BB pricing. What am I missing here?

patto_chan

Shopping for Broadband.
I live in South Kildare (Athy) so Smart or Magnet are not available ... yet.

I've compared Eircom's Home BB Pro (€54.45 + line rental €25 per month) and BT Ireland's BB Option 3 (€40 per month or €50 including line rental).

Admittedly Eircom installation is free if ordered online but BT only charges a nominal €40 for install and another €40 for a Wif-Fi option.

Over the entire year Eircom would cost €953 (including the line rental) and BT would be €600 - a whopping difference of €353 over the year. Excluding regular telephone charges.

Have I missed something?
Does Eircom have line rental included in BB price?
Or are they really that uncompetitive?
If this is so, what is stopping more people from voting with their feet?

Please let me know if I've got anything wrong.

bk

No you haven't missed anything, Eircom really are that uncompetitive.

What Eircom know is that, unlike yourself, most people won't shop around and will instead just go with what they know (Eircom). So Eircom don't need to be competitive.

The only thing to watch out for is that BT's billing department is a mess, make sure to keep all your bills from them, check the bills carefully and record any correspondence you have with BT.

philologos

BT seem to have sorted a lot of their billing problems out lately btw

watty

Indeed why are 100,000s of people still using Eircom for voice call bills? Lots of cheaper options.
Why are people STILL paying rental for a phone handset that would buy 4 or 5 phones in a year?

The Eircom supplied adsl router/wifi box is not nice. Some folks I know bought their own from PC World (Linksys? not sure).
It is 100 to 200 Euro to buy your own adsl firewall/router/switch/hub/wifi base unit depending on what you want. Then it can be easier to change supplier, though none of the ADSL boxes I have ssen will work as a firewall on Cable or Wireless, where often the the supplied modem has no wifi, only one USB or Ethernet port and no firewall.

bk

Jakkass wrote:

BT seem to have sorted a lot of their billing problems out lately btw

Really, I still hear lots of complaints here on boards!

It is great news if they have. I've always been worried about advising people to go with BT because of the billing problems.

I was actually just thinking about it, in the past they blamed bad software on their problems, but now that they are part of BT, surely they should have access to the best billing software in the industry and also access to the best billing and customer care managers and process improvement people from the UK. It amazes me that it has taken them this long to sort things out.

Of course now their online ordering system isn't working :rolleyes:

Rattlehead_ie

I was actually just thinking about it, in the past they blamed bad software on their problems, but now that they are part of BT, surely they should have access to the best billing software in the industry and also access to the best billing and customer care managers and process improvement people from the UK. It amazes me that it has taken them this long to sort things out.

Remember it take time to intigrate systems etc, plus alot of time and effort (in most cases). As far as Im aware BT are sorting out their billing issue, it is improving by the week, although not satisfactory yet, but they do seem to be working on it.
Is it just me or is there alot of ISP's all of a sudden getting their ass in gear. I mean BT are doing it, IBB are doing it (along way to go but they seem to b improving) is this down to Comreg, more competition (Magnet etc)

bk

Rattlehead_ie wrote:

Remember it take time to intigrate systems etc, plus alot of time and effort (in most cases). As far as Im aware BT are sorting out their billing issue, it is improving by the week, although not satisfactory yet, but they do seem to be working on it.

What, BT has owned them since January 2000, it takes 6 years to integrate systems???? I work in IT, it does take time, but certainly not 6 years.

Rattlehead_ie wrote:

Is it just me or is there alot of ISP's all of a sudden getting their ass in gear. I mean BT are doing it, IBB are doing it (along way to go but they seem to b improving) is this down to Comreg, more competition (Magnet etc)

LOL, definitely not Comreg, it is competition. Eircom continues to be dominating and now you have companies like Smart, Magnet, Digiweb and NTL all agressively entering the market and looking to steal BT's position as number 2 and looking to take market share from Eircom.

In fact, despite BT being the most competitive Bitstream provider, it's products look weak compared to the LLU companies (which is ironic when you consider that BT was the first LLU company and probably still has the largest LLU rollout) and it has been very quiet on the advertising front compared to all the other companies.

dub45

Jakkass wrote:

BT seem to have sorted a lot of their billing problems out lately btw

Remember it take time to intigrate systems etc, plus alot of time and effort (in most cases). As far as Im aware BT are sorting out their billing issue, it is improving by the week, although not satisfactory yet, but they do seem to be working on it.

Could you tell us what exactly you are basing this on given this thread only recently started?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054890761


And why should a paying customer have to 'Remember it takes time to intergrate systems' when it is costing that customer mony time inconvenience etc.

If you read threads on here you will see that BT Esat a supposedly reputable company ask non householders for a deposit - they will not answer any questions whatsoever about that deposit as apparently the csr's know nothing about it. They can't even forsesee that the customer might ask 'eh how do I get my money back Sir?'

Sorting themselves out? This has been going for years and nothing has been done about it - this month's bills bear that out. I spoke to two people completely unconnected in the past month or so who told me they paid money to Esat that they were convinced that they did not owe because debt collectors had been called in.

If there were any sort of proper customer protection leglislation out there Companies who behave like Esat would be shut down until they got their act in gear.

Cusomters dont have to 'remember' anything they are entitled to a proper bill iits as simple as that'

And while Eircom are expensive how many threads are on boards about either the reliablity of their billing or the quality of their service? People are prepared to pay for that sort of reliablility.

Rattlehead_ie

Could you tell us what exactly you are basing this on given this thread only recently started?

1st off, I didnt see that thread, 2nd, I didnt say they were perfect, I just said they SEEM to be IMPROVING, what I mean by that is that they are NOT as bad as they used to be, MOST customers didnt get bills for 6 months and then when they did get them they were over charged, then it was impossible to get through to anyone, from MY experience I have seen an improvement in them.

But anyway this is completely off the thread subject. To answer your question patto_chan, yes Eircom price wise at least are not compeditive with the others

dub45

Rattlehead_ie wrote:

1st off, I didnt see that thread, 2nd, I didnt say they were perfect, I just said they SEEM to be IMPROVING, what I mean by that is that they are NOT as bad as they used to be, MOST customers didnt get bills for 6 months and then when they did get them they were over charged, then it was impossible to get through to anyone, from MY experience I have seen an improvement in them.

But anyway this is completely off the thread subject. To answer your question patto_chan, yes Eircom price wise at least are not compeditive with the others

So being less awful than they were? :rolleyes: