It f******* passed!!!!

uncle_sam_ie

I don't believe it. The phone checker says my line is passing. So, I called eircom and they confirmed it. I'm completely lost for words.:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

RangeR

uncle_sam_ie wrote:

I don't believe it. The phone checker says my line is passing. So, I called eircom and they confirmed it. I'm completely lost for words.:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Well done, mate. Sign up now before it fails again

RangeR

It might have something to do with this.

uncle_sam_ie

I ordered the BB 2 MB HMPLUS TT Anytime from eircom. I hope it works out. I'm about 3.3 miles from the exchange as the crow flies so, the line is probably 4 miles. I entered a few numbers of people living near me and they all come up as fail. I think mine is passing because the line was once an ISDN line. Six years ago when I ordered ISDN the eircom guy said he needed to string a new one from the exchange.

damien

Oops, forgot to mention this when I was told about it on Friday. Wimax must be just around the corner so.

At a meeting with eircom last year, just before they were taken over, Pierre Danon committed to fixing the crappy line test and to make it easier for people to get passes on their lines. Think he is holding to his word?

watty

Fixed Wimax. Mobile Wimax seems to be still a pipe dream.
Still anyone failing DSL will be happy to get ANY reliable wireless under 50 Euro. It doesn't matter to most of them who sells it or which technology it is.

Rags

Just checked my line after getting a mail from Ireland Offline about the situation. I have isdn now and it is finally showing up as passing. Rang up to order 2mb line. They have to downgrade it to pstn line first, hope it works. There is a chance it wont work.:eek:

RangeR

Rags wrote:

Just checked my line after getting a mail from Ireland Offline about the situation. I have isdn now and it is finally showing up as passing. Rang up to order 2mb line. They have to downgrade it to pstn line first, hope it works. There is a chance it wont work.:eek:

As far as I know, if you have your ISDN downgraded to PSTN there is no chance that you will fail.

2 caveats
1. Unless I'm wrong
2. Unless you get pairgained after being downgraded

Mr_Man

There is no guarantee that if you do downgrade from ISDN that you will pass. If you are too far from the exchange you'll still fail.............

M.

Rags

I sure hope so, I'll post again when they have it done. Knowing my luck something will go wrong:p

uncle_sam_ie

But,how far is too far on a downgraded ISDN line?

watty

maybe 5km? As wire goes, not as sober crow flies
A bit more if they reduce speed to 256k or use ADSL2+ or VDSL etc.

Rags

Hmm your getting me worried I am over 5km away.

lucernarian

Well I'll be damned.... It looks like the limit has been extended by 12 or 13 dB (about 1km)... My line is now passing subject to confirmation... The nearest neighbour further up the road still fails. Still, at a high attenuation, the line may sync at little more than the minimum.

I'm already with Digiweb FWA 1Mb, though it is a stunning coincidence that the day the line sort-of-passed was the day that our digiweb FWA contract expired...

It's taken nearly 4 years (Jan/Feb 2003) since my exchange was enabled for eircom to adknowledge the feasibility of lines like mine.

I'm amazed at the result... I'll probably stick with Digiweb though:p

Blaster99

Mr_Man wrote:

There is no guarantee that if you do downgrade from ISDN that you will pass. If you are too far from the exchange you'll still fail.............

Why would this be? If the ISDN line passes, why would it fail when ISDN is removed? It's the same line at the end of the day.

damien.m wrote:

At a meeting with eircom last year, just before they were taken over, Pierre Danon committed to fixing the crappy line test and to make it easier for people to get passes on their lines. Think he is holding to his word?

Looks like it. Another thing he said was that he was planning to threaten the fixed line people in Eircom with WiMax unless they got moving on sorting out line issues. Looks like he's doing that too....

watty

ISDN does not use the line the same way as DSL. In Germany you don't have to remove ISDN. They have a different version of DSL for ISDN lines. A much better option for small office as the two ISDN channels can have 12 numbers and fax/voice/data detection is automatic on PC card.

