Comedy of EIR-rors

Inishowen will not have high-speed fibre broadband under the National Broadband Plan until 2026, at the earliest, according to National Broadband Ireland.

However, that did not deter Eir salespeople from encouraging one customer in the peninsula to have high-speed fibre optic broadband installed in their Carndonagh home.

Speaking to the Inish Live, the customer, who wished to remain anonymous said it all began when they started to notice their telephone bundle bill increasing.

“So I phoned up Eir at the end of September 2021, to find out why the increases were happening. When I checked back on my bills, the cost of my bundle had increased from approximately €45 per month to €79 per month.

“After a lot of toing and froing, they told me I was being charged for items singly, which should have been included in the bundle, because my contract was up. I told them no-one had ever contacted me about the contract expiring.

“The agent then offered me high-speed fibre optic broadband. They said it would be cheaper than my existing bundle and it would be installed in 10 days and it would be a two-year contract. It would be held at a two year contract at that price.

“So, I agreed, although I still have good broadband without it, luckily. Well, there came two vans of installers and they spent about three or four hours here.

“They bored a hole in the house, to being in the fibre optic cable, the new system, the greatest thing that ever was. I had to give permission, of course, to have a hole bored in the house.”
Unfortunately, when the installers switched on the broadband, it did not work.

“They told me it needed some patching. They went to an exchange and they said there was some patching that needed to be done but it would be sorted within a few days. They also put in an installation in the house on the wall. It had flashing lights. They were blinking on and off and the installers said once the lights stopped blinking, my fibre optic broadband would be active.

“So, I kept watching for about a month and the lights never stopped blinking. I phoned Eir back after a couple of weeks. They apologised and said it would not be installed until at least January or February 2022. That did not happen.

“I got a call after that to say, that an installer would be coming to install the fibre optic broadband in my house,” they laughed,

“but, as it had already been installed, I phoned them back and told them to cancel.

“It was them I checked National Broadband Ireland's National Broadband Plan and discovered it was going to be here in about 2026, four years away, at the earliest and it could be even later.”