ANOTHER Eircom Thread

jeffk

Ok as we speak I’m hitting 71 Mb/s on a (up to) 7MB package in Blanchardstown

I’ve been onto eircom twice today, the first time I was told to ring back when it’s slow so they can run tests. Then the second time they ran the tests, unplug the LAN, ghost the router etc. They eventually said yes it’s the exchange and that they are set to upgrade it, but they don’t have a set date.

BUT

I was told to make sure I keep reporting this issue to broadband support, as the more people that do the faster it will be fixed. Also to ring the official compliant line and make an official complaint, as if you keep getting these problems you could get refunded or free broadband.
Just some information and some incentive to get people to ring in and report these issues, I know I was apprehensive about ringing them.

Broadband Support: 1890260260
Compliant No: 1800200481

lynchie

jeffk wrote: »

Ok as we speak I’m hitting 71 Mb/s on a (up to) 7MB package in Blanchardstown

I’ve been onto eircom twice today, the first time I was told to ring back when it’s slow so they can run tests. Then the second time they ran the tests, unplug the LAN, ghost the router etc. They eventually said yes it’s the exchange and that they are set to upgrade it, but they don’t have a set date.

BUT

I was told to make sure I keep reporting this issue to broadband support, as the more people that do the faster it will be fixed. Also to ring the official compliant line and make an official complaint, as if you keep getting these problems you could get refunded or free broadband.
Just some information and some incentive to get people to ring in and report these issues, I know I was apprehensive about ringing them.

Broadband Support: 1890260260
Compliant No: 1800200481

So your getting 71Mb on a 7Mb package and your complaining about it :rolleyes:

jeffk

I get the numbers/terms mixed up



There, I was using the Eircom one when I was on the phone to them.

dreamers75

jeffk wrote: »

I get the numbers/terms mixed up, bites, bytes, mega bytes/bites confuses me.

I get 71, I should get up to 700

71 is up to 700.

PogMoThoin

You're paying for 7mbit at 48:1 contention, as long as they deliver one 48th of 7mbit (150kbps or ~0.15mbit) they've kept their side of the bargain. They've acknowleged theres a problem in the exchange, You'll just have to wait for them to fix it

jeffk

PogMoThoin wrote: »

You're paying for 7mbit at 48:1 contention, as long as they deliver one 48th of 7mbit (150kbps or ~0.15mbit) they've kept their side of the bargain. They've acknowleged theres a problem in the exchange, You'll just have to wait for them to fix it

So why do I before six or so get full speed, no one else is using it so i get 48th of the service?
Also if I get one 48th of 7mbit can i just pay them for that?

Samba

I've been in the same boat since having Eircom BB installed 1 month ago...

Thing is, we can argue about contention ratio, I'm on the priory exchange however which is one of the main exchanges with very large bandwidth capacity.
So contention ratio shouldn't be an issue for me, Eircom have informed me (as has my friend) that congestion should not be an issue in my area as usage is not above normal levels.

A friend of the family who used to be a technician with Eircom ran some tests, everything is perfect, even though my estate has relatively older lines my line should take up to 12megs and my stats are decent. I'm now equipt with the device that engineers use for testing lines and I'll be monitoring my stats at various intervals of the day to compile a report to hand over to the engineers.

They've now decided to send me out a new router (which is pointless, as I've tested the line with another router and I'm experiencing the same issues).
It was suggested in the complain to comreg thread that people start documenting these issues and I think it's the best and only thing that can be done at this point.

My record goes a bit like this...

04-02-10 12:13

Downstream Upstream Max Allowed Speed (kbps) 7168 384
SN Margin (dB) 7.00 18.00
Line Attenuation (dB) 27.50 14.00
CRC Errors 0 1

Ping 37ms
Last Result:
Download Speed: 4601 kbps (575.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 324 kbps (40.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

I find speedtest.magnet.ie to be more accurate than speedtest.net


Finally, while yes, we did sign up and agree to a contention ratio of 48:1. Eircom are advertising 7mb packages as "suitable for gaming and heavy downloading etc"
A line should be suitable for the above at all times, not just during off peak usage and this imo is borderline false advertising. (correct me if I'm wrong)

My pings will start hitting the 200ms mark later on, hardly suitable for gaming.
I wouldn't mind so much about speeds if ping times were in line with their advertising.

