Line passed, now line fails

marcphisto

Hi All,

just wondering if this has happened to anyone else. Just after Christmas because of the ever excellent IrelandOffline I checked my phone line via broadband.gov.ie and eircom.net. It passed both tests. Wayhay I thought, goodbye dial-up hello broadband. I placed my order via the eircom website for 2MB always on broadband and happily waited. Received a confirmation of my order from eircom about 10 (actual) days later and received my gateway/router yesterday. I let it run through the setup wizard and it appeared to work. For about 5 seconds.

(I'm pretty tech savvy and a firm believer in RTFM so I've checked everything I was supposed to do about 10 times and I've it all done.)
I've logged in to the router and tried to manually connect from there but no joy. (I was alarmed that it was not password protected by default)

The DSL light never stays on for more than about 15 seconds.

The sequence appears to be DSL Light flashes and Internet Light is red.
DSL Light goes solid green and Internet Light flashes green
DSL Light is solid green and Internet Light is solid green.

After about 5 - 10 seconds the DSL Light flashes again and the Internet Light is red again.

I decided to recheck my line on broadband.gov.ie and eircom.net again. On broadband.gov.ie the line fails. On eircom.net the line check returns the message - may be suitable subject to confirmation

I've tried to contact eircom broadband tech support by phone but have ended up on hold and have had to leave before I got to speak to any one. (minimum time on hold was about 15 minutes)

I've emailed them but have got no reply yet.

I would have expected them to at least perform a basic check on the line to see that it was broadband enabled! (I'm about 4 miles away from the exchange)

I'm just wondering what my options are from here.

I intend to call their sales line this evening if I can't get through to support and see if I can get it sorted from there.

Anyone got any ideas? Am I missing something stupid/obvious? It's just that it does connect, albeit for about 5-10 seconds that leads me to believe that the line is not actually up to standard.

paulm17781

I suspect it is a dodgy line. I'm no expert either but it could be water in the line or some such, something that allows it pass but then isn't suitable other times.

OfflerCrocGod

What is the attenuation and S/N ratio of your - do you have all other phones disconnected and any home alarms sky boxes etc disconnected from ALL phone lines and are you using filters? You should have started with 1Mb and then if your line could handle that upgraded; if your line can only handle 1Mb it will cost you to downgrade

Sponge Bob

get the line stats from the Netopia ( http://192.168.1.254/

It could be a dodgy netopia as well or else you should be on a 1mb not a 2mb package and its not synching so maybe ask for a downgrade to 1mb and see .

dub45

Lines usually fail which are broadband enabled so it could be that the latest Eircom test was done after your line had been enabled.

Reading these may give you a better idea of the impact of line stats.

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/linestats.htm

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/lowSNR.htm

Your distance from the exchange could be a factor too also have you any devices connected to your line internally. Internal wiring can be a factor and dont discount a dodgy filter either.

Snaga

Quick test.

Unplug everything from the phone line. (all phones, faxes, any extension cables etc..).

Plug the modem directly (No splitter/filter) into the first phone socket and keep a beady eye on the DSL light.

See if it follows the same pattern as you describe above. If it does - off to Eircom as a line fault.

If it does not - and it stays green then its likely internal wiring or a dodgy filter thats causing your problem. (This is VERY common). Plug everything back in - one piece at a time - while waiting a few minutes between each reconnection to gaze at that DSL light.

If it ends up doing the same thing you should be able to identify the culprit as the last thing you plugged in. If you plug everything back in and the DSL light stays stable - then it was likely a loose cable which you have now fixed (at least temporarily).

bigpaddy2004

Perhaps your line is not enabled yet?

patrickc

Just for the craic i put my line into the irlgov website to see what it says, I have broadband the last 2 years and it said that my line is not dsl enabled, which i have.

uncle_sam_ie

patrickc2006 wrote:

Just for the craic i put my line into the irlgov website to see what it says, I have broadband the last 2 years and it said that my line is not dsl enabled, which i have.

My line fails too and I have BB as well. Who ever designed that site was a muppet. You need to already have BB to navigate the map viewer to find an ISP that offers BB in your area. It doesn't list wireless ISP's. Also, it wont work with some browsers. Great job Noel!

Sponge Bob

That site used to be way worse until last summer (even after a big relaunch) but we nagged noel a lot and got him to make it work in Firefox, the most glaring omissions are the fault of the wireless service providers themselves .

as for safari , don't make me laugh

dub45

patrickc2006 wrote:

Just for the craic i put my line into the irlgov website to see what it says, I have broadband the last 2 years and it said that my line is not dsl enabled, which i have.

The site uses poor phrasing. Presumably they mean dsl suitable and it just goes off and checks the Eircom database. Most lines with bb already on them fail that test. I keyed in the numbers of several people I know who have bb and they all failed. Anyways whats the point in keying in your number if you already have bb?

Sponge Bob

thats an old bug back again , noel and his stupid dsl checker deserve their owne thread (just wait )

gerryo

marcphisto wrote:

Hi All,

just wondering if this has happened to anyone else. Just after Christmas because of the ever excellent IrelandOffline I checked my phone line via broadband.gov.ie and eircom.net. It passed both tests. ......

..I decided to recheck my line on broadband.gov.ie and eircom.net again. On broadband.gov.ie the line fails. On eircom.net the line check returns the message - may be suitable subject to confirmation
(

Similar happened to me, but I knew I was on carrier, could never work.
Still placed an order though, order failed, line status was changed after the weekend.

Are you sure you are not on a carrier line?

antoinolachtnai

You would never see a dsl light at all if you were on a carrier.

Here's one to check. Are you sure your wiring is connected directly to the phone line? That there isn't anything in between, especially not one of the DSL filter boxes that might have been put in place if you or someone who was in the house previously was ever on a trial?

finding out the S/N ratio and so on is good advice.

This happened to me; I got intermittent connections like yours because I was connected to the wrong side of an ADSL filter.

You also have to watch out for things like house alarms.

marcphisto

Thanks very much for the replies.

There's no sky digital, phonewatch alarm, pbx etc. going through the phone. Just one phone socket going out of the apartment. I tried pretty much everything and the sequence was repeated no matter what I did.

I managed to get through to support on Friday and basically I am on the very edge of broadband availability. They were able to tell me that the signal was getting as far the apartment block so they're going to have to send out an engineer to check for something on site.

So now I wait another couple of weeks to see if I can get broadband or not.

I thought dial-up agony was over, now I suspect it'll continue for a while to come yet.