Farming Independent have bad Eircom Experience

spongebob

From Todays Farming Independent .

IT'S 7am on a Monday morning and I am really angry. I am angry and frustrated because as I write this article I do so in the knowledge that I will be unable to email it to the offices of the Farming Independent and when you read this it will have been saved on disc and posted rather than using the email service which normally enables me and thousands like me to work efficiently from home.

By now you will have guessed that my phone line is not functioning. I can accept normal breakdowns but this is truly ridiculous. Not only is my line not functioning but despite my frequent and desperate calls to Eircom, I have been without email for ten days.

I do not live on some storm lashed island but work from my home near Kilcock on the Meath/Kildare borders, some 20 miles from our capital city.

Not only is there a fault on my line but also my neighbours are similarly affected, yet Eircom in their wisdom keep insisting that the line is functioning perfectly. I hasten to add that this is not the fault of the repair crews. It is the fault of Eircom to refuse to acknowledge that my line is not functioning.

Following a recent heavy rain a loud crackle affected the line making normal conversation impossible. Worse still, this made it impossible to send or receive email.

Have any of you tried to report a fault to Eircom recently? It is not a happy experience. First you dial 1901. Then you are put through to a recorded voice, which takes you through the steps required to contact a human being who might, with luck, relay your problem to the repair crews.

The first time I tried to make contact I spent over ten minutes holding my mobile phone (Thank you, God, for sending us mobile phones!) and all the time listening to the repetitive and irritating message of how Eircom value my call and that if I do hold on my call will be answered as soon as possible. If they value my call so much why will they not answer it?

Eventually I made contact and the person at the other end said they would check the line if I held on. I did so and a few minutes later they informed me there was no fault on the line. They further said that the fault was probably with the phone itself and they would send me a new one. My handset itself was and is in perfect working order but I could not get this message through.

On the fifth attempt I finally got someone to admit that the technicians had made a mistake and they would send a repair crew out. The repair men who service my area are excellent people who pleasantly and efficiently fix faults when they arrive. But how are they to arrive if they are not informed of the fault?

While all this was going on one of my neighbours also complained about the faulty line and they too were sent a phone they do not need.

Whatever happened to Eircom's promise of fixing all faults within five working days?

All of this might seem almost amusing if it were not so serious for rural business. I well remember the appalling phone service we had to endure in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Following some serious investment we finally got a proper service, which then enabled rural businesses to function.

What has gone wrong? For a few short years we enjoyed working phone lines, which were mended promptly when faults appeared. Is the problem a result of privatisation? One would have thought that competition would have improved the service but the opposite seems to have happened.

Why do we have to listen to endless advertisements for broadband when Eircom cannot deliver it? Not only am I only 20 miles from Dublin but the massive Intel complex is only seven miles away. I wonder have they the same problem? They employ over 5,000 people so it seems unlikely. If their communications set-up was not functioning they would instantly move their operations to India or China or back to the US where at least the phones work.

I am sick of trying to get broadband installed and I know that there are thousands of similarly frustrated phone users in the same situation. Fintan O'Toole wrote at length recently on his problems of getting broadband. The day after his article appeared he was connected. Is that what it takes to get Eircom to take notice of our plight?

What will happen if the Government succeeds in achieving its aims of decentralising the civil service and sending entire departments to work around the countryside? Will they have to endure the phone service that my neighbours and I have had to put up with recently? It hardly bears thinking about.

Imagine the civil service being reduced to driving daily to the local post office to mail out their work, as I now am forced to do. Would the Government prefer that I drive to Dublin, write my articles in the Independent offices and then drive home again?

I wrote some time ago of the benefits of electronic communications and how it enabled me and others like me to work from home. I also mentioned that I have never set foot in the Independent offices, thanks to our communications network. What a joke!

I wonder if Paddy Smith would be prepared to leave corn on the windows of the Farming Independent offices and watch weekly for the arrival of my carrier pigeons.Somehow I doubt it.

