Are Eircom happy to ignore Residential customers since they feel no threat from UPC?

DesperateDan · 11-07-2012 8:01pm

This won't be popular

I'm sure there is a very good reason Eircom do not have fibre optic broadband laid down all over the place like UPC. It's not like Eircom are sitting in their towers watching people and giggling to themselves.

People in more rural areas should not in my opinion expect really great broadband, I mean there isn't a country on the planet (apart from possibly S.Korea/Singapore) where this is not the case. Give it 5 another years or so and Craig Doyle won't have his cold monopoly on broadband any longer, plus new tech like 4g will be rolled out.

5 years ago in Mullingar you could just about get 1mb broadband, we now have 110mb with UPC. I will agree that eircom should admit that contention rates are to blame, but as everyone knows there can be so many other factors depending on speeds.

daenerysstormborn3 · 11-07-2012 8:07pm

I don't live in a "more rural area". I live 15 minutes from Waterford City, in Slieverue. On the main N25 between Waterford and New Ross, so not down a big loop the loop of back roads either. Yet, the highest connection my line can support is 3mb and I'm lucky to get 2mb. I lived in Dublin for years with a 25mb connection. It was my choice to move to an area with a lesser broadband connection.

What I find laughable is that Eircom have been promising NGB and connections up to 8mb in the area for the past 3 years and have made no progress. Eircom know that their customer base is largely rural (due to lack of choice) and would have a greater percentage of people over a certain age (dating back to Telecom Eireann days) so they know that they own the monopoly on rural customers.

UhOh · 11-07-2012 8:14pm

DesperateDan wrote: »

People in more rural areas should not in my opinion expect really great broadband

Well I'm in Waterford City & like I said, the broadband I was getting off Eircom was pure muck

DesperateDan · 11-07-2012 8:15pm

Hmm. I just picture people living up mountains in Kerry or villages in Donegal being the ones with the 1mb broadband, not 15 mins from Waterford.

Maybe Ant from Eircom could tell us why Eircom is being rather slow at rolling out decent broadband to 80% of the country? That would be nice, I mean there must be a good reason, it's costing them so many customers!

daenerysstormborn3 · 11-07-2012 8:20pm

Eh no offence to Ant at Eircom, I'm sure he's great and all, but Eircom didn't care when they were losing a customer of 10+ years so they certainly won't care what I have to say no :P

Sure we're after moving to Digiweb and we're stuck with another crap provider (using Eircom's equipment).

djskip316i · 11-07-2012 8:34pm

DesperateDan wrote: »

People in more rural areas should not in my opinion expect really great broadband

Were Not expecting great Broadband , We just want Broadband that works , I have had to put up with 300+ pings from 9pm -1am for the past 3 months . Time to move to fixed wireless i think .

MajorMax · 11-07-2012 8:43pm

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

A legal case probably could be brought against Eircom, if your willing to do that. Everyone knows its contention, Eircom just play the idiot card with their customers or blame the customer. If they actually upgraded their technology this would reduce the pings dramatically. Fibre has low pings. Of course investing in modern broadband technlogy countrywide isn't normally Eircom's way of doing things.

A legal case? How would you do that exactly? BB is not a guaranteed service under the Universal service agreement. You might as well sue Santa for not being real:rolleyes:

MajorMax · 11-07-2012 8:45pm

pixiebean22 wrote: »

I don't live in a "more rural area". I live 15 minutes from Waterford City, in Slieverue. On the main N25 between Waterford and New Ross, so not down a big loop the loop of back roads either. Yet, the highest connection my line can support is 3mb and I'm lucky to get 2mb. I lived in Dublin for years with a 25mb connection. It was my choice to move to an area with a lesser broadband connection.

What I find laughable is that Eircom have been promising NGB and connections up to 8mb in the area for the past 3 years and have made no progress. Eircom know that their customer base is largely rural (due to lack of choice) and would have a greater percentage of people over a certain age (dating back to Telecom Eireann days) so they know that they own the monopoly on rural customers.

NGB BB was only launched in 2010, I call shenanigans

Hank Scorpio · 11-07-2012 9:49pm

I'm 5 km from Kilkenny City to one of the previous posters talking about how I should expect 400-500 ms pings each evening. To the other poster, unfortunately I can't get UPC here

daenerysstormborn3 · 11-07-2012 9:56pm

MajorMax wrote: »

NGB BB was only launched in 2010, I call shenanigans

No shenanigans, they promised a connection of 8mb and then followed that up by telling us we'd be eligible for NGB when it was rolled out, that was 3 years ago.

