Remember FRIACO?

niallb

(Flat Rate Internet Access, Caller Originated - flat rate dialup)

Seeing as the AGM is coming up, and I'm not going to make it this year,
I'd like to raise a point or two that have gone quiet in recent times.
We still don't have FRIACO, and it's still a big deal for many,
though I accept more for my situation than for most.

Making a nominal rate flat rate dialup access mandatory
in cases where lines fail tests would be some incentive
to Eircorn to stop pumping money out of the system
and investing in maintenance and upgrades for a change.

Making such a supply mandatory on the owner of the exchange circuits
might even help speed up LLU as the lower grade lines, as well as the
thousands of rural ISDN lines could quickly end up in the hands of people
who could apply other technologies Eircorn has been unwilling to use.

Comreg need to be asked to seek a broader USO document.
A new USO should strive to place a more equal burden on all players,
rather than just Eircorn, though I don't know how that would be possible
to tie down fairly.

I've been using UTV for internet access for several years now,
since their first offer that was "nearly" anytime dialup.

I work from home, and am pretty p'd off at the 180 hours
limit on what was felt here to be a final victory on that particular front.
I've offered to pay two contracts - 180+180 - but am told it's not possible.
Eircom rang me last week looking to win back my business, and likewise
they told me they couldn't offer two contracts (150+150 hours).
That call got me to looking around, and I see BT Anytime offering 260 Hours for €35.
That's a tenner more than my current UTV price,
offering an extra 80 hours that can currently cost me close to 200 euro.

That might sound extravagant to broadband users, but the 260 hours
clocks in at just over standard office hours in a month, while UTV's 180
leaves me paying up to 25 euro a day at the end of the month if I have a busy deadline.

I'm well aware that always on dialup ties up a circuit in a way that broadband doesn't,
but I'd be happy with even a 9,600 baud connection,
so long as it was always on.

An ISDN D Channel service would fulfil this need and it is this fringe area that needs to be explored:
Alternative technologies which can be used on the existing network to offer effective internet connections at reasonable prices.

We regularly see announcements here about trials for technologies like last weeks Australian long distance DSL.
Unbundling along the lines of what I've described above could allow smaller companies to compete by only taking on the lines
failing current tests at a cut rate, and offering them service based on a different solution.

Lots of pros and cons to this argument, but bringing back a call for FRIACO and
arguing for it be used to accelerate unbundling is worth considering.

Longer post than I'd intended, sorry for that, but that's my 2¢.

NiallB

damien

Good point Niall. We're going to be formally asking ComReg to drop wholesale FRIACO prices and to push for higher usage hours. This was something we brought up in a recent meeting with ComReg and is something we will be pushing when we meet them soon again. We'll also push it with Dempsey.

eircom make a staggering amount from dial-up and if it was less of a cashcow for them they might consider rolling out broadband to the other 40% of the population.

Anymore suggestions for the AGM?

eircomtribunal

niallb wrote:

We still don't have FRIACO, and it's still a big deal for many,
though I accept more for my situation than for most.

We have FRIACO (technical term meaning that the port access is sold to the ISP at a flat rate), but we have no company offering flat-rate dial-up Internet access to customers in Ireland.
A product can only be called a flat-rate product, when the costs are flat.
There is currently no product with flat costs on the market.
Eircom says in its 2005 SEC filing that they are offering three "partial flat rate" Internet access products. Just as there is no partial pregnancy their is no partial flat rate.
Eircom is falsely advertising these products as flat-rate services on the web site.
That is why FRIACO is not a success (only some 800 million minutes of the over 5 billion yearly data minutes are of the FRIACO type) and Eircom can make a super-profit from its "free" and "subscription" dial-up Internet packages, hindering the company to really go for broadband.
The prices of the Irish FRIACO products are ridiculous, especially when compared with what broadband users get for the same money. A reduction to below 10 euros for unrestricted usage, as is the case in the US is long overdue. Mind you: we should not at all talk about FRIACO at this day and age.
The restriction to one package per customer is purely artificial. But it can be overcome.
P.

