Dose Eircom have an obligation to.......

TARE

I live in Stillrogan and i ordered isdn 2 weeks ago. An eircom guy came last Friday morning to my to check my house and phonelines before intalling.

Unfortunately there is a thing called a 'Carrier' on the line that goes into my house which splits the main line into 4 more lines which are on different frequencies. I'm not sure why this was done but the eircom guy said an isdn line can't work because of it. He said he would tell 'planning' about it and maybe they will do something. I douth anything will happen.

I have two questions.

1. Dose eircom have an obligation to fix the line or install a new one so that i can get isdn?

2. I've always had a crappy connection, I’ve never been able to connect past 28,800bps. Is it possible that this Carrier thing is the reason for this and dose eircom have any obligation to fix it?

SkepticOne

Originally posted by TARE

I have two questions.

2. I've always had a crappy connection, I’ve never been able to connect past 28,800bps. Is it possible that this Carrier thing is the reason for this and dose eircom have any obligation to fix it?

Yes, that would be the reason. No, Eircom do not have any obligation to fix it.

bkehoe

The 'Carrier', properly known as a DACS box I think, splits up the lines, and decreases the quality. They're used in order to save €ircom money in the short term as they don't have to bring a new line from the exchange in order to put in a new analogue line.

billy the squid

Should it be obligitary for them to clean up the line if you have a bad connection

my conection is 36.333 pbps but i feel it should be higher i have seen people with slower computers get as high as 52 kbps.

Granted since i signed up with €ircom in july of 2000 and to day i havent had that many dropped calls probably about 3 since I joined €ircom.net but something should really be done about the slow bitrates.

If you were barely able to hear someone talking to you or there was a buzzing noise on the line when your talking to someone they would have to come out and fix it wouldnt they

TARE

Cheers for the info lads, guess i have to live with a 28k connection.

MS

Is this not Multiplexing ? Eircon assured me many years ago that thy do not use Multiplexing any more. And if it is.... is he not entitled to have a Direct Line to the exchange connection ?

This is only my opinion but i think if you pay for a Line you should get what u pay for. If Eircon want to Multiplex a line let them Multiplex the cost of it between all the people that have on it. I would really love to have the legalities of this looked into. Anyone out there got any ideas on this ?


MS

logic1

In short Eircom have fulfilled their end of the contract if you can make and receive voice calls on your line. They do not sell residential lines as data lines therefore regardless of what way they split it or what data rate you get on your line they're not obliged to make any changes as long as you have voice call functionality.

If you phone Eircom about the above problem this is their standard answer.

.logic.

GoneShootin

i can relate to the 28.8 situation

im stuck at a constant 33.6.

talking to the local phone engineer [when i dangerously stopped his van :] he told me that it was that the loval phoe echange uses PCM [pulse code modulation]

whether or not he was lieing, it sounded good

that and the fact that im the last house on the line may have something to do with it...

MS

Origionally posted by logic1

In short Eircom have fulfilled their end of the contract if you can make and receive voice calls on your line. They do not sell residential lines as data lines therefore regardless of what way they split it or what data rate you get on your line they're not obliged to make any changes as long as you have voice call functionality.

hmmmmmm Can we not twist this to our advantage ? And do to them what they are doing to us ? EG. We have agreed on a contract but we will pay them what we like whenever we like. Say one thing and mean another. Advertise the we are great but were just a bunch of *******. Form a Monoply use LOADS! of brown paper envelopes and get away with it ?


MS

dahamsta

1. Dose eircom have an obligation to fix the line or install a new one so that i can get isdn?

As far as I can gather from experience and a quick scan on the ODTR website[1] - and it was a quick scan BTW - no, I'm afraid not. Eircom's USO (Universal Service Obligation) as the incument Irish telecommunications provider only requires that "any request, in so far as the fixed operator considers it reasonable, by a person for connection to the fixed public telephone network at a fixed location and access to fixed public telephone services, is met". As far as I'm aware, there is also a USO wrt to leased lines, but not for ISDN. "Reasonable" is probably hard to prove anyway.

2. I've always had a crappy connection, I’ve never been able to connect past 28,800bps. Is it possible that this Carrier thing is the reason for this and dose eircom have any obligation to fix it?

Once again, I'm afraid not. Again AFAIK, eircom's USO with regard to data requires an average throughput of 9,600 baud. This is something I believe should be amended, however it would be difficult to implement, because it the current infrastructure simply doesn't support it. In my view the regulation should be amended to set higher targets on an ongoing basis.

