UTV Clicksilver (BB) details for the Republic

Sir Random

The service may be identical, but utvi has obviously earned more confidence among consumers than it's rivals down here.
Perhaps there'd be a similar euphoria if it were a Dutch, Swedish or Finnish company?

bizmark

Perhaps there'd be a similar euphoria if it were a Dutch, Swedish or Finnish company

not sure what differance that makes? They all have to go through eircon anyway

jonski

Wow , this is really heating up ,well here's my 2 cents worth.

Yes I was one of the crowd waiting for UTVip to offer something , but no , I did not expect it to be much if any better than the others , especially after reading the breakdown of costs.

I play games online and spend a fair bit of time in irc and on forums . I want to be able to do this anytime I want and for as long as I want ( with a better and more stable ping than I have).

I waited for as long as I was reasonably going to for UTv because , and heres the bit this thread seems to be taken up with: service , yeah service .Evert single time i have phoned or asked a question in their support group , they have bent over backwards to help me . I respect that and am willing to reward it with loyalty.

Yes, their offer isn't much better than the others , no , I don't like the cap , I'm not a heavy user in terms of downloads , but heh , is there something better on offer ? No .

Someone said in a post that if a rep from eircom or esat came on these boards would be all praise for them...well IF my aunt had balls she would be my uncle.I don't see anyone here from them now and i never have and probably never will.

Last but not least NO ONE is putting a gun to my head , this is my choice.

PS: I will probably give another 2 cents worth tomorrow night

pps : just came away from an irc chat with a friend in england and he says it is very like the bt deal over there atm.

John.

Sloth

Any company no matter how good they are is going to end up with a lot of mud on their face if they have to go through Eircom.

flamegrill

Originally posted by Sloth
A cap of between 20-30 would be the perfect middleground and companies are going to have to face up to the fact that they're going to have to buy more bandwidth rather than squeezing everyone on using a low cap.

Listen to Skeptic, he has given you ALL the answer to why their is a low CAP on the RADSL services. That is basically the contention Ratio. At 48:1 if they gave each user a 20GB quota a month, the service would be unusable 90% of the time due to congestion. At that point you lot come on here bitching and moaning about pings and all the other arse you love to complain about.

Broadband isn't for downloading as such, its faster internet access, makes browsing faster, e.g. you can surf boards 5 times quicker on broadband :-)

here is a few details about RADSL that is common knowledge, but obviously you and others have not heard it before.

Eircoms minimum requirement for RADSL is 2mbps (thats 2 mega bits per second), which they claim will serve 192 customers, this is based on the 48:1 contention ratio. Now if they give a cap of 20GB (thats 20 GigaBytes, 8 bits in a byte, you still with me?) and each customer starts downloading goodo, they will get less than 1kbit/s (1kilobit per second).

Now can you see why the cap mite/will be imposed? its to keep the service usable for the normal, run of the mill user that just wants to surf, and to keep pings etc down so as gamers can game.

Regards,

Paul

p.s sloth m8 this isn't pointed directly at you, so don't feel like it is.

Sloth

Nah don't worry I don't. I understand that contention and all the rest is a major factor behind impossed caps but I still don't think that the excuse justifies the end result I mean there has to be a way around it somehow, maybe UTV should consider going wireless?

p2p

flamegrill

Trying not to moan or whinge ( i've no need, i'm on netsource)


But maybe you can shed some light on my earlier question until scott gets round to it..

I take your point about contention ratio etc.

Netsource charge €66 - really 54 without their ridiculous domain charge.

DSL whole sale is €27 for *every* provider.

Netsource is RADSL as well as UTV.

Netsource wholesale cost = Iol wholesale cost = Utv wholesale cost

How are netsource able to do it without a cap for €54 (ex domain) ??

Possible solution (not mindless whinging)

Price the service at ~ €55 - same as netsource - without domain.
And use the extra money that they will get from people switching to their phone product to subsidise the higher bandwith costs they will incur?

