Smart Telecom offering DSL service soon!!!

thebigdude

Hello, just wanted to let people know that I called up Smart Telecom and they told me they wanted to launch the DSL service in December, but needed a bit more time to expand the service before launch, and it should be less than a month now before they formally announce it.

The customer service rep didn't have much details to give, but she said it would compete seriously with the others in terms of price and quality, which probably means we're finally gonna see a 1 Mbps service for residential customers, or even more. They're definitely going to want to beat leap broadband which said it was spending 10 million euro developing a fixed line network.

They can't put a fixed date on the launch nor are they taking any pre-orders yet, but i'm sure if enough people call and let them know how much you want this, perhaps they'll cough up a bit more info.

The number to call is 1800 931 300.

Their email is residentialdivision@smarttelecom.ie

Let the nagging begin :cool:

aodh_rua

Interesting first post?

thebigdude

Yup, i recently found this site but have been a broadband customer of eircom (among first 1000 people to subscribe to DSL when it was 110/month with a 3GB cap), then esatbt, then IBB... no NTL anytime soon, but this news from Smart is exciting because i know they have a huge pipe to the US which they're practically giving away to business customers and so they're not likely to have any caps on downloads, and expecting a 2 Mbps service for less than 60/month is likely. Let's all hope.

Infini

Very Intriguing... :rolleyes:

Gangsta

I'd love to get a 1MB service or even 2MB if the price is reasonable enough. All I'll have to do is tell ESATBT to fook off after the 12mths is over! Is there a cap though?

thebigdude

Gangsta wrote:

I'd love to get a 1MB service or even 2MB if the price is reasonable enough. All I'll have to do is tell ESATBT to fook off after the 12mths is over! Is there a cap though?

No idea since I wasn't given any details, but it would be unlikely as LLU is in full swing and they sound like they want to seperate themselves from the competition... but don't take my word for it... give them a call and see... I guess if they're aware a lot of users need higher speed they would work overtime to capitalize on the momentum and announce the service sooner.

Infini

There was another post about NTL offering a 3MB/s line for 50 euro when they increase the speeds on their lines in the next few months.

thebigdude

Infini wrote:

There was another post about NTL offering a 3MB/s line for 50 euro when they increase the speeds on their lines in the next few months.

I called NTL Ireland about this and the lady told me she was unaware of this and by her laugh it seemed too good to be true. She did ask me if I was talking about NTL UK, but she didn't have any info about that either, not that it mattered. But it is true that it will happen in the UK soon according to the register, but the caps will have to be adhered to, so the extra speed will not be very helpful if you're a heavy user.

To be honest, NTL is probably the most annoying network in this country as they first started broadband service more than 3 years ago and from the beginning they never bothered to inform cutomers of their rollout plan, saying it could be next week, next month or next year. Well, we found out for Dublin city centre even next 4 years doesn't seem likely so they can **** off if they think they're the only ones to turn to for high speed service. I am glad IBB has a competitive wireless product for residential customers in Dublin and i hope the DSL providers follow suit... I heard early this year Eircom was upgrading some of it's exchanges to support ADSL2+, since BT demonstrated that can increase penetration to 6 km from an exchange... this all means that NTL will be left behind with their 1 and half a 1 mbps service, which is capped, and only available to a few, while (most of) the rest of us will be signed up with proper companies WHO WANT OUR BUSINESS.

Creamy Goodness

smart telecom are biggest shower of pricks i've seen.

they rang here one day and my mum answered the phone.
they wanted us to sign up to their calls and services.
my mum said no, not until she talked it over with my dad.
what did smart do?
they signed us over to them without our consent.

allbeit we are not happy at eircom service but the ****ing cheek of these bastards that are smart telecom i'll never give them the steam of my piss.

they'll not compete they'll just match eircom and maybe drop the price by a euro or two

Infini

thebigdude wrote:

I called NTL Ireland about this and the lady told me she was unaware of this and by her laugh it seemed too good to be true. She did ask me if I was talking about NTL UK, but she didn't have any info about that either, not that it mattered. But it is true that it will happen in the UK soon according to the register, but the caps will have to be adhered to, so the extra speed will not be very helpful if you're a heavy user.

