Smart going belly up?

Gadgetman496

miju wrote:

heellllooooo ,

i really do fail to see why people are getting worked up, smart didn't pay their bills and got disconnected as a result

Yes miju!

I think that the whole point here is this, that you do indeed "fail to see".
What is blatantly obvious here is this, "Your total naivety with regard to what this whole debacle is really all about. :rolleyes:
:rolleyes:

miju

Foxwood wrote:

Is it Joe Bloggs (a customer of Smart) fault that Smart didn't pay their bill (according to eircom - Smart say that they did pay their bills).

no it's not but it's not eircoms fault either , also saying "acording" ti eircom they didn't pay their bills doesn't wash as it's widely accepted smart didn't pay them

Foxwood wrote:

Why should Joe Bloggs and 40,000 other taxpayers be cut off without notice because of a dispute between eircom and Smart? (Actually, we know why - eircom was trying to scuttle it's only significant competitor. It was quite happy to wave goodbye to 4 million to do that).

because these customers went with an operator that couldn't manage itself properly, again smart didn't pay their bills so why should eircom give a rival company a free ride for any longer (bearing in mind it had been giving smart a free ride for quite a number of months)

Foxwood wrote:

Actually, yes. If eircom can't figure out how to resolve
it's problems with Smart without cutting off 40,000 innocent bystanders,
then the charge of mismanagement should be laid at eircoms door, as they
drew up a contract with Smart that didn't include provisions for this sort
of thing.

they did figure it out they disconnected smart from their lines , perfectly rational response to someone not paying their bills

Foxwood wrote:

In any other Western country, eircom would be facing massive fines for
accidentally causing disruption on this level. To do it deliberately would
be considered national sabotage.

for starters , 40,000 people isn't "national sabotage" , secondly, the situation would not have arisen if smart had paid their bills in the first place .
i really cant understand why people are having a go at eircom , other telcos are operating perfectly , paying their bills etc to eircom , smart should be and aren't any different

as with any service provider if you dont pay your bills you get disconnected

lardboy wrote:

Not according to any definition of free market that I've ever seen. When competition is restricted every step of the way by the dominant player in the market, by obstructive law cases and deliberate inaction and now by bordeline illegal actions, then it's not even close to free. Comreg's complicity in enabling eircom to screw over even more customers is disgraceful.

so how come other telcos using eircom lines are not having issues??? wouldn't be the fact that they actually pay their bills?

JNive

other telcos are operating perfectly , paying their bills etc to eircom

and you know this for a fact ?.

because these customers went with an operator that couldn't manage itself properly

Yes im sure Smart advertised themselves as an operator who was dodgy and not managing itself, thats why the people chose them, of course people can see the future.

If it was abudnantly clear that smart would end up like this to everyone why did comreg not do anything and allow smart to continue getting new customers ?

no it's not but it's not eircoms fault either , also saying "acording" ti eircom they didn't pay their bills doesn't wash as it's widely accepted smart didn't pay them

widely accepted ? lol, do you have access to the smart accounts, didnt think so. The media listen to comreg and eircom in this matter, smart was in debt of 1.7 million ( according to eircom ), it was abouit 1.4 i think according to smart. the 4 million or so firgure was brought about when their current bill was added in.

for starters , 40,000 people isn't "national sabotage"

Yes it is, they delibertely disbaled an entire telecoms operator

as with any service provider if you dont pay your bills you get disconnected

Stop focusing on the whole pay your bills = disconnection. Its pure rubish. And it was a deliberate smokescreen by eircom. the fact was the action they took was not neccesary nor needed to get their money back. the amount owed was pocket change to them, the point is, they know it wasnt pocket change to smart AT THAT TIME.

Foxwood

miju wrote:

because these customers went with an operator

Go with a competitor of eircom and get punished. Great way to run a counrty.

for starters , 40,000 people isn't "national sabotage"

How many is "national sabotage"? 41,000? 100,000? 1,000,000?

How many disconnections without notice would there have to be before you found it unacceptable?

so how come other telcos using eircom lines are not having issues??? wouldn't be the fact that they actually pay their bills?

