Ask A Broadsheet Reader

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Screen Shot 2016-02-01 at 15.34.37

Screengrab from water.ie

Owen writes:

“Just tried to access my water bill from abroad. Wouldn’t load, so asked customer service via the Twitter machine. I got this response: ‘We are aware of some customers having difficulties accessing water.ie from outside Ireland. Our IT team are working to resolve this issue as soon as possible.’ Why would they need to geo-block water.ie?”

Anyone?

17 thoughts on “Ask A Broadsheet Reader

  1. max

    weren’t they d’dos’d a while back. Cutting traffic from outside Ireland is the simplest way to stop that.

  2. MoyestWithExcitement

    “We are aware of some customers having difficulties accessing water.ie”

    “We are aware” Geo blocking, afaik, is down to advertising and content licensing. Irish Water’s story up to this point, coupled with the words ‘we are aware….’ makes me think the reason it’s geoblocked is simply incompetence. Someone probably clicked on something they shouldn’t have.

    1. ROB

      I just checked – work internet access is visa the UK (handy for the BBC Player) … no access to water.ie from my phone on WiFi. Turn off WiFi – using Eir 4G – and voila – water.ie returns a result.
      There are products out there that can block access to websites based on where you are coming from.

  3. Condescending Nana

    in fairness what kind of sad busybody would access their water bill from abroad? go have fun, get laid, go to a museum, spend some of that pile you are saving from not paying water you miserable git.

    1. Cian

      I suspect they live there and still own property here; and its pretty likely that they’ve got to pay for it wherever they are to begin with.

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