Mate, NTL's customer service is so Bollocks they could'nt be relied for the time of day! Besides NTL's service here is an extention of the UK network which means we'll probably get upgraded at the same time as the UK. It happened twice before. Also they not only haven't officially announced any download caps they never enforced the existing ones here as it is.

CyberGhost

I will believe it when I see it.

MarcusGarvey

How long have you worked for Smart Telecom thebigdude ? Your promotion of Smart is less obvious and over-the-top than previous sales droids for telecoms companies but it seems your agenda here is to get Smart some custom.

If you are from Smart or one of your keepers is reading this perhaps you could consider coming on here in an official capacity and answering questions.

If an IP trace is done on your posts and it goes back to a Smart Telecom IP range then your posting here would come across as being underhanded and sneaky, unless you identified who your employer is or what your link to Smart is.

Course it could all be innocent and you have nothing but our interests at heart and are totally independent.

Peace

When and if a product is released by smart then i'm sure people will be able to evaluate the product for themselves.

Boards users seem very capable of making themselves heard when their ping reaches unacceptably high levels of 50ms to anywhere or their download speed drops below 53kbs....

If he's a sales drone he's wasting his time. If he's an honest boards user then fair play to him for posting it.

crawler

Seems like someone has a hell of a lot of info for a first time poster....I would hope that if "a company" were to pimp here, they would at least have the deceny to take out a banner add or two or face the wrath of the mods and discredit the very Company they are trying to pimp! NOT making accusations, just offering an opinion!

Infini

Interesting point... :rolleyes:

thebigdude

MarcusGarvey wrote:

How long have you worked for Smart Telecom thebigdude ? Your promotion of Smart is less obvious and over-the-top than previous sales droids for telecoms companies but it seems your agenda here is to get Smart some custom.

If you are from Smart or one of your keepers is reading this perhaps you could consider coming on here in an official capacity and answering questions.

If an IP trace is done on your posts and it goes back to a Smart Telecom IP range then your posting here would come across as being underhanded and sneaky, unless you identified who your employer is or what your link to Smart is.

Course it could all be innocent and you have nothing but our interests at heart and are totally independent.

Marcus, I would react to a post like mine exactly like you did. I wouldn't trust anyone and have always been suspicious of posts that look too good to be true, and resemble ads almost.

The truth is i've got both EsatBT advantage plus - for the low latency stuff like browsing etc, and IBB ripwave for downloading stuff from p2p and usenet. I don't like either because the max speed i get with DSL is 54kbps, and with ripwave it's 62kbps (i know, pretty good compared to other users), but i need more, like everyone else i'm sure. I'm close to the RTE mast so it's good, and was going to finally agree to sign up to the IBB breeze package today but before commiting to a 12 month contract i decided to check once and for all if the other telcoms have any internet products coming out soon, especially since electricnews.net recently said leap broadband was coming out with DSL sometime in the future. I know of smart telecom because when i was looking to switch from Eircom, i compared their rates (telephone) to EsatBT and i figured EsatBT had better rates for the numbers i wanted to call, so i picked EsatBT.

If i worked for Smart surely i wouldn't tout my competitors, so let's leave it at that. In my first post in no way did i say "sign up with Smart Telecom and you will be happy as a yappy" or what have you, all i wanted to do was to inform people who didn't know that Smart was going to launch soon (for all i know they could be just as devious as NTL in this matter). If i read a post like that i would call Smart to confirm, which i'm sure they will, just probably not give out much details. Remember, when the person posted about NTL's 3mb upgrade, i called, but they denied or lack knowledge. At least in this case, they won't deny it.

The whole point was for people who still haven't decided which broadband is right for them or who are nearing the end of their contract to know a new option might be opening up, and if they want more info they can call, and if they receive any more info they are welcome to share it with the rest of us. In the end Smart will see a lot of interest was generated and will be encouraged perhaps to hasten the launch.

My motto is: If they're lagging, we'll be nagging.

crawler

thebigdude wrote:

Yup, i recently found this site but have been a broadband customer of eircom (among first 1000 people to subscribe to DSL when it was 110/month with a 3GB cap), then esatbt, then IBB... no NTL anytime soon, but this news from Smart is exciting because i know they have a huge pipe to the US which they're practically giving away to business customers and so they're not likely to have any caps on downloads, and expecting a 2 Mbps service for less than 60/month is likely. Let's all hope.

