Eircom broadband

Rooneysdaman

We live in a village a mere 3 miles outside of Galway City. Our Internet service is so bad, maximum speed of ONE MB and it constantly drifts in and out. Eircom keep stringing us along that fibre-optic (whatever that is) is on it's way to our area but it's been over a year since we first heard that and no sign of it still. The router they provided us with is terrible, our house was badly built (not by us) and there is only one phone jack in the entire 2400 sq ft house, it's on one side of the house, not even in the middle. We can't get wifi upstairs or even at the other end of the house on the same floor, it's awful. They tell us its because we have concrete floors but the walls arent concrete! If 2 of us are using devices at the same time it's interminably slow or more often than not, just kicks you off-line. I am completely fed up paying full-price for a service which I am just not receiving. My sister lives in the city and pays the exact same as me for 55 MB speed & none of our issues. However there is no other Internet service provider in our area. Eircom give us the run-around every time we complain.

Can anyone advise what we should do about this? It's having a huge negative impact on our lives.

RangeR

Rooneysdaman wrote: »

We live in a village a mere 3 miles outside of Galway City. Our Internet service is so bad, maximum speed of ONE MB and it constantly drifts in and out. Eircom keep stringing us along that fibre-optic (whatever that is) is on it's way to our area but it's been over a year since we first heard that and no sign of it still. The router they provided us with is terrible, our house was badly built (not by us) and there is only one phone jack in the entire 2400 sq ft house, it's on one side of the house, not even in the middle. We can't get wifi upstairs or even at the other end of the house on the same floor, it's awful. They tell us its because we have concrete floors but the walls arent concrete! If 2 of us are using devices at the same time it's interminably slow or more often than not, just kicks you off-line. I am completely fed up paying full-price for a service which I am just not receiving. My sister lives in the city and pays the exact same as me for 55 MB speed & none of our issues. However there is no other Internet service provider in our area. Eircom give us the run-around every time we complain.

Can anyone advise what we should do about this? It's having a huge negative impact on our lives.

Eircom's fiber optic [eFiber] is currently rolling out. I don't know where your town is on the roadmap but I believe they are rolling out this year, next year and the year after [2015]. Not sure on any timeframe after 2015. Have a scant through this thread for more details on areas that are about to go live. There'a an interactive map too.

Eircom only install one master socket per home. If you want more, you can get an electrician in to wire some more up. This could be a great idea as you MAY be able to then move your eircom router to a more centralised position.

Your WIFI issues are not eircom's concern and they won't really entertain them. You have a few possibilities here, though. If you can run a phone line from the master socket to somewhere closer to middle of the house, you can move your router there. That will allow you to get WIFI in more areas in the house.

You could possibly get some home plugs, that would extend your reach. Some people aren't great fans of these but they do serve a purpose. The idea being, you plug one in near your router. Then plug one in somewhere else in the house. You can then connect your laptop/pc/console into this extended homeplug and be surfing. Some of these home plugs also have WIFI built in so you can have a second WIFI point on the far side of the house. The ones I linked to have WIFI built in.

Finally, can you get a good 3G signal from any of the networks in your area? Maybe dump the broadband until eFiber comes to your neck of the woods? My MIL is on 3G and is getting speeds of about 2 to 5 Mbps. Now, it's not a consistent speed. Sometimes it's slow... But it's not headwrecking.

dudara

Do you want me to move this thread to the Talk to Eircom forum to see if a rep there can help? You can always request for it to be moved back if you are not getting anywhere.

dudara

sandin

Seems you have a wireless router not suitable for the size of house or concrete floors. - It may also be the reason for bad speeds

We use a TP Link W8968 modem which gets from our office to our warehouse 2 doors away (3 concrete walls to go through - it was about €50 from amazon. The previous modem (3 years old technology) struggled to get past 1.5mb and never gev servcie in the warehouse. This one gives a consistent 2.5 - 2.8mb (3mb package).

There are even better modems than that - a really good one will set you back about €100 - but make sure you get an adsl modem and not a cable modem.

Rooneysdaman

dudara wrote: »

Do you want me to move this thread to the Talk to Eircom forum to see if a rep there can help? You can always request for it to be moved back if you are not getting anywhere.

dudara

Yes please. I posted in Consumer Issues because I don't think it's fair that I am paying the same price as customers who have excellent service. But if there's a chance a different forum can help, why not.

Also, I don't understand why my WiFi problems are not Eircom's concern. I pay them for WiFi, this is the modem/router they supplied me with and it's not up to the job.

Thanks for the replies/help, appreciate it.

Cabaal

Rooneysdaman wrote: »

Yes please. I posted in Consumer Issues because I don't think it's fair that I am paying the same price as customers who have excellent service. But if there's a chance a different forum can help, why not.

Also, I don't understand why my WiFi problems are not Eircom's concern. I pay them for WiFi, this is the modem/router they supplied me with and it's not up to the job.

Thanks for the replies/help, appreciate it.

You pay eircom for an adsl service to your main phone socket and you get an adsl router with wifi functionality.

Environmental factors in your premises that block, degrade or otherwise affect that wifi signal are beyond eircom reasonable control.

They'll help you set it up on devices like pcs or iPhone but that's basically it.

Say for example, imagine the reason for poor wifi is concrete walls in your home, in honesty what do you expect eircom to do?

dudara

Moved at OP's request

dudara

eircom: Tony

Rooneysdaman wrote: »

We live in a village a mere 3 miles outside of Galway City. Our Internet service is so bad, maximum speed of ONE MB and it constantly drifts in and out. Eircom keep stringing us along that fibre-optic (whatever that is) is on it's way to our area but it's been over a year since we first heard that and no sign of it still. The router they provided us with is terrible, our house was badly built (not by us) and there is only one phone jack in the entire 2400 sq ft house, it's on one side of the house, not even in the middle.  We can't get wifi upstairs or even at the other end of the house on the same floor, it's awful. They tell us its because we have concrete floors but the walls arent concrete!  If 2 of us are using devices at the same time it's interminably slow or more often than not, just kicks you off-line.  I am completely fed up paying full-price for a service which I am just not receiving. My sister lives in the city and pays the exact same as me for 55 MB speed & none of our issues. However there is no other Internet service provider in our area. Eircom give us the run-around every time we complain.

Can anyone advise what we should do about this? It's having a huge negative impact on our lives.

Hi Rooneysdaman
Would you mind PMing me your telephone line number and / or exact address and I can have this checked for you?
Tony