Eircom Minimun Call Charge Profiteering

MrShadow

Has it ever come up how Eircom make huge amounts from their minimum call charge?

A customer uses an isdn router to supply the internet to a number of computers. The router has been acting up the month or so. The customer has just landed a bill for nearly €3000. The total calls duration was about 40 hours with over 50,000 calls. call duration for the majority was 2 seconds.

This is an extreme case I know but alot of people still have trouble getting connected properly on the first try, disconnect and retry each time costing 5c

jesus_thats_gre

When I used dial up it always took at least 2 attempts to connect. The first call would maintain the connection but I couldnt access anything. I always had to terminate the call and then connect again. It always worked properly the second time. I tried this with a number of different computers to rule out the machine itself..

Capt'n Midnight

Happens often enough and there is nothing you can do about it since your device originated the call , best bit is that if it's a remote office you might not catch it till the bill comes in.

All you can do is increase the redial timer to 15 minutes and block out going calls out of hours / weekends.

i remember talking to an eircom representative about this, how it works is that if you get disconnected then the second call is only charged once it goes on for longer than the first. So technically, the bill could've been twice as high!

Since that rule's in operation it must mean it happens a lot?

Capt'n Midnight

If for example the Dial in password was changed at the Server end then the Client router would dial in CONNECT, then after a short handshake of 10 seconds drop the connection since it had the wrong password. So you have a 10 second call that costs a full unit. Then the router redials...

sorry, i meant to say that if you redial within 30 seconds then that applies.

MrShadow

the router as far as i could figure developed a fault and would not connect properly and so was only connecting for 2 secs hence the 50 odd thousand calls. which if it had been on the eircom 150 flat rate would cost 30 but they are looking for nearly 100 times that.

dahamsta

Every sysop I've ever met has a story along these lines, unfortunately. Every one told me that they challenged the charges and got a significant discount too, which may not be true, but it's probably worth a go anyway.

adam

cgarvey

Yeah, I know 2 people who got half the calls for free, but they were big accounts, so presumably that gave them extra bargaining power. What harm but in one case there was nothing connected to the ISDN CPE that was supposedly dialing out every 30 seconds for 5. eircom weren't interested in that though. You're right though, it does happen a fair bit.

.cg

d-j-k

Well, technically you (or your customer) is entirely liable and it's at the discretion of Eircom to choose to waive those charges. They're under no obligation to do so!

If your ISDN Terminal Adaptor complied fully with the requirements for connection to the Irish telecommunications network it would automatically limit the number of call attempts to prevent it causing a nuisance on the network. Very few modems, ISDN TAs or autodialling equipment actually complies with this but there are limits to the number of permitted redial attempts and various rules about how long the equipment's supposed to wait between attempts.
(the various documents are available on comreg's website somewhere!)

These rules were there to protect older electromechanical and first generation digital exchanges (no longer existant) from being clogged up by faulty modems/faxes etc.

They're supposed to be built into your modem script, fax machine software or equivilant.

BT's rules on this are even tighter and are occasionally actually automatically inforced by some older switches. (i.e. you'll find some exchanges will just refuse to accept any calls attempts if you keep trying to redial the same number too many times until a timeout has passed... you'll just keep getting a number unobtainable tone)

The reality is a modern digital switch will have absolutely no problem dealing with thousands of call attempts etc etc.. so the rules are never actually inforced and eircom exchanges will let you dial as many times as you like (and always have)

I don't agree with the minimum call charges, but unfortunately you're pretty much going to have to explain the situation and hope eircom are feeling generous!

They should at least write off part of that if you explain the situation. They certainly did in the old days when they were Telecom Eireann.

fightin irish

Shadow have you got this sorted yet, Is it still goin on cuz jez 3grand is alot of money!!