Broadband problems in Ballinasloe

Jeff the Yank

For a few months now my broadband speeds have been all over the place. Two weeks ago the Signal to Noise ratio on my line started dropping to 0 and disconnecting on a regular basis.

I called Eircom, who sent out a technician. Upon entering he declared my extension lead from the main socket to be the fault and disconnected it. The technician plugged in his own Eircom modem and was able to connect. He left shortly thereafter.

That night I experienced the same drops in service and called the help desk back. The Eircom agent was very nice and confirmed that he saw “a fault” on the line. He rescheduled a technician to come out.

This time the technician saw some of the signal problems I had been experiencing. The technician decided it must be my modem, so he ordered a new one.

That night the connection was disconnecting again with StN ratios between 0 and 6. I called back and they checked the line and said, "There seems to be a line fault". Eircom scheduled a technician again. I put the modem back on the extension and received the exact same StN ratio and speed as without the lead. I removed the phone completely at this point hoping it was the problem.

At this point I just left the modem connected directly into the Eircom outlet. Nothing except the modem was plugged in. Several more days went buy waiting for the new modem to arrive. the connection went up and down like a yo-yo Finally is desperation I went out and bought a Netgear modem. The Netgear modem received the same bad connection as the Eircom modem.

Since the extension got the same line connection as the connection directly into the wall I put the Netgear back on the extension lead.

The Eircom modem finally arrived and it too showed the same bad connection, mostly in the evenings, plugged directly into the main jack. I called back and scheduled another technician.

Yesterday a technician arrived just before noon, I rushed home from work to meet him. We sat and had a good talk about things. It became clear that anything ran past the Master Eircom connection in the house (such as my extension lead) would automatically be blamed for any problem with the line. He suggested moving the main Eircom jack to the room with my computer to remove the extension from the equation. The speed and StN ratio were great most of the day yesterday. Maybe it always is. I'm not often home at noon to check.

I moved the modem back to the Master jack and left it there.

Last night I sat at my computer watching the connection. Just before 8p the StN ratio started going down from its rock solid 14. By 8:30p it was down to 4. The actual connection speed had decreased by this point from 5000 kbps to 2000 kbps. Shortly thereafter the connection became unstable and dropped. I called Eircom and they are once again going to send out a technician. Apparently their DSL techs don't work past 4:30 so there is no hope of getting a DSL technician round when the problems are occurring.

Now this looks very much like a contention issue with the line. More people on in the evenings and what not, but Ballinasloe has been upgraded to Eircom's "NGB" service, so according to the hype there isn't supposed to be any contention???

I do not have anything connected to this line except my modem. I do not have an alarm system and SKY is not setup on the line either. I don't have multiple computers on the line. My computer has up to date virus and firewall software. Nothing on my computer kicks off at 8p, I checked. According to the Eircom tech I'm only a mile and a half away from the Ballinasloe exchange.

I think I am running out of options. Please Help.

eircom: Tony

Jeff the Yank wrote: »

For a few months now my broadband speeds have been all over the place. Two weeks ago the Signal to Noise ratio on my line started dropping to 0 and disconnecting on a regular basis.

I called Eircom, who sent out a technician. Upon entering he declared my extension lead from the main socket to be the fault and disconnected it. The technician plugged in his own Eircom modem and was able to connect. He left shortly thereafter.

That night I experienced the same drops in service and called the help desk back. The Eircom agent was very nice and confirmed that he saw “a fault” on the line. He rescheduled a technician to come out.

This time the technician saw some of the signal problems I had been experiencing. The technician decided it must be my modem, so he ordered a new one.

That night the connection was disconnecting again with StN ratios between 0 and 6. I called back and they checked the line and said, "There seems to be a line fault". Eircom scheduled a technician again. I put the modem back on the extension and received the exact same StN ratio and speed as without the lead. I removed the phone completely at this point hoping it was the problem.

At this point I just left the modem connected directly into the Eircom outlet. Nothing except the modem was plugged in. Several more days went buy waiting for the new modem to arrive. the connection went up and down like a yo-yo Finally is desperation I went out and bought a Netgear modem. The Netgear modem received the same bad connection as the Eircom modem.

Since the extension got the same line connection as the connection directly into the wall I put the Netgear back on the extension lead.

The Eircom modem finally arrived and it too showed the same bad connection, mostly in the evenings, plugged directly into the main jack. I called back and scheduled another technician.

