500,000 Broadband Lines WTF ?!

spongebob

Full page ad by €ircon in IT today ...biz section page 3

500,000 i-stream Broadband lines NOW available

Prior to the inevitable ASAI complaint I would like to state a few obvious factoids.

*€ircon has only upgraded circa 45 exchanges at this point ..in Dublin Cork and Kerry. Are we to assume that each of them has over 10,000 lines on average ?



*What is the % pass rate for lines on the 45 exchanges, 20% or so ISTR. If the line does not pass the line test is 'istream now available'



* €ircon says in the small print that 'it is possible' a line will not pass. If the fail rate is 80% should that not say PROBABLE or MOST LIKELY rather than POSSIBLE

*€ircon did not care to mention that it maintains a database of information on peoples lines from which it 'derives' its pass rates did it? Does the database contain information on your line and if so how do you find out from the database if you are one of the 500,000 ?

* The fact the E Doyle had a comment piece on page 7 of the biz section had nothing to do with this ...of course not.

Anybody else want to flesh out the factoids a bit b4 the ASAI gets to hear about this....especially the line test pass rate.

M

The_Bullman

I heard that ad on the radio last week. I couldn't believe it. My mother was beside me when i heard it. Poor woman had to calm me down.

DiscoStu

Humour Board, move this to the humour board.

pork99

I did not hear it myself but someone told me that there is an eircom radio ad where they are advertising i-stream as cheap.

anyone hear that?

Slutmonkey57b

I loved both pieces I have to say - the puff piece on Doyle was quite amusing as it went on about her legal "expertise" - such expertise that she didn't even realise whether or not her department had any power or not. Apparantly she's been "buried" in legal documentation re: postal services from 1680 and Telegraph legislation from the 1880's.

Note to Doyle:
Get your nose out of archaic legislation and start keeping an eye on what the companies are doing TODAY, in the real world, under current legislation. Wot no legislation?

Get some!

As for the 500k lines, they also hope to have 1m by the end of the year. Which goes a long way to explaining why they only have 3000 subscribers... ahem. Nothing to do with pricing of course.

spongebob

dunno what you were reading head

they said they were 'on target' for 1 million lines by end 2003

(I estimate there are 100,000 potential lines now and not 500,000 and that they are counting ESAT only exchanges too)

she was on about efficiency in the article saying in effect

get rid of some Biddies before ye come back looking fro a price rise, she noted that Teledenmark have 325 lines per employee, BT have 261 where our lot have 169 lines per employee. In other words her thesis is

1. They are overpersonned
2. Therefore they are inefficient
3. Thus she is not going to give them price rises at or above the rate of inflation until they put their house in order.

They would have to shed 4000 employees or more to get to the BT line ratio............

But ......back to the porkies in the AD if you please

Urban Weigl

And that's just counting lines, not actual households or businesses. Considering that virtually all businesses and many households have multpiple lines, it's much less again. I would be extremely surprised if even 100,000 actual households and businesses were able to receive ADSL at the moment. That ad is just simply misleading and nothing else. Not to mention the price. The ODTR themselves have published a report saying, in simple terms, that "nobody will pay for broadband if it costs more than 30 to 40 euros".

It is an insult to the entire nation that some journalists seem to think that we're all a bunch of paddys. We're not. I know you all know this, but I can't help stating it again: there are only about 2,000 ADSL connections in Ireland because of the cost, terrible availability and not to mention a complete lack of FRIACO, which is known to act as a stepping stone.

timod

I'm sending a complaint to the ASAI.

I cannot accept that 500,000 lines are able to get ADSL, and I believe it to be grossly innacurate and misleading.

rymus

saw this one in the examiner also... maybe its 500,000 lines failed so far?

jcoshea

What is the % pass rate for lines on the 45 exchanges, 20% or so ISTR. If the line does not pass the line test is 'istream now available'

I ran €ircon yesterday to see if my line was capable of receiving. Talking to the phone rep. she said she gets around 20 calls a day from customers enquiring about DSL but only about 8 of the callers that she tests the lines for acutally pass the line test.
And that didn't include people whose exchanges weren't upgraded.
Still both my lines passed so I can't complain too much.
Thanks €ircon, my lines passed your test and I'll be using Esats €60 connection with no cap when they launch it my my area in January.

dahamsta

I have it on good authority that the ODTR say that the pass rate is /at least/ 80%. I find it small bit difficult to believe meself, but that's what I've been told, and I have no reason to doubt the teller.

