Prime Time tonight

Moriarty

There's a segment on Prime Time on RTE 1 tonight. The specific segment will be on in about 10-15 minutes. Go watch.

wheels of ire

Thans for that.Watching another so -called 'Profession' being filleted for exploiting the agonies of adolescence, (and their parents). Even more extraordinary a PD doing the filleting.
Here it comes...

ando

i'm recording it now, if anybody wants, I'll upload it to some webspace

mike65

Saw the interview with the minsiter, not much to say except to note the tone of regret that we are where we are.

Mike.

nahdoic

The initial report was good, great interview with Martin Harran

A little bit worried that the minister doesn't seem to understand the MANs will not introduce competition at the last mile. But he kept saying over and over that it would.

Fantastic to see it getting such attention though.

SkepticOne

mike65 wrote:

Saw the interview with the minsiter, not much to say except to note the tone of regret that we are where we are.

He mentioned that there are 45 companies providing broadband. I wouldn't have thought there wer that many - maybe he means telcos in general, but how many are just repackaging Eircom DSL as opposed to putting pressure on Eircom?

He was adament that he wouldn't get invoved with the regulator (at least publically) and he also felt that the MANs would be a force for competition.

Great work by Martin and the committee in general. I'm sure they were very busy providing information to the researchers.

shinzon

prime time and a minister says this with a straight face, it seems were in far more trouble then we think

interviewer

minister has comreg got enough power (not verbatim )

Noel dempsey

Well the argument from industry is that Comreg has to much power

:rolleyes:

I despair i truly do

Shin

Jorinn

SkepticOne wrote:

He mentioned that there are 45 companies providing broadband. I wouldn't have thought there wer that many - maybe he means telcos in general, but how many are just repackaging Eircom DSL as opposed to putting pressure on Eircom?

He was adament that he wouldn't get invoved with the regulator (at least publically) and he also felt that the MANs would be a force for competition.

Great work by Martin and the committee in general. I'm sure they were very busy providing information to the researchers.

Yup, most are repackaged, the vast majority probably. This isn't competition, it's being dictated to by the monopoly.

Essentially, he didn't seem to know what he was talking about.

When Mcredmond came on though I felt like hitting the TV.

SkepticOne

shinzon wrote:

Noel dempsey

Well the argument from industry is that Comreg has to much power

:rolleyes:

I despair i truly do

Shin

To be fair, he did say that this was not an argument he would agree with.

nahdoic

shinzon wrote:

prime time and a minister says this with a straight face, it seems were in far more trouble then we think

interviewer

minister has comreg got enough power (not verbatim )

Noel dempsey

Well the argument from industry is that Comreg has to much power

he also went on to say that, that wasn't his personal view. Of course it is the view of the industry (aka eircom).

mike65

Maybe he was just being honest but the lack of "Oumph" in his words was a bit worrying. I'm not expecting him to crack the whip vis-a-vis Comreg.

Mike.

nahdoic

mike65 wrote:

Maybe he was just being honest but the lack of "Oumph" in his words was a bit worrying. I'm not expecting him to crack the whip vis-a-vis Comreg.

Mike.

Aye - it came across he was completely happy to let the MANs in the future to provide the competition in the future which they won't. (not at the last mile level)

ando

For those that missed it, here's the 9 minutes I was able to get of it ....

http://homepage.eircom.net/~anderson2002/video/PrimeTime.wmv

(2.17 MB)

spongebob

Dempsey is useless , he was moved out of education after pissing everyone off in there.

M

eircomtribunal

ando wrote:

i'm recording it now, if anybody wants, I'll upload it to some webspace

Thanks. To have it somewhere, where people can be pointed to is invaluable.


Dempsey's misunderstanding of the MANs as competition to the last mile network is serious.
All the old reliable fake arguments raise their heads again: the missing cable competition argument, and worst of all: everything is getting ok now, because we've a bb growth in the mad hundreds etc.

P.

Victor

Sums it up TBH.

Interviewer: Minister has the Garda got enough power?

Michael McDowell: Well the argument from bank robbers is that the Garda has to much power.

ro2

For the lucky few with broadband...

http://60hud.com/videos/primetime.wmv

(450k/s windows media)

mike65

Good rip!

Mike.

damien

Anyone willing to make a .torrent out of it ?

damien

The Minister pretty much said that selling off Eircom was a mistake. Not in so many words but the message was there. He also said that ComReg did not have too much power.