WHEN I eventually got my line working again I applied for an ISDN or high speed line, which, while not as fast as broadband, is a huge improvement on the standard service.

After many calls and conversations with Eircom staff I was told that I could indeed have an ISDN line and that a technician would call the following Monday. When the fateful day arrived I got a further call to confirm the visit and then an hour later received another call telling me that Eircom were sorry but I could not have the high speed line after all. Apparently the lines in my area are not up to the required standard.

Then, to really rub salt in my wounds, Eircom posted me a modem to operate the system that they cannot provide.

Why? Do these people never communicate with each other?

Following the opening up of the phone service to competition, we were promised lower prices and a much improved service. Not only has this not happened but also the national network is clearly not capable of delivering the standard of service needed to run rural businesses efficiently. Most Asian countries have a much higher coverage of broadband than we currently enjoy.

The world is now looked on as a global village and business moves to where it can operate best.

Minister, please do something before we strangle our Celtic Tiger in a tangle of obsolete phone wires.

By Joe Barry

viking

Good article by Joe and I'm sure there's plenty of people in a similar situation in rural (can Kilcock be described as rural now?) Ireland today.

Muck, I've decided to send you a subscription to FHM* as I'm getting worried that you are not expanding your reading list due to the amount of articles you are posting from farming magazines...

Viking

*Maybe

crawler

viking wrote:

Good article by Joe and I'm sure there's plenty of people in a similar situation in rural (can Kilcock be described as rural now?) Ireland today.

Muck, I've decided to send you a subscription to FHM* as I'm getting worried that you are not expanding your reading list due to the amount of articles you are posting from farming magazines...

Viking

*Maybe

Hey Viking, go easy on the Country folk......All those high sided hay sheds with electricity make perfect wireless base stations!! we need em

MrShadow

Muck
Write back to your boy and tell him to get the free upgrade to ISDN then maybe eircom will sort him out.

nahdoic

I'll give ya the ministers reply 'the government has invested xxx million and we are builiding the MANs'. This will do nothing for your situation even after they are built but I do like to talk about it because I don't have a solution. Let's all stick our heads in the sand now.

d-j-k

It sounds like eircom are suffering from over-relience on high technology. They seem to do an automated line-test that verifies wheather your line is working our not. However, it seems that this system is not providing accurate information in some rural areas and that they are refusing to take the customer's word that the line is not working.

If you get no where with customer service 1901 I suggest you phone 1-800 671 444 (eircom corporate HQ) and lodge a serious formal complaint.

As far as I'm aware they are also required under their customer charter to provide some sort of compensation for unreasonable interruptions to service.

Bringing it to the attention of senior management might also hightlight the flaws in the fault-test system they are using.

Also: A quick technical tip.

If you have a more modern eircom socket (the white ones as opposed to the beige ones) you can test the line yourself very easily.

Remove the two screws on the front of the socket and remove the front plate. *ALL* of your internal wiring is connected to this front plate.
Behind the plate you will notice a second modular RJ11 socket (the front plate plugs into this when it is screwed into place)

If you connect a phone directly to this socket, you have bypassed all of the internal wiring in your house and can verify that the fault is on the network and not on your internal wiring.

NB: if you have the older beige telecom eireann or P&T sockets, this will not work.
The newer socket is white and has two screws, the older one is beige and has one small central screw.
(If you had engineer-installed DSL, the socket has a filter built into the front plate. One socket on the plate provides DSL and the other provides filtered phone service, your other extensions are hardwired to terminals on the back of the plate. If you connect a phone to the socket behind the plate, you will hear a hiss of DSL noise as it's the raw line)

Given the symptoms you're describing.. line noise during rain.. it sounds like it could simply be an open or damaged junction box somewhere along the route which, once reported, could be fixed in very easily.

