New "kinda" broadband product

crawler

All,

I would be interested in getting the views of you all out there on the new "time based" broadband product. (€19.99 for 20 hours, then 4cpm)

Do you think it's good, bad or no opinion.

To be objective (not my views here)

It is cheapish
It may encourgage take up
it is not always on
it requires "clock watching"
it wont work well for 2 way VOIP etc

Mods feel free to modify this if you feel I am up to no good, it's a genuine curiosity poll though.

eth0_

obscenely expensive.

secret_squirrel

heard the advert for this on the radio this morning. Details on the Eircom site are fairly thin on the ground at the moment though. Nothing about speeds and caps etc.

Could also be expensive if you leave it connected too long. Cpnnect for 9 hours over your time limit and it would cost more than 'normal' BB.

zAbbo

No new orders are being processed until 7th July by Eircom, when the new deals come into affect.

Home starter is dropping to 30euro a month

odie

For 20 Yoyo's pm....you get limited use of the Net.....For a fiver more unlimited to 24gb 2mb line from BT....uuummmmm!!!!....Doh!!!!!.....I dunno there bart, my head is hurting. Pass me the Duff!!!!

Mutant_Fruit

The only use for it is for power users really, who want an uncapped product. Theres no download limit on it and theres no hard timelimit, so theres nothing stopping people using it as an uncapped product, considaring theres a maximum charge of €55 (or about that) no matter how much you use it.

PiE

eth0_ wrote:

obscenely [strike]expensive[/strike] retarded.

Fixed.

Unless what Mutant_Fruit says is true, in which case: lmao

The General

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

The only use for it is for power users really, who want an uncapped product. Theres no download limit on it and theres no hard timelimit, so theres nothing stopping people using it as an uncapped product, considaring theres a maximum charge of €55 (or about that) no matter how much you use it.

Interesting

voyager

BAD IDEA

Let me see, 19.99 for 20 Hours, or 30.00euro for a whole months use, WELL I THINK IKNOW WHAT I WOULD CHOSE.

really this is unbelievable, charging in effect 1euro per hour is insane, who the hell comes out with these product ideas on behalf of Eircom, is it consumer research based(on eircoms thinking inhouse) or is it all the EIRCOM AIRHEADS thinking that they know what the consumer wants( they think) if you get my drift.

sorry for the rant.

voyager.

crawler

voyager wrote:

BAD IDEA

Let me see, 19.99 for 20 Hours, or 30.00euro for a whole months use, WELL I THINK IKNOW WHAT I WOULD CHOSE.

really this is unbelievable, charging in effect 1euro per hour is insane, who the hell comes out with these product ideas on behalf of Eircom, is it consumer research based(on eircoms thinking inhouse) or is it all the EIRCOM AIRHEADS thinking that they know what the consumer wants( they think) if you get my drift.

sorry for the rant.

voyager.

Rant = good - I would like to know what people genuinely think.

thanks all for the feedback so far everyone....eircom, I know you are watching too...is there a message here

damien

A product like this is dangerous to broadband rollout. It may increase some numbers in the short term and make an extra couple of quid but in the medium and long term it will end up damaging broadband with the idea that broadband is a per minute product engrained into the consumers mind.

It will be used to deflect all the grief we throw at eircom and the Government for crap broadband uptake in this country and artificially inflate broadband figures.

A bigger worry I have is that the other operators will just roll this out too and then it will become accepted within a few months that paying per minute for broadband is the norm.

Sponge Bob

Lots of non technical people will get bills around the €50 price cap instead of the €20 headline figure. They will then ring up the best customer care staff on the planet to query those bills . I note that none of the other operators have announced their own variant of yellowpack yet.

byte

Full-on FRIACO for €20 would have been a better idea in my opinion (not the 150hours or whatever timecaps, just as much as you want for €20). With that, it could get more people into using the internet on a regular basis, and the natural step from that would be broadband...

Though maybe that should have been done 3 or 4 years ago... :rolleyes:

juliuspret

damien.m wrote:

A product like this is dangerous to broadband rollout. It may increase some numbers in the short term and make an extra couple of quid but in the medium and long term it will end up damaging broadband with the idea that broadband is a per minute product engrained into the consumers mind.

It will be used to deflect all the grief we throw at eircom and the Government for crap broadband uptake in this country and artificially inflate broadband figures.

A bigger worry I have is that the other operators will just roll this out too and then it will become accepted within a few months that paying per minute for broadband is the norm.

Please stop Damien!!!

Youre giving me an awhile worrysome pain in the head.

AAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!....I despise McRedmond/€ircom

Morgoth

Poll result says it all for me so far. :rolleyes:

[comic book guy] Worst. Product. Ever. [/comic book guy]

Gone West

lets hope esatbt and Utv dont follow suit, this really is ridiculous, tbh.

ricey

i cant help but think this is just another eircom scam to drain money out of
nOObs.

juliuspret

Was just looking around the eircom website and decided to "signup" to their "Time" product with a dummy phone number.