He floundered and I think this might be reason enough for him to fire up his Dept to make stuff happen.

This was a very well researched pieve from Prime Time. Again I urge everyone to email the show and tell them the pieve they did was good.

A very very special thanks to our own Martin Harran who drove down to Dublin from Donegal to film this a few weeks back. He gave up a day of his life to do this piece and everyone here should thank him for it as what he said will be listened to by many a person in the DCMNR and ComReg. He's right, seeing Ireland at the bottom of a league table in this modern age is disgusting.

Sorry we didn't say anything in advance but certain companies listen in here daily and we wanted to keep our advantage.

Victor

damien.m wrote:

Anyone willing to make a .torrent out of it ?

Wow, must be the first warezing of RTÉ content ev4r!

Blaster99

On the local loop unbundling vs MAN, what Dempsey is saying is that local loop unbundling is designed to provide broadband competition and the MAN is an alternative that will bring about broadband competition (through wireless broadband presumably), hence it's an alternative to local loop unbundling brought to you by a caring government.

Paddy20

Only caught the last part of it. It was enough to drive me to the very edge of total despair

vinnyfitz

The win here (and previously on Radio one immediately after his appointment) is that Dempsey is being put on the spot over internet connectivity. Not fish, not gas, not An Post, not Sellafield but on telecoms issues. This issue is being put high on his priority list whether he wants it or not.

The more the media flush out what he does and does not know and what he does and does not believe, the easier it is to target the lobbying.

Are IOFFL meeting him formally soon?

viking

Excellent interview Martin! Primetime had all the arguments covered thanks to your input.

Gareth

Blaster99

Mind you I wouldn't mind if some pressure was put on An Post as well, because they're completely diabolical. I recently had to send some forms down the country to get them signed and then post them to somebody in Dublin. It took three days each way down the country and four days within Dublin. And unlike the price of broadband, it's a "service" that's getting more expensive every year.

Yet another ComReg success story.

gline

I just watched some of the clip. Couldnt help laughing at eircoms comment, that they are offering broadband more and more homes - true but at what price?????


They do have a wide enough coverage, but at twice the price of other BB suppliers ie IBB and ntl etc (if you count the cost of phoneline rental aswell).

And they are crap to deal with and a tiny downlaod cap :mad:

Jim

lol,

Eircom guy : "70% of areas are broadband capable, and in those areas 8 out of 10 people can get broadband. This is a significant improvement from where we were 2 years ago"

Pat us on the back, hell it was **** 2 years ago, its still **** now, but we are improving. Nevermind that 2 years ago we should have been further than we are now.

dahamsta

Jimeatsmenu wrote:

Eircom guy : "70% of areas are broadband capable, and in those areas 8 out of 10 people can get broadband. This is a significant improvement from where we were 2 years ago"

I can't believe people are still letting that dipsh1t parrot statistics like this. Are the Irish media entirely retarded?

adam

gline

dahamsta wrote:

I can't believe people are still letting that dipsh1t parrot statistics like this. Are the Irish media entirely retarded?

adam

Its like we now live in the iron age instaed of the stoneage, but its still "progress", hahahahha. We are way behind because large companies have the monopoly in ireland, esb, eircom etc, bring in the competition is wat i say

scargill

Originally Posted by Jimeatsmenu
Eircom guy : "70% of areas are broadband capable, and in those areas 8 out of 10 people can get broadband. This is a significant improvement from where we were 2 years ago"

reminded me of a Homer Simpson quote when he said that !!
"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that."

80% of 70% is 56% ?????? why didn't he say only half of their customers could get broadband ?????

spongebob

scargill wrote:

why didn't he say only half of their customers could get broadband ?????

This is an important distinction. Many Eircom customers in city centres have MULTIPLE lines while rural domestic customers have one line.

The Eircom SEC filing that was dissected by Viking some time back proved (roughly) that

60% of lines are connected to Enabled Exchanges , 30% of THOSE fail so about 45% of Eircom LINES can get BB at present .

Many of these lines are multiple lines into ONE customer . The number of Eircom CUSTOMERS who can get BB is CONSIDERABLY less than 45%.