Delphi91

I've had the "crackly line after rain" problem two or three times. And each time the answer was a damp junction box. I have a sunken chamber in the garden with a cover on it where the line comes in. That's where the problem has been each time.

I've also had the "we'll send you out a new phone" thrown at me. Fortunately I have two phones here, so I was able to disconnect the normal phone set and replace it with the other and still get the same result. The moronic thing was that while I was on the phone to the "report your faults to me" person, I could barely hear her with the crackling yet she claimed the line was fine!!

An engineer who came out to fix the line told me that there are a few tests that can be done - the one done by "report your faults to me" isn't always conclusive. So you have to stick at it.

Mike

orwellg84

Sorry to see yet another rural customer in turmoil. I found out similar issues when I returned from the UK with broadband enabled enchange. With greater resource and population they generally don't have a problem but there are many areas that were frustrated beyond belief in trying for broadband. Since returning, I have noted that the state of the lines network seems to be creaking under the obligation thet Eircom have to legally supply lines, even to hole in the wall places, yet they are trying to cover about the same area as England. Eircom are supplying town, BT Esat are supplying town and the government is triplicating the process by supplying the self same towns, where's the logic? Blame Eircom if you want but the blame is with government and it's lack of foresight and planning. I have found that nothing gets planned or done until it becomes a problem that is totally unreasonable. Then a planning process and appeals start to address it for solution years hence. The problem was the sale of the network and the legal obligations of supply, address that if you want the existing structure to improve. The same is true of roads....wait till a place gets in gridlocked before doing anything ... can you believe that Monesterevin is only now bypassed! 30 years ago it was a problem! I digress.

In my area I found out that 2.8kbs was the best I could get. This kept me in business, just! I thought I was on the main exchange but was under a creaking subexchange and 8km of line from it at that! No chance of ADSL or even ISDN which both have distance limits. I thought I was stuffed and even tried for a second line becasue by now people were getting fed up trying to contact me. The Eircom engineers said, this second line would have degraded the quality of the line further. The engineers were brilliant at all times but there is not the resources in that company to deal with the problems. Looked like I was going to have to go for satellite, despite all the technical drawbacks and cost. I dug again and asked and asked about other solutions an finally got Wireless BB installed in less than a week from order. I now have connected up wireless connection around my house with a 512K BB installation, I'm in heaven, well maybe not heaven but out of hell for sure. The install was expensive but the monthly costs are OK.

So the motto is pester everyone all the time in all the supplier companies for a solution for your needs. They HAVE solutions but you must become a pain to get supplied. It's all about resources. Think of it, would you choose to paint an empty room or paint one that you had to empty of a whole load of junk first? Same difference with BB, the suppliers are under demand, everyone wants BB butthe resources dictate where the effort goes. Making contact with the local exchange staff and local manager may also help. You become a human problem to them rather than yet another problem in their list.

spongebob

orwellg84 wrote:

Sorry to see yet another rural customer in turmoil. I found out similar issues when I returned from the UK with broadband enabled exchange. .

We did not have any DSL until 2001, there was no demand for Broadband according to Eircom . We had no FRIACO until 2003 . You lived in Luxury lad !

Since returning, I have noted that the state of the lines network seems to be creaking under the obligation thet Eircom have to legally supply lines, even to hole in the wall places, yet they are trying to cover about the same area as England. Eircom are supplying town, BT Esat are supplying town and the government is triplicating the process by supplying the self same towns, where's the logic? .

They charge about 50% more line rental than BT do, can you see a tiny linkage there maybe . BT supply DSL to over 95% of their customer lines if wanted, Eircom can not even do 50% , only 59% of the population are connected to an enabled exchange at present. The network is creaking BECAUSE Eircom send their profits to the New York bankers who own it.....along with a parasitic staff based holding fund and parasitic senior management. The highest line rental in Europe is not spent on the network.

