Esat BT slams Eircom over DSL prices

dahamsta

Relatively short article so I've posted the lot. Well said Mr. Murphy, but please don't leave this in isolation like so many EsatBT leaders have done in the past. You've got the money and the resources to hammer it home, so do it.

adam

Esat BT slams Eircom over DSL prices
Wednesday, November 19 2003
by Dick O'Brien

Esat BT chief executive Bill Murphy has warned that Ireland is in danger of falling behind on broadband and has blamed Eircom for sluggish uptake.

Murphy said that urgent action was needed to increase competition in the broadband market. "If Eircom continues to charge unattractive wholesale prices then Ireland can forget about ever competing with the likes of the UK. Widespread broadband adoption is vital to the economic future of Ireland, but will not happen while Eircom continues to maintain its stranglehold on the market through the provision of uncompetitive wholesale pricing to other operators," said Murphy.

"In the UK, we see a vibrant broadband market, with 150 competitors vying aggressively for customers. Retail broadband prices are as low as EUR22.98 per month. BT as the incumbent only holds a 25 percent market share, which reflects the hugely competitive landscape we so badly lack. In stark comparison here in Ireland, Eircom has a 75 percent market share and Esat BT is effectively its only competitor for business and residential customers," Murphy added.

In making his statement, Murphy revives an old argument within the industry about how much Eircom charges for wholesale access to its DSL product. Competitors were unhappy with the rate Eircom initially proposed charging and a compromise price was fixed in March of this year at EUR27 (excluding VAT) per month. At the time, Esat BT announced that it was satisfied with the price.

Murphy's proposed solution is a request that Eircom establish a pan-industry Web portal that would allow communities to express their desire for broadband. This would allow broadband operators to match supply with demand and provide them with the business case to deliver broadband to such communities. Eircom would set trigger levels for communities to aim for and would upgrade the exchange when registrations for demand hit the trigger. The portal would detail all the operators providing broadband and their pricing levels.

A spokesperson for Eircom said that the company was "receptive" to the idea and was looking into the feasibility of it. Eircom pointed out that it already has formal procedures in place for community groups to petition for broadband in their area.

Mr_Man

Quote

Eircom pointed out that it already has formal procedures in place for community groups to petition for broadband in their area.

I wonder if these are the procedures whereby Eircom make up a number when you ask how many people have registered an interest in your area. When I've done this in the past the number has varied, but never consistently. Sometimes its bigger sometimes smaller. And since there is no mechanism for 'de-registering' an interest I wonder how that can happen if everything is kosher.

M.

Winters

Pity they totally forgot about how the small CAPS are stopping a lot people who want DSL from actually getting it. Id get it but a) very small CAP and b) price is very high when compared to the service.

and also, turn the interleaving thing off and give us nice pings please

suppafly

i've heard a good bit about that inerleaving but still don't know whats its about, so what is it actually?

Chowley

It's supposed to prevent packet loss, I think, Suppafly.
As far as I know only a business has any real need for it but Im not too sure about all that, someone will probably clear it up though.

Dustaz

Originally posted by suppafly
i've heard a good bit about that inerleaving but still don't know whats its about, so what is it actually?

Interleaving is a form of error correction that eircom use on their business lines. Its only real negative effect is that it causes latency/ping to be much higher than one would expect from dsl (about 70-100 instead of 20-50).

Interleaving is on full on eircom ADSL and Netsource ADSL and it is set to 'low' (meaning acceptable ping times for gamers) on all RADSL products.

Esat use a different method called Fastpath which is on their business ADSL product and this has no negative impact on latency.