It's possible (in my case) that this has nothing to do with Eircom and that someone in my area is operating radio equipment that could potentially be causing interference... I'll have to wait and see.

Cliff notes...

Start logging your stats, do so over a one week period and submit them to eircom for further investigation as this is now begining to take the proverbial biscuit.

docmol

I had the same problem for years, on and off the phone to eircon but I did eventually find a fix! I am now with UPC!

and saving about €20 /month + digital TV
No brainer.

jeffk

Just of the phone to them and I’ve logged an official complaint.

At first she said you have to give it 3-5 days and I told her that the tech support told me it will be ongoing and there is not a set date for it to be resolved. She said they will ring me back when I asked about some sort of a refund or rebate as I said I’m not even getting the 3mbit speeds.

After so many calls and problems you’re almost answering it step by step before they ask you and they seem to hesitate when you say ipconfig or will I open my router homepage now. If it keeps up I’ll be ready to work with eircom tech support.

@Samba

I’ve also been sent a new router, along with being asked
Is my wiring wrong?
The firewall could be causing a problem
Have I a p2p program open
Have I got wireless on or sky boxes connected to the phone line?

Do you do a speed test and keep the information in a document? Or is it a ping you do in the cmd window?

@docmol I was looking at upc, but I have sky already so that’s €8 extra a month because you haven’t a TV line with upc, also there are two pcs in the house and they suggest one pc to one router, so that’s me having to buy a extra router

jeffk

Just ran a magnet speed-test

Download Speed: 6144 kbps (768 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 326 kbps (40.8 KB/sec transfer rate)

Blazer

PogMoThoin wrote: »

You're paying for 7mbit at 48:1 contention, as long as they deliver one 48th of 7mbit (150kbps or ~0.15mbit) they've kept their side of the bargain. They've acknowleged theres a problem in the exchange, You'll just have to wait for them to fix it

you're actually paying for 7 meg at 24:1 contention..
Basically every exchange that was upgraded to 24megs is having severe problems...
Hopefully Eircom's engineers are coming out this week to me to resolve my issues as well...it's gone to the stage where I don't bother switching on my pc until the weekend..

Samba

jeffk wrote: »

@Samba

I’ve also been sent a new router, along with being asked
Is my wiring wrong?
The firewall could be causing a problem
Have I a p2p program open
Have I got wireless on or sky boxes connected to the phone line?

Do you do a speed test and keep the information in a document? Or is it a ping you do in the cmd window?

I'm just grabbing it from the speedtest and logging it all in a doc.

If you really want you can run an extended ping test

ping -n 100 www.eircom.net

Your stats you can obtain from your router 192.168.1.254 default password is broadband1

I've considered UPC myself many a time, I would whole heartidly go with their service only for the fact that their CS is practically non existent a huge turn off for me.

Albeit getting through to someone who can't help you, is more or less the equivalent of not being able to contact anyone at all!

docmol

I've 6 pcs here, without any problem (2 wired, 4wireless) Can't help you with the Sky though! I do know what you are going through. When it gets to the stage that the customer support start lying through their teeth you know it's time to go. BTW I didn't pay for the last 4 months of my time with eircom because after one marathon session on the phone to their useless support I lost the head and demanded that they cut me off there and then, I was paying no more! They put me through to their "revenue protection unit" who exist to talk people out of leaving. A really nice guy there stopped me being billed for broadband, as I wasn't actually getting broadband, until he could get the issue resolved. He was a nice guy but couldn't solve their network problems, hence I'm with UPC.
I have heard of problems with UPC customer support but the only time I had to use it I was amazed by how good it was. I rang with an issue on a Saturday evening (pings through the roof!) and the guy actually listened to me and believed what I told him! This was a new experience. He took the information I gave him and he explained that as he couldn't resolve the issue himself he would have to talk to a senior network engineer (I'm a network engineer myself) and get back to me on Monday afternoon. As a precaution he would book an engineer callout for the following Thursday. I got a callback on Monday saying that the problem was being sorted and an APOLOGY! The problem was resolved by Tuesday morning and I got another call on Tuesday afternoon asking was everything fixed and was it OK to cancel the engineer callout! Eircom please take notes!

