Word of warning for Potential Eircom Customers

Hank Scorpio

I made a thread here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=74752869 back in October about a problem with my connection

I made another thread here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=79444703 a few months ago

I'm making this thread because Eircom stopped replying to my previous ones. If you're living in a rural/village/small town area and run into a problem the chances are you`ll experience the same as me, Eircom are focused on competing with UPC with different products and ignoring people like me. I gave up trying to get it sorted weeks ago

Now I'm left with this most nights.

Pinging home.eircom.net [86.43.38.8] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 86.43.38.8: bytes=32 time=203ms TTL=58
Reply from 86.43.38.8: bytes=32 time=854ms TTL=58
Reply from 86.43.38.8: bytes=32 time=1675ms TTL=58
Reply from 86.43.38.8: bytes=32 time=667ms TTL=58

Ping statistics for 86.43.38.8:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 203ms, Maximum = 1675ms, Average = 849ms

Paying for 7Mb and receiving 1-2 in the evenings, pages are super slow to load, gaming is impossible and clients such as skype/msn run into problems because of packets being dropped. My line is perfect and the local exchange is just outside my house. 40e+ a month for a service like this isn't really cutting it.

Dcully

Just came across this thread and thought my this is just too familiar to my experiences.

Back in 07 i had this issue

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=52709096

Then in 2010 i had this issue

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=67850579


Both took more than 7 months each time to fix a simple problem that eircom support refused to recognize and refused to listen to me until i made some real noise.

Granted since the issues were addressed im seeing speeds like i should be, its just sickening the extraordinary lengths i had to go to for any resolution.

Fast forward to present day, heading towards 2013, a tiny village 3 miles away from Monasterevin has NGB BUT we in Monasterevin cannot get NGB or anything faster than bog standard broadband in the town.
Ive asked eircom have they any plans for Monasterevin to bring anything faster and they said they dont know.

OP i feel for you mate, i really do.
If i had a choice id jump ship in a heartbeat.

Id just like to add that while i wasnt getting anywhere with eircom support over the phone or vie their forum on their website the guys here on boards eircom forum did get on top of things once i provided some test results,, its funny how they recognized an issue yet everyone else i sought help from did not.

eircom: Ant

nuxxx wrote: »

I made a thread here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=74752869 back in October about a problem with my connection

I made another thread here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=79444703 a few months ago

I'm making this thread because Eircom stopped replying to my previous ones. If you're living in a rural/village/small town area and run into a problem the chances are you`ll experience the same as me, Eircom are focused on competing with UPC with different products and ignoring people like me. I gave up trying to get it sorted weeks ago

Now I'm left with this most nights.

Pinging home.eircom.net [86.43.38.8] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 86.43.38.8: bytes=32 time=203ms TTL=58
Reply from 86.43.38.8: bytes=32 time=854ms TTL=58
Reply from 86.43.38.8: bytes=32 time=1675ms TTL=58
Reply from 86.43.38.8: bytes=32 time=667ms TTL=58

Ping statistics for 86.43.38.8:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 203ms, Maximum = 1675ms, Average = 849ms

Paying for 7Mb and receiving 1-2 in the evenings, pages are super slow to load, gaming is impossible and clients such as skype/msn run into problems because of packets being dropped. My line is perfect and the local exchange is just outside my house. 40e+ a month for a service like this isn't really cutting it.

Hi nuxxx,

Your average ping times appear higher than when I spoke with you in late June. At that time they were leveling at 58ms, which is probably only slightly higher than they possibly should be: i.e: between 30ms - 40ms.

There are a number of factors that can cause high "ping" (latency). To name a few, heavy Internet traffic at the time, congested/overloaded routers on the way to the target machine, low quality/inadequate bandwidth are the most common causes.

A major cause of higher pings, however, is local issues like spyware or P2P programs hogging all the bandwidth, local interference between devices, etc.

