eircom dead now that upc announce new speeds and cheaper prices

bk

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Bk, you're being a little skewed with your opinion of eircom's prospects.

Here are some facts:
- Eircoms debt is 3.8 billion.
- The majority of that debt > 2 billion is due to be paid in 2015/16
- Eircom can't possibly afford to pay back that debt
- Eircom are losing 1,300 customers a week!!
- UPC BB is up 34% voice up 58%

Mobile operators are also stealing Eircom voice and bb customers at a frightening pace.

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

That idea of customers being "lost forever" to eircom is a bit far-fetched especially when there are still lots of people in UPC areas who are on DSL. I don't have a breakdown of those numbers but I know people in that situation and not all because of elderly customers wanting to stick with what they know. One friend of mine didn't bother switching over to UPC even though he uses torrents and file sharing websites quite a lot because 8 mbps was enough for him, it worked reliably and the 20 minute wait for various downloads didn't bother him.

There will always be laggards, I wouldn't base my business model on them. Specially if the government eventually cuts the social welfare phone allowance (which is already available to customers on UPC and mobile carriers).

Again we are not saying that Eircom will go to 0 customers, just that if they don't stem the massive flood of customers they are currently losing, I simply can't see how the company will survive.

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Also, dragging up pricing from some still hypothetical FTTH trial down in Wexford is hardly a fair comparison to make with UPC especially when UPC's speed tiering and pricing when the trial was announced was far less than it is today. A FTTH network is always going to beat a coax network for speeds if a company wished to.

I didn't say anything about pricing, only the specs of the product. Given that most people will be getting VDSL 2, the specs already look very poor in comparison to UPC's current offerings.

It is now clear that Eircom have to skip VDSL2 in urban areas where UPC are present and go straight to FTTH. But where exactly are they going to get the 1 billion or so (urban areas only) to do that?

lucernarian

This is becoming bogged down in semantics very quickly and some points are not being addressed. Hyperbole about UPC's coverage and their dominance in DOCSIS-enabled areas isn't fair or honest. All of eircom's positives (incumbency, reliability and availability) are being ignored in the face of optimistic appraisals of UPC and their technically inferior TV service compared to Sky. I don't remember the mobile operators offering actual broadband either and the midband forum would suggest that their services are being bought by those who can't get eircom or who are extremely financially limited. In that case by default the only market that eircom's fixed business can chase is the business that UPC also wants. This is why I think eircom or its successors can match UPC once the debt problem is at least curtailed if not solved and they get to work investing again. Eircom also have a very considerable business with leased lines and ethernet connectivity that UPC hasn't really targeted yet. That part of the business is viable and will play a part in communications here even if the entity of eircom would no longer exist.

No one here feels that eircom are in a good position financially now or in the near future. I am saying that it's much too early to be dancing on the grave of Ireland's largest telco. Even if eircom were utterly financially destitute and their assets disposed of in a fire sale, the likelihood is that some telco or other will step in and try to take advantage of whatever few strengths eircom do have. That's also ignoring the very deep pockets that STT have and without the holes that Babcock and Brown had.

thefinalstage

bk wrote: »

It is now clear that Eircom have to skip VDSL2 in urban areas where UPC are present and go straight to FTTH. But where exactly are they going to get the 1 billion or so (urban areas only) to do that?

I remember reading somewhere that there was a few billion the singaporeans had to invest but Eircom had to get their debt restructured first...

IngazZagni

While I would like to get the speed of UPC broadband I came to the conclusion that it just wasn't worth the price. I currently have a Sky/Eircom combo and having worked out the prices to get the equivalent services with a UPC bundle, it ended up being a about 15E more than I'm paying now. Sure I would have got faster broadband but then the TV service would be far inferior and I don't want to do that.

bk

IngazZagni wrote: »

While I would like to get the speed of UPC broadband I came to the conclusion that it just wasn't worth the price. I currently have a Sky/Eircom combo and having worked out the prices to get the equivalent services with a UPC bundle, it ended up being a about 15E more than I'm paying now. Sure I would have got faster broadband but then the TV service would be far inferior and I don't want to do that.

You know you can get just phone and BB from UPC and continue to use Sky for TV?

E.g. UPC 25mb/2.5mb BB + 250GB cap + phone + off peak calls is just €42
or UPC 12mb/1.2mb BB + 120GB cap + phone + off peak calls is just €32

The cheapest Eircom package is €46.79 for 8mb BB with a 10GB cap

So you will pay less and get far more with UPC then Eircom and you can keep Sky.

bk

poisonedstream wrote: »

I remember reading somewhere that there was a few billion the singaporeans had to invest but Eircom had to get their debt restructured first...

