East BT ADSL

Mark McG

I have ordered it. I'm expecting it to be installed next week or the week after. Can't wait.

So, what'll happen? I currently have an Eircom ISDN line. I am assuming that someone will just come to the house, do some fiddling with the lines, disconned the ISDN TA and replace it with a ADSL modem, test it and leave.

Or do I have some other hell to face? Anyone gone through this? Will I need to be present, or can my wife (who has no idea about this kind of stuff) handle them?

Thanks,
Mark.

Mutz

Can you give us some info on that?

Instalation Costs, Requirements, Location or even a Contact number so I can phone Esat meself

LoGiE

I was under the impression they had to down grade your line from ISDN back to POTS before installing ADSL? Did you check that out with ESAT?

Dustaz

They do have to downgrade your line.

Did you do a line test? Did they mention anything about your isdn?

deepspeed

Where are u located Mark??

the Guru

If you have an ISDN line you will have to get Eircom to come out and cease the line before ESAT can can install DSL

I would look into it as you may be disapointed when they cant install it

Mark McG

I have been away so sorry for the delayed response.

I am located in Cork City (north side) about 2km from Churchfield exchange.

ESAT know it is an Eircom ISDN line and they told me that they would take care of everything!

I just called the freephone ESAT number on their site. 1800 924 924

€127 install and €90 a month. I needed to be within 2.5km of a suitable exchange. That was it. They did some sort of remote test. No-one has been near my house yet.

Still waiting. Hopefully, there will be no issue with it.

Mark.

Mountjoy Mugger

Originally posted by Mark McG
ESAT know it is an Eircom ISDN line and they told me that they would take care of everything!

BLINK - Does that mean that ESAT are going to PAY for your line to be downgraded? Good Golly, Miss Molly!

DC

Mark,

I'm within about 2km of the Churchfield exchange also. I just enquired, gave my address and phone number and a sales person called to say that everything was fine and that I could go ahead.

I got a form in the post and sent it back a couple of days ago. Just waiting for someone to contact me with an installation date. I was told 3 to 4 weeks for installation. Is this what you were told?

I have no idea what's involved at my end. Can I run a telephone extension cable into my home office or will I need a big long CAT5 cable?

Let me know how you get on, 'cause it sunds like you are a week or two ahead of me.

Mark McG

DC:

We may be neighbours.

I was told it was 19 days from the day that Eircon accept the order. It seems to be in that kind of time frame for me, although Esat BT did say that it would not be unusual for a little hiccup with a new service. I will be in the USA next week, so it will be at least the week after before I get "connected". I will post back here as soon as I am.

Like you, I have no idea what it will look like. I am lucky though, because the line I am converting terminates just where I want it. I am looking at a wireless link then to my daughters bedroom.

Mark.

Vuk

Can I run a telephone extension cable into my home office or will I need a big long CAT5 cable?

DC , The modem I got from Esatbt, just used a plain telephone cable between the modem and wall socket

DC

I'm wondering whether you can run a 30 foot telephone extension cable from the primary wall socket and still get reliable DSL modem connections.

bricks

This is what I have.
The ADSL splitter downstairs and a cable going to upstairs plugged into the ADSL modem.
And it works no problem.

GUI

guys i have a normal pots which im
gonna get upgraded to esatbt adsl..

whats the technical configuration changes
that goes on here and at the exchange>?

MadKevo

Originally posted by DC
I'm wondering whether you can run a 30 foot telephone extension cable from the primary wall socket and still get reliable DSL modem connections.

It's already gone 2000 metres over dodgy CAT 1 (?) cable from the exchange/LLU node - another 10 metres isn't going to do any harm
Make sure you use phone cable (you don't need CAT5 or better cable) and not bell wire though.
Enjoy the speed of the feed.
/MK

elmer

yeah it uses a normal phone line - i'd call to verify that esat are sorting it(make sure to take names to avoid being fobbed off if things go wrong)

extensions should be ok - but in some cases it does make a difference

have fun

highlight

you DONT need to downgrade. Esat are unbundling the line into your home. This can be done over ISDN or PSTN

eth0_

Does anyone know where I can find a map of telephone exchanges? Specifically Drogheda? Have had no luck with Eircom.

aidanfagan

Having no luck getting Esat BT to return my calls so I can see if I can get their 256K DSL installed to my house.
Has anyone used Irish Broadband (Wireless) "Always on" service. Is it any good? Its only €40 per month for 512K, although only available in some Dublin areas. Anyone out there have any experience with them?
A

highlight

YOu won't get a map anywhere. National security.
However it's not that difficult to figure out where they are. Look for a Vodafobne mast

eth0_

Originally posted by highlight
YOu won't get a map anywhere. National security.
However it's not that difficult to figure out where they are. Look for a Vodafobne mast

Oh, nice one. I found out where my local exchange is, but that's a handy thing to know.

