Eircom Broadband Review(not good) Boards gets a mention

pspdude

http://www.nextgenireland.com/ebr.html

My mate runs this site, we did up a review based on issues here!

The only reason this was done is the sheer inept service from eircom, i personally have never dealt with anything like it!

This isnt advertising for the site so below you will see the full review! Its kinda long

"Firstly, this review was originally intended as a simple article outlining problems with Eircom and their current Broadband Max service. Unfortunately, after numerous issues, lack of service and the sheer inexperience of their inept technical support team, I felt it necessary to indulge myself, and our readers in a full review of Eircom’s broadband service. After all, we are a gaming site, and nothing is more important to hard core gamers than the quality of their broadband line as it enables them to efficiently play games online, whether through their respective PC, Wii, PS3, Xbox 360 and to a smaller extent their Sony PSP and Nintendo DS.

This review is solely based on Eircom’s Broadband Max package. This service is intended to provide customers with a 3MB line that allows downloads speeds of up to 3mbs (roughly translating to 360-380kbs per second) and an upload of 384kbs. On paper this package seems perfect for any type of gamer. It provides enough upload to enable online play without the issue of lags and disconnections. Again, on paper this sounds fine but in reality, these stats couldn’t be further from the truth.

Having used this package for the best part of seven months I can honestly say that speeds, reliability and technical support have been lacklustre at best but things took a turn for the worse a little under a fortnight ago when my broadband package mistook itself for dial up and hasn’t rectified itself up until this very minute. This perfectly leads me into the quality of Eircom’s after sales service section of this review.

As with any company currently operating worldwide, pre sales service is fantastic. Call back after call back, arranging appointments and basically keeping the potential customer happy. Once the service is installed, the service drastically changes and gets so bad that we have to try other means of help to try and sort our issues but more on that later. After noticing my internet was having terrible trouble loading any webpage and the fact that a simple download of a 1.3 Mb file (shockwave) took over 27 minutes to complete I felt it best to give Eircom’s technical support team a call to see if there was a general issue surround their broadband service. This is where my fun began.

After going through some of the most pointless questions and procedures over the phone eg: Have you deleted your history? Are you sure your modem is powered on? Etc: the “technical support” representative came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with my broadband line and in fact my pc was riddled with spyware. Against my better judgement and a lock tight spyware protection program already installed on my machine I took his advice and ran my machine is safe mode, did a scan and nothing appeared. I then ran a virus scan, just to be sure and once again, I was given the all clear.

After a few attempts at this I rang Eircom back. I was told that the spyware on my machine was embedded in my hard drive and the only way to rid myself from it was to format the drive and reinstall Windows Vista. I was once again assured that there were no issues with my line. It wasn’t the best news I have heard as I had a lot of material, review code etc on this particular PC but stupidly took their advice and went ahead with the format. After a few hours of formatting and reinstalling an operating system I was greeted with a slower line than before.

Knowing my issue wouldn’t be resolved through the technical support team over at Eircom I turned to an online community for help, Boards.ie. After 5 minutes and a few questions from the extremely helpful board members we figured out the issue. My line was in fact damaged and the stats my modem was producing were very erratic and could only be cause by a faulty line. I promptly rang Eircom where I was advised an Engineer would be out to check the line and get it sorted. Here we are 5 days later and nothing. Eircom told me that this was normal as it could take up to 10 working days to rectify. Not once was I offered an apology, not once was I offered a refund for the 2 weeks non-service and I have still to hear from an engineer.

But as this is a review, I feel we must touch on every aspect of Eircom’s Broadband package. So here we go. Lets talk price shall we. Broadband Max is the most expensive package Eircom offer, coming in just shy of €50.00 per month, that’s €600.00 per year. Lets compare that to NTL and their most expensive package. NTL’s 6mb package will set you back €40.00 per month, that’s €480.00 per year. That’s a saving of over €120.00, for a package twice the speed of Eircom’s.

In conclusion, I would like to point out that I am certain many customers have had a very pleasurable experience with Eircom I am not one of them. Eircom have cost me money, time and a caused me a lot of stress and heartache over the past few weeks. I have lost an invaluable amount of data thanks to their advice and the issue is still ongoing. This review is based solely on my personal experience with them and unfortunately under no circumstance could I recommend to settle for Eircom Broadband.

