Eircom's DSL availability claims

eircomtribunal

"Some people don't like facts getting in the way of a good story" is the heading of a 1/3 page ad in the Sunday Times.

We show the facts and we show (some of) those people.

Read all in "David McRedmond lying again? No, this time it's worse."

P.

Patrickof

Has anyone tried picking a load of numbers from a selection of phone books and seeing how many register a PASS on the eircom line checker?

I doubt anything like 85% would be achieved.

watty

More interesting if it not a 01 phone book

damien

Their number checkers are quite clever and have a lot of checks in place to present mass number checking even from various IPs. This includes number checkers from other bistream providers.

JohnC.

Just one thing which may make you look a little silly.

For a start, it renages on its promise to show us those people ("HERE THEY ARE"), who don't like facts getting their way. The ad should have at least shown the two main clowns acting in this charade:

I believe they were not referring to showing the people, but showing the facts. ("So here are the facts" not "So here are the people.") Which they then did. Although they are not actual truthful facts, so you are safe with that one

Sponge Bob

The facts are simple.

1. Eircom, up to march 2005 only DSL enabled exchanges in towns with a pop of 1500 or over. In Census 2002 we find that about 59.5% of households are in towns of that size. Therefore over 40% of households could not possibly have BB by March 2005 . Thats about 1.6m people. About 2.4m people could have had it .....but see point 3.

2. Eircom , between March 2005 and March 2006, did another 200 exchanges in towns with a population of MAX 1499 in 2002 . Not more than 300,000 people could possibly have benefitted from that recent programme (200 x 1500) could they ....seeing as all the bigger towns were done .

Thats (1.) 2.4m people + (2.) 300,000 people or 2.7m out of 4m who are connected to a BB enabled exchange. I make that to be about 68% of the population altogether .

3. Of that 68% of the population connected to a BB enabled exchange the pass rate under the new test regime is at most 80% .

80% of 68% is 54.4% so

4. So ! 54.4% of Irish Households can get Eircom DSL today if they want it and can afford it after paying line rental.

5. Oh! and the BIG LIE theory is 81 years old this year. !