Eircom and the 3G License?

uncle_sam_ie

If eircom manage to get hold of the 3G license off of smart, wouldn't that end up beging a good thing? I mean, smart would have only invested in major cities and towns. Were as, eircom would be investing a lot more to go after Vodafone and the other holder. Wouldn't that create a price and coverage war? Couldn't that result in Ireland having a 100% national 3G or HSDPA coverage.? Or, am I completely wrong in thinking this?

Sponge Bob

Its simple, eircom are in deep **** if they do not get that licence off Smart, by hook or by crook because there will be no other 3G licence (ever) unless 3 pull out of Ireland and all the 2G licences will be turned off in 15 years or thereabouts. .

eircom have additionally owned Meteor for quite a while now and have done nothing eyecatching with the pricing or coverage there either.

The timing of this affort to crash Smart ....is all about the imminent High Court judgement in the Smart v Comreg case on the 3G licence.

Smart have allegedly owed this €4m to eircom for over a year so why now ???? ..

JohnC.

You mean just like eircom were so eager to provide nationwide broadband?

uncle_sam_ie

Sponge Bob wrote:

Its simple, eircom are in deep **** if they do not get that licence off Smart, by hook or by crook because there will be no other 3G licence (ever) unless 3 pull out of Ireland and all the 2G licences will be turned off in 15 years or thereabouts. .

eircom have additionally owned Meteor for quite a while now and have done nothing eyecatching with the pricing or coverage there either.

The timing of this affort to crash Smart ....is all about the imminent High Court judgement in the Smart v Comreg case on the 3G licence.

Smart have allegedly owed this €4m to eircom for over a year so why now ???? ..

Ya Sponge Bob, but if they manage to get the license will this be a good thing for us consumers? It isn't if you want DSL because they own the copper, but in the 3G arena it's seems a little less monopolistic. Wouldn't eircom need to really invest to compete with Vodafone? Isn't that a good thing for us?

flogen

Sponge Bob wrote:

Its simple, eircom are in deep **** if they do not get that licence off Smart, by hook or by crook because there will be no other 3G licence (ever) unless 3 pull out of Ireland and all the 2G licences will be turned off in 15 years or thereabouts. .

eircom have additionally owned Meteor for quite a while now and have done nothing eyecatching with the pricing or coverage there either.

The timing of this affort to crash Smart ....is all about the imminent High Court judgement in the Smart v Comreg case on the 3G licence.

Smart have allegedly owed this €4m to eircom for over a year so why now ???? ..

Not entirely true; Meteor could become a virtual operator on the o2, 3 or vodafone network; something that they would have to be allowed to do under regulation (once a deal could be agreed upon).

The thing is that Eircom aren't trying to get ComReg to revoke the 3G licence from smart because it's the only way they'll get it, it's because it's the cheapest.
The fact is that Smart are relying on getting this licence to make all the investment worthwhile; they won't actually use it because they can't afford to; they're just going to use it to boost their value for a sale... Eircom are cutting down Smart's customer base at the moment so that if they do have to buy them out it will cost less than it would have too.

Patrickof

MVNO, sorry for the slight aside, but isn't that like going into Easons on O'Connell St, handing them a box of Kit-kats, and saying they have to sell them beside their own kit-kats but mine at 5c less, and give me the revenue - but I'll let them keep a few cents.

flogen

Patrickof wrote:

MVNO, sorry for the slight aside, but isn't that like going into Easons on O'Connell St, handing them a box of Kit-kats, and saying they have to sell them beside their own kit-kats but mine at 5c less, and give me the revenue - but I'll let them keep a few cents.

Well it's not quite the same.
If we were to compare the two industries then the following analogy would also apply;
Licence regulation is like having only 4 newsagent licences for the entire country, with no other company allowed to set up shop and see what the consumer demand is like.

Now I know that more and more newsagents are coming under the one brand, but I'm sure you can agree that if only Spar, Centra, Londis and Mace were legally allowed to sell newspapers, sweets and smokes prices would be far, far higher than they already are.

