Exchanges being upgraded to ADSL 2+

From the Eircom website, here's a list of exchanges due to be upgraded to ADSL 2+
From eircom website:

(Tuesday, 22nd July 2008) eircom is currently implementing a series of DSL broadband speed upgrades which will significantly increase Internet speeds available to a large portion of eircom's retail and wholesale customers.


The upgrade programme consists of two stages:
1. The installation of ADSL2+ equipment in 117 of the largest exchanges in Ireland.
2. An automated software upgrade for the majority of eircom retail and wholesale customers currently on 2Mb or 3Mb broadband.


Stage 1 - ADSL2+ Upgrade
The installation of ADSL2+ equipment to our largest telephone exchanges allows eircom to offer speeds of up to 12Mb on its network. This process has been completed in more than 100 exchanges to date. Existing broadband customers, previously on 4Mb or 6Mb broadband, that have a line which qualifies for the faster speeds and who are connected to one of the following exchanges are in the process of being upgraded to 10Mb and 12Mb respectively.

List Of Completed Exchanges

Stage 2 - Automated Software Upgrades
The automated software upgrade for eircom retail and wholesale DSL customers is underway and will take place over a number of phases. Customers on the 2Mb product, whose lines pre-qualify will be upgraded to 3Mb and customers on the 3Mb product whose lines pre-qualify will be upgraded to 7.6Mb.

Phase 1

Qualifying customers in these areas have already been upgraded

Phase 2 - July

Exchanges scheduled for upgrade over the weekend of 26th July

Phase 2 - August

Exchanges scheduled for upgrade over the weekend of 9th August


A schedule for broadband upgrades for all remaining exchanges will be published as soon as it has been finalised and other operators have been informed.

Documents are in PDF format, you'll need Adobe Acrobat to read them

Eircom's Official Reponse to delays on 8MB Upgrades.

It seems Eircom Press Office is running overtime using templates when people send them e-mails querying the 8MB Upgrade delay.

Here's their response:


Sections in brackets are removed or advising.

The speed upgrades have been taking place on a phased basis over the last number of months and will continue throughout the next 6 to 8 weeks. We have extended the list of exchanges that will be upgraded which has naturally had an impact on our date for completion of all upgrades.

If your telephone line is connected to the (EXCHANGE NAME HERE) exchange, then speed increases on the eircom 2Mb broadband product and the eircom 3Mb broadband product will come into effect in this exchange in the next 6 to 8 weeks.

The speed upgrades for these specific products will apply to all telephone exchanges nationwide for customers whose telephone line qualifies for these speeds. The 2Mb product will be upgraded to 3Mb and the 3Mb product will be upgraded to 7.6Mb. The 3Mb broadband product upgrade to 7.6Mb will not utilise ADSL2+ technology.

(THE BELOW SECTION DEPENDS ON YOUR EXCHANGE BEING ENABLED FOR ADSL2+)

The (EXCHANGE NAME HERE) exchange was ADSL2+ enabled last month. Customers served on this exchange who wish to avail of our 12Mb product, and whose telephone line qualifies, can contact our broadband customer service team on 1800 242 558 to place an order.

Best Regards

Press Officer

So lets hold Eircom to their word, I expect to see 8MB speeds available to Eircom and Eircom Wholesale customers in 6-8 weeks.

Re-Design

Its been a few years now since this site started and I felt with the recent renewed interest in Eircom with regards to its delayed speed upgrades to upto 8MB it was time to bring the website back to life and get people talking about why we continue to put up with poor Broadband availability throughout Ireland (via DSL) and slow Broadband speeds when compared to other European country's.

Hope everyone likes the new look and everyone keeps discussing Eircom's issues either on this site or Boards.ie's Broadband Forum.

Eircom delay 8MB speed upgrade and piss off their customers!

Back in January 2008 Eircom announced they'd be upgrading many exchanges in Ireland to upto 8MB speeds:

Retail broadband customers will continue to pay the same monthly fee and will receive the speed upgrades free of charge, while today’s announcement will provide lower wholesale broadband prices.

eircom will now offer broadband products with download speeds that range from 1Mb up to 12Mb per second. The speed upgrades and new products will be introduced on a phased basis over the coming months.

They also advised that final dates for each exchange would be finalized between January and June 2008, well at the end of June 2008 they announced these would be delayed until a as of yet unconfirmed date.

For all those people on Eircom and stuck using Eircom Wholesale Bit-Stream resellers (UTV, Perlico, BT (for the most part), Vodafone etc this is yet another reason why Eircom sucks!

On the other scale of things UPC (NTL/Chorus) recently announced packages of upto 20MB speeds which they've already began rolling out to customers....no set cap either (includes a Fair Usage Policy I'd imagine though).

Perhaps this will force Eircom into spending money on ADSL2+ who knows, I guess time will tell.

Any further comments on this delay from Eircom customers or employee's are welcome.