Degradation of BB service over last month

bennya

Hi there,

Posting here as I haven't gotten a satisfactory answer from BB support to my recent problems.

Since 2006 we've had a rock solid 2MB connection, up until the beginning of July when our line developed a fault which knocked off our connection. This was resolved by an engineer at the time, however our service was no longer as reliable as it had been, with frequent drops during the day/evening.

Over the past week, our typical download speeds have been in the order of 15/20K per second, even when the line is connected at 2Mbps. Speedtest.net was reporting my download speed at ~0.6Mbps.

I called broadband support last Thursday to report the issue, the rep said they would log a fault and send an engineer out.

Wasn't around much over the weekend, but today the situation appears to have gotten much worse, with the line struggling to hold a connection at all.

Called support again to query if the fault had been resolved, was told that engineers had performed some work on the local loop. The rep then went through the usual troubleshooting steps which I had already performed, and at the end set my profile to 1MB BB, which restored the connection.

I then asked when I could expect my 2MB connection to be restored, only to be told that 'that's all the line will support'. When I told him that I'd had a solid 2MB connection until recently, he didn't have an answer for me. I was also told that, as my connection appeared stable at 1MB, there was no path by which I could escalate my issues further.

As I type, I'm still having intermittent issues loading sites, my download speeds aren't much about 15K/sec, and I'm faced with having to reexamine working from home as the current line state is nowhere near as reliable as I need.

It's also worth pointing out that I have tried three different ADSL modems on the line, both directly to the master socket and with the line connected as normal, all with similar results (the Netopia modem I was provided with wouldn't establish a connection at all!)

Apologies for the long winded post, but just wanted to call out the chain of events, and wanted to make sure that everything is represented as clearly as possible. I can PM my a/c details and case reference on request.

Yours frustratedly,
bennya

eircom: Tony

bennya wrote: »

Hi there,

Posting here as I haven't gotten a satisfactory answer from BB support to my recent problems.

Since 2006 we've had a rock solid 2MB connection, up until the beginning of July when our line developed a fault which knocked off our connection. This was resolved by an engineer at the time, however our service was no longer as reliable as it had been, with frequent drops during the day/evening.

Over the past week, our typical download speeds have been in the order of 15/20K per second, even when the line is connected at 2Mbps. Speedtest.net was reporting my download speed at ~0.6Mbps.

I called broadband support last Thursday to report the issue, the rep said they would log a fault and send an engineer out.

Wasn't around much over the weekend, but today the situation appears to have gotten much worse, with the line struggling to hold a connection at all.

Called support again to query if the fault had been resolved, was told that engineers had performed some work on the local loop. The rep then went through the usual troubleshooting steps which I had already performed, and at the end set my profile to 1MB BB, which restored the connection.

I then asked when I could expect my 2MB connection to be restored, only to be told that 'that's all the line will support'. When I told him that I'd had a solid 2MB connection until recently, he didn't have an answer for me. I was also told that, as my connection appeared stable at 1MB, there was no path by which I could escalate my issues further.

As I type, I'm still having intermittent issues loading sites, my download speeds aren't much about 15K/sec, and I'm faced with having to reexamine working from home as the current line state is nowhere near as reliable as I need.

It's also worth pointing out that I have tried three different ADSL modems on the line, both directly to the master socket and with the line connected as normal, all with similar results (the Netopia modem I was provided with wouldn't establish a connection at all!)

Apologies for the long winded post, but just wanted to call out the chain of events, and wanted to make sure that everything is represented as clearly as possible. I can PM my a/c details and case reference on request.

Yours frustratedly,
bennya

Hi bennya
I can understand your frustration, if you could PM me your tel. number I can look into this case and investigate.
Thanks
Tony

bennya

PM sent Tony, thanks.

bennya

Hi Tony,

Thanks for your assistance by PM, however I still am suffering a major degradation of service that support seem unwilling to investigate as apparently the line is 'good enough'. Full details have been PM'ed - could you please see what can be done to help resolve this? Thanks again.

Edit: My speedtest results at 11:20pm at 1024Mbps are Ping 166ms, 0.20 Down, 0.09 Up. It'd be quicker using IP over avian carrier

eircom: Tony

bennya wrote: »

Hi Tony,

Thanks for your assistance by PM, however I still am suffering a major degradation of service that support seem unwilling to investigate as apparently the line is 'good enough'. Full details have been PM'ed - could you please see what can be done to help resolve this? Thanks again.

Edit: My speedtest results at 11:20pm at 1024Mbps are Ping 166ms, 0.20 Down, 0.09 Up. It'd be quicker using IP over avian carrier

