Moving to Ireland, what a nightmare

[Systreg]

I'm moving to Ireland in a couple of days and I thought getting broadband over there was a nightmare, it's just getting worse now that I find out I have to close my Google Adsense account as well, as you can't change your address to another country, so need to open a new account when I get to Ireland, just friggin great, now I'll have to change every Adsense ad on each site I use it on, not sure I can be bothered with that, so might be easier to do without Adsens and just delete code from sites.

Then just a few minutes ago I went to change my postal address to the Ireland address in my PayPal account, only to find you're not allowed to do that, ffs, you first need to withdraw all funds to your bank and then close your account and open a new on in Ireland arrrrggggghhhhhhhh , and you need a credit card in Ireland to top up or withdraw funds to, not like in the UK where we can use our Visa Electron debit card, so new bloody bank account needed over there with a credit card.

Now I have another problem, if I withdraw the funds in my PayPal to our bank here, the bank details are supposedly being changed to the Irish address but having postcode probles with that, so will the funds still go to the bank or get stuck somewhere in cyber space or frozen at PayPal if they can't transfer it to the bank?

Then there is the subject or getting broadband in Ireland, really doing my head in complete nightmare, We'll be staying at my mums place, so she phones Eircom and they say no, we don't supply broadband to your area, jesus christ. But wait, simple, I'll use mobile broadband dongle, no, can't do that because the edge of my mums land runs along a valley with a huge hill rising above it blocking mobile signals, even got this company www.rapidbroadband.ie out to install their broadband service, they had a dish all over the place and got zero signal from anywhere because their transmitter is miles away on the other side of the bastard hill.

So because of not being able to get broadband, I decide to go and rent a house in a small town not far from my mums, my mum goes to look at a property and gets talking to the woman owner, she asks my mum where she's from, she tells here and says she knows a woman who lives out that way, turns out the woman is my mums next door neighbour, small world eh.

Anyway, my mum gets back home and she hasn't seen her neighbour for a while as my mum is not long back from a cruise, but sees her that same day, they are chatting and the neighbour starts moaning about her son making her computer slow by downloading a load of crap on to it off the net.

So my mum goes, what, you have broadband? Yes says the neighbour, she's had it installed for the last 2 weeks, her company provides it so she can work from home, so my mum thinks it must be some sort of company setup to provide her with the internet connection, but no, the neighbour says it's home broadband from Eircom, yes, the same bloody Eircom my mum phoned a few days earlier and was told they don't supply home broadband in her area, accept her neighbour 20 feet away has just had it installed, idiots.

So my mum gets back on to Eircom and they say a new line needs to be fitted costing €120 but there is no guarantee that it will work, supposed to be putting the line in this Friday just gone and then testing it for broadband capability tomorrow, but Eircom say there is no guarantee it'll work even though next doors has it, they say there might be 10 houses in a row all with a broadband line, but only 1 of the 10 house might be able to actually get online, and they don't actually know why, what a shite system, they are years behind over there. Fingers crossed for good news about the connection tomorrow when they test it, otherwise I need to fork out €600 - €700 a month for a house in town just so I can get a damn internet connection, when the whole idea of staying at my mums for a year was to be their rent free instead of paying rent for our place in the UK and lining a landlords pocket when it's better off in out pocket to save toward buying or building a new house.

Another problem is there there is no post code system in the Republic of Ireland, they were planning to bring a system in for that in 2011 but have made a technical error with the tender so companies can't now put in a price for the contract, so that'll probably now be another couple of years past that before/if it's introduced.

But because there is no post code there, it's causing problems with our bank as they say their system wont accept the address without a postcode, also owed money by the BBC TV licence people, but they can't send what they owe to Ireland because they need to enter a bloody post code on their computer, ffs, nightmare.

