Smart Telecom

Who Knew?

Are there any reps from Smart Telecom on Boards? I was on the phone with one of their reps for a while and couldn't get anything resolved on the line without having a landline handset. Got one 5 minutes later and called back the Smart technical support helpdesk. Was waiting in line from half 7 until 8 o'clock when I was disconnected. I work in a call center and if we disconnected calls from our queue at exactly the cutoff time (especially if they had been waiting half an hour on the line) someone would be out of a job.

Its not the first time something like this has happened. I've been trying to get our terribly inconsistent broadband sorted for the guts of 2 years now and I'm no further on. I live in Letterkenny in the Mountain Top area and have never had good speeds in the house we are renting. Our next door neighbours were getting significantly higher speeds than us this whole time so I'm starting to doubt the tired excuse "you're too far away from the exchange". We started off on a bad footing with Smart in this house. It took us 2 months to have our broadband enabled after moving in. The supervisor who eventually got the issue resolved said he never seen such a mess of a ticket and offered us 2 months free service which was nice.

I'm just wondering if its only myself who has had trouble with their customer care or if it is a common theme? If anyone has any suggestions as to what I should do from here? We are currently getting 0.33mb/s download and 0.65mb/s upload speeds. Are there any satellite broadband or similar companies that might offer better speeds? I'm struggling to see why our speeds are so bad considering people 100 yards down the road from us are getting 1mb/s download speeds.

Gadgetman496

According to your figures you're getting twice faster upload over download speeds? was that a typo?

Anyway, those figures are pretty bad but you are on copper and it does not like distance, It also hates moisture\rain. broadband over a phone line is a DDT (distance dependent technology) and it gets worse if your particular copper run is bad, that's probably why your neighbours have better speeds, their copper run is probably a better piece of cable?

I was with Smart from the start up until a year ago & have since moved to UPC.

While with Smart I couldn't fault them really & never had issues with customer service the few times I had to use them. I did dislike the fact they killed weekend & bank holiday support after the takeover though. My line was less than half a mile from the exchange and I was on their 24mb package, the best I could get was 7 down on an internal socket & 11 on the first socket inside the door (which is recommended). The problem wasn't Smart it was the eircom copper line from the exchange to my house & eircom were never going to replace that. Smart in fairness tried everything they could do including sending out an engineer from Dublin to Galway.

I'm now fortunate enough to be in a UPC enabled area and am enjoying the difference their 50mb package has made.

Hope you get something sorted soon.

dub45

I was with Smart since they started supplying BB and as gadgetman 496 mentions their customer care hasn't been the same since they were taken over by Digiweb. Prior to that it was truly excellent and the forum on their website which they used so well seems redundant. Their responses to two relatively recent major outages were in view anyways pretty pathetic. (Admittedly a rare occurence during my time with them).

Everyone using dsl bb should know their line stats - that way you know what your line should be capable of when you are talking to your isp.

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/linestats.htm

Also check your internal wiring - do you have extensions, filters etc etc.

Who Knew?

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately it wasn't a typo. I'll try get a few screen grabs of the speed test site. The funny thing is, I've been doing a speed test from Speedtest.net (and I'll be honest, I don't know how reliable their site is) for a while now and my speeds have gone from a peak of 3.08mb/s in February this year to our new low this week of the above. It was around 2.84mb/s in November. (before anyone says, it has fluctuated like this for an extremely long time. This is not a new problem.)

I agree with your point regarding copper wire and the fact they're working on the back of Eircom's network but the fact is I was seeing much better and more reliable speed at certain points over the past 2 years but our service is all over the place. They haven't sent out an engineer yet to examine the connection (which I'm sure could be one of the main problems) though I'm sure they want to get all their ducks in a row before they go through with that cost. They've already sent us out 2 different Thomson routers (which are very poor might I add - besides the point, I know).

I have called a few times to get this sorted over the few years I've been here. I've tried all the usual troubleshooting and nothing has really happened. I admit blame in not following up but after doing the testing and waiting on a callback which never came time and time again I usually just gave up. A few months (or longer) down the line and I would call back. Each time I go through the same steps: connect the router without a splitter to the main point in the hallway for 24hrs or so and await a callback (which has yet to come), test the phone line (I've only done this once but surely they could have gleaned the information they required that time), etc.

I normally wouldn't air my dirty laundry on a public forum but at this point I'm considering moving house as the internet is so terribly slow. The place I work has a tele working program that I would make use of but it is just not possible with the reliability of the connection we have.

I love being able to surf the internet. The unfortunate thing about our connection is sites like Netflix, YouTube, etc are basically useless a lot of the time. I can't Skype people as the connection is so poor. I can't even use Viber on my phone when it's connected to wireless! Sky On Demand might as well not exist. Streaming football is one of the most frustrating things anyone can care to achieve on a computer with this connection! Teletext would give a better picture of a game!

The thing that annoys me the most is that some of the time our connection can be fine. Streaming, etc can work. It is the unreliability of the service that makes all of the online features I would like to use so hit or miss. Some days are perfect. Some are abysmal. It is not a time of day thing either. It can be almost perfect at half 6 on a weekday evening and be terrible at half 2 on a Saturday or Sunday morning.

I've been toying with the idea of going to a satellite broadband provider but I've heard horror stories about this type of service as well. What pains me the most is the house we are in now is almost perfect. Its in a great location for work, the rent is affordable, the neighbours are great, the house itself is brilliant but the fact we rely so heavily on the internet for entertainment is making things very frustrating.

Gadgetman496

I can totally identify with your frustration. If it were me I would contact them and insist on speaking to a supervisor & request that they send an engineer to investigate your issues. Be courteous with them too (I'm not suggesting you haven't been) but I find losing the plot with them gets you nowhere. Explain to them that your job will soon require you to work from home and that the issue is now a matter of urgency as the lack of a stable service could Jeopardize your livelihood? Don't sit on it, become a thorn in their side until they make a serious effort to help you.

Isn't it a sign of the times when peoples decision on where to live can be dictated by Broadband availability?

pigck29

you should check out this site :
http://www.eircomwholesale.ie/ "Coverage Map"
This should give out the approximation how far away from the exchange
If you live in mountain top area, the direct distance is about 3-3.5 KM, as you know phone cable doesn't run direct, we are talking the exchange should be about 4-5 KM away from your house. Maximum the line can handle is about 2-3Mbps

can you log in the modem gateway and post the modem speed status (details)? Need to see the download SNR