'third party interference' on broadband/phone line

expectationlost

our eircom broadband went slow, intermittent and then stopped working a few weeks ago, got onto eircom tech support, they sent engineer to exchange, week past then he suggested getting new modem, (but didn't tell us) got the modem, stilll not working so engineer came out next day did all his checks at our house found the problem was outside spent 2 half days checking for a fault between the nearest box and our house, down various hatches with other engineers, can't fault their effort, then told we had 'third party intereference' and had to call comreg, (ps another modem arrived!?) so called them then sent an email with our complaint, which they said could take a week, a week and day later (today) no response,so rang up and gave all our details again, now telling us its christmas? and it could take 10 days, now i don't know how long we'll be waiting to get our internet back, we could have comreg delay, the third party delay in dealing with it and then eircom delay again.

my father is puzzled as to why we have to chase this up, i understand that comreg probably act as arbitor between companies, that they need a customer to complain so comreg will get onto the third party, that it seem not to be eircom's fault, but still its problem with eircom equipment, so they really should leave us out of it and just fix it. he fed up and wants to quit eircom, although think we might as well stay with them, even though we're only over mile from the exchange we're not going to get anything faster anywhere or more download ability. although there a seperate issue with what kind of account we're on which is whole other story and another reason to annoyed.

havn't found any reference to 'third party interference'/ people having to ring up comreg to get their broadband fixed... anybody else had this issue? how long did it take comreg to fix it?

had to borrow and o2 dongle and pay into that to get online

expectationlost

so comreg rang us back, saying it was power issue? and a faulty unit had been replaced on the 27th of november, 3 days ago but they didn't tell us, comreg expected our broadband to be working again, its not, they said they'd send out a engineer to check if it was really replaced on monday but i figure we'll have get on to eircom again, maybe having them send out engineer to have look again with that bottleneck out of the equation, comreg guy doesn't think we should have had to get onto comreg ourselves, that eircom could have done it.

Damien360

I find comreg very good to deal with.

Make sure you have all your facts. If you ask your provider to do something and they fail to do it or tell you some waffle about it not being their issue, ring Comreg and they will get it done. If comreg tell you to try again, do so, but go straight back to comreg if still no joy and make your point very clear about how poor the situation is. My issue got sorted very quickly inside same day when I complained with all facts and importantly names.

expectationlost

so internet still not working 4 weeks in, rang comreg to confirm fix, heard nothing from comreg, rang em, but of course the guy on phone knew nothing of our case, eircom then rang us to say the issue of third party interefence is still not resolved!!!

apparently there is some known issue with some third party power unit somewhere, they could have replaced a faulty unit with faulty unit

expectationlost

week 5 no internet comreg still havn't rung us back, think we should be annoyed at another former state monopoly power company not so much eircom but we're going to move to upc anyway

Sponge Bob

Power supplies from UPC modems have even been established to be a source of interference affecting the operation of ADSL lines belonging to eircom on the past.

expectationlost

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Power supplies from UPC modems have even been established to be a source of interference affecting the operation of ADSL lines belonging to eircom on the past.

? i don't understand what you mean by that. anyone?

Sponge Bob

Cheap power supply components can 'sing' eg

Plasma TV > http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1554522

Power supply units > http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1554522

Sometimes called REIN > http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/rein.htm

If it hits the base synch frequencies the modem cannot synch and no broadband is available. If it hits higher you maintain synch but the speed is crap.

expectationlost

only my house has trouble apparently, spoke to my dad again he was pretty sure they said a "power company" was responsible for the issue...? he could have taken this up wrong.

where is this upc power supply that's wrecking my buzz

Sponge Bob

COULD be a transformer has a faulty component that broadcasts interference but that would affect your neighbours surely. Could be anything and anywhere.

If it is constant 24 hour interference get Comreg to send their spectrum compliance people to pinpoint and enforce. http://www.comreg.ie/radio_spectrum/enforcement.543.419.html#.UMZXaqz6m3w

If it is intermittent God help you.

expectationlost

Sponge Bob wrote: »

COULD be a transformer has a faulty component that broadcasts interference but that would affect your neighbours surely. Could be anything and anywhere.

