got broadband - finally

ednwireland

i would just like to thank ireland offline for their campaigning. i have just 10 mins ago installed broadband after three years of waiting. i very much doubt that the line testing change that was made the week before easter would have been made without continual haranguing of eircom every time they came on any public forum so thanks to all those people as well.

this is great not having to dialup anywhere - just got fix the wireless network now 3 foot thick stone walls and 802.11 g dont really go well together.

thanks again

Sponge Bob

edwin, you are one of the first project amber people , ie the relaxed test .

can you get the signal noise stats from your BB Modem ?

how far are you by line length

what packages are they pasing you for, I would be surprised if they passed you for 3mbits for example but that depends in the s/n stats I suppose

what effective thruput do you get on a large sustained download like off heanet ?

damien

A thank you! I'm in shock. Happy to help. Now if only we could bring the failure rate down below 5%

Ri_Nollaig

Sponge Bob wrote:

... one of the first project amber people , ie the relaxed test .

is the amber test the ones that say "Pass (subject to confirmation)" ? because i was getting that and the eircom engineer came out yesterday and sorted it out. but im only getting 512/128 while im paying for 1024/128 [Line Attenuation 42/25 dB] normal? i live about 4.5km from the exchange. either way its a million times better then isdn!

ednwireland

Ri_Nollaig wrote:

is the amber test the ones that say "Pass (subject to confirmation)" ?

yes

i'm around about 3 miles from the exchange by road i'm not 100 % sure on the actual line distance

Speed 2048/256 (kbps)

Line Attenuation 51/27 dB

hope that helps

Sponge Bob

Ri_Nollaig wrote:

is the amber test the ones that say "Pass (subject to confirmation)" ? because i was getting that and the eircom engineer came out yesterday and sorted it out. but im only getting 512/128 while im paying for 1024/128 [Line Attenuation 42/25 dB] normal?

yeah well I was worried that some chancer might try to sell you a 3Mbit package which would work at 512/128 . Whose line tester did you use ? Was it eircoms own one.

Did they tell you the speed capability after the engineer came out or was the pass (subject) only for 1mbit and no more ???

I live about 4.5km from the exchange. either way its a million times better then isdn!

Quite so my friend . If a person was offered the bare minimum (256kbits) at 6km ...and even if they paid for 1mbit it being the cheapest package they are a lot better off . The total cost of 256k say BT + Line rental from eircom would be €20 and €24 ....around €44 a month for rental and BB.

The cost of the crappy flat rate packages in this country , limited hours , is more than that and thats at 56k .

ISDN would be €38 rental + €20 minimum for any flat rate of use and thats 64k not 256k . Total €58

You are about €15 a month better off if not more and have faster speeds.

Blaster99

They originally failed you on that attenuation? That's a scandal.

ednwireland

used eircoms line tester and netsource (cos it tells you the test date) digiweb (i think)wouldnt install without and engineer visit so went with E****m might change once i got it but was so desparate i went for the path of least resistance. my line was actually failing due to a minor short on the line according to the engineers test sytem ( i know some eircom engineers)

anyway i'm better off spending money on this than what dialup was costing me and no i didnt use a so-called flat rate package cos i have a dialup account with a 1891 number and becuase i'm in and out a lot muy useage varies wildly and it didnt cost me any more to use the 1891 dialup and when i wasnt here it didnt cost me anything.

Ri_Nollaig

Sponge Bob wrote:

yeah well I was worried that some chancer might try to sell you a 3Mbit package which would work at 512/128 . Whose line tester did you use ? Was it eircoms own one.

Did they tell you the speed capability after the engineer came out or was the pass (subject) only for 1mbit and no more ???



Quite so my friend . If a person was offered the bare minimum (256kbits) at 6km ...and even if they paid for 1mbit it being the cheapest package they are a lot better off . The total cost of 256k say BT + Line rental from eircom would be €20 and €24 ....around €44 a month for rental and BB.

The cost of the crappy flat rate packages in this country , limited hours , is more than that and thats at 56k .

ISDN would be €38 rental + €20 minimum for any flat rate of use and thats 64k not 256k . Total €58

You are about €15 a month better off if not more and have faster speeds.

it was eircoms line tester. i originally went for the 2meg package but they said i was to far away from the exchange for it. so had to go for 1meg instead. i live a country area so getting dsl is quite the shock!

and what you said is the exact reason i went for dsl! not only is it faster but fuc.king cheaper too!

Sponge Bob

Ri_Nollaig wrote:

it was eircoms line tester. i originally went for the 2meg package but they said i was to far away from the exchange for it. so was had to 1meg instead.

I'm delighted they sold you the most appropriate package they have. Thats good news. Its free to upgrade if you get the chance in future...ie if it sustains 1mbit for a long time and the s/n figures would appear to warrant trying 2mbits. The feckers charge for downgrades though.

I live a country area so getting dsl is quite the shock!
and what you said is the exact reason i went for dsl! not only is it faster but fuc.king cheaper too!

Well with the newer more relaxed test it seems that people can now get something 'acceptable' at 5km . I would personally consider 256k at 8km/5miles to be perfectly acceptable given the nature of DSL technology and Copper....as long as it was a stable 256k of course.

as to why Eircom have relaxed the test , I'll wager its to improve their SEC report and to stop wireless operators getting traction ????

8track

ednwireland wrote:

i would just like to thank ireland offline for their campaigning.

Hear Hear.


Let's keep pushing so that prices become more reasonable, everyone can access, service quality becomes reliable and customer support improves.