Got the PM's bennya and chasing now.
Tony

anto1978

Seems like an appropriate area to post my ongoing eircom broadband problem. I live a few km from the Ardee exchange and when eircom enabled broadband several years back we instantly jumped onboard. We had a 3mb package and experienced some occasional dropouts late nights or during bad weather but otherwise were delighted to have broadband. I spoke to customer support regarding the disconnect problems and at the time they claimed my line was capable of just over 4mb so I shouldn’t experience any problems on 3mb.
A few months later all the other broadband companies started reselling eircom broadband with their own spin, so we decided to give Gaelic telecom a go as they also supported the local gaa club. This move strangely resulted in a drop of connection speed to 2mb. A year later we decided to switch back to eircom as any problems we encountered seemed to take longer as Gaelic still have to run it by eircom, so effectively we were removing the middle man again.
My annoyance came when switching back to eircom who claimed id be lucky to get 1mb. After many hours on the phone I was told I could take the chance and I ended up on 2mb broadband which was later upped to 3mb after a lucky call to probably the only Irish guy eircom have employed in tech support. Latest news is that next generation broadband is on its way to the area, great news for many, but ive been informed ill probably be placed on 2mb when this is introduced in the forthcoming weeks. What’s worse is that if I try to move provider, their computer system (courtesy of eircom) means I can only get 2mb - no more!! I can’t even ask them to put it on 3mb again as they ALL claim it’s beyond their control.
With all the adverts promoting new, faster, better broadband, combined with exchange upgrades and next generation broadband that I appear to be the only customer in Ireland who's broadband is getting worse. In another 5 years time I could be back on dial up at this rate. Ive had all the tests done both from inside/outside the house and on eircoms end but they haven’t made a difference. My disconnects are worse now than they were.
IMHO, The phone lines coming from the Ardee exchange to my area are a disgrace, they have been there before I was born (untouched) there are connectors all over the place from where the cable snapped may years ago, poles hanging at 45 degree's and in the summer months when the line stretches from the heat a child could jump and touch the line in places. This is why broadband is getting worse for us, not distance from the exchange etc… Yet when next generation broadband arrives ill still have to pay the same price as someone who is getting the full benefit from the 8mb package.
I don’t believe anyone in a rural area matters to eircom or any other provider for that matter. And as for those eircom ads with the very helpful ‘Jim’, I mean seriously, anyone who has ever rang technical support must laugh their ass off at those ads. The last guy I spoke with couldn’t even pronounce County Louth and was about as helpful as a kick in the nuts.

eircom: Tony

anto1978 wrote: »

Seems like an appropriate area to post my ongoing eircom broadband problem. I live a few km from the Ardee exchange and when eircom enabled broadband several years back we instantly jumped onboard. We had a 3mb package and experienced some occasional dropouts late nights or during bad weather but otherwise were delighted to have broadband. I spoke to customer support regarding the disconnect problems and at the time they claimed my line was capable of just over 4mb so I shouldn’t experience any problems on 3mb.
A few months later all the other broadband companies started reselling eircom broadband with their own spin, so we decided to give Gaelic telecom a go as they also supported the local gaa club. This move strangely resulted in a drop of connection speed to 2mb. A year later we decided to switch back to eircom as any problems we encountered seemed to take longer as Gaelic still have to run it by eircom, so effectively we were removing the middle man again.
My annoyance came when switching back to eircom who claimed id be lucky to get 1mb. After many hours on the phone I was told I could take the chance and I ended up on 2mb broadband which was later upped to 3mb after a lucky call to probably the only Irish guy eircom have employed in tech support. Latest news is that next generation broadband is on its way to the area, great news for many, but ive been informed ill probably be placed on 2mb when this is introduced in the forthcoming weeks. What’s worse is that if I try to move provider, their computer system (courtesy of eircom) means I can only get 2mb - no more!! I can’t even ask them to put it on 3mb again as they ALL claim it’s beyond their control.
With all the adverts promoting new, faster, better broadband, combined with exchange upgrades and next generation broadband that I appear to be the only customer in Ireland who's broadband is getting worse. In another 5 years time I could be back on dial up at this rate. Ive had all the tests done both from inside/outside the house and on eircoms end but they haven’t made a difference. My disconnects are worse now than they were.
IMHO, The phone lines coming from the Ardee exchange to my area are a disgrace, they have been there before I was born (untouched) there are connectors all over the place from where the cable snapped may years ago, poles hanging at 45 degree's and in the summer months when the line stretches from the heat a child could jump and touch the line in places. This is why broadband is getting worse for us, not distance from the exchange etc… Yet when next generation broadband arrives ill still have to pay the same price as someone who is getting the full benefit from the 8mb package.
I don’t believe anyone in a rural area matters to eircom or any other provider for that matter. And as for those eircom ads with the very helpful ‘Jim’, I mean seriously, anyone who has ever rang technical support must laugh their ass off at those ads. The last guy I spoke with couldn’t even pronounce County Louth and was about as helpful as a kick in the nuts.

Hi anto1978
sorry to read your list of issues, can you PM me your tel number and I can investigate past history, have some tests doen and maybe able to help. If the issue is as you post, with lines to this area I cannot promise that I can increase your speed, but given that you were qualifying officially for 2Mb and a tech was able to pust this to 3Mb I can see if this is possible again.
PM the details and will chase for you immediately.
Tony

bennya

Hi Tony,

Finally got an engineer call-out yesterday morning, he did indeed diagnose an issue with the cabling to the house, so swapped to another cable pair and then rated the connection capable of 2.6Mbps.

An issue with the exchange was also identified which he said he'd look into, but for now my 2 meg line is back and as reliable as ever.

One thing I would say is that some staff from broadband support were over-eager to either blame it on my internal equipment/extensions or that my line had always only been capable of 1Mbps operation. I really feel that this approach needs looking at, as this was the source of greatest frustration for me.

Many thanks for your help.

eircom: Tony

bennya wrote: »

Hi Tony,

Finally got an engineer call-out yesterday morning, he did indeed diagnose an issue with the cabling to the house, so swapped to another cable pair and then rated the connection capable of 2.6Mbps.

An issue with the exchange was also identified which he said he'd look into, but for now my 2 meg line is back and as reliable as ever.

One thing I would say is that some staff from broadband support were over-eager to either blame it on my internal equipment/extensions or that my line had always only been capable of 1Mbps operation. I really feel that this approach needs looking at, as this was the source of greatest frustration for me.

Many thanks for your help.

Hi bennya
glad you are back to previous speed. Yes I take your point, I am afraid that the majority of cases with same symptoms are likely to be caused by the reasons given you by support but it was obvious from your posts at least that you had a good understanding of the issue and further investigation should have been done. I have used your own case as an example for support management.
My apologies for the frustration caused and happy that the line tech involved seems to have done a considerable amount of work on this. If you have any further issue let me know and I can chase again for you.
Tony