Interesting experience in the US

iwb

This guy went through the ten year cycle for a typical Irish broadband wannabe in a few weeks. He actually had a splitter on his phoneline in a new sub division which is incredible in this day and age. Interesting article overall though.
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2901424,00.html

LoBo

For $49.95, I can get 386kbps up, 768kbps to 1.5Mbps down, and a single dynamic IP address

he also had an option of slower for $40 and faster (1.5 to 6Mbps downstream) for $159 per month (yes, that is cheaper than the only uncapped service Eircom offer .. which is 1Mbps downstream).

Anyone else feel embarassed about the sorry excuse for
broadband we have so far in Ireland?

Interesting article though, thanks for the link.

Colm

Hannibal_12

I just feel embarassed about Ireland in general but its exceptionally bad for broadband.

eircomtribunal

Originally posted by iwb
He actually had a splitter on his phoneline in a new sub division which is incredible in this day and age.

Splitters in Ireland: Andrew Kennett wrote a little article on the pairgain situation from his personal experience:Split Eircom - not the lines!

Peter

stormkeeper

Just read the first link... It surprised the hell out of me that this has been done in the US...

On a side-note, due to the 2nd article (which, by now you guys know where the 'Kennett' comes from) which I showed my mum, she now knows that line-splitters are illegal... A small victory on my side, as she's usually sick to death about me saying how Eircom did this or that...

MDR

We were contacted by a guy from wexford, has pairgain on his line and he lives 8 miles from the exchange .... all the houses locally have Pairgains ...

He is SCREWED ... he gets a max of 14.4 kpbs ... I talked to him about getting a Satillete based solution as he the latency wouldn't bother him.

EircomTribunal .... er the analogies used in the articles left me confused (perhaps I am just stupid ), I know what a pairgain is but I amn't sure that someone reading the article would by its end. Can you make it simpler ...

yellum

EircomTribunal should become the campaigns wing of IrelandOffline. Gwan the lads !

spongebob

Originally posted by MDR
We were contacted by a guy from wexford, has pairgain on his line and he lives 8 miles from the exchange .... all the houses locally have Pairgains ...

He is SCREWED ... he gets a max of 14.4 kpbs ... I talked to him about getting a Satillete based solution as he the latency wouldn't bother him.

May I straighten you out a bit Ray.

The ONLY way you can get ANY signal over copper 8 miles from an exchange is by using Pairgain. If there were no such thing he would be fecked.

A phone line is ONLY supposed to work up to 5 Miles. This guy and his neighbours should be on WLL from a mast within 5 miles of the exchange to get a decent signal. Eircom have the licence and the Tech to do WLL .......Eircom have a USO as well !

The problem with Pairgains arises when they are used willy nilly WITHIN 5 miles of exchanges instead of running copper out. In some cases Eircom are too lazy to run copper as little as .25 of a mile if they can stuff in a Pairgain instead.

This practise is now illegal for new connections and is actionable through Comreg if they do it on your line. I always keep a modemlog (dial up connection log, go into advanced properties for your modem in Windows nnnn) in case some Eircom muppet tries to stick one on my line which is about 1 mile from an exchange in a high risk area.

If a new connection was sought in the 8 mile away zone in Wexford it should be provided over WLL unless there is an ignorant mountain in the way or something. Pairgains are a crude solution and are inimical to basic European standards on what constitutes and acceptable Universal Service. WLL will get you ISDN speeds but no higher.

I previously lived 3.5 miles from an exchange and had 16.8k ALWAYS because I was beyond the communal Pairgain at 3 miles. The Communal Pairgain ensured that the houses in EXTREMIS on that run .......6 miles from the exchange or so (3 miles on from the Pairgain) got a signal but made life difficult for those of us who did not NEED a pairgain. On balance more households lived in EXTREMIS than between 3 and 4 miles from the Exchange and the neighbours would not form a committee..

M

stormkeeper

EircomTribunal .... er the analogies used in the articles left me confused (perhaps I am just stupid ), I know what a pairgain is but I amn't sure that someone reading the article would by its end. Can you make it simpler ...

You mean for the pairgain article?

If so, what was confusing about it?