Eir rural FTTH thread

Johnboy1951 · 09-01-2017 12:53PM

marpad wrote: »

Just wondering if anyone can help me as feeling frustrated and can't seem to find accurate information from Eir! I have recently built a new garden office, completed in October 2016. I work internationally and when I am home it is really important that I have good connectivity to connect with my customers, mainly in Spain and the UK. My problem is that our 3mb broadband isn't working very well with a TP link in the new office. I was just about to go down the road of getting a very expensive satellite broadband system put into the new office when some contractors for Eir arrived (end October) and said they were doing work on the telephone pole right outside our house for rural fibre power. I could have kissed them! Their supervisor called in when I told the workmen how important and fantastic this would be for my business and said we should have it available in 4-6 weeks. There has been nothing since except in early December there was another workman, I spoke to him and he said that everything is now in situ it is just a case of when they make it available. I have called Eir and all they can say is that I will be contacted when available. Added to this my mobile phone won't work very well in the new office and I am contract with Vodfaone. It has one bar but to speak to anyone I have to stand outside the office, they won't allow me out of the contract. So the bottom line is that most of the time I am at the Kitchen table looking out the window at my lovely new office and running in and out for files! If I thought it was going to be another 6 months I would have to do something in the meantime, if I thought it was a month I could suck it up. The line is showing as blue on the map and when I put my phone number in, it still says only 3mb available. I am based 3km from the center of Mullingar town out the old Longford road. The blue line stops right outside our house and doesn't continue down the rest of our road (so lucky I know). Does anyone have any experience of this and have any idea of timescales or is there any other way I can find out more accurate timing info? Thanks in Advance.

Eir is not providing any information on which you can properly base a decision. The end of 2018 is the 'blue line' deadline for availability, according to eir. Some specific areas are estimated as being available earlier.
I doubt I would be comfortable basing a commercial decision on another company's estimates.

You could erect a pole outside and put a receiver on it to get a better signal from your existing phone connection.
You might also consider running an ethernet cable from the house to the office thus bringing the 3Mb/s out reliably.
Satellite, IMO, would be the last resort, if there is any other option.

There are other providers doing fixed wireless, which you should investigate ..... such as Imagine.
If you are within coverage then they would seem to be the best option for speed and reliability.

There are other options such as 3 'All You Can Eat' if a good connection can be achieved with an outdoor pole and receiver.

ED E · 09-01-2017 01:14PM

marpad wrote: »

Just wondering if anyone can help me as feeling frustrated and can't seem to find accurate information from Eir! I have recently built a new garden office, completed in October 2016. I work internationally and when I am home it is really important that I have good connectivity to connect with my customers, mainly in Spain and the UK. My problem is that our 3mb broadband isn't working very well with a TP link in the new office. I was just about to go down the road of getting a very expensive satellite broadband system put into the new office when some contractors for Eir arrived (end October) and said they were doing work on the telephone pole right outside our house for rural fibre power. I could have kissed them! Their supervisor called in when I told the workmen how important and fantastic this would be for my business and said we should have it available in 4-6 weeks. There has been nothing since except in early December there was another workman, I spoke to him and he said that everything is now in situ it is just a case of when they make it available. I have called Eir and all they can say is that I will be contacted when available. Added to this my mobile phone won't work very well in the new office and I am contract with Vodfaone. It has one bar but to speak to anyone I have to stand outside the office, they won't allow me out of the contract. So the bottom line is that most of the time I am at the Kitchen table looking out the window at my lovely new office and running in and out for files! If I thought it was going to be another 6 months I would have to do something in the meantime, if I thought it was a month I could suck it up. The line is showing as blue on the map and when I put my phone number in, it still says only 3mb available. I am based 3km from the center of Mullingar town out the old Longford road. The blue line stops right outside our house and doesn't continue down the rest of our road (so lucky I know). Does anyone have any experience of this and have any idea of timescales or is there any other way I can find out more accurate timing info? Thanks in Advance.

Call Vodafone, pay €50 for a SureSignal, never worry about phone reception again.

