Not Again ... Eircom BBand dreadfully Slow - Cork. Anyone else?

aidanodr

Hi Guys,

After being dumped off Smart last week as one of the 45000 and just recovering I now find my BBand with Eircom here in Cork is ssssllloooowww. I have a Ping Plotter app running and am getting loads of big red areas in the graphs along the route denoting large packet loss - 30%. Anyone else in Cork Area suffering this?

As I work in this area of BBand and network installs etc I had to call to customers today in Cork City and ballincollig. All are slow. I am told this started last friday. It only rared its ugly head here in Carrigaline late last night [ 2am ]. Was setting up an ECommerce site for a client, gave up uploading the backend, timeouts. Same today.

Why I said Oh no not again - earlier this year Carrigaline was effectively BroadBandless for the best part of a month. I imagine others with BT, UTV etc [ who piggy back on Eircom copper cable ] are also slow ... maybe.

Cheers
Aidan

White Van Man

BT broadband was painful here at work all day today. Cork city centre also.

holeyshoe

I live in Waterford and have been getting extremely slow speeds for the past few weeks, done a couple of speed test which averaged out at about 800kb/s up out of a 2mb connection :mad:

aidanodr

holeyshoe wrote:

I live in Waterford and have been getting extremely slow speeds for the past few weeks, done a couple of speed test which averaged out at about 800kb/s up out of a 2mb connection :mad:

Hi Lads,

By slow I mean -14kbs, around ISDN/Dialup type speeds at the mo. As I said this happened a few months back down here and lasted for weeks. I hope this is not the case again. That will once more screw up my Website business.

And by the way - when it happened the last time here we got no refund, no sorry, nothing.

Aidan

CrowdedHouse

Very slow in Roscrea - which I think is connected to Cork (Churchfield)

White Van Man

aidanodr wrote:

Hi Lads,

By slow I mean -14kbs, around ISDN/Dialup type speeds at the mo.

Yeh, that would describe the kind of speed I had to deal with today

aidanodr

Here is the plot for an hour. Note the red blocks on the graph, this is the packet loss - about 30% on average.

If you want a go and join in the fun download this:

http://www.pingplotter.com/

Slowly I know, but small install file [ 948kb for standard ver ].

Have fun watching the red zone

Aidan

White Van Man

Cheers, I'll give that a bash at work tommorrow

mtracey

Didnt see this post, everything is too slow

same here, in cork also, its driving me nuts. only been slow today though

help !!!

mercurial

What's really irritating is the 30 minute exercise in futility going through my system from the phone socket to the desktop that I spent with Eircom Support who made no mention of a service problem at all (despite being asked). It is possible that the techie didn't know of course but that really only goes to show that Eircom are duplicitous with their staff as well as their customers :mad:

aidanodr

mercurial wrote:

What's really irritating is the 30 minute exercise in futility going through my system from the phone socket to the desktop that I spent with Eircom Support who made no mention of a service problem at all (despite being asked). It is possible that the techie didn't know of course but that really only goes to show that Eircom are duplicitous with their staff as well as their customers :mad:

Hi Mercurial,

My advice is - in most cases, and particularly if you have any reasonable knowledge of your PC - never bother ringing Eircom Tech Support for things like this, pop a message here instead and / or ask around. Eircom support lead you around a merry dance, will not listen and blame you regardless. It is only after 4 to 5 calls and persistence that you may get some sort of admission cloaked at best. AND this after you out match the drones with tech talk.

I pretty much went through this last time this happened to us here in Carrigaline a few months back. Then I was gung hoo and persisted but I couldnt be bothered now - and thats the biggest point of all, that they have such a structure in place that it seems to be their with the express purpose of wearing down and / or deflecting any of ITS CUSTOMERS away instead of being up front which most would appreciate.

At worst be prepared to stomach this slow down for a week or two or more, at best theirs always tomorrow, I think If it drags on - the reason may pop up here, I wouldnt hold my breath. My theory - exchanges / equip have reached capacity / lack of investment and they are hopping the problem around from area to area. Am I talking rubbish? Guru's please ...