For more information on broadband services, I strongly recommend visiting this "www.boards.ie" site and doing your homework before signing any contracts."

event

you actually formatted your hard drive on the advice of a broadband technical support guy?

pspdude

unfortunately yes! they were sure that their were no issues with the service so it was my machine causing the issue!

dub45

pspdude wrote:

unfortunately yes! they were sure that their were no issues with the service so it was my machine causing the issue!

If you read the terms and conditions attached to any broadband product no isp guarantees speeds and performance beyond a minimum. It has been pointed out to you in another thread that your line is not up to the 3Mb speed. Your line is not 'damaged' in that it meets the requirements imposed on Eircom in that they have to provide a line that gives adequate voice quality.

By the sound of it you were unlucky enough to meet a tech support person that was dire to say the least but to 'review' any isp no the basis of one person's experience and your own obvious lack of technical knowledge is truly to dignify the word 'review' particularly when you mention without any qualification whatsoever the mess that is NTL. No one forced you to sign up for the Eircom package that you are on - so you chose to pay that price.

Downgrade your product as has been suggested elsewhere to you and enjoy your bb for God's sake!

Sponge Bob

eircom guarantee 256k min on their RADSL packages which are 1 2 and 3mb home.

they guarantee 1024 min on their ADSL packages which
are business packages

If they do not meet this minimum service ..what with disconnects or a sustained period below 256k but no disconnects then they are not "Available" as they promise so you may get you 50% REBATE of the wholesale + VAT which is about 40% of teh retail cost per month,

Use the online complaints on the www.eircom.ie site to claim your rebates .

http://www.eircomwholesale.ie/dynamic/pdf/adslbitstreamSLA_v1.pdf

The rebate is on page 8 of 12 and will continue in force until they fix it.

Any crap, go to comreg with the complaint number and the service assurance rebate details.

johnplayerblue

dub45 wrote:

Downgrade your product as has been suggested elsewhere to you and enjoy your bb for God's sake!

Thats some what harsh and a bit Irish to be honest. We will take your money and you will take what we give you. At the end of the day eircom are **** wits. Never, never take advice from someone that knows less than you do.
Formating a HD to solve a broadband issue is just insane. I can kinda see the logic in it, but its still insane to tell someone to do such a thing at such an early stage of diagnosis

pspdude

yeah but i have gotten 3mb (380k) down before, so my line can indeed handle it, and it wasnt just on the advice of one rep, i have now called their technical support team over 15 times. Yeah 15 times. And it is clearly stated in the review that its based on my personal experience. Plus I have had NTL cable for over 2 years and it was perfect, i then moved and couldnt get it! so i do have experience in that matter, my own personal experice that is!

Plus ive asked them to downgrade me to 1mb line but im told that takes 48 hours to do so, its now 72 hours, still the same, and my router still says 3mbs! I have taken the advice of board members here, one of my main points was an online community was able to help me, when paid members of eircom staff havent a clue!

It also never states i was forced, its a review of their service, the same way a game would be reviewed, its reviewed on one persons epinion of that title! why cant it be done for broadband aswell

dub45

johnplayerblue wrote:

Thats some what harsh and a bit Irish to be honest. We will take your money and you will take what we give you. At the end of the day eircom are **** wits. Never, never take advice from someone that knows less than you do.
Formating a HD to solve a broadband issue is just insane.

I agree that its harsh but there is a thread on this very problem elsewhere - where this whole topic has been explored and it has been pointed out to the poster that he has line issues and the only answer is to downgrade. As it stands for whatever reason his line has downgraded and is simply not up to the 3Mb anymore.

Anybody with a semblance of cop on (and the poster on his own admission has been using bb for a number of years so is not a newbie by any means) would not format their hd unless it was really a last resort. Advice is advice however lousy it may be - action is your own choice.

event

christ, you could have got the lend of a machine and tested it with that

no way in hell would i reformat a whole machine

pspdude

yeah DUB45 was harsh already but its his right to post what he feels! i did stupidly format my drive, but under advise from a company and technical team i was under the impression knew what they were talking about!

But again, thats dub45s opinion on the matter, i do agree with a lot of what he said but im sticking with the review

johnplayerblue

Apart from all that..I could feel my blood boil reading your well written review.
I'm no fan of eircom to say the least, but you must have the patience of a saint dude cos i swear i'd be locked up by now if that was me.

dub45

pspdude wrote:

yeah DUB45 was harsh already but its his right to post what he feels! i did stupidly format my drive, but under advise from a company and technical team i was under the impression knew what they were talking about!

