Eir - So Feckin Frustaten

VUDuo2

Apologies for this long-winded scenario;

Last year we moved into and re-furbished our house.

We signed up with Eircom for their broadband only service, up to 7mb download.

The router that was previously in use in the house was located in the utility room so we had new broadband cabling fitted from the outside eir-box to the new eir-router (ZYXEL D1000 ) in the living room.

All was well for a few months but then once or twice a week, the broadband would stop - the router's broadband light would turn red -
so I'd turn it off / on, no change, then I'd reset it with a pin to the rear of it and this would temporarily fix it.

Contacted eir broadband telephone support, they ran a test and said they could determine a fault on the line, they'd arrange an engineer to determine where the fault is at.

The Eir technician said the problem is with the internal cabling.
I explained that we had new cabling run directly from the outside box to the router.

I brought the router to a friends house and we both managed to figure out how to connect it up to his broadband for a few weeks, without any interruption in service. At the same time, we connected up his router in my house and of course his router was losing connection.

The bloke who fitted the broadband cable last year, connected another "loose" cable from the outside box to the router and the router still lost connection.

Eir are now saying that they can arrange for a new connection into the hall and locate the router there - but that's no use to me as the router and everything else techy ( Satellite STB & Laptop ) are located in the living room.

Eir's only solution to this is they'll install the telephone point in the hall I have to arrange for another company to run and additional telephone point located beside the router.

Is this common practice ??

I rang vodafone to see about moving to them. They said Vodafone don't do cabling and I could only move to them once the telephone points are in place.

Jesus H C !!!

The last thing I want is to continue using eir.

I'm now half thinking of trying out a dongle based broadband service but I'm not too sure about these. Would they be any good to share out WiFi to other devices, tablets and an x-box ???

Bugger

degsie

VUDuo2 wrote: »

Eir's only solution to this is they'll install the telephone point in the hall I have to arrange for another company to run and additional telephone point located beside the router.

Is this common practice ??

Pretty standard as this is the demarcation line. You could get the router located in the hallway and distribute broadband via homeplug and/or acess point connections to other parts of the house.

VUDuo2

degsie wrote: »

Pretty standard as this is the demarcation line. You could get the router located in the hallway and distribute broadband via homeplug and/or acess point connections to other parts of the house.

Thanks for that suggestion.

We had cat5 cabling run from the living room to the playroom and I'd like to avoid having to use our hallway electric sockets as they are very low to the floor, placing the router on a table wouldn't be and option either as the beautiful colourful flashing /static lights would be so tempting for our very young kids.

degsie

Put something like this in..



That would frighten the life out of them and they wont touch it!

VUDuo2

Brilliant !!! - Does it come with a motion activated growl !!!:D

ED E

Miss diagnosis here. The line may show a fault, but its most likely working fine. The modem is fine. Your exchange is knackered*.

7Mb is the older class only available on non NGN exchanges, it means your connection is over a radio back to the main network.
You say your broadband light is going red, as there is no broadband light I'm assuming its the "internet" light thats going red.

Link from exchange to host exchange is either overloaded(if you see slow speeds too) or failing/moving(if its good till it randomly drops). DSL stays up but your connection to the RAS stops so the modem tries to recover but fails. Then you reset it and it "re-dials" the RAS, connection restored until the next time the exchange drops the ball.

No fix until the exchange is upgraded. Is 4G available?


As an aside, you moved your MDP(master socket) when your issue was internal networking. You should have left the modem in the utility and ran an Ethernet extension to wifi/switches as needed. Unfortunately few people think of this when doing renovations when they have the chance to install a proper long term solution.


* Assuming no idiot has set PPPoE details on an Xbox or PlayStation or that you don't own a Synology NAS

VUDuo2

Many thanks ED E for taking the time out to provide a very beneficial (technical) breakdown - I've added some comments.

ED E wrote: »

Miss diagnosis here. The line may show a fault, but its most likely working fine. The modem is fine. Your exchange is knackered*.