Cheers
Aidan

tech

Im in the West Cork Area, BT DSL is gone in 56k Dialup speeds!! not good but it looks like an issue with the DNS server in Churchfield yet again

tech

have the fatest transfer speed while download of 2.4kb, Im just moving over to Dialup untill this issue is fixed

tech

Well Upload speeds aer still ok getting about 190k- 220 k pity they cant reverse this and make up upload 2-4k and down load 190k ish untill they fix their issues !

tech

still in trouble

aidanodr

tech wrote:

still in trouble

Hi Tech,

Yip - and it seems slightly worse here in Carrigaline than it was yesterday. Its all over the city - getting calls from Customers about it. Peoples reaction is the usual - Oh Eircom, ah well - and thats it. Amazing - seems they can now do anything and people will accept it.

Cheers
Aidan

Sponge Bob

eircom BB is supposed to be guaranteed 256k minimum at all times so demand a refund for the underperformance .

Foxwood

Sponge Bob wrote:

eircom BB is supposed to be guaranteed 256k minimum at all times so demand a refund for the underperformance .

Be careful about what you ask for. If eircom can't get 256k to you, their "guarantee" might mean that they can just cancel your DSL account. So if you ask for a refund, don't get stroppy and piss off the person that you're dealing with.

aidanodr

Hi Guys,

Here is a snapshot from www.irishisptest.com/runmyspeed.php

If I did it again I would say I could catch it slower. In this its Dload Speed - 19.6kbs / Upload Speed 6.91

Cheers
Aidan

Foxwood

As a matter of interest, what does a tracert to www.boards.ie look like?

Have you tried to do a file transfer between your computer and that of a neighbour on the same exchange to see if that link is fast? And then with a user on another Cork exchange.

It won't solve your problems, but it will arm you with additional information when you deal with eircom.

aidanodr

Foxwood wrote:

As a matter of interest, what does a tracert to www.boards.ie look like?

Have you tried to do a file transfer between your computer and that of a neighbour on the same exchange to see if that link is fast? And then with a user on another Cork exchange.

It won't solve your problems, but it will arm you with additional information when you deal with eircom.

Heres the Trace Root:

Foxwood wrote:

Have you tried to do a file transfer between your computer and that of a neighbour on the same exchange to see if that link is fast? And then with a user on another Cork exchange.

No, me in and out - time is a thing

Thanks,
Aidan

Foxwood

aidanodr wrote:

Heres the Trace Root:

Okay, nothing useful from a diagnostic point of view there.

By the way, do you know that you can copy text out of a DOS window? Right click on the title bar, select Properties and check the Quick Edit box, and then you can cut and paste from the DOS box just like any other application.

aidanodr

Hi Foxwood,

Yip I did, but I thought a pic was alot more dramatic that thousand words v pictures saying ...

I just got onto Eircom Tech support & a very helpful chap who did not try and send me off on a merry dance [ maybe because it was my tech company name on the bill, so they did not try it on ]. He said yes, they are aware of a problem in Churchfield - a Routing issue. Even though the problem was apparently their since last friday in some cases, it only got ELAVATED at 1pm TODAY. The engineers arrived at CF about then. They are endevouring to sort right now. I asked how long, he said they are not told BUT hopefully by the end of the day BUT it may take a few days ... You know yourself [ Referring to me / Carrigaline being in the same predicament a few months back ] i.e you've been through this before, veterans Yes but it took about 3 weeks to sort,

Anyways, thats the update,
Eircom Equipment at Churchfield is at fault for this it would appear,
Hang on to your hats
Aidan

CrowdedHouse

Thanks for the update...no improvement yet(oddly my u/l speed seems 'normal')

GreenHell

Down in west cork, crappy slow speeds all day. Requested an upgrade to the 2 meg package yesterday and was testing speed of the connection this morning when I noticed how slow my connection had become, modem speeds. Rang eircom and told them my line was after getting slower and the answer I got was that because of the requested upgrade I now had 2 BB connections on one line and they were slowing each other down and I had to wait 15 days for a new wireless modem. Made me go "hmmm" anyway.

abcd

Also in Cork, on the Quaker Road exchange (which routes on to Churchfield I believe). First noticed last night (Mon 9th, ~11pm).

The symptoms are slightly different.

The DL speed is similarly slow (5-20 Kbytes/sec, compared to a normal speed of 175-200 Kbytes/sec (2Mbit package)).

But there is no significant packet loss in pings (from the command line, I haven't had a chance to run ping plotter yet), or in the ATM or TCP statistics on the modem, which is strange.

Also, UL speed doesn't seem to be affected (~20 KBytes/sec as normal).


