ESAT Residential 256k Product. IS IT VAPOURWARE?

spongebob

Timeline

1. 2001 To great fanfare ESAT roll out ADSL to 40 Exchanges in big towns and along railway lines. This was initially a 512k or a 1Mb product. The rollout is complete. 40 exchanges up and running. There are no more exchanges in the pipeline because the government wont give them any more money.

2. October 2002. A 256k product for residential users is announced, available by christmas 2002 (2.5 months ago) . One would assume that it will be available from all 40 exchanges because one was not led to believe otherwise.

3. There is strong anecdotal evidence that ESAT have only configured their DSLAMs in 5 or 6 out of the 40 enabled exchanges for the 256k product. It is LARGELY UNAVAILABLE in other words.

Q's for the group.

a) Are you on an ESAT enabled exchange.
b) Have you requested the 256k product from them
c) Has there been any 'delay' getting it / Is it installed / When ?
d) Which exchange was it by any chance ?

It may be that they only install the kit when they get a certain number of firm orders ...and eth0 told us where we can register our interest in ESAT DSL should we wish to , click Here (takes you to IOL not ESAT but shucks anyway).

M

eth0_

a) Are you on an ESAT enabled exchange.
Yes

b) Have you requested the 256k product from them
Yes

c) Has there been any 'delay' getting it / Is it installed / When ?
There was a delay testing it because of a problem with one of their databases. I couldn't get it in the end because I was 400mtrs too far away from the exchange

d) Which exchange was it by any chance ?
Drogheda town.

oh! and where is the demand registration thing on the ESAT home page as promised in that speech in October 2002 ?

Urm...you mean this page that's been up since the end of November at least?
http://register.iol.ie/dsl/cli_neg_b.htm

Mercury_Tilt

This post has been deleted.

spongebob

/me getting very suspicious now

Andor

an "associate" of mine, who is incredably paranoid and as such wishes to remain anonymous - applied immediately to Esat for the 256k service as soon as he heard it was available in his exchange.
They initially said no problem, and they'ld get back to him as soon as everything was 'sorted out'.
about 50 calls later and now "my associate" is convinced the entire thing was just a test to measure the publics interest in the service.

I personally have not heard of anyone currently on the service.

spongebob

was this in Dublin Cork or Limerick

(to protect your associate we wont go to the smaller towns)

M

Andor

it was cork city

MadsL

i've just been actively dis-sauded from holding out for residential DSL by a CS supervisor, including a discussion of line-splitting...does she mean contention ratios?? I told her line splitters were illegal - she panicked and said she'd have to get back to me...

Anyway I got the following exchanges confirmed for Res. DSL;
Dolphins Barn
Dun L.
Ship St.
Tallaght
Terenure

More exchanges listed here for Business DSL here

I think what is happening is that the Res DSL has been steamrollered by the business product ... not enough capacity in the exchanges to deal with both. EsatBT seem to have split the rollout and not delivered on the Res portion.

I asked about demand and was told it was very high. I said therefore you should offer the product...she said 'that's not they way it is done' I said that's the way it is done in the UK by BT..demand quotas.

Anyone up for a petition/group letter. Anyone on Beggars Bush like me please PM me.

Turner

Sticky'd for a week or two at the request of Muck.

Till we see what ESAT are at.

spongebob

If any regulars on Boards can confirm that 256k is available on a reasonably widespread basis...IE they HAVE it already........I would be happy to see the thread unstickied on the spot

M

eth0_

Well, it took over a month for them to tell me I was too far from the exchange, apparently they had a problem with databases being set up for the residential dsl...

original gadget

I've been told by Eircom and ADSLNow that my line is DSL ready - Ive just sent a mail to ADSLNow if I can get the residential package - I'll keep you informed!!

MadsL

An update - Esat called back ..no they didn't mean line splitters
I had asked if it was possible to have a port throttled down to 256k. No dice - the speed is set per card, not per port. Arse.
I decided not to take no for an answer and ask how many lines were ther per card. 24. So, if myself and 23 of my neighbours ask for it, you can do it then...Maybe she said...(glimmer of hope...) we'll get back to you.

Anyone on Beggars Bush who wants EsatBT Residential DSL please PM me.