I think this is a valid argument

Apologies if im totally missing the point here though..

nan0dog

I am a using the 150 hours thing at the moment with ISDN. I am always charged when I go over 150 hours. I would hate to be billed treble the 5gb cap the next time Mandrake, Redhat and Gentoo release ISO's on the web and I download 15GB in a month. This is the whole FUD ( fear,uncertainty,doubt) factor with this offer. I think Scott should try and clarify the CAP and will they, won't they charge you. I would love to stay with UTV for the same reasons already posted, but I cannot afford the risk of 150 euro monthly bill.

There is also many people who have the option of tele-working if they have the bandwidth. A simple pdf attachment is often 20 mb. Employers will often trial tele-working before rolling it out. Many Irish employers will use tactics like cost not to rollout tele-working for their staff if bills cannot be controlled. "Hey Mr IT director, how come our UTV bill for the 100 tele-workers is 20,000 euros this month and last month it was 5,000 euros?

Er, I told you not to stream the CEO's speech over the network in mpeg 2 format."

Anybody that deals with Management Culture in Ireland will recognise these arguments. I feel that this is a market that UTV could do reallly well in if they sold it to Corporates as a fixed cost with some sort of VPN client/server package. Their support and communication channels are second to none in Ireland. They could charge slightly more for a Corporate package and get rid of the CAP for us all. I hope that's positive enough for you PiE.

Anyway, one more important question,

Is there a static IP address with this package?

bizmark

eh m8 this product isnt ment as a business service

if thats what you ment ?

flamegrill

Originally posted by p2p


But maybe you can shed some light on my earlier question until scott gets round to it..

DSL whole sale is €27 for *every* provider.

This is the problem, everyone thinks that € 27 euro is all they pay, its not and its far from it. if you look at the other thread/threads on boards about the wholesale option, there are many other costs involved. Scott has already done a complete break down of all the costs involved and it actually came out at € 55 euro /month inc VAT with 98% of that going to eircom, not including their own equipment, back haul costs, subsidising modems, new support staff etc etc, the costs go on.

Now netsource are having serious capacity issues at the moment, it seems to be nationwide, so maybe its a back haul issue or just a warez monkey issue. The same will/mite happen UTV, but I think they will monitor this very closely, and as soon as anyone goes crazy, they _will_ get a slap.

Again it doesn't matter if they charge you 100 euro a month and give you a 50GB cap the contention ratio will kill the Service.
There is no way around this as the product is a re-sell of eircoms.

Paul

flamegrill

Originally posted by nan0dog

Is there a static IP address with this package?

Thats something we'll have to wait for the package details to go on their website.

Paul

Sloth

Well then I ask again why can't they go wireless?

flamegrill

It isn't an option, UTV are not an ISP, they partner with one.


Paul

sceptre

Originally posted by dahamsta
More importantly, did any of you actually go and read Scott Taunton's posting on the costs involved in rolling this out? Have you worked out UTVi's margin? Subtraction? No?

Nicely put Adam.

I trust Scott's figures as provided because they're almost exactly what I worked out myself over the weekend.

Ignoring the cap issue for the moment, the obvious problem with the price (as in "it's not 40 euros") is the €27 that goes directly to Eircom. From what others have posted, it's among the highest bitstream charges in Europe. That's still the big problem. Until that charge becomes less, we'll never see DSL at cheaper prices in this country.

p2p

Netsource : €54 (ex domain)

---

UTV : €47.50 + Switch to phone
UNCAPPED

---

5 GIG CAP

€ 27 euro is all they pay, its not and its far from it

Point taken - but going by the above is this not down to how efficient the business is run etc to get support/extra/hidden costs as low as possible in order to maximise profit?

netsource are having serious capacity issues at the moment

capacity issues that any isp will have starting off
novelty of bb etc - cap or no cap initial service will be bad

[i'm just as annoyed as everyone else on netsource about this but i know netsource are working on it]

- I'm all for a reasonable cap - to stave off warez monkeys that
cause the problem in the first place
- my nick is named after a 4th year project btw - not a indicator of
crazy 10 gig a week p2p downloads

it doesn't matter if they charge you 100 euro a month and give you a 50GB cap the contention ratio will kill the Service

- does this mean netsource will introduce a cap on their service?
- are there not similar services in the Uk with similar contention
and no / high cap ?

