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

Nonoperational

Impetus wrote: »

There are many posts about problems with eircom vdsl performance on this thread, which is one of the longer discussions on boards, ever..... filled with entry after entry of problems.

While UPC's service footprint is not 100% nationwide, the chances are that the dissatisfied xDSL customer will move to the cable internet monopoly in search of a fix for their specific issues.

You end up with a monopoly either way. Subscribers in the outer reaches have no choice but a black "model T ford" - ie xDSL. In urban areas one ends up in cable TV land with its traffic shaped heavily contented, fake x Megabits/sec delivery (complete with one of the worst cable TV choices in Europe - guaranteed to keep you and your off springs unable to fluently speak any other language other than English). Not to mention the second rate double contented "HD TV" experience.

"Ejits and con-men". (The victim consumers and their suppliers....)

Most of the issues on this thread are with ADSL, and there are what 100 people maybe? It's a small amount of users on specific exchanges.

There are problems with broadband here, of course, I was simply making the point that the VDSL product is excellent in general.

Impetus

Sully wrote: »

eircom are the only almost nationwide wholesale broadband provider. There not perfect, but without them many people wouldn't have broadband and many wouldn't have fibre broadband. Their network has been plagued with congestion issues that are slowly, it appears, being fixed. This is DSL and VDSL applicable. It's probably a business reason - they need to make the money back before upgrading equipment. It took me a good bit of hounding before I finally got an admission that there was an issue in my local exchange.

UPC have their own target areas and won't be budging from there, for now at least. Again, purely a business choice due to the huge cost. Their broadband is pretty good but their TV isn't the best, in my personal opinion. I think if eVision grows, it will be a serious contender to UPC and Sky.

ESB are looking to enter into direct competition in the areas eircom are running fibre and UPC aren't (apparently, but either way, ESB will be entering the market). No idea if they intend doing TV but they are entering the market with super broadband speeds, which I would only imagine allows for upgrading going forward.

Ireland is basically following the dumb American model, which has delivered one of the poorest quality net connectivity (and TV) on the planet. Look at many Asian and European states and the fibre adoption levels.

A universal fiber platform is the only way forward. Copper is antiquated - 100+ years old. Both eircom and UPC rely on various types of copper for the last km. Both are spending zillions (*issing into the wind) to extend the shelf life of this antiquated technology. The consumer has little choice as a result. There is no room for innovation by potential content / internet suppliers.

ESB is a little like Google fiber, except that it has not delivered anything to the customer's front door, so far. ESB has unequaled rights of way and kit to hang fibre from - right to the door - especially in rural areas. Which could be made to fit nicely in with intelligent metering / power billing. (Modifying peak consumption of electricity provides a greater return on investment compared with investment in new generation plant).

It is a no-brainer. The ESB is moving out of the power generation market and is focusing on being a delivery grid. That grid could be greatly enhanced by adding fibre - which would be re-sold to everyone in the ISP / content / cable TV business. In rural areas you don't have houses without electricity. Why should rural areas have houses without good broadband? And why should city householders be screwed by monopolist net/media con merchants?

Impetus

Nonoperational wrote: »

Most of the issues on this thread are with ADSL, and there are what 100 people maybe? It's a small amount of users on specific exchanges.

There are problems with broadband here, of course, I was simply making the point that the VDSL product is excellent in general.

Even in cases where VDSL is good -- its shelf life is limited in terms of ultra high def TV, video on demand, etc..... No problem if you are content staring at St Bridget's cross in B&W, on "Radio Telefis Eireann" saying the Angelus, over and over!

Gonzo

Impetus wrote: »

In rural areas you don't have houses without electricity. Why should rural areas have houses without good broadband? And why should city householders be screwed by monopolist net/media con merchants?

This is so true, im sick of people thinking people outside urban areas are not entitled to decent broadband because of the lack of population density. Not only is decent broadband not available in rural areas, it is also not available in most semi-rural/urban areas beyond the town boundary up to 2/3km from a town where quite many people live. I live in hope that ESB will get the finger out and provide decent fibre to at least the majority of us, it's totally possible as electricity is available to every home in the country and so should decent broadband.

If ESB where to suddenly have broadband fibre carried alongside the electricity poles to the majority of rural and especially semi-rural areas in the morning, Eircom would have barely any broadband customers left outside urban districts by the end of the week!

OneEightSeven

Gonzo wrote: »

This is so true, im sick of people thinking people outside urban areas are not entitled to decent broadband because of the lack of population density.

Well, we're sick of people thinking they should get fiber broadband regardless of the cost.