DonegalMan

niallb wrote:

(Flat Rate Internet Access, Caller Originated - flat rate dialup)
I've offered to pay two contracts - 180+180 - but am told it's not possible.

You can by going with two different ISP's - I did exactly that before I got Broadband, I had an Eircom package and an Esat package, just use them on alternate days.

The only slight issue is sending Email (not receiving) - you have to be connected to the specific ISP to send on that account, but you get around that by having an account with sender set as me@whatever on each account.

SparkyLarks

In all the talk of broadband, it can be easy to forget about dial-up.
Even if Eircomwere to announce that they were going to enable every exchange and line in the country, to do it affordably would still take years( you can;t just hire (300,000 people to uppgrade the eschanges and lines)

In themeantime there is a very real need to have an affordable dial up internet connectin availible to all.

the three components
1) Flat rate
2) speed
3) Price.

The speed issue is a huge one and messy. many wires will have to be repalced and tha's a huge job.
The Price is also messy.

Flatrate is relatively straight forward. The success and growth of the internet was fueled largely by free local calls in the Us and hence free dial up costs, or fixed anyway.

A lot of buisnesses who are unable to get broadband would love a flat rate ISDN package. I know of companies who were spending 600 a month on call charges for ISDN. Similarly, if home users could get an unlimited hours dial up that would be a huge change for a lot of people.

So why isn;t ther an Unlimited hours dail up package. As said before the telecoms companies make too much money( not just eircom the others make loads off this too)

So if Ireland offline want to take on this issue( which could provide the impetus needed to start Eircom escalating the broadband roll out) There are 2 options.

1) get Comreg to mandate it. Which would take about 1 year for the study and reccomendations, 1 year for eircom to win the courtcase 1 year for comreg to apeal and win. and another year to implement.

2) Find a telecoms company who want to shake up the market, and talk to them. agree that if they bring in an unlimited package Ireland Offline will hail it as a great step forward in bringing the internet to all.

If a company brough out flat rate PSTn and ISDN Tarrifs the big ISDN buisness spenders would move, and the big home users.( even for 200 a month for an ISDN connection). That would leave Eircom with the low users that don;t make them money

Sponge Bob

niallb wrote:

Making a nominal rate flat rate dialup access mandatory
in cases where lines fail tests would be some incentive
to Eircorn to stop pumping money out of the system
and investing in maintenance and upgrades for a change.

Making such a supply mandatory on the owner of the exchange circuits
might even help speed up LLU as the lower grade lines, as well as the
thousands of rural ISDN lines could quickly end up in the hands of people
who could apply other technologies Eircorn has been unwilling to use.

Great Idea NiallB .

Ministerial Directive #2 To Comreg (its been 2 years since #1 ) .

1. Eircom are to introduce a genuine Flat Rate Product with no time limit.
2. If BB is available and you pass the test on the database it may be priced at a 'full rate' if you choose to get it .
3. If BB is not available on your exchange OR if it is but you fail the test then the product must be available at a retail price not exceeding €20 per month .

damien

This would also help those on the timed flatrate packages who suffer due to no Functional Internet Access in Ireland. The poor girl that gets 12kbps instead of 44kbps doesn't get the same value at all out of those flatrate 150 packages.

Sponge Bob

damien.m wrote:

This would also help those on the timed flatrate packages who suffer due to no Functional Internet Access in Ireland. The poor girl that gets 12kbps instead of 44kbps doesn't get the same value at all out of those flatrate 150 packages.

And according to the figures Eircom supplied to Comreg there are feck all people on 12k so there will be no unfair burden on Eircom and anyway have they not got stacks of live 3.5ghz sites nationwide as an alternative

viking

Sponge Bob wrote:

...have they not got stacks of live 3.5ghz sites nationwide as an alternative

They do.

In fact ComReg has this page on its website, which hasn't changed for the past 2+ years, showing the locations of the 3.5Ghz sites.

I don't see what the problem is here, do you?

