Eircom Changing Free Meteor Minutes

Tony H

Just got a letter from eircom informing me that from january 20010 I will no longer have 500 free minutes to meteor from my eircom bundle , their new bundle offers 30 minutes to any network , I presume I have to accept this ,but typical of eircom they give one decent bundle and after getting people used to it they snatch it away .

just read the letter again and they are also limiting the free national minutes to 500 , instead of unlimited , they also say I can withdraw from the package without any penalty , vodafone here I come

jor el

Moved from Broadband.

Xcellor

fitzdragon wrote: »

Just got a letter from eircom informing me that from january 20010 I will no longer have 500 free minutes to meteor from my eircom bundle , their new bundle offers 30 minutes to any network , I presume I have to accept this ,but typical of eircom they give one decent bundle and after getting people used to it they snatch it away .

This is a significant alteration of the service you signed up for. You should be able to get out of the contract based on this and take your business elsewhere. You don't have to accept anything.

30 minutes.. ffs. Is that the best they can come up with. I don't see any real reason why anyone would switch back to Eircom but apparently 50,000 people did.

mfays

So much for the ads on TV with all the people moving back to Eircom,cant see that happening if they start treating customers the way they are treating you!

Tony H

well the only reason I stayed with eircom is that they dont cut you off if you exceed your download limit , but i dont think thats a good enough reason anymore

Kensington

I think it's more ComReg's doing than Eircom's that the package is being dropped. It may be unrelated completely, but I remember ComReg did have a big hoo-haa over two of Eircom's bundle packages offering free minutes to Meteor, on uncompetitive grounds (since Eircom own Meteor)

CrazyChick18

Got the same letter this morning its a disgrace that we just have to accept this it say "due to high customer calling patterns it is no longer possible to maintain this eircom talktime bundle"

I am in the process of looking at other providers to see if i can get a better deal!

I'm confused. I got a letter saying my current subscription (7mb Eircom Talktime Bundle) is increasing by €2 a month because of "high customer calling patterns". It also came with a leaflet for a 7mb Chatter Bundle that has €13 off for the first 3 months. Now we hardly use the phone and the only reason I had the bundle was because of the 7mb broadband.

So they're increasing my current price by €2 per month and encouraging me to take something which has €13 per month off? It makes no sense to me really

edit:: Ah I get it now! I rang and because I already have a 7mb bundle then I'm not a "new or upgrading customer" and not eligible for the €40 off over 3 months.

pauloc

Just had a look at the new broadband bundles and in the small print it says that there is a call set up charge of 7c, just wondering if this applies to our free calls or is this just for "out of package" calls. I would also like to compare this downgrade to the old bundles because from what I remember 500 local/national minutes cost around €50 with 7mb broadband which would mean that this is a massive hike in price for what we are getting. does anyone have details of the old bundles to confirm this?

madrabui

I don't like the timing of this. I doubt many people want the hassle of changing provider coming up to Christmas. It would take longer to switch over at this of year too wouldn't it (due to Christmas leave etc).

I've the same bundle as Joziah Small Racist and also I hardly make any calls.

Xcellor

Change to Smart / U.TV ... they are unlimited download options available.

Xcellor

Xcellor wrote: »

Change to Smart / U.TV ... they are unlimited download options available.

Is it possible to change over the broadband from Eircom to either Smart or UTV but KEEP the phone line and rental with Eircom? I know it might be a stupid question but my Mum is a certain age and gets a Social Welfare allowance towards the line rental with Eircom. I'm not sure if she could get the same with utv or smart or that should would like to switch from Eircom phone. But she makes hardly any calls so....

ev612337

This is shocking,
I got the same letter this morning, I'm on 7MB Talktime Anytime for 65e p/m.
There's me, wife and three children. We all switched mobiles to Meteor and having inclusive unlimited calls to Meteor mobiles has been great although we don't abuse it. If I recall, they offered this package as a "for life" deal so they shouldn't be able to take it from existing customers. I thought the court case related only to customers on the restricted 1MB and 3MB bundled packages?? And I thought the ruling only related to future customers and that all customers on 7MB deals would be left as is.

Eircom certainly know how to lose customers, I'm now looking for an alternative from another telco and will switch from Eircom and will also switch all 5 mobiles too, so they've shot themselves in the foot big time if there are others like me out there prepared to move.

Typical Eircom, I always felt this deal was too good to be true, now they have show their true colours as they always tend to do in the end.