Yesterday a technician arrived just before noon, I rushed home from work to meet him. We sat and had a good talk about things. It became clear that anything ran past the Master Eircom connection in the house (such as my extension lead) would automatically be blamed for any problem with the line. He suggested moving the main Eircom jack to the room with my computer to remove the extension from the equation. The speed and StN ratio were great most of the day yesterday. Maybe it always is. I'm not often home at noon to check.

I moved the modem back to the Master jack and left it there.

Last night I sat at my computer watching the connection. Just before 8p the StN ratio started going down from its rock solid 14. By 8:30p it was down to 4. The actual connection speed had decreased by this point from 5000 kbps to 2000 kbps. Shortly thereafter the connection became unstable and dropped. I called Eircom and they are once again going to send out a technician. Apparently their DSL techs don't work past 4:30 so there is no hope of getting a DSL technician round when the problems are occurring.

Now this looks very much like a contention issue with the line. More people on in the evenings and what not, but Ballinasloe has been upgraded to Eircom's "NGB" service, so according to the hype there isn't supposed to be any contention???

I do not have anything connected to this line except my modem. I do not have an alarm system and SKY is not setup on the line either. I don't have multiple computers on the line. My computer has up to date virus and firewall software. Nothing on my computer kicks off at 8p, I checked. According to the Eircom tech I'm only a mile and a half away from the Ballinasloe exchange.

I think I am running out of options. Please Help.

Hi Jeff the Yank
sorry to hear this, can you PM me your tel. number and I can do some further tests on this for you. Sould be able to advise here.
Tony

Jeff the Yank

Sent you my details through PM.

Thanks - Jeff

Jeff the Yank

Hi Tony,

I think that the connection being good when the last technician came out and then the connection going south at 8p was coincidental. I've been remoting in periodically today to my computer at home and watching the connection. In the last hour, its went from 5200 kbps to 2900 kbps and the Signal to Noise ratio has went from 12 db to 3 db.

-- Jeff

Sponge Bob

Jeff the Yank wrote: »

Now this looks very much like a contention issue with the line. More people on in the evenings and what not, but Ballinasloe has been upgraded to Eircom's "NGB" service, so according to the hype there isn't supposed to be any contention???

Ah yes, it is possible that the NGB upgrade and unthrottling of 2-7mbits packages together with some going from up to 8mbit cards to up to 24mbit cards has INTRODUCED a form of contention on your line.

This is called " Crosstalk "and would disproportionately affect those who are around 2 miles or more from the exchange. Sometimes going to an ANNEX M ADSL2 profile on the DSLAM can cure the worst effects of this for a few customers.

Sometimes going from an ADSL1 to an ADSL2 card can fix it. By fix I mean stabilise and stop disconnectiing, it may still slow down in the evenings.

It is not workable around otherwise save by slowing down everybody on your cable bundle which means perhaps all 50 customers you share the fat cable underground copper back to the exchange with. It ain't simple to fix, that is for sure.

Jeff the Yank

SB,

Thanks for that. But surely if in fact it is cross talk on the line, that must count as a line fault? It would mean the line no longer has the capability to handle the amount of bandwidth being pushed through it. Surely someone planned for the increased broadband caps they are selling with their NGB service before rolling it out?

I do fear you might be right though, the line seems to have slowly degraded the last couple weeks. Thing is , until just recently, I never did have these problems. The connection was rock stable. I wonder why it just now started?

You know whats funny, you have the equivalent of Ma Bell over here in Eircom. Its a monopoly owning all the phone lines. In the states, back when Bell was all one company, they were a monopoly and the prices were higher, but the government had them wrapped up in regulations to the point where Ma Bell would have been forced to come out to do whatever it took to make the line right (Up to and including running a new cable to the affected area).

-- Jeff

Sponge Bob

It is not a line fault as such because strictly speaking it affects every line in a bundle.

Your problem _could_ be caused by a modem on a dodgy line nearer the exchange shouting to be heard and thereby interfering with you. Once VDSL is deployed on a bundle they have to deploy DSM and Vectoring to manage the inevitable crosstalk. It would not be as bad with ADSL2+ but it would affect someone 2 miles or more from the exchange.

In Ireland we have no regulation as you _understand_ it. Comreg are merely a useless figleaf behind which the Politicians hide. But that is not a matter for this forum.