Blame Eircom if you want but the blame is with government and it's lack of foresight and planning. I have found that nothing gets planned or done until it becomes a problem that is totally unreasonable..

Planning by who. Eircom does not install copper in Urbanised housing estates of 100 houses plus for up to 2 years after they are built ...never mind when the permission is given.

In my area I found out that 2.8kbs was the best I could get.

You lucky lad, thats over 20k (bits)

I dug again and asked and asked about other solutions an finally got Wireless BB installed in less than a week from order..

Ahhh yes , 3.5Ghz . That is a long long story of inept regulation and spectrum squatting in itself . Eircom have had that product 'live' since 2000 but refused to sell it to anybody until easter 2004 . No demand of course and they didn;t want the bother when the object was to block spectrum and not to provide a service on it.

So the motto is pester everyone all the time in all the suppliers
. Making contact with the local exchange staff and local manager may also help.

Good advice.

M

orwellg84

Don't get me wrong. I have no special love for Eircom or any other supplier for that matter. I was lucky to miss out on the privatisation fiasco when everyone seems to have been fleeced. Eircom is now private and as far as they are concerned the first obligation is to shareholders, not nice, but that's the reality. Investment bankers have no love for anything other than cash. The real issue was that the network was privatised as part of the package and I do put that down to government mismanagement and planning. If now the government are going to replicate the network to towns they should also have a strategy for rural areas. For the most part, it's not economic to supply these areas and I see wireless as the only realistic solution. I am not up with the regulation or licenses in this area but if it's not sorted now it should be and this should be a priority of whatever dept, quango or org that has the remit. If none of this is government business then they should butt out, but I think it is; The government is in place to provide a quality of structure and standards to allow society to function and this areas is one of those essentials for a modern society.

d-j-k

I have no love of eircom either, and yes their first priority is their shareholders thesedays, which is normal for any PLC, including BT. However, comparing an urban area in the UK with some far flung "urban" area 20 miles outside Dublin is ridiculous.

1) Dublin's suffering from "urban" sprawl on a scale not seen anywhere else in Europe. Because of the insane cost of houses within the Dublin urban area tens of thousands of new homes are popping up in what are effectively rural communities. This development is utterly unplanned and infrastructural services in these communities are completely unable to cope. That includes, telephone systems, sewage systems, water supplies and even schools.

2) Being connected to a "subexchanange" isn't unusual in any digital phone network. The exchanges are "fully distributed" i.e. each area has a main switching node (large exchange) which has many RSUs (Remote subscriber units) which are basically smaller switches that are completely controlled by the main exchange in the area.

These RSUs vary in size from quite large exchanges (where they replaced older mechanical equipment in the 1980s) or in rural spots they could be the size of a small office PABX servicing a few hundred lines at most.

ADSL is not part of the telephone network, ISDN is. DSL requires signifigant new infrastructure and back haul facilities to be installed at each exchange and RSU. Because of the low population density eircom has a hell of a lot of small RSUs scattered all over the country, and all of these need to be DSL enabled to provide national coverage.

So, if you live 20 miles outside the nearest town in a housing estate you are going to be waiting... That's the reality of it.

If you live in any city or town you won't as you'll be connected directly to the main local switch.

The sad reality is that due to the insane pattern of development which has been allowed to continue. We have a completely unsustianable mess of ultra low density ribbon developments, particularly around Dublin.

This is the main reason why we have poor DSL coverage, pathetic bus services, badly contaminated group water schemes serving ecoli up to quasi-urban rural households.

If you want to point a finger at anyone point it at Fianna Fail and their unbelievable lack of any forsight. For years planning laws = the ability to make a fortune and rezone. Hence the current total mess!

Just wait till the ESB decides to charge people economic costs for their power connection!!!

spongebob

d-j-k wrote:

I have no love of eircom either, and yes their first priority is their shareholders thesedays, which is normal for any PLC, including BT. However, comparing an urban area in the UK with some far flung "urban" area 20 miles outside Dublin is ridiculous.

