Annoyed with eircom. No broadband. What can I do?

BroadbandPls

I've found this forum to be quite interesting. I still don't have broadband in my area. I'm in the 058 CONNA/BALLYNOE exchange. I know that people do have it in my exchange. But eircom reasoning is that our lines are too far away to get a decent enough speed for broadband.

It seems to be just me and my neighbors down the road in all about 15 houses that are stuck without it. We currently have a 3G sim from 3 and its like hell on earth. I remember hearing a quote from I think the online site "The Oatmeal" saying that having slow crappy internet is worse than having none at all. And my god is that true.

Its particularly frustrating that we will be stuck without it until eircom do something about the situation, which seeing as how few people it affects, will be quite a long time still. Its frustrating that people a couple hundred meters in the exchange can get broadband but still we have nothing. And we'll never be able to get anything from ANY provider as long as eircom don't do something.

After calling eircom they had said that its because of our distance from the exchange and in order to get broadband a whole new exchange would have to be made? This seems a bit much to me for a small pocket of houses of broadband. But no matter what the case they won't do it anyway for such a small area. They recommended contacting someone higher up in eircom to see if I could ask about when the exchange might get upgraded or my line in particular. It was funny about 2 months ago, eircom called me and tried to offer me a BB&Phone bundle. I knew I couldn't get it and explained to the sales girl the situation my house was in and by the end of the call she was apologising and couldn't see how they would do that to a house.

I already posted this piece below in the eircom forum with no response as of yet:

Apparently our lines are too old/not of good enough quality to support broadband. I gotta say it feels pretty third world having no actual internet access. A household of 6 people have to access the internet through a single 3G sim card. There are people walking around the country with better bandwidth and speed on their phone than we have in our home.

It seems though we are doomed never to have broadband until eircom update our lines. I realize this is a hassle for them but it would be really nice to see something happen. I'm not looking for even anything fancy, just a solid internet connection that won't cut out multiple times a day. Even according to the United Nations, broadband is a Human Right, one which we are being denied.

Its sad that households less than a mile away in our exchange can get proper connection, some even lined up for eFibre, and yet... we're stuck with nothing. Also sad to see how you've been overlooking rural households, denying us broadband when other parts are being updated to fibre.

Any information on whether there are plans to update my exchange (058) in the future would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry if I seem to be ranting on about nothing in particular, just very frustrated and disheartened about the whole situation. Especially after coming to a dead end after so many phone calls emails etc.

So... whats the next step now.

• Wait 5+ years for fibre to come to my area, maybe longer?

• Wait for 4G in the meantime? It will be a while waiting for coverage and longer even for a plan without a data cap.

• Contact a local politician? I've tried even searching linkedin for possible email addresses of customer care, broadband product managers with eircom. But have had no luck finding any.

sweeper4

Have you looked into a Fixed Wireless provider? East Cork Broadband could be an option if you are closer to Ballynoe than Conna.

BroadbandPls

I have contacted East Cork BB, Solar, Nova. We are not covered by any.

watty

4G won't be much better than 3G, it's still Mobile Internet. Not Broadband.

I know that's not a cheery thought.

Mobile is mis-sold if it doesn't have a small cap as even the best 4G systems have very very poor capacity. The Cap is a method of contention/Congestion control. Mobile (any G version) is only meant for "on the go" intermittent use. If everyone was using it instead of Fixed Broadband then the speeds would be 0.5Mbps or less.

Complain to TD, and Pat Rabbitte.

Successive Governments have ensured this. Even if when in opposition they make the right noises. The Civil Service appears to be in control and they appear to be only interested in promoting Mobile and Satellite. Neither of which is designed for Fixed Broadband use nor can deliver it. Fibre for everyone to the home is cheaper than even universal 100% 4G coverage at only 20% more than existing 3G speeds on average. Uses a tiny fraction of the Electricity too.

Mobile Data is subsidized partly by overpriced Voice & SMS to the detriment of Fixed Broadband investment. The "free" Market simply doesn't work for this type of scenario. Comreg, Civil service and Government sacrifice EVERYTHING on the altar of the "Free Market". It's not the same as companies making Baked Beans or Bread.

Capt'n Midnight

The ESB may be rolling out fibre in the future. But it won't be cheap as they will probably offer very fast speeds and pricing accordingly.

bealtine

BroadbandPls wrote: »

I've found this forum to be quite interesting. I still don't have broadband in my area. I'm in the 058 CONNA/BALLYNOE exchange.

Basically Ballyduff is enabled (and scheduled to be upgraded in 2016) but Conna is not enabled or on any current or future plans...All the exchanges around that particular exchange are scheduled for upgrades too.

I've no idea what to say really perhaps annoying your local politician?

Capt'n Midnight

I hate to mention satellite, it's an option only when all else fails.


The ping times are out of this world.

In the very literal sense of a 160,000Km detour into space.


Are there any local wifi groups in the area, any visible transmission masts ?

any chance you can you see Fermoy ?

BroadbandPls

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The ESB may be rolling out fibre in the future. But it won't be cheap as they will probably offer very fast speeds and pricing accordingly.

I have heard about this and for some time was beginning to think we may have a future. But my hopes are dwindling especially after seeing a few articles similar to this one online: http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/esb-broadband-wont-improve-rural-experience-much-29983827.html

And satellite I'm afraid would probably be a lot worse than the 3G we have now. Not to mention probably more expensive!

I can actually see a Three mast from my upstairs, we get about 2.5-3Mbps down from around 1am-early morning. But any time when you would actually want to use the internet the speeds are crippling due to so many other people being forced to use Three in our area as there is no other viable options. Also, anytime more than one device is connected speeds within the house seriously slow down also. That's to be expected from any connection when your load lots of devices onto it, but it's felt a lot more when you're only using a 3G sim to provide internet access for everything.
I wouldn't say its possible to see Fermoy from my house.

Basically Ballyduff is enabled (and scheduled to be upgraded in 2016) but Conna is not enabled or on any current or future plans...All the exchanges around that particular exchange are scheduled for upgrades too.

I've no idea what to say really perhaps annoying your local politician?

Yep, our little exchange is quite the dead zone in the area when it comes to broadband. We are covered on every side of our exchange by others that are ADSL enabled. And if you go just 2km west of my house they're rolling out fibre in the Castlelyons exchange this year. Its quite frustrating indeed.

Sean Sherlock has done us good in the past, so contacting him and others might be a last option. But I really can't see anything happening soon. I suspect eircom have left us in the past because the population density of our exchange is probably quite low and therefore wouldn't make sense to spend the money to upgrade us.

bengii

Usage on the Three mast will definitely vary quite a lot depending on time of day. If there are a number of houses involved have you thought about pooling together to get a wireless point to point to a known good location?

watty

A 3G sector (or even a 4G in 5MHz) can only sensibly provide FIVE simultaneous connections at any sort of useful speed. Really.

So settiing up a shared Wireless point fed by 3G or 4G is pointless. It would need to be fed by at least 20Mbps (MINIMUM at peak time) Broadband to be at all useful. Ideally 100Mbps.

bengii

Agreed. I was thinking of them finding the nearest friendly user with a decent Broadband connection