Limiting the number of masts, however, makes some sense due to their uglyness and potential health-danger, as small or big as that may be... any amount of companies should be allowed to take a crack at the mobile market but practically speaking we can't have any number of companies building masts; MVNO is a pretty reasonable compromise and I'm sure the carriers get more than a few cents for their troubles.

probe

uncle_sam_ie wrote:

Ya Sponge Bob, but if they manage to get the license will this be a good thing for us consumers? It isn't if you want DSL because they own the copper, but in the 3G arena it's seems a little less monopolistic. Wouldn't eircom need to really invest to compete with Vodafone? Isn't that a good thing for us?

Eircom has a GSM2 license - if they managed to steal Smart's GSM3 license they would simply use it for additional bandwidth in congested urban areas. It would do nothing to enhance competition. If on the other hand Smart (or another company that doesn't hold a GSM3 license) was granted same, it would be a new company on the block who would have to deliver a price competitive offering to get market share.

A company offering DSL unbundled broadband and a GSM3 mobile service in a converged package would be in a particularly strong position. At home your mobile calls would go over your broadband link at VoIP rates. Optional converged internet access could be offered - ie pay a single bill to use the internet on DSL at home and use your 3G phone to access the net (eg to check public transport or traffic real time info*) while out and about. There are zillions of other converged service possibilities that could be developed with a converged home and mobile / business and mobile platform.

Convergence would mean fewer polluting cellsites required to serve residential areas because people would no longer need to use the cellular air interface to make/receive calls in the home environment.

Giving eircom Smart's 3G license would be a worst case scenario for the public interest and would be giving in to eircom’s attempts to monopolise the market further.

In addition the service / price performance of the existing networks – IRL-Vodafone, IRL-O2, IRL-Meteor and IRL-Three should be reviewed with a view to terminating the license of the weakest performer at the next available opportunity – giving them advance notice of perhaps 3 years to get their house in order. Weakest performer could be defined using a number of criteria including high prices, network QoS, customer service experience, etc.

.probe

*eg: www.dublintraffic.com while stuck in your car

JNive

they can also do the opposite and use 3G to provide internet access to remote areas outside their adsl2+ networks, or for mobility within already hard-wired areas

smellslikeshoes

JNive wrote:

they can also do the opposite and use 3G to provide internet access to remote areas outside their adsl2+ networks, or for mobility within already hard-wired areas

If thats what they wanted to do they would have used the better suited national 3.5ghz licence they have been squatting for the last few years and which eircom sales deny exists.

uncle_sam_ie

smellslikeshoes wrote:

If thats what they wanted to do they would have used the better suited national 3.5ghz licence they have been squatting for the last few years and which eircom sales deny exists.

Ya, but I read a Sponge Bob post were he said that if eircom didn't get the 3G licenses they were seriously looking into wimax because Vodafone has them worried. I also read a post saying how Vodafone have been very surprised by the number of people taking up their €49 unlimited data card package in areas that can't get 3G . I've dumped my eircom ISDN line and I'm sure there are many like me that have done the same.I had a look on the Elara website were bought my Linksys router that takes the data card the other day. They had 75 in stock when I purchased it and now there is 0 in stock.

machalla

Do you have a link handy for that router? It could be a solution for a relation of mine with a bit of luck.

uncle_sam_ie

machalla wrote:

Do you have a link handy for that router? It could be a solution for a relation of mine with a bit of luck.

Ya, It looks like they got more in. http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=ECE1121637

machalla

Thanks for that uncle_sam_ie and for mentioning them in the first place.

uncle_sam_ie

The Elara site is now showing FEW(< 5). It must be a hot item. I,d love to know how many new costumers voddafone has acquired since it introduced the unlimited data card..

Sponge Bob

jeez it was 78 available on thursday or so , they are fairly shifting .

I'll stick me neck out here (unusually being me) and will predict a significantly better FRIACO flatrate wholesale offer than 180 mins and new bundles from eircom of LR + Flatrate (maybe + Calls) by end november

uncle_sam_ie

Sponge Bob wrote:

jeez it was 78 available on thursday or so , they are fairly shifting .

