Eir Customer Service
Eir Treating Rural Customers Like Second Class Citizens
Formally Trading as Eircom,
Eir is treating rural customers as second class citizens. When one travels
along the rural roads of County Meath, it is easy to see why Eir Customers feel
that they are being treated as second class citizens by Eir, many Eircom
telegraph poles can be seen leaning towards the ground, with some defying
gravity, this poor infrastructural maintenance by Eircom and now Eir would not
be tolerated or indeed allowed along the leafy suburbs of Dublin, yet Eir
appear to think that it is acceptable to fire-manage their infrastructure in
rural county Meath, indeed, most of rural Ireland can be seen to suffer from
the same Eircom now Eir neglect, and what can be described as reckless
endangerment of the public.
Eir Customer Review
In rural Meath one woman tells
her story about her treatment as a customer of Eircom and now Eir:
I live in rural Meath, about
15 minutes from Kells and so not as isolated as most of rural Ireland and that
is why I fear to think how Eir customers are being treated in more remote
areas. I had Eir connect a landline and Internet services 3 years ago, the
entire infrastructure was new, new cable taken directly from the Eircom pole
that services the local area, all of the cables inside my home were brand new
and provided by Eircom, wall sockets, computer and all the trappings were brand
new with regular security updates on my computer hardware and software.
Eir Service
Shortly after the euphoria of
having been connected to the internet and being able to run my business on-line
and from home, I began to notice that my internet was more often off-line than
on-line. I contacted Eircom Customer Service where I was subjected to the usual
wait, and finally when I got an Eir Customer Service Representative on the line
who described himself as technical support, he asked me to, “Switch it Off and
Switch It On”. Soon the Eir Customer Service technical support representative
agreed with me that there was something more “Structurally Wrong” with the Eir
Service that I was receiving, the Eir representative told me that he had placed
my technical problem into a waiting list and that an “Engineer” would call to
look at the problem within 10 working days. I explained to the Eir Representative
that I was dependent on the internet to run my business and this was my only
means of income. The Representative said that he would place my concerns on the
file and hopefully speed up the process.
Eir Customer Support
After 7 days without internet
services and trying to run my business by mobile phone, mainly contacting
customers and apologising for not answering their e-mail queries, an Eir Engineer
arrived at my house. He explained that he was from KN, which is a company that
is sub-contracted originally by Eircom and now by Eir to carry out certain
engineering works. The engineer from KN said that he would have to check the
line back to the sub-station and then he would report back to me, in the
evening the KN engineer reported that he had not found any fault and would have
to continue checking the line in the morning. The following morning, I was
driving to Kells and I did see the KN engineer at the top of a telegraph pole,
however, I would be told on another occasion that that pole has no relationship
to my service. On the second evening the KN engineer checked my Eir connection
in my house and said that all was well, he had in fact found a pin hole along
the main cable on the road and this was most likely letting in moisture to the
delicate cables inside. To be honest, this story sounded far-fetched as the
cable from the sub-station to my house is several Km long and the KN engineer
had no Hoist to get him up to the line, only a ladder to get him up the pole.
So how he identified a pin hole along the several Km of line and then got up to
repair it remains a mystery.
Eir Service resumes
The next day all appeared
well, however, after waiting almost 10 tens to get back to business, I possibly
overlooked how slow my Eir Broadband Service actually was and indeed when it
completely went off-line for long periods I walked away and made a cup of tea
or took a walk outside. Eventually I had to admit that my Eir Broadband Service
was simply not working, and all of this time I am paying through the nose to be
treated like a second class citizen. I again phoned Eir on my mobile as my
landline was also out of order, again I was told by a different Customer
Support Representitive to “Switch it off and Switch it on”, which was like a
mantra from a Little Britain Episode. Eventually the Eir Customer Service representative
on the other end of the phone accepted that there were serious issues with my
Eir Service as he could see from his computer that I was not getting anything
like the 4G Broadband power that I was paying for. Again I was told that I was
listed for an engineer to visit my home and that would happen within the next
10 days, I again explained the urgency of my situation as my business was
internet dependent, again I was told that a note would be placed on my file and
hopefully speed things up.
Eir Technical Support
12 days after my complaint to
Eir and Eircom’s acknowledgement of my poor service provision an Engineer from
KN arrived at my door, this time to tell me that because of the distance that I
was from the sub-station I could never have received the promised broadband
that I was paying for, he said he had reduced my 4G and this should improve the
service.
Eir
Broadband Provision
The above process has now been
completed on 7 occasions and my Broadband service from Eir continues to be very
poor with many mornings and afternoons of business lost as I have no internet
connection at all or it is so slow that it takes up to 15 minutes simply to
open Google. When a neighbour reported that a telegraph pole was leaning dangerously
towards the main road, an Eir engineer arrived and the pole remains several
months later posing a serious threat to public Health and Safety.
Eir
Urban Broadband provision
I had occasion to stay in a 4
Star Hotel in O’Connell Street in Dublin in May 2016 and happened to have a
conversation with a member of staff on the front desk about Broadband, I asked how
they managed when their Broadband went down or there was a technical issue, I
was told very clearly that if their Broadband went down or there was a technical
issue, which was very rare, Eir would have an engineer or engineers on site
within hours, they had never waited more than hours for an engineer from Eircom
or now Eir. The front of house staff member told me that they were never
without Broadband for any length of time beyond a couple of hours and she had
worked there for the past 15 years.
Eir Final Solution
Finally, I called Eir and
asked them if I would have an improved service if I moved to another Broadband
provider and they said I could change provider if I so wished, however, such a
provider would still be using Eir infrastructure and I would have exactly the
same service as with Eir no matter what promises were made to me by another Broadband
Service Provider.
Customer Review
The above Customer Review of
Eir Broadband services has been authenticated by means of copies of
communications between Eir and the customer and it is clear from this personal testimony
that Eircom AKA Eir are indeed treating Rural Customers as second class
citizens and excusing that treatment with a trail of misleading information and
the usual excuses about the difficulty of providing Broadband in rural settings,
excuses that are not tolerated by the Governments of other developed European
Countries. It is time for Eir to be held to account for promises and charging
for services that they cannot realistically deliver with their present policy
of infrastructural neglect and fire-management maintenance.
Foot
Note: KN Network Services have been awarded the contract in 2013 to
provide a fully managed service to eircom for the NGA broadband rollout.
Keywords: Eir Broadband, Eir
Customer Service, Eir Telecommunications, Eir Broadband Review, Eir technical
support
