eircom line test fails etc. any intervention

Chowley

Is there any way to stop eircom unfairly failing people's lines and stop them hindering other ISP's?
the government is now finally talking about expanding the broadband network in this country but do they not realise that Eircom are failing people and trying to stop customers going to othre ISP's etc.
This must account for a lot of people who do not have BB.Its one thing to enable all these exchanges but I dont see the point when maybe 50% (just dreamed that up dont actually know the figure) of people on enabled exchanges can get BB and the other cant get it for whatever reason, probably a smaller percentage are actually too far away or have a line that is to blame than those being f**ed by eircom.
10 years time all the exchanges in the cities have been upgraded but 50% will be able to get it.

I have'ent really kept up to dae on what IOL has been doing, have ye raised questions about these problems?

spongebob

IoffL persuaded the Sunday Tribune to investigate this, article appearing shortly I trust ?

De Rebel

It is unlikely that eircom would go so far as to deliberately fail somebody's line to prevent a competitor enabling that line. They would be risking the business by doing this.

But they leave themselves wide open to accusations of this sort by their lack of transparency in relation to line testing.

A professional approach see them publishing on their website:
- details of the test criteria
- details of the test procedures, cycles, etc
- timeline for updating the results database
- timeline and frequency for making results database refreshes available to competitors
- details of appeals/complaints procedure

A customer focused, quality driven, approach would see them providing each customer with:
- Summary result printed on every telephone bill
- Detailed results available on request (last/next test dates, reason for failure, statistics for the exchange, etc)
- Guidance on steps the customer can take to enable the line to pass the test (unplug the crap around the house, disconnect old/extensive internal wiring etc.)
- Procedure to request an on site engineer test
- Options (chargable/non-chargable) available from eircom to remedy the defects

A forward looking approach would also see them publishing:
- Statistical results, by region, exchange, etc
- An analysis of failure types
- High level outline of steps eircom is taking to remedy defects
- Detailed action plan for each exchange of steps eircom is taking to remedy defects

Of course in this perfect world they would also make publically available
- Detailed rollout plan by exchange, with target dates
- Summary by exchange showing status(enabled etc), lines passed, lines failed, lines enabled.
- Trigger entry form
- Trigger summary to date by exchange
- And in this perfect world, we would have a USO that relates to communications requirements in the 21st century, not the 1950s, with standards for analogue and digital communications, including DSL.

In a sub-ideal world, where eircom didn’t do the above off its own bat, the relevant regulatory authority (ComReg) would step in and “encourage” them.

In a sub-sub-ideal world where ComReg fails to successfully “encourage” eircom to do the good stuff, the Minister acting in the interest of the common good, would step in and direct ComReg to encourage eircom to do the good stuff.

In a sub-sub-sub-ideal world Eircom’s competitors would petition the Minister to direct ComReg to encourage eircom to do the good stuff

In our sub-sub-sub-sub-ideal world it needs IOFFL to …………….

Anyone remember Rolf Harris singing “The Court of King Caractacus”?

Chowley

Originally posted by Muck
IoffL persuaded the Sunday Tribune to investigate this, article appearing shortly I trust ?

Thats good news , it's something at least anyway.

The thing that really amazed me was the no slots in the exchange excuse that just seemed like madness.

De Rebel , take over Eircom please might solve a lot of these problems. (in an ideal world) :eek: