Interleaving

lmck

Hi all

Louise McKeown, from Netsource here. The reason I am posting this afternoon is in relation to Interleaving. You will recall I made a post here two weeks ago stating interleaving was turned off on our RADSL product (SOHO), this information was posted by me after I received verbal and written confirmation from Eircom that this was the case. However on Thursday last it came to light that Eircom had mis-informed us, and that interleaving was in fact not turned off completely, but very much turned down (from 50ms to 19ms). This is because the reach and therefore the availability is greater when left on marginally.


In respect of the board rules, I do not want to go down the route of commercial information, however I do want to assure everyone the reason for making this posting is to keep you informed and to apologise for the incorrect information we passed along.

I understand a number of you ordered SOHO services from Netsource on the basis that Interleaving was turned off, so should you have any issues, questions please e-mail me directly (louise@netsource.ie).

Regards
Louise McKeown

Nuphor

*Quick DeLurk*

Ya gotta love commercial interaction.

vac

I heard fast track was turned on, is that true?

Pity about the interleaving, but thanks for the correction/update.

dahamsta

Hi Loiuse,

I (Adam Beecher) rang you last Thursday to enquire about your DSL products and you promised to call back after checking into my line. I haven't heard back from you since, even though I followed up myself on Friday. Could you follow through on your promise and call me back please? I'm sure the members of this forum would love to see commercial interaction working in both directions.

Thank you,
adam

MDR

Louise,

Top marks for coming back and updating us in such an open, friendily and honest way, long may it continue.

dahamsta

Louise has since been in touch, thank you Louise.



adam

ando

hmm, not to impressed with that. The main/only reason I went with netsource was on the basis that interleaving was off. I know its not their fault so what can ya do :rolleyes:

Praetorian

I was speaking to you about 3 weeks ago about RADSL availability in Balbriggan. You informed me that my exchange was scheduled to be upgraded in the next two weeks. I too was promised a call which I never received.

I called Eircom and they told me that my exchange might not be upgraded until December 2003 or later.

North County Dublin ?
There are approximately 20,000 people in Balbriggan. Skerries, Lusk and Rush have large populations aswell.

Interleaving ?
I would love to see a copy of this written letter from Eircom.

Regards

Damien (damien69@eircom.net)

Dustaz

Thanks for the heads up Louise, much appreciated.


I might be assuming a lot, but i expect that is what the interleaving will be on all RADSL products.

MadsL

I think credit is due to Netsource for attempting to get interleaving turned off, whilst there has clearly been some confusion, at least we are now in a situation where interleaving is on it's 'short' setting - a step forward at least.

Why it can't be turned off on a demand basis for each subscriber line (this is available in the US) or per Netsource's request at least on lines that are sold though a reseller is beyond my comprehension.

I have a million conspiracy theories (well two or three...) but the best response I have had to date from eircom is that it is 'technically impossible' or 'policy' not to turn off interleaving. I shall attempt to get some kind of response from them again once I am connected. I'll post here.

In the meantime fair dues to Louise.

melachi

Lucky that I saw this or else I would've switched between the same connections, €165 excl VAT for nothing

What shocks me though is that they turn interleaving down for a lower cost connection but I who's got €169 (excl vat..) a month 1mbit still has to deal with ridicolous ping times?
30-40 to UK would be acceptable. 80-90 isn't

RapierX

I'm unhappy too. I'll still get the service because any DSL is good DSL in this country. Gamers are ultimately looking for the lowest ping, in Germany Fastpath is sold to people wishing for a lower ping rather than a stable (interleaving on). I don't see why it could be so hard for it to be turned off.

ozt9vdujny3srf

Why is it that, when the line is tested, the customer can be told whether or not the line needs interleaving for it to work.

Is it possible for individual customers to be given a choice, or for people who are close enough to have interleaving switched off.