Grumpypants · 09-01-2017 01:26PM

marpad wrote: »

Just wondering if anyone can help me as feeling frustrated and can't seem to find accurate information from Eir! I have recently built a new garden office, completed in October 2016. I work internationally and when I am home it is really important that I have good connectivity to connect with my customers, mainly in Spain and the UK. My problem is that our 3mb broadband isn't working very well with a TP link in the new office. I was just about to go down the road of getting a very expensive satellite broadband system put into the new office when some contractors for Eir arrived (end October) and said they were doing work on the telephone pole right outside our house for rural fibre power. I could have kissed them! Their supervisor called in when I told the workmen how important and fantastic this would be for my business and said we should have it available in 4-6 weeks. There has been nothing since except in early December there was another workman, I spoke to him and he said that everything is now in situ it is just a case of when they make it available. I have called Eir and all they can say is that I will be contacted when available. Added to this my mobile phone won't work very well in the new office and I am contract with Vodfaone. It has one bar but to speak to anyone I have to stand outside the office, they won't allow me out of the contract. So the bottom line is that most of the time I am at the Kitchen table looking out the window at my lovely new office and running in and out for files! If I thought it was going to be another 6 months I would have to do something in the meantime, if I thought it was a month I could suck it up. The line is showing as blue on the map and when I put my phone number in, it still says only 3mb available. I am based 3km from the center of Mullingar town out the old Longford road. The blue line stops right outside our house and doesn't continue down the rest of our road (so lucky I know). Does anyone have any experience of this and have any idea of timescales or is there any other way I can find out more accurate timing info? Thanks in Advance.

Not sure on the timescale, it seems to be down to when the system updates to let them order it for you. The sales people can only work with what they see on the system.

However, for the TP Link, the receiver needs to be on the same power circuit as the plug at the modem to work properly.

It is possible that the builders put in a separate fuse box for the office that is causing the issue. We had a similar thing happen at the parents house with a garage that was turned into an office. Even though we got a new fuse box installed so it should be on the same circuit (for this exact reason), the new build still acts differently when compared to the other plugs in the house when using the TP Link.

We ended up having to find the closet plug to the office that is on the original set up and then use the wi-fi extender to reach the office. You might need to do something similar and find the closet socket to the outside office that is still in the original house and see if the wi-fi will reach the outside office.

Not ideal but will get you over the hump, and when they come to install the fiber you can get them to wire it to the office directly.

ItHurtsWhenIP · 09-01-2017 02:35PM

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

...

You could erect a pole outside and put a receiver on it to get a better signal from your existing phone connection.
You might also consider running an ethernet cable from the house to the office thus bringing the 3Mb/s out reliably.
Satellite, IMO, would be the last resort, if there is any other option.

There are other providers doing fixed wireless, which you should investigate ..... such as Imagine.
If you are within coverage then they would seem to be the best option for speed and reliability.

There are other options such as 3 'All You Can Eat' if a good connection can be achieved with an outdoor pole and receiver.

+1 on everything said here ... Don't go with satellite as it is the worst of all solutions - crap data caps - awful latency - EXPENSIVE! :mad:

Check with Imagine if they cover your area - probably the best alternative at present.

For other Fixed Wireless, go here and drop the marker on your house and tick Wireless ISPs on the left to see what companies provide service in your area. Give em a call and see if they can hit your house.

Cantona's Collars · 09-01-2017 04:07PM

Contractors working for Eir are installing fibre along the Clonhaston/Monageer road past Mr.Price in Enniscorthy.There's ducting in situ all along that stretch which makes life a bit easier for them.

daraghwal · 09-01-2017 07:14PM

zerks wrote: »

Contractors working for Eir are installing fibre along the Clonhaston/Monageer road past Mr.Price in Enniscorthy.There's ducting in situ all along that stretch which makes life a bit easier for them.

As a matter of interest, are they going past where the road is closed for the M11 works? Monageer village is part of the FTTH of Enniscorthy believe it or not. Enniscorthy used to be down as Winter 2016

09-01-2017 07:41PM

In this area it appears that there has been a military intervention, Major Fúckup was on site as I saw contractors today replacing all the new fibres.

The entire run on our road was swapped out.

Did they put up the wrong type???

damienirel · 09-01-2017 08:45PM

Deleted User wrote: »

In this area it appears that there has been a military intervention, Major Fúckup was on site as I saw contractors today replacing all the new fibres.

The entire run on our road was swapped out.

Did they put up the wrong type???

Presume it was damaged or dodgy cable. Late in the day to be finding out though?

09-01-2017 08:52PM

damienirel wrote: »

Presume it was damaged or dodgy cable. Late in the day to be finding out though?

