Reasons a line would fail for DSL

LoTwan

I am buying a new house which has no phone line activated at this time. I have worked out that the houses in the townland are connected to an exchange that has BB enabled but the houses in the area all fail the quick test on Eircom/UTV's sites.

What are the reasons why a line would fail? Is there anything that can be done about a failed line? Is there anyway of finding out the "catchment" area of an exchange?

Sponge Bob

if they ALL fail then either

1. they are too far from the exchange , lines over 3 miles long (crudely)
2. if not one then they are split lines (pairgain or carrier) the simplest test is to find out if the neighbours get speeds of 28.8k or under on dial up .
3. if 2 then eircom will not remove the pairgains, their policy. You are stuffed.
4. if you NEED broadband then buy a house elsewhere unless there is a good wireless carrier in your area.

You could always make a functioning ISDN line a written condition of purchase, ISDN lines are not split so if eircom will provide one then you should be able to get ADSL if you pass test 1 above .

kaizersoze

Sponge Bob wrote:

if they ALL fail then either

1. they are too far from the exchange , lines over 3 miles long (crudely)
2. if not one then they are split lines (pairgain or carrier) the simplest test is to find out if the neighbours get speeds of 28.8k or under on dial up .
3. if 2 then eircom will not remove the pairgains, their policy. You are stuffed.
4. if you NEED broadband then buy a house elsewhere unless there is a good wireless carrier in your area.

You could always make a functioning ISDN line a written condition of purchase, ISDN lines are not split so if eircom will provide one then you should be able to get ADSL if you pass test 1 above .

Or

5. If they are relatively new lines they may not have been tested yet, hence they would fail the test.
Chances are the estate is either on an RSU (sub exchange) or too far from the exchange.
Remember that the line test on the Eircom site only accesses a database to retrieve previous results. It's not a "live" test.

LoTwan

kaizersoze wrote:

Chances are the estate is either on an RSU (sub exchange) or too far from the exchange.

It is a stand alone house in the back end of nowhere... I think I am falling foul to the 3-4 mile limit

Sponge Bob

Better tell us which county it is ( for wireless options) before you blow a fortune on a house with no BB and no prospect of BB....especially if you need BB.

The government claims they have a plan to provide BB but there IS an election on and nobody has seen the actual plan funnily enough .

LoTwan

Westmeath, Delvin exchange, house is about 4 miles from the village but I don't know how accurite the distance estimation is...

I checked with Clearwire and I would be on the very outer edge of the service for the Kinnegad station. They are upgrading something in the Summer and told me to check back with them then.

I am starting to think twice about the suitability of the house... best not tell my husband

Sponge Bob

Ice communications or digiweb metro or lastmile (lastmile are a distant third choice ) are providing wireless there or thereabouts.

get an accurate gps or map location of the house and contact them to see if they provide coverage at that location . If none of them can do it I would avoid buying that house if you need BB .

LoTwan

None of them have coverage remotely close to the house.

Asked my husband this morning if he would be willing to move if we would only ever have 4 TV channels... he told me to ring the estate agent on Monday & pull out.

Thanks for your help.

Sponge Bob

4 Miles out of Delvin in some directions will take you into Meath where Minister of Comms Noel Dempsey , the all seeing and all knowing digital guru himself , reigns supreme. If Westmeath forget this idea and walk.

See his contact details on www.noeldempsey.ie and demand he sort BB by the end of April and it may still be a goer.

The best you will get at 4 miles is 1mbit ADSL so tell Noel to sort it out for you and for the other neighbours and by end April.

1mbit BB is not too much to ask for nowadays and you not even 40 miles from Dublin the e-Hub of Europe itself no less.

Sure there are small islands in the Atlantic off the west coast with 100% 2mbit coverage nowadays.

LoTwan

We would have been in the dead zone between Delvin & Mullingar. I will live & learn.

watty

LoTwan wrote:

None of them have coverage remotely close to the house.

Asked my husband this morning if he would be willing to move if we would only ever have 4 TV channels... he told me to ring the estate agent on Monday & pull out.

Thanks for your help.

Well I'm rural and have about 3,500 channels via satellite.

Unless you have good Wireless Broadband, though there is a problem. TV is the easy bit these days. I get better quality than on cable.

LoTwan

watty wrote:

Well I'm rural and have about 3,500 channels via satellite.

I was using the TV as an example for him. He doesn't understand the need I have for broadband but we recently had no Sky TV for 4 hours and he acted like he was going to die of boredom. It was an analogy that worked well for us.

watty

Get some good DVDs and hide them for an emergency... (make sure the TV & DVD player works of 12V car battery too)

LoTwan

In an emergency he watches Star Wars Episode III AGAIN!

Rovi

LoTwan wrote:

We would have been in the dead zone between Delvin & Mullingar. I will live & learn.

Now I have stuck in my mind an image of a zombie horde roaming the Westmeath countryside.

Great. :rolleyes:

LoTwan

I have a cunning plan that is more cunning than anything that has ever been called cunning before... if you want broadband in regional Westmeath then move to where someone famous lives!

Sponge Bob

has Micko got it then and how far away from the exchange would he be ????

LoTwan

I presume he has... the house we looked at months ago has BB and it's in the same townland.