Glebee · 11-07-2012 10:12pm

pixiebean22 wrote: »

No shenanigans, they promised a connection of 8mb and then followed that up by telling us we'd be eligible for NGB when it was rolled out, that was 3 years ago.

I have to laught when the roll out the old up to 8mb line. Not a whole pile we can do folks. Just grin and bear it I guess.
I know Ant from Eircom is trying hes best but please, I know theres not a problem my end of things.

daenerysstormborn3 · 11-07-2012 10:19pm

Sure we're not demanding 8mb broadband or NBG broadband but when you're promised it and there's still no sign 3 years later you have to wonder what was the point, if they had just never promised it we'd be none the wiser, you know?

And it wasn't "up to 8mb" that's actually what they tell us now, at the time it was "8mb" period.

Hank Scorpio · 11-07-2012 11:33pm

My main problem is I can't game online anymore. I was/am a fairly competitive unreal tournament player, I would spend most nights playing it. I wouldn't care if my download was less than 1Mb if my pings were stable.

Cheerful Spring · 12-07-2012 1:48am

MajorMax wrote: »

A legal case? How would you do that exactly? BB is not a guaranteed service under the Universal service agreement. You might as well sue Santa for not being real:rolleyes:

I'm not a lawyer, but a company like Eircom has to adhere to a code of practice in their dealings with customers. Eircom, are obliged to be truthful. If you ask them is contention the main reason for why my internet is bad, and you know it is that, and they deny it. Than you have grounds for a dispute with them. Some lines are perfect its contention and congestion thats causing the problems. You would have to find prove that Eircom is not going out of its way to sort those problems out for you and others, thats not an easy task. Comreg is the middle man between you and Eircom who's having the dispute. But to be honest they only deal with customers disputes, and don't forcibly demand, Eircom sort out the bigger problems with their network. Their may be grounds for a legal case unsure, but it would cost that's a given.

Cheerful Spring · 12-07-2012 2:00am

MajorMax wrote: »

NGB BB was only launched in 2010, I call shenanigans

NGB is a gimmick it was just prove of a Eircom running out of ideas to bring better quality broadband to rural areas. The fact is if you are more than 25 miles from your exchange expect problems, it can't be helped. Upgrades do cost and Eircom recently went bankrupt those are the facts of it..They have moved focus to city areas now to battle UPC for customers. There is no competition in rural Ireland Eircom are top dog with speeds offered.

However there is no excuse for majors towns and rural villages/ 15 miles outside our main cities not having fibre broadband. Unfortunately any further than this is unrealistic longterm without Irish government involvement.

MajorMax · 12-07-2012 10:21am

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

NGB is a gimmick it was just prove of a Eircom running out of ideas to bring better quality broadband to rural areas. The fact is if you are more than 25 miles from your exchange expect problems, it can't be helped. Upgrades do cost and Eircom recently went bankrupt those are the facts of it..They have moved focus to city areas now to battle UPC for customers. There is no competition in rural Ireland Eircom are top dog with speeds offered.

However there is no excuse for majors towns and rural villages/ 15 miles outside our main cities not having fibre broadband. Unfortunately any further than this is unrealistic longterm without Irish government involvement.

Howya, if you're more than 25 miles from your exchange you won't have ANY problems as you won't have broadband. After 15 miles you have zero chances of getting any broadband service with 10-15 you might get a limited 1 mb service

But I totally agree with your assesment of rural broadband, it's simply not going to make economical sense for eircom to supply decent broadband to rural communities

daenerysstormborn3 · 12-07-2012 1:09pm

MajorMax wrote: »

But I totally agree with your assesment of rural broadband, it's simply not going to make economical sense for eircom to supply decent broadband to rural communities

I have to disagree with you there. How many of Eircom's customers are based in rural areas? My estimation would be at least 60-70%. Therefore you would think there would be a certain focus on improving broadband access in rural areas and maintaining a better service, instead of poor service or no service at all.

I mean, Ireland is a developed country. When you look at the UK and their huge variety of broadband providers we pale in comparison. There is no competition for Eircom in rural areas and they know it.