[ EDIT: That should read "the ODTR believes that" rather than "the ODTR say that". Sorry. ]

adam

vinnyfitz

The first time I asked, Eircom told me my line had failed. If I did not read these Boards I would probably have left it like that.

When I asked for retest they agreed to do one, then forgot to do it and then never told me the result. I had to chase them 6 times before I got confirmation that my line had actually passed - no wonder they are making so few connections!

(Lucky me my exchange is also covered by ESATBT who were able to confirm within 24 hours that I passed.)

By the way does anyone know what Eircom's definition of a "pass" is? Are there some sort of quality standards they apply here?

Also anyone know how many lines are there in the country? 500,000 is what % of the total?

zynaps

I've mentioned something along these lines before, but I don't have a clue how to go about it.

How about set up a page to keep an unofficial record of the ratio of enabled exchanges to passed lines in those exchanges?

You'd just need two buttons - "Enabled exchange, line passed" and "Enabled exchange, line failed", and possibly a third for exchanges that don't support DSL at all just to keep it in perspective... maybe not.
Though I guess you'd need to start recording ip's or asking for phone numbers and passwords to deal with false positives/negatives and spammers and eircom employees and people wanting to edit their results having passed (or failed) later...

That or we could just do a poll here, to see if people in DSL enabled exchanges who have asked for a test make up this 80% success rate.

Why not?

zynaps

Dangger

How about set up a page to keep an unofficial record of the ratio of enabled exchanges to passed lines in those exchanges?

Good idea, going to follow it up.

s10

Does the database contain information on your line and if so how do you find out from the database if you are one of the 500,000 ?

oh christ i am just about to buy a house
Please oh please
someone tell how i check up on this ?
in dublin

as i want a housemate with a big pc
same as me

vinnyfitz

If its a new house Eircom won't test it till the actual line is installed
If its a 2nd hand house with a line already installed you could pretend to be the owner and request a test or ideally ask the vendors to request a test (ideally you need both the telephone number and the account number.)

s10

garage & line test ,

dahamsta

By the way does anyone know what Eircom's definition of a "pass" is?

I don't know what the definition of a "pass" is, but I do know that there are three classes of "fail", two of which may be repaired by the removal of carriers or the use of binder managemen. Someone else will need to explain what binder management is.

Are there some sort of quality standards they apply here?

Not strictly relevant, but there does appear to be quality standards for the line testing itself - each is exchange is apparently tested once a month - and the ODTR seems to monitor testing, although I don't know if there are procedures in place to address problems. Also note that, last I heard, line testing has not been rolled out fully; and that the system is not used for unbundled lines, as volume isn't sufficient.

I have further information about testing, but I'd prefer not to post it here. Obviously I've forwarded it to IrelandOffline.

Also anyone know how many lines are there in the country? 500,000 is what % of the total?

It's in the Quarterly Review (September). 1.6 million PSTN, 330,000 ISDN. PSTN is constant since the last quarter, and accounts for 33% of total access paths (4.9 million). ISDN has seen an increase of 28% since last year (and accounts for 6% of total access paths). I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about the growth in ISDN.

adam

LFCFan

That tester they have at http://www.adsl.ie is a load of bollix. I put in details of a phone I know has passed and it said it was not capable of having ADSL.

vinnyfitz

both it and the site of Ireland's incumbent telco appear to be down at the moment!

ednwireland

has anyone put in a complaint about the radio ADSL advert yet bacause it says that you pay a flat fee yat the bandwidth is capped and they don't mantion this in the advertising - is this worth pursueing ?

MDR

is this worth pursueing ?

its always worth pursuing ...