Which landline provider?

moiragannaire

Just wondering if any one has advice on this, which telephone company provides the best package for landline and broadband, in your opinion? Have the wiring in the house already, but as far as I know they have never been connected. Was looking at the different websites but would rather hear from someone who knows. Thanks

Merch

UPC does a good deal if they're in your area

syklops

I had Smart Telecom for a very long time, and found them terrific. The router died on a Monday, rang them Monday evening, a new router arrived tuesday evening, and it had not dropped up until I left the house a few months ago.

Eircom cut them off for a few days, because Smart owed them some money, see here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/03/eircom_pulls_plug_on_smart_customers/

I personally think Eircom were threatened by Smart. My internet was down for about four hours, and 2 days later I got a letter from Smart apologizing for the lack of service, and they doubled my line speed for a year as an apology 'present'.

Go with eircom if it seems like a good deal, but smart telecom have a forum, not much unlike boards for grievances/Tech support issues/problems(handy if you work 9-5), eircom have the ranting and raving section of Boards.

If Smart is in your area, BT are ok, I have no experince with UPC.

horse7

eircom are the only people who actually fix the line in your house.

MagicMarker

None.

ejmaztec

horse7 wrote: »

eircom are the only people who actually fix the line in your house.

Wha?

lord lucan

ejmaztec wrote: »

Wha?

I assume he means that Eircom own and operate the phone infrastructure and that the likes of Smart Telecom piggyback on it. If a line goes down it'll be Eircoms job to repair it,not ST's.

Cabaal

horse7 wrote: »

eircom are the only people who actually fix the line in your house.

Actually eircom wholesale will be the only company to fix your line,

If you have a phone service with Smart, Vodafone, UTV etc and you pay them money for line rental then they handle faults for you, you are not supposed to contact eircom.

horse7

what i mean is none of the other operaters employ staff to go to your house to see what the problem is.

Cabaal

horse7 wrote: »

what i mean is none of the other operaters employ staff to go to your house to see what the problem is.

Thats because they don't have to,
Same as if you are with Airtricity for your electricity and you had a problem, ESB Networks would attend your house to look into the problem.

ESB Networks however is not the same as ESB Customer Supply.

The fact that eircom are the only one's to have engineers dispatched should in no way affect people's choice in relation to what phone supplier they want.

MOH

I'd second Smart, been with them about 4 years now.
Only ever had 3 problems with them:
- they lost my direct debit details at the start, threatened to cut me off for non-payment, then after I paid them the DD went through so I'd paid twice. But they did apologise and refund me fairly sharpish
- bought a new router, plugged it in at home, realised I'd lost my broadband password. Logged a call on their support forum, got a phone call back 15 minutes later with my password. Was pretty impressed considering it was about 6pm on a bank holiday Monday.
- had some bizarre crossed line problem last week. The phone support section of their forum seems fairly neglected, getting through the the support number was a nightmare (spent over 30 mins on hold once before giving up), but once we eventually did get through they got onto Eircom and it was sorted within 24 hours.

Apart from that, don't think I've ever had any broadband or phone outages. Their only drawback is the time they take to answer support calls, though if it's broadband related the forum is usually very quick.

Of course, it remains to be seen how things will progress under digiweb.

dudara

Not a Consumer Issue - let's try the Broadband forum

dudara