Digiweb Metro Price Increases - Let Digiweb Know Your Thoughts!

pencil

Digiweb have just increased the cost for their Metro broadband and have tried to hide this with a re-giging their service offerings.

I am very annoyed about this... more annoyed about its presentation that the actual cost! Below is an email that I have just sent to them - feel free to copy & amend and send to off to Digiweb... 'customercare-at-digiweb.ie'

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Hello,

Please pass this email up the managers responsible for the decision to increase the cost of my home broadband.

Firstly, I have never had a problem with your service, it is very good. I have recommended it to lots of people but won’t be any longer.

I have just received a email from Digiweb telling me “great news you broadband speed has been increased”. The ‘small print’ of this email informs me that I will be paying an extra five euro per month for this privilege.

I’ve had a look at your site http://www.digiweb.ie/home/metro/ and I have notice that you have restructured your metro packages. I note that you have increased the speed & PRICES (+€5) of the ‘Home Metro’ service to €40 p.m. The ‘Metro Value’ service is now costing 35 euro p.m, BUT it now has SLOWER speeds (5mb down) than my old ‘Metro Home’ for the same price.

This is nothing but a price increase cynically presented as a ‘Good News’.

Please inform the marketing genius that came up with this cynical scheme that they have soured the previous good will I had had for Digiweb…. they may have lost Digiweb a customer.

Please inform me whether or not these price increases are going to be applied to my account? Account Number: xxxxxxxxx

If these price increased are applied to my account I shall be cancelling my service! €30/€40 p.m buys a lot more here: http://www.upc.ie/internet/prices/

Name

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helimachoptor

I wish they'd put their caps up aswell as their prices.

thebman

That seems kind of stupid. The speed of the service is fine, its the cap that is crap.

gurramok

I received the same email. It has indeed gone very pricy and that email is condescending.

I've been with them since day 1 for years and they are no longer competitive and now i will seriously think of jumping to another provider.

randomer

I have already sent my email to their customer service people. I was on the 34.95 per month package, but I paid in advance.

There is a still 34.95 package available, but it has a 20GB cap and is 5MB.

I am guessing that I will be allowed switch to this package. So essentially, they have decreased my monthly allowance by 10GB and decreased my broadband speed by 1MB, but my price has remained the same. How is that "great news"?

sweetie

cheeky fcukers. just got the email and was fuming.

MunsterCycling

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Waiting for Watty to show up!!!!

bigpaddy2004

MunsterCycling wrote: »

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Waiting for Watty to show up!!!!

What has this got to do with Watty? He is just a technical guy.

MunsterCycling

bigpaddy2004 wrote: »

What has this got to do with Watty? He is just a technical guy.

Who regularly tows the company line, anyways it was in jest so chill


MC

thebman

bigpaddy2004 wrote: »

What has this got to do with Watty? He is just a technical guy.

Exactly this is most likely the uber intelligent marketing departments idea. :rolleyes:

Especially if Digiweb are run anything like where I work.

Not being able to work out what customers want and increasing speeds but not caps along with prices to try to make more money off less customers instead of giving customers what they actually want.

Probably didn't even contact the technical department except to tell them to change peoples speeds.

I don't know why they just didn't give people higher caps which is what people want. Do they think most people can't work out the caps but everyone understands the speed? Do they really think their customers are that stupid?

pencil

Just in case you haven't seen the email... hear you go.

I would really like someone from Digiweb to come here and EXPLAIN HOW this is
"Great News"......

"Christmas has come early" well really !!!!

35x12=420. I give Digiweb 420 euro per year, they can kiss this goodbye if they apply these changes to my account!

They really have a poor opinion of their customers :mad:

bindybandy

I got this mail as well when I came home and came onto the boards with the express intention of starting a thread to say how annoyed I am at this mail but thankfully I'm not alone.
What gets me so much is that I have been paying the extra 5.99 a month for the extra 10gb so was already paying nearly 40 euro and because I have had good speeds and service was willing to pay a little more than the competition ans stay with them. This takes the biscuit and there is no way I'm paying 45 euro a month now. I have always thought their cap was pretty stingy and seems to have remained unchnaged for over 2 years for my metro package.

And yes, I do take on board the argument that some networks who allow unlimited downloads can be congested and bad service for their customers (I worked in tech support for a popular cable company for 3 years so I know what goes on) but there has to be a happy medium. If the cap was say 40 or 50gb a month for 35 to 40 Euro would that really congest their sytem that much? I doubt it.