I have spoken with Broadband Support and asked them to check your router and also see if you have more than one computer device (or games console) connected. Unfortunately, the Support team were were unable to connect to your modem. They advise that your eircom Netopia 2247 modem has been solidly connected over the eircom authentication servers for more than 24 days. This itself may have prevented them for connecting to your modem and you may need you to restart your modem first, so that they can establish a remote connection.

eircom 2nd level support advised, when they looked at your connection in July, the possible reason for your high ping was the result of running a bit torrent programme: e.g: Limewire. It may also be the result running other computer devices at the same time, including an Android and /or games console. It is important, in order that Support can help resolve this issue, that you try to connect only one computer if possible. The mentors further advise that you may have setup port forwarding on the router. This can also contribute to a high ping times and may not give you an accurate ping result when testing.

It would be beneficial to assess your ping results with just the one computer device connected. If possible if this could be done over Ethernet. You may also need to Hard reset the modem, particularly as it has been on solidly for so long. Obviously, hard resetting the modem would remove your port forwarding and any other private settings. It may be important therefore to make a copy of these, so that you can set these up again at a later stage after you've tested the modem.

As previously advised, your phoneline itself only pre-qualifies for up to 6Mb, though your broadband is set up on 7Mb. This will also have a bearing on your overall broadband throughput.

Broadband Support have requested that you call into them so they can re-clarify your connection setup after they looked at your connection in July.

Before you call, I would advise that you may need to hard-reset the modem and then test one single computer device :

The following guide will also be helpful before you call Technical Support :

• Disconnect everything from the phone line: phones, fax machine, Sky Digital TV, or any other equipment connected to the phone line which may interfere with the broadband connection. Remove the splitter and connect the modem directly to the main phone socket. Test the connection speed again.
• Connect one computer device to your modem when testing your speed.
• Also shut down completely any Games Console(s) when testing your broadband

Are you connecting wirelessly?

• If you are using wireless to connect to the Internet, connect your computer to the modem with the yellow Ethernet cable if possible. This would eliminate any wireless related problems which may affect your connection speed.
• Disable or exit your anti-virus programme or firewall(s) while testing your speed

Are you using streaming, file-sharing or Peer-to-Peer (P2P) software?

• These programs download content in the background, even when minimized. Exit the software completely to ensure it does not affect the speed.

Broadband Technical Support : 1890 260260 (locall); Hours : 8am - 10pm (7 days).

Please retain your case id (reference) from Technical Support, as this will help if you need to follow this up.

Let me know if you need further advice.

Best Wishes,
Ant

hazchem

Interesting survey being carried out by company called SamKnows

“Together, the European Commission and SamKnows aim to provide Europe with reliable and accurate statistics of broadband performance across Europe”

Here are stats year to date on a Vodafone 7Mb package, Eircom lines and Eircom equipment,self-explanatory as you can see afternoon evening drop off is contention related.

[URL="[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/267/statsswn.jpg/][IMG]http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/5715/statsswn.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]"][/url]

eircom: Ant

Dcully wrote: »

Just came across this thread and thought my this is just too familiar to my experiences.

Back in 07 i had this issue

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=52709096

Then in 2010 i had this issue

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=67850579


Both took more than 7 months each time to fix a simple problem that eircom support refused to recognize and refused to listen to me until i made some real noise.

Granted since the issues were addressed im seeing speeds like i should be, its just sickening the extraordinary lengths i had to go to for any resolution.

Fast forward to present day, heading towards 2013, a tiny village 3 miles away from Monasterevin has NGB BUT we in Monasterevin cannot get NGB or anything faster than bog standard broadband in the town.
Ive asked eircom have they any plans for Monasterevin to bring anything faster and they said they dont know.

OP i feel for you mate, i really do.
If i had a choice id jump ship in a heartbeat.

Hi Dcully,

Thanks again for contributing to the Forum.

Let me know if I can help any time.

Best Regards,
Ant

Dcully

eircom: Ant wrote: »

Hi Dcully,

Thanks again for contributing to the Forum.