Far flung in DSL terms starts in Merrion Square, home of some antique copper that wll not carry DSL .

1) Dublin's suffering from "urban" sprawl on a scale not seen anywhere else in Europe. Because of the insane cost of houses within the Dublin urban area tens of thousands of new homes are popping up in what are effectively rural communities. This development is utterly unplanned and infrastructural services in these communities are completely unable to cope. That includes, telephone systems, sewage systems, water supplies and even schools.

Nvertheless very few premises in Dubln are over 3 miles from their exchange so DSL should be available.

2) Being connected to a "subexchanange" isn't unusual in any digital phone network. The exchanges are "fully distributed" i.e. each area has a main switching node (large exchange) which has many RSUs (Remote subscriber units) which are basically smaller switches that are completely controlled by the main exchange in the area.
These RSUs vary in size from quite large exchanges (where they replaced older mechanical equipment in the 1980s) or in rural spots they could be the size of a small office PABX servicing a few hundred lines at most.

Yes. We have circa 70 main exchanges in the state, the other 1030(ish) are RSU's . There is an evern more granular variant called a Remote Concentrator which fits in a phonebox size housng .

ADSL is not part of the telephone network, ISDN is. DSL requires signifigant new infrastructure and back haul facilities to be installed at each exchange and RSU. Because of the low population density eircom has a hell of a lot of small RSUs scattered all over the country, and all of these need to be DSL enabled to provide national coverage.

Yes , correct.

So, if you live 20 miles outside the nearest town in a housing estate you are going to be waiting... That's the reality of it.

NOBODY IN IRELAND LIVES MORE THAN 10 MILES from an Eircom exchange/RSU whatever. Only 2-3% of the population is over 5 miles (8km) away , DSL works to 10km in the UK . There are no estates 20 miles away !

The sad reality is that due to the insane pattern of development which has been allowed to continue. We have a completely unsustianable mess of ultra low density ribbon developments, particularly around Dublin.

Yes but this does not hinder DSL deployment which is economic in very small units such as a 24 port DSLAM wth Copper E1 backhaul. Its Bad for sewage and roads mainly but not so much for electricity and water. Only about 200-300 Exchanges are uneconomic today. That will halve every 2 years as the tech improves.

Just wait till the ESB decides to charge people economic costs for their power connection!!!

They generally do but the urbanites subsidise the rural community to a degree . Then agan the urbanites get the high voltage stable grid feeds that lead to higher employment while the country gets 38kv star formation power outage stuff .

M

dahamsta

Delphi91 wrote:

I've had the "crackly line after rain" problem two or three times.

Ditto, and it affected my connectivity and took me a good half year to get sorted, because the issue was a tiny short on the actual line. Of course Eircom didn't believe this and it was finally spotted by two engineers who were more interested in their job than Eircom's targets. Fair dues to the guys.

Who here remembers this...

"No, you're line is testing fine."
"Can you hear the crackling?"
"I can, but your line is testing fine."

Dolts.

adam

Delphi91

dahamsta wrote:

...Who here remembers this...

"No, you're line is testing fine."
"Can you hear the crackling?"
"I can, but your line is testing fine."

...

Mine was more along the lines of...

"No, your line is testing fine."
"I'm sorry, can you repeat that, I can't hear you with all the crackling on the line."
"I said that your line is testing fine."
"Sorry, I can't hear you."
etc, etc, etc.....

Mike

orwellg84

I had a similar experience with my line 8km from the exchange although only 4km from town's exchange! Line crackles when it's windy and raining. When in UK, BT traced a similar problem all along the line from exchange to a tree leaning on the cable, 0 cost. Eircom will do if you really make a pain of yourself. I don't mean just ringing the standard number but getting in there under the skin and into someones desk that doesn't normally deal with the public.

