Hello

[RoninIV]

I just wanted to slip in and say hi to the community, and offer any advice I can in the future. I moved here from the states for personal reasons and got a job with Eircom (little did I know what I was getting myself into lol) as it seemed to be a known enity in ireland as the 'main' provider for telecomunications. I started out as a IP/DSL tech and was amazed at how many people out there still use dial up, but began to understand that DSL is a growing thing here but not quite everywhere yet. Now before everyone starts throwing things my way about service quality, reply times, on hold etc...I am only one person and I have to say I do quite a good job but I do see there is a large number of people here who are in this for a few bob and then get out and find a better job after the reality sets in that this job is not for those who have no patience. Dealing with customers day in and day out tries even a saints composure...the amount of customers I have talked to who shouldn't even be alowed in the same room as a computer is mind numbing All that aside, I have since moved up in the eircom ranks (thank god no more incoming calls ) and gathered quite a extensive knowledge of eircoms systems and its networks in ireland. I now work within the complaints system and can and do impliment improvements on our customer satisfaction agenda, its a slow tedious process, but were working on it. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions (within reason and please be an adult) I will do my utmost to assist any query

[game4it70]

hi ronin and welome.
nice post.lol your going to be a busy man here i'd say.
do u know anything about cable modems? because i've just found a prob with mine that digiweb's engineers that replaced my modem missed!

[RoninIV]

I don't have much knowledge of cable modems beyond the basics such as getting into the interface page and telling you what settings you might need depending on your ISP, as you say you have digiweb I would suggest trying their support page or go to boards.ie and see if you can search their forums if you have exhausted this sites info. If all else fails, Google it My last ISP in Florida was with my local cable company and it was never a problem but then again I am not to familiar with Ireland's cable ISP's other than NTL. If you can list some of the issues with it and the make and model, I’d be happy to take a gander online.

[game4it70]

thanks for reply,
its a thompson thg520 modem and heres a link to my post on boards.ie
Am I the only one having major problems with Digiweb? - boards.ie
ps hope link works
thank you

[howfast]

Originally Posted by RoninIV

I have since moved up in the eircom ranks (thank god no more incoming calls ) and gathered quite a extensive knowledge of eircoms systems and its networks in ireland. I now work within the complaints system and can and do impliment improvements on our customer satisfaction agenda, its a slow tedious process, but were working on it. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions (within reason and please be an adult) I will do my utmost to assist any query

Hi RoninIV

Welcome to our fair land and to the forum.

Any chance you'd know if Eircom have been overselling the Bitstream product particularly in rural exchanges? I've had fairly good DL speeds for a couple of years until about 3 months ago at about the time Eircon put on a major marketing push and also increased the distance from the exchange at which they supply DSL. Now without fail every evening I'm lucky to get 1Mbps speed even though I've got the 3Mbps package.

I've checked out everything from modem to internal cabling to logging a line fault with Eircom [the local line engineer told me my line was next to perfect and I should get the full 3Mbps] but still the problem continues to frustrate.

I suspect that the problem is caused because the bandwidth serving my local exchange is not enough to service the total number of subscribers connected. You see when I test speed at 8am I get 2.65Mbps but come 5pm this drops to anything between 50kbps and 800kbps and sometimes when I'm really lucky I get 1.5Mbps.

Howfast

[RoninIV]

To be quite honest I am guessing your on one of the ASAM's that are overbooked. We have a growing number of customers who are getting int./no synch issues in relation to oversubscribed exchanges. Now this is not really news as Eircom has been aware of this for some time, and only recently have they released a List of new stations around ireland to help relieve the congestion (Damien Mulley » Blog Archive » eircom to enable another 100 exchanges, 120k more people can avail of broadband) because that is what it really is, as you say, you come home in the evening and jump on and get lower bandwidth than say in the morning. I partly blame the sales staff as they are just throwing anything and everything to the public to get the almight euro and sign up new customers, and couldnt give a damn to the rest of us who have to shoulder the weight of new people taking away the bandwidth. So to sum up, no you havent done anything wrong and I doubt your equipment is in any way faulty, its just a matter of to many people in your area. Hopefuly this will be resolved but I cant give you a date or time. If it gets any worse I would suggest changing to a new ISP, even though you would be jumpered in the same exchange, Eircom provide racks/ports for other ISP to rent and perhaps they can suit your needs better as they are on a seperate line(so to speak) and dont compete with eircom customers.

[howfast]

Originally Posted by RoninIV

If it gets any worse I would suggest changing to a new ISP, even though you would be jumpered in the same exchange, Eircom provide racks/ports for other ISP to rent and perhaps they can suit your needs better as they are on a seperate line(so to speak) and dont compete with eircom customers.

Hi RoninIV

Many thanks for the quick reply.

I didn't say on the previous post but I'm already using an alternative isp. Does this mean that they have similarly oversold their capacity on the exchange or is it all down to the total number of every isp's customers on the exchange?

What I really would like to know is does the solution for people using other isp's lie with their own isp or with Eircom.

Howfast

[RoninIV]

It lies with the individual ISP, eircom provides rental area for whomever wants to rent it, but the 'rental' area is the sole domain of the rentee, therefore its bandwidth is its own, and if they overuse it, its their fault not eircoms.