Junior

I'm in an area where BB isn't available also so I've moved my line from Errorcon to Eshat, and I've signed up to one of their "flat rate" packages, funny thing is that the maximum allowed time online is 5 Hours. The line will disconnect after 5 hours. Nice eh ?

aare

Nialb,

I have agreed with all you say all along. It seems to me that it would even be good marketing stategy to offer to sign anyone who fails a line test to the broadband package and give them either true flat rate, or something like 300 hours (who needs the net when they are sleeping?) until the line passes and ADSL is available.

It is beyond me to understand why this was not done all along, even in preference to all the expensive "special offers" that are used to try and lure customers away from existing providers.

As for UTV matching Esat's 260 hours...try as I might I can see absolutely no reason why they cannot do this, having had to try and stay within the limits myself since the beginning (until June) I can say it is PURGATORY...

I won't be at the AGM but if you know any way that I can second your points let me know and I'll do it, simply because they have always been my points too.

Donegalman, I think you were beneficiary of a serendipitous glitch there, because the whatsit (jargon amnesia strikes) number they use to apportion you provider can only be signed off to a single account on a single provider...which is NOT to say they never made any mistakes, particularly in the early days...

watty

Its possible and donme in some countries to use 1 of 2 ISDN channels as aways on Internet only channel (64K full duplex can in reall terms be twice to 4 times analog dialup speed).

Or indeed to use both B channels as always on Internet. With compression and lower error rate etc, I have achieved speeds on NT RAS networking (peer to peer dialing) on dual B channels of equivalent to 200K dialup!

The 16K D channel on ISDN is always on and only available to chosen customers (Security, Banking, etc) at roughly 9600 baud as an X.25 pad.

I investigated using this for awlays on Email Server for small office clients, but when Eircom heard what I wanted to gateway the X.25 service to they refused to supply it.

To get the 9600 baud X.25 PAD connection on the 16K always on D channel you must disclose what you want the X.25 account for!

The D channel is always on anyway as it is used for call answer, call disconnect and dailing, which of course uses a tiny, tiny fraction of the 16K bandwidth.

Off topic, Eircom WONT supply Broadband on ISDN, even though susch exists. You must downgrade to the brain damaged Analog "POTS".

Even with two channels it is fantastic connecting ISDN to a PC and a 4 way pots adaptor and having 12 numbers, 4 different direct inward phones (with free intercom calls, voice mail and 8 personal fax number sfor the users on the office LAN.

TimTim

watty wrote:

Off topic, Eircom WONT supply Broadband on ISDN, even though susch exists. You must downgrade to the brain damaged Analog "POTS".

I think it has to do with the fact they are two different standards for Broadband Annex.A and Annex.B. Broadband over ISDN and Broadband over POTS

Afaik we all use B and thats what eircoms equipment support so thats all they can offer. Although I'm sure if you had a large enough contract you might be able to encourage them to give you a hand with your problem

jwt

aare wrote:

I won't be at the AGM but .....................

That is becoming a depressingly familiar refrain :rolleyes:

John

TimTim

jwt wrote:

That is becoming a depressingly familiar refrain :rolleyes:

John

I think they should only mention that they *are* going to the AGM

oscarBravo

I'll be there.

SkepticOne

I think it would be worth making this a motion at the AGM.

Motion: That IrelandOffline set the goal of a reasonably priced full flat rate dial-up service for Ireland.

I think having a specific goal makes things more interesting. It means things can't be done by half measures although there can be a bit of pressure at times.

SparkyLarks

SkepticOne wrote:

I think it would be worth making this a motion at the AGM.

Motion: That IrelandOffline set the goal of a reasonably priced full flat rate dial-up service for Ireland.

I think having a specific goal makes things more interesting. It means things can't be done by half measures although there can be a bit of pressure at times.

Goals that you set, or Ireland offline sets should be Smart goals i.e. specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and tangible.

Personally I think that a reasonably proced full flat rate dial up is ,however it needs a time frame.