Do you have access to eircoms accounts department to know who is and who isn't paying their bills?

eircom didn't just stop routing calls to and receiving calls from the Smart network ("disconnecting Smart"). It physically unplugged specific customers phonelines from Smarts equipment. At that point those phone lines stopped earning revenue for Smart (that it could use to pay it's bill to eircom). But those physically disconnected lines didn't start earning revenue for eircom when at that point - they just "died". There was no rational reason to disconnect them, except to "choke" off Smarts income source. That's hardly a rational course of action to take if you want to get money out of a company. It is a perfectly rational course of action if you are solely interested in crippling a competitor.

I hope that somewhere in the effected thousands there was at least one litigous lawyer who can make a decent case againt eircom on this issue.

Sponge Bob

JNive wrote:

Stop focusing on the whole pay your bills = disconnection. Its pure rubibsh.

Absolutely, leave out the 4000 disconnected LLU customers.

Smart also had 45,000 telephony customer. The last lot of these was sold by tele2 to carphone warehouse AS A JOB LOT early this year for €40 each.

They were objectively worth €1.8m to Smart who were selling them on monday morning, that €1.8m could have been paid to eircom straight away.

By monday afternoon they were worthless , except to eircom who had the winback scum out on their doorsteps.

eircom are quite happy to write that €4m off if it stops the competition from acquiring 45k customers in a fell swoop and crashes Smart before smart is confirmed with the last 3G licence.

The move is essentially anti competitive 101 . Comreg collusion in this move against Smart is basic contempt of court becuase of the 3g case outstanding and the commissioners themselves should be locked up for that.

thefinalstage

Its strange. People focus on companies not paying eircom for using there lines but it was tax-payers money who paid for those lines to begin with.

If we pay line rental and we paid for the damn lines to be laid why shouldn't we be able to choose the people who maintain those lines?

Referendum anyone?

philologos

pity that the government had to sell the infastructure as well as the company, big mistake

Hamilcar

steve-o wrote:

Sorry, can't hear you because I've been disconnected by Eircom :rolleyes:
Eircom have a monopoly on phone lines. They disconnected consumers because of a financial dispute they had with a telecoms provider. If there was a real regulator, Eircom would not be allowed to do what they did without permission from the regulator, and consumers would have some protection.

If eircom have disconnected you how come you're still on here blathering. Looks like you have a free ride on your company network. Well Smart tried the same and now look at them

miju

JNive wrote:

and you know this for a fact ?.

well do you see any other telco's in the same situation as smart?

JNive wrote:

If it was abudnantly clear that smart would end up like this to everyone why did comreg not do anything and allow smart to continue getting new customers ?

becuase that's the nature of the free market

JNive wrote:

widely accepted ? lol, do you have access to the smart accounts, didnt think so. The media listen to comreg and eircom in this matter, smart was in debt of 1.7 million ( according to eircom ), it was abouit 1.4 i think according to smart. the 4 million or so firgure was brought about when their current bill was added in.

of course i don't have access to their accounts , but it's been widely reported in the business papers since this began that the owner has been personally bankrolling smarts day to day operations and excluding eircom and very heavily in debt

JNive wrote:

Stop focusing on the whole pay your bills = disconnection. Its pure rubish. And it was a deliberate smokescreen by eircom. the fact was the action they took was not neccesary nor needed to get their money back. the amount owed was pocket change to them, the point is, they know it wasnt pocket change to smart AT THAT TIME.

why stop focusing on the ROOT CAUSE OF THE ISSUE?

if you got a loan of €1,000 from the bank would you not pay it back becuase it's pocket change to them????? cop on..

Foxwood wrote:

Go with a competitor of eircom and get punished. Great way to run a counrty.

im with eircoms competitors and i've not been punished and that probably has something to do with the fact that they are properly run companies

miju

Foxwood wrote:

How many is "national sabotage"? 41,000? 100,000? 1,000,000?

well considering that theres approx 1.6 million telephone lines in Ireland i'd say at least 500,000 counts as national sabatage

Foxwood wrote:

eircom didn't just stop routing calls to and receiving calls from the Smart network ("disconnecting Smart"). It physically unplugged specific customers phonelines from Smarts equipment. At that point those phone lines stopped earning revenue for Smart (that it could use to pay it's bill to eircom). But those physically disconnected lines didn't start earning revenue for eircom when at that point - they just "died". There was no rational reason to disconnect them, except to "choke" off Smarts income source. That's hardly a rational course of action to take if you want to get money out of a company. It is a perfectly rational course of action if you are solely interested in crippling a competitor.

smart weren't making money , as said before eircom disconnected smart not because they wanted to choke off their revenue stream but to recieve the security bond smart paid when they first began operating in Ireland , sure if they left the lines running smart's bills would just keep growing and growing

Gadgetman496

This was just posted on the Smart forum.