That would be brilliant if true, but we've seen no evidence of it yet.

Don't get me wrong, I want Eircom to be strong and successful. The more competition the better.

Doylers

Im down in Waterford, moved into this house about 4 years ago and theres no UPC cabling put down. Its a trend all around the city no just in my estate. Apparently UPC(NTL at the time) weren't willing to foot the bill.

Freddie59

Doylers wrote: »

Im down in Waterford, moved into this house about 4 years ago and theres no UPC cabling put down. Its a trend all around the city no just in my estate. Apparently UPC(NTL at the time) weren't willing to foot the bill.

I'd say you're in the Minority. I have relations on the Dunmore Road, Kilcohan, Lismore Park, Ferrybank, and Gracedieu. They're all on UPC with broadband.

Doylers

Freddie59 wrote: »

I'd say you're in the Minority. I have relations on the Dunmore Road, Kilcohan, Lismore Park, Ferrybank, and Gracedieu. They're all on UPC with broadband.

Oh no its in the older estates, such as kilcohan where i lived(I moved across the road) Its the relatively newer estates im hearing dont have them, my brother is a carpenter and is working at the moment luckly enough and none of the new houses hes working on are getting it. Would love to have UPC instead of slow ass 3Mb.

D'Peoples Voice

Assume we have a housing estate of 100 houses all poaying line rental of €26pm to Eircom – total income €2,600pm – against maintenance costs including having service repair men on standby – say €2,000 (I’ve no idea, just creating a figure from thin air for explanatory purposes)

Now, assume Eircom lose 60 of those customers to UPC broadband + telephone package. Eircom now earn € 26 x 40 = €1,040 but what are their new maintenance costs? Every house still has a connection whether it is being used or not, as one house just gets a feed from their neighbour. Also, can Eircom reduce the number of service men on standby in this scenario?

This is the point I was getting to a few pages back about the move to Irish DTT. Yes UPC will have their maintenance costs like Eircom, but UPC would have these costs anyway running their television service. So in effect, is the telephone/BB package subsidizing their television costs? In other words, are UPC bleeding Eircom of their line rental income as an indirect cost of UPC trying to subsidise their own maintenance costs?

I don't know, just throwing out the conspiracy theory!

lucernarian

My memories of eircom from 2002 to 2005 are that they could get away with spending little money on capex except for enabling DSL exchanges. The maintenance of phone lines simply didn't happen over this period. Pretty much only fault repairs and DSLAM installations were carried out while the Valencia carpet baggers consortium ran eircom. I can think of a couple of telephone poles which were left in ditches for over two years and where trees and some nylon rope served to hold up a low-hanging 30-pair cable over a road. And the plastic water bottle I saw in Donegal in 2003 which was being used as a cover for a broken junction box on a pole. In a situation where Capex just doesn't happen, there's just the (still significant) cost of linesmen's wages so they could get away with laying off these workers while still roughly maintaining service levels in the short term.

Eircom's immediate problem is how are they going to manage the debt mountain if people deprive them of perhaps their most important source of revenue- their line rental. Eircom's line rental especially back in the Valentia Consortium's days was extremely useful as it was relatively dependable income which they were allowed to increase with impunity against the floormat regulator. Stable income means easier access to cash loans. Whether UPC are subsidising their TV service with broadband won't matter to eircom, what matters to eircom is that UPC are taking away line rental income from them. STT can't do much about this until they get the debt problem out of the way.

Freddie59

Doylers wrote: »

Oh no its in the older estates, such as kilcohan where i live(I moved across the road) Its the relatively newer estates im hearing dont have them, my brother is a carpenter and is working at the moment luckly enough and none of the new houses hes working on are getting it. Would love to have UPC instead of slow ass 3Mb.

I've got some friends out that way in Fairfield Park, Avondale, and Cherrymount. Does that just about cover them all or am I missing some?

Doylers

Freddie59 wrote: »

I've got some friends out that way in Fairfield Park, Avondale, and Cherrymount. Does that just about cover them all or am I missing some?