Ditto on adianodr's thoughts....here's hoping they sort this out quicker than last time.

for_the_buzz

My BB connection is so slow at the min i cant even do a speed test.Now thats slow.Broadband me arse.At least wi dial up i could do stuff, as slow as it is.Does any1 know if Bt have a min connection speed limit so i can get a refund off them as i have only just this sec got connected today so im f****d if im payin 4 a service im not getting.

Cheers

tech

still in big trouble still using Dial up as its faster this is NOT good enough

aidanodr

Well Guys,

Its now 19:37, the engineers went into Churchfield at 1pm. I would say they are gone home at this stage, so I would say this will carry over to tomorrow at least. I remember this from the last time it happened to us in Carrigaline ... shiver

And Eircom dont offer any SLA's [ Service Level Agreements ] with Broadband, so it could go on for days and they dont have to give an explanation. When onto Eircom while out fixing customers BBnad etc I sometimes get from Eircom Tech - " mmmm, well you know their are no SLA's with Broadband so all I can say is the technician may be out to you in the next 48 hours or so, you should really consider a leased line as this IS covered by an SLA" - yes, I will leave it to some one else to pop up the cost of a leased line from Eircom.

Cheers
Aidan

White Van Man

Well it's not just an eircom thing. BT Broadband at work is unusable. Phoned BT support who confirmed that their Cork customers are having problems too.

I wonder if these problems are a result of eircom's crappy infrastructure being unable to cope with the influx of ex-Smart customers. :cool:

bandon1

Thought I was going nuts until I found this thread. Got the usual "have you filters on the line?", "remove everything for 15 mins" malarkey from a BT tech who clearly had no idea there was a general problem.

Started yesterday morning here in Bandon and I've been getting between 5 KB/s and 15 KB/s for nearly two days now. Absolutely ridiculous to call this a service, it is less usable than a dial-up connection at the moment.

The concept of escalation clearly hasn't made it into those organisations yet.

techie

I'm outside Bandon using wireless broadband and routing through smart and its fine for the last few days.

Spare a thought for the Eircom techie up in Churchfield reading the " Where does this cable go " manual !!!!

mtracey

seems ok again, fingers crossed

Skud

ya alright here too touch wood will be ok tomorrow

aidanodr

Yes Faster, but watching pingplotter [ www.pingplotter.com ] at mo, 00:46 Wed morning. Still packet loss but no where near as frequent. So things are improving. Try that app, handy to have loaded for these occasions. Free version available [ I think its the standard ver after trial ]. At least you can watch the fun as it happens

Cheers
Aidan

Waveson1

Been down to 1-2 KBps since Monday evening (Ballydehob, West Cork) on an Eircom account. Rang Eircom support Tuesday morning, waste of time. Though they did ask if I'd assent to a Eur56 charge if they deemed it necessary to make a site visit!

The Eircom lads must be wetting themselves at Telecoms conferences telling all about the setup they have going for themselves in Ireland.

tech

still crap speeds, getting very upset very quickly now !

tech

can someone drop you soem food to the eircom Engineer as it seems as after an all nighter that the problem is still there

bandon1

Getting 5 KB/s download from heanet.

No Skyping for me today then.

The really galling thing is that there is not much in the way of alternatives apart from a lower wireless speed at higher price and cross my fingers when the weather is bad?

tech

shocking stuff now NO SLA on DSL IS cRAP, as most of Cork and other areas are affected ?

\m/_(>_<)_\m/

rochestown road is still dead slow...

bandon1

Is there any point in me ringing BT to bitch or will they just say "sorry mate, Eircom problem, nothing we can do"? How many calls do they need to get before they escalate a problem?

aidanodr

Hi Guys,

Just to say - Carrigaline appears to be back to normal.

Is there any point in me ringing BT to bitch or will they just say "sorry mate, Eircom problem, nothing we can do"? How many calls do they need to get before they escalate a problem?

BANDON1 - you said it, you will get the Sorry Mate line.

The problem has been escalated in Eircom circles since yesterday at 1pm I was told. I was also told in the past [ whether true or not ] that with these kind of faults Eircom BBand Customers [ like me, and I am not gloating here ] get sorted first before BT, UTV etc [ the providers piggy backing on Eircoms infrastructure ]. It would be interesting to know - of the areas that still appear to be slow - does it include Eircom BBand Customers also ...