Oh yeah, and if a letter was addressed to me or my other half, it would take an age to get there unless it has "care of Mr and Mrs xxxxx" on the envelope, because my mums is way out in the sticks and the postman only knows addresses by the names of people who he knows live there, my mum said she had a package sent for someone and they forgot the care of bit in the address and it took over a month for the Irish post office to find out exactly which address it should go to, so friggin backwards of a place it is, lunatics, wishing I had now decided to stay where the hell I am in England

 

[GreyWing]

Sounds like a bit of an epic tale, usually I'd try to offer some sort of constructive advice, but you are screwed and so far gone the samaritans is the only thing I can suggest. But not even sure if they accept calls from Ireland on their freephone number.

 

[Systreg]

Cheers Graeme, I think if I did actually get through the Samaritans, they would just throw their hands up in the air and admit defeat

I thought moving in to my mums place would be a doddle, move in, get the broadband on, change PayPal postal address etc, had no idea would need to close Google and PayPal accounts and other problems, looks so easy on paper, now if I can't get the broadband connection at her place, I'll be paying out more over there than I pay to rent where I am here, so that'll be the whole saving part of the plan out of the window, grrrrrrrrrr

[edit]

And it's not like I can pull out now and stay here, notice handed in on flat, ferry is booked, hotel booked for my mum here when they come to pick us up, and I've given away all our household furniture and other items on Freecycle as we are just talking clothes, laptops and the 3 cats with us. I Suppose the bleeding ferry will sink on the way just to cap it all :lol:

 

[Skinner]

I sent ALOT of packages to southern ireland and its not uncommon to put

Kev
Via X Shop
C/o Mrs X
Town

So it probably goes from me to the post shop, where the milkman or whatever picks it up, and drops it off, kinda thing. I had one with 2 via's and a care of once too.

The kicker is, one clients work has a post code, but 5 miles down the road their home doesn't, so recorded delivery small packet £1.40 to their work, 5 miles up the road £6.07 as it goes to international signed for. Work next day postage, home 5 days, takes the mick that royal mail charge so damned much for a line on a map.

You maybe better speaking to a larger bank bud. I'm with barclays and I have accounts in a few countries setup by them, so they can probably open your account in ireland and change your details internally ? worth a thought.

 

[crabfoot]

Satellite Broadband from Kingston Comms works anywhere with electric - stupid cost compared to land line, cheaper than renting a house.

Barclays definitely good bank for international mucking about - Skinner right. HSBC not bad also, Lloyds rubbish.

 

[AssetDomains]

Wow major hassles mate sounds like the pace of life will be much calmer when the initial troubles are ironed out. Are you staying in Ireland after the years up if not do you have a trusted friend or relative whos address you could park your financials with for a year

 

[jwm]

Why not set up an account with these guys for your adsense account

https://www.scanmypost.co.uk/

I would imagine you would only need a very light user account (£10 per year) since correspondence from Google will be minimal. Would at least save you the hassle of changing all your websites with a new adsense account.

 

[JMOT]

And if you thought all that was bad the weather is even more depressing than the UK.... Lol

 

[Systreg]

More bad news, just phoned my mum to see how they got on testing the new line for broadband, and she says Eircom were out for hours on Friday trying to install the new line but couldn't do it, something about it needs something else and something else which costs a lot and isn't available blah blah blah, planks.

They also said that if the property had previously had broadband installed then they could have done it, so how the hell can the house 20 feet away get a fresh line in and not my mums? Fecking ridiculous. There are only 3 houses where my mum lives, the one next door and one further down the lane, there is a telegraph pole outside my mums and the next door house and the phone wires go from that to each house, so it beggars belief that they can connect one house but not the other, seriously fecking annoyed at the moment

@ Skinner, yes, it's a bit like that in that it needs to have her name as the care of name next to any postal mail.

Satellite Broadband from Kingston Comms works anywhere with electric - stupid cost compared to land line, cheaper than renting a house.