For a product I am already paying slightly more than the competition for this is something that is a drawback.

bk

Originally posted by Truckle
Why is it that, when the line is tested, the customer can be told whether or not the line needs interleaving for it to work.

Is it possible for individual customers to be given a choice, or for people who are close enough to have interleaving switched off.

Is it technically possible, yes, absolutely. Have Eircom put in place the infrastructure to allow this, I assume not.

To be fair to netsource, this has nothing to do with them, the ability to turn on or off interleaving lies with Eircom. If Eircom don't want to make it available to their customers and ComReg don't force them to make it available, then I assume there is nothing netsource can do.

For a product I am already paying slightly more than the competition for this is something that is a drawback.

Yes, but remember you are also getting a fixed IP address and no Cap. In the UK you typically pay about an extra GBP£5 per month for a fixed IP, so EUR 10 isn't too bad and well worth the difference for no cap IMHO.

ozt9vdujny3srf

of course its eicoms fault, I am just wondering why they can't keep to their original promises.

The fact remains that a large factor in me ordering this service was beacuse I was told interleaving was off.

(p.s. i have had no real problems with netsource and I have found their staff to be very ehelpful in any query's I have had)

Nitrox

If line test is fine can anyone tell me why i should not go with Netsource right away?
It is cheap, no cap and i have not yet heard anything bad about them, so whats the catch??

CitySickness

Well, I'm holding off until I hear from somebody who's actually got the service up and running - and we know what sort of reliability, download speeds & pings to expect from Netsource.

melachi

Originally posted by Nitrox
If line test is fine can anyone tell me why i should not go with Netsource right away?
It is cheap, no cap and i have not yet heard anything bad about them, so whats the catch??

If you're not a gamer then go for it.

quaalude

Originally posted by CitySickness
Well, I'm holding off until I hear from somebody who's actually got the service up and running - and we know what sort of reliability, download speeds & pings to expect from Netsource.

I'm with CitySickness.
As far as I can tell, no-one here has actually gotten the service yet.
I don't want to sign up for something that no-one can actually vouch for.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Nitrox
If line test is fine can anyone tell me why i should not go with Netsource right away?
It is cheap, no cap and i have not yet heard anything bad about them, so whats the catch??

My only worry is that since they have no cap, they may attract a lot of heavy users. This may be a problem on a 48:1 contention ratio.

None of this implies that I am in favour of caps.

ozt9vdujny3srf

Originally posted by melachi
If you're not a gamer then go for it.

melachi the interleaving is at a very low setting, so its fine for gaming, not as good as esat, but still better overall.

dahamsta

I'd sign up for it in a flash if I could. Whatever about the interleaving issue - if in fact it even is an issue - Netsource seems to offer the best feature set and appears to be willing to engage with customers*, which is more than you can say for all but one other ISP in Ireland, which isn't in the DSL business yet. Someone's got to be the first mover, and I think the reaction to this issue is a little unfair. At least Netsource had the guts to come here and tell us to our faces.

adam

*Ok, in my case it required a little sneakiness, but would Eircom or EsatBT have rung me back because of a post here?

DeVore

Originally posted by lmck
Hi all

In respect of the board rules, I do not want to go down the route of commercial information, however I do want to assure everyone the reason for making this posting is to keep you informed and to apologise for the incorrect information we passed along.

I understand a number of you ordered SOHO services from Netsource on the basis that Interleaving was turned off, so should you have any issues, questions please e-mail me directly (louise@netsource.ie).

Regards
Louise McKeown

Respectful, informed, polite.... could this *actually* be from a telco? My word... it appears it is.

Well, fair dinkum to Louise, thanks for the timely information. Long may you continue to peruse these boards.

DeV (in near shock.)

El_MUERkO

I understand inerleaving causes lag & high ping for gamers but I dont know why or how so could someone explain it?

dahamsta

Results 2 and 3 from a Google search seem to explain it pretty well.

adam

bk

Originally posted by El_MUERkO
I understand inerleaving causes lag & high ping for gamers but I dont know why or how so could someone explain it?