jeffk

Think ill take one around lunch time and then around 6-7 when its back to its slow speed. Handy to have something to back up my problems.

PogMoThoin

Scar_L wrote: »

you're actually paying for 7 meg at 24:1 contention.

Wrong, the 7.6mbit package with 672 upload has 24:1 contention, the 7mbit package with 384 upload has 48:1 contention, the same ratio as the 1 and 3mbit packages. I have the 7.6mbit package myself

miralize

jeffk wrote: »

I’ve also been sent a new router, along with being asked
Is my wiring wrong?
The firewall could be causing a problem
Have I a p2p program open
Have I got wireless on or sky boxes connected to the phone line?

Exactly what they said to me, before they basically dismissed my case.

jeffk

miralize wrote: »

Exactly what they said to me, before they basically dismissed my case.

Ah yeah there great when it comes to that.
I was watching a prime time piece in my customer care class today. So true when they said that most companies hope people who have problems just go away.

ShadowHearth

s... is there anything we can do? as i got a nice answer aswell:

" we dont know when this problem will be sorted". i asked 3 more things, and i got same sentence back...

So any tips which way can i bite? i did saved info on test for last 2 days.. so what do i do next?

jeffk

ShadowHearth wrote: »

s... is there anything we can do? as i got a nice answer aswell:

" we dont know when this problem will be sorted". i asked 3 more things, and i got same sentence back...

So any tips which way can i bite? i did saved info on test for last 2 days.. so what do i do next?

Did you make a formal complaint?
After that people are saying comreg, but then as many people are saying their no use.

ShadowHearth

jeffk wrote: »

Did you make a formal complaint?
After that people are saying comreg, but then as many people are saying their no use.

i did email complain, so they emailed me back and said to call.... ill do that tommorow. sick of it 1.1mbit atm.... like for the last 2 months...

jeffk

ShadowHearth wrote: »

i did email complain, so they emailed me back and said to call.... ill do that tommorow. sick of it 1.1mbit atm.... like for the last 2 months...

Yeah id call em and see what's happening on a refund or compensation or the like. I've been told by the tech team 4-5 is the lowest you should get on the 7 package. I'm sure if they have to keep dishing out refunds or free broadband eventually they will say its cheaper to fix the problem/s.

docmol

jeffk wrote: »

Yeah id call em and see what's happening on a refund or compensation or the like. I've been told by the tech team 4-5 is the lowest you should get on the 7 package. I'm sure if they have to keep dishing out refunds or free broadband eventually they will say its cheaper to fix the problem/s.

You really would think so, wouldn't ya...:rolleyes:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=59718533#post59718533
Its going on years and they still can't/won't sort it!

jeffk

docmol wrote: »

You really would think so, wouldn't ya...:rolleyes:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=59718533#post59718533
Its going on years and they still can't/won't sort it!

Yeah common sense and all that, but then again we are talking about eircom here.
I haven't had these problems since before xmas, strange how it comes and goes like that.

dub45

Samba wrote: »

I've been in the same boat since having Eircom BB installed 1 month ago...

Thing is, we can argue about contention ratio, I'm on the priory exchange however which is one of the main exchanges with very large bandwidth capacity.
So contention ratio shouldn't be an issue for me, Eircom have informed me (as has my friend) that congestion should not be an issue in my area as usage is not above normal levels.

