UTV Internet Broadband :(

Ruu_Old

Utv Internet Broadband

Has anyone seen it?

"Initially broadband will only be available in Northern Ireland, but we hope to provide a similar services within the Republic of Ireland soon."

hmm we'll see

Stonemason

in the form just to let them know peeps down here in deepest darkest Tipperary are intrested.



Stone

Boston

Most likely ADSL, Since several exchanges have recently been upgraded to ADSL where as before i think it was just north belfast.

Theres a good chance you will see they down here offering adsl through bitstream and using nevada's network

ando

right, just filled out the form. Its looking good for them dsl prices coming down

SantaHoe

[waffle...waffle]....Access package in the near future.
[waffle...waffle]...within the Republic of Ireland soon.

Personally I'm sick of reading announcements like this, either give us hard statistics and dates or shut up.
I lost faith in this magical broadband fairy a long time ago, to the point where I'll believe it when I'm downloading a nice Mandrake ISO at 70KB/s and not a second sooner.
So many false alarms, so many let-downs... NTL, Chorus, Esat, Eircom, to name but a few.

Boston

Originally posted by SantaHoe

Personally I'm sick of reading announcements like this, either give us hard statistics and dates or shut up.
I lost faith in this magical broadband fairy a long time ago, to the point where I'll believe it when I'm downloading a nice Mandrake ISO at 70KB/s and not a second sooner.
So many false alarms, so many let-downs... NTL, Chorus, Esat, Eircom, to name but a few.

Relative to telecoms

The Last announcement By esat was related to ADSL, price and speed, along with a promise of flat rate by christmas and SDSL in hte near future. It was quiet decent.

Ntl last announcement was of price cuts and new services availble over there cable. A long with a reduction in their standard phone charges to less then eircom.

chorus has been relatively Quiet with good reason.

Eircom Last announcement drove dozens to suicide.

To be honus UTV were allways like this, they arnt going to be our white knights. Id keep my eyes open for a new telecom that wishes to take advantage of the liberlised market.

Dangger

Nevada being the provider of UTV's Internet network are gearing up down south. UTV won't come until their network provider has done the deals in the South, you can be sure that once this happens UTV Internet will be here. I am meeting with Nevada again on Monday, and hopefully will be able to clarify what stage they are at in the process.

KdjaCL

Got this reply form UTV today.
Not old news but makes me wonder what the ODTR actually do.

Hi Anthony

We still have not been given any indication of a flat rate service becoming
available from Eircom. The infrastructure is there but there is still no
agreement on how it will be used.

Worse news on the broadband front I'm afraid, the adsl offering by Eircom is
prohibitively priced for other companies to actually offer a broadband
solution (About ten times more expensive than BT).

Regards
Darrell


Sales & Admin.
UK 0845 2470000
RoI 1890 926000


Kdja

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by Boston
........along with a promise of flat rate by christmas

Excuse me but, as I asked on another post, when and where did Esat announce this? It's news to me. If anyone has a link to a website or post or something where this was announced, please direct me to it because I'd like to read it for myself.

The thing is, though, does anyone actually believe this is likely to happen? Flat-rate by Christmas? I can't see it happening unless Eircom have a sudden and massive change of heart regarding FRIACO or are forced into offering it, which seems highly unlikely.

However, we do know that negotiations have been ongoing between Eircom and Esat regarding flat-rate. Have they suddenly come to some agreement on this issue and are keeping quiet about it and are planning some sort of announcement around Christmas as some kind of "Christmas present" to all of us pi$$ed off internet users? David Long's meeting with Esat a while ago indicated that both parties were nowhere near any sort of agreement so how come Esat are suddenly changing their mind and saying "Flat-rate by Christmas"? I'll believe it when I see it.

Besides, remember Pat Galvin's (Eircom's representative) statement at the seminar last year ("I can't see any reason why there can't be flat-rate by Christmas.")? Almost a year on from that statment and we're still waiting. Don't get your hopes up, folks.

Moriarty

Originally posted by aidan_dunne


Excuse me but, as I asked on another post, when and where did Esat announce this? It's news to me. If anyone has a link to a website or post or something where this was announced, please direct me to it because I'd like to read it for myself.

Check this out. Specifically the last paragraph which reads..

Evans told ElectricNews.Net that Esat hopes to launch a new flat-rate product by the end of the year using the FRIACO (flat-rate internet access call origination) model, but doing so will depend on the cooperation of Eircom and the ODTR.

aidan_dunne

Thanks Moriarty, that's exactly the article I was looking for.

It's nice to think that there might be flat-rate by the end of the year but, once again, Esat are relying on action and agreement between the ODTR and eircom for this to come about. Is this agreement ever likely to happen? Personally, I'll believe it when I see it.

However, I found this paragraph in the article quite interesting and may be the first glimmer of light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

Industry watchers have commented that Eircom's new-found willingness to cooperate with the ODTR and other operators is the result of new management, namely Philip Nolan, who took over after the Valentia consortium bought the company from shareholders. It is thought that the prevailing attitude at Eircom is one that sees other telecoms as potential customers, not just competitors.