I've already decided to ring ntl/UPC and see about the change. I got a leaflet in the door this week and they look better value. 2 of my firends live in the area and say they have no problems this past year and their connection and tv is always ok. True they are a bugger to contact if anything breaks down but if it happens once in a blue moon I guess it's worth chancing.

I have no phone line so any other options availble apart from ntl?

bigpaddy2004

I wonder if Digiweb are trying to match Eircoms phone & broadband bundle. Both are beginning to look similar with digiweb being a few euro cheaper compared to Eircoms bundle packages.

cgarvey

Wonder how contention[*] will be affected. One of the good things about Metro was that its contention was reasonably low (despite the quoted ratios). Maybe the increased price will go towards increased backhaul to minimalise contention? Hmmm.

[*]I mean actual contention, not the makey-up contention excuse support will try and pawn off you for a clearly broken link.

Date|Down|Up|Cap|Contract|Contention|Install|Monthly|Notes
2005-09|3|512K|30|6m|40:1|112.36|42.35|No Metro Lite
2006-06|1|256K|10|12m|40:1|0|19.95|Introduction of Metro Lite (but bang for buck, this is actually an increase in price! You'd expect a third of the download, a half of the upload and a third of the cap to cost less than a third, but it doesn't. The free installation was a promotion, just.). Cap goes down, minmum contract goes up.
2007-02|1|256K|10|12m|40:1|89.66|19.95|Free install promo has ended
2007-08|1|128K|10|12m||99|24.95|All packages got 12m contract (was just Metro Lite). Reference to contention dropped (you have to call them to find out what it is). Upload speed halved, price gone up. A big lose-lose.
2007-12|1|128K|10|12m||99|24.95|Now requires annual pre-payment (used be you got installation free if annually prepaid, but monthly payment was possible)
2008-11|5|512K|20|12m||99|34.95|Another hefty price increase (~40%). Speeds have gone way up (including upload speed which beats DSL for most), but given the competition, especially cable and ADSL2+ I don't see this price increase worth the gain.


Take it from the angle of caps, because that is, after all, what you are paying for. The caps, we've heard argue, are plenty for most users. Whether that's still the case with streaming video/music, I'm not sure, but the cap is where the real cost is. Speed is just how quickly you can reach that cap. Yes speed has benefit/value, but ultimately it's the cap that is the cost.

Going by that, Digiweb have managed to increase the cost to the customer for it's basic Metro product offering since the introduction of Metro.

Put it in another context, the basic Metro package is now marginally better than what it was 3 years ago (same upload, faster download, but smaller cap). There's not many basic broadband packages you can say that about (including some 'monopoly' small WISPs).

Now you can argue that it's all about speed, and twist the figures around, but in my experience once it's 1-2Mb and reasonably un-contended most won't notice the difference. It's the streaming / file-sharing (however legal) that uses up the cap and that, I think, is an important measure for basic "beginner" broadband.

Having said all that, I am a Metro customer (not a happy one) because it is by far the best broadband offering where I live (in terms of speed and price, anyway).

zoro

cgarvey wrote: »

Wonder how contention[*] will be affected. One of the good things about Metro was that its contention was reasonably low (despite the quoted ratios). Maybe the increased price will go towards increased backhaul to minimalise contention?

I'm incredibly unhappy with my Metro Xtra connection - I'm being hit *very* hard by contention in the evening, making my speeds drop to near enough to 56k dialup for me to want to cry if I feel the need to load a webpage after 4pm. Unfortunately I've no leg to stand on, and have no physical phone line in the house, so I can't move to another provider.

Digiweb is no longer the cream of the crop, and I haven't recommended it to friends in about 8 months

game4it70

zoro wrote: »

I'm incredibly unhappy with my Metro Xtra connection - I'm being hit *very* hard by contention in the evening, making my speeds drop to near enough to 56k dialup for me to want to cry if I feel the need to load a webpage after 4pm. Unfortunately I've no leg to stand on, and have no physical phone line in the house, so I can't move to another provider.