Let me know if I can help any time.

Best Regards,
Ant

Your welcome Ant, im holding my breath if im honest Ant, the last 2 issues seems to be a pattern,fingers crossed similar does not happen anytime soon.
If it does your my man


The eircom techs dont seem to see faults as they happen,it just doesnt make sence to me,i know when i lived in Germany the bb companies constantly monitored their network and have software that informs them of any issues,i assumed back in 07 and 10 that eircom would have similar.

Ive added to my post above to reflect the positive help i got from you guys here on this forum.
7 months ringing,emailing and it took you guys less than a week :eek: credit where its due.

Dcully

@ Nuxxx, apologies but i might have missed it.
Are you on 7mb or 3mb?
The reason i ask is a while back maybe a year or more eircom gave everyone an upgrade.
I went from 3mb to 7mb and instantly the latency went through the roof,there were a lot of threads about this over on the nett comms forum at the time and a lot of people requested they go back to 3mb as this was supposed to help things, i went back to 3mb a day or so after the upgrade and things were back to normal.

[Ofcourse im not speaking about the major issues i linked about above]

Apologies if you tried this already but have you gone back to 3mb to see if anything improves?

Ive heard but cant vouch for it but some people stayed on the 7mb and things settled down after early teething issues.
Id love to go back to 7mb but fear ill see the same issue as before.

Hank Scorpio

eircom: Ant wrote: »

Hi nuxxx,

Your average ping times appear higher than when I spoke with you in late June. At that time they were leveling at 58ms, which is probably only slightly higher than they possibly should be: i.e: between 30ms - 40ms.

No, that is not true at all. Back since October I've been consistently recieving 200+ ms ping times at peak times every evening throughout the night, once peak times subsided the ping times and downloads would return to normal. The pings were never 58ms and I have no idea where your pulling that figure from.

There are a number of factors that can cause high "ping" (latency). To name a few, heavy Internet traffic at the time, congested/overloaded routers on the way to the target machine, low quality/inadequate bandwidth are the most common causes.

This is quite clearly the problem here and I've been telling Eircom this since October

A major cause of higher pings, however, is local issues like spyware or P2P programs hogging all the bandwidth, local interference between devices, etc.

While this is true, is it not true in my case. In my previous threads I have outlined I have connected newly formatted machines with only a single device connected to the router via ethernet and the issue remained. The issue occurs during peak time usage, every single day, this is not coincidence

I have spoken with Broadband Support and asked them to check your router and also see if you have more than one computer device (or games console) connected. Unfortunately, the Support team were were unable to connect to your modem. They advise that your eircom Netopia 2247 modem has been solidly connected over the eircom authentication servers for more than 24 days. This itself may have prevented them for connecting to your modem and you may need you to restart your modem first, so that they can establish a remote connection.

I've done this 20 times already. There is nothing on the local network causing the connection to magically deteriortate during peak times.

eircom 2nd level support advised, when they looked at your connection in July, the possible reason for your high ping was the result of running a bit torrent programme: e.g: Limewire. It may also be the result running other computer devices at the same time, including an Android and /or games console. It is important, in order that Support can help resolve this issue, that you try to connect only one computer if possible. The mentors further advise that you may have setup port forwarding on the router. This can also contribute to a high ping times and may not give you an accurate ping result when testing.

More lies, the guy who spoke on the phone said that utorrent was causing the problem even though I had no active torrents open in utorrent and the program and process itself was not running. If the problem was local it would show on traceroutes to eircom nodes with latency from the first hop, I.e to the router. Once again utorrent does not explain why these problems occur at peak times.

It would be beneficial to assess your ping results with just the one computer device connected. If possible if this could be done over Ethernet. You may also need to Hard reset the modem, particularly as it has been on solidly for so long. Obviously, hard resetting the modem would remove your port forwarding and any other private settings. It may be important therefore to make a copy of these, so that you can set these up again at a later stage after you've tested the modem.

I have done this over and over and over again.