The corollary is that many of the customers in city centres whose line failed a BB test can try another line, only one of the multiple lines has to pass

Explaining any of this to our soi-disant tech journalist is a waste of time...bar honourable mentions like Adrian Weckler ,Fergus Cassidy , John Kennedy (is that it) in Siicon Republic and Karlin ......and they are in alphabetic order by first name . The rest will simply regurgitate whatever Eircom tells them .

So I fear will Dempsey.

M

eircomtribunal

scargill wrote:

80% of 70% is 56% ?????? why didn't he say only half of their customers could get broadband ?????

Because David McRedmond is not an ordinary liar, but a highly paid master of deception.
What will stick in viewers minds? "70%" and "8 out of 10" can have broadband. (David can always claim he never said this straight lie, but that is exactly what he intended and managed to get across.)

While even "70%" or "8 out of 10" bb availability would be embarrassingly low and not bring us to the EU average bb availability, the true figure is lower than the 56%.
In their SEC filing (that's where Eircom cannot lie, because David could go to jail if found out) Eircom speaks of 1.1 million lines originating from enabled exchanges and 76% of those being bb capable: 1.1 million lines represent 68% of their lines and 76% of those makes some 52% of lines, according to Eircom's own figures.
As Muck points out, lines are not equal to customers. Less than half of the customers can get broadband.

Why have we to speculate about these figures?
Because our shell-shocked Regulator does not dare to publish anything of importance that could embarrass Eircom or himself. First degree of Stockholm syndrome.

P.

gline

eircomtribunal wrote:

Because David McRedmond is not an ordinary liar, but a highly paid master of deception.
What will stick in viewers minds? "70%" and "8 out of 10" can have broadband. (David can always claim he never said this straight lie, but that is exactly what he intended and managed to get across.)

While even "70%" or "8 out of 10" bb availability would be embarrassingly low and not bring us to the EU average bb availability, the true figure is lower than the 56%.
In their SEC filing (that's where Eircom cannot lie, because David could go to jail if found out) Eircom speaks of 1.1 million lines originating from enabled exchanges and 76% of those being bb capable: 1.1 million lines represent 68% of their lines and 76% of those makes some 52% of lines, according to Eircom's own figures.
As Muck points out, lines are not equal to customers. Less than half of the customers can get broadband.

Why have we to speculate about these figures?
Because our shell-shocked Regulator does not dare to publish anything of importance that could embarrass Eircom or himself. First degree of Stockholm syndrome.

P.

Yep eircoms use of those statistics is definitly hiding something.

Paddy20

Hey! Martin,

You do scrub up well, what a difference a suit makes Eh Very well done, ye did us proud ye scallywag ya.

Paddy.

gline

Paddy20 wrote:

Hey! Martin,

You do scrub up well, what a difference a suit makes Eh Very well done, ye did us proud ye scallywag ya.

Paddy.

LOL

spongebob

I shall defer to the maestro. 52% of Eircom lines are capable of being connected to Broadband not 45% . Slightly more than half not slightly less than half

A lot less than half the customers though Muck would guesstimate about 40%

M

eircomtribunal

Jimeatsmenu wrote:

Eircom guy : "70% of areas are broadband capable, and in those areas 8 out of 10 people can get broadband.

70% of areas – that's what David McRedmond says on public TV, without getting challenged. Isn't that the moment when our geographic coverage map could come in handy?

P.

spongebob

Exactly.

When McRedmond wants to prattle on to the thicko journos about Areas it Actually amounts to 201 out of 1100 exchanges or 18.3% of Areas . BB ultimately has to be provided OUT OF an exchange .

Given that many of these areas overlap in the 5 big cities where half of the enabled exchanges are it amounts to something like 10% Geographic coverage in reality .

The only truism is that 70% of Lines are in Enabled Areas .......not that they can actually get it if they want.....be they within the DSL coverage limit of 4.5km or not.

The SEC filing is gospel because McRedmond could be personally extradited to the US and locked up if it was not. He has no such legal duty to Eircoms customers or to Comreg .

M

jmcc

Muck wrote:

Explaining any of this to our soi-disant tech journalist is a waste of time...bar honourable mentions like Adrian Weckler ,Fergus Cassidy , John Kennedy (is that it) in Siicon Republic and Karlin ......and they are in alphabetic order by first name . The rest will simply regurgitate whatever Eircom tells them .