Sloth

I'm on the Netsource business package at 24:1 contention so contention isn't really an issue for me. How much does that cost for UTV to buy the business version wholesale off Eircom and would that be at all feasable for UTV?

flamegrill

Originally posted by Sloth
I'm on the Netsource business package at 24:1 contention so contention isn't really an issue for me. How much does that cost for UTV to buy the business version wholesale off Eircom and would that be at all feasable for UTV?

That i've been having a think about :-), i wouldn't mind getting a service like that. AFAIK, its very costly, a minimum of a 45mbps connect to each exchange just to get it.

i think it'll be a non runner for the time being, mind you Scott, Carl, Marlcom, Marty prove me wrong :-)


Paul

Sloth

Well lets look at Netsource business. I pay 110 a month for that and that includes a domain name, I think with a bit of work UTV could cut it down to about €80 a month but then they're pretty much ending up with the same thing as Netsource and it's too dear to attract the average bb customer which is the market that UTV are aiming to target. Argh, it would seem everything that can get rid of the cap leads to a dead end. You said that they only partner with an ISP...could they partner with a Wireless one and use combined funds to purchase more transmitters?

flamegrill

Originally posted by Sloth
Well lets look at Netsource business. I pay 110 a month for that and that includes a domain name, I think with a bit of work UTV could cut it down to about €80 a month but then they're pretty much ending up with the same thing as Netsource and it's too dear to attract the average bb customer which is the market that UTV are aiming to target. Argh, it would seem everything that can get rid of the cap leads to a dead end. You said that they only partner with an ISP...could they partner with a Wireless one and use combined funds to purchase more transmitters?

Your in dublin I take it ? AFAIR netsource don't resell the biz product in dublin, and they don't offer it outside either.

Jesus you have got a wireless bug of some sort? :-) UTv have a sweet thing going with their current provider, I can't seem them forking out more cash to buy transmitters.

i don't think wireless is going to happen nationwide anytime soon.

if it does, fair play but i cant see it.

Paul

Synkronite

I for one would like to congratulate Scott, Malcolm and the whole UTVi team. They have come into the irish marketplace as under-dogs and earned respect from quite a few folks and have made it a pleasure for people to deal with.

If nothing else, their interaction, willingness to listen is far beyond anyone else. Instead of moaning people, why not offer constructive criticism? Remember when UTVip was first announced, they changed the details of the package in response to feedback they got here. So far the posts here have been extremely mean and harsh to UTVi..

Dont get disheartened, I know one of these days UTVi will be known as the company that changed Ireland and directly threatened Eircom/EsatBT's duopoly.

Just have patience (When DSL first started in the UK they also had low caps/ high prices) Go read economics and econmies of scale folks before moaning about not being able to download your favourite movies in divx 24/7.

Sloth

Yes I'm in Dublin, on the north side. I'm on the business Netsource package which is definitly the resold Eircom business package as interleaving is on at full whack.
The reason I'm a big wireless fan should be obvious, 8:1 contention, low pings and if IBB launched where I live I could get a 1mb package for the same amount I pay now and enjoy super low pings.

Dustaz

I agree with Dahamstas Post 100%. As a moderator i probably shouldnt call people names but, hey spade a spade.

There is so much uninformed nonsense in this thread.

People do look at UTV through rose tinted glasses.....please note however - THERE IS A GOOD REASON FOR THIS.

