Eircom broadband and line speeds?? Please help

Sharon mc

Eircom broadband 2Mb, can't upgrade as line not capable ?? Need help please
Hi,
Can anyone please help me. My son badly wants Xbox live from Santa. Our Eircom broadband only supports a 2Mb speed and freezes a lot as it is so it definitely won't work for live gaming.i rang Eircom today and was told that the exchange can now support 8 Mb (it's approx 3 miles from our house) but that our line will never support more than 2 megs. When pressed, I was told that we could get a new line put in at a cost of €121.93 but that Eircom would not guarantee that this would increase our speed and in fact could be even slower than our existing line! I was also told that whether it worked or not we would be tied into a 12 month contract and on top of the installation fee would have to pay €25.36/mth. I am very confused as it doesn't seem to make sense to me. If the line is the problem and we upgrade it then how is it possible for it not to work? does anyone understand this?
Is there any other way we can increase the speed? We live in a rural area 3 miles from the nearest town. Please help if you can.
Thanks,
Sharon

Aseth

The problem is you are too far away from the exchange. I don't remember what is the max length sorry. Also the quality of the line matters.
I am not sure if there's anything that can be done - ie different cabling(as you were suggested already by eircom) but they don't want to tell you sth along the line "we put new cable and 100% it will work better" and then discover it won't. So in this case their rep told you the truth.

lynchie

Sharon mc wrote: »

Eircom broadband 2Mb, can't upgrade as line not capable ?? Need help please
Hi,
Can anyone please help me. My son badly wants Xbox live from Santa. Our Eircom broadband only supports a 2Mb speed and freezes a lot as it is so it definitely won't work for live gaming.i rang Eircom today and was told that the exchange can now support 8 Mb (it's approx 3 miles from our house) but that our line will never support more than 2 megs. When pressed, I was told that we could get a new line put in at a cost of €121.93 but that Eircom would not guarantee that this would increase our speed and in fact could be even slower than our existing line! I was also told that whether it worked or not we would be tied into a 12 month contract and on top of the installation fee would have to pay €25.36/mth. I am very confused as it doesn't seem to make sense to me. If the line is the problem and we upgrade it then how is it possible for it not to work? does anyone understand this?
Is there any other way we can increase the speed? We live in a rural area 3 miles from the nearest town. Please help if you can.
Thanks,
Sharon

2Mb is quite perfect for playing games online. In fact a 512Kb line is fine too. Your issue is latency and line quality. Post your full line stats from your router. If you have other devices plugged into any other eircom sockets disconnect them and ensure the router is plugged into the master socket and see if your line stats change for the better.

Sharon mc

Thanks for your replies.
Lynchie
I am afraid I don't know what a lot of the terms you refer to mean. Our broadband works wirelessly in the house. We have a little box thing(router?) which connects directly to the line as far as I know. You can turn it on and off but it controls the broadband/wifi for the house. I don't think we have any other Eircom sockets other than phone which is on a different line I think.
However I am delighted that you think 2mb would be enough for on line gaming. I was told in the toy store we would need 6-8mb for xbox live, and as it is ,when the children play mine craft on the pc it constantly freezes so I was concerned Santa would not be able to get xbox live up and running adequately. You have given me hope!! Thanks.

FSL

Wireless whilst very convenient is very susceptible to Rf interference which affects the quality.

Try running the games when connected with a cable and see if that makes a difference.

Aseth

Sharon mc wrote: »

However I am delighted that you think 2mb would be enough for on line gaming. I was told in the toy store we would need 6-8mb for xbox live, and as it is ,when the children play mine craft on the pc it constantly freezes so I was concerned Santa would not be able to get xbox live up and running adequately.

Sharon mc: maybe you could borrow xbox from someone and see how it works for you?

donalg1

Aseth wrote: »

Sharon mc wrote: »

However I am delighted that you think 2mb would be enough for on line gaming. I was told in the toy store we would need 6-8mb for xbox live, and as it is ,when the children play mine craft on the pc it constantly freezes so I was concerned Santa would not be able to get xbox live up and running adequately.

Sharon mc: maybe you could borrow xbox from someone and see how it works for you?

I have eircom too and get 2-3mb and my Xbox live works perfect was the same in the last place I was. You may just need to go to the wireless settings and set the reauthorisation to 9999 I think it is. My router kept reauthorising every ten to twenty mins until I did this and now it only does so every few hours.

Sharon mc

Thank you guys. Eircom have been back in touch and have explained that the next generation broadband is subject to line, distance from exchange and exchange limitations. As we are in An extended reach area we will never get faster than the 2 Mb we are currently getting. Since yesterday, I have been trying to see if there is anyone I can borrow the xbox wireless adaptor from to see how well live gaming will work in our home. I am confident I will get one! I will also try that router thing as I'm curious as to whether it will stop the pc on line gaming from freezing. It really only happens with minecraft or club penguin to a lesser extent. All our other stuff ( laptop, smart phone, iPad ) work fine but you can't play that particular game on them as apple does not support adobe flash. So it's possible the problem is with the pc and not the broadband connection?? I will let ye know how I get on. Thanks again. Sharon.

Sharon mc

Hi guys,
We got a cat5 cable and hooked it from the router direct to the xbox. It works a dream! We did have to disable the router firewall before we could get xbox live up und running, but now that it is, it works really well. 2 mb speed is absolutely fine! Thanks to all for their help.