Kilcohan takes in avondale and cherrymount. People in Fairfield have it?? Thats beside my estate(bracken grove), it doesnt make sense why one estate has it but most others dont. I know one or two people over there who are like me and have no UPC. Its really odd the whole situation. Would love to know exactly why this is the case

AntiVirus

IngazZagni wrote: »

While I would like to get the speed of UPC broadband I came to the conclusion that it just wasn't worth the price. I currently have a Sky/Eircom combo and having worked out the prices to get the equivalent services with a UPC bundle, it ended up being a about 15E more than I'm paying now. Sure I would have got faster broadband but then the TV service would be far inferior and I don't want to do that.

Why would you get the TV if you're happy with sky?

Freddie59

Doylers wrote: »

Kilcohan takes in avondale and cherrymount. People in Fairfield have it?? Thats beside my estate(bracken grove), it doesnt make sense why one estate has it but most others dont. I know one or two people over there who are like me and have no UPC. Its really odd the whole situation. Would love to know exactly why this is the case

Yeah my niece lives in Fairfield Drive in Fairfield Park. She has the phone and broadband from them.

IngazZagni

bk wrote: »

You know you can get just phone and BB from UPC and continue to use Sky for TV?

E.g. UPC 25mb/2.5mb BB + 250GB cap + phone + off peak calls is just €42
or UPC 12mb/1.2mb BB + 120GB cap + phone + off peak calls is just €32

The cheapest Eircom package is €46.79 for 8mb BB with a 10GB cap

So you will pay less and get far more with UPC then Eircom and you can keep Sky.

AntiVirus wrote: »

Why would you get the TV if you're happy with sky?

To be honest a UPC guy came to my door last week and did nothing but confuse the living daylights out of me and he never mentioned any of the broadband/phone only bundles even though I asked him. Looking at those offers does interest me, they look like new offers. I'll have to see and take a look at the small print but this offer does have my attention.

bk

IngazZagni wrote: »

To be honest a UPC guy came to my door last week and did nothing but confuse the living daylights out of me and he never mentioned any of the broadband/phone only bundles even though I asked him. Looking at those offers does interest me, they look like new offers. I'll have to see and take a look at the small print but this offer does have my attention.

The new products were only launched this Monday, see here for full details:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056262789

Really there isn't any catch here, other then you needing to sign up to a 12 month contract.

Solair

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

My memories of eircom from 2002 to 2005 are that they could get away with spending little money on capex except for enabling DSL exchanges. The maintenance of phone lines simply didn't happen over this period. Pretty much only fault repairs and DSLAM installations were carried out while the Valencia [strike]carpet baggers[/strike] consortium ran eircom. I can think of a couple of telephone poles which were left in ditches for over two years and where trees and some nylon rope served to hold up a low-hanging 30-pair cable over a road. And the plastic water bottle I saw in Donegal in 2003 which was being used as a cover for a broken junction box on a pole. In a situation where Capex just doesn't happen, there's just the (still significant) cost of linesmen's wages so they could get away with laying off these workers while still roughly maintaining service levels in the short term.

Eircom's immediate problem is how are they going to manage the debt mountain if people deprive them of perhaps their most important source of revenue- their line rental. Eircom's line rental especially back in the Valentia Consortium's days was extremely useful as it was relatively dependable income which they were allowed to increase with impunity against the floormat regulator. Stable income means easier access to cash loans. Whether UPC are subsidising their TV service with broadband won't matter to eircom, what matters to eircom is that UPC are taking away line rental income from them. STT can't do much about this until they get the debt problem out of the way.

During that period, eircom faced no competition from real competitors with their own infrastructure either. NTL Ireland kinda had a bit of broadband in very limited areas and Chorus had a few streets in Cork with Broadband and were trying to shove everyone else onto MMDS and pretending that it was equivalent to cable if they could get away with it. Meanwhile, the only serious attempt at LLU, Smart Telecom, was driven to the margins very fast when it ran out of money and couldn't get sufficient access to exchanges.

I remember we had a cable TV fault in our house in Cork in the early 00s, just a broken junction box on the street and the installer came out and attempted to put in MMDS. We just got Sky instead and told them to get knotted.

It's no wonder eircom got away with such poor service with that level of competition in the market. They'd have been in dire trouble years ago if cable had been running to a reasonable standard. NTL and Chorus made the stupid assumption that their main product was British Terrestrial Television. When Sky launched BBC, their days were numbered.

Cable's big selling point everywhere in the world is broadband.