Eircom R.I.P.

whiterebel

Deleted User wrote: »

Is it possible to change over the broadband from Eircom to either Smart or UTV but KEEP the phone line and rental with Eircom? I know it might be a stupid question but my Mum is a certain age and gets a Social Welfare allowance towards the line rental with Eircom. I'm not sure if she could get the same with utv or smart or that should would like to switch from Eircom phone. But she makes hardly any calls so....

My Dad is is the same boat and transferred over all to UTV without any hassle. They look after the line rental now with the Social Welfare.

If anybody changes please post could you post who you are changing to? I have no idea who to go with but I don't want UPC as they throttle torrents and installation would be too messy. Thanks

jimoc

Guarenteed I've got one of these letters at home as well, after convincing everyone I ever ring to switch to meteor

And I thought this week couldn't get any worse, now I'm going to have to convince the wife to stop ringing her mother every day she's gonna be :mad:

iknorr

Hey all, i got the same letter.
Im just wondering with about the dates of contract and eircom changing their service within a contract.

Say i started a 12 month contract with them. Then they change it 3 months later. Can they do this?

namloc1980

I got this letter as well! I have eircom talktime friends which includes the 7mb broadband, free meteor off-peak and local/eveing free national calls. Now they are taking away the meteor altogether and limiting the national calls to 250 mins per month!! :mad: The whole family changed phones to meteor for this deal (meteor being an eircom owned entity), and to top it off they want to increase the monthly charge by €2!! :mad: WTF???.....reduce the service provided on the one hand and increase the bill on the other.....Goodbye Eircom....I won't be having that I'm afraid!

Now anyone know what good options are out there??

foggy_lad

i was going to suggest vodafone for phone and broadband but i cant even get them to answer their phones at the moment! customer care is a nightmare!

rameire

dito to everyone else.
will have to start looking around.

Celtic Mech

foggy_lad wrote: »

i was going to suggest vodafone for phone and broadband but i cant even get them to answer their phones at the moment! customer care is a nightmare!

I'd concur with the above. Off hand, Vodafone Package is 52 Euro a month for 7mb BB, 200 anytime minutes to Vodafone Numbers, and unlimited anytime local and national calls . If you are a Vodafone customer on Billpay, you get a 10% reduction in this so its approx 46 euro per month. I think with Vodafone also, if anyone, like a few of the previous posters, have families and want to utilize these free minutes, then switching all the mobiles to Vodafone would make sense in relation to this. Either Billpay or Pre-Pay, you get good free vodafone to vodafone free calls and/or texts.

Bye Bye Eircom! I switched 2 years ago and Certainly wont be going back. They even had the cheek to ring the landline number the other day and try to get me back again and then to question me and ask why not! Needeless to say after explaining to them that Eircom is a joke, i just hung up. Rant over!

Venom

Deleted User wrote: »

If anybody changes please post could you post who you are changing to? I have no idea who to go with but I don't want UPC as they throttle torrents and installation would be too messy. Thanks

UPC do not throttle any torrents that Iv seen. Rapidshare tho is kinda meh with them.

Butternutz

We got the same letter today, Probaly going to move to Vodafone, does anyone know will i lose service while i am moving to them?
Also what are Vodafone like for Broadband ?
Connectivity and usage limits?

Thanks in advance.

jimoc

Its a shame that we don't have a consumer agency in this country that has any power.
Just read the letter and they used the old chestnut of 'introduced as a promotional offer' to get around the fact that they are basically renaging on a contract.

This is the sort of crap where we need Harry Enfield's Angry Man standing up for us :

Oii Eircom!!!! NOOOOOOO!!! We don't need ye changing our bundles!!!!

oppiuy

This was pulled under directive from comreg, The alternative suppliers all complained that they couldn't match the offer, and that they were hemorrhaging customers so they deemed it uncompetitive.

namloc1980

oppiuy wrote: »

This was pulled under directive from comreg, The alternative suppliers all complained that they couldn't match the offer, and that they were hemorrhaging customers so they deemed it uncompetitive.

Or to translate ".....let's get the consumer to pay more for a worse service..."

This is typical...why does anti-competitive waffle from regulators usually end up with the punter paying more for crap service.

If the other companies couldn't match the offer then that's their tough. But this is good old Ireland...get the punter to pay more at all costs.

BTW nothing on the comreg website about this if it is true that they were behind it.

