Where's eircoms FRIACO announcment?

oisin

Amid the flurry of FRIACO announcements from utv and iol I can't help but notice the deafening silence from eircon. Perphaps I missed it with all the excitement. NE1 know when (or if) Eircom are due to announce their offering?

Paddy20

They can stick any FRIACO offering hey have in mind, where the sun never shines. As this punter will never use their net service ever again.

Paddy20;)

sceptre

Pippy Nolan is currently working through the submitted tenders for a trip to the netherworld to find out if it's getting any colder there.


Looks like they're sitting on their hands waiting to see what the other companies offer. Effectively they can still undercut them anyway, at least if you believe that the 16 euros a month (combined with the expensive backhaul that some companies will be paying) puts Eircom in a position where they're making profit directly from past capital investment. I'm sure that with the increased demands on their network, they'll find many more faults and have to raise the price of line rental yet again this year. Comreg will comply (if they didn't need a proper reason for the two increases so far this year, they're likely to lie down like a cubby lamb again the third time)

They're ahead even if they don't offer a product at all. Don't forget that unlike the DSL launch and RADSL launch where Eircom were forced to offer a whilesale rate to others in order to launch their own product, this time they were forced to offer a wholesale rate because Dermot Ahern woke up to the screams of people clamouring for flat-rate and recognised that it would be a good idea.

Just like BT their sheer weight of advertising cash and current customer base means that they'll always be able to pull an IBM and buy their way to the head of a market, even when they arrive at the party late. Some customers will adopt the "wait and see what Eircom offer" approach as long as Eircom can make statements like "we don't think we can make money out of it but we're seriously looking into the possibilities". These customers are stuck in the waiting game, all the time paying a little too much to Eircom for their access. 3 months isn't a long time to have to pay off a contract if something better comes up but most people hate the idea of paying a fixed cost for nothing rather than a drip cost for an overpriced something. This is part of the reason Esat have their early adopter price drop - partly to attract people to them rather than UTV but also partly to grab some of these inertia-types (as a rule they'll be light users). Eircom then clean up on the late adopters when the market matures a little, making a triumphant entry into the new world of flat-rate "in order to protect the consumers who are probably getting screwed over by bad customer service and unreliable connections from these pesky little ISPs". Think of all the people who won't move their phone service even when another company are cheaper. They're any incumbent operator's greatest allies in the argument that everything is fine.

From Eircom's point of view, Eircom flatrate will be relatively hard to market. They've identified the Eircom mouse as the icon of Internet access in Ireland (I don't like the rat either but they have done this). Now the mouse has abandoned slow 56k and ISDN access for this new Eircom Broadband product. if they put the mouse in flat-rate adverts, what are people going to think - why is the mouse switching back, is there something wrong with Eircom Broadband? As the incumbent, they can't run a campaign along the lines of "Can't get Eircom Broadband? Why not try flat-rate!" People will wonder /why/ they can't get Eircom broadband. Which is fine and dandy from the point of view of getting more people interested but they're still regarding DSL as a current problem rather than a future opportunity. It's a lose-lose problem. I'm sure marketing bods are working on it as we speak (I've a solution that I think could work for them with most customers but I kind of hate them too much to give it to them. I'm sure others have similar ideas)

DeVore

Since FRIACO is a sick twisted joke of a product (sorry but it is... I know its better then what we had before but lets face facts, a good solid kick to the head would be better then what we had before)... why the hell would they want to walk into that world of pain??

oh yeah, and what Sceptre said too.

DeV.

raeGten

Originally posted by sceptre
... they'll find many more faults and have to raise the price of line rental yet again this year...

I doubt they'll bother bringing out any kind of competative offer. They're making plenty of money out of the line rental as it is and as you point out, they can always increase it.
It kills me that we're all calling these products flat rate though. There must be a better name for it that isn't so misleading....'virtually flat-rate'....'effectively flat-rate'....'Nearly No-limits'??

maxheadroom

Originally posted by raeGten
It kills me that we're all calling these products flat rate though. There must be a better name for it that isn't so misleading....'virtually flat-rate'....'effectively flat-rate'....'Nearly No-limits'??

But doesn't the FR in FRIACO stand for Flat Rate?

