Ordered 2Mbit BT Broadband, getting 512kb

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has experienced this. Broadband recently became available in our area so i signed up for broadband plus, at 2mbit speed. Now we got the box today and i set it up and i'm getting 512.

I know these products are radsl but surely this is not on!! I'm probably 4 or so miles from the exchange, but surely i should be getting more than 512/128?

Now, thing is i dont know if our account is fully set up - could this be the issue?

Any discusssion would be appreciated.

kaizersoze

I doubt if your account has anything to do with it but 4 miles would probably be pushing it for 2mb. Maybe it is RADSL but it's strange that it's held at bang on 512kb. Ring BT and tell them. If it was RADSL it would more likely stop at something like 670kb or 1650kb or whatever. It looks to me that your line is only set up for 512kb.

Thanks,

A few hours on and i'm getting 2016/128! We did a run into town and the distance to the post office was 5.5km.

Edit: should mention that the po is also the exchange

ButtermilkJack

I ordered 2mb as well and am wondering what it was you did to get higher speeds, or did it just happen?

kaizersoze

baz8080 wrote:

Thanks,

A few hours on and i'm getting 2016/128!

That sounds better

kaizersoze

ButtermilkJack wrote:

I ordered 2mb as well and am wondering what it was you did to get higher speeds, or did it just happen?

What speeds are you getting or are you waiting for connection?

ButtermilkJack

Sorry should've said. I'm waiting for modem to be delivered. BT guy said eircom gave them live date of 28th but that eircom usually come in a week early :rolleyes:

He also said that once modem arrives at my door the line should be live and kicking. I wouldn't have thought it would be a gradual build-up of speed so to speak? Fingers crossed!

It seems to fluctuate a bit! - Well it's a lot better than 41.2kbps so i'm very happy!

kaizersoze

ButtermilkJack wrote:

Sorry should've said. I'm waiting for modem to be delivered. BT guy said eircom gave them live date of 28th but that eircom usually come in a week early :rolleyes:

He also said that once modem arrives at my door the line should be live and kicking. I wouldn't have thought it would be a gradual build-up of speed so to speak? Fingers crossed!

The modem will adapt to whatever speed is available automatically. The symptoms described by baz8080 are not normal. Maybe Eircom hadn't finished setting up the line and it was only then he got his true speed. Other than that I don't know

zuma

baz8080 wrote:

Thanks,

A few hours on and i'm getting 2016/128! We did a run into town and the distance to the post office was 5.5km.

Edit: should mention that the po is also the exchange

DAMN!!!
You must surely have the Irish record for distance...5.5Km is the furthest I have seen so far!!!
Good on you...and getting 2Mbit at that distance is impressive....that line of yours must be brand spanking new!!!

Daemonic

baz8080 wrote:

Thanks,

A few hours on and i'm getting 2016/128! We did a run into town and the distance to the post office was 5.5km.

Edit: should mention that the po is also the exchange

Baz, can you give a little more detail on your BB application etc. The distance you give will provide hope for many
Did your line pass first time?
Is it a new line i.e. new house/development or is the phone line in place a few years?

Hi,

Back to 512 this morning. The order is not officially finished i think. I'll check the distance again today to get it more exact than 5.5 (a wee bit of rounding was done there).

Our line never used to pass the tests which was no surprise to me because of the distances involved. Then i was bored one day recently and i put our number in again and it passed. I checked every other day after that too to make sure and it passed again.

Now, our original line here would be 20 years old. Eircom were doing a shedload of work at the local 'box' during the past while. By 'box' i mean the thing at the side of the road about chest high that you always see the eircom guys working in.

So i dont know what they did really, i am stumped

peterk19

Daemonic wrote:

Baz, can you give a little more detail on your BB application etc. The distance you give will provide hope for many
Did your line pass first time?
Is it a new line i.e. new house/development or is the phone line in place a few years?

Im 6.4 km from my exchange and got connected through the amber project after warning from eircom saying it wont run at full speed it did so i ordered it to be upgraded to 2Mb yesterday they had it upgraded within 5 hours now im getting full speed downloads from heanet so i reckon that would give hope to anbody on a failing line and i gotta say one thing about eircom once they get it installed its great.
Pete

zuma

Good news!!!
I am honestly delighted for everyone getting connected now with 5 km and 6 km distances between them and the exchanges!!!

It appears those bastards at eircom have finally got their heads out of their asses and are doing something right for a change.
eircom management will forever be azzholes though!!!.......yeah McRedmond that would be you!!!

spongebob

This is great news TBH, if the ISPs allowed you downgrade for free to the 'sustainable' speed, assuming you had ordered an unsustainable speed, then its win win for everyone compared to the old distance limits.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the 6KM announcement by BT during the week and the Smart limits where they can also get you 2mb (ish) at about that max distance.

Giblet

It might just be good lines, doesn't mean it's widely available.

