Smart phone service gone

nilhg

I have just tried to make a outgoing call and got a fast busy tone followed by a recorded message telling me that my Smart telecom phone service is no longer available and that Comreg could give me a list of alternative vioce providers.
Incoming calls still work.
Looks like somebody has pulled the plug on Smart.

bennyx_o

Just tried to make a call from the land line and got the recorded message too. All very sudden, anyone know why? Or what happened?

cregser

This happened:
http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/1002/smart.html

spurious

It seems to be only some users. I can ring both Smart and non-Smart numbers, but have problems with incoming calls. Summerhill exchange in Dublin.

This was reported on another thread:
Eircom withdraws Smart's wholesale service

October 02, 2006 20:18

The majority of Smart Telecom's customers are no longer able to make outgoing calls from their phones tonight because of a dispute with the company and its wholesale provider Eircom.

Smart customers are being advised to contact ComReg. They can still receive incoming calls and are able to make emergency 999 calls.

An Eircom spokesman said that the company has had credit issues with Smart Telecom for some time.

A small number of Smart customers - those who still pay their line rental to Eircom - can still make outside calls by using the pre-fix 13666 before the telephone number they want.

A ComReg spokesman said they would be issuing Smart customers with more details of where they go from here in the coming days on their website and also in the national media.

Smart Telecom has been in financial trouble lately. Last month, it said it had concluded a strategic review which would see about 250 jobs being cut as the company's staff numbers are reduced from 348 to about 100.

It also said it planned to sell off a number of non-core businesses - including payphones and pre-paid call cards - in the coming months.

Nothing official from Smart yet.

bennyx_o

Yea, just after reading it. Don't make too many calls from it anyway.

Urban Weigl

In other news, Greece overtakes Ireland and now has more unbundled lines than us.

Eircom have been tightening the screws on Smart for a while now to ensure they go out of business, and have been telling them lies.

spurious

Looks like entirely Smart customers (broadband and free line rental - at least those that I know) can still make outgoing calls.

Can anyone who cannot make outgoing calls confirm whether you have your line rental still with Eircom?

SkepticOne

I was almost going to advise the company I work for to go with them a couple of weeks back. Very glad now I didn't.

Foxwood

Urban Weigl wrote:

In other news, Greece overtakes Ireland and now has more unbundled lines than us.

Eircom have been tightening the screws on Smart for a while now to ensure they go out of business, and have been telling them lies.

The unbundled lines are still unbundled - eircom is claiming that Smart hasn't paid the phone bill.

(I vaguely recall reading something about a dispute between eircom and Smart about this before. Can anyone the details?)

1huge1

Urban Weigl wrote:

In other news, Greece overtakes Ireland and now has more unbundled lines than us.

Eircom have been tightening the screws on Smart for a while now to ensure they go out of business, and have been telling them lies.

yes but they have like 10million people
and i think its like 2% of them over there have broadband and were like 8%

spurious

What ever happened this case, or has it been heard yet?

From: http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=184&si=1457604&issue_id=12922
Smart taking Eircom to High Court for €47m

SMART Telecom has taken a €47m High Court action against Eircom alleging that its bigger rival is abusing a dominant position in the market by refusing to allow Smart access to its network. Smart also alleges that a decision by Eircom earlier this year to cut Smart off from Eircom's network was unlawful.

Details of the court action are outlined in Eircom's prospectus on its proposed €420m acquisition of Meteor, and in a separate prospectus on the €420m rights issue which will fund the purchase. Both documents, copies of which have been seen by the Irish Independent, contain details of Smart's legal challenge.

Under the heading 'contingent liabilities', they state: "On 8 June 2005, Smart Telecom instituted proceedings against Eircom in the Irish High Court, challenging the validity of a notice of termination issued by Eircom to Smart Telecom terminating the interconnection agreement between the parties, and alleging that the notice of termination is an abuse by Eircom of its dominant position in the telecommunications market. Smart Telecom further alleges that Eircom is abusing its dominant position by refusing to provide network access in the form of LLU (local loop unbundling) to Smart Telecom in the manner required by Smart Telecom."

The documents go on to outline the level of damages being sought by Smart, which amount to €47.1m.

They state: "Smart Telecom submitted general particulars of their damages claim under the headings wasted expenditure (€1.6m), delayed sales/lost customers (€3.8m per annum), and capitalisation of losses (€41.7m per annum)."

According to Eircom, even if the company were found to be culpable, the level of damages outlined by Smart is out of line.

It states: "Even if Smart Telecom could establish liability on Eircom's part under each of these headings, our directors do not believe that these figures represent damages that would be properly recoverable from Eircom."

Shares in Smart Telecom, which are listed on the AIM in London, were trading as high as stg37p last month but fell below stg20p this month after Eircom won a High Court case against ComReg, the communications regulator.

Eircom's win effectively stymies the regulator's efforts to force the company to open the 'last mile' of its network to competitors.

Jack Gorman, the telecoms analyst at Davy Stockbrokers, said the loss was bad news for Smart.