Check out the following:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/184

http://iiu.taint.org/pipermail/iiu/2002-August/002529.html

El_MUERkO

Cheers for the links whereas before I was blind now I've been hit by a tree

crazyasafox

I understand that the interleaving issue is down to eircom setting it at their exchanges but going by BK's link on interleaving
"http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/184" it also seems to point the finger at the make of modem.
Quote
"Some ADSL modems allow the user to turn off Interleaving, or turn it down to a narrow range, at the expense of possible data-loss on noisy lines. The Cisco 675, for example, has a full operating system inside it, and one of the attributes of the ether interface is Interleaving. See Randy Lutton's US West page). Some ISPs may be delivering this unit with Interleaving on, and some off. In other cases, it is the DSLAM (central office equipment) that has the Interleaving set, and this cannot be changed."

As the quote says you can not change the settings of your exchange but if your modem is doing interleaving also as default surely this is only adding to it.

melachi

Wrong

MadsL

Malachi grunted...

Wrong

Err...kinda...my understanding is that interleaving is set on the line as short, long or off, but some modems can configure the DSLAM from the consumer end if the DSLAM is set up this way. Eircom DSLAMS are not setup for this.

I was talking to an Esat engineer the other day who informed me that eircom are using about 5% of the functionality that they could be using both on the DSLAMS and the ATM side of things.

Individual subscriber lines could be configured, even by the consumer themselves (given say a Cisco 675 as quoted above) if eircom were prepared to......

err......(take your pick here because I don't think we will ever know short of getting an independant engineer to take a look -FOI anyone?)

...if eircom were prepared to......

1. make some further investment upgrading old linecards/firmware
2. roll out both ADSL and RADSL and offer advice and choice to the consumer about DSL 'flavours' (LOL - I kill myself...)
3. bite the bullet on distance from exchange and invest in alternatives (how's that wireless access coming eircom?)

Then we would have choice about the most suitable xDSL package for our needs, along with choice about the delivery system - fixed speed ADSL for urban, variable RADSL for distance and wireless for buttf##k of nowhere..

Instead we have a one-size-fits all, ain't you lucky to get it attitude...and don't ask us for anything different because you ain't gonna get it...

bk

Originally posted by crazyasafox

As the quote says you can not change the settings of your exchange but if your modem is doing interleaving also as default surely this is only adding to it.

If you read the extra posts at the bottom of the article I posted, you will see that the modem gets the interleaving settings from the DSLAM, therefore you can't do anything about it. This makes sense, the modem has to be able to deal with the interleaved packets that it receives. So it really is all up to Eircom.

melachi

Anyone have any idea if they'll turn it down for 1mbit?

"mElachi"

and so he was wrong as you can't control anything from the client side with eircom.

Nitrox

Found the catch with Netsource, they have a really nice offer, but it make no sense why you have to get their domain and also it is not mentioned until you actually get the contract!
So Domain name for a fixed IP, sounds kind of Risky with me, and get even worse when you have to pay 10 times as much as it would normal cost for a domain name, are they making fun of us or can they in any way explain this without saying "Thats is just the way it is" or "this is a business solution, so....) well, i would like to see them try.!
Another think i read in their terms and conditions is, and i quote"
2.2 The Customer agrees to be bound by the monthly download allowance attaching to its chosen NETSOURCE DSL product. "
Yep, so thereis no Cap, so what is the idea of including this then, again please explain netsource.

melachi

May this whole reselling thing of eircom adsl just be a way to make money off the domain names?

Looks pretty clear now.
Atleast you don't have to deal directly with eircom

talla

Nitrox,
Netsource have been clear from day one that you had to purchase a domain name. They have not tried to hide anything about their product, this has been discussed on this forum for the last month.