Errr....no they dont - Smart use IP transit and as such lease it from transit providers - they dont OWN any pipe to the US. Even if the did, that would be fairly useless as most european traffic stays within europe - sending it to the US would upset the gamers

Also giving anything away for free is a sure way of ending up in Chapter 11 (worldcom et al ) , it's easy to sell stuff if it's free!

If you are a home user - how would you know what Smart are charging businesses?

They told you a hell of a lot for people that were not giving anything away...

Phone Numbers
Email address
Network topology ( US pipe)
Business pricing
When they may be taking orders
That they are not taking order now
That there may be no caps
Possible speeds
Possible depolyment method ( LLU v Bitstream )
Possible pricing

I wish people told me as little when I rang them!!

I really do hope you dont work for Smart.....you have done them no favours....if you dont then and are genuinely upbeat, my apologies.

MarcusGarvey

thebigdude wrote:

If i worked for Smart surely i wouldn't tout my competitors, so let's leave it at that.

If you were any kind of above the average marketer and didn't want people to know you were working for Smart it's exactly what you'd do. Your reply I believe is sincere but can we just get a complete crystal clarification that you have no business or personal links with Smart or it's employees ?

CyberGhost

well even if he works for smart telecom, what is wrong with that? I mean it's not like they are forcing you to sign up, and if it will be a BS BB service, we will be quick to find that out.

thebigdude

crawler wrote:

Errr....no they dont - Smart use IP transit and as such lease it from transit providers - they dont OWN any pipe to the US. Even if the did, that would be fairly useless as most european traffic stays within europe - sending it to the US would upset the gamers

Also giving anything away for free is a sure way of ending up in Chapter 11 (worldcom et al ) , it's easy to sell stuff if it's free!

If you are a home user - how would you know what Smart are charging businesses?

They told you a hell of a lot for people that were not giving anything away...

Phone Numbers
Email address
Network topology ( US pipe)
Business pricing
When they may be taking orders
That they are not taking order now
That there may be no caps
Possible speeds
Possible depolyment method ( LLU v Bitstream )
Possible pricing

I wish people told me as little when I rang them!!

I really do hope you dont work for Smart.....you have done them no favours....if you dont then and are genuinely upbeat, my apologies.

Again, i understand the pesimism, but if you take some time, like a few minutes, to properly disect my first post you will see the word "probably"... as for the LLU, US pipe etc. just search electricnews.net with google... no, let me do it for you... you might find these articles interesting...

http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=9571568

http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=9567888

http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=9387212

and most importantly in this (http://www.google.ie/search?q=cache:FJwX_88HVK0J:www.electricnews.net/frontpage/news-9571802.html+site:electricnews.net+smart+telecom+LLU&hl=en) page:
Smart Telecom has said it warmly welcomes the decision by ComReg on Wednesday to reduce LLU process charges by 50 percent. "We see this as an important further step in the drive to provide an attractive, low cost broadband proposition to customers as we unbundle exchanges during the New Year. The process of exchange site preparation for the installation of our DSLAMs has now commenced and is underway," said Oisin Fanning, CEO of Smart Telecom.

I like to read up on broadband happenings and always check up electricnews.net every now and then... now i wonder if you'll start to think i work for electricnews.net...

thebigdude

MarcusGarvey wrote:

If you were any kind of above the average marketer and didn't want people to know you were working for Smart it's exactly what you'd do. Your reply I believe is sincere but can we just get a complete crystal clarification that you have no business or personal links with Smart or it's employees ?

Sorry, won't do that to satisfy your "complete crystal" curiosity... i don't remember asking you if you work for smart's competitors, so i don't see why i should tell you what i do.

Sheesh, all i wanted to do was let people know something that wasn't properly announced, and if i was a drone, like some people on this board no doubt, i wouldn't say i prefered EsatBT's pricing for residential home phone over Smart's (the only bloody thing Smart officially offers residential customers right now).

By the way Marcus, what do you mean by "we" in your post? I may be new to this forum, but do you actually represent others besides yourself in your post? I'm sure those people can speak for themselves...

If you don't want to sign up with anyone else, by all means don't. I am not promoting any ISP here, and i expect to be treated like anyone of the hundreds of users who have an idea or suggestion - not to be rebuffed as you have done.

