Eircom launches fibre-powered TV focused on value and user experience

Cabaal wrote: »

Good to see them bring additional services on-line,

However, they are still going to struggle big time against upc in citys though and they can't compete with Sky's in rural area's at all so really is it too little too late for them?

It might be a game changer to enable them to keep customers but to try compete against the other two with tv services its going to be very much so a uphill struggle.

If UPC extended their fibre network in other parts of our town, Eircom would be screwed. But it is a good sign that they are releasing these products soon. My dad is paying something like 50euro a month (or bi-monthly) for Chorus where we have like 15 channels. He'd be pretty happy to go with Eircom's product when VDSL is an option to him.

An outbreak of "me-too" : http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/business/upc-launches-new-tv-and-broadband-package-to-rival-eircom-610351.html

Still damn expensive for what it is considering one can get most of this for free...

bk wrote: »

In fairness unlimited 50mb BB and phone for €30 is outstanding value.

Combine that with a FTA satellite box and you are flying

Finally we have the platform competition that I've been talking about for the past 15 years!

Sure it's platform competition, albeit very limited geographically.
Now we have a real me-too pricing model:)

bk wrote: »

Sure, but that was always going to be the reality. While it might be geographically limited, it does cover the majority of the actual population.

The best we could realistically hope for was platform competition in urban areas, with at least two, preferably three platforms competing.

In rural areas, realistically the best we can hope for is one decent provider.

That very much depends on how you define the majority but yes in essence the VDSL rollout is actually impressive:)
I'm no fan of the free market as to my mind it's been a total failure of an experiment, it does work in certain restricted areas but in others no it's been a disaster.

And the idea that in rural areas there is one "decent" provider is a bit dubious too as that provider have essentially abandoned a huge proportion of exchanges and then there's the outright 3G lie too...

bk wrote: »

You have miss read me. I didn't say that there is currently one 'decent' provider in rural areas, rather, that is realistically the best we can hope for.

And when I say decent, I mean absolute minimum of 30mb/s with unlimited cap.

I believe the free market can and is currently delivering affordable high speed broadband in urban areas.

I agree that won't work in rural areas and a certain amount of government subsidies and investment will be required.

OK perhaps I did misread but granted we do need government subsidies in rural areas however I would consider that to be a failure of the "free market".

I would also disagree that the "free market" is delivering anything approximating to good value in urban areas but that's a very ideological position and it depends what you consider to be "good value".

Is our highly regulated cost fixed system with the highest line rental on the planet which then fixes prices for all comers at a truly exorbitant rates is really the "free market". It's difficult to foresee if a truly free market would be any better...

bk wrote: »

Oh, I'm very much a realist when it comes to the idea of "free markets" and competition.


We have seen a pretty free market of mobile phone companies, leading to aggressive competition, very fast falling prices and improving services.

Wired internet infrastructure is more expensive and difficult to do, but in urban areas, we are still seeing it happen now between Eircom VDSL network and UPC's cable network driving down prices and increasing quality of services delivered.

Rrual areas remain a problem, but that isn't surprising given how dreadful the rural problem is in Ireland. In most rural Europe, most people actually live in or very close to villages, which are typically easy enogh to service. The problem we have in Ireland, that you don't find in most of Europe is the god awful miles of ribbon development along roads.

Well that is a fair summary but a little heavy on the clichés:)

I agree that some industries are better done by "government" and others not...however the mobile phone industry is a case of both the free market "working" and a case of extreme oligarchy (so not working), so I don't see it working in quite the same way as you, I see constantly rising prices which are very very high in comparison to other jurisdictions and shoddy infrastructure and very badly regulated where the industry, for instance, can sell phones that won't actually work in the near future...also you have to look at ARPU in various countries to see that the free market both works and doesn't work.

Mobile works fine in urban areas but is awful outside those urban areas.
Don't forget the lessons of the past...Victorian railways where due to the "free market" every railway had a different gauge, the banking crises of that period also because of the "free market" a lesson we should have learnt but keep on repeating (1929 and 2008)

This canard of ribbon development is often trotted out as our reason for crap infrastructure but if you go to rural France you see very similar development yet they don't use this as an excuse for doing nothing, TF just went and did it. I lived in rural France about 4kms from the nearest town in a tiny cluster of houses yet they I had decent broadband. Take Finland, as another example, in general many parts of Finland are more sparsely populated than Leitrim yet they at least aspire to 100Mb/s broadband for those areas. Here the attitude seems to be screw 'em it's just too hard...we'll give them satellite.

The "free market" failure to provide decent infrastructure to these areas is a case of "we couldn't be bothered" and is a blatantly a failure of this mythical "free market".

I guess we'll have to disagree on the mythical free market:)

bk wrote: »

France, the stats say differently. 90% of the population in France lives in cities, towns and villages. Ireland has one of the worst rates in Europe with only 60% of people living in cities, towns and villages.

Finland is pretty similar, the reality is the vast majority of people in Finland actually live in cities, etc.

You ain't looking at the same stats as me then:)

My experience of living in France tells me different too, granted there are lots of tiny clusters of about 5/10 houses rather than ribbon. But like I said I was 4km from the nearest "town" in a small cluster of houses and a vineyard (which was good "fun"), I'll find it on google maps so you can see for yourself:) We had ok broadband, FT didn't whine to the media that it was too hard they just went and did it.

I've no first hand experience of Finland so only second hand knowledge experience to draw on but a colleague lived out in the country and had decent broadband too as he regularly VPN'd in...

Anyway the point is that other countries have dealt with this "market failure" in different ways however all we do is sit on our hands and go "woe is me" and say this is our reality, it's utter nonsense.