But again, thats dub45s opinion on the matter, i do agree with a lot of what he said but im sticking with the review

I appreciate your tolerance of my harshness:) However bear in mind that Eircom have by far the most bb customers and yet the lack of complaints about them on here as regards billing and general poor performance is remarkable. I am not a particular fan of them by any means but these facts cannot be ignored in relation to their performance as a bb provider as distinct from the performance as the holder of the overall network.

What seems to have happened is that they sold you a product that your line was never capable of and something happened recently to worsen the line quality (rain etc perhaps) thats why people on here contemplating a speed upgrade are encouraged to check their line stats.

Rather than solely damming Eircom overall (and their is no excuse for their appalling support - it should be very easy for them to check line stats) your review would be of more use to people generally if it made people aware of the the possible problems associated with speed upgrading. Irrespective of their isp. For example even with ADSL2 Smart have found that up to 25% of lines are not up to their older 4Mb product (I asked in their support forums thats how I know)

johnplayerblue

dub45 wrote:

I appreciate your tolerance of my harshness:) However bear in mind that Eircom have by far the most bb customers and yet the lack of complaints about them on here as regards billing and general poor performance is remarkable. I am not a particular fan of them by any means but these facts cannot be ignored in relation to their performance as a bb provider as distinct from the performance as the holder of the overall network.

That may very well be true but how long have they had to get these basics right? 30/40yrs? and yet theres HALF a million can't use there bb network. When you own the network and limit others from using it of course your gona have the lions share. Thats why there such *****

stakey

no, no, come on! you reformatted your hard drive on the advice of eircom broadband technical support??? Eircom do not provide operating system or user end system support, it may be the bad of the eircom employee to allow you to think as much but to take his advice (against what appears to be your better judgement) is downright silly. No sympathy from me. As dub45 has pointed out, eircom may not be the fairest player in the game but they don't rack up as many complaints as say BT, NTL, IBB or Clearwire.

I'm actually in shock that you'd reinstall your OS for a broadband issue. :rolleyes:

dub45

johnplayerblue wrote:

That may very well be true but how long have they had to get these basics right? 30/40yrs? and yet theres HALF a million can't use there bb network. When you own the network and limit others from using it of course your gona have the lions share. Thats why there such *****

The network issue has been done to death here - I specifically excluded their network from my comments. Again just because they own the network does not mean that people will sign up with them. There is plenty of competition out there but sadly Eircom are blessed with mindboggling incompetence with their competitors which is to the detriment of us all.

johnplayerblue

dub45 wrote:

The network issue has been done to death hereQUOTE]

Again, that may be true but it still takes in no little bit away from how big an issue it is and will be for a lot of people for a long time to come.
Do a poll and see what peoples main bone of contention is with eircom and i'm pretty sure there bb network will be all the way up there on its very own.

pspdude

while this may be a coincidence, after i posted this review i emailed across the link to eircom, 3 hours later, my broadband is working perfectly.

Sponge Bob

....after the highest line rental on the planet and a risible albeit improved fault reporting system ( they replaced Biddy with a machine which actually accepts the information you give it )

Their internet support has worsened dramatically since they sent it off to script jockeys in Bangalore. I usually find that playing random DTMF down the line to them not only keeps them awake but makes them converse not script.

EG

Press 1 and 2

Did not hear you there, what did you say?

Press 3 # 2

Dunno what that was anyway did you read that off a page mate becuase I did not say it ?

Press 6 6 7 6

Whats that bloody noise? I told you there is something not right with my line.

Eventually they escalate you to second line which is marginally sentient ....but first line is crap .

dub45

johnplayerblue wrote:

dub45 wrote:

The network issue has been done to death hereQUOTE]

Again, that may be true but it still takes in no little bit away from how big an issue it is and will be for a lot of people for a long time to come.
Do a poll and see what peoples main bone of contention is with eircom and i'm pretty sure there bb network will be all the way up there on its very own.

No one is denying that Eircom as a network holder is a problem. It has been done to death. Here we are discussing Eircom as an isp - simple as that.

dub45

pspdude wrote:

while this may be a coincidence, after i posted this review i emailed across the link to eircom, 3 hours later, my broadband is working perfectly.