Hank Scorpio · 12-07-2012 2:43pm

I dont think they'll improve it pixiebean as they're isn't any other fixed broadband solution available. Eircom make money off the resellers as I'm sure you are aware, I'm not sure of the exact percentage they get but I remember reading it was as high as 40%.

Digiweb metro seems to be available here so I`ll ring them later. Apparently they provide stable low latency connections with a decent upload speed.

Its frustrating really, my eircom connection used to provide 13ms stable pings 24/7 to eircom.net. A few months ago they must have changed something as now its 33ms in the middle of the night/early day and during peak times its completly unstable. The packet loss is an annoying problem aswell, it causes disconnects from alot of applications. Some nights theres spikes of 1000ms + which causes the drops. A handy program to monitor all this stuff is visualroute.

daenerysstormborn3 · 12-07-2012 2:54pm

Just to warn you about Digiweb nuxxx.

We contacted Digiweb after problems with Eircom and Digiweb first told us that we would be able to get Metro, one of their technicians came to the house and tested the connection and because of some trees to the front of our house he told we wouldn't be able to get metro (he said if we cut the trees, even cut them in half we might be able to get metro), so he went off and said he'd get one of the sales people to call us, person called us and said if we didn't want to make a decision on cutting the trees straight away (the trees block the view of our house from the main road so not a decision we'll take lightly) that we would be able to get an 8mb connection.

We of course were amazed and delighted, double checked with Digiweb 5 times (they knew exactly why we were leaving Eircom and they knew exactly what we were hoping for and confirmed that an 8mb connection was possible) before confirming the order. Received the router and we were only receiving the same speeds we had with Eircom.

Rang up and were told that oh yeah we can't actually offer you an 8mb connection but we might be able to offer you a 5mb connection, disappointing but still better than what we had. Waited 2 weeks between all of these phone calls, they are absolutely pathetic at customer service. Eventually we had to get Comreg involved because they just never called us back. With Comreg involved it transpired that they couldn't offer us 8mb, 5mb or metro and that we can't get their satellite broadband because of the "lie of the land". So basically they gained a customer by telling numerous lies and Comreg were about as useful as a chocolate teapot. We are stuck with them because we have so few options in our area and my boyfriend needs broadband for college and I need it for work.

Also, when we signed up we were promised a discount price of €30 for the first 3 months, received our first bill and it was over €50. Rang them up and it took 2 weeks to get any response about that and they said that they'd issue us a new bill with the discounted amount showing and the discount would apply to our next 2 monthly bills, still haven't received the new bill.

Hank Scorpio · 12-07-2012 3:00pm

That sounds pretty rough pixiebean, thanks for the heads up.

If anything it just slams home the point about Eircom pushing rural customers to the side while focusing on rolling out fibre in densely populated areas to try regain alot of the customers they lost to UPC. I have seen alot of threads on boards about high pings/congestion lately. Digiweb metro is an alternative but judging from your experience I doubt eircom are worried too much about them.

daenerysstormborn3 · 12-07-2012 3:02pm

Yeah I mean it's all fine and well saying that people in rural areas shouldn't expect brilliant broadband service etc. but it's rural customers that have probably stayed with them 10+ years so you'd think they'd treat them a bit better.

I'm sure there are some happy Digiweb customers out there but that has been my experience with them. Liars is all they are.

Hank Scorpio · 12-07-2012 3:09pm

Ill see what Digiweb have to say anyway, until then I better stay off the gaming as it "drains the router power".

Cheerful Spring · 12-07-2012 3:27pm

MajorMax wrote: »

Howya, if you're more than 25 miles from your exchange you won't have ANY problems as you won't have broadband. After 15 miles you have zero chances of getting any broadband service with 10-15 you might get a limited 1 mb service

But I totally agree with your assesment of rural broadband, it's simply not going to make economical sense for eircom to supply decent broadband to rural communities

I live roughly 12 miles outside a major city and i get a decent service most of the time. I've the 7 meg package and usually get speeds of 5 sometimes 6. I had awful problems last year with speeds drop, but i think there was an issue at the exchange and they fixed it after lot of complaints from customers. The problem is not just the installing the broadband technology, you also have to have a building for housing the exchange. Most villages are too wide apart in Ireland and are densely populated.