Utv have consistantly adjusted their products to what people actually want (in so far as they can). Eircom and Esat have not. UTV have been pro-active, Eircom and Esat have been re-active. There is a big difference. Search though the forum if you dont believe me, just dont knock them with stupid comments and illinformed scaremongering (Its funny how some people posting to a certain games board bleeting about unplayable 56k and how Broadband would change everything are swearing off a comparatively affordable service).

flamegrill

Originally posted by Sloth
Yes I'm in Dublin, on the north side. I'm on the business Netsource package which is definitly the resold Eircom business package as interleaving is on at full whack.
The reason I'm a big wireless fan should be obvious, 8:1 contention, low pings and if IBB launched where I live I could get a 1mb package for the same amount I pay now and enjoy super low pings.

Ok, that I wasn't aware of, but As i said before they require mad capacity into the exchange to offer the business products.

From what I've seen IBB are far from perfect aswell, bith slow downloads, bad pings here and there. The market for broadband is still in its infancy (which is mad, considering we are the e-hub of europe yadda yadda). This doesn't help anyone, but in 6 months time or so it'll be a different market place and i for one am looking forward to it.

nn,

Paul

Dustaz

For the benefit of those too lazy to click on the link posted earlier here is the full text of Scotts post regarding the breakdown of costing.

Broadband - Caps, pricing etc...
Prior to the announcement of our pricing and product specification for broadband, I thought I'd take the time to highlight some of the issues we've encountered, hopefully with a view to setting out some realism in terms of caps, contention, telephony and price. It should also give you some idea of the reason for our delay into the marketplace.

<groan>

RADSL, not unlike FRIACO, is VERY difficult to package in a competitive way. The reality is that the wholesale costs are prohibitive at best. See http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/show...&threadid=99342 for a second opinion of that!

As an exercise, I thought that I would set out the broad parameters under which we are offered the product on a wholesale basis. The following are the approximate prices under which Esat, Via and ourselves are offered service from Eircom.

RADSL install charge (self install)

€150.00. Attributed monthly over a prudent two year period, this is €6.25 per month.

RADSL wholesale charge

€27.00. Payable monthly per user.

Backhaul of RADSL to OLO

Can be ordered via 45Mb or 2Mb pipes. The most cost effective solution is to order a 45Mb pipe, which when fully utilised at 48:1 offers 4320 users. Install is approx €16k plus €72k p.a.

Even with 90% utilisation of this pipe, and recouping the install over 24 months, this is €1.70 p.m. per user.

Modem and filters

Even wholesale, a dependable modem, two filters and delivery is around €75.00. Over 24 months, this is €3.12 pm.

Bandwidth

Without giving away our total bandwidth costs, including full redundancy, a 34Mb circuit is around €200k p.a. A user utilising 5GB of this monthly (a mere 1.92KB/s) represents around €7.56 per month in costs.

So far we're at €45.65 monthly. VAT takes this up to €55.24. Excluding the bandwidth and modem, all of this goes to Eircom.

Add to that the hardware at our end, modems, routers etc... Administration and office costs, billing, bad debt, marketing, call centre and tech support personnel all of which add a significant additional amount.

Eircom retail their RADSL product at €54.45 and Esat €49.49. We expect to be competitive in terms of price, terms and support.

I understand the concerns surrounding caps, contention etc., but the reality is that if everyone hammered the service it would not be viable.

We will reserve the right to implement caps, either on a PAYG basis or through a step down in speed. We don't expect to need to use them and do not like the thought of having to implement them. We are no different to Esat or Eircom in that regard. As broadband becomes mainstream, the likelihood of anyone implementing them is low.

Telephony helps us meet some of the costs of maintaining a service of this nature.

We really are just looking to give consumers the best deal we can in what is a very difficult marketplace.

I look forward to posting again tomorrow with full details of our offer.

</groan>

Kind regards

Scott Taunton
Managing Director
UTV Internet

Valentia

For the benefit of those too lazy to click on the link posted earlier here is the full text of Scotts post regarding the breakdown of costing.

