Eir - Copper to Fibre - Elderly Parents

Kintarō Hattori

Hi Folks,

I'm just looking to see if anyone has been in a similar situation to my elderly parents (both in their 80s). They've had broadband for years with Eir, coming through copper lines and all has been good. There was never any issues. With the changeover to fibre, they are left with a service which is less than ideal.

The old router was in the living room but the installer put the new one in the kitchen which took up a fair chunk of counter space and it looks pretty awful.

My parents had additional landline points in the hallway and in their bedroom. With the role out to fibre they have just the one. They had to move the phone from their living room out to the extension where the router is installed.

Seemingly phonewatch doesn't work now since the changeover and they need to pay about €200 to phonewatch to come out and connect the system to the new setup.

Lastly, the quality of signal is poor. They have a wifi camera upstairs which was fine under the old system but has trouble getting a signal now.

They've complained, via registered letter! to Eir, but that has gone unanswered.

Has anyone else had such an issue with them? Did you have any luck in getting it resolved?

pizzahead77

Eir won't do anything about this - they are not responsible for any internal phone connections, WiFi coverage, house alarms etc.

For the camera, you could install a wireless mesh or powerline system.

The phones, I know the easiest solution would be to get multi-handset DECT cordless phone setup but you could also run a new cable from the nearest phone socket to the new router and connect the exiting sockets up that way

pummice

you say all was good - so why get in fibre?

The Cush

You can move the router to a more convenient location by running ethernet cable from the ONT.

Murt2024

Nothing to do with Eir. Get a couple of repeaters and should be sorted. Might need to run a phone cable to the modem.

RobiePAX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122412914#Comment_122412914

They force you to switch now if you try to recontract. So either you pay full out of contract price close to €100/pm. Or you get a deal but you got to switch to Fibre with VoIP.

KaneToad

I had similar issues years ago when I changed from wire to fibre.

I bought a roll of ethernet cable from cable monkey (cheapest at that time) and ran cable from fibre entry point up to the attic. I put the router up there and bought a 16 point switch.

I then ran cable from the switch to a couple of rooms- TV rooms, bedrooms etc. Also ran cable to CCTV cameras.

Bought cheap set of cordless phones. One needs to be plugged into fibre but the others just needed plugging into any power socket.

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122412914#Comment_122412914

Probably the same thing that happened to my father. A salesperson rang them, "faster", "more reliable", "Its the obvious upgrade", "Good introductory deal".

Except his bill went from ~45 a month for ADSL up to 90 a month for the fibre.

Now, I am a very heavy internet user. Right now Im connected to the work VPN, downloading something on one of my systems, and streaming something, and its working fine on my 35 euro a month 5G broadband. Works fine for me. My 83 year old father had zero need for fibre, considering his internet usage was solely email, and considering his only income was his pension, he definitely had no need for his broadband bill to double.

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122414784#Comment_122414784

And they dont tell you, "Or you can keep adsl or you can keep adsl but move to another provider".

Kintarō Hattori

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122412914#Comment_122412914

It seems Eir told them they needed to change. Not unexpected I suppose when the plan is to have all copper connections done and dusted.

Kintarō Hattori

Obviously I wasn't there for the decision but I gather they weren't really given a choice and told it needed to happen.

I eventually managed to get through to someone in Eir that would talk to me, not being the account holder. It's interesting that you can go from having multiple house phones and points in the home, which they paid for, to essentially now only having one phone. Far from ideal for the elderly who will often have a phone in the kitchen and one in their bedroom. So while they have 3 existing phones, two are now junk and they will have to buy a new one which has a separate handset that will go upstairs.

As for the location in the kitchen where it was installed. Seems that's a case of tough. If they want it moved it'll cost an arm and a leg. It's a small 3 bed terraced house so not huge but the signal upstairs is atrocious, where the old one was fine.

I'm sure they are in a new contract now but when that's up, hopefully they'll go Siro. That would have been my advice, rather than renewing with Eir.

The Cush

My brother moved over to Starlink this time last year. Cancelled their landline phone and transferred the number over to VoIP.

They continued to use the existing internal phone points around the house, putting an ATA between the wall socket and router.

Is there an internal ATA on the eir fibre router?

pizzahead77

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415079#Comment_122415079

Yes - and eir will not give you the account details to use your own setup

pummice

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122414903#Comment_122414903

Do you remember the marketing ad with the little girl and the gigglybits? It my opinion its all marketing baloney, most people with average internet usage dont need fibre. I wouldnt go with Eir ever again, they used to ring my mother in law who was in her 90's getting her to sign up for things she didnt understand and didnt need. Horrible company.

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415273#Comment_122415273

So if there's an ATA on the router simply connect it to the existing internal phone points and retain the existing phones