Problems getting Smart BB

flybynight

Ok, so based on the recommendations I got on here about 2 months ago I decided to get a phone line in and get Smart bb. Problem is I'm still not connected! We've been wasting our money paying line rental to Eircom for the last 7 weeks for no good reason (no phone in the house & not using dial-up). Smart keep telling me that the hold-up is with Eircom and that they cannot see any reason why the tranfer hasn't been progressed yet. They are saying they have registered a number of queries about it with an Eircom manager but have had no response yet - Now I well believe this so my question is is there anything I can do about it? Can I complain to Eircom directly, will they even take a call from me about transfering or will they just say I have to speak to Smart? Or can I go to Comreg at this point ie how long is too long before they will realistically get involved?

Anyone else have a similar experience and any advice on how to resolve it?
Thanks.

Spear

flybynight wrote:

Ok, so based on the recommendations I got on here about 2 months ago I decided to get a phone line in and get Smart bb. Problem is I'm still not connected! We've been wasting our money paying line rental to Eircom for the last 7 weeks for no good reason (no phone in the house & not using dial-up). Smart keep telling me that the hold-up is with Eircom and that they cannot see any reason why the tranfer hasn't been progressed yet. They are saying they have registered a number of queries about it with an Eircom manager but have had no response yet - Now I well believe this so my question is is there anything I can do about it? Can I complain to Eircom directly, will they even take a call from me about transfering or will they just say I have to speak to Smart? Or can I go to Comreg at this point ie how long is too long before they will realistically get involved?

Anyone else have a similar experience and any advice on how to resolve it?
Thanks.

Eircom will always seek to delay the setup of other carriers lines, but it's worth it in the end.

lynchtp

Contact COMREG with your issues.
They will get onto Eircom and the issues will magically disappear, in a few days you'll have smart.

flybynight

Spear wrote:

Eircom will always seek to delay the setup of other carriers lines, but it's worth it in the end.

I'm sure. However Smart did tell me it would take 2-3 weeks to set up. That was 7 weeks ago. The other issues we'll probably be moving in 11 months so aswell as paying line-rental for 2 months for no good reason, I'll probably have to pay Smart for a month of BB after I move out (12 month contract)....all because of Eircom (presumably). Isn't there any action I can take to try to speed things up?

dub45

flybynight wrote:

I'm sure. However Smart did tell me it would take 2-3 weeks to set up. That was 7 weeks ago. The other issues we'll probably be moving in 11 months so aswell as paying line-rental for 2 months for no good reason, I'll probably have to pay Smart for a month of BB after I move out (12 month contract)....all because of Eircom (presumably). Isn't there any action I can take to try to speed things up?

It has already been suggested to you to contact Comreg - other than that what do you expect people to say to you?

flybynight

dub45 wrote:

It has already been suggested to you to contact Comreg - other than that what do you expect people to say to you?

Yes, thanks to the person who suggested it. They were obviously posting their reply at the same time as me as I didn't see it...I wasn't ignoring their post! I've got onto Comreg and have lodged the complaint. Interestingly I have to make the complaint about Smart (and not Eircom who I told them are almost certianly the culprits), as they're the company I've contracted to provide the broadband.

flybynight

So after 2 months of paying line rental whilst waiting for Smart to get their act together they finally got back to me yesterday to tell me they had made a mistake and they cant actually provide us with broadband!!!!!!!!!!

They freely admitted the whole sorry situation is their fault and NOT Eircom's.

I got onto Comreg again to see if if I can get them to reimburse me for the line rental I've been paying Eircom for the last 8 weeks...doubt I'll have any joy but you never know.

There's another guy on the Smart forums who's been waiting since March for the switch from Eircom!!!

Absolute jokers.

dub45

Did they explain why they could not provide you with bb?

flybynight

dub45 wrote:

Did they explain why they could not provide you with bb?

They did, but is was quite a techincal explanation which I didn't fully understand because I'm not that technically minded and don't know anything about commincations technology. Basically the gist of what I got from the person who called to tell me they now can't provide bb is that our line is on the Beggar's Bush exchange which is divided into 2 sides (they have lines on both sides)- one side of which is almost empty and has loads of free lines and the other which is full (for them). It turns out that that our line is on the 'full' side so they cant provide bb. They said it only became apparent which side of the exchange we are on when an engineer physically had a look.

This is their 1st big mistake - they told me (and are presumably telling others) that they could DEFINITELY provide me with bb when they already know that one half of the exchange is full. They should be saying that they MAY be able to provide bb to people on this exchange.

Their 2nd big mistake is that it is not unacceptable to have someone wait 2 months for bb before telling them that...which leads nicely on to their 3rd mistake:

It turns out that this information became available to them (not sure if it was from their own engineer or an Eircom engineer) weeks before they finally told me and that due to some internal error the information was not logged on their system and I was not told!! - which is why everytime I rang their CS kept blaming Eircom!

Sorry if my explanation about the exchange makes no sense...I know nothing about such things. Comreg have asked them for a written report, so after i see that I should have a more coherent explanation.

Anyway, I realise most people here rave about Smart and their service etc which is fair enough...but my experience was a fiasco from start to finish.