Digiweb is no longer the cream of the crop, and I haven't recommended it to friends in about 8 months

Yeah i know how you feel with the "contention cr@p" i get speeds between 100-1500kbps in the evening/night.It even goes bad some days from lunchtime.
I'm on metro 6meg package.I also have no phoneline but NTlL will be available where i am hopefully before xmas so Digiweb can go fcuk themselves.
My speeds have been upped already.THE ONLY way i know this is because me upload has gone up.I'm only gettin 4 meg down atm and its only 10.30am!
As for the pings(including speeds) they used to be great up until about 6-8 weeks ago.Now my ping to a uk server i run goes from 30ms average to 100ms+ average as the day goes on.
The "Rolling" cap is a joke.I understand the reason for the cap BUT my service cant get much worse for me so the cap obviously doesn't help me.
The should at least raise it to 40-50gig with the new increase in speeds.I noticed the top package (12meg down) has had the cap dropped from 60 to 50gigs.
WTF Digiweb are you on drugs?

Dicksboro_man

i was so ennoyed when i got that email.thinking about going to NTL.:mad:

game4it70

Dicksboro_man wrote: »

i was so ennoyed when i got that email.thinking about going to NTL.:mad:

I'd say there is going to be alot of us going to NTL because of this especially due to most metro customers not having a phoneline.

pencil

Dicksboro_man wrote: »

i was so ennoyed when i got that email.thinking about going to NTL.:mad:

Be sure to pop off an email to let Digiweb know your intentions! :mad:

Psygnosis

Watty what are your opinions on this, you have been very silent on the topic so far. I am sure if the guys were talking about ibb or ice you would have something to say on the matter.

watty

I don't believe I've commented particularly about the price of various offerings. More about explaining technical issues.

I know nothing more about this than the forum.

losetheforce

This sickens me, I'm on Metro Home and they sent me the same email saying "Great News", I am actually very happy with the 6MB broadband and have no interest in paying another €5 a month.

If I choose to keep paying €35 a month I have to drop 1MB/s speed and 10GB per month in download allowance, its total crap!

I've sent them 2 emails already giving out, please everybody else do the same, existing customers should be upped to the 8MB for the same price or else left as they are, the whole "GREAT NEWS" email was extremely patronising!!

Cabaal

MunsterCycling wrote: »

Who regularly tows the company line, anyways it was in jest so chill


MC

none the less it is not yours or anybody elses to vent a company decision on the likes of watty, your not going to change anything and its unfair to abuse other boards.ie users.

If people have an issue they should contact digiweb directly

Stokolan

Op thanks for that email. I suck at typing Sentit off this evening.

As i said in the other post about this Ill be cancelling my account at the end of the month. UPC has a much better package incentive.

MunsterCycling

Cabaal wrote: »

none the less it is not yours or anybody elses to vent a company decision on the likes of watty, your not going to change anything and its unfair to abuse other boards.ie users.

If people have an issue they should contact digiweb directly

Let me make this perfectly clear, I in no way abused watty and in fact I welcome his insightful and informed comments about the state of not just Digiweb but the majority of irish ISPs and in particular the technical side of their operations


MC

bindybandy

Anyone know if I can port my digiweb number if I take out Ntl's phone service as well? Fingers crossed ntl will be quick enough to install I think it's just one months notice we have to give with Metro once you've gone past 12 months?

cheers

The Insider

Have to say not impressed, especially with the email. Just sent them an email there will be interesting to see what their reply is.

cgarvey

game4it70 wrote: »

NTlL will be available where i am hopefully before xmas so Digiweb can go fcuk themselves.

I won't be far behind you, hopefully. Of 6 people I know (and have recommended Metro to), in the N4 suburbs, 5 are ready to jump as soon as UPC pull in to town, 1 has already jumped because he could. I presume UPC expansion rate is so slow to not worry Digiweb too much (as indicated in their pricing), but surely the trend must be worrying for them.

jimmycrackcorm

cgarvey wrote: »

I won't be far behind you, hopefully. Of 6 people I know (and have recommended Metro to), in the N4 suburbs, 5 are ready to jump as soon as UPC pull in to town, 1 has already jumped because he could. I presume UPC expansion rate is so slow to not worry Digiweb too much (as indicated in their pricing), but surely the trend must be worrying for them.

The marketing message from Digiweb sucks big time. I can't believe that they think people are stupid not to recognize this as a sly price increase. It's one thing to say "Great you get 8Mbs instead of 6" but another if your contention prevents you from taking advantage.

