Dahamsta gets DSL. Rants to ramp up to 24/7.

dahamsta

Credit where credit is due, dahamsta now officially has a DSL connection via UTV. It's only taken two years. Well, more than two years, but who's counting?

Unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure where to assign the credit. Eircom certainly deserves nothing but disdain, since they've hampered our efforts every step of the way. Perhaps Dermot Ahern deserves a little credit for his outspoken handing of the industry, but it has to be said that the TE selloff and Mary O'Rourke's gross incompetence far outweigh his all-too-recent efforts. EsatBT gets nothing but scorn from me, they're just Eircom by another name in my view; I'm certain that if they had their way, we'd just have another Eircom on our hands. There's plenty of other orgs, such as the IIA, ISPAI, SFA, IBEC, the Chambers, etc, but not one of them has taken a solid stance on these issues. No credit there.

That leaves me with IrelandOffline and UTV. I often wonder where we'd be without IrelandOffline, and the conclusion I often draw is that we wouldn't be much farther ahead*. I think we /are/ ahead, mind, just not far enough. We're certainly still miles behind everyone else, and dropping back further every single day. That's absolutely not IrelandOffline's fault though, and although I don't agree with a lot of what they do, I don't doubt for a second that they work very hard. The fault in this case lies squarely at the feet of the people that wouldn't listen to them. But IrelandOffline's biggest achievement isn't even comms-related, it's in giving birth to a fledgling form of digital activism in Ireland.

All of which leaves UTV, and that's where I'm going to lay a slight majority of the credit. It's not a whole lot of credit and they still have hard lessons to learn, but I have to say that on balance, I think that they've driven the market harder and faster than anyone else. They've pushed for FRIACO, they've pushed for DSL and they've pushed the standard of customer relations to a higher level; and I genuinely find it difficult to believe that I would be switching from FRIACO to DSL today if it wasn't for them. I probably wouldn't even be with UTV if it wasn't for the fact that Scott, Malcolm and Martin came on here and did something as simple as talking to us. It's the little things that count.

I hope they'll keep going. I hope they'll hammer at anyone that'll listen for price reductions and I hope they'll continue to raise the bar on customer service. And I hope everyone else will keep going too: IrelandOffline is a voice that gets listened to more and more these days, so I hope they'll ramp up the outgoings and get some more coverage on price reductions and operator equality; I hope Dermot Ahern will make /more/ forceful comments and bring pressure to bear; and I hope that Noel O'Flynn will stop fudging and pandering like a little girl and state clearly that yes, Eircom is the root cause of all of the problems. I won't hold my breath on that last one.

When all is said and done, I've got what I wanted. I've needed an always-on connection to the Internet for several years now, and finally I've got it. I've wanted to minimise my outgoings to Eircom for even longer, and at this stage I've brought it down from €200-250/month to €35-odd a month. I'd take that off them too if I could. But let this be a warning to you: I'm not going anywhere.

adam

* Don't stop reading now and lart me for that, it's an honest opinion and it's absolutely in no way a dilution of their efforts. They were my efforts too remember, I was part of it and I still try to help out when I can.

scojones

I hope it goes well for your adam! Now start downloading those albums you've always wanted!

BigEejit

heh ... new DSL user .....
/Dahamsta opens internet exploder and types download http://*.*

jbkenn

Congrats Adam
"All good things come to those who wait" and, I'm still waiting.
I came in here for a rant about €ircon's latest radio ad, about the "Have's" it made my blood boil again.
How are they allowed to run such s***e, anyone would think they are anxious to deliver broadband, if only they could, but, cannot, for some inexplicable reason that eludes them.
Again congrats Adam ENJOY!!!!!!!!!! and dont forget to leave a bit of the interweb for the rest of us to download

jbkenn

dahamsta

Heh, I downloaded it all a couple months ago when I had a wireless connection. There's nuffing left.

adam

DeVore

But IrelandOffline's biggest achievement isn't even comms-related, it's in giving birth to a fledgling form of digital activism in Ireland.

