My line is bad. What's next?

svu

Hello

I live in Douglas, Cork. I asked eircom for DSL service. They told me the local exchange (hettysfield) does support DSL - but my phone line does not. Is there any way to convince them to fix my line? Is there any way to get DSL other than using their exchanges/lines?

Thanks for any info,

Champ

Hmmm,
From what i know it's sometimes possible that you can get your line "fixed"; though these are usually rare circumstances. I think one of the success stories involved corrosion or just simply wear and tear; but in 99% of cases (estimating) you won't get offical help. Now i'm not saying its entirely impossible; but you usually have to be very tenacious, have plenty of time, and have an iron as well as some sort of basis to haggle them at all for help. :rolleyes:

Just hope it ain't a line splitter; never heard of any case where someone got a line splitter removed.

De Rebel

Go back over the threads on this board you will see a number of different approaches.

There is no guarantee that you will ever get DSL - its totally pot luck and eircom are not under any obligation to provide it.

One possibility is to get another line installed, specifying that it is for DSL use (to stop them splitting, which they shouldn't do anyway) - they won't guarantee that the line will be suitable for DSL, but it might be the easiest way to get things moving. If it works you can cease your original line. If not, you can cease your new line.

Another would be to bribe an eircom engineer and get him to switch the pairs.

ps, if you are talking to eircom people, try not to confuse them by saying douglas. thats a seperate exchange and they get confused easily.

svu

De Rebel wrote:

Another would be to bribe an eircom engineer and get him to switch the pairs.

How and where would I find them? Could they be found at the exchange building?

svu

svu wrote:

How and where would I find them? Could they be found at the exchange building?

BTW, how would I find the exchange address? The name "Hettyfield" does not give me much details...

Moriarty

Easiest way to get in touch with the local engineer is to actually have them come out and look at the line. Get chatting to them when they're there.

There are no public maps of the locations of the telephone exchanges, as apparently it would be a "threat to national security".

De Rebel

svu wrote:

How and where would I find them? Could they be found at the exchange building?

BTW, how would I find the exchange address? The name "Hettyfield" does not give me much details...

Eircom are very secretive about their exchanges. I had great sport finding out where the Douglas one is!

The Hettyfield exchange is in Hettyfield, oddly enough! And although it is far from being the oldest exchange in the country, according to one eircom engineer I spoke with it has some of the worst wiring from a DSL point of view. Anyway, easiest way to find it is to start from the Douglas Road, and turn onto the Well Road heading towards Mahon. Hettyfield is the 2nd turn to the left. (Just after that funny shaped island in the middle of the road). As you head up Hettyfield ignore the first turn to the left. The exchange is dead ahead of you, on a bend. I think there is still an old Department of Posts & Telegraphs sign outside it. Its only a little exchange, so its unmanned.

There are some very good engineers in the Douglas Area, and the Area Engineer is said to be the best in the country. Do as Moriarty said, put in a call to say that you line isnt working for voice calls (YOUR LINE ISNT WORKING FOR VOICE CALLS) and there is this very annoying intermittent fault (VERY ANNOYING INTERMITTENT FAULT) which comes and goes, as intermittent faults tend to do. You may have to report this a few times, and of course you will need to point out that while the line is working fine today, its was terrible yesterday when you needed to call an ambulance for the granny's palpitations or whatever. Just keep at it and ignore the high blood pressure until they send out an engineer. At that point, its up to you. Beg him, seduce him, charm him or whatever, it will test all your skills, but if you can win him over your on the road home. The ideal would be if he could swap you to another pair on the cable running form the exchange. Anyway, best of luck with it.


But before you go to all that bother, a few basics. Did you remove ALL the crap from you internal connection for a period of 6 weeks? Did you check out your internal wiring and make sure its good? Did you check to see if the have a pairgain/splitter on your house? Did you ask around your nearest and dearest neighbours to see if they are passing/failing? How far are you from the exchange? The answers to these questions will give a strong indication of the source of the problem. (DID Muck ever write that checklist of things to check before giving up on DSL? And if he did, why isn't it a sticky?)

svu

Thanks for the advice. At least now I know the general idea of handling phone engineers:)

Actually, the checklist is quite good idea. "All the crap" - what could this be? I just have some cabling going to my laptop and to my phone - nothing more (just two wires). What could this "crap" be? Internal wiring seems to be ok - well, I'll check again. Actually, about my neighbours - they are mostly old people not really interested in broadband - but I'll try to check their phone numbers online... According to your description - I am not so far from the exchange, so the distance should not be critical.