I campaigned for ADSL on my exchange when in the UK and came across almost all the same issues that now are prevalent in Ireland. BT excuses were exactly the same are they are now in Ireland. BT had the trigger program to assess demand [sic], more likely to keep the campaigners, or should that be complainers happy. Our exchange 1400 lines (so not urban UK but "in the sticks" (quoting BT rep), 18 months to even get a trigger which was then set at an almost impossible 500 lines. Not daunted but got the priests, vicars, pensioners anyone to sign up on the basis that it was good for the community . Played by their rules but dirty and we met the target in just 6 weeks. There's demand! ADSL was installed 2 years after we started.

All is still not rosy in the UK where 483 exchanges are still without a trigger level, (look at the adslguide.org website forums). These are in rural areas which in demographics are similar to Ireland, so small that the fuss they will make will be minor. Basically, "get satellite, get something else but go away!" Almost 3900 exchanges are triggered and 1400 still awaiting service. But BT have covered most of the population so the problem as far as they are concerned is ended. No doubt in the end all the country will have broadband but some areas, like one in Wales which only recently got electricity (yes, electricity) will have to wait. The bonus or negatives of lifestyle of living in the country.

As far as Dublin is concerned, last year adoption in London had similar problems. In fact Eircom engineers were over there fixing their problems! I knew a guy who lived next door to the exchange who could not get ADSL! Equally, Milton K was deemed to advanced for ADSL because all the lines were fiber and had to be downgraded. So Eircom has missed the boat while they were busy playing with shares and bankers. The reality, whether in the UK or here is get under the skin and onto the desk of someone who doesn't normally deal with the public, things will get done, sure your'll step on someone else on the way but if you want something....I and other rural campaigners pestered Pierre Danon (BT head honcho for BB) and things happened.

d-j-k

If you are having serious difficulties with eircom ring one of the following numbers and ask to speak to someone who can deal with it.

1 800 671 444

or 01 671 4444

Eircom PLC HQ

Also, keep logging fault reports on 1901 or online... if necessary more than once a day until the fault's fixed.

Their technicans are great, it's just a matter of actually getting past that damn voice recognition system that sounds rather like HAL and past the people working in their call centres who often don't know any more about phone line problems than your average check-out person at Tesco (no insult to tesco employees intended)

If you get no where with 1901 demand to speak to a manager or to have one phone you back.

orwellg84

d-j-k wrote:

Also, keep logging fault reports on 1901 or online... if necessary more than once a day until the fault's fixed.

Thier technicians are great.

Absolutely agree. The regulator either doesn't have the clout, ability or competence to impose penalties on failure to respond within a defined charter specification. I have found in the last four months that you need to everything twice and twice again and then start again. Not because of the engineers, who I agree are the backbone of the company, but on speaking to them, are frustrated beyond belief with the management structure.

Eventually I got there but only by making it a full time occupation until I got what I wanted.

d-j-k

It's not fair to say comreg's incompetant either. They can only do what they're legally mandated to do. Quality of repair service / customer service may be outside their current remit!


Again.. only one place to point the finger on this issue : Leinster House.

Get on to your TDs (All of them) and explain what's going on.

Also, bare in mind that eircom face no competition in this area and are an absolute monopoly...

dahamsta

orwellg84 wrote:

The regulator either doesn't have the clout, ability or competence to impose penalties on failure to respond within a defined charter specification.

Well said.

d-j-k wrote:

It's not fair to say comreg's incompetant either. They can only do what they're legally mandated to do.

They can't even do that.

Quality of repair service / customer service may be outside their current remit!

It most certainly is within their remit. And if you have any questions, you can Ask ComReg. Well, you can't, but they'll do bugger all anyway so perhaps if you pretend to ask, they can pretend to help.

only one place to point the finger on this issue : Leinster House.

One of many places. As has already been pointed out, you need to lay a wide swath of complaints on these issues if you want something done. Complaining solely to your TD could well be the worst thing someone could do.

adam