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McRedmond on Prime Time

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  • 29-01-2004 11:02pm
    #1
    spongebob
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,143 ✭✭✭


    Unopposed as usual, interview Mark Little

    He is banging on about Finland again......a country with a very low population density compared to ours which means that it is expensive to maintain the network and therefore they charge about €14 a month line rental ....even if you are above the Artic Circle.

    I wish he'd talk about expensive old Ireland.

    M


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    #2
    dahamsta
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 16,659 ✭✭✭✭dahamsta


    Lies, damn lies, and David McRedmond. Unbelievable.


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    #3
    Moriarty
    Registered Users Posts: 6,007 ✭✭✭Moriarty


    Aye, McRedmonds regular spiel once more. Its most unfortunate prime time didnt ask somone else along that would have challenged him - but then again, he never would have turned up if that was arranged. He really makes you want to grate your teeth.


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    #4
    hmmm
    Registered Users Posts: 11,205 ✭✭✭✭hmmm


    That was just sickening - time to smother prime time with complaints.


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    #5
    spongebob
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,143 ✭✭✭spongebob


    Mark Little should **** off back to Washington .......clueless idiot. All he had to do was download a few .mp3 s from this Board but nooooooooooo...

    M


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    #6
    swiss
    Registered Users Posts: 1,745 ✭✭✭swiss


    In fairness he did ask put to him a few probing questions. Thing is he didn't probe very far. For example when Mark Little asked McRedmond about the increase in line rental and the fact that it was €10 above the EU average, he simply gave bs about the average bill size. On this point at least he saw right past this cynical ploy.

    I was highly impressed however, by the fact that McRedmond managed to keep a straight face during the interview. With such acting talent, why doesn't he go to hollywood?


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    #7
    The Clown Man
    Registered Users Posts: 1,305 ✭✭✭The Clown Man


    Hang on now, from what I saw Mark Little took a fairly reasonable stance when putting questions to McRedmond. This was Prime Time and it was a good 15 minutes of eircom whipping, whether it's how people here would have done it or not.

    The main point I was looking at was that over the last week Eircom have taken shít from probably the most popular lunchtime radio show in Ireland and the most politically focused TV show. I mean the average Joe Railway is starting to get a picture of how he has been arse raped for the last few years by our telecoms market. Most Joe Railways don't give a toss about how LLU's are advancing etc. and the figure 8 fibre loop, they just perk up at the sound of eircom taking €1.5b from that poor old guy who worked for them once. Mark Little embarrased McRedmond over money issues. What Joe himself actually listens to. He litterally squirmed.

    In all fairness McRedmond got flustered about 10 times during that interview which basically made him out to the average viewer to be untrustworthy. Anyone could see that he was spewing cripe. Even Joe Railway.

    For the first time since IOFFL started eircom have been under fairly serious scrutiny by the media. If what has happened over the last week rolls on then in a short while everyone in Ireland will have some idea about what we are looking for here because everyone will be suspect of eircom. I mean what have we been looking for? The more public scrutiny is achieved the better. If everyone could see half of what we see then we have certainly achieved something.

    I had a smug grin the whole way through that piece and I was glad to see a good discussion on Prime Time about the issue. Let's just see how the papers pick up on it over the next few days. It's bound to be a topic of conversation and the more people converse the worse off eircom are. Cause there are few excuses to what is happening on their end. As McRedmond clearly displayed tonight.


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    #8
    Eurorunner
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,393 ✭✭✭Eurorunner


    Nice to see the old momentums building. Missed Prime Time though...i believe they repeat it at some ungodly hour??


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    #9
    Hairy Homer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,018 ✭✭✭Hairy Homer


    Well Well Well.

    Look what's landed on my desk this morning: A Forfas study on Broadband Telecommunications Benchmarking. Dated January 2004. Has anybody else seen this already? I suspect Mr Little, or his researchers, hadn't by last night as there were very few questions on broadband in the interview.

    Some highlights from the first few pages of the Forfas report:

    'Ireland has significatn international capacity available to support current and future enterprise activity'
    'Ireland offers the lowest international leased line costs in the OECD'
    'Ireland has an extensive national fibre network infrastructure.....national leased lines compare well with the rest of the OECD. Ireland currently lies in 4th position three places ahead of the EU average.'

    HOWEVER

    'Ireland's overall broadband take up by business and residential users relative to other countries is relatively weak. An assessment of Irish broadband coverage/availability, take-up by business and costs, indicates thet Ireland is currently about 3 years behind the average country in the benchmark group in termas of overall broadband take-up and 5 years behind the best countries in the group.