ISDN is about 180k inc its over head each way, DSL is 3M / 256 using higher frequencies. So while a line that fails ISDN won't work for DSL, A line that worked for ISDN may not support DSL at all or more than 256k

Blaster99

The line checker passes the ISDN line, hence it will work when it's "downgraded". The workings of ISDN or ADSL is irrelevant. The line checker has checked the attenuation of the line, all is good.

uncle_sam_ie

Do we know what the acceptable attenuation is now? Am I right in saying that, It's now down to the SNR level( which they don't know until the line is synced) and a downgraded ISDN line should be guaranteed to pass? Also, should I have gone for the 2Mb package (it was only five euro more). I know i'll be lucky if I even get 1Mb, but will 2Mb lower the SNR level?

Blaster99

Somebody posted an estimated new attenuation threshold in the last couple of days, perhaps in the similar thread over on the broadband forum.

SNR is whatever the SNR is on your line. It incidentally varies so if you're close to the limit, your speeds will vary also. Normally the modem will synch at the highest it can at that point in time and then as you use the line and get CRC errors the speed will drop over time. It's possible that the modem will overdo this, so if you were on a package with a speed that's close to what your line can handle then you might get better performance overall as the modem doesn't need to adjust the speed. You just have to see. If your only passed since the latest threshold changes, I would think you'd be lucky to see a stable 1Mbps.

lucernarian

uncle_sam_ie wrote:

Do we know what the acceptable attenuation is now? Am I right in saying that, It's now down to the SNR level( which they don't know until the line is synced) and a downgraded ISDN line should be guaranteed to pass? Also, should I have gone for the 2Mb package (it was only five euro more). I know i'll be lucky if I even get 1Mb, but will 2Mb lower the SNR level?

It's 78 to 80 dB. My line is now on a conditional pass and I was told from eircom that the reading from my line was 78dB. Our neighbour 100m further up the road fails the test still.

Spongebob mentioned in another post on the broadband forum that the line distance limit was about 6.7 km which would translate into 80dB.

On another note, does one have to order with eircom to get the engineer visit or is it possible to sign up with any company to get DSL? In any case I'd imagine only a 1 Mbit package will be available to the people who recently passed.

Rags

Hey just an update to say eircom came today and downgraded the line and now I finally typing to you from a BROADBAND CONNECTION. Thought I would never get it. Went for the 2mb connection (better dl limit) and am getting around 1mb to 1280 when i tested it earlier but I'm happy enough with it, its a huge jump up from what I had. I am around 6km from the exchange.

OfflerCrocGod

Nice one Rags any chance you can find out what attenuation your line has? If your line can't support 2Mb then you may be better off just going for the 1Mb connection it might actually save you some hassle later on as your modem/router tries to sync at 2Mb and fails.

Rags

Well it says Line Attenuation 53/30 dB, so what exactly does it mean. Is it good or bad?

uncle_sam_ie

Rags wrote:

Well it says Line Attenuation 53/30 dB, so what exactly does it mean. Is it good or bad?

Wow! those number's can't be right at 6km, can they? Would a downgraded ISDN line make that much difference?:eek:

Blaster99

53dB should have passed the line test a long time ago.

Altreab

Rags wrote:

Well it says Line Attenuation 53/30 dB, so what exactly does it mean. Is it good or bad?

Where did you get this figure and how was it measured?

uncle_sam_ie

Don't you divide the attenuation by 13.5 to get the line distance? Which would make Rags line 3.9km from the exchange

OfflerCrocGod

Blaster99 wrote:

53dB should have passed the line test a long time ago.

Yep my Attun is 51db and I've had BB for 4 years now; I wonder how many people could get BB but for that stupid test "fail"-ing them. I would presume that the figure comes from the router that's where I get mine from - 2 different routers give me pretty much the same figure so seems accurate enough.

lucernarian

uncle_sam_ie wrote:

Don't you divide the attenuation by 13.5 to get the line distance? Which would make Rags line 3.9km from the exchange

It's 12 dB per km according to eircom's calculations. My source is some eircom SEC filing or other and it's been confirmed through what I've been told by eircom.

Rags

The connection stopped working at around 1pm yesterday and hasnt been working since. The dsl light on router is flashing. The engineer now thinks it may have to be downgraded that we were just a border case.

But I dont understand how it could be working perfectly non stop for over 12hours and then just stop working. I think it could be the modem, he gave us one of his that he had in the van until the new one gets sent to us in the post. When he first tested the line he had 2 modems in the van. The first one light was flashing and he said that was a very bad sign. Then it was ok with the other modem. Its all very confusing, have you guys any idea what could be wrong?

