Lodge an official complaint on ADSL prices

Tellox

www.eircom.ie
I was surfing around here when I found a complaint form, and registered my veiw on ADSL prices, and the lack of a flat-rate internet, I received this reply today...


Dear Mr

---

Thank you for your email dated 02/05/2002 in relation to pricing of ADSL.

Please forward me on more information and I will log an official complaint
on your behalf. The information I need is telephone number, address etc.

Kind regards

---

Customer Care Mktg.
Phone: 1800-200481
Fax: 1800-200480
Email:

---

Although I received no response on the flat-rate issue, I have replied with my home phone info and address ect
I urge you to do the same, visit eircom.ie and surf around for "contact us", and look for "complaints" under that.

dahamsta

How about the Consumers Association of Ireland?

Or the European Competition authority?

The Irish Competition Authority?

The ODTR?

adam

beomont

As the man says Complain!!!!

http://www.eircom.ie/cgi-bin/bvsm/bveircom/customer-carea.jsp?CATEGORY=cCare&BV_SessionID=@@@@1401247098.1020877068@@@@&BV_EngineID=cadceckfhelhbedcfjgchgcghk.0

b20uvkft6m5xwg

I also think that parts of the new "I-Stream" radio ads are patently misleading especially re: it being a flat monthly fee which does *NOT* apply for all products.

Perhaps The Advertising Standards Authority may need to get a phonecall/e-mail as well.

Thanks for pointing that out Tizlox, because overall Market forces will ultimately determine the prices and since eircom are *asking* we might as well them what we think:)

Dangger

Thanks for pointing that out Tizlox, because overall Market forces will ultimately determine the prices and since eircom are *asking* we might as well them what we think

I can't emphasise the above point enough. Complain, complain complain, let them know you think it is too high. I know they are looking at a releasing a cheaper consumer product in August (I can only imagine the cap ) but this is depending on the noise they hear, so make it!!!

Spread the word, tell you neighbours, your friends, your parents, their friends, your teachers, your vets, your doctors, (perhaps the odd TD too), youth group leaders, community workers, colleagues............ tell everyone that its just not acceptable!

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Originally posted by Dangger
I can't emphasise the above point enough.

How about this Dave...
Complain, complain complain
^^C'mon everybody, You know you want to;)^^

Lemming

Guys, not sure if we already have a sticky up on this, but I think t'would be VERY handy for complaints purposes if we had a thread with exact pricing/criteria/small-print.

That way, anyone who wants to email the various bodies and complain has access to accurate information and numbers to complain about, rather than just a "I hate Eircom and their prices are wayYYY too high" thingy??

BoneCollector

Why dont we put together an informal artical outlining all the disadvatages of living in ireland and having a monopolistic telecoms company(not unlike micro$oft regeme)
advertise all fact clearly and to the point! and have it printed up in all our local rags at the same time to get people talking about it and us!

c0y0te

I'd suggest the committee pull together some text in the form of an official complaint. Then we can all cut/paste it and complain away to our hearts content, knowing that all the relevant points are being mentioned in the text.

Obviously a list of links and locations to complain 'to' would need to accompany the post. Start a complaints campaign, and similar to the 'close sellafield' approach.. flood Eircon, consumer affairs, standards authority etc. with the same complaint. Someone will have to take notice eventually.

c0y0te

Tellox

what annoys me is the fact that I spent most of the email complaining about the lack of flat-rate internet access, and then shortly said "even if ADSL came to waterford within 2 years, I wouldnt be able to afford it at those prices"...bah humbug

Tellox

I received this reply only moments ago;
Dear Mr

---

,

I have logged your comments as an official complaint and a copy has been
forwarded to the Management of our ADSL department who will deal with the
matter further.

Kind regards

---

I responded with this;

---

Thanks a lot, but currently Im more concerned with the lack of flat-rate access. Although ADSL at a lower price would be great, it'd be 1-3years before people all over the country got their hands on it, and most people including myself would prefer the lower priced, flat-rate 56K access, although its speeds are dire.

