Are eircom sabotaging Sky broadband

mattykay

Our internet connection is so slow. We had quicker connection with a dial-up modem 20 years ago.
Download speed 0.30 mps
Upload speed 0.21 MPs

When the problem first started 3 weeks ago, there were works being carried out in the area by an eircom subcontractor. U asked them whether there was a problem with the broadband in the area and the engineer told me that eircom are dropping all the lines for other providers so that people go for the efibre. Disgraceful, but true.

Kenny Logins

I've noticed a considerable drop here too. Time to give Sky the elbow.

Hackery

mattykay wrote: »

Our internet connection is so slow. We had quicker connection with a dial-up modem 20 years ago.
Download speed 0.30 mps
Upload speed 0.21 MPs

When the problem first started 3 weeks ago, there were works being carried out in the area by an eircom subcontractor. U asked them whether there was a problem with the broadband in the area and the engineer told me that eircom are dropping all the lines for other providers so that people go for the efibre. Disgraceful, but true.

That engineer is definitely incorrect. No way eircom would do that in such a regulated market. Also, he would have very little contact with eircom apart from receiving his jobs in the morning.

Anyway, the majority of Sky lines are through BT LLU. eircom have zero control over them.

ED E

@Mods can you merge his threads or delete one?

The contractors work for wholesale. The contractors (KNN) dont care what provider you use. Wholesale dont care what provider you use. They get paid the exact same either way, be it Vodafone, Magnet or Eircom VDSL.

Get sky to properly troubleshoot your problem and not fob you off.

roast

Nah, engineer's talking nonsense. Even if what he said was true, you'd have no broadband at all - as opposed to a slow connection.
If it started happening after works in the area, that's the reason.

OP, what are your line stats at now?

rz25

Been with Sky 2 months and was getting upwards of 10 MB. In the last couple of days, speed varies between .5 and 3. Plan to contact SKY, but interesting that I'm not the only one. According to their service status, there are NO known broadband issues.

Tenshot

I helped a non-techy friend sort out a similar broadband issue last week. 8 Meg DSL connection, only getting about 0.16 Mb/s download.

When I called over, I found a nice official Eircom DSL socket on the wall; plugged into the *phone* side of the socket was one of the self-install DSL filters, and the router and telephone were then plugged into that.

Moving the connection from the router back to the white wall socket (computer side) brought the speed up to 8 Mb/s again, working great now. Frankly, I was impressed it worked at all running off the telephone side of the link.

I doubt that's your problem, but just on the offchance you have both a proper Eircom spitter socket and a self-install filter, might be no harm to check someone hasn't been messing with them...

rz25

Thanks for the suggestion, Tenshot, it's not a filter issue - I have a pre-filtered socket so don't use filters anywhere. And they are definitely plugged in correctly. Had an engineer here once, who fixed a problem and then left after having plugged the router cable into the phone socket and vice versa, haha. We didn't figure this out for a while, not so haha.

At the weekend the connection would only stay up 60 seconds or so at a time. It's staying up today - more or less - albeit at disgraceful speeds of just over 1 mps. Sky tells me this is either the hub (they are sending out a new one) or the line (waiting for an engineer to call) or the wifi (but I'm using wired connections also, so that is now discounted). I'm in Co Wexford and apparently lots of people are in the same boat after the electrical storms. Though for most of them apparently the hub won't work at all, whereas ours does connect.

I personally don't think it's the hub - my old TP-Link router gives exactly the same performance (with the Sky credentials). I've also had lightening damage to the line before - but it only affected the phone part, not the broadband. My phone is clear as a bell this time.

I'll post back when it's sorted.

rz25

PS, thought I'd do another speed test before shutting down. Got 5.65 mps, this month's best.

mattykay

They sent me new hubs, new filters and sent an engineer to the house to check two wires!! It obviously made no difference. Sky use eircom lines. I was told by a subcontractor for eircom that third party providers are being manipulated. I am inclined to believe this. It's a pity that comreg don't have the clout to do anything about it!!

mattykay

They sent me new hubs, new filters and sent an engineer to the house to check two wires!! It obviously made no difference. Sky use eircom lines. I was told by a subcontractor for eircom that third party providers are being manipulated. I am inclined to believe this. It's a pity that comreg don't have the clout to do anything about it!!

mattykay

They sent me new hubs, new filters and sent an engineer to the house to check two wires!! It obviously made no difference. Sky use eircom lines. I was told by a subcontractor for eircom that third party providers are being manipulated. I am inclined to believe this. It's a pity that comreg don't have the clout to do anything about it!!

Yawns

You can be inclined to believe it all you like, doesn't mean it's true.

I suffered from dropped connections constantly and went a week with no broadband at all after works in the area carried out. I just wouldn't accept being fobbed off by Sky and kept up annoying them on the phone and instructing them to get onto Eircom about it. You need to get past the first customer care rep on the phone as they won't have a clue, they just have a script to read off. When you get to people who actually know what they are doing, it will get sorted. In my case, the engineer at the cabinet did something wrong and it had to be rectified. After a few days and a **** lot of calls, a van pulled up to the cab and fixed it. No problems since.

Kensington

What are your line stats?

Taltos

I had similar issues for 8 weeks there after Eircom did some work on the local cabinet. My BB provider told me they did something called vectoring that should have made things better but with no communication/planning my service provider was not ready and I suffered through 8 weeks of constant router fails until new firmware was eventually delivered. It could be something similar for you. Get onto Sky immediately.

ED E

Vectoring was always planned, sounds like you're on magnet who totally dropped the ball on that one.

rz25

Hi all, my new SKY hub arrived yesterday morning and my broadband is working as before - getting 10.5 mps which I am happy with. And it is staying up. Line supports 15, router gets 12 (according to Sky). It seems I have 2 broken routers (my own and the first SKY hub), so will use the new SKY one for now - I will replace the TP-LINK router eventually, as it is far superior.
My experience with SKY support was actually quite good. And they work over the weekend. Chap wasn't using a script and when I told him I use wired and wifi, he discounted the wifi as the source of the problem - didn't query my understanding or make me test using his script.
Business as usual for now :-).
@mattykay - hope you get sorted soon.

SpaceTime

eircom are most definitely not sabotaging anything!

Certain ISPs have a habit of blaming eircom on absolutely everything.... Even when the congestion is sometimes on their own equipment / lack of backhaul capacity.

eircom only provide the access network in most cases i.e. the last bit in the exchange or FTTC cabinet and the wires to your house. It's all handed back to the other ISP at an aggregation node somewhere.

In ADSL2+ services, a lot of larger exchanges are unbundled, so your line wouldn't even be using eircom equipment for ADSL2+ at all in some cases. Straight over to Sky's subcontractor BT Ireland.