Rags

The distance to my exchange is I think around 5km, well thats what the sign says outside my house. I THINK the exchange is in the center of the town.

Spondulick

Ordered DigiWeb Metro back in Nov, the guy finally came around today to install it. He couldn't get a signal. I was pissed.. logged on to Eircom (n dialup, as i have been for god knows how long) Checked my line And my line check PASSED!! Rang up Eircon to order BB they told me it was a Amber pass or something, but no the less i should get it in 2 weeks!!

Altreab

Spondulick wrote:

Ordered DigiWeb Metro back in Nov, the guy finally came around today to install it. He couldn't get a signal. I was pissed.. logged on to Eircom (n dialup, as i have been for god knows how long) Checked my line And my line check PASSED!! Rang up Eircon to order BB they told me it was a Amber pass or something, but no the less i should get it in 2 weeks!!

Ah isnt it such a rush when you first see that "LINE PASSED" notice?

now be warned ..... Eircom have a 1 Gig upload limit which you will hit VERY quickly if your downloading and sharing music files ect. Eircom charge for any excess over 1 Gig uploaded or 10 Gig downloaded!!!

OfflerCrocGod

Ask for the 1Mb connection Rags and see if you have any better luck that way; your Attenuation is no worse then mine so you should be able to support 1Mb at the least, if you had 2Mb working no problem before then I'd ask for the old router that worked OK before and see if your line works with it. Don't give in and go back to dial-up whatever you do

Rags

Just an update, we reset the modem and unplugged the digiboxes and all is fine now. Now when I check http://192.168.1.254/ it states
Speed
2048/256 (kbps)
Line Attenuation
53/30 dB

Not sure why the speed is higher now.

uncle_sam_ie

Rags wrote:

The connection stopped working at around 1pm yesterday and hasnt been working since. The dsl light on router is flashing. The engineer now thinks it may have to be downgraded that we were just a border case.

But I dont understand how it could be working perfectly non stop for over 12hours and then just stop working. I think it could be the modem, he gave us one of his that he had in the van until the new one gets sent to us in the post. When he first tested the line he had 2 modems in the van. The first one light was flashing and he said that was a very bad sign. Then it was ok with the other modem. Its all very confusing, have you guys any idea what could be wrong?

If your line Attenuation is only 53/30dB and you think your only 5km from the exchange, then your flashing light has nothing to do with distance. You really should have been passing months ago especially with a downgraded ISDN line. Are you running a fax or sky box? Because, that could be your problem?

uncle_sam_ie

Rags wrote:

Just an update, we reset the modem and unplugged the digiboxes and all is fine now. Now when I check http://192.168.1.254/ it states
Speed
2048/256 (kbps)
Line Attenuation
53/30 dB

Not sure why the speed is higher now.

I need to learn to type quicker!:o

Rags

Heh:D . Well we were failing the test before we had sky also so I dunno. Just happy I have it now.

uncle_sam_ie

Well, after six year of waiting eircom finally switched me on. My line Attenuation is 61/31 dB and my speed is 1.69Mbps down, 112kbps up. Like Rags though, I had to unplug my Sky+ box from the line. It's going to cost 98 euro to get that fixed. Thank god! No more weekly trips to Cork for BB access!

OfflerCrocGod

Well Sky boxes and house alarms are well know to cause problems for BB and for failing line tests.

niamh o'malley

O.M.G.
I was just on my weekly potential broadband shopping when I came across this. I'm 3 miles from Gorey, out in the holler, just out of wireless coverage, and just out of 3G coverage too.
I tested my line again, and now it *might* be suitable Not holding my breath, but it's no more an outright fail. Going to order and see what happens anyway. I have the feeling they don't fail anybody anymore to keep people happy for some reason .........
56K is hard work but it's much harder work when you come back from long term broadband. Now, cross fingers and thanks boards.ie for the info

Cerdito

My parents just got BB out in Enniskerry in similar circumstances. The line failed for years until the announcement last month. Got a conditional pass, BT delivered a modem and it is working fine now!

colin74

just got my lie pass today,after my line was installed (switched on) on Monday & I put my order in for a line in October last year.

Now I just need 2 know which packages are available in Castledermot,co.kildare & which company to go with.