Note that we rated the worst country in europe for internet access by the OECD, and day after day we fall behind even more so.

Flat-rate is a product which only takes weeks to sort out, wheras ADSL takes considerably longer, also, Flat-rate provides as a stepping stone for ADSL, and will reduce overall frustration, along with many other things, not to mention unemployment.

I ask you to please register this complaint,along with all others demanding for a flat-rate establishment in Ireland, as its not a matter of wanting it any more, its a matter of needing it.

---

I urge all of you to do the same... complain, complain, complain, until we're treated like the rest of the world.

Mountjoy Mugger

I got a reply from their marketing bods. I'm just including how they addressed my compaint re the 3GB cap:

Customers who choose the eircom i-stream solo or multi products are given a
specified monthly download allowance. These limits were set based on our
experience of customer usage over the period of trials and research with
triallists. During trials, customers used the service free of charge and
were able to download as much material as desired. Each of the eircom
i-stream products was trialled. Our research showed us that average usage
was well within the limits we have now set on the solo and multi product.
eircom i-stream enhanced has no download limit.

I'll let you comment on that as you see fit.

The letter finishes off with an intersting paragraph:

eircom is investigating the development of cheaper product(s) specifically
targeted at the consumer market. These investigations will include the
option to 'self install', a feature of many of the lower cost European
offerings. Development of these products is at a very early stage and no
information regarding product specifications and launch date is available at
the moment.

longword

Originally posted by Mountjoy Mugger
I got a reply from their marketing bods. I'm just including how they addressed my compaint re the 3GB cap:

Next question: Will this cap be increased in line with inflation?

ihatemushrooms

There is no point in venting your frustrations on the deaf ears of Eircom, the goverment and the ODTR are to blame for this, we in Ireland are one of the few remaining regulated telecom markets in Europe!!! Eircom won`t change their pricing because of us, they will obviously make less money. Etain Doyle and the ODTR have put no serious pressure on Eircom for LLU or Friaco. This is a complete joke and while the Goverment and Etain are flappin around Eircom are watchin all our pennies per minute ching chinging in the till.
They`ve no plans for new products, its happy days all the way for O`Reilly and the boys while we are spending money.
Other countries have had deregulated markets since the late 80`s our goverment just doesn`t give a toss, we are miles behind.

Over

Dustaz

Originally posted by Mountjoy Mugger


I'll let you comment on that as you see fit.

Its probably true. Most people on this forum overshot the caps, however the trials were open to a wider audience, who were probably not downloading as much as thier drives could hold before the trial ended

dahamsta

eircom is investigating the development of cheaper product(s) specifically targeted at the consumer market. These investigations will include the option to 'self install', a feature of many of the lower cost European offerings. Development of these products is at a very early stage and no information regarding product specifications and launch date is available at the moment.

Only eircom could make a simpler product difficult to develop. For those of you in Eircom product development, here's a three step plan:

1) Get the plans for the current service offerings.
2) Cut out the pages about DSL modems.
3) Add in the pages you give engineers about installing DSL modems.

Myself and Fergus would be happy to replace the entire department. Might up the average IQ level in Eircom by a few points.

adam

Dangger

Oddly enough I can confirm that I have heard from Eircom officially that they are looking into a more consumer orientated ADSL offering, potentially for August. This is the reason I feel the complaints should be made, let them know how unreasonable the current pricing is.

strat

Originally posted by beomont
As the man says Complain!!!!

http://www.eircom.ie/cgi-bin/bvsm/bveircom/customer-carea.jsp?CATEGORY=cCare&BV_SessionID=@@@@1401247098.1020877068@@@@&BV_EngineID=cadceckfhelhbedcfjgchgcghk.0

i click on this link and i get some crap abotu my session timed out

Lemming

Originally posted by Mountjoy Mugger
I got a reply from their marketing bods. I'm just including how they addressed my compaint re the 3GB cap:

Customers who choose the eircom i-stream solo or multi products are given a specified monthly download allowance. These limits were set based on our
experience of customer usage over the period of trials and research with
triallists. During trials, customers used the service free of charge and
were able to download as much material as desired. Each of the eircom
i-stream products was trialled. Our research showed us that average usage
was well within the limits we have now set on the solo and multi product.
eircom i-stream enhanced has no download limit.