Ah now, digital activism has been around for a while now... perhaps not in Ireland as much as other places but its been alive and kicking for some time now in other countries and elsewhere on the net.

I fluff my ego by thinking that maybe Boards.ie added something to the mix too. The "glue" that stuck UTV, IOFFL and the general public together. Not looking for credit, just a footnote

DeV.

dahamsta

Ah now, digital activism has been around for a while now... perhaps not in Ireland as much as other places but its been alive and kicking for some time now in other countries and elsewhere on the net.

Which is why I said "...in Ireland". Duh.

I fluff my ego by thinking that maybe Boards.ie added something to the mix too. The "glue" that stuck UTV, IOFFL and the general public together. Not looking for credit, just a footnote

I generally don't like stroking your ego DeV, but I have to concur in this case. IrelandOffline would have found it much more difficult to build a strong community of supporters without Boards.ie.

I still think the forums should be merged though.

ha ha

adam

Dangger

ha ha

ha ha ha:rolleyes:

666 for you adam :horned:

dahamsta

Eh, right you are there Dave.

Boston

Got UTV adsl myself there afew months back, by in large i'm impressed, hard not to be. Probably owuld have gone to esat myself adam if it wasn't for utv interaction on this forum, and when i was on to utv consumer support i made that very clear to them and i hope you did to, seemed to me that there had been allot of people doing the same (just by their response when i raised ireland off line)

rymus

*sniff* I want DSL too *sniff*

C'mon now everybody... pray for my line to pass the pre-qual

Chowley

Adam, I presume it was Amocom you got wireless off, what was it like?
I dont suppose you used to for gaming did you?

Boston

Originally posted by Chowley
Adam, I presume it was Amocom you got wireless off, what was it like?
I dont suppose you used to for gaming did you?

am i missing something here?

LFCFan

Stop gloating dahamsta! Some of us can only dream of broadband

Chowley

He had wireless at some stage Boston.

seamus

Originally posted by dahamsta
I still think the forums should be merged though.

Your opinions no longer count, you've sold out man, where's your oldskool spirit?

dahamsta banned from IOFFL until he downgrades to 300bps modem and text browser.



(Not really. Shouldn't be long before I get DSL meself)

Moriarty

Originally posted by seamus
Your opinions no longer count, you've sold out man, where's your oldskool spirit?

Rather rich coming from the eircomite

dahamsta

Originally posted by Chowley
Adam, I presume it was Amocom you got wireless off, what was it like? I dont suppose you used to for gaming did you?

I'm not a gamer, but the pings weren't too bad. I was quite happy with the service apart from a LOS issue caused by trees in the way, which severely limited the connection when it was raining (and once or twice for inexplicable reasons). The price was also a bit over the top in my view; Amocom's argument is that it has to be because of the proprietry kit. They also had no redundancy when I was connected - the NSC only connected to Eircom - however that may have changed by now.

The operator, John O'Hare, is a nice chap but we had a bit of a run-in over the post above which annoyed the crap out of me. It's not hard to annoy me though. All in all I'd recommend it if you have the cash and there's no alternative available.

adam

spongebob

Yeah, he PM's me about something I said and we 'engage 'in dialogue but then he stops answering his PM's and me being helpful and all

M

dahamsta

He asked me to edit my post. Never a wise move that.

adam

sceptre

Originally posted by dahamsta
He asked me to edit my post.

Why? You didn't mention his company. Was it the Noel O'Flynn bit?



hmmm

dahamsta

Not todays post, the one I linked to, where I mentioned the LOS issue. He thought people might be confused. I thought he was being oversensitive and refused. I take my posts here - everywhere in fact - rather seriously. Asking me to edit a post for the wrong reason is like showing a red rag to a bull. As John discovered, poor sod.

It's just one of those things, happens quite often to me for obvious reasons. It shouldn't sway people's decision about the service.

adam