A friend of the family who used to be a technician with Eircom ran some tests, everything is perfect, even though my estate has relatively older lines my line should take up to 12megs and my stats are decent. I'm now equipt with the device that engineers use for testing lines and I'll be monitoring my stats at various intervals of the day to compile a report to hand over to the engineers.

They've now decided to send me out a new router (which is pointless, as I've tested the line with another router and I'm experiencing the same issues).
It was suggested in the complain to comreg thread that people start documenting these issues and I think it's the best and only thing that can be done at this point.

My record goes a bit like this...

04-02-10 12:13

Downstream Upstream Max Allowed Speed (kbps) 7168 384
SN Margin (dB) 7.00 18.00
Line Attenuation (dB) 27.50 14.00
CRC Errors 0 1

Ping 37ms
Last Result:
Download Speed: 4601 kbps (575.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 324 kbps (40.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

I find speedtest.magnet.ie to be more accurate than speedtest.net


Finally, while yes, we did sign up and agree to a contention ratio of 48:1. Eircom are advertising 7mb packages as "suitable for gaming and heavy downloading etc"
A line should be suitable for the above at all times, not just during off peak usage and this imo is borderline false advertising. (correct me if I'm wrong)

My pings will start hitting the 200ms mark later on, hardly suitable for gaming.
I wouldn't mind so much about speeds if ping times were in line with their advertising.

It's possible (in my case) that this has nothing to do with Eircom and that someone in my area is operating radio equipment that could potentially be causing interference... I'll have to wait and see.

Cliff notes...

Start logging your stats, do so over a one week period and submit them to eircom for further investigation as this is now begining to take the proverbial biscuit.

Your SN margin is pretty dire - really once you go below 10 you are heading for trouble.

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

jeffk

SO those spilters do help?

Samba

dub45 wrote: »

Your SN margin is pretty dire - really once you go below 10 you are heading for trouble.

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

Yeah I actually took those stats when I was testing out the line with the netopia router. The vonaq quicktest 500 was giving me more accurate and higher results
I did have some internal wiring issues to be fair, yesterday my old sockets were replaced and the filters are now running on the newly intsalled eircom box. The phone line was going through the bloody door bell!


DSL Noise Margin: 19 dB /15 dB

Made no difference unfortunately, I can now eliminate all internal issues.
Funnily enough, my stats on my BT/vodafone line are worse yet I've not had one single issue with it, even though it's going through the same exchange.

Which has me wondering if this was an issue at the exchange, should it not afffect both lines as they are both running off eircoms equipment?

Vodafone stats...

Downstream Upstream Max Allowed Speed (kbps) 6144 512
SN Margin (dB) 11.50 28.00
Line Attenuation (dB) 27.50 11.50
CRC Errors 0 3

Ping 20ms

Download Speed: 5260 kbps (657.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 431 kbps (53.9 KB/sec transfer rate)




I'm starting to wonder if there is something along the route of my line causing this issue, i've heard many stories of radio equipment causing serious interference with DSL.
Docmol, how many outages have you experienced with UPC since it was installed? and what sort of time length on average? I'm at the point whereby I have one last option with Eircom, if after that they can't do anything, I'm putting in the call to UPC.

If Comreg won't get up off their asses and entertain complaints then maybe a flurry of letters to http://www.eamonryan.ie/category/Communications/ it just might get the ball rolling. Broadband degradation does not appear to be part of his plan :rolleyes:

http://www.eamonryan.ie/contact/

docmol

Hi Samba, bar the ping issue I have had 1 outage on my UPC connection, on xmas day! It was resolved on the 26th. The one thing to keep in mind is that when it goes, everything goes. No phone, internet or digital tv xmas day but I still had standard tv. They upgarded the wires in our area in November and had a customer service rep call to all the houses in the area to make sure there were no problems! Plus she was cute!