They could do with taking lessons from UPC on how to keep ahead - faster speeds at the same price!

thebman

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

The marketing message from Digiweb sucks big time. I can't believe that they think people are stupid not to recognize this as a sly price increase. It's one thing to say "Great you get 8Mbs instead of 6" but another if your contention prevents you from taking advantage.

They could do with taking lessons from UPC on how to keep ahead - faster speeds at the same price!

With a half decent CAP!

zoro

cgarvey wrote: »

I won't be far behind you, hopefully. Of 6 people I know (and have recommended Metro to), in the N4 suburbs, 5 are ready to jump as soon as UPC pull in to town, 1 has already jumped because he could. I presume UPC expansion rate is so slow to not worry Digiweb too much (as indicated in their pricing), but surely the trend must be worrying for them.

Funnily enough, I've been contacting UPC on and off over the past few months for an update on their rollout in Dublin 7. Here's hoping!

MunsterCycling

bindybandy wrote: »

Anyone know if I can port my digiweb number if I take out Ntl's phone service as well? Fingers crossed ntl will be quick enough to install I think it's just one months notice we have to give with Metro once you've gone past 12 months?

cheers

If it is a geographic I think you might have to go through the €ircon routine of changing back to them then porting away as there is only a porting agreement for this arrangement IIRC

MC

pencil

Does anyone know how many 'Metro' customers Digiweb have?

paulm17781

bindybandy wrote: »

Anyone know if I can port my digiweb number if I take out Ntl's phone service as well? Fingers crossed ntl will be quick enough to install I think it's just one months notice we have to give with Metro once you've gone past 12 months?

To change from a third part VOIP provider to UPC all you need is your UAN. I would assume this is the same with Digiweb. Contact them and get the UAN (Universal account number) and contact UPC, I think they need that and a bill or letter of permission.

zAbbo

In fairness if you're capable of getting UPC, especially some of the higher packages - why would you choose Digiweb?

That's not to say that Digiweb is bad, the Metro service is actually great - had it for a good few years without any problem.

But I wouldn't try to compare a FTTH UPC package with a Fixed Wireless Digiweb Metro package.

Outside of UPC, 8Mb/1Mb for €40 is pretty reasonable, and I found I was more likely to get the quoted speed with Metro than UPC.

Alter-Ego

Rang them on firday about this. Their ever helpful customer service told me i now had an opt out clause in my 12 month contract so its not all bad. NTL here I come.:)

thebman

Lol so are they just planning on shutting down the Metro service and want to get everyone to leave them before they shut it down so it doesn't look like they are cutting off loads of customers :P

Jumpy

To be fair, I am on Metro Xtra and the price didnt change. I went from 10mb to 12mb.
So I think its just the Home package.

thebman

Jumpy wrote: »

To be fair, I am on Metro Xtra and the price didnt change. I went from 10mb to 12mb.
So I think its just the Home package.

Metro Value increased in price too so it is only the already over priced Xtra package that remained the same price.

game4it70

Yes thanks to "contention" the extra speed is not even noticeable after 5pm for me. I still get 1.5 megs up and varied upload speeds each test.
I have got just under 8up and 1 down in the early part of the day though which is no use as you guys know with the 30gig cap.

Has anyone got any replies to there e-mails sent to Digiweb regarding this subject?

dymonaz

30Gb @ 8Mbit/s = ~8 hours
30Gb @ 6Mbit/s = ~11 hours

So you will actually save ~3 hours each month, doing productive work, rather than doing a great deal of nothingness online. Even at minimum wage this is more than €5 Get it? Good deal!

Had I known this was comming when I signed up with them in August... I would probably still have done it, as this beats Three big time, with no other options available. Sad butt.

cgarvey

My contention has been OK, I have to admit. The only contention I do notice is on US links (Digweb's routing to the US tends to be quite horrific compared to, say, eircom). I've rarely noticed any contention at all on Irish traffic. I'm associated with the Tallaght mast.

The only 'contention' I experienced was when I was repeatedly incorrectly told I was suffering the effects of contention when it was quite clear it was a much deeper issue. Either a number of support technicians were grossly incompetent or they were deliberately lying to me at the time. Since that episode, I've seen very little contention, thankfully.

thebman

Yeah I'm uncontended but as stated by someone else, this means you can now reach your cap within 8 hours and have to wait 30 days for a usable service again.

