Smart employee happy to answer questions on bb rollout

GarfieldConnoll

Ardent wrote:

Garfield

There is a post on the previous page with a question from colmoc about Eircom's free connection offer:



This is something I would need to know too. Do we need Eircom to connect the line initially and then do Smart Telecom take over the rental of that line? Or how does it work?

Thanks for your time.
John

There needs to be a phone line to unbundle. If the line is de-activated, we can reactivate it. If it is active we can transfer it.

Free line rental 'kicks in' as soon as you are live on our network and using our broadband offer.

Garfield

Ardent

GarfieldConnoll wrote:

There needs to be a phone line to unbundle. If the line is de-activated, we can reactivate it. If it is active we can transfer it.

Free line rental 'kicks in' as soon as you are live on our network and using our broadband offer.

Garfield

I apologise in advance if this comes across as a stupid question, just not sure if what I have is "de-activated". Let me put it another way:

In the apt that I live in there is a physical phone point, it was there when the apt was built. So I'm assuming I have a phone line. It was never ever connected, there's no phone number, Eircom account number etc. I had an Eircom salesperson call around last week pitching the free first-time connection offer, saying my line is broadband-capable.

My question is this: will Smart Telecom be able to activate this line or do I need to get Eircom in to work their magic first?

LoBo

Agree with basically all of dahamsta's points and would like to reiterate some of his questions-

dahamsta wrote:

1. I'm surprised at your suggestion that 16:1 is the standard; in fact I'd be surprised if even 8:1 was the norm (which would be 256 upstream on your 2MB product). Most of the products I've seen have been 4:1, which I've been given to understand are that way to be inline with usage (in that people tend to upload about a quarter of what they download).

2. Moriarty calls this a rant and he has a point, but so does wideband. "No limits" is another phrase that is /seriously/ not welcome around here -- if it wasn't for Esat's explicit use of the phrase, IrelandOffline probably wouldn't exist and it's quite possible this forum wouldn't either. "No limits" on hosting and broadband products is snakeoil, you know it and we know it. So please, define "excessive". We're not looking for caps or explicit limits, but I certainly feel that a reasonable estimate of where Smart is going to draw the line is not too much to ask.

1. upload speed: is there some technical limitation on the upload speed? I doubt it's a bandwidth thing, and i'm sure ADSL2 can handle much higher than 128Kb, so is it something to do with your equipment/network? Or is it just a marketing decision - ie to be able to offer a more expensive package with a better upload?

2. "no limits": you can't tell us that there's no limits to usage and no contention on bandwidth, we understand that this isn't the case. It's alright to sell the service as 'always-on' to the general public & cover yourself in T&Cs, but on this board you're dealing with folks who know. We (me included) got burnt by the 2001 IOL/esat surf no limits fiasco and have seen again and again that it just isn't the case. If you intend to be transparent & communicate with your prospective customers and (more importantly) evangelists here, please be very clear on this: what's your policy for fair usage data-wise? We've seen 1GB / day on NTL and monthly caps for the bitstream DSL services - what do you think is fair on your proposed service?

Good move on interacting with the mob here btw, hope you keep doing so

Personally extremely interested in the offer but will wait and see how it works out for your first customers swapping over (+ anyway looks like 6+ months for my local exchange).

loup

This probably has been answered, just cannot find it..does sending off the DD form to SMART engage you in a 12 month contract from the date the exchange is enabled by SMART??

Headshot

did you get my pm
GarfieldConnoll

GarfieldConnoll

LoBo wrote:

Still would be interested to know if this is a reason for the huge difference in up & down speed, garfield?

LoBo,

The service is a mass market service. For the mass market, the 'highly' asymmetrical nature of the service will suit the 'highly' asymmetrical nature of usage.
This is the first service we have announced. We will announce others and they will (hopefully) address the various requirements that have been articulated in this thread.
The 'bittorrent arguement' (choke upload to choke download) was only articulated to me after the decision had been made regarding 2MB/ 128K. We're not that fiendish ;-)

Short answer. The service will suit the mass market. We'll announce other services.

Garfield.

Sponge Bob

Garfiled.

Did you hget replies from your colleagues on the Telephony service, Voiucemail SMS etc and what is included as standard in the €35 package.

ta.

hallelujajordan

Can you tell me what your plans are re: Celbridge . . Will we see SMART BB this year ?? Am about to enter into a 1 yr contract with one of ESAT / Eircom / UTV ?

GarfieldConnoll

hallelujajordan wrote:

Can you tell me what your plans are re: Celbridge . . Will we see SMART BB this year ?? Am about to enter into a 1 yr contract with one of ESAT / Eircom / UTV ?

As of right now, it's highly unlikely. Sorry.

Garfield.

GarfieldConnoll

Sponge Bob wrote:

Garfiled.
Did you hget replies from your colleagues on the Telephony service, Voiucemail SMS etc and what is included as standard in the €35 package.
ta.

Still waiting.