Jeff the Yank

So I setup a graph of my network speed and the Signal to Noise ratio over the weekend. Essentially it started out strong at 5 mbps and the StN ratio at 14db but over time this slowly deteriorated to 3db, at which point the Eircom modem dropped the connection speed to 3 Mbps. I switched over to my Netgear modem but it was sitting at the same connections speed and StN ratio. Again the StN ratio started out strong at 12 but then deteriorated to 3db but it held there for most of Sunday until it dropped the connection and came back at 2 Mbps with a StN ratio of 3db.

eircom: Tony

Jeff the Yank wrote: »

So I setup a graph of my network speed and the Signal to Noise ratio over the weekend. Essentially it started out strong at 5 mbps and the StN ratio at 14db but over time this slowly deteriorated to 3db, at which point the Eircom modem dropped the connection speed to 3 Mbps. I switched over to my Netgear modem but it was sitting at the same connections speed and StN ratio. Again the StN ratio started out strong at 12 but then deteriorated to 3db but it held there for most of Sunday until it dropped the connection and came back at 2 Mbps with a StN ratio of 3db.

Hi Jeff the Yank
Technician is working on this at the moment, he can see the issue there and hopes to be able to update me a bit later this afternoon. My apologies for delay in resolving this but will push this for you.
Tony

Jeff the Yank

You guys will be my new best friends if you can get me back up to a stable 6 Mbps.

eircom: Tony

Jeff the Yank wrote: »

You guys will be my new best friends if you can get me back up to a stable 6 Mbps.

will def do our best Jeff, the tech I spoke to was pretty optimistic:)
Tony

Jeff the Yank

I think they currently have the ceiling on my line set at 5 so if he fixes it, someone probably will need to push it back up to 6. I used to be stable at 6.

The Engineer did call me to tell me he had the line up to something under 4 Mbps steady but as I told him, if I reboot the modem enough times I can get that for a while as well, before the StN ratio brings that down again. BTW, last night the line actually wouldn't go above 1.8 Mbps and the StN ratio was sitting most of the night at 2 to 4db.

The Engineer said he can't really see anything wrong on the line, other than the line from the pole was replaced at some point with the wrong kind of cable, so he was going to rerun that.

My daughter said that the engineer left, but said he would call me. He apparently said he can see there is something wrong but cant figure out what it is. Tony would you please check on this for me?

eircom: Tony

Jeff the Yank wrote: »

I think they currently have the ceiling on my line set at 5 so if he fixes it, someone probably will need to push it back up to 6. I used to be stable at 6.

The Engineer did call me to tell me he had the line up to something under 4 Mbps steady but as I told him, if I reboot the modem enough times I can get that for a while as well, before the StN ratio brings that down again. BTW, last night the line actually wouldn't go above 1.8 Mbps and the StN ratio was sitting most of the night at 2 to 4db.

The Engineer said he can't really see anything wrong on the line, other than the line from the pole was replaced at some point with the wrong kind of cable, so he was going to rerun that.

My daughter said that the engineer left, but said he would call me. He apparently said he can see there is something wrong but cant figure out what it is. Tony would you please check on this for me?

Hi Jeff
I can see that tech was back on this, and that definitely sync and speed has increased to approx 5Mb. Tech will be in contact with you again on Friday to determine how stable this has been. After this time we may be able to push it up to 6Mb. If no impovement we may have to change position within the exchange. I will not know more until tech has spoken with you Thur and run some further tests.
Tony

jay93

With an SNR ratio of 2-4db i'm suprised that your line is even holding a 1Mb connection ! :eek:

Jeff the Yank

It doesn't hold any connection with the Eircom Zyxel modem for long. The only thing holding it together is the Netgear modem I bought, it seems to be able to hold a connection at practically 1db.

eircom: Ant

Jeff the Yank wrote: »

It doesn't hold any connection with the Eircom Zyxel modem for long. The only thing holding it together is the Netgear modem I bought, it seems to be able to hold a connection at practically 1db.

Hi, thanks for posting on eircom's Forum on Boards.

As advised recently, your broadband connection is still under investigation by eircom engineering.

My colleague has advised recently:

"Hi Jeff
" ...Tech will be in contact with you again on Friday to determine how stable this has been. After this time we may be able to push it up to 6Mb. If no impovement we may have to change position within the exchange. I will not know more until tech has spoken with you Thur and run some further tests.
Tony"

If after the engineer has been incontact, and if you're still experiening connection problems, please let us know /or call directly into Technical Support, who will re-escalate this if necessary.

Please retain your Technical Support reference (case id:) as this will help speed up your call time and help Technicial Support solve any eircom related problem.

