Smart broadband

[karlf]

Got smart in there a few weeks back and having nothing but trouble with it. Its one of those pay €35 euro a month and use as much as you want deals. The problem is every other day it wont work for hours at a time. I rang the tech support and all they say is that because i have an extension cable from the point in the hall running up to a bed room(15m at most) that this is causing a problem. Sounds like a load of crap to me. Cant understand how it works 9/10 times i try to connect. Surely if it was because of the cable length it wouldn't work at all. I'm no expert on this but I've done similar things before (in work) and never had this problem. Seems to be only at what you would call peak times it happens, or after a day of high usage of the service and weekends (when you can't ring them as they only open monday to friday. Anyone had any similar problems???

[ikeane]

I've had my fair share of probs with broadband providers but I'm just after joining Chorus and they've been good to me so far.

I'd eliminate their suggestion first. Bring your comp down to the socket and use a short cable to connect. After that ring up tech support and get straight on to a manager (this prob wont be easy) and give em hell. Dont be afraid to bring up the 'Director of Consumer Affairs' in your ranting as you're not getting what you paid for. Its probable that there's something in the contract you signed to cover Smart in this eventuality but if you nag them enough....
btw I find unless your talking to a manager/supervisor there's not much they can do.

On the other hand you could just get someone who's nice and fix the prob straight away, sheer luck

[CJ]

You're onto a winner with Smart anyway!

Give this a go - open up the admin page of your broadband router/modem in a browser (if you're unsure of the address, open a command prompt and type 'ipconfig' - the gateway address is most likely the router address). There should be a status page of some description that lists attenuation and noise levels - take a note of the latter. Move the whole lot downstairs near the phone point and try again - if theres a marked difference in noise, then your extention cable is at fault.

If you're not using a DSL filter \ splitter (telco should have supplied one), get one and hook it into the phone socket.

CJ

[Bernard]

Try phoning eircom, they seem to have smart by the short and curlies at the moment

[Ronanc]

wont be long until the broadband from smart is gone too i reckon

[karlf]

Will try the noise level the next time it wont work. Its working with the extension cable now so no point doing that at the minute I reckon. Rang them up and complained again, they are sticking to the cable being too long. I'd belive that if it never worked, or atleast if they explained how it causes it not to work. Instead of just repeating over and over "we cant gaurentee supply with using an extension cable", or as i was told the other day "put in a new phone point beside the computer". You'd think when they came out to install the thing in the first place they'd advise you that you need the point beside the computer. Instead of "oh there's a point in the hall already (from eircom) we can use that"
Going bust might get us out of a bit of bother seen as we're only bout 6 weeks into a 12month contract.

[RussMan]

Think you've problems..... We've our entire IT infrastructure revolving around Smart and now i'm having to get some other ISP cowboys in to reconfigure our voice and data lines.... We've a 15 mb Fibre connection with Smart that looks like we'll lose and our entire organisation cannot receive inbound calls.

Comreg should be shot!

[CJ]

Think you've problems..... We've our entire IT infrastructure revolving around Smart and now i'm having to get some other ISP cowboys in to reconfigure our voice and data lines

Thats a huge pain in whole. If you need someone to bounce ideas off, give me a shout. Theres a lot to be said for carrier independance!

CJ

[Muad_dib77]

What's the story with smart? they going bust?

[karlf]

Think they worked something out, was told anyone who was without their phone for the few days smart were unable to supply, are getting a year free connection. you've to have been off for the whole 3 days to qualify for it.
Thats sounds rough russman, dont know exactly what it all means (bit of a technophobe me). hopefully it'l get sorted though.

[RussMan]

Smart aren't really bust.. that havn't gone into liquidation just yet.
Our voice services have all returned but i've been up on the roof all week doing a site survey for a dish for wireless broadband just in case..... As if i don't have enough to worry about... now i've got to deal with vertigo

[CJ]

i've been up on the roof all week doing a site survey for a dish for wireless broadband just in case.....

Looks at the positive side - its good to get out of the office from time to time If I was in your shoes (and budget allows), I'd get wireless in anyway for backup purposes - you could use it as a redundant link in the event the primary one fails, some clever routing would allow for immediate failover in the event of an outage.

CJ

[pergau]

Russman,

If you're looking at wireless broadband or lines, make sure that it's not Irish Broadband who is supplying. We have several of our wan links through them and it's now known here as "Almost on" broadband. The service is S**T (they were capital asterixs by the way)

Lag is terrible and it drops regularly for a few minutes.

[CJ]

make sure that it's not Irish Broadband who is supplying

I can second that - I tried giving them some business and they just couldn't commit to install dates - 3 months after the initial order I cancelled it. WRT IB, I think its a case of to much too soon - they did all this advertising then had trouble fulfilling orders. I'm not surprised that pergau has experienced issues in terms of latency and overall connectivity, shower of chancers if you ask me. Clearwire and Digiweb are worth looking at.

CJ

[RussMan]

Result - Got a upgrade due to patchy service.... 20 MB Symmetric service!

[Muad_dib77]

Holy poo that's fast!

[CJ]

Result - Got a upgrade due to patchy service.... 20 MB Symmetric service!

Nice, is it with Smart?

CJ

[RussMan]

the 20 meg is with Smart... Putting an Irish Broadband antenna up as a failover only... I hate wireless but its the best we can get for the moment.
there has been a few changes internally with IBB and they seem a little more focused...
Watch this space!

[Muad_dib77]

I saw a smart advert on telly last night (during the weather) - I didnt' think they were taking more customers onboard..

Hardly seems the smart choice these days (sorry couldn't help it)

[RussMan]

I'm still fairly loyal to Smart. They've been bought by a new company registered as BitCom - Owner Brendan Murtagh or something like that for the grand price of 1 euro.... sounds like the bet out of 'Coming to America' !!! Brendan The Brave Murtagh as i like to call him has taken on the 40 million euro debt and plans on turning things around.

I wish him the best!

[Muad_dib77]

Fair play - well there's a customer base to work with at present.

It's not like he's bought the cat in the bag - but still 40mill down.. ouch!