He said: "Basically, this means it will be the back end of this year at least before Smart is able to transfer its broadband customers easily.

"This is a major issue for Smart which must get customers, not just signed up, but connected."

Tom McEnaney

byte

I'm using an unbundled line (Smart's €35 Line Rent + BB offer) and I can still currently make outgoing calls. Would this be something to do with the fact that unbundled Smart lines use some sort of VOIP for calls from the line?

watty

And the evil side of LLU?
Every one of those SMART unbundled lines is STILL rented from Eircom! I'd imagine the BB will be cut too pretty soon if Smart can't pay the rent.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Sponge Bob

seems eircom have unilaterally suspended wlr and cps customers but not llu customers. the Winback from hell , eh !!:(

they are trying to stop smart from making a deal on the cps customers with BT ( I hear that BT made an offer for the lot ) by winning them back by suspending their services, 47000 persons affected. by the time they resume service (they will) they will have won back at least 30000

watty

Smart probabily do use VOIP as you can't LLU a line and have it still as an ordinary phone line!!

byte

To update, I've just noticed I can't receive incoming calls. I just get an engaged tone!

oscarBravo

Sponge Bob wrote:

they are trying to stop smart from making a deal on the cps customers with BT ( I hear that BT made an offer for the lot ) by winning them back by suspending their services, 47000 persons affected. by the time they resume service (they will) they will have won back at least 30000

To hell with that. I'm cancelling my phone line. No way in hell I'm going to play along with a stunt like this.

TimTim

watty wrote:

Smart probabily do use VOIP as you can't LLU a line and have it still as an ordinary phone line!!

I noticed I could make calls using Smart076 this evening without an issue.

Solair

As I see this one, eircom have now just catapolted a fairly nerdy issue at the edge of the political agenda right into being a serious general election hot patato.

They could now end up with calls for their business to be split in 2 or some rather more radical proposals from any number of parties!

You can't cut off 47,000 potential voters and not have FF, FG etc notice.

ednwireland

sorry is just me or have smart just not paid their bills ? dont they deserve to be cut off (not the customers obviously) but surely if eircom provide a service smart wont or cant pay for for whatever reason, then this will happen. i vaguely remember some massive deposit not been paid by smart but then thats between comreg smart and eircom, smart have obviously decided eircom will be blamed and their tactics wont be questioned. theres always two sides to a story like this

Blaster99

I'm sure Smart has made mistakes of their own, but the bigger picture is that ComReg has failed to regulate the LLU market properly and this has cost Smart a lot of money which has led to this situation.

crawler

Solair wrote:

As I see this one, eircom have now just catapolted a fairly nerdy issue at the edge of the political agenda right into being a serious general election hot patato.

They could now end up with calls for their business to be split in 2 or some rather more radical proposals from any number of parties!

You can't cut off 47,000 potential voters and not have FF, FG etc notice.

Good point - also now that the shares have been suspended on the stock market, every financial journo is also going to cover the story bringing it even more main stream.

kaizersoze

in addition to the 45,000 land line customers who lost their service, Eircom has also begun the task of disconnecting Smart Telecom's 17,000 broadband customers.

http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/1003/smart.html

Sponge Bob

crawler wrote:

New Metro sites now live - Carlow, Drogheda, Farmers Cross

and why are the farmers cross with ye exactly , does metro have an effect on cows ??

crawler

Sponge Bob wrote:

and why are the farmers cross with ye exactly , does metro have an effect on cows ??

You really need to get out more!

probe

The consequences of eircom’s actions against Smart Telecom include:

1) There are thousands of business customers without a phone service this morning across the country – Irish owned and multi-nationals. A great picture to portray of Ireland AG/SA/Inc, and the way the country is run! Aside from the not immaterial risk they are suffering to their own business operations by eircom’s actions, unlike domestic subscribers, the average business can’t be expected to have to resort to the mobile phone networks until the mess is sorted out. The precipitate action by eircom has caused a big mess which could take weeks to sort out in terms of business customers sourcing alternative services.

Despite the “we’ll cut off incoming calls in a week’s time” threat, I’ve tried to call a number of multi-nationals in Ireland who depend on Smart and can’t get through today over the international networks. Eircom would make money from every incoming call delivered to the Smart network (and probably wouldn’t have to pay termination fees to Smart for same on the grounds of offset, thereby reducing Smart’s indebtedness to eircom). If eircom is behind this dirty trick, it is surely anti-competitive behaviour, at its most blatant?

2) It doesn’t cost eircom anything to handle most of Smart’s traffic (incoming and outgoing) – the phone network is entirely a fixed cost base (aside from any international outgoing calls that Smart may route over eircom [an unlikely scenario given eircom’s uncompetitive pricing]. There is no cost in handling the matter in a responsible manner. In any industry where there was competition, a supplier would not cut off its ultimate customers from their product or service precipitately, simply because they chose to “dump” the wholesaler. They would make timely arrangements to ensure continuity of service. This type of action only happens in monopoly situations where the supplier has “significant market power” and knows that ultimately the unfortunate victims are going to have to deal with them if they want the business lifeline that is a telecommunications service.

