I told you Bill Murphy wants flat rate dial up

vampyre

And on page 2 of the business post he and Peter Evans are saying that in response to consumer demand thay want us to have flat rate dial up for €30 or less a month. See Aidan, I told you Bill Murphy was not playing along with eircom. OK so realistically saying they want to provide the service is zilch but at least it is an improvement on Eircom's we are not interested ...etc.

ando

yeah, seen that. Bill is suppose to be harrasing companies like Ryanair, AIB and superquinn to complain to the Odtr, because ppl cannot stay long on their websites because of the constant threat of high phone bill's.

the report says their may be a result by the end of the summer... *yeah right, whatever*


Also, did you notice on the very next page, eircom is compansating their competitors (NTL, esat etc) for overcharging !!!!!! LOLOL

timod

The story is at: http://www.sbpost.ie/story.jsp?story=WCContent;id-52307

Esat BT considers offering €30 flat rate for unlimited internet access

By Kathleen Barrington

Dublin, Ireland, 28 July, 2002

Esat BT could offer consumers unlimited internet access for a flat rate of less than €30 a month if Eircom agrees to a wholesale flat rate of €20 a month.

Esat BT product director Peter Evans said research had shown that consumers were demanding flat rate internet access at a price below €30 a month.

Esat BT and Eircom are already in discussions on the matter, and Evans would like to see a result before the end of the summer.

But telecom analysts believe Eircom will be reluctant to concede the monthly flat rate given the impact it would certainly have on its revenues in the short term.

Esat BT chief executive Bill Murphy said he would also be asking large companies such as Ryanair, AIB and Superquinn -- which operate consumer websites -- to lobby regulator Etain Doyle and the government on the matter.

Murphy said the pricing structure for internet access was inhibiting the usage of such sites.

Murphy pointed to the fundamental contradiction of asking consumers "to spend money to save money".

For example, the longer consumers spend browsing the Ryanair website in search of a cheap fare, the more they clock up in phone bills.

Murphy believes that introducing flat-rate internet access connectivity would stimulate business on websites.

vampyre

and further on a person has an open letter to AJF about how eircom have given him endless trouble in the past year which being a new business man he so could have lived without.

Dangger

Esat BT chief executive Bill Murphy said he would also be asking large companies such as Ryanair, AIB and Superquinn -- which operate consumer websites -- to lobby regulator Etain Doyle and the government on the matter.

We covered some aspects of this with Bill Murphy during our meeting.

We need a groundswell of support across the boards form consumers to the businesses whose business models incorporate on line sales. My personal feeling is that they have been far too quiet for far too long.

We don't need Iona coming out with any more foot in mouth comments, I'm talking about Fergal Quinn and his faith in SuperQuinn4Food, Irish travel agents, Microsoft and their inability to allow workers to telework in Ireland (unlike the UK where 40% of staff choose to work at least 2 days a week at home), Intel pride themselves on promoting life/work balance, why can't their workers telework? What about all those broadband enabled consoles sold in Ireland (2nd highest per capita to Japan), are they to stay offline for ever?

What about Microsoft's new licensing model where businesses are to pay a subscription over 3 years to recieve updates on existing packages. Can Irish businesses partake in such a setup with cripplingly slow download speeds?

Why are theses companies remaining so quiet?

What about our great new Hibernia On line college? Why are the glaringly obvious pieces of this puzzle being overlooked?

Asok

Also with Fàs having launched their new net college they might be able to put their clout behind the lobbying? i`m sure they might be up for more people being able to acess the new content they have

aidan_dunne

Okay vampyre, I know you told me this before. I never said I doubted you, did I?

If it happens, fantastic, but remember that Esat and all the other ISP's that would like to offer flat-rate have one major obstacle to overcome and that obstacle is called Eircom. Until Eircom decide to offer a wholesale product we are all going to have to continue living in hope, Bill Murphy included.

The main things that are going to prevent this are:

1. ...if Eircom agrees to a wholesale flat rate of €20 a month.

Is this going to happen? Not bloody likely! There's no way Eircom would agree to €20 a month. Those greedy ba$tards would probably want at least €50 or €60 a month. Just look at what they consider "a reasonable price" for ADSL, for Christ's sake!

2. But telecom analysts believe Eircom will be reluctant to concede the monthly flat rate given the impact it would certainly have on its revenues in the short term.