No doubt a lot of users will look back at your posts in this thread and wonder what YOUR motive was to ask the same question over and over, and hassling someone who will probably never post here again. So much for netiquette... you should be ashamed.

MickFarr

We'll have to wait and see but I won't be expecting it to be a market leader! If you can get NTL you should there speed is already at 1.5MB for only 50 euros!

Infini

MickFarr wrote:

We'll have to wait and see but I won't be expecting it to be a market leader! If you can get NTL you should there speed is already at 1.5MB for only 50 euros!

If smart telecom is going to enter the market it'll have to outdo all the current competetion by a somewhat fair bit if it wants to get a large customer base. If it can outdo even NTL and without any hidden bullsh!t like what I've heard from Digiweb then even I'd consider signing up with them.

damien

Smart Telecom will tell you that they have big plans for unbundling local loops. I believe they've unbundled or entered into unbundling exchanges already. They have gone on the record (IT@Cork conference for one) that they don't see 512/128 as being true broadband product and they talked about packages with broadband packages greater than 1mb.

They appear to be unbundling a few dozen exchanges and might go over 40 and want to offer voice and dsl packages. They are going after the business and the residential market too.

Infini

damien.m wrote:

Smart Telecom will tell you that they have big plans for unbundling local loops. I believe they've unbundled or entered into unbundling exchanges already. They have gone on the record (IT@Cork conference for one) that they don't see 512/128 as being true broadband product and they talked about packages with broadband packages greater than 1mb.

They appear to be unbundling a few dozen exchanges and might go over 40 and want to offer voice and dsl packages. They are going after the business and the residential market too.

Interesting but can they solve the problem with very high or no download caps while maintaining speeds higher than 3MB/S I wonder...

CyberGhost

thebigdude wrote:

Again, i understand the pesimism, but if you take some time, like a few minutes, to properly disect my first post you will see the word "probably"... as for the LLU, US pipe etc. just search electricnews.net with google... no, let me do it for you... you might find these articles interesting...

http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=9571568

http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=9567888

http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=9387212

and most importantly in this (http://www.google.ie/search?q=cache:FJwX_88HVK0J:www.electricnews.net/frontpage/news-9571802.html+site:electricnews.net+smart+telecom+LLU&hl=en) page:
Smart Telecom has said it warmly welcomes the decision by ComReg on Wednesday to reduce LLU process charges by 50 percent. "We see this as an important further step in the drive to provide an attractive, low cost broadband proposition to customers as we unbundle exchanges during the New Year. The process of exchange site preparation for the installation of our DSLAMs has now commenced and is underway," said Oisin Fanning, CEO of Smart Telecom.

I like to read up on broadband happenings and always check up electricnews.net every now and then... now i wonder if you'll start to think i work for electricnews.net...

you work for electricnews don't you? confess!

lucernarian

God, all I want to know is if Smart Telecom are moving into the Drogheda Exchange! Wow, they might even have a line distance of more than approx 3 kms! Only in Ireland... :rolleyes:

CyberGhost

I just got an email from them, they said they are launching it in early Feb

MickFarr

CyberGhost wrote:

I just got an email from them, they said they are launching it in early Feb

Any other info speeds, price, contention and so?

OfflerCrocGod

CyberGhost wrote:

I just got an email from them, they said they are launching it in early Feb

Jesus! Not you too!! Does everyone work for Smart Telecom?!!!




Can I have a job?

CyberGhost

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Jesus! Not you too!! Does everyone work for Smart Telecom?!!!




Can I have a job?

lol Offler, no no I don't work for them,

here's their full reply

Hi
Thanks for your email
Smart Telecom will launch Broadband and Internet Packages early Feb 2005, no exact dates or costings or related information available yet but will be advertised in due course.
Any further queries please do not hesitate to contact us
Regards

pssst, OfflerCrocGod, meet me tomorrow at 12pm you know where

Lex_Diamonds

Another Eircon RADSL resale? *cry*

CyberGhost

Lex_Diamonds wrote:

Another Eircon RADSL resale? *cry*

do you think so?

damien

It's LLU not a reseller thing.