Perhaps this is the first indication of a major change in the mindset, policies and way of operating by eircom. If it is, I think we should give Philip Nolan and the new management the credit they deserve for having the ambition and foresight to finally drag eircom into the 21st century, after all the damage Alfie Kane and the previous management did to the company and to the telecoms and internet sector in Ireland.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Let's hope so!

meglome

They are advertising this at only £27.50 per month ((

http://u.tv/internet/services/clicksilver/clicksilver.asp

dahamsta

If it is, I think we should give Philip Nolan and the new management the credit they deserve for having the ambition and foresight to finally drag eircom into the 21st century

I'm highly skeptical of Philip Nolan's respect for his customers after reading the guff he fed Vampyre through Noel Dempsey. Ditto Noel Dempsey and his constituents.

after all the damage Alfie Kane and the previous management did to the company and to the telecoms and internet sector in Ireland.

A retarded heifer would an incremental improvement on Kane.

adam

Lemming

Originally posted by aidan_dunne


Excuse me but, as I asked on another post, when and where did Esat announce this? It's news to me. If anyone has a link to a website or post or something where this was announced, please direct me to it because I'd like to read it for myself.

The thing is, though, does anyone actually believe this is likely to happen? Flat-rate by Christmas? I can't see it happening unless Eircom have a sudden and massive change of heart regarding FRIACO or are forced into offering it, which seems highly unlikely.

I rang Esat with some ADSL enquiries (not just "when are you gonna be in location X") about 2 weeks ago now, and the guy on the other end of the phone was extremely helpful. He (apparently) had a sheet with a list of planned roll-outs, by month leading upto October/November, with (iirc) an initial roll-out of several Dublin exchanges in October (Dublin 2 - 4, or something like that), followed by something like 16 radiating out from that again in November.

He couldn't answer about Dundrum/Ballinteer, since that wasn't in the Novermber list, so he could only guess that it'd be about December when i saw it.

He did stress that the list was liable to change and wasn't set in stone.

Whether or not its all duff I dunno, but he DID seem fairly credible down the phone and seemed to know what he was talking about.

dahamsta

Esat's rollout plan is much more agressive that Eircom's. Unfortunately though, as the rep you talked to mentioned, it's subject to change, and particularly relies upon takeup. One wonders how they're doing in that regard.

adam

Delphi91

Originally posted by kdja
...Worse news on the broadband front I'm afraid, the adsl offering by Eircom is prohibitively priced for other companies to actually offer a broadband solution (About ten times more expensive than BT)....

Hmm, correct me if I'm wrong, but would this not be grounds for UTV to instigate a complaint to the ODTR?. It smacks of "price rigging" to prevent competition.


Mike

sceptre

Originally posted by Delphi91
Hmm, correct me if I'm wrong, but would this not be grounds for UTV to instigate a complaint to the ODTR?. It smacks of "price rigging" to prevent competition.

Mike

I'll go as far as saying "it _is_ price-rigging to prevent competition." Eircom have that nasty advantage, with which I'm sure we're all familiar, that they own an ISP and they own the phone lines, which of course means that jacking up the wholesale price hurts no-one but everyone else. eircom.net may take a hit as an ISP but Eircom the group still make the inevitable killing as Eircom itself makes the larger profit.

The difficulty is in proving this conclusively. The ODTR may have forced Eircom to lower the wholesale rate for the product, but realistically this was not lowered to a point where it would be acceptable. Eircom may have justified the wholesale rate to Etain Doyle on the basis of recouping the 130 million (plus) on development and failed ventures but as economies of scale come into play the profit margin will grow at a silly rate.

Compare that with the attitude taken by OFTEL in the UK (and by BT due to the competition) where BT took a slight hit by dropping the prices for installation and line rental, resulting in a much larger uptake and increased economies of scale coming into play at a much earlier date. Ditto with the Sky rollout.

The pay per minute dialup is simply too attractive for Eircom to lose it. Even though I sincerely believe they are making a mistake in the mid-term that they will sorely regret. People in the past may have supported Eircom "because they're Irish - and they're ours." As people come to realise Eircom are in fact no longer Irish-owned and hence no longer "ours" the loyalty will begin to fade.

spongebob

Eircom are generally owned by New York banker types who put the money up for Valentia to buy it.

Tony O Reilly is on for 5% or so, a very small shareholder.

The bankers are out to milk Eircom for as much money as possible, it will become MORE important because the Euro has risen by ....generally....10% so the cost of paying the $$ back has dropped or else the repayment preiod has decreased by 10%

The bankers do not give a damn about Ireland or the Irish people. We are supposed to have a regulator to do that for us.

M

dahamsta

Eircom are generally owned by New York banker types

Isn't George Soros the majority shareholder?

Tony O Reilly is on for 5% or so, a very small shareholder.

I think it's 4%.

adam

spongebob

Eircom is generally owned by New York Finance Industry Types

It has no Irish resident shareholders whatsoever.

dahamsta

Eircom is generally owned by New York Finance Industry Types

Well, it's generally owned by a Greek billionaire, but what the hell, yeah.

It has no Irish resident shareholders whatsoever.

You mean the Black Knight is a tax exile? <shocked>

adam

sceptre

Six of one and half a dozen of the other.

The main shareholders are currently:
George Soros (shares held by Soros Private Equity Partners)
Providence Equity Partners
Goldman Sachs
Tony O'Bean Baron (token Irish guy, though a dual citizen of the UK and living elsewhere). that's "Sir Dr Antony JF to you, sonny"

Deutsche Bank - guardians of the purse strings(to have a future role as treacherous venture capitalists who insist on another IPO (they haven't ruled it out)) (they have no voting rights as strictly speaking they're debenture holders, not shareholders)