Should I change to Smart?

Sesheta

Ok Smart came knocking last night and apparently they're finally in the area. Looking at the deal they're offering it'd actually work out cheaper than our current setup with Ripwave and UTV Talk. And that's not counting the 3gb connections...
The only problem I have is the phone aspect. I really don't like the idea of changing my phone number and would like to know how good the savings are for phone useage. I use the phone a lot for work and would call a fair few mobiles.UTV Talk has free landline calls evenings and weekends but again that's not much good for work...
Has anyone changed to Smart and set up with the phone service? Was the changeover smooth? What's the service like? What about stuff like call waiting and voicemail?
It really does seem like a good deal but I don't want to tie myself up for a year if there are kinks...and changing back from an independent network would be a complete pain in it doesn't work out!
I know I should probably be pestering Smart for most of these answers but I just wanted to see what people thought.
Cheers,
Sesheta

antsiou

All I can say so far about Smart, it's that their Customer service (Sales and technical) s*#ks....
After a story as long as the Great China Wall, I cancelled my order for a service they have never been able to provide...
receive the modem, change my phone, but still connected to eircom, eircom are not moving to change me, smart can do nothing... they say it's done, but nothing, say they call back but never, say they come to have a look, still waiting. No info and being hang up by a customer "care" agent several times...
Some funny stories can be found here http://support.smarttelecom.ie/forums/showthread.php?t=403

The service by itself looks good enough, but if you can't get it, what's the point.

It's based on my experience only, but just know that it's not a piece of cake.
Oh yeah, Now it's 2 months after my order, 2 weeks after my cancelation, and they took the money from my bank account for 2 months of service (march and April in advance)...Service I never had....

Really pissed off I am...

Just my story by the way.

Good luck if you go with them

ST*

I moved to Smart about a month ago from Eircom. Don't use the phone much, and was paying €25 line rental, €10 for 25hrs flat rate dial-up, plus calls, so change to Smart made sense paying the same but getting Broadband! Change over took about 4 weeks, cant remember exactly, but all went smoothly.

Changing number didn't bother us as both have mobiles, and friends & family know them so got a few calls on mobile until word got around.

Did a comparison with Eircom's standard rates and Smarts, and all worked out cheaper. Didn't have any eircom package as it wasn't worth our while.

Planning on checking out VOIP when I have time as Skype Out call rates are quite good especially for overseas.

Would you not call Mobile-Mobile for work calls as generally the tarrifs are cheaper than landline-mobile?

I haven't been billed by Smart yet but so far no probs - touch wood

pizzahead77

Although changing to Smart is a complete nightmare due to the incompetencies of Comreg (& the Irish government) and Eircom I can't recommend it enough.

It took about a month to transfer over from eircom.

The speeds are great and the price of the package as well as the cost of phone calls is great too.

byte

I'm glad I moved to Smart also. I seldom use the landline though, so number change wasn't an issue (and the new number I got is easier to roll off the tongue than the previous)!

It took a mere 5 days for the changeover for me. That was a lot faster than normal!

Sesheta

Thanks for all the replies!
The more I look at the maths the more I like the idea...we'll be changing over from UTV but I guess there'll still be the hassle from Eircom to release the number?
Still a bit worried about what will happen if I ever want to change back but then with the feedback about Smart and their prices I can't see that happening for a good while!
Hmmm!
Ansiou - I'm not too worried about their tech support. I've yet to encounter tech support that's worth a damn and I'm a pathological googler anyway! I do make a fair amount of calls mobile to mobile but sometimes I need to use the landline to record calls (nothing illegal of course) and can't hook up my mobile to my md.
byte - who where you changing over from - five days is amazing!

dub45

Sesheta wrote:

Thanks for all the replies!
The more I look at the maths the more I like the idea...we'll be changing over from UTV but I guess there'll still be the hassle from Eircom to release the number?
Still a bit worried about what will happen if I ever want to change back but then with the feedback about Smart and their prices I can't see that happening for a good while!
Hmmm!
Ansiou - I'm not too worried about their tech support. I've yet to encounter tech support that's worth a damn and I'm a pathological googler anyway! I do make a fair amount of calls mobile to mobile but sometimes I need to use the landline to record calls (nothing illegal of course) and can't hook up my mobile to my md.
byte - who where you changing over from - five days is amazing!

I made the change from UTV and it was a monumental pain not through any fault of Smarts.

Remember for Smart to act on your order they need a cease order number from your current isp - the dsl has to be gone off the line - and an account number from Eircom.

If your calls and line rental are with UTV they have to brought back to Eircom so as to get an account number.

UTV require a month's notice for the dsl cancellation.

Good luck in your journey it is definitely worth it.

byte

Sesheta wrote:

byte - who where you changing over from - five days is amazing!

I had changed over from Eircom with Business Starter BB Package. It worked out very well for me, because I was paying about 135eur every 2 months for DSL and linerental, whereas it's 70eur every 2 months with Smart (they bill monthly though). In fact, for the same price of Eircom's Business Starter (3mbit), I coiuld have Smart's 6mbit service (130 every 2 months)!

Though, you say you're with UTV. You'll have to switch from UTV back to Eircom before you can switch to Smart. That may be an issue, and will have more severe delay issues. But, as you use Ripwave for your internet access, that shouldnt' be a problem. Your general phone usage shouldn't be too much affected, except for the change in biller.

