[MichealKenny]

Hey guys, My name is Micheal and I have Eircom's 3Mbps package.
My problem is the recent speeds I have been getting, they are awful, in late 2010 my line could handle 4Mbps, in early 2011 my line went down to 1.7Mbps, It happened very suddenly and has stayed the same ever since, I live in a small village and we have a small local exchange capable of 7Mbps, so congestion wouldn't be the problem here, I have had Eircom come over 2 times and they said the line is perfectly fine from the street to the gable, the house has 3 phone line connections and I've tried the router on all and it has stayed the same, I have limited it down to two possible problems:

• The router is faulty.
• There is something wrong with the box that feeds to all 3 extensions.

Recently, the broadband would just not load a web page, I would still be connected, the router would say 1.7Mbps, but the web page just wouldn't load, when I would restart the router everything would be fine, leading to two possible problems

• The router is faulty.
• Congestion (unlikely).

I'm guessing its a problem with the router and I called up Eircom and they basically said "we would be happy to give you our cheap router with 3 year old firmware if you would sign another 12 month contract " so I am not doing that, you're very mean people Eircom

Any help would be welcome, I'll try anything to get my 4Mbps capabilities back, thanks

[dub45]

Originally Posted by MichealKenny

Hey guys, My name is Micheal and I have Eircom's 3Mbps package.
My problem is the recent speeds I have been getting, they are awful, in late 2010 my line could handle 4Mbps, in early 2011 my line went down to 1.7Mbps, It happened very suddenly and has stayed the same ever since, I live in a small village and we have a small local exchange capable of 7Mbps, so congestion wouldn't be the problem here, I have had Eircom come over 2 times and they said the line is perfectly fine from the street to the gable, the house has 3 phone line connections and I've tried the router on all and it has stayed the same, I have limited it down to two possible problems:

• The router is faulty.
• There is something wrong with the box that feeds to all 3 extensions.

Recently, the broadband would just not load a web page, I would still be connected, the router would say 1.7Mbps, but the web page just wouldn't load, when I would restart the router everything would be fine, leading to two possible problems

• The router is faulty.
• Congestion (unlikely).

I'm guessing its a problem with the router and I called up Eircom and they basically said "we would be happy to give you our cheap router with 3 year old firmware if you would sign another 12 month contract " so I am not doing that, you're very mean people Eircom

Any help would be welcome, I'll try anything to get my 4Mbps capabilities back, thanks

Why should any isp be giving out free routers when you can leave with a month's notice and you have not established anyway that its the router thats at fault?

Were your extensions installed professionally? What is attached to the extensions? Have all attached devices got filters attached?

What are your line stats?

[MichealKenny]

Originally Posted by dub45

Why should any isp be giving out free routers when you can leave with a month's notice and you have not established anyway that its the router thats at fault?

Were your extensions installed professionally? What is attached to the extensions? Have all attached devices got filters attached?

What are your line stats?

When you are a long time trusted customer, I think they should give you at least a router to borrow so you can see if that is the actual problem (when they say it is).

Extensions were done professionally
1st extension has a phone with a filter.
2nd extension has a phone without a filter.
3rd extension has the router with the filter.

Line stats (according to the router)

DSL Mode: ADSL_G.dmt
Speed: 1760Kbps/384Kbps
Line Attenuation: 49/24
DSL Noise Margin: 17/12

Speedtest.net Line Grades

Before: A
After: C

[dub45]

Originally Posted by MichealKenny

When you are a long time trusted customer, I think they should give you at least a router to borrow so you can see if that is the actual problem (when they say it is).

Extensions were done professionally
1st extension has a phone with a filter.
2nd extension has a phone without a filter.
3rd extension has the router with the filter.

Line stats (according to the router)

DSL Mode: ADSL_G.dmt
Speed: 1760Kbps/384Kbps
Line Attenuation: 49/24
DSL Noise Margin: 17/12

Speedtest.net Line Grades

Before: A
After: C

All phones should have filters.

Have you tried testing your speed with the extension phones removed and your modem connected to the main socket?

[MichealKenny]

Originally Posted by dub45

All phones should have filters.

Have you tried testing your speed with the extension phones removed and your modem connected to the main socket?

thanks, I don't know much about them but what are there official names so i can buy one on ebay?

Also, I have looked at this and ruled it out as that phone didn't have a filter beforehand, thanks anyway, I'll buy one right away

[Tungsten Tide]

Line Filters should be on all Phones and check to see if they are working. 1 of mine's broke n the line SNR was a very bad.

[MichealKenny]

Originally Posted by Tungsten Tide

Line Filters should be on all Phones and check to see if they are working. 1 of mine's broke n the line SNR was a very bad.

thanks man, never knew they were that important, i've one ordered, will order a few more just in case I ever need them

[MichealKenny]

Question for Tungsten Tide: does it only matter if the phone is used?

Also, I bought one of those Linksys by Cisco modem/routers off Amazon, lets hope this fixes the problem

[Tungsten Tide]

All phones need 1. If a call comes out the line and someone answers it they will talk into it. That in its self creates noise so a line filter filters out most of the noise. Thats how i knew 1 of mines was broken. When someone called the internet would disconnect all a sudden.

Also Cisco routers r a good choice same goes for the Netgears. I personally would buy this Cisco-Linksys-WRT54GL-Wireless-G-Broadband

[dub45]

Originally Posted by MichealKenny

Question for Tungsten Tide: does it only matter if the phone is used?

Also, I bought one of those Linksys by Cisco modem/routers off Amazon, lets hope this fixes the problem

No - in my experience the phone doesn't have to be used to have a negative effect, have you plugged it out to see what effect it has?

[Tungsten Tide]

Whatever modem u use setup up the configuration as follows HERE

[E39MSport]

Mine's also gone to poo lately. I'm on the Donadea exchange in North Kildare. Was at just over 1Mb and now is hovering about .5Mb.

Interestingly, there's a new build around the corner that has just been moved in to.

[MichealKenny]

I am not looking forward to setting up a new router, I had the last one so finely tuned, I used up all my available port forwarding spots thanks for the help everyone! I will report back when I have the router setup

[To_be_confirmed]

Micheal, while you're waiting on those filters, could you do a favour for me? Could you plug out the 3 phones and the modem and then plug just the modem back in? Then get the line stats again and post them up here to see how much has changed. You can plug the phones in after you've checked the stats.


What hasn't been said here is that eircom are supposed to check the line up to and including the first socket in the house as it is their responsibility. If the linesman only checked up to where the line meets the gable from the pole then he didn't do his job.

But the filter is needed on that second phone as has been said.

As an aside, on occasion I've seen some sparks use stuff like alarm cable to put in phone wires and wired the extra sockets incorrectly even though the RECI have released a document showing how to do it (http://www.reci.ie/Portals/0/RECIDoc...minterface.pdf). Joining up the different sockets the wrong way can cause suprising problems for DSL.

[MichealKenny]

I'm so sorry about not mentioning this, but he did come in the house and check the socket in the kitchen, also, we do have an alarm hooked up to the phone line, but the phone service in the alarm was never set up, so its basically an unused extension (why i was asking do you need a filter on a line that is not used) Eircom asked me to unplug all lines before but there were no improvements, tomorrow at around midday i will post the full stats again with the phones plugged out, thanks for the help!