I'll let you comment on that as you see fit.

Ummm ... they had those cap figures at the START of the trials did they not. So they were just arbitrary figures anyway, where they not?

"Research" my f*cking arse!!! :rolleyes:

Originally posted by dahamsta

Myself and Fergus would be happy to replace the entire department. Might up the average IQ level in Eircom by a few points.

/me giggles
That'd probably work too

beomont

I dont know why the link did that but here is the main contact page for Eircom which you will find one for complaints on it http://www.eircom.ie/cgi-bin/bvsm/bveircom/bladerunner/showContent.jsp?
IT will not let me edit my early post up the top so maybe the Mod's could delete it and replace it with this one or even better if some one knows of a direct email complaints address to the ADSL department.............
Cheers

beomont

Sorry Lads but it has done it again,can a Mod please delete my 2 previous posts and stick up a link to Eircoms complaint page/Adsl if there is one

sceptre

beomont, I can't find the link.

Obviously your original link (thanks for that) has expired.

Can you post (or PM me) instructions on how you got to it?

Thanks

kamobe

You can send your complaint to: ccm@eircom.ie

We will acknowledge any complaints received by letter, fax or e-mail within two working days of receiving your complaint. We will provide you with your unique reference number and inform you of the length of time we expect it to take to investigate and resolve the complaint.

As the link is dead, maybe this will help some people voice their opinions

Mountjoy Mugger

I was amazed. An acknowledgement the following morning, and a detailed response later the same evening. Anyone else hear anything?

Dustaz

not yet

Tellox

I think it was 5 days before I got a response..

Mountjoy Mugger

Originally posted by Tizlox
I think it was 5 days before I got a response..

Was your reply anything like the bit I quoted? If so, they've probably drafted a stenciled response.

Tellox

Nope,I was told that an official complaint would be lodged

Mountjoy Mugger

Originally posted by Tizlox
Nope,I was told that an official complaint would be lodged

My reply came as a result of my official complaint being lodged. Complaint was adressed by marketing:

I refer to your recent complaint regarding eircom i-stream, eircom's ADSL
service. You expressed dissatisfaction with the pricing and download limits
set. I would like to respond to the issues you have raised.

Winters

I would say the two best ways is for EVERYONE to send them an email on the same day, if they got 100,000 emails on the same day at around the same time you might have a chance at bringing one of there servers down and i doubt they would like that.

As we know eircom dont seem to listen to phone calls so a server down they might listen to. Another way, which ive put forward before is another "Postcard Campaign". If everyone sent a postcard to eircom on the same day....they might take some notice.

PiE

If we took down a server, eircom would twist it and make it look like we're malicious little gits who should'nt be listened to (not that they do but...)

I don't get it though, eircom say that not many people on the trial went over 3GB per month. So why the hell do they need a cap?! "Nobody's abusing the service so lets make sure the f*ckers dont!" I don't understand it. If everyone on the trial was doing 10gigs a day then they'd need a cap (bigger than 3GB admittedly) but their reasoning for it just doesnt make sense.

Sent off a complaint anyway, see what happens.

Oh and a sticky with details for complaints would be a good idea, methinks.

Tellox

If we took down the servers, they'd ignore all of our e-mails from then on, which wouldnt do anybody any good.

Bard

Originally posted by Winters
I would say the two best ways is for EVERYONE to send them an email on the same day, if they got 100,000 emails on the same day at around the same time you might have a chance at bringing one of there servers down and i doubt they would like that.

As we know eircom dont seem to listen to phone calls so a server down they might listen to.

Sorry, but that's an utterly stupid idea.