If it is constant 24 hour interference get Comreg to send their spectrum compliance people to pinpoint and enforce. http://www.comreg.ie/radio_spectrum/enforcement.543.419.html#.UMZXaqz6m3w

If it is intermittent God help you.

i've been on to comreg interference unit on and off for two weeks already, as i said above they said they replaced a unit, but my broadband still isn't working at all, so got back on to eircom who said that it wasn't fixed, so still waiting for comreg to ring us back since thursday, have to ring them tmw.

thanks for replying spongebob

expectationlost

known issue with some third party power unit that faulty from a power company is what they said according to my dad, comreg have been lethargic in getting back to us

Sponge Bob

It'll get worse with VDSL, more frequencies to affect. I think the key tone is at 275khz just inside the top of the Long Wave band....which technically makes it a pirate radio station if you can hear the noise yourself on the wireless

expectationlost

comreg radio spectrum engineers in their fancy white jeep here w/ the handheld radio aerial trying find if its upc interference on our line

Sponge Bob

Well done. They probably will not tell you precisely where the interference is coming from though.

expectationlost

well they've been and gone and its not fixed, so no we still nowhere

they checked out our power supplies to our modem, our old upc tv cable, checked next door after turning something off came back checked out modem still not working, not sure what it was they fixed the week before last, they did say it probably a upc power supply

they weere mostly puzzled as to why it would be permantly off and not intermittent

expectationlost

is this how upc has gotten all these people to switch to them by messing up eircom connections?

expectationlost

entering sixth week with no eircom broadband, comrg said they'd get on to eircom to come out check it the line out, i really wish the eircom and comreg would turn up and the same time so they could discuss amongst themselves i'd love to see that.

expectationlost

ring @eircom tech support and your back to square one every time, 6 weeks without broadband, eircom don't want to fix their infrastructure

[ it does make sense in some way that you go back to the start just in case but if they won't believe people when they say their engineer has checked it, its just insulting, its the tech support guy treating you like a piece of ****]

eircom tech support guy just going through the motions now, no intelligence to the support, finding busywork to do rather then fix problem

seems oblivious to previous support history, won't recognize that we already had engineers out who said nothing wrong in house or w/ modem

finally tweeted complaint @eircom got response we see if they start taking it seriously now

expectationlost

so spent ages on the phone with them yesterday, today get a phone call and have to repeat story, a few hours later they ask on twitter to phone me again, oblivious to call earlier left hand right hand at eircom.

iPhone.

Christ! What's happening with your Broadband is a disgrace! Fair play to your patience.

You should start another thread over on the 'talk to Eircom forum' and link this too, the more you publicize your lack of service the better - also demand all downtime be taken into account for billing purposes.

It seems very strange if your direct neighbour is on Eircom BB too on their landline and having no issues - if this is the case at least it may narrow your area to search for the problem down to your own house/equipment/connections.

Did eircom fit one of those master sockets with the built in filter to your wall or are you using the older style socket with filters hanging from them inline with the phone cable?

Just wondering if it has anything to do with something like that, ie dodgy filter or master socket - but i'm sure at this stage the Eircom techs have ruled all that out, just curious as to where they say the good signal ends?

expectationlost

they say the prob is somewhere on the road, the engineer has checked our house, confirm no probs with our house, we have a seperate filter connection remember they've sent us two new modems so far, the outside box which happens to be on neighbours wall i won't allow them to blame us, which is what the do over on the eircom forum, people were telling me to tweet publically at eircom that that had worked for them, but i held off while dealing with comreg because i didn't want to be dealing with just another set of people that we'd have to explain ourselves too, unfortunately thats whats happened the guy is no use, looking to ring us hours after someone else rang us, he won't even tell me that name of the person who rang us, they keep saying they're waiting for comreg to sort it but comreg have been out twice now and have sent the issue back to eircom, but again they won't believe us when we tell them that, they said theyre sending out an engineer, but why are they if its comreg that have to fix it? is it just to give the appearance they are doing something.

expectationlost

so when my father rang up two days ago to find out the latest the tech support didn't have clue, wouldn't acknowledge the history of our complaints and just went into default mode of going through the motions to quote eircom when i asked why were they sending out an engineer "Agents in broadband support may not have access to the complaints system and escalated the call on the 17th based on the trouble Shooting results."

it turns out tweeting is somewhat better, cos the only phone number we have will result in us speaking to someone who doesn't have a clue and doesn't have the information in front of them to either update us or help us, and they'll just fob us off by going through the steps without recognising what the issue actually is.

expectationlost

so an engineer came over yesterday got it working i don't know how, he didn't have any idea of the history of the problem and didn't believe a word i said when i told him the saga, insulting me with smile on face.

Sponge Bob

great

bjayzus

For what it's worth, if U haven't resolved yer BB problem(s), I'm using UPC 100 MB down here in Cork - it gives me ~90MB on my UPC wireless modem, 126MB when I use LAN and 126MB on my Apple Time Capsule. These speeds are measured using SpeedTest.net and are using Digiweb servers in Dublin, Namesco in London.
UPC have now increased their top speed to 150Meg.
Service itself iz VERY reliable, though their billing iz confuzing.

coadyd

expectationlost wrote: »

is this how upc has gotten all these people to switch to them by messing up eircom connections?

having worked in exchanges for a couple of years i can tell you that the answer to that question is no.. Eircom are usless

expectationlost

so broadband is back but struggles to play hd video without buffering, definitely considering upc now as long as they were the ones who messed up our connection

coadyd

UPC do not operate in eircom exchanges where did you get the idea that they screwed your connection up?