Flat
Rate
Internet
Access
Call
Origination

sceptre

Originally posted by raeGten
It kills me that we're all calling these products flat rate though. There must be a better name for it that isn't so misleading....'virtually flat-rate'....'effectively flat-rate'....'Nearly No-limits'??

Bothers me too. You'll notice in the post above I use the term flatrate twice (if I count correctly) - both times to refer to an Eircom product that doesn't exist.

maxheadroom makes a good point - the term does live at the beginning of the name of the mechanism they're using. It's still not really flatrate though (more of a reduced fee max minutes package - at least that's how I put it in my ASAI complaint). FRIACO makes it flatrate for the provider, not necessarily (aswe can see) for the consumer.

I'm well aware btw that true flatrate 56k access isn't going to be commercially viable for any company. That's not the point though - if you're in the business of selling large African animals, just because elephants are expensive to buy you're not allowed paint a dog grey and call it an elephant.

Tazz T

Reliable sources inform me that eircom are indeed playing the 'wait and see' game. However, their 'business' product looks pretty bad. There has been talk of a 'competitive' €25 product similar to UTV's heavy usage product.

SkepticOne

The FR in FRIACO does indeed stand for flat rate. However FRIACO is a wholesale product not a retail one. Only an ISP can get FRIACO.

None of the retail product to emerge from from the FRIACO wholesale product are flat rate. They are pre-paid discount schemes.

You might ask, why, if the ISP is getting capacity on Eircom's network on a flat rate basis are they not selling retail flat rate? The answer to this is that they are overselling the capacity. For every port (unit of capacity) they rent on Eircom's network, they need a number of people to share it.

If they went down the route of true flat rate (i.e. unmetered access), they would essentially be selling shared access to this capacity. This opens up the concept of 'abuse' - people using an inordinate amount of the shared capacity to the extent that others' use is impared substantially. ISPs in Britain such as Freeserve handle this situation by booting extreme users. The precise definition of what constitutes 'abuse' is not defined up front since it depends on the behavior of all the users as a whole. Moreover, the existance of a published limit either puts off light users or puts pressure on them to make the most of it. As more and more people approach the limit, the limit needs to be reduced.

The other aproach (the one taken in Ireland) is that strict limits are placed on the amount of time allowed. This has the advantage letting heavy users upfront know exactly what they can expect from the service. The downside is that these limits are lower than might otherwise be possible under the 'freeserve model' where limits are not stated explicitly.

Unfortunately, I don't expect limits to be raised based on the complaints of heavy users since their very existance is the reason that limits have been imposed.

DeVore

Preach it brother SkepticOne! Testify!


The phenomenon exists that if you make things illegal... you create criminals. When you limit a resource, you create hogs.

Why are ports and bandwidth limited again? How well paid ARE these electrons anyway? They must have a really good union...

DeV.

SkepticOne

Sorry, getting back on topic. I expect Eircom to take their time with a retail offering. Eircom are only partially competing with ISPs who are also Eircom's greatest customers. They can guage exactly how these ISPs are doing since they have access to the figures and then make a decision whether or not to get into the market.

MDR

Eircom is probabily hoping the UTV & Esats & other potientially advertised will be either non-existant or in-effecive, keeping people on per minute billing or as Mike quite rightily points out they are prolly content to let the compeditors sell the service for them, and make their cut of the wholesale product. Meaning they don't have to deal with the horror of customer service etc (i.e. train the biddies in soemthing new).

bk

Originally posted by MDR
Eircom is probabily hoping the UTV & Esats & other potientially advertised will be either non-existant or in-effecive, keeping people on per minute billing or as Mike quite rightily points out they are prolly content to let the compeditors sell the service for them, and make their cut of the wholesale product. Meaning they don't have to deal with the horror of customer service etc (i.e. train the biddies in soemthing new).

And don't forget all those lovely backhaul charges.

Cork

It just proves that Eircom is needs a Michael O Leary. Still charging 1.26 per minute off peak not to mention peak call rates.

It is definitely not the Ryanair of the telecommunications Industry.

Tazz T

Further to my earlier posting I now know that eircom's new product is exactly the same as Esat's Anytime, so much so that they've decided to call it...
















wait for it....








eircom Anytime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Original, huh!