When I ordered, I was told it woudl take up to 15 working days, but I asked to push it as fast as possible as DSL was important to me! I hadn't realised it was going to be that fast!

spurious

I'm currently in my eighth week without a telephone or any sort of net thanks to the wasters at Eircom.

UTV at my request removed DSL early from the line (Feb 9th), Eircom 'say' they transferred to Smart on March 3rd, but of course they couldn't manage to do the simplest thing correctly.

A merry dance ensued where Eircom have blamed everyone but Dana for their incompetence, only finally admitting before Easter the fault was, and always has been theirs. Still didn't manage to fix it though.....

If I was a cynic, I'd say the fact that I am leaving for a competitor might have something to do with the delay, but I'm not a cynic, just a realist, so I'll say it's utter incompetence in Eircom.

Have emailed Doctor Phil (Nolan) to no great avail.

Carlsberg don't make jobs, but if they did, an Eircom technician must be fairly close to the top of the list - they appear to do very little and what they occasionally do, doesn't seem to work.

Ireland in the 21st century.

It says quite a bit about Eircom that I am prepared to sit through all this nonsense to get away from them for good.

opus

I know lots of people who've had horrendous problems actually making the move to Smart. Seems I was lucky & it went smoothly, had to change phone number but it wasn't a big a deal as I though. Don't use a landline much except to phone (for free!) some other people on Smart as well.

Overall I can't fault the BB. Smart's support forum isn't too bad although you're more likely to get help from other Smart users than Smart themselves. Also they seem unable to bill properly, I pay by debit via a credit card but they still send me bills saying it's overdue

Solair

I'd a rather interesting experience with smart.

Got a new eircom line installed in January, it passed for broadband etc etc.. and I decided to go with Smart.

Rang them, they took my details.. everything seemed great... modem arrived...

I waited 3 months for them to provide a connection and then gave up. Everytime I rang there was a new hickup preventing them from connecting me. Most of these problems were clearly issues with eircom however, from the customer's perspective it doesn't matter the end result was the same... weeks and weeks without broadband.

I e-mailed them explaining my situation and they were, to be fair, quite helpful, but utterly powerless to actually do anything about my situation.

In the end I gave up and sent my modem back, cancelling the order.

I subsequently connected to UTV which took all of about 5 days and I've found UTV customer service excellent.

In terms of phoneline stuff.. if you've a decent broadband line get blueface.ie. I've been using them for a while now and they're absolutely excellent.

zeusnero

strangely enough UTV's customer service is great in the first month with them, then they turn into a bunch of incompetent idiots...hmmmm. And do they still bill 1.5c per meg download over the cap - that was a right pain in the ars€.

I'm with SMART now, would never change to anyone else. Ever. Downloaded over 50 gigs last month, no problems, excellent customer service and you get free calls to other SMART lines. I can bet that Eircom & UTV probably won't have as good a service in 3 years time not to mind right now.

Granted getting SMART set up can take a while, but you've got to remember, that 99% of the time that's Eircom's fault, not SMART's... If you can get SMART, GET SMART. Just my 2c

Sesheta

Hmm! I guess as far as the net goes we could keep the Ripwave no problem while eircom gets their arse in gear but the thought of no phone is a bit worrying!
Looks like we are going to change though...Smart really does sound too good a deal to miss!

d22ontour

I am waiting six weeks at the moment changing isp to smart and their customer service is pathethic.Their excuses range from it's eircoms fault to we don't know what the hold up is and it's getting more frustrating by the day never mind the weeks.They have yet to change the phone number never mind sending a modem not that i could use it .

digitaldr

Changed to smart in January - everything went smoothly apart from my old ISP Digiweb continuing to bill me! The lack of voicemail (rumoured to be available soon) isn't a problem as my DECT phone has a built in answering machine. Only had to use customer support a few times nad didn't find them to bad.

Ambersky

Im not happy with my change over to Smart. The changeover from Eircom went smoothly enough given that I understood it would take months for access to the Whitehall exchange.I was willing to wait because I welcomed the competition with Eircom. Im not really a teckie type but Im getting an education fast.
My connection speed is never much above 1Mbp which I am told is because of my distance from the exchange and thats that. Smart have no messaging service. My caller ID box no longer works and I just bought an answering machine which also wont work. Technical support sort of blame the machine but do say that there have been some difficulties they are trying to sort out with some manufacturers but cant tell me what to use or if there is a model of answering machine that does work with their service.
I have had endless trouble with modems. I requested a Wireless Modem which I thought wasnt working as it kept freezing while downloading and sent it back. The replacement standard modem stopped working after doing an update which I didnt attempt alone but did with their technical support talking me through. I got a replacement for the standard modem which wasnt working of a wireless modem without requesting it and was still charged 100 Euro.
There seems to be negligable communication between their courier service and customer support which delivers the wrong stuff and at the time most convenient to them not you. Any modem I have had seems to require you to unplug it at the mains and reconnect every time it is idle for any period of time. When I ring technical support and wait listening to what seems to be the soundtrack to the Titanic for 20mins I have to explain the whole thing over again to have someone ask me have I tried unpluging the wire at the back. Yes I Have!!! I also know how to ping and reconfigure my router which are skills I didnt want to have to learn. All this isnt easy for me I have spent Hours trying to get this thing working.
I got so fed up with customer services saying they would sort out the problem and phone me back on my mobile and then not doing it I asked to close my account. Now Smart wont release me untill I pay the remainder of the years charges and Eircom say my number dosent exist but they can connect me to their service for 140 Euro but couldnt say how long it would take.