Possible phishing scam.

This is an email received by one of the members.

Be suspicious if you receive this & delete it.

dub45

thelastangryman wrote:

Its strange. People focus on companies not paying eircom for using there lines but it was tax-payers money who paid for those lines to begin with.

If we pay line rental and we paid for the damn lines to be laid why shouldn't we be able to choose the people who maintain those lines?

Referendum anyone?

Bit of research anyone?

I dont know how many times I have to post this here - the taxpayer got paid for their investment in Eircom over the years when Eircom was sold by the Government and that money was invested in the national pension fund.

Its a bit like saying ''Hey I want to go back into that house I sold for many years ago because I invested money in decorating it'':rolleyes:

And stating that simple fact is not in any way to condone the decision.

steve-o

Hamilcar wrote:

If eircom have disconnected you how come you're still on here blathering. Looks like you have a free ride on your company network. Well Smart tried the same and now look at them

Eh, I forked out cash at my local internet cafe. Do you have anything worthwhile to contribute?

Moriarty

Let's keep it on topic, shall we?

matt-dublin

@JNIVE....
smart are in debt to the tune of €26million and murtogh has been financing them €3million each month for the last few months just to pay the wages and other bills.

Also, magnet are indebt as well but their customer base is much smaller and i think they're only up as far as €1.8 million (i think, correct me if im wrong)

Eircom basically did this to smart knowing well that if smart got the 3g License meteor was going to go bust and eircom would have wasted a lot of money. And with smart getting the 3g license eircom would have had an actual competitor that could have in the foreseable future began to take a more dominent position in the market...

Its bad business but good for eircom...
Hey if you open your own business and you can eliminate the compition by dirty tactics and get away with it scot free would you not try it?

Typical rip off ireland, get away with anything you want if you have enough money!
poxy cuntry

JNive

Smarts Total liabilities were that yes, but to eircom it was only a few million.

matt-dublin

at the end of the day money is money...
business is business and only a few million...!!???
ha ha
but to eircom that few million just wiped out their next major market contender.

miju

JNive wrote:

Smarts Total liabilities were that yes, but to eircom it was only a few million.

TBH it doesnt matter whehter it was 1 million or 100 million the fact of the matter remains eircom were owed money that wasn't being paid to them due to the mismanagement of smart

eircom aren't a charity and if smart had paid their bills in the first place we'd not be having this conversation

Diver79

matt-dublin wrote:

at the end of the day money is money...
business is business and only a few million...!!???
ha ha
but to eircom that few million just wiped out their next major market contender.

Not yet they havent Smart are still offering the best BB packages in the country.

Diver79

miju wrote:

TBH it doesnt matter whehter it was 1 million or 100 million the fact of the matter remains eircom were owed money that wasn't being paid to them due to the mismanagement of smart

eircom aren't a charity and if smart had paid their bills in the first place the situation would not have arisen in the first place

Yes we know, Smart didnt pay their bills. We get it...

Would you not think it would have been more beneficial for Eircom to work with Smart in an effort to get the issue sorted?

Also, do you agree that the actions taken by Eircom were made in a deliberate attempt to wipe out its competitor?

Hamilcar

matt-dublin wrote:

@JNIVE....
Eircom basically did this to smart knowing well that if smart got the 3g License meteor was going to go bust and eircom would have wasted a lot of money. And with smart getting the 3g license eircom would have had an actual competitor that could have in the foreseable future began to take a more dominent position in the market...

Yet to hear of anyone making money on 3G. Wonder how Smart would raise the €300m or so to rollout a 3G network, if they can't even pay their day to day expenses.