Moriarty

As damien said, they're going to be providing it via LLU so it will all be over their own equipment. They can choose to offer whatever sort of service they like.. multimegabit, low contention, etc etc if they so choose.

ro2

crawler wrote:

Errr....no they dont - Smart use IP transit and as such lease it from transit providers - they dont OWN any pipe to the US. Even if the did, that would be fairly useless as most european traffic stays within europe - sending it to the US would upset the gamers

Just tried a traceroute over a smart transit link and it's one hop from smart to their transit provider in NY - btnaccess. They recently bought the T50 so they may be using that to connect to Hibernia in Clonshaugh and then straight over to 111 8th avenue in NYC. It's only €25 a mb from Clonshaugh to NY.

flamegrill

ro2 wrote:

Just tried a traceroute over a smart transit link and it's one hop from smart to their transit provider in NY - btnaccess. They recently bought the T50 so they may be using that to connect to Hibernia in Clonshaugh and then straight over to 111 8th avenue in NYC. It's only €25 a mb from Clonshaugh to NY.

LOL - your misinformed. Smart have leased access to some of the fibre in the T50 ring. This is used by many providers. You'll also see other's say they have bought the MAN's etc. It's all bull, they are purely lightling up some of the fibre in each case.

Magnet networks have also leased fibre from the T50 ring. So its obvious smart don't own it.

Smart also have 2x2gigE wave connections to london, this is their primary route out of ireland. All their irish traffic will go via their 100mbps link into Inex.

Essentially the 1 HOP you see is a layer 3 ethernet connection from ireland/via london and onto the US. There are no HOPS cause its is a "pure ethernet" connection.

Similarly packet exchange can provide "NO As hop" layer 3 connectivity to level3 in london. They however share 2x2gigE waves with ntl and a few others and this adds about 10ms to their trans irish sea pings, when the likes of colt/global crossing etc can do it in less than 10ms - packet exchange do it in 19/20ms.

To drag myself on topic now: Smart will be using LLU, this is very clear. The reason it is so clear is we, the tax payer, are paying for it. They have got government grants to do this work. You'll also note a certain hosting provider pimping dsl in about 4-6 weeks time stating their rolled out their own exchanges. They will be reselling a wholesale bitstream product that smart will be selling.

more points to note: Smart use ESB networks to get around the country, they can do this very cheap aswell. 100mbps metro ethernet to cork from dublin for about 50k euro a year (or cheaper, based on pricing i got for 10mbps from dublin 5000 euro a year)

Cork is the next likely step for smart.

Paul

damien

flamegrill wrote:

LOL - your misinformed. Smart have leased access to some of the fibre in the T50 ring.

Think he probably means this http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9562441.html
Which states:

Smart Telecom will buy 10 percent of BBCL for EUR400,000 and two million Smart Telecom shares. The board of BBCL is to be replaced by Smart Telecom CEO Oisin Fanning, along with other Smart Telecom nominees, and the company has also agreed to undertake the operation, sales and marketing of BBCL. Smart Telecom currently uses the BBCL network to carry its Dublin-based traffic.

BBCL owns and operates a fibre optic broadband network in Dublin. The network is comprised of over 120 kilometres of fibre network and 800 kilometres of duct in the Dublin area.

Cork is the next likely step for smart.

I think they're in.

flamegrill

damien.m wrote:

I think they're in.

I know they are in and around. I meant unbundling the exchanges in and around cork. I know netsource have a 100mbps metro ethernet connection with smart to cork for their ISP services there. So that would mean smart have a POP there also.

I think Galway and oddly Kilkenny are also on the list.

Paul

damien

flamegrill wrote:

So that would mean smart have a POP there also.

They've a lot of stuff in Cork including a call centre, plus they have the whole of Cork City covered in a single wifi network since Nov according to what they announced at a local conference. Oh yeah they're fiddling around with the MAN too.

ro2

You're right - they only bought 10% of it, but it's run by smart's people now.

http://www.smarttelecom.ie/press_releases/20041102irishindependent.pdf

Never had any issues with latency with Packet exchange - I'm getting 12ms at the moment (compared to 10ms on C&W and 9ms on Global Crossing).

flamegrill

Never said there are any issues, merely stated the other providers such as glbx/colt/c&w beat them accross the irish sea

Packet exchange for me are the eircom.net free subscription of transit providers , cheap and nasty. However for 100mbps FE connection in a DC to your servers you can't go very wrong. (mind you, youd want to have at least one other BGP peer )

Paul