Well, i'm back on the 512 but like i said - i'm not officially on the service yet. I certainly wont be happy paying for 2 and getting 0.5!

kaizersoze

I changed over to BT 2mb from UTV 1mb but for the first week or 2 on BT I was only getting 1mb. When I rang them about it I was told that they would check the settings on my line and change it to 2mb if it wasn't already. If it was already set for 2mb and I couldn't get it because of line quality or whatever, they would downgrade me to 1mb for free so I wouldn't be paying for the dearer package.
The problem with your situation is you are only getting 512kb but the 512kb product doesn't exist any more. There only option might be to charge you for 1mb. Because your speed has on one occasion gone up to 2016 it looks like your line is set up for 2mb but something is having an effect on it (line quality etc). Rule out any potential problems within your house before you ring them.
1. Are you using a telephone extension lead between the modem and phone socket?
2. Is the modem plugged into an extension socket or the main Eircom socket?
3. Try temporarily pluging the modem directly into the phone socket without the filter to rule out a dodgy filter.
4. Try a different modem if you have one or borrow one.
5. Do you have a digital cordless telephone or a Sky Digibox connected to the phone line? If so, disconnect them to see what happens.
6. Do you have a monitored alarm in the house?
7. Are you using filters on all devices connected to the phone line (telephones, fax machine, Digibox etc). If not you should be.
If you rule out as much as you can at your end then you can reasonably assume that it's a problem at their end.
HTH
Kevin

flamegrill

A point to note, I know that you don't get yer 2mb etc, but don't forget that the caps on the lower priced products differ. You can still download a lot of data a month even at 512k

Paul

kaizersoze

flamegrill wrote:

A point to note, I know that you don't get yer 2mb etc, but don't forget that the caps on the lower priced products differ. You can still download a lot of data a month even at 512k

Paul

Good point
I meant to add that I was given the option of staying on the higher package if I required the higher cap.

On a side note. Just read this in the Sunday Independent:

wrote:

EIRCOM sources are jubilant at the purchase of Meteor at a price of around €415m.

Analysts compared the price favourably to other mobile deals. The deal will cost Eircom only €100 per head of the population - or €1,000 per subscriber. One analyst stressed that in two European deals buyers were paying far more. In one case a private consortium paid €211 per head for mobile company, Wind, while France Telecom is bidding €1,140 per subscriber for Amena. Both make the Meteor price look good.

kaizersoze

kaizersoze wrote:

I changed over to BT 2mb from UTV 1mb but for the first week or 2 on BT I was only getting 1mb. When I rang them about it I was told that they would check the settings on my line and change it to 2mb if it wasn't already. If it was already set for 2mb and I couldn't get it because of line quality or whatever, they would downgrade me to 1mb for free so I wouldn't be paying for the dearer package.
The problem with your situation is you are only getting 512kb but the 512kb product doesn't exist any more. There only option might be to charge you for 1mb. Because your speed has on one occasion gone up to 2016 it looks like your line is set up for 2mb but something is having an effect on it (line quality etc). Rule out any potential problems within your house before you ring them.
1. Are you using a telephone extension lead between the modem and phone socket?
2. Is the modem plugged into an extension socket or the main Eircom socket?
3. Try temporarily pluging the modem directly into the phone socket without the filter to rule out a dodgy filter.
4. Try a different modem if you have one or borrow one.
5. Do you have a digital cordless telephone or a Sky Digibox connected to the phone line? If so, disconnect them to see what happens.
6. Do you have a monitored alarm in the house?
7. Are you using filters on all devices connected to the phone line (telephones, fax machine, Digibox etc). If not you should be.
If you rule out as much as you can at your end then you can reasonably assume that it's a problem at their end.
HTH
Kevin

Thanks, will try as many of these as i can and get back to you!

Questions 1 & 2

The line comes in to the main eircom box on the wall, this goes to the BT box (installed years ago), only one foot i'd say. Router is connected directly to this.

Question 3

Filter seems ok, as i have tried with and without

Question 4

I'll borrow one and see!

Question 5

Yes, a dig cordless telephone, knocked that off.

Question 6

No, we dont.

Question 7

Just did that now

..............

Speed has increased to 1.1Mbit

Thanks! Is this more than likely as good as i can expect now?

Success!!!!

2Mbit DSL at 5.5-6km! What i did was..., i'll take a photo of that but major thanks to kaisersoze! I owe you a beer!

zuma

baz8080 wrote:

Success!!!!

2Mbit DSL at 5.5-6km! What i did was..., i'll take a photo of that but major thanks to kaisersoze! I owe you a beer!

Nice to hear you have 2Mbit again.

Photo of what?....explain please how you fixed it.

kaizersoze

baz8080 wrote:

Success!!!!

2Mbit DSL at 5.5-6km! What i did was..., i'll take a photo of that but major thanks to kaisersoze! I owe you a beer!

No worries
What was it in the end?
See how it behaves over the next few days. Don't count your chickens and all that

I'm not sure, i'd say knocking off the phone got me from 512 to 1060kbps and then the trick i did with the terminal boxes got me the rest of the way. 4 machines all happily using the connection now

kaizersoze

The trick with the terminal boxes

Yes, i'd have to take a photo to show you but im away working for the week now. I'm guessing we have a bit of a weird setup. We got Esat ages ago when it came out and they had to install an extra terminal box that was fed off the eircom terminal box--

Just as an interesting aside:

My line (happily doing 2048/128) is now failing the test for broadband. I thought it was maybe because i _had_ dsl but no..

zuma

I failed a dsl test recently on digiwebs site even though I have had DSL of one type or another since October 2004!!!

Dont take any notice.

It's going to be another one of the stories you hear where one house in the middle of 10 is told they can have dsl and thats it

I'm sure my mam was telling all the neighnours that we can all get it now