As previously advised, your phoneline itself only pre-qualifies for up to 6Mb, though your broadband is set up on 7Mb. This will also have a bearing on your overall broadband throughput.

My line stats are perfect and capable of much higher if those packages were available. So once again I have no idea where you're pulling that out of.

Broadband Support have requested that you call into them so they can re-clarify your connection setup after they looked at your connection in July.

Before you call, I would advise that you may need to hard-reset the modem and then test one single computer device :

The following guide will also be helpful before you call Technical Support :

• Disconnect everything from the phone line: phones, fax machine, Sky Digital TV, or any other equipment connected to the phone line which may interfere with the broadband connection. Remove the splitter and connect the modem directly to the main phone socket. Test the connection speed again.
• Connect one computer device to your modem when testing your speed.
• Also shut down completely any Games Console(s) when testing your broadband

Are you connecting wirelessly?

• If you are using wireless to connect to the Internet, connect your computer to the modem with the yellow Ethernet cable if possible. This would eliminate any wireless related problems which may affect your connection speed.
• Disable or exit your anti-virus programme or firewall(s) while testing your speed

Are you using streaming, file-sharing or Peer-to-Peer (P2P) software?

• These programs download content in the background, even when minimized. Exit the software completely to ensure it does not affect the speed.

Broadband Technical Support : 1890 260260 (locall); Hours : 8am - 10pm (7 days).

Please retain your case id (reference) from Technical Support, as this will help if you need to follow this up.

Its the same setup as when I rang multiple times in October,November,December,January,Februray,March,April,May,June,July and low and behold the same as this month August.

Let me know if you need further advice.
Best Wishes,
Ant

If all you can do is be condesending and falsly make up random facts which are lies then no I don't want further "advice". Your reply is trying to make Eircom look good and belittle what I wrote in the OP. You keep spinning the same web without fixing the actual problem. I`ll say it again to potential users, this is what keeps happening to me, they keep repeating the same things over and over when we both know what the actual problem is.

Hank Scorpio

Dcully wrote: »

@ Nuxxx, apologies but i might have missed it.
Are you on 7mb or 3mb?

7Mb for a long time, it was fine for years. The problems started happening in October

Sponge Bob

Same thing happened some time back to boards user Xennon on the Inch St Lawrence ISL exchange outside Limerick. This exchange has well over 500 active lines and I assume around 300 or more of those have ADSL.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=67213475

It took him 9 months to get the backhaul upgraded from a DS3 to an STM1 as noted in this post in 2010.

The DS3 referred to is also known as an E3. The entire exchange had a backhaul of 34 megabits and was upgraded to a whopping 155mbits instead.

Much to my amazement Inch St Lawrence ISL is now an "NGN" exchange. The STM-1 standard dates back to the late 1980s/early 1990s.

eircom: Ant

nuxxx wrote: »

No, that is not true at all. Back since October I've been consistently recieving 200+ ms ping times at peak times every evening throughout the night, once peak times subsided the ping times and downloads would return to normal. The pings were never 58ms and I have no idea where your pulling that figure from.



This is quite clearly the problem here and I've been telling Eircom this since October



While this is true, is it not true in my case. In my previous threads I have outlined I have connected newly formatted machines with only a single device connected to the router via ethernet and the issue remained. The issue occurs during peak time usage, every single day, this is not coincidence



I've done this 20 times already. There is nothing on the local network causing the connection to magically deteriortate during peak times.



More lies, the guy who spoke on the phone said that utorrent was causing the problem even though I had no active torrents open in utorrent and the program and process itself was not running. If the problem was local it would show on traceroutes to eircom nodes with latency from the first hop, I.e to the router. Once again utorrent does not explain why these problems occur at peak times.



I have done this over and over and over again.



My line stats are perfect and capable of much higher if those packages were available. So once again I have no idea where you're pulling that out of.



Its the same setup as when I rang multiple times in October,November,December,January,Februray,March,April,May,June,July and low and behold the same as this month August.