Other goals like "broadband for all" are vague, because what people call broadband is vague. "512/128 for all" is specific and measurable.

cgarvey

Sparky, it's a lobbying group, not a for-profit company. It's not feasible for a non-profit, voluntry lobbying organisation to commit to timelines for something it has no control over. Influence, but no control.

Specific: "BB for all" is
Measurable: "BB for all" is, and is a long way off yet
Attainable: "BB for all" probably isn't, but damn near all is. Still "BB for all" sounds better than "BB for all who are technically and financially fesabily in a position to get it"
Realistic: "BB for all" is realistic
Tangible?? In the sense that it's something you can physically use and/or apprciate, then "BB for all" is covered.

While you make good points, I think it's a tad unrealistic for a NPO to commit to these, without having some control over it. "BB for all" as a goal is tight enough for everyone to understand what it is IoffL are trying to achieve, but loose enough to allow them to achieve that in many different ways, chaning as the market, demand, or membership changes.

My 2c

Also, I'd definately second a motion to have IoffL take FRIACO (which I don't believe exists) as a parallel campaign, because of the digital divide point earlier.

.cg

Praetorian

Sparky, aren't you the guy who bitched when IrelandOffline said Satellite broadband was an oxymoron, but failed to disclose you worked for a Sat company? Then you were the one that said eircom broadband time was a good idea. You were also the one that disagreed when members said mobile costs were too high. You've pretty much disagreed with anything IrelandOffline campaigned for and now you want to tell them how to do their job? Are you going to step forward and volunteer your time to help them do this?

SparkyLarks

Iused to post as Mark@mediasat and had lots of talks about satellite boradband. I was under that handle I had the discussion about Satellite bein an Oxymoron. I then left mediasat and changed my handle. Since then I posted when Digiweb had the outage. I got a bit cheaky when people started saying noone from mediasat had ever posted here befor digiweb's outage, as someone had, me.

The only other times I've posted about satellite boradband is when people have had question about satellite broadband and I've tried to answer them. I've normally PM the OP's to let them know that I worked for a Satellite company.

On broadband time ,I didn't say it was a good idea. I said that it might be a product that will benifit some people. I said I wouldn't get it but it but as long as it is marketed properly, which is isn't and the charges are explained then I don't have a problem with it.

On moblie phones I did disagree that mobile phone costs are too high. I pay 64 euro a month and I think it's worth it. I mainly pointed out the ARPU is not a good measure of whether a product's price is high or not. that average profit per user would be better.

I never meant to tell the IOFFL commitee how to do their job. I apologise if it came across that was. (I think IOFFL is a great lobby group and that the commitee have doen great work over the past year in bringing the issues with broadband to the mainstream, ass kisisng over).

what I meant was that If the IOFFL commitee decides to campaign for a true FRIACO then I think that they should have a time frame, i.e 1 month to have an article on the net, 3 month's to have an article in the printed press ect.
I've found that without timelines things tend to drag out( I'm sure the IOFFL commitee knows this).

I don't have time to be on another commitee,as I am already on a few. I was mearly discussing what I think IOFFL might do if they want to take on this issue. If the commitee want to disregard what I say that's fine. If they look at it and disagre that's fine too.

If not being willing to be on the committee means that I can't post on this board, I have no problem with that.

If because I disagree members of commitee on certain points means I can't post my opinions here just let me know.


cg, agree with what you said. I meant that having a timeline for bringing the issue of FRIACO to the attention of the media is atainible.

I agree with all your points on "BB for all" it's a great slogan. and campaigning for "an affordable 512 down 128 up low latancy connection for all who are technically and financially fesabily in a position to get it" is a little long winded ,

but I feel that BB for all not specific as, the definition s of broadband I've seen range from 256 to 2Mbps, that was all I meant by that.

cgarvey

Roger all those points .. but BB definition is meaningless to most BB users, which is why I think it's best to leave it "vague".. to me anything below 1Mb down and 256Kbps up isn't BB, but a few months ago I felt 512/128 was BB. The point is, neither matches all (or maybe even any) technical definition of BB I've seen, but it's just perception based on the current market (Irish and external).