Think about it - that technically amounts to a group-organised and orchestrated Denial of Service attack. A discussion on this (admittedly unofficial) forum would be all the proof that would be needed that IrelandOFFLine were involved.

Eircom would then have a specific culpable organisation to blame for an illegal attack on their server and could quite feasibly sue for damages because of the service lost.

Please folks- for the sake of the IrelandOFFLine committee and organisation, don't act on any such daft ideas which could potentially cause legal or other such problems for them.

sceptre

Taking down servers - bad idea. Bad for IrelandOffline's PR, bad for your own sake (organising something like that could be considered a DoS attack - in the US you'd be convicted of terrorist activity ffs), bad for the other people who wish to make a complaint about anything on the same day.

Don't do it - if you do you're very much on your own.

PiE, I suppose the reason behind any cap at all is to cover the people who will use it a lot if there's no cap (I hold up my hand on that matter - linuxiso.org would be shunting a major amount of data my way, all MS newsgroups would find their way in full on to my PC and I'd fill up a 120gig disk (which I don't have) in no time)

Caps are very low as you point out (especially at that price point - I'd expect to be allowed to run my own ftp server at that price). Even I can see the reason behind some amount of capping though.

PiE

Got the standard response about my complaint being filed and sent off to the ADSL department, not a mention of my complaints regarding the lack of Flat-rate 56k and ISDN though.

Winters

Originally posted by sceptre
in the US you'd be convicted of terrorist activity ffs

Wow, in America everything seems to be a terrorist activity. I would never do it myself, only an idea that came into my head at the time of writing the post. Eircom would (now thinking about it) make a lot of bad PR for IOFFL and net users if anyone was to do it.

timod

http://www.yankeegroup.com/public/news_releases/news_release_detail.jsp?ID=PressReleases/news_may092002_smbt.htm

Got this link via www.nua.com (wasn't that an eircom spinoff?)

Businesses Report That DSL Delivers Exceptional Value and Increased Productivity, According to Recent Yankee Group Study

NEWS RELEASE - 09 MAY 2002

BOSTON - In a recent survey conducted on behalf of SBC, the Yankee Group found that 91% of business DSL subscribers believe that the productivity benefits of the service meet or exceed their expectations in relation to the monthly cost.  In addition, 65% of business DSL subscribers reported that, if forced to cut costs, DSL would be one of the last services eliminated.

Dial-up Internet access is no longer sufficient, and high-speed Internet access is proving to be a necessity for businesses.  As companies migrate from dial-up Internet access to DSL, it is clear that they realize increased productivity and enhanced competitive advantage.  

"Businesses truly believe that broadband enables them to service their customers better and more efficiently," said Mike Lauricella, program manager with the Yankee Group's Small & Medium Business Technologies Practice.  "Businesses will only continue to increase their use of the Internet and continue to extend broadband throughout the company."

Some of the key applications of the Internet include:


• 88% of respondents use DSL Internet access service to conduct online research.
• 83% send and receive e-mail with large attachments.
• 78% purchase supplies online.
• 69% book travel reservations.

The survey results of Business Broadband Watch are based on independent telephone interviews conducted by the Yankee Group from a random sampling of 550 small businesses with SBC DSL Internet access service.

SBC's DSL:

DSL Internet Access Service
With this economical way, small- and medium-sized businesses get unlimited Internet access, multiple e-mail accounts and DNS Hosting. Add an Office Gateway and share a DSL Internet connection, printers, scanners and other devices with up to 10 PCs

http://www.ameritech.com/DSL_new/content/0,5289,10,00.html

$49.99 per month for 768Mb. And no download cap.

sceptre

That's 768kps rather than 768MB?:D

To add: Self-install $0
Equipment $99
Activation $50 (a snip)

Value for money. I might just give them a call*




*except I can't because the market hasn't been opened enough that OLOs can operate properly here. Eircom's *wholesale* rate is as expensive.

root

I'd be happy with the following.
All I care about is a decent speed and NO CAP.No I can download all the pr0n and warez I want forever for 200 Euro a month.


eircom i-stream enhanced

For a multi user, multi PC networked environment

* Speeds are up to 1Mbps downstream/256kbps upstream
* Connection fee is [euro.gif] 165 excl. VAT - Monthly fee is [euro.gif] 169 excl. VAT.
* Additional equipment costs will vary with customer requirements.
* For [brand.gif] enhanced there is unlimited Internet download allowance.**

timod

...on a lighter note:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/22/25268.html
A naked protest....