Garfield.

dahamsta

I put a lot of time and effort into producing this post Garfield, I'd appreciate a reply. If I don't get one, I'm going to have to assume that you're only going to answer the lowball questions, and I am, in fact, suffering from deja vu.

adam

petes

Yes. We have been providing this service through our SB-WLR (Single Billing) service for some time.

Garfield.[/QUOTE]


Just so its clear. If the phone line has never been activated by eircom and the connection is there, Smart can activate it. Do Smart charge a connection fee for this as at the min Eircom have free connection. I know its a round about way of doing things if not i.e free connection with eircom and then swap over. But just cos im lazy wondering do smart do the whole lot. Cheers Garfield.

Petes

Ardent

petes wrote:

Just so its clear. If the phone line has never been activated by eircom and the connection is there, Smart can activate it. Do Smart charge a connection fee for this as at the min Eircom have free connection. I know its a round about way of doing things if not i.e free connection with eircom and then swap over. But just cos im lazy wondering do smart do the whole lot. Cheers Garfield.

This is what I was trying to get a definitive answer on as well. I'm not going to try to answer this but to me it seems that, from what Garfield is saying, Smart Telecom can activate your phone line but you won't eligible for the free line rental for life deal - you need to have a currently active phone line to take advantage of that. Which is a pity.

Here's a hypothetical question Garfield - if I take up Eircom on their free line connection deal and get my line connected, get myself a phone number, register with Smart for the broadband + free-line-rental deal, and then de-activate my line with Eircom, would I get your special offer?

GarfieldConnoll

Ardent wrote:

This is what I was trying to get a definitive answer on as well. I'm not going to try to answer this but to me it seems that, from what Garfield is saying, Smart Telecom can activate your phone line but you won't eligible for the free line rental for life deal - you need to have a currently active phone line to take advantage of that. Which is a pity.

Ardent,
At present we can activate an line via the SB-WLR (Single Billing) mechanism. You will only receive the free line rental offer when we provide the broadband to you. So...if we were to provide you with a phone line next week, but didn't provide broadband for 2 months, then you would pay us for two month's of line rental.

Ardent wrote:

Here's a hypothetical question Garfield - if I take up Eircom on their free line connection deal and get my line connected, get myself a phone number, register with Smart for the broadband + free-line-rental deal, and then de-activate my line with Eircom, would I get your special offer?

Ardent, just to be clear on this, are you saying you would deactivate the account prior to being able to avail of our broadband offer?

Garfield.

Ruhan

Ardent wrote:

Here's a hypothetical question Garfield - if I take up Eircom on their free line connection deal and get my line connected, get myself a phone number, register with Smart for the broadband + free-line-rental deal, and then de-activate my line with Eircom, would I get your special offer?

I can't see why the answer should be a 'no' on that. I mean, once you have the line hooked up by eircom, you can then move it over to smart (providing that you are on the broadband signup and are part of the 100k club).

Garfield, this is a very relevant question.

petes

GarfieldConnoll wrote:

Ardent,
At present we can activate an line via the SB-WLR (Single Billing) mechanism. You will only receive the free line rental offer when we provide the broadband to you. So...if we were to provide you with a phone line next week, but didn't provide broadband for 2 months, then you would pay us for two month's of line rental.

Ardent, just to be clear on this, are you saying you would deactivate the account prior to being able to avail of our broadband offer?

Garfield.

But do Smart charge for activating the line?

GarfieldConnoll

petes wrote:

But do Smart charge for activating the line?

Where Smart are charged by eircom for activating the line, yes we would. If eircom are running promotional offers, we benefit from the wholesale equivalent of these offers. So if eircom are offering it for free, so are we.

Garfield.

Ruhan

GarfieldConnoll wrote:

Where Smart are charged by eircom for activating the line, yes we would. If eircom are running promotional offers, we benefit from the wholesale equivalent of these offers. So if eircom are offering it for free, so are we.

Garfield.

What about for a first home phone line. Eircom are installing this now for free. Would Smart do a first home phone line for free too?

WizZard

I'll be signing up. Fair play to you Garfield for sticking with boards through this barrage of questions!
(Is it me or is the tone of some posts becoming a little aggressive?)

jyd

Garfield

I am an eircom user who would like to move...but first a couple of questions...

I have kids who play on xbox live ...will you support xbox live?

These same kids use the wireless network for the PC ... will my netgear dg834T (108 mb Wireless ADSL router/firewall) work? It currently works with eircoms offering.

In the event the above is no it will not work....Is your wireless option 11 or 54 or 108 mbps? (We stream audio and video so i need my bandwidth)

Your contention ratio description...If i am to understand you correctly, the 2 meg connection is shared with other users so if there are two or three heavy downloaders, i am screwed and also at busy times....let's face it every evening from 7 - 12 everyone goes online to play/download. So what happens if the service sucks regularly?

What will the pipe size be, and what will be the number of users who will share this?

What are your phone charges going to be? Not specifics : just similar to eircoms or < eircom or > eircom.