I think the fundamental problem was a weak regulator and wishy-washy ownership of both the cable sector and of eircom. UPC's actually the first serious landline player in Ireland with a big, well financed, Europe-wide company behind it that is actually taking the Irish market seriously. NTL seemed to see the Irish operation as a far flung outpost of the UK network and ignored it while Chorus just never had any money or sensible management policies.

Irish Warri0r

Anybody know if upc[chorus] are planning on rolling this out in mayo im in castlebar its a fairly big town just wondering cos im sick of being ripped of by eircom.

lucernarian

Solair wrote: »

During that period, eircom faced no competition from real competitors with their own infrastructure either. NTL Ireland kinda had a bit of broadband in very limited areas and Chorus had a few streets in Cork with Broadband and were trying to shove everyone else onto MMDS and pretending that it was equivalent to cable if they could get away with it. Meanwhile, the only serious attempt at LLU, Smart Telecom, was driven to the margins very fast when it ran out of money and couldn't get sufficient access to exchanges.

I remember we had a cable TV fault in our house in Cork in the early 00s, just a broken junction box on the street and the installer came out and attempted to put in MMDS. We just got Sky instead and told them to get knotted.

It's no wonder eircom got away with such poor service with that level of competition in the market. They'd have been in dire trouble years ago if cable had been running to a reasonable standard. NTL and Chorus made the stupid assumption that their main product was British Terrestrial Television. When Sky launched BBC, their days were numbered.

Cable's big selling point everywhere in the world is broadband.

I think the fundamental problem was a weak regulator and wishy-washy ownership of both the cable sector and of eircom. UPC's actually the first serious landline player in Ireland with a big, well financed, Europe-wide company behind it that is actually taking the Irish market seriously. NTL seemed to see the Irish operation as a far flung outpost of the UK network and ignored it while Chorus just never had any money or sensible management policies.

I'm not sure what this had to do with my other reply, which was discussing the effect of line rental margins and revenue on eircom.

Chorus has been owned by UPC for several years now and they were initially slow to respond to the investment challenges they had. Perhaps they were waiting for an opportunity to buy NTL as they quickly got to work taking advantage of the synergies between the two companies. UPC showed that they have a long term view with their actions over the past 3 years. Indeed, perhaps the competition brought about by the LLU operators (particularly BT) and Eircom and especially the TV competition from Sky was what got UPC to carry out the large network rebuilds from about 3 years ago. UPC haven't had it all their own way and still won't while their TV service is inferior.

UPC's promotions and marketing really should take advantage of their broadband + phone only bundles which they have starting at €26 per month according to the website. I think many Irish people just don't think of UPC without any TV service attached. UPC have the same problem with phone services and people immediately think of "eircom" when they think of phone lines even though UPC can supply phone services to something like over a quarter of Irish households. UPC's phone service still has question marks over its official compatibility with alarm systems and the lack of built-in backup power is another weakness.

D'Peoples Voice

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

UPC's promotions and marketing really should take advantage of .......

Whatever about bad marketing from UPC,
IMHO over the years, the Marketing from Eircom has been found wanting.

I remember BTIreland entering the market and offering unlimited local and national calls for a set premium per month. Why didn't Eircom's marketing department offer this deal previously? I know the parents moved to BTIreland at the time, and never returned to Eircom ever since. Eircom's response was to increase the advertising of their brand - though it has admitedly since introduced packages.

We had companies like Smart Telecom offering to waive line rental fees if you paid a certain amount on phone calls per month or broadband or something, was never a customer so can't remember the details. Eircom's response was to increase the advertising of the brand.

We had some telecom companies realising the growing number of immigrants coming to Ireland in the later part of the 90s/early noughties, so they started offering free(subsidised) calls overseas. The response from the Eircom marketing department was to increase the advertising of the brand.

We now have some mobile companies such as o2 and vodafone offering mobile broadband. Eircom through their Meteor subsidiary were far too slow to react. The Eircom marketing department's response was to establish ANOTHER mobile company called emobile and increase its advertising of that brand.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh of Eircom, but that is my memory of events.......

Solair

Well, to be fair, Chorus actually began to tidy up its network during the period it was owned by Liberty Media i.e. from 2005 onwards. It had gotten into a disastrous situation under Independent News & Media's ownership due to lack of investment.

Also, Liberty Media didn't integrate it into UPC - Europe until it also completed the purchase of NTL Ireland. So, Chorus remained a little independent cable / MMDS operator doing its own thing until that point.