Thanks Dust,

I was just about to do it.

Anyway, there has been an enormous amount written here in a short space of time. It's a lot to take in. I live in Trim, 28 miles from Dublin but the dinasours will be back before we get ADSL. Our only hope is Digiweb with their wireless offer. God knows how that will work out.

I have to say tho' that those comments about rose tinted glasses and stuff drives me mad. UTV have been a brilliant provider for me (UTVip) and I haven't needed to contact customer support once. Totally consistant. Their openess has been a breath of fresh air, and though a cap is a pain in the ar$e there is feck all they can do about it. They are, once again, being transparent and reasonable in this telecoms desert we live in.

I have registered and would go with them in the morning if my exchange was enabled. As for the telephone link with the offer, jeez it's not like they are charging a premium for voice calls, it actually costs less.

Chowley

The reason for that Dustaz is because, supposedly CS alone will be 30mb per hour.Then you add the map packs and skin packs if you want to customize it.Then you have updates.I have read that CS used to update fairly regularly, that could start again.Then you start playing other games , mods and updates become a problem.
As I suspect it is me you were referring to I never said it was unplayable I play CS as often as I can on 56k servers I just think the lack of lag willl attract more people.
The price is not a problem for me seeing as from what I have read its not going to come down any tie soon well all have to accept the price for a while.

In the U.K it is 48:1 contention too isnt it.How do they get it to work smoothly when its uncapped?

Tazz T

A lot of people are missing out on one of the biggest bonuses the UTV BB offering brings - the opportunity to vote with your feet against eircom after all the years of being ripped off.

So the UTV offering is just a euro or two less than Esat's. This hopefully is just the start of real competition in the Irish market. And that's a huge step from a new entrant in the market. I don't think anyone could have envisaged this a year or two years ago.

We'd certainly never see eircom laying out the formula behind their pricing so clearly. UTV is obviously a company we can trust and one that will continue to offer products that are better value that the incumbents.

I see this as just the beginning. Cheers UTV.

dahamsta

Well said Tazz T.

adam

Mo'

I would just like to add a few words of praise for UTV for any of those that doubt their services.....

I switched to the UTVip as soon as it was available as I was consistently handing over more than €250 to €300 a month to Eircon due to international calls and internet usage. Since switching, telephony and internet now costs me ± €180 to €200 a month...including the sub and line rental.
I have only had occasion to ring the support line a couple of times and my problem has been delt with swiftly and efficiently.

I'll probably have to wait a while to get BB as I am situated in North County Dublin but I will definitely wait until I can get it through UTV so that I never have to hand over a three figure cheque to the thieves at the national telecoms company.

Keep it up u.tv

Hyzepher

For me, the issue of value from UTV compared to the other providers is not the main issue here. For too long Ireland has been a desert in BB terms with little or no option bar subscribing to those b*****ds eircom.

Now there are many options - albeit providing some inbuilt eircom services indirectly - but at least we have choice. With choice comes competition and with that better competitive rates.

I dont think we will ever receive the levels of BB that other countries enjoy - economies of scale, location etc., but I do think that we will see a better offering as more and more providers get bigger user bases.

The telecoms industry is becoming very competitive and news ways to receive added revenue are limited. BB is a new way - well at least here - and Eircom are not going to enjoy a decreased BB subscription as new providers come on board. We may well see competitive rates sooner than later.

However, this all depends on the strangle hold eircom has over the lines. With this monopoly they are receiving revenue from BB subscriptions regardless who the provider is. This is anti-competitive and has to stop if we are to enjoy better rates etc.

I say congratulations to UTV for having the guts to enter the market - we all know how hard it is to deal with eircom!! I also welcome any other provider that is prepared to deal with eircom's crap. Maybe with multiple providers eircom may feel some pressure to improve the system.

Hyzepher