I have no doubt it is - if only they were that efficient!

watty

:: It's of the nature of adsl that if you are conservative in issuing a line in the first place it will be reliable. Only a small percentage of lines will subsequently degrade.

:: The billing at eircom is mature and organised.

:: They offer a product 1/10th of speed that DSL should be these days and only offer out to 4.5km. BT in NI /UK does over 9km

:: A very high percentage of lines fail so are not supplied with DSL in first place. The information as to many households can really get DSL from the "85% of exchanges" is not available publicly.

:: Highest line rental in Europe. So Households even with a phone line have fallen over 12% since privatisation.

Given these facts then the lack of complaints for a substandard speed over-priced product very conservatively supplied is no surprise.

dub45

watty wrote:

:: It's of the nature of adsl that if you are conservative in issuing a line in the first place it will be reliable. Only a small percentage of lines will subsequently degrade.

:: The billing at eircom is mature and organised.

:: They offer a product 1/10th of speed that DSL should be these days and only offer out to 4.5km. BT in NI /UK does over 9km

:: A very high percentage of lines fail so are not supplied with DSL in first place. The information as to many households can really get DSL from the "85% of exchanges" is not available publicly.

:: Highest line rental in Europe. So Households even with a phone line have fallen over 12% since privatisation.

Given these facts then the lack of complaints for a substandard speed over-priced product very conservatively supplied is no surprise.

Absolute nonsense. The lack of complaints here means that they perform as an isp very well.

johnplayerblue

watty wrote:

:: It's of the nature of adsl that if you are conservative in issuing a line in the first place it will be reliable. Only a small percentage of lines will subsequently degrade.

:: The billing at eircom is mature and organised.

:: They offer a product 1/10th of speed that DSL should be these days and only offer out to 4.5km. BT in NI /UK does over 9km

:: A very high percentage of lines fail so are not supplied with DSL in first place. The information as to many households can really get DSL from the "85% of exchanges" is not available publicly.

:: Highest line rental in Europe. So Households even with a phone line have fallen over 12% since privatisation.

Given these facts then the lack of complaints for a substandard speed over-priced product very conservatively supplied is no surprise.

What i was trying to say..... Must take notes from watty...:D

Tronix

I wonder if any one could give me some advice on the following. Been with UTV for some years using their 2 Meg clicksilver package. Would there be any improvement in the quality of b/b using either Eircom or Esat? Ignoring billing, caps,cost etc just the latency, speed & general quality of the b/b connection. I am about 1 mile from the Douglas exchange in Cork City. Any advice or comments would be welcome.

Sponge Bob

there is no simple answer to that except that changing will not fix a crap line ..if thats where the slowdown is.

dub45

Tronix wrote:

I wonder if any one could give me some advice on the following. Been with UTV for some years using their 2 Meg clicksilver package. Would there be any improvement in the quality of b/b using either Eircom or Esat? Ignoring billing, caps,cost etc just the latency, speed & general quality of the b/b connection. I am about 1 mile from the Douglas exchange in Cork City. Any advice or comments would be welcome.

As Sponge Bob has said above it really is impossible to say but it is most unlikely.

Are you having any particular problems that cause you to ask the question?

UTV long ago were dire for pings and many game players left as a result of this particular problem but the absence of complaints about it on here in recent times would suggest that it is no longer an issue.

watty

dub45 wrote:

Absolute nonsense. The lack of complaints here means that they perform as an isp very well.

You forgot the smiley

Sponge Bob

dub45 wrote:

UTV long ago were dire for pings and many game players left as a result of this particular problem but the absence of complaints about it on here in recent times would suggest that it is no longer an issue.

I would suspect thats primarily becuase they all left and went to a low pinger like eircom bt or digiweb Dub45 or to an ultra low pinger like smart

As the poster did not produce any line stats for his UTV line we will never know where this slowdown is .

dub45

watty wrote:

You forgot the smiley

No Smiley at all! They are arguably the best isp after Smart.

dub45

Sponge Bob wrote:

I would suspect thats primarily becuase they all left and went to a low pinger like eircom bt or digiweb Dub45 or to an ultra low pinger like smart

As the poster did not produce any line stats for his UTV line we will never know where this slowdown is .

