Congestion in Eircom (or Eircom resell products) - Are you affected?

O'Prez

PauloMN wrote: »

Yep is cack again tonight:


Personally I think the only thing that can be done is to approach Comreg, making a list of all the users here who have posted speeds as evidence that there's a widespread problem.

We need to collate the information first though, into a spreadsheet or something, or maybe a Google doc where people can fill in their own info. The more people the better.

Or someone can ring Joe Duffy. :pac:

Yeah ring his neck. That's a good idea though with regards to collating the info on here and submitting it to Comreg. It's still the same abysmal situation here (North Tipp) tonight too.

lockup35

Your location/exchange: Innishannon, Co. Cork
Speed daytime before 6pm (mb/s): 6.1
Speed after 6pm (mb/s): between 1 and 2.1

Connection has been rock solid for years until 3 weeks ago. Have Eircom acknowledged any issue with their backhaul?

Potential-Monke

I've "logged a ticket" with Vodafone. Yer one acknowledged that it's a known problem, before quickly backtracking and saying it's not that common. I also have a legal complaint in against the agent who sold me the package, and since then the evening speeds have gone up slightly, from 1.0 to 1.6 to 2.1 to 2.4.

I would have tried that speed test thingy above, but Nod32 doesn't like it!

lockup35

Found this update on the Eircom forums. Eircom seem to think it only affects NGB customers but it's far more widespread than that..


http://community.eircom.net/t5/Broadband/Slow-speeds-at-peak-times/m-p/62548#M21878

MichealKenny

lockup35 wrote: »

Found this update on the Eircom forums. Eircom seem to think it only affects NGB customers but it's far more widespread than that..


http://community.eircom.net/t5/Broadband/Slow-speeds-at-peak-times/m-p/62548#M21878

Wow I did not expect them to be that stupid.

"Uh hey guys our 'uncongested' adsl2 broadband is congested but our congested adsl1 is probably fine, lol, I like lollipops." -Eircom.

They are a big bunch of silly-brains.

stylie

Your location/exchange: Blarney
Speed daytime before 6pm (mb/s): 12
Speed after 6pm (mb/s): 2-6
Have Eircom engineer attended your address?: Yes
Was there any fault found in your line?: Yes, fixed but issue not related to slow down
Have you escalated the matter to your ISP, if yes, what was the result?: eircom are ISP, had ticket open, for first two weeks in contact every 48hrs. 3 weeks of 0 contact since. Promised to keep issue open and to send monitoring software out, never did.
When did the problems with the broadband speed started?: Around the time they installed but did not activate vsdl cabinets

finnteme

Hi all, thank you for the fantastic response! Please keep them coming.
I gave a link to this thread for Eircom in their Eircom forum, where they have admitted that there is something going on, and we should see some improvements at the end of march.

Please keep your feedback coming!

finnteme

Got response from Eircom forum, so they do read boards.ie

Thanks. We have actually taken details from several posters on Boards.ie and have already passed this information on.
Every bit of information helps to respond to this.
Tony

seanp_25

finnteme wrote: »

we should see some improvements at the end of march.

Are they referring to vectoring roll-out here?

jimmad

It would seem Eircom has admitted there is a problem, I suggest each and everyone of you seek compensation for inadequate service for how ever long this has been going on.

PiusXL

Location:Killarney
Daytime speed: 10-11 Mbit
After 6: 0.5-3.
Didn't call eircom support, sick of talking to idiots...
Problem started at the end of 2013, shortly before Christmas.

Nonoperational

Well done guys. I'd actually be reasonably confident they will sort the majority of this.

finnteme

Has anyone noticed any improvements yet? Just did a speedtest, and got whopping 1.1 mb/s in

O'Prez

None. Just barely hitting 2mb.

PauloMN

Mine is fixed now, was fixed about a week ago. Vodafone rang me yesterday to check if the issue was resolved, so I asked what the Eircom engineer had done to fix it. He said that my line had been "ported". I don't know the technicalities of the exchange, but obviously there's bunches of ports that share internet connections, and mine must have been moved from a busy set of ports to a not so busy set of ports.

I presume that's a short term fix though, and only for those who shout loud enough. Obviously there's still a lot of people on my local exchange with poor evening speeds, many of whom might not notice the issue (if they are only checking email, browsing etc.) - but they are still being provided with a poor service.

FWIW I think a written letter to your provider outlining the issue with some examples of speed tests is the best way to get your problem escalated, and cc (or threaten to cc) a copy to Comreg. Things started moving for me once I had a written complaint in - a "ticket" was opened for the issue.

ED E

Sounds like they swapped your DSLAM. Its a big rack of ports that modulates the signal going down the line which is your broadband. Depending on setup each DSLAM could have its own transit, so they probably moved you to one with lighter load. Considering a single rack can have 500+ customers this cant be done for everyone. Very much a case that you shouted loud enough.

finnteme

ED E wrote: »

Sounds like they swapped your DSLAM. Its a big rack of ports that modulates the signal going down the line which is your broadband. Depending on setup each DSLAM could have its own transit, so they probably moved you to one with lighter load. Considering a single rack can have 500+ customers this cant be done for everyone. Very much a case that you shouted loud enough.

I remember this was done for me couple of months ago, it helped for a week, and then the speeds started to get worse again.