Hopefully you can answer these and just one other comment
We are generally online at the same time with two Xboxes and at least 1 PC 128 will not cut the mustard, offer me 256...It is what i currently have from eircom...

I admire you putting yourself out there
Regards
Jd

The Clown Man

Garfield,

Just in case you haven't noticed the Sticky "No More Pimping" maybe you should take a look. I for one am very pleased that you have come to the boards answering questions about the roll-out but I suppose the next question you should address should be whether you should continue the very helpful and very useful Q & A's here on your own private forum. It looks like this thread will be locked soon.

I'm hoping that you do continue your interaction with boards, as I'm sure everyone else here does, and I hope you do decide to continue in a Smart Commercial Hosted Forum. Such a forum could prove an invaluable point of consumer interaction for both Smart and the Irish end user.

Ardent

GarfieldConnoll wrote:

Ardent,
Ardent, just to be clear on this, are you saying you would deactivate the account prior to being able to avail of our broadband offer?

Garfield

I'm not trying to be clever or catch you out on anything. I am asking you a genuine question because I am seriously considering your service.

Consider the following:

1) In order to register on your website and be one of 100,000 customers to avail of free line rental for life, I have to input my fixed line phone number

2) I don't have a phone number. I have a physical line that's never been connected, but no phone account/number to date.

3) Eircom are offering free line connection until March 31st

4) I decide to avail of Eircom's offer and get my line connected for free and receive a phone number

5) I register on your website for your special offer using this new phone number

6) I don't want to pay Eircom monthly line rental while waiting for your broadband service to come on-line (let's a assume a worst case scenario of June before go-live of Smart's broadband service)

From here one there's two options I see:

a) I cancel the account with Eircom, because I have no need for fixed line calls and when your broadband service is good to go I say to Smart "OK put me on your network and let's go!". I'm assuming no additional cost involved here.

or

b) I pay Eircom a few month's line rental and when your service finally comes online, you transfer me over on to your network where I will avail of free line rental and 2 MB/s broadband.

I'd prefer option a) because there's less cost in involved. If there are any misconceptions or wrong assumptions in anything that I've typed above, please let me know.

John

P.S. I appreciate the time you're taking out here to answer our questions. I rang Smart Telecom earlier today about the very question I am asking you and was promised I would get a call back but never got the call.

Draupnir

If I have a phone watch alarm, is there definitely no way I can get Smart broadband?

SachaJ

Garfield, as an aside, if you guys at Smart could come upwith an additional package of say 2048 down, 1024/512 up, static IP's and an 80Gb cap for something like €50 or €60 a month (including the line rental offer) I reckon a good percentage of people on here would go for it. Surely it can't be that complicated.

I know you want to get the basic package rolled out first, but if you want quick signatures, to go with the above would not be a bad ploy.

Also as a note - EsatBT are releasing new broadband products in the first week of March, and they reckon it will be the best in Ireland.

Keep up the good work.

SachaJ

Draupnir wrote:

If I have a phone watch alarm, is there definitely no way I can get Smart broadband?

As far as I know Smart are going to discuss this with Eircom Phone Watch, so there's no definate answer yet. Someone else on the thread or on another thread said it shouldn't be an issue.

dub45

jyd wrote:

Garfield


... will my netgear dg834T (108 mb Wireless ADSL router/firewall) work? It currently works with eircoms offering.

...................
I admire you putting yourself out there
Regards
Jd

Apparently current Netgear equipment is not fully compatible with ADSL2 - I emailed them recently about this and they replied very promptly saying they are working on the software for upgrades which presumably will be downloadable via firmware upgrade. I specifically asked about your model and they replied it will in due course be fully compatible with ADSL2.

Linksys have begun launching ADSL2 compatible products including the popular wag54g.

lomb

where have people got the info that there are new offerings in march from esat, i have looked around their website and see no mention? for one thing they need to lift the cap to 30-35gig up and the same down if they want to keep anyone in the coming video streaming era. with datarates so little, there is no incentive to stay with them if smart will offer the same (albeit with a lesser unknown service) for less money than them. smart is entering the market at an opertune time when people are connecting up. they are not like meteor who had to fight for market share.

SachaJ

I'm currently with EsatBT and seriously considering moving to Smart.

I rang EsatBT today and the girl in customer care said they had new products launching in the first week of March but she hadn't a clue of speeds or pricing.

dub45

SachaJ wrote:

I'm currently with EsatBT and seriously considering moving to Smart.

I rang EsatBT today and the girl in customer care said they had new products launching in the first week of March but she hadn't a clue of speeds or pricing.

Based on the latest Esat phenomenon of losing stuff dont be surprised if it vanishes somehwere along the way :rolleyes:

huggs2

signed up yesterday and looking foward to it.strange though how your not listed yet for broadband on the government broadband site for galway city?

http://www.broadband.gov.ie/BBInfo/ServiceByLocationSearchWF.aspx