Cheerful Spring · 12-07-2012 3:42pm

pixiebean22 wrote: »

Yeah I mean it's all fine and well saying that people in rural areas shouldn't expect brilliant broadband service etc. but it's rural customers that have probably stayed with them 10+ years so you'd think they'd treat them a bit better.

I'm sure there are some happy Digiweb customers out there but that has been my experience with them. Liars is all they are.

Its about cost for them . Eircom, if they were smart could do a simple survey of each village and town/yes its pain staking work, but least you learn pretty quickly what villages and towns would be worth their time investing in. Check up and see how many customers in each area is using their broadband service currently and for how long have they been using it. If they are with another provider would they change it for a better service. You would easily see those customers move from their current technology to fibre, in most cases. Too things customers want quality and a good price. Currently Eircom offer neither, but there is no other provider to push them aside, that is just the reality of it unfortunately.

Fogmatic · 12-07-2012 9:48pm

Anyone thinking of going down the legal route re bad lines should consider the work to be done first, before things ever reach that stage. And whether you're prepared to gamble that amount of your time.

I made a formal complaint about my line about 3 years ago. With plenty of people in the same boat (and paying the full line rental), I was determined to take things to the highest court in the land/the EU/whatever if neccessary (& if I could afford it). With a test case perhaps (I didn't know whether anyone had been bloody-minded enough to get far).

You have to start at the bottom though, with your ISP's helpline people (no disrespect intended), and patiently go through the step-by-step instructions that some customers need (however well you may know where the problem is). Once they've made sure it's not your fault, the case can get escalated if necessary to a manager, & so on. If there's no joy once escalated to their highest level, then it's formal complaint time.
This also has to be done through your ISP, even if you know it's not their fault. (There was no indication of this on Eircom's 'how to complain' web pages, and I wasted time down that blind alley).
My ISP spent a long time doing all they could, only to reach a brick wall. The clincher, if memory serves, was that Eircom had no obligation to provide an internet connection, let alone broadband (I couldn't get the industry's recommended minimum quality for voice calls either, but again there was apparently no legal requirement). I don't know if that still holds, but it seems extremely likely.

The final reply from Eircom to UTV said our existing 'rurtel' (radio link) service here was the only viable way to provide telephone service, and that they weren't in a position to provide a copper line. (They didn't mention split lines. As shown on a chart I submitted (based on 7 months of modem logs) I could get 12 kilobits/sec on a good day).
Having said that, they promptly closed the complaint on the grounds that I now had an alternative source of internet access, therefore the line quality was 'no longer an issue'. This while I was still paying for the phone line, in order to resolve the complaint one way or the other (about 6 months after wimax arrived here).
I'd even fancied there was an economic argument in my complaint letter (to cut a long story short, the line problem meant I couldn't use my new desktop & notebook, and thought more & more people would hit that problem, with subsequent financial fallout hitting Eircom). But that was irrelevant anyway, with Eircom so short of money.

This forum didn't exist then. Now, it would have been my first port of call (combined with searching the Ireland Offline forum etc for similar problems).

Fogmatic · 13-07-2012 11:56am

And Comreg, as far as I can see, is for making the right noises.

Hank Scorpio · 13-07-2012 11:10pm

Fogmatic wrote: »

And Comreg, as far as I can see, is for making the right noises.

Contacted comreg about this, unfortunately didn't help.

Tonight

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Here's my brother on his UPC connection to the same eircom.net address

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djskip316i · 14-07-2012 1:16am

Tonights pings were a nightmare for me aswell , Can forget about online gaming , Have decided to order fixed wireless myself , @Nuxxx where abouts are you living .

Hank Scorpio · 14-07-2012 2:26am

djskip316i wrote: »

Tonights pings were a nightmare for me aswell , Can forget about online gaming , Have decided to order fixed wireless myself , @Nuxxx where abouts are you living .

Just outside Kilkenny City

marno21 · 16-07-2012 7:13pm

Might be no harm to give Ripplecom a shot. It's 7pm and here's my ping time to the same IP.

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On the 8Mb package with 70Gb cap (1Mb upload). Speed doesn't get bad at peak times either, just downloaded a file at 890kb/s. If you're thinking about it, might be no harm to try the Broadband forum about how it's like in your part of the country (I'm in Cork.)

Are Eircom happy to ignore Residential customers since they feel no threat from UPC?

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