[Comreg] Consumer ICT Survey: Q4 2008

taung

Comreg have issued their latest Consumer ICT Survey;

http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0907.pdf

Some of the findings are surprising for me;

1. How can Eircom still have 55% of the broadband market?

2. How can their be so many broadband providers surviving with single digit market share?

3. How could Perlico's market share still be at a lowly 4% after the huge marketing drive they've been doing?

4. 50% of people don't know what broadband speed they have subscribed to???

Cabaal

1. How can Eircom still have 55% of the broadband market?

Eircom have high market share because no matter what we all think they are a brand that the average joe still know and trust and because they have their PSTN service with them they get their ADSL with them.....same goes for BT Telecom in the UK.

4. 50% of people don't know what broadband speed they have subscribed to???

Broadband tech knowledge among the average joe in Ireland is pretty poor, again if you compare Ireland to the UK you'll noticve that people knowing their speed is only a recent thing in the UK thanks to pushes by tech programs on Channel 5 and other TV shows and websites such as the BBC.

Not everyone cares about the technical sides of Broadband and yes they often consider the speed aspect techy, most people just care if it works or not.

2. How can their be so many broadband providers surviving with single digit market share?

Most are just Eircom bit-stream resellers, you'll see as time goes by that many will merge or go out of business. Many also make their money off telephone calls more so then the Broadband side of things especially if the customer chooses a low end package.

3. How could Perlico's market share still be at a lowly 4% after the huge marketing drive they've been doing?

This is a shame I think, while some people will question Perlico;s support I've seen some very proactive resolutions by perlico staff on boards.ie which I have not seen from some other providers in years.

In addition I believe that Perlico along with BT are the only real competition against eircom on ADSL who use the bit-stream product, I'd imagine however that they are making more money off of telephony services like other providers at the end of the day though thats pure speculation on my part

watty

There is little to no money in DSL for anyone other than eircom. Perlico lost 17M before Vodafone bought them.

Only wireless and cable is real eircom competition. Bitstream is illusion of competition. LLU is fantasy of offering enhanced or extra services AND making money out of it. Ask Smart and Magnet how much profit they make. Where are the "innovative" extra services LLU is supposed to deliver?

Ireland is big enough to have 4 to 6 viable ISPs. Not the 30+ we do have.

ITDept

I'll confess I'm still an Eircom customer. They're consistently the most expensive service provider of my available options and their speeds are usually at the lower end, BUT every time I've ever had a query or a problem they've answered the call promptly and given me a reasonable answer. I keep getting sales calls from UPC who seem both cheaper and faster, but every time I've called them about my TV service they've taken an astonishing length of time to answer the call and usually give me the vaguest fob off they can come up with at the time. I'll stick with Eircom thanks.

Marlow

taung wrote: »

4. 50% of people don't know what broadband speed they have subscribed to???

The majority of those people don't even know who their broadband provider is. We've certainly had people calling us up, asking us why we disconnected them (getting a hotspot login page).

Turns out they have Eircom or something else, live near one of our hotspots and just were too damn dum to select the right wireless accesspoint.

/Martin

dub45

The average joe soap hasn't the foggiest notion about broadband. Most people I chat to about it or end up helping are quite intimidated by the whole thing.

It is easy to to understand Eircom having such a high percentage of the market if you walk around Dublin with the wireless switched on on an iphone or similar virtually every wireless network seems to have an Eircom id.

dub45

ITDept wrote: »

I'll confess I'm still an Eircom customer. They're consistently the most expensive service provider of my available options and their speeds are usually at the lower end, BUT every time I've ever had a query or a problem they've answered the call promptly and given me a reasonable answer. I keep getting sales calls from UPC who seem both cheaper and faster, but every time I've called them about my TV service they've taken an astonishing length of time to answer the call and usually give me the vaguest fob off they can come up with at the time. I'll stick with Eircom thanks.

Their attitude to their customers is quite simply appalling. The latest thing to appall me is a poster on here being told that under their T&C's as UPC (he didnt even realise he had signed up with a company called UPC as distinct from 'ChorusNtl') they can now increase their charges by 15% before you are allowed break your contract with them. What a shower!! The way things are going thats about 15 times the rate of inflation! We really should be afraid of the rapid growth of power of upc.:mad:

jor el

taung wrote: »

1. How can Eircom still have 55% of the broadband market?

Inertia. People don't, and won't, change from what they know, even if it is cheaper. Also, if you have DSL, and your line develops a fault, you'll want to be an eircom customer. If you're with an LLU or bitstream provider, then you'll often be left swinging, while trying to convince your service provider to log the fault with eircom, and often the phone reps have no idea how to do this, or that they even can.

taung wrote: »

2. How can their be so many broadband providers surviving with single digit market share?

A lot of ISPs are small, and operate in a specific, localised area. This is needed, because the bigger players don't seem to want to cover unprofitable area (obviously), and I'm not sure how the small operators are even surviving.

For the ones that cover the entire country, such as all the bitstream sellers, there's too many. Everyone promises that they can beat the others, with the result that nobody believes any of them, and end up sticking with eircom.

taung wrote: »

3. How could Perlico's market share still be at a lowly 4% after the huge marketing drive they've been doing?

Bad word of mouth, maybe? First thing Voda should have done is kill the Perlico name.

taung wrote: »

4. 50% of people don't know what broadband speed they have subscribed to???

In general, people don't know the difference between bit and byte, Mega and Giga. They hear so many things that they neither understand nor care about, and end up thinking their broadband is 30 giga-bit (confusing the cap with the speed, and bit with byte).

Seriously, ask anyone how much memory is in their computer, and they're more likely to quote the hard disk size than the RAM. Most of the time, they're not even aware of the difference, or even that they are different things.

Marlow

jor el wrote: »

A lot of ISPs are small, and operate in a specific, localised area. This is needed, because the bigger players don't seem to want to cover unprofitable area (obviously), and I'm not sure how the small operators are even surviving.

That is, because those markets aren't unprofitable at all. It just is more work to get the business and you might need alternative methods to provide access to people.

Too much hassle for a lot of the national players. Often it's also important to know the local area.

/Martin

watty

Not as profitable rather than unprofitable may often be more accurate.

A national company is going to cherry pick the easiest bits first, then do the profitable harder bits later.

A local company obviously does the local bits first and maybe expands outwards.

johnciall

Don't forget this survey is only shoing the residential market, i'm sure some of the smaller ISP's on that survery would have much higher market shares on the over all breakdown