Seems a little overly harsh don't you think Digiweb?

I mean I'm not a heavy torrent user or anything but I stream the odd tv show like Heroes because I don't have time to make sure I'm home to watch it when it is on. Between that and the other people in the house I'm sharing with, one who downloads anime once a week and one who only browses, we are having to watch our usage quite a lot.

I also download some games from steam and use Xbox Live and online gaming but I don't think there is much logic to that cap. Do they even know people are struggling to keep under it or is it just that the network can't handle it?

I think at least in places like where I am with the service isn't contended, the cap could easily be raised.

pencil

game4it70 wrote: »

Has anyone got any replies to there e-mails sent to Digiweb regarding this subject?

No, no reply yet. Anyone?? ...... Looks like NTL/UPC will be getting try out.

That deceptive digiweb email annoyed me so much that now it is a point of principle - if they change by account by either charging me 60* euro a year extra or force me to downgrade - I will be moving to NTL.

Digiweb if your reading this, I'm offering you 420 euro next year or nothing at all!

Everyones comments about the Cap are bang on - it's is too low - having to check the Cap every few days is a pain. They are using the Caps as a method to try to entice people to go for the more costly packages.

* It's a 'recession' for fu@k sake, some of us have concerns about our jobs, and they think they can help themselves to our wallets

bigpaddy2004

pencil wrote: »

Does anyone know how many 'Metro' customers Digiweb have?

Up to a few months ago I know they had over 700 subscribers on their Finglas tower, which is the busiest in the country BTW and over 300 subscribers on the Portlaoise tower with every other metro base showing similar numbers. If you add up how many metro base stations they have and estimate the average per cell it should give you a 'ROUGH' idea of their metro subscriber base.

Blaster99

pencil wrote: »

* It's a 'recession' for fu@k sake, some of us have concerns about our jobs, and they think they can help themselves to our wallets

You never know, it might have something to do with it. Getting cheap funding ain't easy these days.

thebman

Blaster99 wrote: »

You never know, it might have something to do with it. Getting cheap funding ain't easy these days.

They should put banner ads on their traffic stats page so instead of screwing customers, pushing them to their competitors and ending up laying off more staff becaue their profits decrease because so many people leave the service.

jozi

I'm glad someone started a thread on this.

I to am very unhappy about this 2mb increase at the cost of 5euro, it's worthless!

Someone mentioned a opt out clause somewhere, could you elaborate?

For 40euro a month NTL do a sweet deal, 20meg, no cap (actually 200gig i believe?). They have been upgrading around here the last few months, hopefull it will go live after xmass!

I have to say, never really had a problem with the connection. Always had excellent speeds, they dropped with bad weather is all, installation has been fine and no problems since.

Looking at the cap daily is a big annoyance, wish they had increased it like many others have said. They failed to send me the bill via email the last 2 months in a row but promised to send them the next time.

I'll fire of the OP's letter later today when i have some time.

Jozi

zAbbo

It's difficult to choose an ISP with the numbers involved, sure UPC do 20Mb, I'm on it - speeds vary greatly, latency isn't as sweet as Metro though.

In my apartment block, everyone's a torrent monkey, so large incoming/outgoing connections and sometimes crawling speeds (see the UPC thread for more info)

You can grab a cap upgrade(+10GB) with Digiweb as well.

There are pro's and con's to every service, who knows maybe Digiweb will look at revising the caps?

RangeR

Well this was the straw that broke the donkeys back. I've just phoned them and given my 30 day notice. I ordered UPC. They will be in on Monday so I can evaluate if they have sorted out their network or not. Let's face it, UPC was rubbish 12 months ago. I just hope they have gotten their act together, as far as their infrastructure s concerned..

I was always semi happy with digiweb in the past however any time I had to ring them I always took that occasion to mention my displeasure at the very low cap.

With this recent speed increase, keeping the cap at the same size AND charing us for the privilege, well it's just not on anymore.

As was said earlier, the CAP is the part that costs. I am being charged €5 extra for reaching it quicker.

RangeR

zAbbo wrote: »

There are pro's and con's to every service, who knows maybe Digiweb will look at revising the caps?

You think? They have had two speed increases recently and didn't touch the caps. MAYBE if they lose enough customers, they will be forced to reconsider. But until that time, I think it's unlikely.