PiE

Dear Mr. Roche, [even spelt my damn name wrong]

I refer to your recent complaint regarding the delay in roll-out and the
pricing of eircom i-stream, eircom's ADSL service.

The introduction of ADSL follows agreement with the Office of the Director
of Telecommunications Regulation on the wholesale prices that will apply to
Other Licensed Operators (OLOs) in Ireland and eircom's retail business.
eircom were in discussion with the ODTR on the launch of ADSL for some time
and were unable to launch the service until the ODTR was satisfied that all
regulatory and competition issues raised last year were addressed. Now that
agreement has been reached, we are obviously anxious to expedite the
roll-out of DSL and have initially targeted those exchanges where we can
reach as many customers as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Prices of ADSL services in Europe vary from country to country depending on
maturity of market, infrastructure and population density. In addition,
there are a broad range of services available and pricing also varies
depending on the service package. The prices for eircom i-stream reflect
the significant costs of bringing these products to market. eircom want to
introduce products that are commercially sustainable and will price them
accordingly. At launch, eircom is focusing on delivering products to the
business market - product prices reflect this focus and feedback from
business customers has been positive. eircom is, however, investigating
the development of cheaper product(s) specifically targeted at the consumer
market. These investigations will include the option to 'self install', a
feature of many of the lower cost European offerings. Development of these
products is at an early stage and as soon as details are available, they
will be announced.

At the moment, it is very difficult to develop a commercially viable cost
based model for flat rate internet access - while the costs to the operator
change based on usage, the revenue remains the same. However, we continue
to monitor the market and market conditions in this regard.

Thank-you for taking the time to contact eircom - we do take all customer
feedback into consideration when developing our products and services. I
have passed your complaint to the ADSL Product Management and Development
Team for reference.


Yours sincerely,

Louise Bannon
Corporate and Government Marketing
eircom retail

Bleh.

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by PiE
At the moment, it is very difficult to develop a commercially viable cost
based model for flat rate internet access.....

BULL$HIT!

Give us flat-rate and give it to us NOW you ba$tards!

Tellox

Dear Mr.

---

,

I refer to your recent complaint regarding the availability of flat-rate
internet in Ireland and the pricing and availability of eircom i-stream,
eircom's ADSL service.

At the moment, it is very difficult to develop a commercially viable cost
based model for flat rate internet access - while the costs to the operator
change based on usage, the revenue in such a model remains the same.
However, we continue to monitor the market and market conditions in this
regard.

I'm sorry that you are disappointed with eircom's ADSL offering. The prices
for eircom i-stream reflect the significant costs of bringing these products
to market. eircom want to introduce products that are commercially
sustainable and will price them accordingly. It is important to note that
eircom is focusing on delivering products to the business market initially
and product prices reflect this focus. We are investigating the development
of cheaper product(s) specifically targeted at the consumer market. These
investigations will include the option to 'self install', a feature of many
of the lower cost European offerings. Development of these products is at a
very early stage and no information regarding product specifications and
launch date is available at the moment. However, as soon as details are
available, they will be announced.

With regard to the roll-out of ADSL and its availability in areas outside
Dublin; as we are obviously anxious to expedite the roll-out of DSL, we
have initially targeted those exchanges where we can reach as many customers
as quickly and efficiently as possible. In deciding where ADSL is deployed,
consideration is given to a number of factors. Among these are the
network/transmission capabilities, infrastructure availability, support
capability and the suitability of ADSL (in terms of population
density/proximity to exchanges and impact on service reach). Dublin and
other urban areas score positively in this regard as they have the available
infrastructure, support structure, required transmission capability and
population. The additional eight regions targeted also score well in this
regard by virtue of their connected population and infrastructure. We are
currently developing a deployment plan to bring ADSL to more exchanges in
the named regions and to other parts of the country. This will cover
selected exchanges in Greater Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford,
within the next 12-18 months, reaching a total of 100 exchanges within three
years.