Yes, I looked at another satellite company site link that was given to me and they want £112 per mont but that's only for 12GB of bandwidth, I need at least 50GB per month, so not worth it at those costs and Kingston probably aren't much different price wise, can't say for sure because I just looked at their www.k-c.co.uk site and can't see anything about a satellite service on there?

Are you staying in Ireland after the years up if not do you have a trusted friend or relative whos address you could park your financials with for a year

Well, the plan was to stay until xmas next year simply to save some extra cash rather than giving a landlord money, then either go and buy in France as was my original plan, or, the other alternative was to build a house in Ireland as my mum has given us 1/2 an acre of land if we wish to build a house.

But, where the house would be built, it's in the samed valley below the big bloody hill, so I would be in the same position of not being able tog et broadband there, so having to have second thoughts about that now, alth
ough financially, building a house is cheap, it's the land that costs a lot, so getting the land for free we could build a place for about €70K which would then be worth €250k - €300k on it's nice sized plot, but they sometimes stipulate a 7 year order on new built properties meaning you can't sell on for 7 years from the build date, not always the case but they can add a clause saying that, then again, could always rent it out and still get a place in France and live off the rental fees, so options still open on that one.

Why not set up an account with these guys for your adsense account

https://www.scanmypost.co.uk/

Yes, somethinbg like that might be ok, but on the other hand, I don't earn a great deal from Adsense, only about £120 per year, so no great loss if I was to lose that I suppose.

And if you thought all that was bad the weather is even more depressing than the UK.... Lol

Thanks for reminding me about that Tom, git :lol:, it does get a lot of wet weather in Cork according to my mum, it's been very hot there this summer, but also a lot of rain in the winter months, the town near her (Bandon) was flooded by the river last year due to very heavy rainfall, stuff was floating out of shops down the high street and loads of property wrecked.

 

[Admin]

I feel for your story. My father is from Cavan is Southern Ireland and moved back there recently to our family home (a cottage in the middle of no-where). We had the same challenges with broad-band.

When you run a bath it draws water from the lake opposite, so you get used to the brownish water in your freshly-run bath after a while; not!

My grand-dad lives there too being 97 now so the pace of life and fresh air must be doing something good. He only stopped driving a couple years ago but his car is older than he is - never having seen an MOT or anything.

Ireland really is decades behind anywhere else I have been but that gives it it's charm that I love to visit, not sure I could live there.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[Bailey]

Ireland really is decades behind anywhere else I have been but that gives it it's charm that I love to visit, not sure I could live there.

And there was I trying to find the correct words - you took them right out of my mouth. My eldest daughter lives in Co Longford. and I really wanted to be able to comment on the realities of life thats almost semi-rural everywhere and with services to match.

 

[Systreg]

@ Alan, not sure I like the idea of bathing in murky lake water :lol: Yes, it's decades behind other places, not bad if you live in a hub like Dublin etc, but anywhere remote/rural is a pain, but then you do have the nice quiet country life, so six of one and half a dozen of the other

Like most rural homes, my mums place has it's own water well/bore hole so the water is at least clean and fresh. I did just say to my Mrs, sod it shall we just stay here haha, but too much is planned to not go now, will just have to get there and make the most of what's available, there will be frighteningly slow dial up to use at my mums at least until I get sorted one way or another with broadband.

Regarding banking, with us having no credit rating in Ireland, it might be difficult to get a credit card if we open a bank account there to use for PayPal, so I might see if I can get my mums husband to open a new account/credit card in his name and just use that for the time being.

 

[retired_member16]

You sound surprised that it's backward, so would say quaint where you are planning on moving too?

You also said that you need 50 gig a month and was considering using mobile broadband, what the hell do you do that needs 50 gig? Eircom would go mental on that type of usage.

I call Eircom NOC on a daily basis to fault leased lines or sea cables and when I open a ticket with them, regardless of the time of day, their ticket numbers are always single digits.

