Smart offers free broadband line rental

thund3rbird_

full story: http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9586502.html

Smart Telecom has announced that it is to debut as a residential broadband provider, offering the first 100,000 customers who sign up free line rental for life.

Smart, which listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) towards the end of 2004, has already begun unbundling 64 Eircom exchanges around the country and is intent on offering residential customers in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Kilkenny, Tullamore, Wexford, among others towns and cities, broadband with speeds of 2MB.

Gone West

in my opinion this is a legit offer. Sounds good, I'd take it if i didnt live in the sticks

poneill

They MEAN the shared line LLU rental , payable by Smart to Eircom .

Thats 39c a month + Vat for a €35 product .

Moriarty

No they don't. Please don't talk rubbish.

parasite

anyone have a list of the 64 exchanges?

KdjaCL

Is the line rental a 2nd rental or does it replace eircoms?


kdjac

poneill

Do they mean that they will pay the normal €24 line rental for you and only charge €11 for their services making a grand total €35.

Nobody outside Asia supplies 2Mbits ADSL on its own for €11 including Vat .

Moriarty

They will pay for the line rental (~€24/month) for the first 100,000 broadband customers. That means line rental + broadband comes to a total of €35/month including vat.

Legion

I know Santry is one of the Exchanges. I'm was going to change over my phone to them anyway will enquire about the BB while I'm at it.

poneill

Moriarty wrote:

They will pay for the line rental (~€24/month) for the first 100,000 broadband customers. That means line rental + broadband comes to a total of €35/month including vat.

Many Facts http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single4406

Smart plans 2MB residential broadband service

08.02.2005 - Up and coming business and consumer telecoms player Smart Telecom is about to introduce to the Irish marketplace a new 2Mbps residential broadband service that will cost homes €35 per month. The new service will include voice and will have no monthly line rental for the first 100,000 customers.

It is understood that the plans at this point are aspirational insofar as they will depend on the unbundling of the local loop through a succession of agreements with Eircom.

At present local loop unbundling (LLU) is a contentious issue with both the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) and various independent telcos castigating Eircom for the slow rate of LLU taking place. Last week ComReg threatened Eircom with legal action after it failed to report on its progress. On 18 January the regulator issued a decision notice requiring the former state telco to provide an update on the LLU issue.

AIM-listed Smart Telecom said yesterday that it will begin the national rollout of its service from next week if Eircom opens up its exchanges.

The company said that the 2Mbps service – which it claims is four times faster than existing DSL services – will have no upload or download limits.

Smart intends to rollout the nationwide broadband service in four phases, beginning with Dublin. (30 exchanges I hear )

The second phase will cover Cork, Galway, Letterkenny, Limerick and Waterford.

The third phase will cover Arklow, Athlone, Ballina, Carlow, CK-on-Shannon, Dundalk, Ennis, Kilkenny, Mallow, Mullingar, Naas, Portlaoise, Shannon, Sligo, Thurles, Tullamore, Tralee, Wexford.

The fourth and final phase will cover urban locations be based upon the Government’s metropolitan area network (MAN) rollout.

On the financial front, Smart Telecom boss Oisin Fanning said that a special purpose funding vehicle to facilitate the roll-out of the nationwide broadband network has been oversubscribed by investors. The company last year commenced trading on the London Alternative Investment Market and raised €15m. With a shareprice of 36p sterling, the company was the largest trading company on the AIM at the close of business on 4 February last.

As well as unveiling its ambitious nationwide broadband plan, Smart also revealed a 97pc revenue growth to €24.9m for the year ending in December 2004. Gross profits increased from €4.9 million to €6.8 million.

Commenting on the imminent broadband service Fanning said: “We will be significantly cheaper, and at 2MB, four times as fast as other telecommunications players in the Irish market.

Being able to offer broadband at an affordable price to the consumer will make this technology far more accessible to all households. Smart Telecom is now in a position to satisfy today’s consumers’ needs for modern telecommunication products and services,” Fanning said.

By John Kennedy

gsand

saw their ads on tv and newspapers today...