There is no reason why an orderly mechanism should not have been devised and incorporated in the regulatory system (ie eircom’s license), to deal with these eventualities. This gross failure and regulatory negligence will enhance eircom’s monopoly in future – because customers will be even more scared to try an alternative, in case eircom takes the same action again. This is yet another gross failure of the regulatory process. Unless action is taken to put a regulatory mechanism in place for these foreseeable events, the problem is almost certainly going to happen again

3) There are 275,200 DSL subscribers as of 30.6.2006 according to ComReg’s latest report. Of these, approx. 260,000 are either retailed directly by eircom or wholesaled by eircom to other brand names to give the illusion of competition and choice. Eircom has in rough terms 94% of the DSL market one way or another. This is yet another gross failure of the regulatory process.

When is the government going to take effective action to get an efficient telecommunications regulatory process in place to prevent eircom and its new owners from abusing its position and turning Ireland into an even worse banana republic that it already is on the infrastructural front?

When is the government going to take effective action to make loop unbundling work in a manner that forces eircom to fight for every customer, as happens in normal efficient marketplaces?

.probe

probe

spurious wrote:

What ever happened this case, or has it been heard yet?

From: http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=184&si=1457604&issue_id=12922
Smart taking Eircom to High Court for €47m

If you want access to a speedy court system, incorporate in Germany! With Ireland’s antiquated “common law” system, justice normally goes to those with the deepest pockets, particularly in the commercial arena – and in addition to being expensive, cases can grind on for ages – the longer the case takes the higher the fees payable (or “costs” as the industry euphemistically likes to call them!).

If eircom succeeds using market abusive behaviour in loop unbundling and cutting off Smart’s wholesale and interconnect access to the eircom network, it will probably succeed in killing off the Smart litigation against eircom and ComReg – because they are increasing the chance of the appointment of a liquidator (and with any luck there will be insufficient assets available to him or her to continue this litigation process). As a result eircom will probably end up with Smart’s UMTS (3G) license – an outcome that should be resisted by all right thinking people! Justice delayed is justice denied. If EirComReg manage to wangle the Smart UMTS license for Meteor – Ireland will remain at the top of the global rankings for mobile phone billing excesses.

.probe

watty

Surely since even the LLUed lines are rented from Eircom? that the percentage is even higher. Maybe BT has the very odd ex-Esat exchange/lines that arn't eircom's property?

Sponge Bob

probe wrote:

I’ve tried to call a number of multi-nationals in Ireland who depend on Smart and can’t get through today over the international networks. Eircom would make money from every incoming call delivered to the Smart network (and probably wouldn’t have to pay termination fees to Smart for same on the grounds of offset, thereby reducing Smart’s indebtedness to eircom). If eircom is behind this dirty trick, it is surely anti-competitive behaviour, at its most blatant?

quite correct probe and if there was a circuit rental issue the cost of that WITHHELD termination charges ...(offset against previous bills) would cover the cost of the rental.

Eircom simply could not lose sending calls INTO Smart .

This type of action only happens in monopoly situations where the supplier has “significant market power” and knows that ultimately the unfortunate victims are going to have to deal with them if they want the business lifeline that is a telecommunications service.

Not that eircom give a damn and Comreg cannot make them either.

When is the government going to take effective action to get an efficient telecommunications regulatory process in place to prevent eircom and its new owners from abusing its position and turning Ireland into an even worse banana republic that it already is on the infrastructural front?

Not on Noel Dempseys watch.

When is the government going to take effective action to make loop unbundling work in a manner that forces eircom to fight for every customer, as happens in normal efficient marketplaces?

Not on Noel Dempseys watch. No Communications Bill from Noel despite being promised long ago.

Noel will probably head off to eircom this aftenoon for tea and buns and an 'any chance ye might do something lads ' sort of meeting .

probe

watty wrote:

Surely since even the LLUed lines are rented from Eircom? that the percentage is even higher. Maybe BT has the very odd ex-Esat exchange/lines that arn't eircom's property?

Yes, but! You have to pay eircom something to maintain the unbundled lines. Once the line is (fully) unbundled they have substantially lost that market share element. One is not looking for eircom to be put out of business* - one simply wants to see a structure emerge that will enable a normal market to evolve where nobody has more than say a 30% share.

.probe

*Unless they continue in this modus operandi, when their license should be cancelled and an administrative receiver appointed to run the company while it is in the process of being split up and sold off under legislation based on the common good.

probe

Sponge Bob wrote:

Noel will probably head off to eircom this aftenoon for tea and buns and an 'any chance ye might do something lads ' sort of meeting .

Who knows, rather than the minister calling for some free tea and buns, someone might have the CAB knocking on their door some day? There is nothing to stop the Competition Authority from bringing criminal proceedings against a company that engages in monopolisation tactics that are in breach of the relevant competition legislation.

If a court held in favour of the Competition Authority, one would have thought that it would open the door for this bureau to take appropriate action.

.probe