At least they found out before adding subscribers to it.

I can only guess that the spicing team started to work on it and found a problem, as we had a crew here just before Christmas and they vanished again without having appeared to have done anything.

damienirel · 09-01-2017 09:03PM

Deleted User wrote: »

At least they found out before adding subscribers to it.

I can only guess that the spicing team started to work on it and found a problem, as we had a crew here just before Christmas and they vanished again without having appeared to have done anything.

Poor excuse of a company to be entrusting with what should be a major priority in this joke of a country.

BandMember · 09-01-2017 10:44PM

damienirel wrote: »

Poor excuse of a company to be entrusting with what should be a major priority in this joke of a country.

Ok, we get it - you hate Eir. No need to keep bashing them in every post you make on multiple threads. Everyone knows the pluses and minuses of this company, no need to keep repeating them over and over again.

That's my two cents anyway.... :cool:

pegasus1 · 09-01-2017 10:56PM

damienirel wrote: »

Presume it was damaged or dodgy cable. Late in the day to be finding out though?

Probably bent the fibre cable beyond the minimum radius at some stage in installation...thus failing the test parameters.

09-01-2017 11:29PM

pegasus1 wrote: »

Probably bent the fibre cable beyond the minimum radius at some stage in installation...thus failing the test parameters.

Quite possible, there were a couple of tight bends in the run as well as being pulled "banjo string" tight!

damienirel · 10-01-2017 12:48AM

BandMember wrote: »

Ok, we get it - you hate Eir. No need to keep bashing them in every post you make on multiple threads. Everyone knows the pluses and minuses of this company, no need to keep repeating them over and over again.

That's my two cents anyway.... :cool:

Just venting - languishing here on a $hite connection for the last 3 years with a fibre cabinet 600m away.
Reading stuff like this...
http://www.independent.ie/business/media/executives-at-eir-set-for-181m-windfall-after-ipo-35341851.html

BandMember · 10-01-2017 12:51AM

damienirel wrote: »

Just venting - languishing here on a $hite connection for the last 3 years with a fibre cabinet 600m away.

Venting is fine, but not every post on every thread you post in, you know?

damienirel · 10-01-2017 01:07AM

BandMember wrote: »

Venting is fine, but not every post on every thread you post in, you know?

Get back to me when you've got ftth - I promise I'll be positive!

10-01-2017 10:00AM

Deleted User wrote: »

In this area it appears that there has been a military intervention, Major Fúckup was on site as I saw contractors today replacing all the new fibres.

The entire run on our road was swapped out.

Did they put up the wrong type???

pegasus1 wrote: »

Probably bent the fibre cable beyond the minimum radius at some stage in installation...thus failing the test parameters.

Deleted User wrote: »

Quite possible, there were a couple of tight bends in the run as well as being pulled "banjo string" tight!

Had a quick look this morning and it appears that the replacement fibres are now hanging with a bit of slack, the previous ones had no slack at all, the overhead lines were dead straight between the poles.
I suspect that the cold weather snapped a few cores as fibre does not stretch the same way that copper does.

Someone made a very expensive mistake by not allowing for expansion & contraction in the cables and this also explains why our "go live" date was put back by a few months. :mad:

plodder · 10-01-2017 11:06AM

Deleted User wrote: »

Had a quick look this morning and it appears that the replacement fibres are now hanging with a bit of slack, the previous ones had no slack at all, the overhead lines were dead straight between the poles.
I suspect that the cold weather snapped a few cores as fibre does not stretch the same way that copper does.

Someone made a very expensive mistake by not allowing for expansion & contraction in the cables and this also explains why our "go live" date was put back by a few months. :mad:

Seems like a naive mistake to make. But, (some) mistakes like this are inevitable with a new technology, and like all mistakes, the sooner they get fixed the less costly it is in the long run, and it looks like they fixed it at the earliest opportunity. So, kudos to them for that.

10-01-2017 11:58AM

plodder wrote: »

Seems like a naive mistake to make. But, (some) mistakes like this are inevitable with a new technology, and like all mistakes, the sooner they get fixed the less costly it is in the long run, and it looks like they fixed it at the earliest opportunity. So, kudos to them for that.

It's an extremely naive mistake, the laws of expansion & contraction are universal and impossible to defy, having a bit of slack to account for contraction of the cables in cold weather is "installation 101" stuff!