"Oh eye son, that's ticket number 6" - makes me laugh as Ive fixed six network issues before I've had my second cup of cofffee of the day...

 

[namealot]

In general out of the cities its terrible... This board can be quite helpful

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=259

But don’t expect too much most of the countryside uses two tin cans and a piece of string ???

 

[Systreg]

You sound surprised that it's backward, so would say quaint where you are planning on moving too?

No Lee, I'm not surprised at it being so backwards over there, all my family are Irish so I knew what to expect, it's just that not being able to get broadband is my main issue with me, especially pissing me off as the house next door has it, I would live in a garden shed as long as I had access to broadband

what the hell do you do that needs 50 gig? Eircom would go mental on that type of usage.

My kid plays a lot of racing type games on sites he goes on, so we use a good 1.5GB of bandwith a day with me also being online for about 16 hours a day and then the Mrs on her laptop for quite a few hours as well, all adds up. The Eircom package I was hoping to get does supply 50GB a month usage so that would have been fine had we been able to get broadband and use that Eircom plan.

 

[Admin]

Can't you install a decent wifi antenna next door and offer to share her costs?

 

[MCNM]

Can't you install a decent wifi antenna next door and offer to share her costs?

I was just thinking that..

 

[Systreg]

@ Alan, I don't know the first thing about wifi antenna's, would you mean something like this that I just Googled or something different?:

http://www.wifi-antennas.co.uk/index.php?target=products&product_id=10

Not sure the neighbour would be up for anything like that as her work pay for her broadband connection.

Alternatively, I had thought about connecting a couple of long scaffolding poles together and concreting them in the ground with an antenna on the top, that might receive a better mobile broadband signal, but I would have no idea if you need to wire that up with it being mobile broadband, or would it just mean with it being higher it might pick up the mobile signal and then the wireless dongle would just pick up a signal from the antenna without any need for wires

 

[crabfoot]

Umm - just found out that the Kingston Sat broadband is only available to addresses in this region.

Checked with my cousin in Donegal, he says all Irish sat broadband costs about 100 a month with a 12Gb limit. He made vague muttering sounds about cable services being available in some places, and maybe you could find a caravan site near one because it keeps the rates down, rather than renting a building.

With mobile phone broadband, it depends where you are relative to transmitters as to what service you get. Out here in the boondocks, mine runs at dialup speeds, in a city it works a LOT faster.

 

[Systreg]

Hi all,

I'm now in Ireland, the trip over was ok, it rained most of the way along the motorway, but about 30 minutes before we got to the ferry at Fishguard, the rain vanished and was replaced with clear blue skies and sunshine, I sat on the open top deck of the ferry all the way over, very windy but warm sun and sea wasn't a bit rough, perfect

I tried my mums dial up broadband when I got here, damn, it's even slower than the BT dial up I had in about 2002, VERY SLOWWWWWWW, unreal. I bought a 3 mobile broadband dongle, that's what I'm on now, but initially only got the complimentary 100mb on it as didn't want to buy more in case it didn't work where we are. Just bunged €35 on it today cfor 20GB for the next month, if I can get a better signal sorted out will move to a 3 contract instead as it's a lot cheaper.

The dongle signal isn't brilliant, only one bar lit up on the signal indicator, but if I face a different way it goes to two bars which is a bit quicker, about 3-6 seconds for a page to load or so compared to 30 seconds or more on 1 bar, will do for now but not ideal, except it often drops to zero bars on the signal, still pondering whether to rent a place which will be home broadband capable instead, will see how it goes.

Also, going to try a wifi antenna well outside and also get a long usb cable and sellotape the dongle to the window glass and from there by usb cable to laptop, might get another bar up and faster page load doing that possibly.

Anyway, lovely peace and quiet here, all you can hear is bird song, but I had to tell her to shut up as she's crap at singing haha, but seriously, lovely being back here again, glad I decided to move here, now if I can just get a better wireless signal I'll be well happy