If all you can do is be condesending and falsly make up random facts which are lies then no I don't want further "advice". Your reply is trying to make Eircom look good and belittle what I wrote in the OP. You keep spinning the same web without fixing the actual problem. I`ll say it again to potential users, this is what keeps happening to me, they keep repeating the same things over and over when we both know what the actual problem is.

Thanks for reply nuxxx,

Apologies, for any mistakes. We're all human after all. I was looking at the TTL, which was 58. I do accept that your pings are what you say they are, over 200ms and more.

The central point of Broadband Support's position is that they need you to try a single test with your modem, after you have hard reset it. I was speaking with Technical Support about your Broadband earlier today. I can assure you that Broadband Support would like to get all issues resolved as quickly as possible.

Broadband Support did advise me that the last time they dealt with your broadband in July, they had seen more than one computer device connected. They also seen a peer to peer connection (possibly LimeWire) and suggested that you may be port forwarding on the eircom router. I accept that you have tested your modem many times. However, Broadband Support can only work on this premise of what they see on the network at a specific time.

If there is any issue on the network then broadband support will have to escalate it to the engineers. They will assess this a I will be perfectly frank with you as well. Broadband Support do need your help in resolving this issue.

As advised, your modem has been on and connected for over 24 days. That is a fact which Technical Support cannot hide. They are watching the radius servers and see that your connection has not dropped. They have requested that you restart the modem atleast, so they can log in to th router remotely. Once they do this they can try to ping from the router and run a full trace diagnostic test.

If you need me to give you another direct phone call, just let me know. I will go through the steps that Broadband Support require and advise you on keeping your port forwarding setup, if necessary, before we hard reset the modem.

DCully has made a valid point, and it may be necessary to reduce your broadband line profile to a more suitable level. This is something that Broadband Support will assess when they are looking at your broadband and testing it in real time.

As advised give Broadband Support a call after resetting the router. Remember to keep your router settings as you may need to set these up after calling into Broadband Support.

Broadband Technical Support : 1890 260260 (locall); Hours : 8am - 10pm (7 days).

Please keep your case reference and PM this to me. I will follow this up with Broadband Support


Best Wishes,
Ant

Hank Scorpio

It has been "escalated" to engineers before, the latest of which said playing games reduces the routers power. My neighbors must all be running these mysterious p2p programs at identical peak times I am. That must be it.

Just drop the entire case , thanks. I'm done. 10 months of being treated like an idiot is enough.

And just FYI , the initial calls to Eircom way back 10 months ago told me there was congestion on the exchange, that was the problem, and that they had no idea when it would be fixed. They said they couldn't provide a time range for when it would be fixed.

The longer I've complained new issues that are causing the problem on my side seem to keep popping up and the original admittance of the problem has dissipated. The guy from the faults line cut some money off the bill, he was a decent skin. He even said to move away from Eircom because in all likelihood the problem might not be fixed for years as there focusing on NGB areas and also the roll-out of fibre

Edit: I don't blame you or people who are told to stick to a script, I blame the idiotic shambolic thieving excuse of a company you work for. There is no system in place dealing with problems like this. There is no email I can send DSL reports to that show the problems over long periods of time. You are only doing your job and I respect that, the anger and frustration you are seeing has built up over 10 months of being told the same things over and over and I apologize if I was offensive to you. But like I said I'm done trying to get this sorted for my own sanity so if we could just leave it at that, I'd appreciate it.

eircom: Ant

nuxxx wrote: »

It has been "escalated" to engineers before, the latest of which said playing games reduces the routers power. My neighbors must all be running these mysterious p2p programs at identical peak times I am. That must be it.

Just drop the entire case , thanks. I'm done. 10 months of being treated like an idiot is enough.

And just FYI , the initial calls to Eircom way back 10 months ago told me there was congestion on the exchange, that was the problem, and that they had no idea when it would be fixed. They said they couldn't provide a time range for when it would be fixed.

