Eircom's 'vulnerable user' scheme | Smart Telecom & Kelloggs

dahamsta

http://adam.beecher.net/pheed/?hqhgcd

The Irish Times reports that fewer than 400 people have taken up a "vulnerable user" scheme established by Eircom as part of a deal with ComReg that has enabled the company to increase line rental fees three times in one year. Eircom came in for criticism on Tuesday following its announcement that it plans to up line rental charges by about 8 percent, as reported by ElectricNews.net.

The Irish Independent says that Smart Telecom plans to invest up to EUR35 million over the next five to ten years in the rollout of a network of fibre-optic rings. The company, which currently has 35,000 domestic users, also said it intends to almost triple that number to reach 100,000 residential customers by the end of the year.

dahamsta

Smart moves to triple residential customer base

SMART Telecom intends to almost triple its number of residential customers to reach 100,000 by the end of the year.

The company currently has 35,000 domestic users but is about to launch a major drive to attempt to leapfrog over Esat BT, to take second place behind Eircom in the residential market.

The OFEX-listed company also announced yesterday that it planned to invest up to €35m over the next five to ten years in the rollout of a network of optical rings, targeted primarily at corporate customers nationwide. Smart has already secured its 120 kilometre Dublin ring on a 20-year deal, and it has also agreed leases for further rings in Cork and Galway.

Smart also claimed its offering was technically "three to five times" more efficient than the existing use of infrastructure when compared with competitors.

[...]

vinnyfitz

Does a customer have to apply for vulnerable user status or is it an automatic billing thing that if you make less than 5 euros of calls in a month one gets a flat rate bill of €22.50? (soon to be €24?)

Will the vulnerabe user price increase by 8% along with the line rental charge?

Can one be vulnerable one month and extravagant the next? (Or is there a minimum number of months one has to be vulnerable to qualify for this tiny compensation?

If bills are only issued once every 2 months - is vulnerability averaged?

McRedmond is quoted in the IT today as saying the service is advertised on Eircom's website but neither Ripwave nor I could find it yesterday. Was McRedmond "misleading" the Irish Times? Or can anyone point me to the link?
[Of course the notion that vulnerable phone users are mooching around looking for deals on the web is laughable!]


TBH I'm not surprised only 400 people have benefited from it.

BTW I see hand set rental went up yesterday as well.

MDR

mum,

went over to smart last week,
I was hassling her for a while about it,
someone turned up at the door,
and she thought it seemed like an easy way to switch over
from Eircom (I recentily switched her over to meteor, she loves
meteor, so it probabily softened her on the idea).

oscarBravo

Kelloggs?

dahamsta

Fibre rings. Sorry.

oscarBravo

:rolleyes: Jaysus. Should have spotted - guess who hasn't had his weetabix...

eirebhoy

If this is what I heard on Newstalk how do I find out about this service? David McRedmond said the info is on Eircom.ie but I can't find it.

Ripwave

Originally posted by eirebhoy
If this is what I heard on Newstalk how do I find out about this service? David McRedmond said the info is on Eircom.ie but I can't find it.

McRedmond doesn't know his arse from his elbow.

He's either very dumb or very dishonest (though there are those who would say that he's both of those, and therefore very good at his job).

There is no information on the oreillycom website, because even they are too embarrased to publicise it.

You can read about it on the ComReg site. Here's the essence:

The scheme will have an initial subscription fee of €22.50 (incl. VAT) per month which will include line rental and local, national, fixed to mobile and international calls up to a value of €5.00 (incl. VAT). Once a customer exceeds the €5.00 worth of calls they will pay double the standard rate for calls up to €11 (incl. VAT) after which they will revert to standard call rates.

Note that a "vulnerable user" who makes more than €10 worth of calls will be paying more than they would if they hadn't signed up.

http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0348.pdf

Ripwave

Originally posted by eirebhoy
If this is what I heard on Newstalk how do I find out about this service? David McRedmond said the info is on Eircom.ie but I can't find it.

You know what'd really make my week?

It'd be great if Pat Kenny invited McRedmond onto his show, and then, when he was comfortably sitting down, pull out a wireless laptop (preferably using a wireless ISP for connectivity), and ask McRedmond to navigate to the Vulnerable Users optin on the eircom site.

viking

There is no information on the oreillycom website, because even they are too embarrased to publicise it.

Unfortunately its there, although they don't want it to be found too easily!

On eircom.ie go to "Our Products & Services->Eircom Pricing->product pricing" and at the bottom there's a link to a page containing PDF's of all their retail pricing. Then click the link for "Part 9 -Package Volume Discounts" and its there on page 35. Direct link to document here.

As I said, not easily found...

viking

MDR

the i-stream bulk connection discount is amusing,
I wonder if anyone ever availed of it ?

Ripwave

Originally posted by viking
On eircom.ie go to "Our Products & Services->Eircom Pricing->product pricing" and at the bottom there's a link to a page containing PDF's of all their retail pricing. Then click the link for "Part 9 -Package Volume Discounts" and its there on page 35. Direct link to document here.
As I said, not easily found...

Every their own search engine couldn't find it! (That document has been there since December 16th, according to the headers).

Just how a "vulnerable users" price gets classified as a "package volume discount" is beyond me.