Fibre broadband question

jones

Folks,

I am currently with vodafone at home, i live on a rural road with only a dozen houses just outside Balbriggan. The problem is my internet is pretty rubbish I'm lucky to get over 1mb a second on it. I'm 1.4 km away from the nearest VDSL box (as the crow flies).

I was told by eircom engineers who were out fixing a problem last year that the line on my road can't hold anymore than 2 or 3 MB per second but that when the fiber roll out reached around my area things should improve.

I am in work at the moment so cant send any line stats but can later if that helps? Am i destined to spend eternity with download speeds of 1mb? or will the fibre roll out help matters?

ED E

Fibre only helps if you can get it, and if you're over 1Km from the cab they wont sell it to you, so you'll be stuck on the long loop to the exchange at 1Mb.

Find out if there are any conventional cabs closer than that VDSL cab, its "your" cab that has to be upgraded for you to get it, and that may be closer to your house. If thats the case then you have to wait and hope it gets upgraded.

jones

Cheers for the quick response ED E i'll get onto vodafone see what cab i'm using. I thought it was just the nearest one to you but obviously that isn't the case. The engineer did say i wouldn't be getting fibre speeds but that my speed should increase a bit. I'd happily take 5mb a sec real world speed.

Does the bit about the line only being able to hold 2/3mb sound true? I know i'm in a country estate but still seems like dark age stuff

ED E

Its common for very rural lines(called extended reach) to only barely manage 1Mb. Ask them what level of ER you are, it goes from 1 to 6.

If you wont get fibre speeds then the only improvement will come from less noise as people in the locality will be using fibre instead of the phone lines which means less sources of interference, but I dont see that making a huge difference.

Is your modem at the main phone point at the moment?

jones

Rang vodafone and had two very differing conversations. I was talking to technical support who told me my area should have fibre available and due to road name being in irish on our bill i probably wouldnt of gotten the email (road down as english normally) but that it has on the map that i have it so he transferred me to customer care who told me they checked my number - presumably like the online phone line checker and the area doesnt have fibre yet.

I checked eircoms fiber map (http://www.eircom.net/efibreinfo/map/) and according to that efibre is now available. How accurate is this map? confused.com

So back at square one.

To answer your question my modem is in at the main phone point and i have line splitter attached.

ED E

Sales depts have a very low bar for entry, dont put too much faith in what say.

Give a few weeks and see if they update their databases with your address.

crawler

jones wrote: »

Rang vodafone and had two very differing conversations. I was talking to technical support who told me my area should have fibre available and due to road name being in irish on our bill i probably wouldnt of gotten the email (road down as english normally) but that it has on the map that i have it so he transferred me to customer care who told me they checked my number - presumably like the online phone line checker and the area doesnt have fibre yet.

I checked eircoms fiber map (http://www.eircom.net/efibreinfo/map/) and according to that efibre is now available. How accurate is this map? confused.com

So back at square one.

To answer your question my modem is in at the main phone point and i have line splitter attached.

the folks on the VF forum can check for you http://www.boards.ie/ttforum/1270

HTH

jones

Cheers folks,

I was onto eircom yesterday to check the line and they said even though i'm in fibre area that my line hasn't been upgraded yet. I'm 6.5km from exchange which is the edge of what they'll even do. They cant even bump up the speed to my house as the line will become too unstable so looks like i've to wait until they upgrade the line (with only 12 houses on the road i'm thinking i'll be waiting a while).

What are peoples thoughts on satellite broadband?

raymix

jones wrote: »

What are peoples thoughts on satellite broadband?

overpriced and rather unstable (depends on your needs)

I'd rather suggest you to look into SOHO (ie net1, digiweb, ripple, icebroadband) or 4G (ie wimax) solutions. If you have clear view towards nearest town, you should get somewhat better performance than copper cable.
Altho wimax is not true 4G, think it's just a midband 3.5G

Have you got 3G enabled phone? What is your 3G coverage outside a house? Just curious. (3G is not a good choice tho)

jones

Never heard of SOHO (although i have heard of digiweb i used them in a previous house). I am near balbriggan so thats a big town i suppose.

Cheers for the info i'll look into it