Exactly. Short term. Short bloody term. That's all Eircom ever think about, the here and now. They can never see the bigger picture or look towards the future. Until that attitude changes in Eircom, the idea of FRIACO in this country is dead in the water.

Fair enough, Eircom would take a hit in it's profit in the short term but flat-rate would encourage lots of people to finally get online and this would negate the loss in profits in the long term because so many new users would sign up. The same thing happened to BT in the UK but the number of users over there has skyrocketed since BT introduced FRIACO and this has negated the losses and BT now feel that introducing flat-rate was a great move due to all the new customers it signed up.

Eircom only ever think, as I said, of the here and now. They don't care about the potential FRIACO could offer in the long term. They don't care about all the new customers it would get. All they care about is how much they have in their bank account at this very moment. It's this short sightedness that will be the undoing of Eircom.

If anyone from Eircom is reading this, for God's sake open your eyes and look ahead to the future and what you could have rather than worry about the present or hark back to past successes (like ISDN, which is not a new, fancy Hi-Speed technology, no matter how much you try to dress it up!).

qwertyup

Slightly unrelated, but recently it has hit me that we are probably unlikely to see the Government push for flat-rate in any real way. Every passing day seems to come with a new stealth tax or expenditure cut, and I would be willing to bet that the revenue generated from phone bills, while not huge, is certainly not insignificant.

And as such, I can't see the current Government getting behind us at all any time soon.

To actually get on topic (sorry), I can only hope that Eircom get off their throne and introduce some semblence of a fairly priced wholesale FRIACO rate for the ISPS before the end of the year.

aidan_dunne

That is a good point about the government, qwertyup. If you look at your phone bill every two months, just take a look at how much VAT you're paying. When the VAT from each call is added up, it actually comes to quite a lot. And that is revenue that I'm sure in these current "belt-tightening" times the government would not like to have to give up.

Perhaps this is another reason why the flat-rate amendment was left out of the Comms Bill. That and the fact that Eircom paid Mary O' Rourke off not to include it!

timod

Originally posted by aidan_dunne
That and the fact that Eircom paid Mary O' Rourke off not to include it!

That kind of talk isn't helping anybody.

segadreamcast

No need not to be able to have a bit of a laugh during a rather depressing situation like this - sheesh...:p

aidan_dunne

Oh come on timod, lighten up. I was only joking. Well, half joking!

timod

oh, don't get me wrong, I'm all for having a laugh. You must consider however, that virtually all the groups that IOFFL is trying to influence are regular readers of this forum

aidan_dunne

Okay, time for a disclaimer, I feel.

Aidan Dunne would like to point out to Eircom, Mary O' Rourke, the Government of the Republic Of Ireland, the ODTR and anyone else who may have taken offence from my comment suggesting that Mrs. O' Rourke was paid off, bribed or threatened by Eircom not to include the flat-rate amendment in the Communications Bill 2002 was my own personal viewpoint and in no way, shape or form represents the opinions, views or thoughts, either mentally, written or verbally, of Ireland OFFLine.

There, I think that should clear it all up. Hey, that disclaimer sounds pretty good, if I do say so myself. I should have been a lawyer. Only problem is, I've got a conscience!

Anyway, they can't sue me. I've got nothing to give them. Eircom takes every penny I have every two months when the phone bill arrives!

vampyre

Although Mr. Murphy's statement amounts to the kind of fantasy we all indulge in here it was a cheerful thing to read on a Sunday. I am wondering is this the first statement to emanate from a teleco head that we haven't found a rake of hole to pick in it? Nobody has criticised it or said didn't go far enough. How very strange.
Aidan I know eircom will stop everything at any cost, perhaps even their own destruction but hey, I am a very sick Vampyre let me dream while I can that the American whirlwind will be the one to defeat them.

Fallschirmjager

2 words


W H E N


S P E E D


we are still talking 56k or 4k if you are talking downloads...


30 euro a month for 4 k per minute


i know it is better then nothing -- but again we are on the potato diet compared to europe

we need SPEED...then and only then will the web work in ireland..

and for all the politicians out there 40% of some companies want to home work -- there is your traffic problem!!!!

vampyre

Both Murphy and Evans have said else where that dial up is necessary only really to make you want broadband. They have said to sate the obvious that the gap is too wide to make the leap to BB but flat rate dial up will lead to a clamour for ADSL. Which as we all know from other countries is correct and it is a modicum of progress to have someone in the industry call it this way.