The first question asked was about the broadband equipment and whether I should rent/buy/have my own.
Well €49.99 to purchase or €1.99 a month to rent!!!

€19.99+€1.99 comes awfully close to BT Broadbands offering of ~€25 a month for proper broadband.

JackKelly

are they actually thinking of doing this? Its a complete step backwards. Probably to take advantage of those who forget to switch off.
lol, they used to advertise broadband as "always on". Not anymore.

bk

I think this is a very bad idea for a couple of reasons:

BTW €20 is only an introductionary price, it will be €25 normally.

1) It is bad value for money, the BT BB + Line Rental product is actually cheaper (when you get your bills online you get an extra €2.50 per month off) and it has no time limits. BT BB + Line rental = €47.50, Eircom Time + Line rental = €49.50 (after the introductionary period).

Also NTL offer 1m always on for €25/pm.

2) This is going to generate a great deal of support headaches and bad will for Eircom, when all the non technical people end up with bills costing much more then €20 per month.

3) Most worringly, I agree with Damien when he says that this will damage peoples view of BB being a fixed price, always on product. This is likely a very bad thing even for Eircom in the long term.

4) I don't think many people will actually take up this offer. People don't like unit billing, they much prefer fixed cost billing. This is a step backwards.

5) NTL:Ireland, BT Ireland and most of the players in the UK can offer entry level, 1m, always on products for about €25 per month, why can't Eircom?

juliuspret

Eircom is a company mostly owned by American super Capitalists who want to suck every possible cent from your pocket and then, with a smile, ask for more.

I have no doubt in my mind that Joe Soap is going to think.....€19.99 for broadband....NICE.

When they get their first couple of bills though after little Joe downloads 5GB of crap/plays online games for 30 hours in the month...then there will be trouble.

Son - "But Daddy I thought Broadband was.....always on"
Father - "Not anymore son"
Son - "So that blonde girl lied to us"
Father - "No son...eircom bent the truth...again"

voyager

hi again guys, please help clear something up for me, a friend who is on the home starter paying 39.99 per month says that the new rate of 29.99 is only for new customers, i say it will be offered to all customers ( new and existing ) on the home starter package, is that the case.

voyager :cool:

juliuspret

If its €29.99 for new customers then only new customers get the reduced rate.
Its the same type of story when people signed into 12month contracts...the price is set for the 12months and no outside action can influence it.

I would be very surprised if eircom reduce the costs for all their Basic customers to €29.99.

mang87

This new "Broadband" makes me want to rip my DSL line out of the wall, crappy modem and all still attached, drive to eircom headquarters(probably in some seedy hidden underground lair somewhere), then systematicaly, starting with the lowliest peon working there, and moving up the corporate food chain, beating the holy living crap out of every single person in the building with their own useless service.

Hows that?

crawler

Thanks everyone again...I think the message is VERY clear.

As a thought - what could/should be done to change it to something worthwhile?

juliuspret

Why couldnt they just have copied what happened in the UK??

Sell the product as always on but with a tiny download limit of 1GByte or something similar with the speed being cut to 150Kbit/s after the 1GByte allocated has been exceeded.

But why the hell did those morons in eircom ever dream up of putting a time limit on Broadband....it makes absolutely no sense...no sense whatsoever!!!

Sponge Bob

juliuspret wrote:

Why couldnt they just have copied what happened in the UK??

Sell the product as always on but with a tiny download limit of 1GByte or something similar with the speed being cut to 150Kbit/s after the 1GByte allocated has been exceeded.

That would be the perfect solution Mr J , it is eminently resellable through the wholesale channels and does not require heavy investment in billing systems by the resellers or weird adsl modem configs with timeouts built in to protect ones customer service desk from irate punters .

If one 'upgrades' the yellowpack product to Home Starter one now has an always on product for Billing purposes with a 10 minute disconnect timer built in ....gahhHHHHH .

juliuspret

Yeah, it appears common sense is beyond those in charge of eircom these days.

The PR Guru of eircom..McRedmond?...isnt to blame as he gets his orders from higher up and is just used as a puppet for their ideas.
As I said above eircom is just a means for those who bought the company to screw the sh!t out of Joe Soap for as much as possible.

As long as they can screw us over they will.
Who will stop them anyway....the government who sold them our Telco infrastructure?...hahaha...Comreg?...Im laughing and crying at the same time....the pain!!!

crawler

Someone said "good" I would genuinely like to know why? PM if you would like to remain AS.

MrB

Ford are thinking of releasing a new model car, it's basically the same as one of there older models except that the engine has been replaced by a harness for a horse, they believe it will be a big seller with people concerned about the price of fuel

juliuspret

Hahahahaha!!!

2 people think that eircom Time is a good idea!!!

But I think sanity prevails with 96.43% against that stupid product.