Thank-you for taking the time to contact eircom - we do take all customer
feedback into consideration when developing our products and services. I
have passed your complaint to the ADSL Product Management and Development
Team for reference.


Yours sincerely,

---

Corporate and Government Marketing
eircom retail

THEY SAID WATERFORD.
And they said in 12-18months.
...

stormkeeper

Ack... That wouldn't bode well for everywhere else, I'm thinking

gurramok

I got same reply as the one on the irelandoffline website here not from the marketing bods but from Mr Patterson !
I also got a 2nd reply from some dude in customer care dept not from any marketing dept.

Dear xxxx

Regarding your e-mail making a complaint about the price of Eircoms ADSL
product. This complaint has officially been logged and you should receive
correspondence regarding the matter within the next 5-10 working days.

Yours sincerely,

xxxx xxxx
Customer Care Dept.

ie...It's GOOD and worthwhile to complain.

ihatemushrooms

Amount you spend staying online 24/7 for 30days on eircoms 56k subscription service - €720.6
Amount a british user spends staying online 24/7 for a month on BT's 56k subscription service - £20

All across Europe Flat Rate access is priced similarly to the UK, it probably looks like a more competitive offer but if you become or fall into the abuser catagory ISPs all take action to make your access more difficult. I`ve read of cases in France and Germany where abusers end up trafficing on different networks to low end users. These other networks are older with reduced capacity and the dropping of calls is a frequent issue.

Saying that BT offer flat rate for £20 isn`t correct as they have appeared on Watch dog on a number of occassions for a surf no limits type senario. BT have gotten rid of loads of abusers so your making an unfair comparison.

The business model is based on a number of ports being invested in by the ISP, each of these ports is to serve an number of customers and is called a contention ratio if an abuser is online 24/7 driving the contention ratio down then the model breaks and the ISP is loosing money. ISPs won`t sustain this and hence the difficulties.

What about if people were to offer Eircom €200 a month for unlimited then there maybe a chance of success, I think in the States there is something like this.

I think the bottom line is if you want to be on line 24/7 your going to have to pay the dollars there is no easy solution

PiE

ISP's have no problem if you stay online 24/7. They do have a problem if you spend 24/7 downloading and taking up bandwidth.

longword

Originally posted by PiE
ISP's have no problem if you stay online 24/7. They do have a problem if you spend 24/7 downloading and taking up bandwidth.

They care about both - and I'd imagine tieing up the line is more important from their point of view. You can't do much damage to their bandwidth when you're downloading at most 5KBytes/sec.

PPC

FYI this is Tellox

No wonder Eircom wont give him flat rate :P

SkepticOne

Originally posted by ihatemushrooms
The business model is based on a number of ports being invested in by the ISP, each of these ports is to serve an number of customers and is called a contention ratio if an abuser is online 24/7 driving the contention ratio down then the model breaks and the ISP is loosing money. ISPs won`t sustain this and hence the difficulties.

I agree with this. Generally ISPs won't want a lot of people occupying the lines and modems and thereby preventing others from logging on. However, a FRIACO (for want of a better word) deal would enable them to determine how this should best be done. Some may go for a package with a set montly number of hours, others may adopt a policy of dumping excessive users according to rules that they deliberately don't make public. Some may even go for per-minute billing although this probably would not survive in a competitive environment.

Even though 24/7 access would still not be possible in reality, a lot more flexibility would be granted the ISPs and it would allow for competition where currently there is very little.

The important thing is that ISPs must have the option of purchasing on the the basis of capacity rather than time and that the deal they get reflects the true cost of providing this capacity.

Tellox

Kieran, there are some laws against that.