7Mb is the older class only available on non NGN exchanges, it means your connection is over a radio back to the main network.
You say your broadband light is going red, as there is no broadband light I'm assuming its the "internet" light thats going red.

Correct

Link from exchange to host exchange is either overloaded(if you see slow speeds too) or failing/moving(if its good till it randomly drops). DSL stays up but your connection to the RAS stops so the modem tries to recover but fails. Then you reset it and it "re-dials" the RAS, connection restored until the next time the exchange drops the ball.


No fix until the exchange is upgraded. Is 4G available?

4G is very weak downstairs, but improves upstairs and even better if I stick my phone out the window !!

As an aside, you moved your MDP(master socket) when your issue was internal networking. You should have left the modem in the utility and ran an Ethernet extension to wifi/switches as needed. Unfortunately few people think of this when doing renovations when they have the chance to install a proper long term solution.

Not sure what you mean.
Pre-existing cabling was disconnected, the new router / Internet was working and after a period of time the service started to drop??

* Assuming no idiot has set PPPoE details on an Xbox or PlayStation or that you don't own a Synology NAS

We have an x-box & a media player but wouldn't have a clue about PPoE

ED E

Regarding the cabling I'm not suggesting your move caused it, its just counter to best practice as it leads to a blame game when theres trouble (like youve seen).

The options:

4G: A three LTE router in your attic (no concrete blocks to nuke the signal) and a homeplug downstairs to extend the wireless range could be a very viable solution. Threes network is really congested in some areas so first step there is to test speed outside your house with a 3 sim on a friday evening. That'll be indicative of what you should see roughly. Note you're looking at €150 for a good LTE router, €20/mo topup for 3 and the homeplugs would cost €30-45 once off.

Wait: When the exchange is upgraded this problem should disappear after a short delay. Check http://www.openeir.ie/Our_Network/ for information as to whether your exchange has a scheduled date.

VUDuo2

ED E wrote: »

Wait: When the exchange is upgraded this problem should disappear after a short delay. Check http://www.openeir.ie/Our_Network/ for information as to whether your exchange has a scheduled date.

Turns out a friend of mine (connected to a different cabinet ) was / is experiencing the same problem and had the same responses / "solution" from eir.

The solution he was offered, and that he went with, was to upgrade to fibre and a new telephone point run into his hall (sounds familiar) - so he signed up and got fibre connected etc etc.

However his problems still exist only his connection drops more frequently than before.

I think I'll stay with eir and put up with the connection dropping, the 1yr contract is well up now, so I'll wait until Siro come to Skerries -
I'll probably be 6 feet under by the time that happens !!

In the meantime, I might invest in replacing the ZYXEL D1000 router as the wifi coverage isn't great.

I understand it's Wireless N ADSL2+ Modem & Router 802.11b/g/n compliant & bearing in mind I "might" be lucky to get Siro, therefore what's the best router out there that's Siro compatible (huawei hg658c router)

would this do "Netgear Nighthawk R7000" ??

ED E

Wait, this is SKS? My previous posts were wrong so, something else is up.

Very strong chance whatever is going wrong is internal to the house if thats where you are. VDSL desnsity is really good there bar one small part of the original village so its usually a great idea to upgrade.

VUDuo2

Yes, I live in Skerries and we are around the corner from the SKS1_016 cabinet,
Our house is less than 100m from this cabinet and around 700m from the exchange. - see the attached image.

Maybe I'm in the area that has very low density??

I suppose these wiring issues are hard to pin down however I have had the internal cabling assessed and verified as nothing wrong with it (by the cabling contractor that fitted it ) as outlined in my initial post.

If upgrading would sort things out then I would definitely upgrade to eir's VDSL but they refuse to run a telephone point to my living room, which is less than 10m from where they are prepared to install it in the hall. ???

Any opinion about the "Netgear Nighthawk R7000"

ED E

Steps:

1. Call and order eFiber
2. Get on Amazon and order a set of homeplugs

Job done.