I am sure UTV have got a couple of enthusiastic game players in the last year or two no?

watty

dub45 wrote:

No Smiley at all! They are arguably the best isp after Smart.

For a limited definition of best.

Remind why Broadband penetration is so low here and line rental so expensive compared with similar economies in Europe, and DSL line failure to get DSL in the first place?

I think you missed the point of what I am saying. Yes if you get the service it will be reliabel. But it's hard to get in 1st place and expensive and slow compared with comparable places in Europe.

So in absolute terms for people that want to get a BB at all, or want more than 8Mbps, they are very poor..

dub45

watty wrote:

For a limited definition of best.

Remind why Broadband penetration is so low here and line rental so expensive compared with similar economies in Europe, and DSL line failure to get DSL in the first place?

I think you missed the point of what I am saying. Yes if you get the service it will be reliabel. But it's hard to get in 1st place and expensive and slow compared with comparable places in Europe.

So in absolute terms for people that want to get a BB at all, or want more than 8Mbps, they are very poor..

People on here seem unwilling or unable to distinguish between Eircom as an ISP and Eircom as the network owner. Your points are all related to Eircom as the network owner and have been done to death repeatedly. You acknowledge 'yes if you get the service it will be reliable' and thats my point.

Eircom are arguably the best ISP bar Smart. 8Mb speeds etc are totally irrelevant to that point.

melekalikimaka

never had any issues with eirom, they are a excellent service provider, i'd even invite them to my wedding

watty

dub45 wrote:

People on here seem unwilling or unable to distinguish between Eircom as an ISP and Eircom as the network owner. Your points are all related to Eircom as the network owner and have been done to death repeatedly. You acknowledge 'yes if you get the service it will be reliable' and thats my point.

Eircom are arguably the best ISP bar Smart. 8Mb speeds etc are totally irrelevant to that point.

They only rate well because they have set the standard and moved the goal posts and made it nearly impossible for anyone else to innovate or make money at DSL. Its one company, I won't be impressed with a guy that kick my dog even if he brings my cat fresh salmon.

It's also easy to be best the best cat lover if you exile all the other cat lovers.

Xennon

Remind why Broadband penetration is so low here and line rental so expensive compared with similar economies in Europe, and DSL line failure to get DSL in the first place?

No prob, infrastructure privatisation by government decision.

As Ive said before, Eircoms only responsibility is to its shareholders, NOT to provide everyone with boradband enabled exchanges. We gave up that entitlement when the government decided to privatise our communications infrastructure, even though at the times other countries made the same mistake and were suffering the consequences.

Eircom are not responsible for this situation, although granted they are not doing much to help it, those who privatised it are.

dub45

watty wrote:

They only rate well because they have set the standard and moved the goal posts and made it nearly impossible for anyone else to innovate or make money at DSL. Its one company, I won't be impressed with a guy that kick my dog even if he brings my cat fresh salmon.

It's also easy to be best the best cat lover if you exile all the other cat lovers.

They rate well because for the most part their competition in the isp field is lousy in so many respects and because with Eircom by and large you get what you pay for. As for the exile nonsense there is plenty of competition for them however sadly for all of us they are more the most part blessed with the competition that they have.

I repeat the debate is about them as an isp you continue to be either unable or unwilling to appreciate that point.

dub45

Xennon wrote:

No prob, infrastructure privatisation by government decision.

As Ive said before, Eircoms only responsibility is to its shareholders, NOT to provide everyone with boradband enabled exchanges. We gave up that entitlement when the government decided to privatise our communications infrastructure, even though at the times other countries made the same mistake and were suffering the consequences.

Eircom are not responsible for this situation, although granted they are not doing much to help it, those who privatised it are.

I agree with you totally - no company in the same position as Eircom given the capitalist system that we live under would behave any differently. And the sad fact is that there have been no electoral consequences for the main party that made that lousy decision.

batman2000

For those who are asking about other ISP's......I am using Imagine and have had no issues with their service/speed and their tech/customer support is good. Anyone tech support who I have spoken to is irish and you can understand them :-). I have seen very few complaints on boards about them...

coady

eh imagine just resell eircom broadband.......

coady

also the rest of the ISP's depend on Eircom to do everything as they hold all the rights to the network ( phone lines ) . So when you call Imagine or Smart or any service provider they have to go to Eircom to reslove the fault , , as you can Imagine , they are not helpfull ,