Hellrazer

Got the same letter here.
Worst part of this is that they approached me to sign up for this offer a year ago.We took it up,got both our mobiles ported to Meteor and now they pull the bundle.Im sick of this lot.

Vodafone here I come aswell.And Im going to port both numbers back to Vodafone.Eircom can get stuffed.

Blazer

I don't get it.
I'm on the 7meg with talktime anytime plus 500 mins to meteor for €65.
Now they're increasing the price to €67 and limiting mobile calls to 30 mins and 500 minutes local/national calls.
Yet in the leaflet for the 7meg bundle it offers for €66.99 7 meg download, 30 minutes to mobiles and unlimited local/national calls..wtf?

jimoc

Berkut wrote: »

I don't get it.
I'm on the 7meg with talktime anytime plus 500 mins to meteor for €65.
Now they're increasing the price to €67 and limiting mobile calls to 30 mins and 500 minutes local/national calls.
Yet in the leaflet for the 7meg bundle it offers for €66.99 7 meg download, 30 minutes to mobiles and unlimited local/national calls..wtf?

The reason they do this is so that people look at the fact that their current bundle gives them the same as the cheaper bundle, they then swap to the cheaper bundle and get locked into another 12 month contract.

Venom

Venom wrote: »

UPC do not throttle any torrents that Iv seen. Rapidshare tho is kinda meh with them.

I hate Rapidshare so that's no loss. After doing a lot of reading in the Broadband forum I'm pretty sure UPC throttle. Maybe you have one of the older routers?

Hellrazer

Berkut wrote: »

I don't get it.
I'm on the 7meg with talktime anytime plus 500 mins to meteor for €65.
Now they're increasing the price to €67 and limiting mobile calls to 30 mins and 500 minutes local/national calls.
Yet in the leaflet for the 7meg bundle it offers for €66.99 7 meg download, 30 minutes to mobiles and unlimited local/national calls..wtf?

10mb Broadband,home phone and free anytime local/national calls from UPC for 50pm.
Might be a good alternative for anyone its available to.
Ok I know theres no mobile calls with that but that extra 17 euro (assuming eircom @ 67) will get me enough mobile calls.

Blazer

jimoc wrote: »

The reason they do this is so that people look at the fact that their current bundle gives them the same as the cheaper bundle, they then swap to the cheaper bundle and get locked into another 12 month contract.

is that all?
It's a mates house so no worries about taht..hell..we don't even use the phone..

The Volt

I know it's unfortunate for you guys but ComReg are very anti-Eircom, to the extent that they let other companies pretty much have whatever packages they want, prevent Eircom from selling similar ones at a similar price. As well as this they don't mind other companies basically slandering Eircom in their advertisements.

It's evident they wouldnt mind if Eircom went bust but I can safely assure you the change in these packages is down to ComReg's interference.

namloc1980

jimoc wrote: »

The reason they do this is so that people look at the fact that their current bundle gives them the same as the cheaper bundle, they then swap to the cheaper bundle and get locked into another 12 month contract.

Exactly that's what they want people to do. It's sickening really. They have got alot of people to switch to meteor based on this package and now they pull the plug leaving people with the hassle of having to potentially switch phone, broadband AND mobile providers. And once again there's is nothing the ordinary consumer can do about it.

Hellrazer

namloc1980 wrote: »

And once again there's is nothing the ordinary consumer can do about it.

Vote with your feet and move provider--thats the best thing the ordinary consumer can do about it.

yoyo

Venom wrote: »

UPC do not throttle any torrents that Iv seen. Rapidshare tho is kinda meh with them.

Hmm, I get full 20meg down with Rapidshare premium, not sure whats up there, can't comment on torrents as I don't really use those things, when I did download well seeded torrents though (Game demos, Linux isos etc) they seemed to go full speed? Can't confirm if they throttle torrents only at peak hours though, but certainly rapidshare is full speed always

Nick

namloc1980

Hellrazer wrote: »

Vote with your feet and move provider--thats the best thing the ordinary consumer can do about it.

Is it though?? I mean aside from all the hassle of changing there's the issue that comreg says company X can't charge a certain price because it's too low and unfair on the competition, that price has to go up to match the other competitors meaning the consumer gets screwed either way. How can prices go down for the consumer if the regulator is saying...'low prices are not allowed'?

oppiuy

namloc1980 wrote: »

Or to translate ".....let's get the consumer to pay more for a worse service..."

This is typical...why does anti-competitive waffle from regulators usually end up with the punter paying more for crap service.