I think the real question here is why Comreg did not act much sooner, as it's been pretty obvious that Smart were in trouble from way back, even before comreg granted them the 3G license..

I think eircom acted like any prudent business would. In fact not to act would go against it's shareholders interests, itself enforceable by law

matt-dublin

v true, but no phone packages any more...
everyone's with eircom now... most just don't realise it

Foxwood

Hamilcar wrote:

In fact not to act would go against it's shareholders interests, itself enforceable by law

It's nice to know that shareholdres are protected by law, because it's pretty bloody obvious that consumers aren't.

There you have it in a nutshell, I suppose - law for the rich shareholders, none for the ordinary taxpayers!

matt-dublin

Its not the fact that they would be rolling out the 3g network, the licence alone is worth about €400 million, someone who wants the 3g license, ie o2, meteor/eircom would have to acquire smart in order to get their hands on it...

all part of the business plan

miju

Diver79 wrote:

Would you not think it would have been more beneficial for Eircom to work with Smart in an effort to get the issue sorted?

no simply because now eircom can lay claim to the security bond that smart lodged when they first began operating in ireland with the added bonus of one less competitor

Diver79 wrote:

Also, do you agree that the actions taken by Eircom were made in a deliberate attempt to wipe out its competitor?

i'd say it was more opportunistic , smart were on their knees anyway eircom just put them out of their misery and capitalised on the situation to the fullest possible extent

good hard effective business by ericom IMHO which most businesses would more than likely do themselves if given half the opportunity

JNive

ok.

Company A Own O'Connell Street.
Company A sells Fruit on the street, and all consumers must shop on this street for their fruit.

Company B makes a deal to resell for Company A, as such they get a stall on O'Connel Street and pay a bulk of their revenue to Company A.

Fine so Far.

Company C , after the regulator for fruit opens up the fruit market, is able to set up on Grafton Street, to sell its own fruit for its own price. But pay Company A for rental of the bridge to get their.

Fine so Far.

Company A though, as owners of all the roads also, decide to put up bollards on the bridge, meaning nobody can drive across, and instead must queue on foot to walk 200 metres to get their fruit before getting back into their cars.

Now, due to the rediculous blockade of a roadway, business is slow, and the expense of Company C putting up all their stalls for fruit isnt paying off, and they now owe lots of money to Company A.

Company A then decide to demolish the bridge so nobody can get to Company C and must now buy fruit from them.

Now tell me, is there fair competition Between Company A and Company C and do both parties have an equal opportunity of gaining customers.

Also, is it a conflict of interest and promoting anti-competitive and self-serving actions to allow Company A , itself a fruit trader to own the street and roads that other vendors must use to sell their fruit ?



LOL

viking

Foxwood wrote:

It's nice to know that shareholdres are protected by law, because it's pretty bloody obvious that consumers aren't.

There you have it in a nutshell, I suppose - law for the rich shareholders, none for the ordinary taxpayers!

I wonder how many shareholders had their home/business phones with Smart (possibly paying nothing for rental/calls as a benefit) and were hit hard when the outage occured? Ironic if that was the case...

Diver79

miju wrote:

no simply because now eircom can lay claim to the security bond that smart lodged when they first began operating in ireland with the added bonus of one less competitor



i'd say it was more opportunistic , smart were on their knees anyway eircom just put them out of their misery and capitalised on the situation to the fullest possible extent

good hard effective business by ericom IMHO which most businesses would more than likely do themselves if given half the opportunity

Excellent, now we are getting somewhere. So, after all that do you know understand why we are unhappy with Eircom? Of course we agree it was good business for them, but their actions were immoral, sneaky and below the belt.

miju

Diver79 wrote:

Excellent, now we are getting somewhere. So, after all that do you know understand why we are unhappy with Eircom? Of course we agree it was good business for them, but their actions were immoral, sneaky and below the belt.

i never said i didn't understand why people were unhappy, but i do think that alot of anger is completely mis-directed at eircom

as for their tactics? no i dont think they were immoral , sneaky or below the belt for numerous reasons including the fact they allowed smart run without paying them for a significant amount of time , they're not obliged to notify smarts customers and because they didn't set out to put smart in the situation they found themselves in, in otherwords relentless opportunism

Diver79

I'll agree to disagree with you so.