I agree in principle with your tight timelines, but I can't see how they could possibly work in a real world voluntary organisation, is all .. Everyone on the committee (I think!) has full time jobs, and some try to have social lives as well. The theory is nice, but I've not seen that happen in the real world.

Anyway .. back on topic .. FRIACO and related motions for the AGM. SparkyLarks, you should put forward a motion, so that it at least gets raised/debated, if you think it could work.

.cg

DonegalMan

aare wrote:

Donegalman, I think you were beneficiary of a serendipitous glitch there, because the whatsit (jargon amnesia strikes) number they use to apportion you provider can only be signed off to a single account on a single provider

I don't think so, if you are subscribed to two different providers, you are dialling a completely different number for each.

SkepticOne

With regard to the proposed motion, I think it has the merit of being simple. The goal of true flat rate dial-up is something that is either achieved or it is not. With regard to deadlines, I don't think it is appropriate. The AGM forms a natural point in time that people will try to aim for. If the goal is not achieved by next year, then it can be debated and voted upon whether to drop the goal or continue for another year.

aidan_dunne

SkepticOne wrote:

Motion: That IrelandOffline set the goal of a reasonably priced full flat rate dial-up service for Ireland.

Seconded! I too believe that dial-up FRIACO has been completely forgotten about in the past year or so. Everybody seems to be obsessed with broadband and getting "broadband for all" (especially the government) at the moment but, as it stands right now, that is not a realistic aim for various reason (the quality of the phonelines being the major one). Until that can be achieved I believe everybody, no matter where they are in the country, should be able to access unlimited dial-up for a reasonable price and at a reasonable speed.

I feel that ideally there should be a push for something along the lines of a minimum connection speed of, say, 28k at the very least which you can access any time, day or night, for as long as you want for a flat fee of somewhere in the region of €25. There is simply no excuse or reason why this cannot be achieved in the current climate........ bar pure greed on eircom's part because of all the money they're raking in from per-minute dial-up fees.

If we can see companies offering basic broadband nowadays for €30 or less, then there is no reason why we can't see unlimited dial-up flat-rate access for the same price or less. It's 2005 for God's sake, and the majority of people in this country are still accessing the net the same way, at the same speed in many cases, and paying for it the same way as they were in the last century. It's about time we finally got our arses into gear in this country and entered the 21st century and offered unlimited flat-rate dial-up to everybody as the most basic, entry-level option in this country.

niallb

Sponge Bob wrote:

Great Idea NiallB .

Ministerial Directive #2 To Comreg (its been 2 years since #1 ) .

1. Eircom are to introduce a genuine Flat Rate Product with no time limit.
2. If BB is available and you pass the test on the database it may be priced at a 'full rate' if you choose to get it .
3. If BB is not available on your exchange OR if it is but you fail the test then the product must be available at a retail price not exceeding €20 per month .

Thanks guys, anyone else attending the AGM up to
phrasing, proposing or seconding a motion based on Sponge Bob's point 3?

This, as a rider on FRIACO, is likely to be the impetus
to massive LLU, with the possibilities for real broadband
alternatives from alternative players.

Still very unlikely I'll make it, but if angelic unexpected childcare surfaces, see you in Dublin.

NiallB

damien

NiallB, are you willing to work in a sub-committee on pushing for proper FRIACO or join the Committee to work on it?

I'm not discouraging you or anyone else from suggesting motions, but we do need people who are passionate for this to come forward and work on it. Simple fact is IrelandOffline will have less people on the committee after Saturday from the feedback from people so far, or lack of it.

You too aidan_dunne, will you help out on either a FRIACO sub-committee or on the committee?

niallb

damien.m wrote:

NiallB, are you willing to work in a sub-committee on pushing for proper FRIACO or join the Committee to work on it?

Fair question, and thank you.
My immediate reaction has to be that I'm not.
At the moment, I couldn't give the commitment
I'd like to make it work. I'm already doing a lot
of voluntary campaign work and I'm well aware
of how much time is required to make things happen.
On top of all that, I'm not particularly popular with Minister Dempsey!

NiallB