eircom - misleading on isdn

tdolan

In desperation, I nearly went with eircom's ISDN offering but discovered that as well as the €40 odd for the line, there is another € 25 odd for actual ISDN internet access.

I complained to the Consumer Association that Eircom's advertising is misleading and they indicated that they would look into it.

Observations:
Maybe it exists but it would be great if irelandoffline had a table showing all the offerings from the various telecoms.

I have two phone lines. I used the older of the two for internet access and could only ever get access speeds in the 40 -46K range. Changing over the same modem/computer to the newer line (3years old) the access speed changed to 50-52k. Curious

rymus

You can get dialup access from companies like UTV. I mean no subscription charge- you still pay the local call rate obviously.

I was in soundstore in cork yesterday *browsing* and heard the eircom sales guru in there talking a load of waffle about "Hi-Speed". Anyway she ended up selling a line to the guy she was talking to. I really wanted to walk up to them and explain to this poor unfortunate punter how much money he was about to throw away.

I think I'll setup a chain of anti-eircom sales booths in computer and electronics shops all over the country... hmmm

/me goes off to look for investors

Quorthon

Guys

I hope I'm not misunderstanding here - but I aside from the inflated line rental, I dont pay anything for isdn internet access - Oceanfree and Eircomnet provide free ISDN connects as do buy&sellnet and UTV.

Q

Fergus

ISDN is indeed something of a ripoff. For what is largely a minor upgrade to standard telephone line technology, eircom sink in hiked up prices at every opportunity:

- Vastly increased monthly line rental: from €18.08 to €44.19 .. cynically glossed over in eircom ads as 'only 86 cent a day'

- Increased 1891-number ISP subscription: For example, with eircom.net (and only after having to ring them to find out as they carefully neglect to quote prices on their site).. Standard dial-up subscription with minimum 12-month contract is €15.24/month. For single channel (64K) ISDN, it is €19.09/month.. and for dual-channel it is €24.89/month.

- Double call charges at 128K: In some countries Internet access at 128K does not attract double charges. This would be impossible for Eircom, as it would not be in line with their policy of forcing Irish Internet users to access the Internet over their inefficient metered 64k-channel voice network for as long as possible.. thereby sustaining maximum revenue with minimum investment in the short term.

Bear in mind that the phone system carries standard voice dial-up traffic over 64K channels anyway. ISDN is merely a once-off change of equipment on your local line which simplifies the path between your PC and the 64K channel in the phone network that is your phone line. But for this one-off equipment upgrade to allow you to directly access the bandwidth you already have, you are expected to pay an additional €313 per annum indefinitely.

If you want to compare all the ISP prices and dial-up vs ISDN options, check out the IrelandOffline Research Working Group cost comparison database here.

Manic

cynically glossed over
In relation to Eircom this is a total understatement.


Manic

[-Morpheus-]

The funiest part about it is if you already have isdn and you wont to down-grade to just a standard phone line u have to pay an extra £100....... even though u have payed for ur standard line on the day that you got it

Total madness and the worst part about it they are still making money from it

tdolan

Several interesting points and much obliged of the info.

On the point of Eircom offering free ISDN access, they never mentioned this option when I talked to them. What is the per minute cost?

Thanks for the explication on what installing an ISDN line means, this explains why in countries like Japan and Germany there seems to be only ISDN, they don't have the neck to try and market it as something special.

Checked out the comparison table with other countries and found it worse than I expected.

For reference, I use Indigo subscription dial-up and UTV free dial-up. The latter is for when I can't get access on Indigo which is fairly frequent. The only reason why I keep the indigo one is that I'm online a lot during peak periods.

Quorthon

Originally posted by tdolan

On the point of Eircom offering free ISDN access, they never mentioned this option when I talked to them. What is the per minute cost?

For reference, I use Indigo subscription dial-up and UTV free dial-up. The latter is for when I can't get access on Indigo which is fairly frequent. The only reason why I keep the indigo one is that I'm online a lot during peak periods.

The per minute cost for any of the free dialups is just the per minute phone charges which are the same as any voice call at any time of the day.

The 1891 subscription numbers (referred to by fergus) give you a per minute call charge that is effectively discounted, I cant tell you how much the discount is - only that the last time I looked at it, for my particular usage, the €19 subscription charge was > than the saving I would achieve and therefore there was no point. A very heavy internet user would obviously benefit but Im not sure where the break-even point is.

I agree with everything said about ISDN by the way, it IS a rip-off, it IS outdated technology, but for the majority of people in Ireland, it is the only decent access method available at the moment. Also, dont believe anyone who says its not much better than 56k - once you have had ISDN, there is no going back to regular dialups.

Q

rymus

Originally posted by Quorthon
Also, dont believe anyone who says its not much better than 56k - once you have had ISDN, there is no going back to regular dialups.

Q

The only reason theres no going back to regular dialups is because you wont have enough money in the bank (after forking out for the line rental) to downgrade the line back to PSTN. By all rights ISDN rental should be not more than €10 more than PSTN. After all, youre only getting a small bit of extra speed and its considered old technology anywhere else in the developed world.

Maybe when eircom realise how morally corrupt they are they'll drop line rentals... (lol yeah right)

Quorthon

Originally posted by rymus


The only reason theres no going back to regular dialups is because you wont have enough money in the bank (after forking out for the line rental) to downgrade the line back to PSTN. By all rights ISDN rental should be not more than €10 more than PSTN. After all, youre only getting a small bit of extra speed and its considered old technology anywhere else in the developed world.

Maybe when eircom realise how morally corrupt they are they'll drop line rentals... (lol yeah right)

Rymus

I dont disagree with you on price - however can I ask if you actually have ISDN?? Its just that many people who dont have it say "Its only a wee bit faster than 56k" etc etc which is completely untrue. Although on the face of it, it would appear to be just 8k faster, in real-world terms the two are like night and day. Regular modems never achieve the 56k, some people might be lucky to get 48 but most are on 44 or less. Plus the modulation etc that occurs means you cant even rely on these figures. ISDN is 64k all the time every time, with virtually no lag.

This makes a collossal difference in, for example, online gaming - anyone who claims ISDN is not much of an improvement over modem is talking through their arse frankly. Also things like Realaudio, I can get proper online streaming with no re-buffering etc. Web pages load far faster also than the apparent "small difference" between the two. Once you have tried it you will never go back, no matter what the cost is.

Q

Kix

I got one of those sales calls about ISDN from Eircom recently.

Very politely and plesantly and explained to the sales person what bad value it was. She was so disinterested though, you could almost hear her yawning.

Mentioned DSL, how that's too expensive as well but that it's what I want when it's a reasonable price, like in other countries. "Yeah, it's expensive" she droned nasally, "well if you ever do want ISDN, give us a call".

Bleeh.

K

tribble

For what is largely a minor upgrade to standard telephone line technology

not so - ISDN requires a whole raft of equipment and even individual exchanges (at one stage not any more) - it is quite expensive for eircom to implement (not much less than dsl) but the revenue from it is much greater (end to end connections not packet based).

ando

i have to be honest, isdn does make a HUGE difference when playing online games. I'm getting the same ping to barrysworld (england) as english people with adsl ..... but the pricing of isdn is just scandless. I sincerly hope we get flat rate with this comms bill, as i dont think i can afford isdn much longer, my telephone bill has doubled since getting eircom's isdn