Grumpypants · 10-01-2017 01:09PM

The Eir cable crew have made it to Kinvarra

Spotted them just outside the town yesterday, but thought it might just be the main fiber cable coming into town and running to the cabinet for FTTC.

But this morning they are at the bottom of my road with the manhole opened and two giant spools of cable, one thick black, one skinnier orange one.

Since the FTTC cable would run straight up the main road to the cabinet, and the manhole they are working on on my road is about 50 meters away from the main road there is no other reason to be working in that manhole other than running the FTTH cable.

All the prep work for the area was done pre Christmas with the manholes and ducting installed by a different crew. Fingers crossed they just do FTTC and FTTH at the same time. The town is pretty small it would make sense to do it all at once. Especially since it is on the 100K list of towns.

But great to see steady progress over the last 4-6 weeks.

marpad · 10-01-2017 01:26PM

Thanks so much for the tip, just off the phone from Vodafone and they are posting me out a suresignal connection FOC!

Johnboy1951 · 10-01-2017 01:46PM

marpad wrote: »

Thanks so much for the tip, just off the phone from Vodafone and they are posting me out a suresignal connection FOC!

Great news!
Do please report back on how it works out for you and if it reduces your internet connection throughput for other work.

digiman · 10-01-2017 01:59PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It's an extremely naive mistake, the laws of expansion & contraction are universal and impossible to defy, having a bit of slack to account for contraction of the cables in cold weather is "installation 101" stuff!

The main reason for slack is that when a cable breaks that they can pull the cable down and bring it to the back of a repair van and splice back the cables in a clean environment.

damienirel · 10-01-2017 02:27PM

Deleted User wrote: »

this also explains why our "go live" date was put back by a few months. :mad:

Any excuse to be put back a couple of months. Why a couple of months? surely a few weeks max? Are they gone on holidays or what?

ratracer · 10-01-2017 03:28PM

Grumpypants wrote: »

The Eir cable crew have made it to Kinvarra

But great to see steady progress over the last 4-6 weeks.

Have they installed any splice boxes in the village yet, or what stage does that come at? It was great to see the ducting etc being installed, in impatient now for more than 5mbs internet!!

10-01-2017 03:35PM

digiman wrote: »

The main reason for slack is that when a cable breaks that they can pull the cable down and bring it to the back of a repair van and splice back the cables in a clean environment.

The slack that I am talking about is the droop between poles, not the coils of spare at all the junction boxes, the original installation was so taut, you could have played a c# on it!
I dread to think of how many km's of overhead line was installed by this particular crew before it was discovered that they were doing it all wrong!

rob808 · 10-01-2017 03:53PM

Deleted User wrote: »

The slack that I am talking about is the droop between poles, not the coils of spare at all the junction boxes, the original installation was so taut, you could have played a c# on it!
I dread to think of how many km's of overhead line was installed by this particular crew before it was discovered that they were doing it all wrong!

well problem will happen time to time especially with a rollout this big as long as they learn from there mistakes the less likely it happen again.

10-01-2017 03:58PM

rob808 wrote: »

well problem will happen time to time especially with a rollout this big as long as they learn from there mistakes the less likely it happen again.

Lack of training more likely, probably got the crew that usually fit the guy wires to string fibres without telling them that tensioning is not necessary.

Gonzo · 10-01-2017 04:11PM

Deleted User wrote: »

The slack that I am talking about is the droop between poles, not the coils of spare at all the junction boxes, the original installation was so taut, you could have played a c# on it!
I dread to think of how many km's of overhead line was installed by this particular crew before it was discovered that they were doing it all wrong!

the fiber here looks very straight from pole to pole, it only droops down a little bit at each pole. I hope they don't have to come back and do it all again!

pic below shows what the fiber is like in our area, does it look correct?

10-01-2017 05:33PM

Gonzo wrote: »

the fiber here looks very straight from pole to pole, it only droops down a little bit at each pole. I hope they don't have to come back and do it all again!

pic below shows what the fiber is like in our area, does it look correct?

That section looks OK, but do you have any of the overhead fibre between poles, when the fibres were first strung up here, they were tensioned so as to have absolutely no drop between the poles.The replacement has a small droop to allow for contraction in the cold.

If they had put them any tighter, this could have happened!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoyBldJMbfE

Eir rural FTTH thread

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