I'm now waiting on BT who are telling me that they can without doubt provide me with BB and that for the price of their 3MB package they can 'PROBABLY' provide me with 8MB as our exchange has been upgraded - we'll see but after my last experience I'm taking everything I'm told with a large pinch of salt!

tak

I'm no lawyer but if the expenses you have incurred with Eircom for line -rental are truly due to bad advice from Smart then you must have a case for compensation to that amount from Smart.

Nody

flybynight wrote:

They said it only became apparent which side of the exchange we are on when an engineer physically had a look.

Which would only be when Smart goes out to hook you up (as anything coming from Eircom would have to be checked and double checked again).

Their 2nd big mistake is that it is not unacceptable to have someone wait 2 months for bb before telling them that...which leads nicely on to their 3rd mistake:

Which goes into the above as it is a open exchange they would most likely not know the status at a given time and hence you could strictly speaking HAVE been able to get access at the time.

I'm now waiting on BT who are telling me that they can without doubt provide me with BB and that for the price of their 3MB package they can 'PROBABLY' provide me with 8MB as our exchange has been upgraded - we'll see but after my last experience I'm taking everything I'm told with a large pinch of salt!

Because BT uses,drum roll please, the eircom line and equipment in the exchange. In short if Eircom would have given up the space they had reserved for your line (but was not using) and given it to Smart you would be on Smart by now and surfing away (yes there is more to the space usage etc. but lets keep it simple).

dub45

flybynight wrote:

They did, but is was quite a techincal explanation which I didn't fully understand because I'm not that technically minded and don't .......................

Anyway, I realise most people here rave about Smart and their service etc which is fair enough...but my experience was a fiasco from start to finish.

...........................

Unfortunately it has been clear for sometime that Smart's customer service is in no way comparable to the actual bb service which really is excellent.

Smart do themselves no favours at all with this sort of thing happening not to mention the ongoing confusion over the number change etc etc.

(Garfield where are you................................)

jor el

flybynight wrote:

I'm now waiting on BT who are telling me that they can without doubt provide me with BB and that for the price of their 3MB package they can 'PROBABLY' provide me with 8MB as our exchange has been upgraded - we'll see but after my last experience I'm taking everything I'm told with a large pinch of salt!

Be very careful with that, BT are as big a bunch of liars (often by incompetance and not malice) as eircom and in this case Smart. The 3Mb price is a residential package, including VAT in the price. The 8Mb unbundled is a business package (which I believe you have to prove you are a registered business to get) where the price is ex VAT and line rental. The price for 8Mb from BT is close to €80, whereas the 3Mb bundled with line rental is €55.

Also, if you get the 3M now, and then decide to upgrade it will not be a simple process. Check the 8Mb BT thread for more details.

Strange that your line is suitable for BT but not Smart. Smart must have run out of room in the exchange. They should have known this up front though and not strung you along for two months.

flybynight

jor el wrote:

Be very careful with that, BT are as big a bunch of liars (often by incompetance and not malice) as eircom and in this case Smart. The 3Mb price is a residential package, including VAT in the price. The 8Mb unbundled is a business package (which I believe you have to prove you are a registered business to get) where the price is ex VAT and line rental. The price for 8Mb from BT is close to €80, whereas the 3Mb bundled with line rental is €55.

Also, if you get the 3M now, and then decide to upgrade it will not be a simple process. Check the 8Mb BT thread for more details.

Strange that your line is suitable for BT but not Smart. Smart must have run out of room in the exchange. They should have known this up front though and not strung you along for two months.

Well, the BT sales guy made it quite clear that that it was a free upgrade from the 3MB residential package costing €56 and that there were no hidden extras...but now that you've given me the heads up I'm gonna double check! Having looked at other threads on here though it SEEMS that a number of residential people have got this deal.

AntiVirus

I had a similar problem with smart,

I signed up in December 2006, got connected to smart at the end of December 2006 and by the end of April 2007 they still hadn't sent me a modem after me ringing then almost every week!

They still send me the odd bill for 399 euros for terminating my contract early.

I'm with NTL now and use blueface for my phone calls which has worked out really well.

flybynight

Well, I got a call from a CS manager in Smart yesterday telling me that they're gonna send me a cheque to cover the 2 months of line rental I've paid - Wonders will never cease! He asked me did we incur any other charges, I probably should have asked for more for wasting our time but I was so in shock that they offered us anything I just left it. Comreg had told me that it was highly unlikely they'd pay up but I guess their lobbying for us paid off. And here was me getting all set to take them to the small claims court!

AntiVirus

Well done!

I wonder if I could get them to refund me for my 4 months???

byte

Wow, didn't expect you'd get anything. Putting on the pressure paid off

Bass Cadet

Sorry for dragging up an old thread but I've been reading this thread with interest...I signed up for the broadband package only about 4 weeks ago and still have not got hooked up (was told 2 weeks). When I call up, they say they're waiting on Eircom (they mistakenly thought I had broadband on the line before -I told them I didnt from the start) but I can't seem to get a straight answer from them on when I should have it connected. I was told I'd have my modem this week, no sign of it. I was told that my line would be activated for broadband next week, then the next call made, they said the 19th Dec or maybe next week! Complete joke

Anyway, as far as I can tell the original post was about getting in an Eircom telephone line and then applying for Smart BB. I've done the very same and seem to be having the very same problems, I just hope to God I don't get the same phone call telling me I actually cant get BB afterall. That would push me over the edge!

Word of warning to prospective Smart customers, be prepared for a looong, drawn out wait

Anyone know of the best method to contact Comreg?