Provide DIY wiring guidelines, sockets etc

Solair

Since privatisation, eircom no longer takes responsibility for internal wiring in homes and expects people to do their own wiring or to hire someone to do it.

However, your company provides people with absolutely no information about the mysteries of eircom wiring.

I know that the system is not very complicated, and most of us have figured it out by trial and error, however it would be very helpful, and would probably prevent a lot of DSL problems and calls to your helplines if you could publish a set of wiring guidelines for DIY use that actually reflects the reality of what people are confronted with in their houses.

The guidelines that I stumbled across on the RECI website, aimed at electricians, set out a daisy-chained wiring system which I have never seen in any house.

Wiring's almost always star / radial formation all going back to a single point in the attic or a combination of both.

There is no information about the colour codes that eircom used, so we have to guess! I know there were several eras of wiring, but surely someone in eircom must be able to put together a guide for people so they can go if you have the "red, blue, pink and orange" wires, then use the pink and orange pair or whatever the standards were at the time!

Finally, you need to start selling eircom NTU sockets and DSL filter plates. People cannot get their hands on them, and neither your organisation or third parties who re-sell your infrastructural services seem to be able to provide them to customers.

It's possible to buy a BT master socket in the UK without any great difficulty, and the filter/splitter plates are also widely available online.

Perhaps you could just stick a DIY guide and a few kits up on your website?
Sell some basic wiring accessories i.e. suitable telephone cable, sockets, and provide a guide to how to wire a phone line.

It's really a bit ridiculous that you expect people to figure this out without any public information on the system whatsoever.

If it weren't for boards.ie, most of us would never have figured out how to do it or would have been using inappropriate UK wiring systems and accessories etc etc.

Also, you could do with simplifying the NTU socket.

Perhaps a larger socket with several simple terminals for connecting standard 2-wire telephone extensions to?

There's a load of junk in the socket that is totally unnecessary and obsolete e.g. the R-terminals for ring wires. No Irish installations use that! Or, at least they haven't for decades... So, I don't see why the sockets continue to include the terminals other than for some weird 'tradition' or to confuse people

Anyway - to cut a long story short - perhaps eircom should just carry out a project to make the system DIY-friendly and provide basic info for end users about the wiring system as you do not take responsibility for wiring.

At present it's just too confusing!

eircom: Ant

Solair wrote: »

Since privatisation, eircom no longer takes responsibility for internal wiring in homes and expects people to do their own wiring or to hire someone to do it.

However, your company provides people with absolutely no information about the mysteries of eircom wiring.

I know that the system is not very complicated, and most of us have figured it out by trial and error, however it would be very helpful, and would probably prevent a lot of DSL problems and calls to your helplines if you could publish a set of wiring guidelines for DIY use that actually reflects the reality of what people are confronted with in their houses.

The guidelines that I stumbled across on the RECI website, aimed at electricians, set out a daisy-chained wiring system which I have never seen in any house.

Wiring's almost always star / radial formation all going back to a single point in the attic or a combination of both.

There is no information about the colour codes that eircom used, so we have to guess! I know there were several eras of wiring, but surely someone in eircom must be able to put together a guide for people so they can go if you have the "red, blue, pink and orange" wires, then use the pink and orange pair or whatever the standards were at the time!

Finally, you need to start selling eircom NTU sockets and DSL filter plates. People cannot get their hands on them, and neither your organisation or third parties who re-sell your infrastructural services seem to be able to provide them to customers.

It's possible to buy a BT master socket in the UK without any great difficulty, and the filter/splitter plates are also widely available online.

Perhaps you could just stick a DIY guide and a few kits up on your website?
Sell some basic wiring accessories i.e. suitable telephone cable, sockets, and provide a guide to how to wire a phone line.

It's really a bit ridiculous that you expect people to figure this out without any public information on the system whatsoever.

If it weren't for boards.ie, most of us would never have figured out how to do it or would have been using inappropriate UK wiring systems and accessories etc etc.

Also, you could do with simplifying the NTU socket.

Perhaps a larger socket with several simple terminals for connecting standard 2-wire telephone extensions to?

There's a load of junk in the socket that is totally unnecessary and obsolete e.g. the R-terminals for ring wires. No Irish installations use that! Or, at least they haven't for decades... So, I don't see why the sockets continue to include the terminals other than for some weird 'tradition' or to confuse people

Anyway - to cut a long story short - perhaps eircom should just carry out a project to make the system DIY-friendly and provide basic info for end users about the wiring system as you do not take responsibility for wiring.

At present it's just too confusing!

Hi Solair,

Thanks for your comments, which are greatly appreciated. eircom are continually trying to improve our network and phoneline infrastructure.

If you're experiencing a line fault or need assistance with your main phone socket (mdp) please call into eircom Faults on 1901 (freefone).

If you require assistance with your phone line, or if you need additional adsl splitter or micro-filters, just let me know.

If you need assistance from Technical Support :-

Broadband Technical Support - 1890 260260 (lowcall) ; hrs - 08:00 - 22:00 (Mon - Sun)

Kind regards

Ant

Solair

Thanks for getting back to me.

It's not a customer service query. It's something that needs to be raised with whoever manages eircom's local wiring networks and technical standards.

It's something that impacts upon anyone who has to deal with eircom / ex Telecom Eireann internal wiring in their own homes, whether they're using eircom directly via eircom retail products or indirectly through a wholesale product or even an unbundled line.

The lack of information on the system is quite baffling and the accessories should be made available for sale.

Not having the info available just means more calls to eircom and other operators' helplines and unnecessarily poorly performing DSL lines where internal wiring is causing issues.