The biggest advantage of being part of UPC is that the Irish operation has access to UPC's R&D and purchasing power. As you can see, it is using UPC Europe equipment, software and other technical expertise in its network roll-out which makes absolute sense. Where as Chorus was forced to buy 'off the shelf' equipment and develop / adapt software to its needs and it was never really 'quite right'

Again, until the ex Chorus and ex NTL Ireland networks were up to a reasonable level, and until the broadband offerings were reasonably widespread in the cable areas, they didn't rebrand as I get the impression they were fully aware of how tarnished Chorus in particular was as a brand.

As for their phone/broadband service, I am guessing they will push these on their own. I know quite a lot of people in Cork in particular who have Sky + UPC broadband and phone because the previous Chorus channel line up was shockingly poor i.e. it just mirrored Chorus MMDS, so they had sky and had dumped cable.

That being said, while you may not like the UPC line up compared to Sky, for quite a lot of viewers it's more than adequate and they seem to be growing their customer base.

Part of the issue with their line up is that Sky owns the rights to a lot of the channels and obviously has a vested interest in keeping its own platform for TV ahead of cable. Also, UPC Ireland's a relatively small operation so, without teaming up with say Virgin Media in the UK, they're not really going to be in a position to launch their own channels or content.

Also, to be fair, their TV offering is *vastly* improved on what it was. Better channel line up, HD, DVR etc ... still a lot of room for more improvements though but it's "adequate" for many people, particularly when bundled with phone + broadband at a decent price.

lucernarian

Those I know who use UPC (both friends and relations) don't really comment on the channel lineup as none of them watch massive amounts of TV and even the analogue lineup would do them. A good friend of mine is using the small Pace box and his main gripe is having to switch off the box when it crashes regularly. When I watch TV there I'm mainly struck by how blocky the main channels are in comparison to Freesat and particularly Saorview. But then having grown up with 8 channels perhaps my expectations are not so high! I'll add to the credit of UPC that their guide is now much better than the crap that I saw on my sister's service with Chorus MMDS.

He also mentioned not having the red button which he got good use out of on sky for F1 racing.

I freely admit that it's only what I've heard in real life and plenty of people are more interested in their HD lineup and getting ITV3 and 4 back;)

One other thing, UPC's expertise is not being employed so much for the rebuild and they are still using off the shelf gear for STBs and modems. They have gotten the likes of KN networking and Sierra Communications to actually build the network. But certainly the customer experience has been improved under UPC's experience and stewardship.

Solair

None of their new cable boxes are off-the-shelf, they're all UPC proprietary stuff. Only some of the old Chorus gear is still off-the-shelf generic.

The ex Chorus MMDS is using off-the-shelf DVT-T receivers!

Their cable modems seem pretty generic though.

NIMAN

As someone who can't get anything other than BB from Eircom or VF, I have been on the verge of signing up to Vodafone for the last month or so, but I might just wait for a while to see if they lower their package prices in the coming weeks to compete with UPC.

If UPC are offering these types of prices then I shouldn't have to be paying €45 for 3meg broadband and calls from VF.

lucernarian

Solair wrote: »

None of their new cable boxes are off-the-shelf, they're all UPC proprietary stuff. Only some of the old Chorus gear is still off-the-shelf generic.

The ex Chorus MMDS is using off-the-shelf DVT-T receivers!

Their cable modems seem pretty generic though.

I can say with certainty that ex-NTL generic Pace boxes are still being used today.

bk

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

I can say with certainty that ex-NTL generic Pace boxes are still being used today.

Yes, but the new gear, DVR's and HD boxes seem to all be standard UPC gear. As do the new DOCSIS 3 modems.

Also I expect the future VoD, IPTV and Horizon boxes will all be standard UPC gear.

D'Peoples Voice

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0527/breaking17.html

Telecoms company Eircom has warned it is likely to breach its covenants within three months as revenue and earnings continued to fall.
Revenue also dipped, declining by 10.5 per cent to €407 million as competition and a difficult economic environment weighed on business.
Eircom has seen its traditional landline business slow in recent years. The group said the loss of standard PSTN lines accelerated during the quarter, but was partly offset by price increases introduced in March.
Meanwhile, the DSL market is also showing signs of slowing, as competition from cable and mobile broadband increases. During the quarter, retail customers fell by 9,000 to 491,000.

I'm sure Eircom are thinking up yet another new brand awareness campaign as we speak...:rolleyes:

Gallagher5

Brisk Net is great in down the counrty and in smaller towns too, should try that.

old_aussie

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056270872