I'll stick me neck out here (unusually being me) and will predict a significantly better FRIACO flatrate wholesale offer than 180 mins and new bundles from eircom of LR + Flatrate (maybe + Calls) by end november

I think you're right Sponge Bob. It will be a sure sign that Vodafone's data card is doing well if we start seeing changes to eircom's flat rate packages. Hopefully someone at Vodafone will start to see that there is a vast expanse of a dial-up waste land in Ireland and take advantage of it. I can't understand why they're selling the data cards as for use in laptops only.They're only limiting the potential. Vodafone should be pushing and selling this Linksys modem or other solutions. It's crazy they're not. Rule of Acquisition number 95 "Prejudice only eliminates customers"

Sponge Bob

I heard they were stunned at the demand for it in Ireland but I told you all that if they launched such a package as this at a decent price point they would do well and that on top of that I would be impressed with them and **** me pink they did exactly what I told them !!!!! :eek:

Sponge Bob wrote:

April 2006 ...unless its all you can eat for no more than €99 Vat inclusive then it cannot even begin to get traction beyond the large corporates.

If it were around €49 a month it would get traction.

And I was right , only thing missing that I asked for is the PAyg VARIANT FOR €59 A month and maybe a 3Gb limit , what ??

Sponge Bob

Better put the map in again , it will fairly stonk (up to 1,8mbits already for some) in the red bits . It often beats (or hammers) dialup in the orange bits

http://62.17.23.101:8080/liteview6.5/servlet/MapGuideLiteView?REQUEST=MAP&WIDTH=696&HEIGHT=696&FORMAT=PNG&LAYERS=VodafoneCoverCombo.mwf&BBOX=-50000,0,450000,500000

Urban Weigl

Methinks a PAYG variant should be charged weekly, not monthly. Along the lines of Vodafone's mobile TV service, so they obviously have a system to enable this in place already. Might I suggest €15 a week for the subscription? Obviously there would be no subsidised data card to go with that: gotta pay the full price of €280 or use a phone as a modem.

Or alternatively do it like T-Mobile UK and introduce a daily cap on the cost: 1c per kilobyte, up to a maximum of €1.50 day for all you can eat during any 24-hour period. This being Ireland, it will likely cost more, but you get the idea.

SalteeDog

A word of warning. The router mentioned above might not work with some versions of the Vodafone datacard. In particular, I have failed (so far) to get it to work with my Huawei E620 (the HSDPA one). Vodafone's and Linksys' official position is that the card isn't supported but it's almost certainly a question of a firmware upgrade which they may or not be working on.

Liam Byrne

If eircom manage to get hold of the 3G license off of smart, wouldn't that end up beging a good thing? I mean, smart would have only invested in major cities and towns.

Compared to what, exactly ? Compared to how eircom have invested heavily in ensuring broadband facilities covering the whole country ???? And how, where they have actually gotten their fingers out, they've consistently charged over twice the price for the privilege of having a distinctly inferior service ?

How would eircom repeating those fiascos for 3G end up being a good thing ?

Urban Weigl

SalteeDog wrote:

A word of warning. The router mentioned above might not work with some versions of the Vodafone datacard. In particular, I have failed (so far) to get it to work with my Huawei E620 (the HSDPA one). Vodafone's and Linksys' official position is that the card isn't supported but it's almost certainly a question of a firmware upgrade which they may or not be working on.

I am using the Linksys 3G router with a Huawei E620 data card from Vodafone right now. The required firmware was released months ago, and is available as a free download from http://www-uk.linksys.com/

uncle_sam_ie

Liam Byrne wrote:

Compared to what, exactly ? Compared to how eircom have invested heavily in ensuring broadband facilities covering the whole country ???? And how, where they have actually gotten their fingers out, they've consistently charged over twice the price for the privilege of having a distinctly inferior service ?

How would eircom repeating those fiascos for 3G end up being a good thing ?

Ya, but eircom own and control the lines and the exchanges. Isn't that why their dragging their feet and not investing? Vodafone and 3 on the other hand, don't need eircom when it comes to 3G and HSDPA . They have there own infrastructure. Eircom would have to invest more to go against Vodafone. I doubt eircom are just going to sit on the license and let Vodafone rule the 3G/HSDPA market and allow them to take their valued dial-up market off of them.

Liam Byrne

I doubt eircom are just going to sit on the license

Considering that Smart Telecom have the licence, I fervently hope that's the case too......they don't own the licence (and hopefully never will).

Mind you, s(h)itting on Smart is probably the next best thing, in their book.

cgarvey

Liam Byrne wrote:

Considering that Smart Telecom have the licence, I fervently hope that's the case too......they don't own the licence (and hopefully never will).

Mind you, s(h)itting on Smart is probably the next best thing, in their book.

Eh?

Nobody has the license at the moment.