Weckler is a useless tosser who is just ignored by the industry. Fergus has a lot of respect from the more clueful but is ignored by the broader audience. John Kennedy will run stories even at the risk of them getting spiked. Karlin has come a long way since she and the rest of the Irish Times "technology journalists" ran Eircom's press releases verbatim even when they were clearly demonstrated as being lies. The big problem in this is that none of the above could actually match a story planted by a good Eircom PR operator.

The Primetime segment was unusual in that McRedmond did not have things his own way and the RTE interviewer caught McRedmond a few times. You could see the look of fear in McRedmond's eyes and the stress as he was lying about the report on the state of Eircom's infrastructure.

No doubt over the next few days there will be more spin from that Gombeen Man O'Reilly's newspapers and friends about what a great job Eircom is doing. If the gloves are going to come off, Ireland Offline has to hit every Eircom lie hard and call them lies. PR people have a rather delicate view of themselves and destroying that view and their credibility is the best way to handle them. The only paper that has consistently fought against Eircom's lies has been the Sunday Business Post. Having RTE on board is a good thing.

Regards...jmcc

Blaster99

Has it occurred to anyone that it might make sense to ask Eircom to remove the line test and just attempt to install RADSL on any line connected to an enabled exchange? For all this talk of coverage, it's Eircom that has limited the coverage by setting the bar too high.

Eurorunner

jmcc wrote:

Weckler is a useless tosser who is just ignored by the industry. ....................................... The only paper that has consistently fought against Eircom's lies has been the Sunday Business Post. Having RTE on board is a good thing.

Regards...jmcc

Dont know much about the guy but he did give the issue some press before many of the other journalists got a hold of it. If you think about it, the momentum has built from then till now in terms of press coverage.
The only ones not to cover the issue now are regional papers/radio - although martin harran has already got a start on this in donegal.
Im not just thinking in terms of eircom bashing, im thinking that the group broadband schemes could do with more press too.

And yes the Business Post has provided the best coverage of eircom, but that all started off with Adrian Wecklers article some months back.

jmcc

Eurorunner wrote:

Dont know much about the guy but he did give the issue some press before many of the other journalists got a hold of it.

Like fsck he did. Other journos were working on this before him and highlighted it better. The real jouros on the SBP did the work. A lot of real journos covered the Eircom fiasco in the mainstream press well before Weckler had left that Hoson rag Call Centre News and decided to be a "technology journalist" like all the other dot.bomb "technology journalists".

The only ones not to cover the issue now are regional papers/radio - although martin harran has already got a start on this in donegal.
Im not just thinking in terms of eircom bashing, im thinking that the group broadband schemes could do with more press too.

The regional papers are always more conservative and Eircom will know it has lost the war when they turn against it. (Regional papers are not known for hard hitting investigative journalism. Their main content is primarily Sports, Births, Marriages, Deaths and Local Adverts.) The Primetime segment will have an effect though most of the editorials over the next few weeks will be on the US Election and probably the IRA Decommissioning when it happens. The local radio stations would be the most useful to get in on the Group Broadband Scheme.

And yes the Business Post has provided the best coverage of eircom.

Editorial cut/fact check. I don't regard Weckler as being either a good "technology journalist" or a good editor and he certainly was not responsible for the mainstream press covering the story - especially when the mainstream press has been covering the Eircom story for years.

Regards...jmcc

seamus

Keep it on topic please guys.

Take it to another thread if you don't like Weckler jmcc, it's not relevant.

thejollyrodger

Watched the broadband part in PrimeTime. It sort of covered everything and didnt go into too much detail. Glad to see that the government has admitted that it was a mistake to sell Telecom Eireann since the private sector may not always follow suit in what the government wants.

I still think Comreg doesnt have enough power. And the price of unbundling of the local loop is still too high. It is the highest in Europe and is bound to stop Telcos from upgrading them.

Happy enough though with the future development of broadband in Ireland, I think the penny has finally dropped with the government. I just hope that Dempsy gets on with it. He should now get Comreg to start pushing ADSL2 now and also that fast wireless service @ 30 meg

jmcc

seamus wrote:

Keep it on topic please guys.
Take it to another thread if you don't like Weckler jmcc, it's not relevant.

However pointing out that the mainstream press has been covering the Eircom problem is relevant. Weckler is not the reason that the SBP decided suddenly to cover it. There is only a limited amount of space in any newspaper and specifically in the business section. The details are the things that will bring Eircom management to justice. However presenting these details in a simple enough format for the public is difficult and most "technology journalists" are not up to doing that because the arguments are often boringly technical. It takes a television programme like Primetime to kick the issue into the public consciousness.

