998) has the same problem.

They even dropped my package when I moved as they said I could only get 10megs and I wasn't going to pay the extra money for just two megs. Bottom line is there is an issue that obviously isn't house line based, location based, router based, or anything else other than their service.

enrybo1

I've the same problem (and I'm also in D14, near the Dodder)

Went through all the customer support, checking lines etc. They sent out a new Zxyxel modem, same problem.

We recently bought a netgear 300 router/modem but the connection still seems to be dropping sporadically. So frustrating.

About an hour ago it was particularly bad.

Anyone know how frequent/common connection dropping is with UPC?

lucernarian

That part of the world is some distance from the nearest exchange, by Dublin standards anyway. The line speed might need to be lowered.

bealtine

enrybo1 wrote: »

Anyone know how frequent/common connection dropping is with UPC?

Once the line is stable, usually done at installation, time drops are rare enough with UPC.

Janedoe10

I hope this has been checked but Eircom supplied routers need to install a firmware update to work properly with apple tv's . This download is avail on the Eircom support site . I will try and get the link for ye.

nodnod

doubledown wrote: »

Hi all,

Apologies for the long post but I have completely lost my patience with this...

I live in the D4 area I have had Eircom broadband and a landline for many years now and have never had issue until November 2011. Since then my DSL sync has been dropping about 20 times a day. I have the 24mb package and the Zxyxel modem. I have spoken to Eircom Support COUNTLESS times and have done everything they suggested. I have been sent four new modems in the last three months and the problem persists. I have had engineers at the apartment about three times and they have not been able to resolve it. One of them monitored the line and said there was a lot of static and noise on it. They have switched ports at the local exchange (which is only about 1km away) and support even dropped my speed temporarily to see if that made a difference. I currently have the modem plugged DIRECTLY into the phone line (no filter) and nothing else is connected to the line. I do not have Sky or a cordless phone that might interfere with the signal.



The last time the engineer called out he suggested that the physical line may have to be replaced and he asked me to ring the Repair Department. I did this and told them of my problem but nothing has been done and the problem persists. When I rang them to see what the current situation was they told me to speak to Support again who said they can't do anything about it and they said I have to talk to sales now to get my line replaced.


Even as I have typed this message the DSL light has gone off twice and my connection has dropped. Last night was the final straw. I tried to watch a movie on Apple TV and my connection dropped four times during the first 20 minutes of the film.


Needless to say this is incredibly frustrating. I work from home a lot and it is impossible to get anything done without interruption. Has anyone else in the area experienced a similar issue? I am considering switching to UPC fibre power broadband. How do they compare?

Thanks for reading!

I have similar situation have 8mb ngb from eircom (always use to get 3 mb before and was happy with that could run youtube etc without delay)
problem occured 9 jan 2012 speed about 1mb and after numerous engineers 25+visited still having on going problems , today got signal of 2.6 on a 3mb line. I have told them for weeeeeeeeeeeks that my signal was being interfered with noise and i said on my row of 10 houses my house is no 1 and house 3 (got upc 20 mb line) and house 8 (got upc 100mb line same day i started getting problem )

So i got engineers to test signal outside these houses using handheld device and found to be massive noise coming fom house 8 from their new upc cisco modem. (house 8 is 300 ft from house and it iseffectiing my signal?????)
The eircom engineers are going to check with Comreg to talk to upc and do a test in my area i will keep you posted

So check with neighbours did any body get upc lately and any new routers

note upc is to be fibre but line coming into house is wire maybe this is not shielded?

Alun

I had a similar problem twice in the last 4 or 5 years. I'm getting a rock steady 7.6Mbps on my Eircom line, but on those occasions I'd get a sudden huge drop in SNR and occasional drop outs with a resynch at a much lower speed. I could actually hear the interference on an AM radio, and the SNR drops matched the appearance of the interference perfectly. I got ComReg out twice, the first time there was no interference at the time so they went away, but came back a second time and found lots of interference emanating from the cabling (Eircom + UPC) ducts along the pavement outside our house, peaking at one house at the end of the road, about 8 or 9 houses away. The owner wasn't in but they said they'd contact him, and magically the problem went away a couple of days later and has never returned. I still don't know what the exact source was to this day though.

Janedoe10

The download link was on Eircom support site but it seems to be removed u should get on to them to get it . I have the title of the article for u " Connecting Apple TV on eircom Zyxel P660"

turbo

http://support.eircom.net/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/&/?St=298&E=0000000000002541491&K=4353&Sxi=2

hymanyman

http://support.eircom.net/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/&/?St=148&E=0000000000002942072&K=9513&Sxi=3

i got the config file - worked for me.