Sky digital in Smithfield market

DjTaz wrote: »

I heard its loads of people in Block E that are having the issue.

I'm in Block E all right. I don't think it was a case of them realising something was wrong after a few calls, I think the first person I spoke to just didn't have a clue. Apparently someone else at Sky was telling people it was a matter for Wyse, which isn't correct either.

If it's the whole block it must be the satellite dish rather than the individual boxes which was what the first person I spoke to was suggesting?

It's back! There must be at least one person at Sky clever enough to realise that when a whole bunch of people in a single building lose their signal, it's not just a problem with their boxes.

Thanks again

The buildings dont have the infrastructure for UPC and the management company would have to give the go ahead for them to re-wire the whole place if they had to get to even one of the apartments.
They had signed a deal with Smart for a few years but i think that might be up now , but i dont see UPC getting in here at all.
The phone lines can only handle up to 12 megs (I work for a business ISP and can get any speed available so checked the speeds here).
Its not the best setup for residents im afraid , but its what we have to work with unless quite a few demand (and im talking protests) that something gets changed.

Rewiring the building for UPC is not as easy as you think. I used to work for a company similar to them. There were many old apt buildings (and newer ones that were crappily wired to begin with) that we had to take a miss on rewiring for our broadband service, even thought there was a large potential customer base there for us.

Redoing the wiring for the whole complex involved costly drilling into the walls of each apt. Into people homes that they own. You can't force home owners to let you do this, even if it is in their own best interest. There are all kinds of construction and legal and financial impediments to it. It may not be worth UPC's while to do it if the mgt company and all the property owners are not on board with it. By all means start a petition. Get onto your landlord. Get on to the mgt company. Get your neigbours involved. Sooner or later this is going to stop people from wanting to live there. The sooner the decision makers realize that the better.

Well you guys obviously seem to be more clued in about it than me, one or two points I would make however are that if a person who lets say, mostly works from home wants to move in here, they are more likely to be put off by the fact that you cannot get broadband(Smart telecom selling 3MB for 40 euro pm doesn't count) rather than by an ongoing dispute between residents and the management company over what service providers are and are not allowed in. Secondly UPC confirmed to me that they have approached the management company here on a few different occasions but are always refused, so they obviously want to get in here. I still dont think they would be put off by the wiring difficulties, these apartments are less than a decade old. I see what you are saying DjTaz about having to run a cable from the car park to each apartment, no doubt tricky but I'm sure they could 'piggy back' on the numerous other cables we having coming into our apartments from the car park, appreciate that these existing cable were put in during construction but the route is already there. The point stands that we live in the city centre in apartments that are pitched as being modern, luxurious etc but unfortunately no broadband available.

Steveraf wrote: »

Secondly UPC confirmed to me that they have approached the management company here on a few different occasions but are always refused, so they obviously want to get in here. I still dont think they would be put off by the wiring difficulties, these apartments are less than a decade old. I see what you are saying DjTaz about having to run a cable from the car park to each apartment, no doubt tricky but I'm sure they could 'piggy back' on the numerous other cables we having coming into our apartments from the car park,

I have a ton of sympathy for your plight. I really do. I work from home. If I didn't have blazing fast broadband speeds where I live, I'd have to leave and find some where else to live. That being said, I think that you may be missing the main point here. It is not about what UPC want to do to get more customers, or can do regarding "piggybacking" with existing cables. It is about what they have legal permission to do on the property. If the mgt company refuse to give it, UPC can't do a thing, despite the wishes of some of the tenants.

If you live in a house, you are the sole owner of your own four walls, your roof and your floor. You can have anyone you want come and install anything you want, or drill into anything they want. Even if you are share a common wall in a semi detached house, you don't have to ask permission from a next door neighbour. As you have direct frontage to the street, lines and cables can be run directly from it.

An apt owner shares common walls and floors and ceilings with the people above, below and either side of him. They are not his sole property to do with as he pleases. Hence the mgt company being the ones to have the say when it comes to work being done that compromises the structural integrity of the building as whole, such as drilling into the walls to redo the wiring.

Best way around this is get them involved, as for now they are the ones with all the decision making power. Or get the landlords involved who were responsible for hiring the mgt company in the first place. Find out why they are saying No to UPC. It really doesn't make sense seeing as UPC are widely recognized as the being the provider of the fastest broadband service in the country. Sooner or later the building not being wired for UPC broadband (or a decent alternative) will affect property values of the apts. If you approach them & the landlords from that angle, you may get somewhere in getting them to shake things up.

I'd also be interested in knowing if Eircom is worth switching to, this Smart service is just hopeless

DjTaz wrote: »

Prouddub is correct. At the moment all wiring from ISPs comes into data rooms in the car park minus one and once terminated in switches there gets run to the ports you see in your walls. UPC use a different system so they would need to run a cable from the carpark to each apartment without using the outside of the building. It's very tricky.

Why is it tricky? The apartments have vertically running cable conduits and at that termination have a network Cat 5 switch built into the inside wall of the apartment. Every room has a cat5 port. I even had one installed along with a power point in one of the storage cupboards so I could run a server out of sight.

The dogs breakfast that is services in Smithfield Market is a joke; when i moved in there as one of the first residents, I had fibre to the basement and a 14Mb (near 20MB burst) connection with (I was told) a 2Gb pipe coming into the data room in the basement. Smart eventually capped it back to 2Mb (now 4Mb) to make the TV work and ripped out the fibre kit and installed ADSL2 DSLAMS in the basement. I actually called the Customer Service manager and pleaded with them NOT to do this (oddly he took the call in the meeting they were having to decide to do this) - I told them it was absurd to go backwards in technology - but they insisted it would 'save' the TV service. It didn't and after much howling by residents Sky got in there and decimated Smart for TV.

Someone (?) needs to get there and rather than just dump their tech on top of old tech, actually replace the Cat5 that is in place and get Fibre to each apartment and futureproof the damn thing.

Good luck with it - just to be a smug bast*rd I now have a 50MB connection

I'm in the US my friend.

Service charge of 2,300 year? Jesus, I was renting there. Didn't realise that. That means the 3 beds must be more than 3k. I'm paying $2880 a year here in a condo that includes a tennis court, a pool and sauna. You should get membership of 1escape included for that service charge. :eek:

dublin34 wrote: »

and he tells me he cant get broadband.

He cant get broadband ? That has to be wrong.

Sky have just announced an Irish broadband rollout. There is 'Sky in your Apartment' service at Smithfield.

Did anyone else get the new leaflet from Smart?