Dustaz

Originally posted by Nitrox

So Domain name for a fixed IP, sounds kind of Risky with me, and get even worse when you have to pay 10 times as much as it would normal cost for a domain name

Risky? Whats risky?

Also, the domain name is not 10 times its normal value. Your thinking of a .com name. A .ie is far more expensive.

from the iedrs website

Price:
Annual Maintenance Fee €125.00
Plus VAT @ 21% € 26.25

Another think i read in their terms and conditions is, and i quote"
2.2 The Customer agrees to be bound by the monthly download allowance attaching to its chosen NETSOURCE DSL product. "
Yep, so thereis no Cap, so what is the idea of including this then, again please explain netsource.

There is a cap on thier ADSL product but there isnt on their RADSL product. Looks like they use the same set of T and C's for both. Either that or they are covering themselves in case they decide to cap it in the future.

Nitrox

Originally posted by talla
Nitrox,
Netsource have been clear from day one that you had to purchase a domain name. They have not tried to hide anything about their product, this has been discussed on this forum for the last month.

Sorry, but i have to disagree!
If you as a new customer heard of Netsource, you have a look at their webpage and the offer looks great, no where it is written what minimum requirements is, so it can't be all bad you think, all prices are listed anyway.
The you order the product and what do you see, you see that to buy one product you have to also buy another one which has no technical justification to the first and is going to cost you another 10 euro plus vat a month for something you are most likely never going to use, i find that very dodgy!

If NEtsource have written anything about why things are like this on boards.ie i have not been able to find it, please point me to a link if it is there, thx.

Dustaz

Originally posted by Nitrox
So
If NEtsource have written anything about why things are like this on boards.ie i have not been able to find it, please point me to a link if it is there, thx.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=860138#post860138

talla

discussed by boards members extensively in this thread

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=91312&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

lmck (Via/Netsource representative) again discusses product in this thread

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=91803&perpage=20&pagenumber=2

there are a couple of other examples but if you search you will actauaaly find the threads

talla

beat me to it dustaz

Nitrox

Did do the search yesterday, but missed this one.
I still don't like it, but out of all evils i guess this is the best right now, and the no Cap and self install is very good, so i would maybe go with this product if my landlord want to renew my contract first..
Netsource really have the potential to be the UTV of RADSL if only they would let go of that silly domain requirement, lets meet on the middle so the product is 50+vat and no domain requirement!

Balfa

i agree. the domain name deal is ridiculous. it smacks of either A) they got a really good deal on domain name hosting and have to make use of it somehow, preferably without passing the savings on to the consumer or plain crap business model.

I'd love to hear the real inside story on this, instead of the pathetic "business isp" line.

By the way, no offense to you, and thanks for the correspondance, Louise. Please explain to the decision-makers that the domain name bundle is probably doing them more harm than good, and people are screaming out for you to drop it. And if it was €50 a month ex VAT, without the domain name, i would indeed go for it, whereas currently i'd probably go with esat's new offer.

Also, how can you justify charging €7 for 5 POP addresses, when Esat, eircom and UTV all offer an unlimited amount of email addresses on all their services, even the non-subscription ones?

bizmark

im going to go for esat instead i couldnt be arsed to pay for a modem if i dont have to and its 20 euro cheaper

i dont give a monkeys about a cap if games dont suck it up im interested in pings and seeming esats adsl is around 23-30 ping thats good anuff for me !

im going to call them tomorrow and see if i can canncel the netsmart product and sign up for radsl.........pings pings pings with interleaveing on theirs no point me afaird

STaN

even with interleaving on, the ping times will be around 45-60

melachi

Originally posted by STaN
even with interleaving on, the ping times will be around 45-60

Unfortunately the main game servers you have to stick to are in UK. Though it never goes down below 55 to irish servers, the ingame ping is always higher as well. UK ping ranges from 70-80
75-90 ingame in different games.

conZ

ye, but no cap!
im not bothered about ping (bandwidth is all i need tbh)