Ireland Offline has to build upon that. The way it should be done is that every Eircom lie should be confronted and slammed as a lie. To paraphrase "The Untouchables" - they issue a press release, you issue a fact sheet pointing out the lies. Technology journalists are easily bought by companies such as Eircom. All they do is send them off on a junket or send them freebies.

Regards...jmcc

dahamsta

Have to say, while I appreciate that Prime Time coverage on this topic may be progress, it could easily be argued that allowing McFibber to peddle his trash uncontested could well do more harm than good. If I was IrelandOffline (smart comments welcome) I'd be encouraging the membership to write a note congratulating PT with one sentence, and then laying into them big time for not challenging McBullshot directly on the McGarbage he's been McSpouting.

In fact this should happen every time the subject comes up, particularly if an operator, ComReg or the Minister (i.e. The Enemy) are involved. Laying into the ST via the membership worked well for IrelandOffline, we took over their letters page the following week. And if something works well, keep doing it! Leverage the grassroots. Don't just expect the membership to do it, tell them to do it, with a dedicated thread for each piece. Even one hammering a week would be nice.

adam

eircomtribunal

dahamsta wrote:

In fact this should happen every time the subject comes up, particularly if an operator, ComReg or the Minister (i.e. The Enemy) are involved. Laying into the ST via the membership worked well for IrelandOffline, we took over their letters page the following week. And if something works well, keep doing it! Leverage the grassroots. Don't just expect the membership to do it, tell them to do it, with a dedicated thread for each piece. Even one hammering a week would be nice.
adam

Agreed.
What's the contact address for Prime Time?

P.

damien

dahamsta wrote:

Have to say, while I appreciate that Prime Time coverage on this topic may be progress, it could easily be argued that allowing McFibber to peddle his trash uncontested could well do more harm than good.

Did you watch the report ? Did you listen to what Donogh Diamond reported ? To compare the PT bit to the ass kissing piece in the Sunday Times is highly insulting to the hard work and almost perfect research that Prime Time put into their piece.

That Prime Time piece was not in any way like the Sunday Times piece. They allowed Eircom to have their say (fair reporting) and also brought IrelandOffline in to have their say and also ComReg. In fact IrelandOffline got the first soundbite. While they did not lay into McRedmond they still dished out fact after damning fact about Eircom. They even brought in the Pittsburgh report. You could literally see McRedmond flustered.

So no they didn't lay into McRedmond, Miriam instead layed into the bigger fish - Minister Noel Dempsey. The buck stops with him in the end. They got him to actually admit that things were crap and the sale of Eircom was a mistake. Getting the Govt to admit that blunder is pretty monumental to say the least.

There is no way it can be argued that the piece on Prime Time last night did more harm than good just because McRedmond had his soundbites aired. Not when before and after said soundbites PT showed us real facts. Sending an email with one line of praise and then a few paragraphs "laying into them" is not fair for the work they did. I'm all for constructive criticism and educating reporters but would such an email really be constructive ? Highlight where they did good and where they need work. One sentence will not in my opinion cover the good work they did last night.

Also Adam if you re-read through this thread you will see that I did suggest to people to email Prime Time with their thoughts on the piece. IrelandOffline have consistently encouraged the members of this forum and the memberhsip in general to do this since it came out of the dark a while back.

dahamsta

Jesus Damien, between your diatribe on Pana in the Cork forum and this I'm beginning to wonder about your mental health. Chill out guy, unpick the knots in your knickers...

The fact remains that McRedmond was allowed parrot his bull, again, and that should be addressed. And I'm perfectly aware that you asked people to contact PT, I'm simply suggesting that you make this an integral part of IrelandOffline's campaign. Involving the members more was supposed to be the whole point of the "new" IrelandOffline, remember?

Don't fall into the traditional IrelandOffline trap of taking all criticism negatively. If you do, you'll fall into all of the other traps too.

adam

sceptre

Calm, deep breaths. There's rightness[1] in what both of you have said.

I want to see this stuff aired, even if McRedmond gets that right to reply that we've so often not received. Give him enough rope and he'll do himself in, slick or not.


[1]May have made that word up