PauloMN

ED E wrote: »

Sounds like they swapped your DSLAM. Its a big rack of ports that modulates the signal going down the line which is your broadband. Depending on setup each DSLAM could have its own transit, so they probably moved you to one with lighter load. Considering a single rack can have 500+ customers this cant be done for everyone. Very much a case that you shouted loud enough.

I wonder is the policy to leave people where they are until they start complaining enough, then move them to a different port? Like I say, it's only a temporary solution, because you'll eventually have more "heavy" users moved onto the same set of ports, and as the "lighter" users start getting more devices at home, and start using more services like Netflix etc., the demand for bandwidth will need to be addressed.

finnteme wrote: »

I remember this was done for me couple of months ago, it helped for a week, and then the speeds started to get worse again.

Bloody hope not, will keep an eye on it. I wonder were you swapped back to a port on your previous rack (if that's the technical term) i.e. if someone's port is swapped, is someone else sacrificed back to the crappy port?

Larsheen

Despite talking to accounts some weeks ago where I explained that because I had reported the broadband issue as a 'fault' and it hadn't been sorted,I had no intention of paying for a broadband service I hadn't got, and further more wasn't going to pay for the 1890 calls to tech support trying to sort a problem which was of their making,when I got the bill today there was no rebate credited.
I rang accounts,explained my case,said I was claiming as per the customer charter/code of practice and although he had no record of me being on to them before,he was very helpful and with absolutely no hesitation or argument,there was a credit issued for broadband and for calls.
Perhaps accounts section has been notified that there has been a problem and rebates/credit are due- if asked for?The important part is the last bit- you have to fight for it and my belief is that if we all just continue to cough up payment without a fight then they won't act.Only when we leave or refuse to pay for a flawed service,will Eircom take note.

ED E

PauloMN wrote: »

I wonder is the policy to leave people where they are until they start complaining enough, then move them to a different port? Like I say, it's only a temporary solution, because you'll eventually have more "heavy" users moved onto the same set of ports, and as the "lighter" users start getting more devices at home, and start using more services like Netflix etc., the demand for bandwidth will need to be addressed.

It would be very much a holdover measure until more backhaul can be provided. Thats needed ASAP.

crawler

A lot of these problems will be resolved by March 20th.

red_bairn

crawler wrote: »

A lot of these problems will be resolved by March 20th.

How do you know that? Could they give our household efibre by my birthday too? :rolleyes:

Ah-Watch

crawler wrote: »

A lot of these problems will be resolved by March 20th.

I bloody hope so. While my speeds drop considerably in the evenings and although it is usable Netflix can load an episode in perfect quality and then the next can be slow choppy and unwatchable. Google can also be sluggish. That said at least I have an internet connection. I know 4 people who have got phonelines installed over the last month and are still awaiting avtivation from eircom even though they all have dial tones theyre told their lines arent activated and that no voice or broadband orders can be placed. Shambolic effort altogether

Zith

crawler wrote: »

A lot of these problems will be resolved by March 20th.

I noticed a lot of strange up and down pings and even lost packets last night like routing had been changed or links. When downloading I was getting close to the max of my connection (3Meg) mostly. This is unheard of in the evenings as normally the congestion gets me 0.4Meg after 5 o 'clock.

What has changed? I'm hoping the speed keeps up this evening...

red_bairn

Zith wrote: »

I noticed a lot of strange up and down pings and even lost packets last night like routing had been changed or links. When downloading I was getting close to the max of my connection (3Meg) mostly. This is unheard of in the evenings as normally the congestion gets me 0.4Meg after 5 o 'clock.

What has changed? I'm hoping the speed keeps up this evening...

I'll check later on when at home. Maybe some differences on some nodes. Have you done some ping tests and tracerts?

BulliteShot

I wonder how many people have someone else in the home downloading or uploading while the other person is screaming at an Eircom support guy. Lmao.

crawler

BulliteShot wrote: »

I wonder how many people have someone else in the home downloading or uploading while the other person is screaming at an Eircom support guy. Lmao.

Or a game console updating it's firmware is another one....happens lots.

Zith

red_bairn wrote: »

I'll check later on when at home. Maybe some differences on some nodes. Have you done some ping tests and tracerts?

Did both, pings were averaging around 100-120 with maybe 1 out of 4 timing out. Tried towards a number of sites, like boards.ie, eircom.net, sky.com, jolt.co.uk
The traceroutes were showing similar ups and downs with occasional timeouts that changed each time. The routes it took looked normal.
My first hop is usually around 55ms but last night was always 100ms ish, even though the actual downloads when I did them were close to the line max.
Checked this morning and the first hop was 45 fairly consistently, with pings to boards averaging 45-50 with no time outs. Have a tiny bit of excitement in my heart that things will remain good when I get home.

Note pings and traceroutes were done without downloads or anything else going on.

BulliteShot wrote: »

I wonder how many people have someone else in the home downloading or uploading while the other person is screaming at an Eircom support guy. Lmao.

I'm sure that does happen but for myself I have a good understanding of what is going on. Been working with telecoms/networking for 17 years. Makes support calls to eircom or sky even more painful when you can clearly see the particular rep hasn't a notion apart from their scripted answers.

red_bairn

Zith wrote: »

Have a tiny bit of excitement in my heart that things will remain good when I get home.

Sure check at peak time again tonight. :pac:

Zith

red_bairn wrote: »

Sure check at peak time again tonight. :pac:

Certainly will do! Just for reference I'm on old school ADSL. No NGB malarky here.