BTW, aidanfagan, I know the feeling, i've been sent my contract for DSL but I rang friday asking them to test my line to see if I can *get* dsl in my area, no reply so far.

Originally posted by aidanfagan

Has anyone used Irish Broadband (Wireless) "Always on" service. Is it any good? Its only €40 per month for 512K, although only available in some Dublin areas. Anyone out there have any experience with them?

My friend is going to get it. I'll let you know how he gets on . (and if all turns out well I might get it too )

Mark McG

So get this. I am in the US for a week on business. A month since I ordered the ADSL from ESAT. Several phone calls and emails have confirmed several times that everything is in order. ETA is November 4. It is 04:10 in Chicago, November 7. I am fast asleep. Mobile rings..

"GRUNT"

"Hello Mark. This is **** **** from Esat BT. How are you?"

"Urrmm.. Eh? Cough.. YAWN. Who?"

"It's **** **** from Esat BT. Good morning!"

"Groan. Hi. What's so good about it? What can I do for you?"

"I have an update concerning your ADSL order. Not very good news I'm afraid. Apparently, your order was rejected on October 15. Sorry about that. Something about hunting on your ISDN number range. Would you like to restart the process with a new CLI?"

[Looks at watch. Specifically at date.]

"Ahem. You do realise it is November 7? Also, its 10 past 4 in the morning where I am"

"Oh yes. Terrible communication in here. Noone told me. Heads will roll (Not mine presumably)"

...
...
...

15 minutes of explanation followed

...
...
..



You get the picture. So I am in the process now of starting over adding ADSL to my POTS line. He did promise to try and fast track the whole thing, but I am not confident. More news as it happens.

DC: You connected yet?

suppafly

I live in Cork, up in Montenotte. I was wondering does anybody know is adsl available up here. Also i have a isdn line. Its not connected up though(cuz of an incompatibility with the plan we r on), we just have the extra line, so do ye thin that might be a problem. Would i still have to downgrade, my line if i wanted to get adsl?

Mark McG

From an Esat POV, I still think that Churchfield and a city centre exchange are the only enabled exchanges. Montenotte will be too far away from either of them. However, call the 1-800 number; it's available on the Esat site. They will tell you pretty quickly whether or not there are other areas turned on.

Looks like they have trouble with ISDN lines, although you do not need a seperate line for ADSL. It can share your POTS line with no impact whatsoever.

Mark.

theciscokid

€90? why bother,

you are still being ripped off mate, well if you can afford it go ahead, i could manage it, but wouldn't pay that sort on money on principle alone,

sweden pay €30 for a 10 mb line,

ntl in britain charge £15 for 512k , (about €22)


same for rest of europe really cheap prices,

i know everyone's pulling their hair out of there head waiting for bb, but it'll will happen next year - don't pay their ridiculous prices for now

:mad:

MoSeS_.

Got a call from EsatBT there, getting hooked up tomorrow afternoon 4 weeks exactly after ordering it, cool.

Might be able to get back into the auld quake, been a while.

Teleworking a few days a week (specially for those morning after the night before scenarios)

Too distracted to work now, must go look for some nice big downloads to cue(queue?) up.

David C

Originally posted by theciscokid
€90? why bother,

€108.90 actually.. you forgot to add VAT

MoSeS_.

Right, this engineer is coming this afternoon. Is there anything specific I can/should ask him to setup/configure for the ADSL connection to for example get lower pings for gaming ??

Cheers

Mark McG

I have an update. And what an update it is. I can't wait to see what you think of this:

Recall the facts:

1. I ordered ADSL from Esat BT at the end of September. Asked for it to exist on my Eircom ISDN line. No probem. You'll have it by November 4.

2. PROBLEM! November 7. See dialogue in earlier post. No DSL for me. Re-ordered ADSL on my POTS line. Will be in by December 6. "Sorry 'bout that guv..."