2megs, uncapped so they claim-35euro inc line rental???

sounds to good to be true. id rather wait the extra few months and actually see wat they produce as an end product.

dub45

Does this mean that in reality they could still be offering this next year with not one customer and blaming everything on Eircom? Have they reached agreement on even one exchange with Eircom?

hkoexxolpw

dub45 wrote:

Does this mean that in reality they could still be offering this next year with not one customer and blaming everything on Eircom? Have they reached agreement on even one exchange with Eircom?

yep 01608xxxx works

Moriarty

As far as I know, they've had people in exchanges since late last year upgrading them. I don't know how many/where mind.

Zaph

Don't know where all the exchanges are, but I do know that I'm connected to the Blanchardstown one and BB isn't available yet here. A mate lives in Beaumont and is connected to the Belcamp exchange where BB is available.

As regards capping, this is what the Smart website has to say on the matter:

There is no limits on the amount of data that can be downloaded or uploaded however users whose usage is deemed excessive on a regular basis will be contacted and restrictions will be used if the activity persists.

mike65

I just typed my number in and I can get this product except I'm tied in to UTV till November....and I don't belive the 2mb will be achieved anyway!

Smart has been preparing for this launch for over a year, according to Fanning who said the company was intent on waiting to be able to provide its own residential broadband service rather than re-sell the Eircom broadband product, which he said "at 512Mbps is not broadband."

whatever happened to kbps?

Mike.

NóMur

With the Smart Broadband offer do you have to take up their phone package too or can you just get the Broadband?

Moriarty

You have to take the phone package too.

dub45

Moriarty wrote:

You have to take the phone package too.

So anyone who has just signed up for UTV's talktime is banjaxed?

Does anyone know if Smart have actually run any trials with real type consumers?

flamegrill

dub45 wrote:

So anyone who has just signed up for UTV's talktime is banjaxed?

Does anyone know if Smart have actually run any trials with real type consumers?

A wee burdy told me they are doing some Trials in dublin, as this is where they have actually put their equipment into some of the exchanges. Highest population density etc. Makes sense for them.

Is the LLU line rental still 24 euro? i thought olo's got it for like 12 or something?

Moriarty

39 cent/month for shared access, once comreg finalise the pricing.

GregusManus

An extract from Smart Telecoms FAQ about BB contention:

What is the contention ratio on the Smart broadband product?
Smart Broadband is not designed around the concept of contention. Smart Telecom owns and operates its own high-capacity fibre-optic network. As any link in the Smart network approaches capacity, it will be automatically be upgraded. Smart Broadband users will continue to enjoy the unrestricted high-speed Internet access.

machalla

I'm just trying to figure out if they will base the availability of the product on Eircoms line tests or not. I would presume so. I'm waiting for an answer on this from Smart.

Blaster99

Why would you presume that? That test is certified bollocks.

Blaster99

I would think it's unlikely Eircom would test lines that are unbundled and the test tends to fail on lines that already have ADSL installed.

oceanclub

zaph wrote:

There is no limits on the amount of data that can be downloaded or uploaded however users whose usage is deemed excessive on a regular basis will be contacted and restrictions will be used if the activity persists.

There's no way I'd sign up to anything so woolly. Remember the IOL NoLimits flat-rate dialup fiasco, where customers were suspended because it turned out that NoLimits meant, er SomeLimits?

P.

machalla

They will have to have some sort of line-test on the line before you go ordering it and then find out that the line is incapable of providing BB. Hopefully they will have their own genuine line-test and not what Eircon do.

Whats involved in running a line test on every line in a smart enabled exchange anyway? My ignorance of this process is almost total..

Blaster99

The Smart dude answered this question in another thread that I'm sure you've read by now. Smart apparently contracts Eircom to run a line test when you order BB and they get raw line quality data from Eircom that they compare against their own thresholds. Smart are using ADSL2+ which is a better technology and it can run higher speeds at longer distances so even if Eircom's bollocksed line testing methodology is used, it can still mean that you can get Smart's broadband and not Eircom's broadband.

I suspect as the dust settles that Smart may revisit some of these procedures.

machalla

Yep I just saw it on the other thread that sprang up. So they are still reliant on Eircon to do the line test (which in my case is a fail) but it might work at a lower speed than 2Mb for me if I'm lucky..

Lets hope they can arrange some sort of linetest that doesn't have to involved Eircon. I don't trust them not to screw with the data in some way. Cynical and paranoid no doubt on my part.