There is no return on investment bringing fiber broadband to rural areas. If you want faster speeds, pay for it yourself or move house.

dxhound2005

Impetus wrote: »

Even in cases where VDSL is good -- its shelf life is limited in terms of ultra high def TV, video on demand, etc..... No problem if you are content staring at St Bridget's cross in B&W, on "Radio Telefis Eireann" saying the Angelus, over and over!

Ultra high def TV can be delivered by satellite, where there is plenty of capacity. It might never take off given that it needs to be viewed on very large screens to do it justice. Same as 3D TV has never taken off. Video on demand works I think at present. What is the etc.?

Nonoperational

Impetus wrote: »

Even in cases where VDSL is good -- its shelf life is limited in terms of ultra high def TV, video on demand, etc..... No problem if you are content staring at St Bridget's cross in B&W, on "Radio Telefis Eireann" saying the Angelus, over and over!

Ah enough with the backward Irish jibes. Please. It makes you look very immature.

70Mbit down is plenty adequate for the foreseeable future.

stylie

My NGB is still rubbish, anyone see improvements ?

seaniefr

OneEightSeven wrote: »

Well, we're sick of people thinking they should get fiber broadband regardless of the cost.

There is no return on investment bringing fiber broadband to rural areas. If you want faster speeds, pay for it yourself or move house.

And what's this 'we' business?
That was a very ignorant comment by the way 'we' out in the sticks can and have been availing of fixed wireless access for some time now-not perfect but better than Eircom's ****e offering which I have had since 2004 (2.6mb down .3mb up ) and if you want a faster speed with this service you do pay extra for it.

pH

stylie wrote: »

My NGB is still rubbish, anyone see improvements ?

No - last night still unable to watch 480p on youtube. Twitch.tv is a joke as well

O'Prez

pH wrote: »

No - last night still unable to watch 480p on youtube. Twitch.tv is a joke as well

No also. If anything it's getting worse.

ClonNGB

spent half an hour waiting on the 1901 broadband support phone this morning. reported it already over a month ago that my broadband goes from perfect 15Mb to crap 0.1 after 7pm and returns at midnight to 15mb. They already sent out a poor chap who climbed a pole etc. and said as I knew the problem is not with the line it is with the severe congestion 'in Dublin' after 7pm on the 'uncongested NGB' product. Sick of waiting 10 hours to watch a netflix show.
This morning the chap said he opened a case with 'the congestion team'. Is this the first time they are admitting there is a severe problem out there ?

Sully

Congestion issue back on my line, contacted UTV but got no response so i've went back to ComReg and re-opened my original case.

ussjtrunks

Perfect broadband here again this morning this is madness

Paully D

Check the Eircom thread a few threads down. Number of us just started getting this issue last week. Mine has been fine for four years but since last Friday the speeds drop dramatically from 6pm-midnight and then return to normal.

Some tests have been run there which show it's effecting numerous people right across the country and is clearly a nationwide issue.

Eircom claim to everyone that there's no issue on their line. Some people have been having this issue for up to 8 months at this stage.

Dcully

Hi Paully D im not so sure its one specific issue affecting everyone, im more inclined to think its a number of issues across the whole the eircom network,everything from congestion to faults.
Eircom as far as im aware have no means of monitoring their network performance either locally or nationally and solely rely on complaints.
Personally im sick of waiting for hours ringing support over the years,im simply told to go through the same steps blah blah blah.
Ive had 3-4 issues of falling speeds at peak hours over the last 4-5 years each taking 7-10 months to be addressed.
On two occasions it turned out to be a faulty network card at the portlaoise exchange that my line was routed through from here in Monastrevin and was only discovered after i pestered them for months, had neighbours do the same and only through pestering the reps here on boards was it eventually found.
Another time i made so much noise on local radio and got an email from ireland offline to someone in eircom and i spammed with emails i eventually got in contact directly to head of comms at eircom, within a week the issue was addressed, ie a faulty network card in Monasterevin exchange.
You would not believe the hoops i had to jump through to get a simply job done that my 8 yr daughter could do, absolutely shocking stuff.

Ah-Watch

In recent months our eircom business broadband disconnects anything from 5-15 times daily. I work off a VPN and the fact its constantly disconnecting me is boiling my blood. I have rang eircom several times, they tell me its my equipment internally but its not. Every piece of euipment has been replaced since and it still happens daily. I spent over 45 mins on the phone to them this evening and eventually they agreed to replace the modem again. The power itself doesn't go on the modem so they keep telling me that its not losing connection yet it keeps sending me back around to the page that says we are have a DSL connection but it is not active or some crap like that. I am beyond sick of eircom at this stage, an excuse of a company by all accounts

Xennon

And welcome back to the crap nets:



Bang on 3pm too.