    The countries in the benchmarking group are (ranked in order of DSL take-up by population)
    Country Takeup by population (%)
    Korea 14.76
    Denmark 7.72
    Belgium 7.33
    Japan
    Canada
    Sweden
    Finland
    Germany
    Netherlands
    France
    Spain
    Italy
    Austria
    US
    UK
    Luxembourg
    Portugal 1.02
    Hungary 0.8
    IRELAND 0.42
    Czech Republic 0.13
    Greece 0.00


    Apologies for not putting all figures in. Time constrained.

    So why the disparity between available international capacity and general availability of broadband to the consumer?
    Which company controls that vital link?
    How come we rank ahead of only Greece (which doesn't appear to have a service at all yet) and the Czech Republic (has their incumbent even opened up to competition yet? I don't know) and behind the likes of Hungary and Portugal?

    Pity Mr Little preferred to concentrate on line rental increases when even the guy from DCU had said that when you take into account the overall line rental/talk time package, Irish costs work out at pretty much the European average. It's fast Internet access provision where we really lag behind.

    Why am I telling you lot? You know this. :-)


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    #10
    Hairy Homer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,018 ✭✭✭Hairy Homer


    OK Sorry just saw this link to a post made yesterday which has a link to a PDF of the report.


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    #11
    Jilm
    Registered Users Posts: 861 ✭✭✭Jilm


    The McRedmond interview is on RTEs website here (uses Real player, 56kbit feed)


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    #12
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,791 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    "We're investing in the access network" - so how come hundreds of homes in my area can barely sustain dialup, let alone qualify for broadband?

    "Our core network is extremely efficient, which is why call costs are so low" - so how come a business in Co Mayo was recently quoted e45,000 per annum for a 2Mbit leased line - especially considering the government paid for the fibre backbone?

    "Broadband isn't regulated" - on what planet?


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    #13
    Moriarty
    Registered Users Posts: 6,007 ✭✭✭Moriarty


    Off topic stuff moved here. Please stay on topic.

    I slightly gimped up the splitting, this thread has a new topicid. Mybad. Normal service now resumes.


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    #14
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    I thought McRedmond looked quite addled at times.

    It was one of the better grillings he's been put through and he looked as greasy as a big blob of grease as did the ground his argument appeared to be on.

    I long for the day I have no eircom bill, but alas, they'll still be getting some money indirectly :(


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    #15
    Mr_Man
    Registered Users Posts: 638 ✭✭✭Mr_Man


    Just reviewed the Prime Time segement with McRedmond and one thing which he mentioned which wasn't picked up on was the average line length. He claimed that the Irish average was 2.7km compared to an average of 2km in Europe.

    If this is correct then those extra 700m's muse be in some awkward places to explain the fact that we are paying 10 Euro above the average for line rental.

    M.


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    #16
    spongebob
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,143 ✭✭✭spongebob


    Originally posted by Mr_Man
    Just reviewed the Prime Time segement with McRedmond and one thing which he mentioned which wasn't picked up on was the average line length. He claimed that the Irish average was 2.7km compared to an average of 2km in Europe.

    That was in a document sent to the government about a year ago. There are no supporting figures for this assertion in the public domain from independent sources as the alleged report was compiled from figures supplied by ......€ircon (by Ovum I Think) about 6 years ago.

    M


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    #17
    SkepticOne
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,718 ✭✭✭SkepticOne


    Originally posted by Hairy Homer

    Luxembourg
    Portugal 1.02
    Hungary 0.8
    IRELAND 0.42
    Czech Republic 0.13
    Greece 0.00


    Apologies for not putting all figures in. Time constrained.

    So why the disparity between available international capacity and general availability of broadband to the consumer?
    Which company controls that vital link?
    How come we rank ahead of only Greece (which doesn't appear to have a service at all yet) and the Czech Republic (has their incumbent even opened up to competition yet? I don't know) and behind the likes of Hungary and Portugal?

    Pity Mr Little preferred to concentrate on line rental increases when even the guy from DCU had said that when you take into account the overall line rental/talk time package, Irish costs work out at pretty much the European average. It's fast Internet access provision where we really lag behind.

    Why am I telling you lot? You know this. :-)
    The lag in uptake of 3 years mentioned in the report is easily explained by the lag in price and availability that we are still currently experiencing. Only in 2003 has there been DSL at under 50 euros available in Ireland. Moreover the services are still being rolled out here. Other countries have had this level of price and availability for 4 to 5 years.