OK. So it's November 13. My wife calls me at work. "Mark, our call answering is broken. Try it." I call our number and instead of my own soft voice looking for a message to be left, I hear Mr. Eircom asking what voice mail box I would like. Strange. I call Eircom. They fix it and call me back. "Sorry about that", she said. "DSL was enabled on this line and it messed up call answering. Someone should have reset it, but didn't." No harm done. Everything working again...

Until the the next day. Thursday. I was working from home and using my ISDN line. At around 3pm I pick up my home phone and get no dial tone. Hmmmm.. I call home from my mobile and get "Number not in Service". Stranger than Hmmmm.... So I call Eircom.

"That line is ceased, sir. The number does not even show up on our system."

"Who ceased it?"

"Hmmm.." click. click. click. "Esat BT, it seems. Have you just moved to them?"

"I have not. Can you un-cease it?"

"Afraid not sir. You'll have to call them."

So, I am pretty mad. Not half as mad though when at 6.30pm I am still listening to the on-hold music on the Esat customer support line. Eventually I make it through to a lovely woman who is very sympathetic to my issue, but can find no reference to my number. She told me that someone would call me first thing the next day. Which, to be fair, someone did. It took me 30 minutes to explain my story so far and after that they spent most of the day researching the issue and then at last, at around 5pm on Friday I got a call from someone in ESAT corporate sales.

"Mr. McGloughlin. I'm calling about your DLS order. Are you sure that you wanted a line share with your order?"

It was explained to me that this means you get to keep your voice line and all its services, while DSL is added to it.

"Of course I bloody do. I had a long conversation with your salesman regarding this and he assured me that nothing from my existing service would be affected."

I then got to repeat my sorry tale of woe for her.

"That's terrible... I'll try to have your line reconnected with Eircom and resubmit your DSL order. I'll try to hurry it up, but it will be Monday morning before your line is reconnected"

It's now Monday and nearly lunchtime. Still no phone line. We have had to use mobiles all weekend, resulting in extra costs. Not to mention inconvenience. Not expecting DSL in my lifetime.

Caveat emptor.

MoSeS_.

Well I was going for the ULMP option.
No phone service at all on the line, just DSL.
Ordered the end of september, 4 weeks to the day almost get a call from Esat asking what time I would like the engineer to call.

Guy arrives at 2:00 drills a hole through 2 walls to route the cable to my room, plugs in the modem/router connects the cable ,
checks it on his laptop, connected, not a bother.

Type the settings into my PC, hook it up, connected, 64KB/s downloads, nice low pings, job is OXO.

Just have to wait now to see that there are no billing complications and that I have been succesfully removed from Eircoms system, i.e. no line rental bills coming in because they "thought" I wanted to keep the line too.
(I have tried to ring the number and get the number does not exist tone so it's looking good on that front)

DC

Like Moses, no issues on my end. 4 weeks from order to install. I went for Lineshare and had no problems.

I can only guess that the ISDN part of the equation screwed everything up. Perhaps the way to go is to just get rid of ISDN and go for a bog standard line and then get DSL. This is what eircom insist you do.

suppafly

Originally posted by David C
€108.90 actually.. you forgot to add VAT

So is that a month, and how much r u allowed to download?

ozt9vdujny3srf

Originally posted by MadKevo
It's already gone 2000 metres over dodgy CAT 1 (?)

RJ-11 m8

Head The Wall

I also had the same questions about hunting on my ISDN Line. It's used for Data only so I rang Eircom and they told me Hunting is controlled on the ISDN Plug & Play box (We have one of the old ISDN boxes without the Analog ports).

In the end I just told EsatBT to use one of our analog lines. When it's connected and working I can get rid of ISDN.

DSL is a big saver for a small business we will save €400 a month on ISDN call charges

MoSeS_.

Well the end of the rat is in sight. I got a letter from them informing me that my line had been unbundled and that my account was now in Credit to the princely sum of €26 which they will refund me.

BigEejit

Well the end of the rat is in sight. I got a letter from them informing me that my line had been unbundled and that my account was now in Credit to the princely sum of €26 which they will refund me.

What do Esat charge for line rental then???