This is an important part of IrelandOffline's campaign, but obviously the provision of a FRIACO-style service is more important at this time.

adam

[1] http://www.odtr.ie/docs/odtr9931.doc (Word Doc)

SOL

This is probably an inane sugestion as i am quite tired but if you ring eircom over and over and complain that there is a buzz on the line, you can hear other people sometimes etc, the may repair the line, especially if you get a really dodgy old phone cable and use it while ringing the operator.....

meglome

In the last place I lived I used to get 44bps then one fine day out of the blue I couldn't get better than 32bps. Eircon had obviously split my line. I rang and complained and got the standard "We don't support data blah blah blah..." answer. I ordered ISDN which was installed within 5 days and was a massive improvement... although I wasn't too happy about the £250 it cost me to have it installed. In my new place I get 46bps which I can tolerate... but I'm going back to ISDN now in the hope that someday I will be able to upgrade to affordable ADSL or cable.

seamus

Maybe this should be added to IOffl's list of goals. Afair, in the US (of course) the telco's are obliged to provide 30,000bps, which even though is not max speed, would be difficult for eircom to maintain with DACS boxes everywhere, and they would have to create new lines.

Actually amoi can anyone verify this - We have an ISDN line into the gaf (which I don't use - crap bitrate). Apparently when it was being installed, the engineer told my brother that there was a prescribed bandwidth on ISDN for our immediate area, therefore in theory, if everyone had it, we'd all suffer ****ty bitrates all the time. Can this possibly be true?! Can eircom be allowed advertise speeds that are basically subject to decrease without notice?

TARE

Having a 28k connection means i have to stay on-line twice as long (aprox) to download and file as someone one my road that can connect at 45k's, meaning it costs me twice as much.

I'm not sure if that fact will make any change in my situation? but could it be added to the already many reasons why eircom should have somesort of unmetered service ?

NeilF

I think there are DACS boxes that are capable of supporting ISDN but a quick search on the web didn't find them. However, I did come across this.

http://www.pickaxe.demon.co.uk/surftime/alog-or-digi.htm

It is possible that the speed of a connection that runs over a DACSed circuit will be better if v.90 is disabled and the modem connects at v.34bis. This is because the v.34bis protocol is capable of operating at 33K6 over a DACSed circuit, whereas v.90 will often fall back to 28K8 or less under these conditions.

If you have the manual to your modem, or can find it on the web, you could disable v.90 in the initialisation string and see if that does anything.

dahamsta

Maybe this should be added to IOffl's list of goals.

It is seamus. See the last sentence of my previous post.

adam

seamus

That's what I get for going on posting sprees . I had assumed that it was a goal already, but in the pursuit of FRIACO I hadn't really given it loads of thought. That's really something the government instead of the telcos, need to be pressured on anyway

byte

Originally posted by TARE
Having a 28k connection means i have to stay on-line twice as long (aprox) to download and file as someone one my road that can connect at 45k's, meaning it costs me twice as much.

Am glad I'm not the only one having to suffer with 28.8kbps connection. Last year I used to have a faster connection usually over 40kbps but with constant hissing on line causing loads of disconnects. I don't think the 2 are related though but now all I can get is a lacklustre 28.8:(

NeVeR

Why not boycot Eorcom and go with NTL

My house changed to NTL cos they offered more.

1. 2 Phone lines (( This was needed cos i was onlways online and keeping the phone busy))
2. FREE Internet .. witch i have had since i have Joined them , i added up my Bills for the last 7-8 months with NTL and they are a little over £2300 , witch i got free , so they saved me £2300. plues i get a speed of 53300bps some times and all the time i get 52 000 it never drops below 50 000.

and at the moment they are offering Cable , at 520 000 bps , but it is expenisive £350 to install and £75 a month but that will go down soon i hope.

TARE

But will NTL 'fix' the line NeVeR ?

Fergus

If your line is a carrier, then one of the other lines off the carrier unit is the physical line. Get onto repairs and ask if you could have the numbers assigned to the various lines swapped around so that your line is the physical and not one of the carriers.. if the users of the other lines are only using voice or fax they are not affected. Once you get your number moved onto the physical, you should find you're back to V.90 nirvana. Eircom repairs have done this for me on a few occasions.

Lemming

Hmmm .. as MS pointed out earlier, if you pay for a line, are you not entitled for a Direct Line to the local exchange ...

So .... playing EirW*nk at their own game, couldn't we simply say that if they have split your line (without asking you), that they are in violation of their Service Agreement with yourself. They are taking your line which you are paying for, and then splitting it again without your consent and reselling it.

Of course .. I'm probably missing something in there I await the corrections . ... hehehe

oscarBravo

Originally posted by irishblimp
Am glad I'm not the only one having to suffer with 28.8kbps connection. Last year I used to have a faster connection usually over 40kbps but with constant hissing on line causing loads of disconnects. I don't think the 2 are related though but now all I can get is a lacklustre 28.8:(

They are related. When my phone line was installed first there was a lot of noise on the line, and I could barely connect at all. I rang repairs and complained about the noise, but didn't mention modems at all. They will fix a noisy line, but not to improve a dialup connection.

oscarBravo

Originally posted by Lemming
Hmmm .. as MS pointed out earlier, if you pay for a line, are you not entitled for a Direct Line to the local exchange ...

No. You are entitled to a line on which you can carry on voice conversations, and which can carry data at a rate of 9600bps. How Eircom provide that line is, unfortunately, entirely at their discretion.