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    #18
    dahamsta
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 16,659 ✭✭✭✭dahamsta


    Pity McRedmond doesn't have a website, we could have recruited the bloggers in for a Google bomb for "lying sack of sh*t".

    (Yes, I looked. Not even a profile on the Eircom site.)

    adam


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    #19
    Sarsfield
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,359 ✭✭✭Sarsfield


    I thought Mark Little did a good job. He asked good questions, didn't just accept the answers he was given, and made Eircom look a bit nasty really.

    The interview wasn't about broadband, it was about Eircom taking advantage of its monopoly position. It was also aimed at joe public and I think it did the job.

    I believe some of you guys watch these programs through special (red) coloured glasses, so you can always see Eircom win! You like Eircom to win because then you can hate them even more :rolleyes:


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    #20
    sceptre
    Registered Users Posts: 19,608 ✭✭✭✭sceptre


    Originally posted by Sarsfield
    I believe some of you guys watch these programs through special (red) coloured glasses, so you can always see Eircom win! You like Eircom to win because then you can hate them even more :rolleyes:
    I didn't see the show by the way - I was watching something on one of those foreign heathen channels

    I wouldn't say that Sarsfield - I'd imagine that Muck and Adam in particular would like to see someone turn to Redmond at least once and accuse Valentia of asset-sweating and finish off the interview by formally saying that Eircom are ripping off the Irish consumer. The latter isn't going to happen on Prime Time, though Joe Duffy said as much.

    I'm largely pleased by these recent developments on the media front. I can't remember who put forward the idea here that this could be the straw that breaks the complacent camel's back (it certainly wasn't me - I assumed that the media would just lie down and take it as they had thitherto been doing) but looks as though they were right. It's a significant step in the right direction from the media - it's even woken up Dermot Ahern who may just be thinking that Comreg are a joke.


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    #21
    Moriarty
    Registered Users Posts: 6,007 ✭✭✭Moriarty


    Originally posted by Sarsfield
    I believe some of you guys watch these programs through special (red) coloured glasses, so you can always see Eircom win! You like Eircom to win because then you can hate them even more :rolleyes:
    I think i speak for most people here when i say that we await the day with baited breath where we wont have to complain about eircom. The problem some have with these interviews is that there are no serious detailed questions asked - or if they are, like some were in this prime time interview, they arent properly followed through. What results from this is effectivly free advertising for eircom to hoodwink the public with their propaganda.

    <edit: Blast sceptre with his speedy fingers. heh.>


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    #22
    mike65
    Closed Accounts Posts: 88,978 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    Just watched the jerky lo-fi feed
    I thought as a bread and butter interview it was okay,
    95% of the Prime Time audience neither knows nor cares about the minutea which many here eat, drink and sleep.

    The interview made McRedmond look/sound uncomfortable so did its job. I suspect if thier were an
    opposition voice at the table the result would have been twice as noisy and half as enlightening for the 95%.

    Mike.


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    #23
    Sarsfield
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,359 ✭✭✭Sarsfield


    Spot on mike65.

    OK, my reference to wanting Eircom to win was a might exaggerated. However, I DO believe some people watch these interviews with the expectation that Eircom will be given an easy ride, and they see what they expect, whethere true or not.

    The Mark Little interview made Eircom look bad in front of a lot of people.


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    #24
    sceptre
    Registered Users Posts: 19,608 ✭✭✭✭sceptre


    Wasn't too sure where I could put this but here's as good as anywhere else.

    Nice short letter in Monday's times from Frank Bannister on the line rental increase.
    Madam, - Just before Christmas, being heavy home users of the Internet, we installed a broadband connection - calculating that, even at €45 a month, it would reduce our telephone bill substantially. And so it has.

    However, it has also had another interesting effect. With Internet calls removed, I see from my latest telephone bill that the charge for line rental is over 25 per cent more than my total spending on telephone calls. And this is before the latest rise in line rental rates. In this context, Eircom's claims of reducing the overall cost of calls is little short of laughable.

    Eircom gouges its customers in those areas where it has a monopoly and uses the profits from this to subsidise those areas in which it has to compete. It is as simple as that.

    I don't blame Eircom for behaving this way. It is a commercial animal. I do blame our regulator for letting them get away with it. - Yours, etc.,

    FRANK E. BANNISTER, Morehampton Terrace, Dublin 4.

    Nicely put Frank. If you're an IOFFL member or reader, thanks. If you're not, even better.


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