If the other companies couldn't match the offer then that's their tough. But this is good old Ireland...get the punter to pay more at all costs.

BTW nothing on the comreg website about this if it is true that they were behind it.

Ring them and ask.. its just the meteor minutes thats being pulled, you'll still get unlimited landline calls plus 30 any network mobiles for the same price.

You're right thou Comreg doesnt work, they set Eircoms prices quite high and allow the others to set theirs just below so the consumer loses out in the end. Upc would be a great alternative if their customer service was so bad

Kristopherus

Well' with Meteor's new billpay prices, you cannot, IMHO, lose. Nothing comes near 20 yoyos a month for 200 mins & 200 texts. OK, its an 18 month contract, but its still a no brainer for me. Wonder what Imgine's offers are like for line & broadband ? How widely available is it?

jimoc

Hellrazer wrote: »

Vote with your feet and move provider--thats the best thing the ordinary consumer can do about it.

The annoying thing is, that even with this reduction in the number of minutes, Eircom are still cheaper for me then any of the other offerings

Because my wife is out of work at the moment and is home all day, we need to keep unlimited local calls during daytime, which eircom is still cheapest with.

I just have to wean her off ringing the mobiles now

rameire

is there anywhere on the boards planet that compares
1) phone services costs with broadband.
2) phone broadband and tv services costs.

ste88m

I got the letter too..

Once imagine launch WiMax near me, I'm jumping ship, it's only €45 p/m for 7Mbps broadband and unlimited local & national calls with Imagine compared to €57.16 for 3Mbps broadband and 500mins local & national calls with Eircom.

I know who wins.

Acoustic

i got the letter from eircom too

i dont get it , on the tv they say more and more people switching back to eircom and yet there upping their charge ????

more like people leaving and recouping the loss

iknorr

---€67 for eircom 7mb 48:1, local & national calls , 30 mins free mobile calls..
---€56 Smart 7mb 1:1, local and national calls, competitive mobile rates which vary from Day, evening, weekend.
---€52 Vodafone 7mb offering 20% less than eircom or 30% less if u have a Vodafone phone. You gotta order it online though.
Here's the link to check the vodafone offers.

MunsterCycling

Voltwad wrote: »

I know it's unfortunate for you guys but ComReg are very anti-Eircom, to the extent that they let other companies pretty much have whatever packages they want, prevent Eircom from selling similar ones at a similar price. As well as this they don't mind other companies basically slandering Eircom in their advertisements.

It's evident they wouldnt mind if Eircom went bust but I can safely assure you the change in these packages is down to ComReg's interference.

Em... That's because ConReg can't regulate the packages of the other providers until they attain a certain level of market share which none ever have.

none

Anybody noticed another mean thing in those yesterday's letters? They also redefined the peak times, now it's from 07:00 to 19:00 including all holidays.

Maz81

CrazyChick18 wrote: »

Got the same letter this morning its a disgrace that we just have to accept this it say "due to high customer calling patterns it is no longer possible to maintain this eircom talktime bundle"

I am in the process of looking at other providers to see if i can get a better deal!

Got the same letter too.... what a cheek and then to say that there,s no penalty for you to get out of the contract yet they can up the price whenever they want, hardly a binding contract!!!

Think i will be on the look to move too

ShooterSF

If they change the contract does these mean you can get out of it? Been waiting to change broadband at home since the censorship issue but was stuck in the contract...

jimoc

Does homevision enforce the 20Gb per month limit?

Boggles

lakalaka wrote: »

Joziah Small Racist. I work for HomeVision and we provide broadband, telephone and TV in most parts of Dublin and outside of this, we provide Broadband and Telephone nationwide. We are much cheaper than Eircom but more importantly, we don't renage on our contracts or change the terms. We don't give away services for nothing like Eircom did with their mobile call packages. What you see is what you get with us and we think that it is good value. I will be happy to answer any questions for you if I have the tiime but I still have to do my day job!!! Check us out at www.homevision.ie. Also we are giving away interactive whiteboards to Schools on a referral program (schools.homevision.ie)

Why doesn't yer website work?

jimoc

ShooterSF wrote: »

If they change the contract does these mean you can get out of it? Been waiting to change broadband at home since the censorship issue but was stuck in the contract...

The letter says that

Eircom's horrible letter wrote:

you can, of course, withdraw from your current contract without penalty by informing us prior to 31st December 2009