Neighbours can get Fibre & Right Beside Cabinet But No Fibre

JTMan

My parents live in an urban Dublin area in house on a street of houses.

- Neighbours on both side can and have got Eir fibre.
- The cabinet is under 50 meters away from the house.
- The Eir map has the areas as being covered.
- Strangely, it is one of a small number of areas, that Virgin Media do not do broadband in but yet do TV.

- Hence, no Eir and no Virgin Media despite being an urban location.
- No reason given by Eir.
- Years of "coming soon" from Virgin Media but yet still nothing.
- Spoke to someone senior in the know at Vodafone who could not figure out why there was no Eir coverage.

Can anyone help? or suggest next steps? Would anyone care to speculate as to what the most likely reason is as to why 1 house on a street can't get Eir fibre when every other house can?

Thanks.

Johnboy1951

JTMan wrote: »

My parents live in an urban Dublin area in house on a street of houses.

- Neighbours on both side can and have got Eir fibre.
- The cabinet is under 50 meters away from the house.
- The Eir map has the areas as being covered.
- Strangely, it is one of a small number of areas, that Virgin Media do not do broadband in but yet do TV.

- Hence, no Eir and no Virgin Media despite being an urban location.
- No reason given by Eir.
- Years of "coming soon" from Virgin Media but yet still nothing.
- Spoke to someone senior in the know at Vodafone who could not figure out why there was no Eir coverage.

Can anyone help? or suggest next steps? Would anyone care to speculate as to what the most likely reason is as to why 1 house on a street can't get Eir fibre when every other house can?

Thanks.

Does the line have good broadband presently?

JTMan

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Does the line have good broadband presently?

No. Aprox. 8 MB broadband currently.

Johnboy1951

Possibly it is not connected to that cabinet.

There is no guarantee that all lines in an area are connected to the same cabinet or indeed any cabinet - some of them might be connected directly to the exchange.

ED E

Did your parents ever get any favours done by eircom/TE staffers? How does your phone number compare to those I the area?

JTMan

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

There is no guarantee that all lines in an area are connected to the same cabinet or indeed any cabinet - some of them might be connected directly to the exchange.

Thanks. Is there any way to persuade Eir to fix this? Why would Eir have connected 1 home to the exchange and the others to the cabinet?

ED E wrote: »

Did your parents ever get any favours done by eircom/TE staffers? How does your phone number compare to those I the area?

My parents have never got any favours from Eircom/TE staff. (That said, the installation of the original phone line would have been decades ago before my parents lived there).

The phone number is 01-4******. The 2 digits after the 4 are the same as some but not all the houses on the street.

Any suggestions on how to resolve this would be greatly appreciated.

boobycharlton

Nothing to resolve really. Address has access to broadband but unluckily isn't connected to the nearby fibre enabled cabinet. Eir are under no obligation to connect your line to it unfortunately. You can badger them about it, but doubt will do much good.

If you can get VM TV but not broadband then Virgin strangely haven't upgraded the cabling in your area yet, or one of your neighbours wouldn't let them pass cabling through their garden or over their property. Nothing much you can do about either besides hassle them.

JTMan

Ok, I will get my parents to start hassling Eir. At least I can now tell them to say something concrete which is asking why is the house not connected to the fibre cabinet and can you please connect it. If anyone knows a good way to escalate something with Eir please let me know.

Whole neighberhood can't get VM broadband. Area still not upgraded, old houses in an old area with wide spaces between might make it an expensive upgrade I guess. VM still don't offer broadband to about 7% of their customers as per their recent results. unfortunately, my parents are inside that 7%. I will get my parents to start hassling VM too.

ED E

The number not being wildly out of the norm suggests it was originally off the same exchange. Sometimes people moved from one exchange to another but kept their number which meant lines went in the "wrong" direction.


If the house is one of the older ones its line might predate the existence of the copper cab. That'd make you direct fed and ineligible. OpenEir wont fix this. Your best bet is Virgin relaying the local Co-Ax so you can get cable.

JTMan

Thanks. The most plausible reason therefore sounds like the line is connected to the exchange rather than the cabinet. Is there ANY way to get Openeir to change this? I mean could I pay them to change this?

dxhound2005

There is a thread about lines connected directly to exchanges, gone a bit quiet lately.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057262696


It is a known issue in GB as well.

http://www.choose.net/media/guide/faqs/exchange-only-line-fibre-broadband.html

jca

Would applying for a new number work?

The high horse brigade

jca wrote: »

Would applying for a new number work?

Nope because it would use the same line, following the same route.

How long is the cabinet enabled. If it's only just live then it could just be a database error

ED E

jca wrote: »

Would applying for a new number work?

In theory yes, but I've yet to hear of somebody putting that into practice.

Cuddlesworth

Have you ever taken a Virgin Media modem and plugged it in, to see if it works? I've lived in 3 locations where Virgin claimed no service but it worked. Usually a small portion of the area was offline, so they just blacklisted the entire street/estate.

Johnboy1951

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Possibly it is not connected to that cabinet.

There is no guarantee that all lines in an area are connected to the same cabinet or indeed any cabinet - some of them might be connected directly to the exchange.

Indeed. I used to live in an apartment in Fairview which had a line installed but was long deactivated. I ordered broadband on the line and the KNN installer noticed that the line was fed directly back to the exchange in Clontarf, so would have only been capable of ADSL not VDSL. He very nicely put me on an unused pair which went back to a cab near the Fairview footbridge, giving me full 100/20.

JTMan

Thanks for the replies.

The cabinet is live for over a year.

I don't think it is a database error. Vodafone pinged the line to check the speed capability.

Why do some people say getting a new number might fix the issue? How would it fix the issue?

Is there any special way to get a clear answer from Eir on whether the line is linked to the exchange?

Cheers.

ArthurG

Unfortunately I'm in exactly the same situation as you, and have had no joy despite contacting eir a few times. I have the new fibre cabinet about 20 / 30 meters from my front door, but I appear to be connected to an exchange about 2.5km away. eir didn't confirm this, however a nice chap I spoke to at magnet when considering a move was able to confirm it.

As a result I could get a whopping 15mb down. Funnily enough, I had an eir salesperson call to the door a few months ago, promising me all manner of wonders if only I left Virgin (which luckily enough I can get). He said 100mb would be easily achieved and the tv service would require only 15mb of that. He point blank refused to accept that the speed achievable would be less that 20mb, until I fired up eir's own line checker and demonstrated it to him. He said he'd get back to me, but hasn't yet.....

ED E

To get a clear answer you need to catch an OpenEir staffer in the street. They can query the line and determine where its CCP is, if any.


The 2nd line suggestion is plausible but unproved.
Line 1: Existing number, direct to exchange
Line 2: New number, has to be connected
When they go to connect your 2nd line they've to find a free pair to use. If the original direct fed 50pr* is full then they'll have to go to pairs from the local cab. But if its not full they could just link it to the same main and line 2 is no better than line 1.

*for example