The reason I have stuck with Eircom is not out of love, its just pragmatism. I have a business and I need to b*****k someone out of it, or at least have it where Eircom cant tell me to bog off your with BT,UTV etc. I rang them yesterday to find out the story, because the account is under my company name which is obviously involved in net stuff by the name, I didnt get tossed around the houses. Either that or I was extremely lucky to get to a tech guy who was straight up. Finally the only time I will go to other providers is IF LLU happens fully. At this stage you cant fight city hall, I did that a few months back when we were down for nearly three weeks I think. Got Article in Examiner biz section, got calls from politicians, all promising things and that this is unacceptable. When all was sorted, it disappeared off the radar quickly. Any talk of unacceptable, cant happen again - vanished - basically all talk. All that happens is you wind yourself up and waste alot of time.

Its a sorry state that I will say all this, but from Government to Comreg to the comms industry itself - no one will do NOTHING for you and their is no avenue where us joe soaps can get satisfactory results.

Cheers
Aidan

bandon1

Yeah, guessed as much.

Any need to reboot DSL box or did the performance just improve all on its own?

Sponge Bob

You may eventually have some sort of MAN with fibre if Dempsey will cough up the shekels and you are close to the fibre , of course .

aidanodr

bandon1 wrote:

Yeah, guessed as much.

Any need to reboot DSL box or did the performance just improve all on its own?

All on its own Bandon1. Download and run Ping Plotter [ www.pingplotter.com ]. I had this on permanently for the last few days. Last night I could literally see the situation improving with less and less red areas on all hops, less big red blocks indicating packet loss. The standard ver of Pingplotter reverts to free ver after trial - I think, their is a free version.

Yes, Spongebob, am keeping an eye on that. A few of the local politicians mention it regularly in newsletters. Also I note Strencom are now down in Ringaskiddy offering services. Ringaskiddy is/was very bad on the BBand front. Rumour has it that the reason Eircom didnt enable the area was that it was too profitable on the LEASED LINE front - all the Chem companys etc

Cheers
Aidan

Sponge Bob

But Dempsey told Cork County Council a few years back to design the fibre runs and prepare to tender the dig out and is now refusing to give any county councils any money .

You local politicos should know that the scheme is now dead in the water if the tender did not go out before June 2006 or so. Remember that some of these MANS have been planned and announced since 2004 and were ready to tender a year back but were not allowed to do so because the funding evaporated.

You can email minister@dcmnr.ie or contact Cork county council for the latest update but I would fear at the moment its not good news for you on that front. Dempsey will announce the whole lot of new Mans again for about the 6th time in some National Development BS but its no good if he refuses to release the money is it ??

fabien

Hi guys

Is this eircom issue still causing slow bb speeds in Cork area? We have an office in Midleton with 3MB eircom BB. Download speeds seem ok, but the connection seems to die every now and then. Our users there are connected remotely via Citrix and lose their connection up to 10 times a day..

Just wondering if anyone knew anything about this or experiencing similar issues in Midleton area...

Thanks!
Fabien

fabien

CrowdedHouse wrote:

Very slow in Roscrea - which I think is connected to Cork (Churchfield)

Hi CrowdedHouse

I am a BT BB home user in Roscrea, and as of lunch time today still experiencing extremely slow BB (20-50kbps)...is this still going on?

I know some local eircom business BB customers got sorted yesterday and speed is back up but not me...is it because I'm with BT or home user, or just unlucky?

Thanks
Fabien

bandon1

Still bunched in Bandon too. BT home user. Time to talk to Evert Bopp about Wimax-EU I think. This level of service is unacceptable.

I'd go with flat rate 3G except we have a crap mobile signal here too. Just lucky I guess.

abcd

aidanodr wrote:

Hi Guys,

Just to say - Carrigaline appears to be back to normal.

<snip>

It would be interesting to know - of the areas that still appear to be slow - does it include Eircom BBand Customers also ...

From the lack of anyone complaining, it sounds like Eircom customers are back to normal.

Still slow for UTV though. I checked with their Tech. support, they are at least aware of the problem....but still awaiting a "resolution" from Eircom.

What puzzles me though is that although this problem affected all BB providers in the area - which suggests that it was just one single problem - how come it got fixed for just one of those providers first?

Eircom manages everything at the exchanges, we know, but do they have a crazy setup with individual sets of identical equipment for each BB provider, that they have to go and fix individually?

If so, the sets of equipment must be pretty identical, otherwise the same problem wouldn't have affected them all. And, it would suggest the problem was very likely caused by a software update or global configuration change across all the equipment that wasn't thought out and tested properly.