Broadband Technical Support : 1890 260260 (lowcall); Hours : 08:00 - 22:00 (7 days).


Kind regards,
Ant

Jeff the Yank

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all your help so far. It was OK during the day after he left but come nightfall it once again took a nose dive. I did see a little improvement today in that it is sitting around 4 Mbps connection speed but the StN ratio is still all over the place. With the Zyxel modem connected it is still dropping. The Netgear modem has managed to hold on to the 4 Mbps connection at between 3db and 7db today but just recently it has slid down from 4.5 Mbps to 3.9 Mbps. Its acting even weirder tonight with the StN ratio jumping from 5db to 17db over and over again.

I have no idea if any of this info is of use to you but heck I might as well report it in case it tells you anything.

Thanks - Jeff

Jeff the Yank

This morning the connection speed fell all the way to 2.2 Mbps. The StN Ratio seems to be fluctuating around 8db.

Jeff the Yank

Hiya,

So this morning the connection for the first time since Wednesday made it back up to 5.2 Mbps. The StN ratio is still down in the dumps though, its hovering around 7db.

-- J

Jeff the Yank

Didn't last long. 5.2 Mbps went down to 2.3 Mbps after about an hour.

eircom: Tony

Jeff the Yank wrote: »

Didn't last long. 5.2 Mbps went down to 2.3 Mbps after about an hour.

Hi Jeff the Yank
I spoke to tech again this morning, he advised me he had been in contact with you and advised of next course of action. Bascially having changed underground cable and connecting equipment tech can still see unexplained drops in speed. He is going to change your position at the exchange, as issue might originate from there ( line and connection to premise now show ok). He will also swap out your current modem for different modem.
Tech advised me he will keep in contact with you.
Apologies for the delay I can assure you, having spoken to this particualt tech a few times that he will do his best for you in this case.
Tech will have port in exchange changed over by Monday afternoon and will be incontact with you before this.
Tony

Jeff the Yank

Please convey my thanks to all concerned. I hope we can get this straightened out because its really getting me down lately. I think my Internet addiction is showing.

eircom: Tony

Jeff the Yank wrote: »

Please convey my thanks to all concerned. I hope we can get this straightened out because its really getting me down lately. I think my Internet addiction is showing.

Will do Jeff the Yank, I have found the tech helpful and knowledgable so far..am pretty sure he will get to the bottom of this for you.
Controlling your addiction pretty well I'd say;)
Tony

Jeff the Yank

Well they moved me to another port on the switch today and found me a old Netopia modem to try but getting the same low speeds and SN Ratio is sitting around 4. The engineer said next step is to start checking the line.

eircom: Mark

Jeff the Yank wrote: »

Well they moved me to another port on the switch today and found me a old Netopia modem to try but getting the same low speeds and SN Ratio is sitting around 4. The engineer said next step is to start checking the line.

Hi Jeff,

We will continue to track it from our end as well.

Thanks, Mark

Jeff the Yank

The engineer called, he is getting 5 Mbps at the manhole so he is now going to run new shielded cable to the house tomorrow. Lets all cross our fingers as this is about the last thing he can do.

Jeff the Yank

Well the ran a new line and it seems to have done the trick. Sitting at 5 Kbps and holding steady with 17db SnR. How do I get the ceiling raised back up to 6? At the worse it won't work and we have to go down to five again, at its best I can get 6 again.

Sponge Bob

You better say some really really nice things about Tony...he da man. !

Jeff the Yank

Well done everybody!

I'll give it to them, they didn't stop trying to fix it at any point and did about everything they could do. It took a while but they got the job done. There was obviously a fault in that line at some point (although it didn't show up on their monitoring software) between me and the main road. Thanks to everybody that helped.

Would like to try raising the ceiling on my connection now that I have a brand new cable run to the house and plenty of SnR to play with.

-- Jeffery

eircom: Mark

Jeff the Yank wrote: »

Well done everybody!

I'll give it to them, they didn't stop trying to fix it at any point and did about everything they could do. It took a while but they got the job done. There was obviously a fault in that line at some point (although it didn't show up on their monitoring software) between me and the main road. Thanks to everybody that helped.

Would like to try raising the ceiling on my connection now that I have a brand new cable run to the house and plenty of SnR to play with.

-- Jeffery

Hi Jeffery,

Thanks for posting and letting us know. I am glad the issue is sorted I have let Tony know.

Thanks, Mark

Jeff the Yank

Tony OR Mark would you bump my connection ceiling up so we can see at what level it will hold?