The longer I've complained new issues that are causing the problem on my side seem to keep popping up and the original admittance of the problem has dissipated. The guy from the faults line cut some money off the bill, he was a decent skin. He even said to move away from Eircom because in all likelihood the problem might not be fixed for years as there focusing on NGB areas and also the roll-out of fibre

Edit: I don't blame you or people who are told to stick to a script, I blame the idiotic shambolic thieving excuse of a company you work for. There is no system in place dealing with problems like this. There is no email I can send DSL reports to that show the problems over long periods of time. You are only doing your job and I respect that, the anger and frustration you are seeing has built up over 10 months of being told the same things over and over and I apologize if I was offensive to you. But like I said I'm done trying to get this sorted for my own sanity so if we could just leave it at that, I'd appreciate it.

Hi nuxxx,

I spoke with the mentors in Technical Support, after they had looked back at your case history. They checked the exchange history and capacity. I've sent a mail to the engineers to see if this exchange was impacted now and over the past year. It's possible that your exchange may be different to another exchange with a similar size. I've also asked if your exchange is due to be upgraded.

Again, I appreciate your post and don't doubt you for a minute. Tech Support have asked that you help in resolving this, and it may be necessary to do some further quick checks like reset modem. Testing your broadband now may help Broadband Support investigate this issue further.

I know it's possible that you were advised by an agent that there is an issue on one exchange or it could be a personal opinion. The mentors have gone through the case history and I do believe you. As said, I have asked for more information and hope we can at least try to resolve this.

From Technical Support's perspective, they have said that your modem has been connected for 24 days. without a break. The modem may not be functioning correctly and may need hard-reset. Tech Support have advised, the last time they checked your broadband in July : they believed that you may have been running bit torrent and port forwarding when you were testing your ping.

In view of this, they have suggested that you may need to hard-reset your modem after saving your modem settings. I also understand fully that you may not wish to do this and are fed up troubleshooting your broadband.

I will keep checking this and advise you further.

Best Regards,
Ant

Hank Scorpio

I'll ring support tonight when the connection goes bad during peak hours. I have done this a few times before and been told nothing could be done as its congestion related

eircom: Ant

nuxxx wrote: »

I'll ring support tonight when the connection goes bad during peak hours. I have done this a few times before and been told nothing could be done as its congestion related

Let me know how it goes with Tech Support nuxxx.

I will follow up with them tomorrow.

Best of luck, Ant

eMobile: Tony

nuxxx wrote: »

I'll ring support tonight when the connection goes bad during peak hours. I have done this a few times before and been told nothing could be done as its congestion related

Hi nuxxx

I have been advised that your exchange is due for an upgrade around
the 13th of September


I hope this resolves your issue. Let me know if you notice or do not notice any change. We can test your line again then and see what can be done..


Tony

Hank Scorpio

Hi I just seen this, that's good news

I`ll post back the results here

Sponge Bob

Nice one Tony.

xDramaxQueenx

you would need serious help if you ever decided to become an eircom customer. i hate eircom. i foolishly signed up for shi t broadband with them. i was having murders with them on DAY ONE OF A 365 DAY contract. what a joke of a service

Sponge Bob

hazchem wrote: »

Interesting survey being carried out by company called SamKnows

My Samknows box is currently attached to a neighbours line and has logged 27% Packet Loss and an average speed of 3.2mbits in October ...on an up to 24mbit package. Engineers been out twice in fairness but the PPPoE circuit appears to be discarding packets ( no synch loss)

flutered

hazchem wrote: »

Interesting survey being carried out by company called SamKnows

“Together, the European Commission and SamKnows aim to provide Europe with reliable and accurate statistics of broadband performance across Europe”

Here are stats year to date on a Vodafone 7Mb package, Eircom lines and Eircom equipment,self-explanatory as you can see afternoon evening drop off is contention related.

i have that setup as well, they usually give a report each month, they now only give me one every two months, as it is under 2.50 download, my contract is up in april, thankfully.