Johnboy1951

@docmol I was looking at upc, but I have sky already so that’s €8 extra a month because you haven’t a TV line with upc, also there are two pcs in the house and they suggest one pc to one router, so that’s me having to buy a extra route

One PC per router?
What is that about?
Any NAT router I have can theoretically handle ~253 PCs !! (not practical I know)

docmol

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

One PC per router?
What is that about?
Any NAT router I have can theoretically handle ~253 PCs !! (not practical I know)

Seemed a bit strange to me as well, maybe they mean he will need a new router, which they provide anyway?

ShevY

hit a new low last night. I was getting the packet loss at peak times for the last few months. But yesterday the speed took a nosedive and now today at hardly peak time - 14:30 - its all but unusable.

jeffk

"Important Notes
Chorus ntl advises that this service is only supported when one PC operates with one modem"

http://www.upc.ie/broadband/fifteen/

Maybe i read that wrong, but i took it as one router per pc/connection. I know at the minute I have two pcs on the standard four lan port eircom router.

Cabaal

jeffk wrote: »

"Important Notes
Chorus ntl advises that this service is only supported when one PC operates with one modem"

http://www.upc.ie/broadband/fifteen/

Maybe i read that wrong, but i took it as one router per pc/connection. I know at the minute I have two pcs on the standard four lan port eircom router.

Thats just a marketing gimmick, you could have a 512K connection or a 20MB connection and still have numerous people connected to it.

The only difference between the two is they'll be more bandwidth available on the 20MB connection

jeffk

Cabaal wrote: »

Thats just a marketing gimmick, you could have a 512K connection or a 20MB connection and still have numerous people connected to it.

The only difference between the two is they'll be more bandwidth available on the 20MB connection

Ah yeh i get full whack on the eircom package i have with two pcs. The €8 for no tv with them now theres a money making racket.

Spunge

suddenly today my router speed has gone from 3000 to 8000
and on speedtest its gone from about 2.5Mb to 5.6Mb

jeffk

Spunge wrote: »

suddenly today my router speed has gone from 3000 to 8000
and on speedtest its gone from about 2.5Mb to 5.6Mb

Mine is flying up till around 6ish and then last night it was @3MB and then late around 12ish less than 1.6MB. Id have thought when most of the businesses closed around the 6 mark it would free up more then enough to cover the extra people logging on.

docmol

jeffk wrote: »

"Important Notes
Chorus ntl advises that this service is only supported when one PC operates with one modem"

http://www.upc.ie/broadband/fifteen/

Maybe i read that wrong, but i took it as one router per pc/connection. I know at the minute I have two pcs on the standard four lan port eircom router.

I would take this to mean that they are not going to give you support for network issues on your side of the router. The guy who came out to do my install setup one laptop on the network and tested to see it was going on-line ok. That was all I wanted him to do tbh as I was happy to set the rest of the clients up myself. I can't immagine they want their tech support getting involved with permissions and sharing accross your network.

jeffk

docmol wrote: »

I would take this to mean that they are not going to give you support for network issues on your side of the router. The guy who came out to do my install setup one laptop on the network and tested to see it was going on-line ok. That was all I wanted him to do tbh as I was happy to set the rest of the clients up myself. I can't immagine they want their tech support getting involved with permissions and sharing accross your network.

Ah well if its like the eircom router and the lan connections are there your away. I know myself i wouldn't expect them to do any more than a basic install. sure i wouldn't expect an install unless there was something extra ordinary in their set up process

MFZ

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Any NAT router I have can theoretically handle ~253 PCs !! (not practical I know)

Why 253?

lynchie

MFZ wrote: »

Why 253?

A 255.255.255.0 subnet mask can handle 256 addresses. -1 for the network address, -1 for the broadcast network address leaves 254. -1 for the actual router leaves 253 usuable IP's on the network.

MFZ

lynchie wrote: »

A 255.255.255.0 subnet mask can handle 256 addresses. -1 for the network address, -1 for the broadcast network address leaves 254. -1 for the actual router leaves 253 usuable IP's on the network.

Well, choose a different subnetmask then. Class A exists :-)