Also anyone seen any advertising for ESAT DSL???

MadsL

Got a call back on the splitting a card idea..no dice

Had an interesting conversation though..apparantly 32 exchanges are enabled for Res. DSL. I asked how many customers are there? The answer floored me....20-30 users!!!
Per exchange? In Dublin? No - COUNTRYWIDE!!!!

This is a product that EsatBT Have offered in limited areas and have not advertised...ffs!!! How long before they play the eircom-style lack of interest.

AGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
(particular narked today as my landlord has reminded me that sat dishes are not allowed in the apartment complex)

sceptre

Originally posted by MadsL
AGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
(particular narked today as my landlord has reminded me that sat dishes are not allowed in the apartment complex)

Completely off-topic but mine is in my bathroom. Picture perfect. Take that, nasty listed-building-protecting-dish-banning-corpo-types!

original gadget

Originally posted by sceptre
Completely off-topic but mine is in my bathroom. Picture perfect. Take that, nasty listed-building-protecting-dish-banning-corpo-types!

but dont u get interference when u flush?? is it a static IPeee address?? (ok, ok, I know that was awful!)

...anyway, I got a mail back from ADSLNow to tell me "The residential package is not available form this exchange at the moment"

Arse

..I think I'm gonna wait till Eircom release their new pricing structures... The full Esat Service is a bit out of my budget!

MadsL

Which exchange are you on if you don't mind sharing!!

Nuno

Just talked with the CS crowd for Residential DSL at Esat. They said an engineer should be giving me a call by the end of the week to do the installation.
Also, I have a user name and password fof my new DSl line.
Judging by this activity, it doesn't sound like vapourware to me (I think I was just have jinxed myself with that last statement)

Anyway, If it get's instaled this week, I'll let you all know.

Nuno

williamb

First sighting in the wild..it does exist, it has been installed.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=807975#post807975

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Nuno

Anyway, If it get's instaled this week, I'll let you all know.

Nuno

Which exchange?

Turner

Thread unstuck, aparently some guy PaulW has it. Discussion on Ireland Offline board atm.

Nuno

Skeptic - I'm in Navan and as far as I know, only 2 people have requested it from that exchange. The other guy happens to be my Brother in law.
I just spoke with the Esat people who handle the installations and they're checking to see if they have an engineer out to me for Friday.
Hopefully I'll be joining PaulW soon.
I'll let you guys know about ping times and if norton's 'Connection Stay Alive' software, gets around the 30min idle time cut off.
Nuno

oakers

As the previously discussed brother in-law of Nuno I'm just letting you know that Nuno has had the residential package installed at long last!

He seems to have a max download speed of between 30 and 34.

My line however is still non existant even though we applied at the same time :mad:

spongebob

Could you clarify a tad

1. Is it a new line ?
2. Is it supposed to have an ESAT number and not an Eircom number
3. Do you pay the entire bill (including rental ) to ESAT or do Eircom still get the rental portion.

Out of interest

Thanks and well wear.

M

santalives

just as a matter of interest does anyone know if the residential package from esat is going to change in the light of the new adaptive eircom package.

oakers

Muck,

The line that Nuno has in and I am waiting for are mainly Eircom lines with Line sharing to ESAT.

Thus, You still get your standard bill for line rental and calls from Eircom but you also get your DSL bill from ESAT.

Hope this is of help!

eth0_

Originally posted by Muck

They are all threatened with forcible relocation to a new call centre in the BMW at the moment........or maybe Bangalore....... so it is hard to make them give a fcuk in fairness.

M

lol that's utter bull$hit! Who told you that? I think you're mixing up BT in the UK with Esat BT...

oakers

Finally I have actually had my ESAT DSL line installed!

After contacting customer service to find out what was going on with the install an engineer came out yesterday. The line worked perfectly but when I went to use my username and password it failed :mad:

This occured at 3pm and by 5pm i still had no joy! I personally can't see what the delay was; it's a user account. It just needed checking?

Either way, at about 5:15pm I gave in and refused to talk to anyone but a Tech Support manager and conveyed my grievance. Fair play to him, he went down to the networks dept and sorted it out in about half an hour!

In conclusion............ AT LAST I HAVE DSL