I just had a thought about vat on line rental (because I'm a bit of a conspiracy theorist) ... could it be that Charlie Mcreevy has been telling the ODTR to hold up the whole wireless broadband thing because the government will be out of pocket from all the vat on all those line rentals ... (people drop their phone lines and use mobiles for phone and wireless for d'internet):eek:

cgarvey

Hmm, there was I getting all exited from reading this forum, that 1) my ericon account would be no more and 2) the minimum contract period is 3 months.

However according to ESat BT, both are incorrect. I asked was it just my line that couldn't be unbundled, she said no that evey customer has to hold on to their eircom line until sometime next year when lines will be unbundled. (I clarified this to be sure I had got it right).

I've failed the eircon ADSL test, so I assumed that means no ESat BT ADSL for me. Again, au contraire (sp!?). The nice ESat girl told me that as long as I was within range I'd be able to get it, and that they've had no line quality problems with their equipment.

It remains to be seen...

.cg

eth0_

Originally posted by BigEejit
What do Esat charge for line rental then???

They don't do line rental....yet.
I think Moses has changed a 2nd line into purely DSL, that is; there is no voice capabilities, and you can't receive calls on it. So he's just paying his DSL fees to Esat every month, and nothing to Eircom for that line

cgarvey

thanks for clarifying that

BigEejit

So he's just paying his DSL fees to Esat every month, and nothing to Eircom for that line

I know I'm going at this like its a sore tooth but (cant leave it alone ... morbid fascination, I cant believe that Eircom are not getting some cash for that phone line): ....

Does that money paid to Esat for DSL include line rental (or basically the maintenance contract for that telephone line) so if a big storm comes along and breaks the line ...who fixes it?

suppafly

Originally posted by eth0_
They don't do line rental....yet.
I think Moses has changed a 2nd line into purely DSL, that is; there is no voice capabilities, and you can't receive calls on it. So he's just paying his DSL fees to Esat every month, and nothing to Eircom for that line

Is that better to have a line solely for dsl? Is there any benefit? Cuz i have 2 lines already, so if there is some benefit to it then i'd keep the second line.

Mark McG

My understanding is there is no benefit whatsoever. ADSL and voice can happily co-exist.

However, based on my experience, one benefit is that Esat can't screw up your voice line. Our home phone is still OOS and won't be back until December 2.

Mark.

eth0_

Originally posted by Mark McG
Our home phone is still OOS and won't be back until December 2.

Mark.

I hope you've asked for some compensation for that f*ck up! I can't see how it can take them over a week to re-instate your phone line....unreal.

Mark McG

I have asked them to consider compensation. They have not come back to be yet. Remember, I am not yet an Esat customer. They told me that they do not normally pay compensation. However, I feel agrieved as follows:

1. I lost my phone line for what will be close to 14 days through no fault of my own.

2. It took me 20-30 phone calls and one letter to get them to acknowledge that there was an issue and that they were responsible for it. This took 5 days elapsed time (admittedly over a weekend).

3. I have had to deal with some of the most obnoxious people on the planet. I have been lied to by them!

4. We will have to get a "brand new" phone service from Eircom. This will cost €€€ and may take more time!

5. We have had to use mobile phones (at a MUCH higher cost) during our OOS time. Coming up to Christmas, I'm not looking forward to the Vodafone bill.

6. All our friends and family have to call mobiles instead of our land line, costing them more money.

7. We missed a furniture store delivery because they could not contact us.

8. Its bloody embarassing. Anyone who rings us will be thinking "Hey, Mark never paid his bill..."

I could go on for ever. Any ideas what I should look for? I will certainly look for the mobile bills to be paid, as well as any Eircom reconnection fees. Should I also look for time spent/wasted and emotional distress? My wife is going crazy. She is at home all day and really feels cut off. I spoke to the ODTR and the Director of Consumer Affairs and both of them feel I have some case. consumer affairs office recomended the small claims court. My wife thinks Gerry Ryan.

Ideas?

Mark.

eth0_

"1. I ordered ADSL from Esat BT at the end of September. Asked for it to exist on my Eircom ISDN line. No probem. You'll have it by November 4."

Is what you said. I'm assuming you paid your install fee and 3 months line rental in advance? Where do you get the idea then that you're not an Esat customer? You became an Esat customer the minute you signed the consent form to switch to their DSL service, legally.

Mark McG

You're absolutely right! I did sign paperwork. I had actuallu forgotten. I did not pay anything in advance though, but sign on the dotted line is what I did.

Mark.