EircomTribunal web site launched

eircomtribunal

Resulting from a school project we launched www.Eircomtribunal.com today.
We are interested in your feedback, especially on our main item "Facts, lies and incompetence - the ODTR and its latest quarterly review".
Has anybody got a complete address list to post the press release to?

Dustaz

Sir, i appluad you

Been reading that for the last few minutes ****ting myself laughing in utter delight.

You have obviously spent a LOT of time on this and from a cursory glance, it seems to have been time very well spent. again, from a cursory glance, all the facts and figures seem correct and obviously as embarrassing to the country as they should be.

Good luck in the forthcoming legal battle (pretty sure eircoms attack lawyers will be onto it soon) and good ****ing game.

strat

Well played, read the first half of the "Facts, Lies and Incompetence" and must day its very well done, it would be so easy* just to throw up them figures up but its a well crafted entertaining read, ohh and i love the cheese analogy


*im sure it wasent easy and took a loong time


gg pld thb

Giblet

A Word of Caution
"Can you really afford to read this web site online? It may be more expensive than it is worth. Due to EIRCOMs misuse of its monopoly status, facilitated by the Minister for Communication and the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR), it will cost you around € 3 per hour on modem access and over € 6 per hour on ISDN 128 access. Why not consider joining the 85 % of Irish citizens who do not access the internet from home?"

This is actually a good idea. This should be put the Boards.ie or IOFFL frontpage

"So, you handbag thieves out there, if you still think our comparison is libellous, write in to us and we are prepared to clarify further" tbh

This stuff is gold.

Great site and completely accurate.

jbkenn

Excellent work

expect you will be hearing from the deep pockets of €ircons lawyers Messrs Sue Grabbit and Run

jbkenn

yellum

Brilliant ! This site rocks.

mneylon

Excellent site!

nahdoic

Simply brilliant.

The lazy (nearly half of its 11 000 staff are not needed) monopoly Telco EIRCOM is allowed to cream off € 3 per hour for very slow modem and € 6 for slow ISDN Internet access of the Irish citizens who are booking flights online.

Booking one of your really cheap flights, for example Salzburg to London for € 2, the rat will take more for its crappy Internet access than you for providing the flight. - letter to Michael O’Leary (Ryanair)

nahdoic

a picture's worth a thousand words ...



One day slow modem access in Ireland costs € 41 – for less money you get two month modem access in the UK or one month always-on ADSL broadband access.

The site is just so brutally honest and frank. It's superb. You could quote any part of it. As Giblet said, the entire thing is gold. I congratulate the creator.

GoneShootin

says it all

SkepticOne

Excellent stuff. Particularly liked the hours online graph.

BKtje

That site is brilliant. nice one!

The picture at the top of the charts page is so unbelievably true.

Lemming

Pld

cgarvey

Excellent site .. its amazing how facts speak. I would have hoped it could have been more of an IOFFL site, if you know what I mean. Just having a browse over the IOFFL site doesn't have the same impact as this site. That's not to criticise IOFFL efforts (who am I?), by the way. Is there some way to combine the efforts to achieve the same goal?

LoBo

perfect - brilliant! Pass around the link for the site, everybody!!

There's a couple spelling mistakes, but otherwise everything is great.. keep it up

LoBo

funny graphic from the site:

Mr E

Love it.... well done !!
It'll be interesting to see if anyone tries to have it shut down.

- Dave.

c0y0te

Pld.

Nice idea and entertaining reading.

I am surprised however that you opted to actually name *them*, rather than use some other descriptive reference (a la eircon for example) to avoid the crap which is sure to follow from the laywers.

I hope the site stays up long enough to get attention. You should publicise this site to as many online media sites as possible, as well as the odd newspaper.. .you never know, a mention here or there in the press (even as a protest site) will work wonders for the readership

c0y0te

Bard

Originally posted by TmB

It'll be interesting to see if anyone tries to have it shut down.

I would say you could almost certainly count on it. Eircom's team of ravenous lawyers aren't high priced for nothing... and the company must "strive to protect it's image"...

*ahem*

sceptre

I'm more impressed than I've been in quite some time

If Eircom (big "E":D) do try (and maybe even succeed) in shutting it down, I trust you have the whole thing in a zip file so that anyone[1] can put up a mirror?



[1] probably "everyone"

LoBo

Surely there's nothing wrong in having a factual information website about a company? I think its right to use Eircom's proper name, and keep things factual.

mneylon

As Eircom's attack lawyers will probably try and get this offline asap I am publicly offering whoever's responsible for the site a mirror before the legal wrangling begins.
Please contact me asap so that we can set it up for you.
Either reply here or PM me.

Cond0r

Excellent

dahamsta

Great stuff Urban Weigl!

adam

Fallschirmjager

ABSOLUTELY EXCELLENT...


i love the images on the top of the pages HA HA HA HA AH...excellent

good job...and screw em...they wont sue becuase the game will be well and truly up if they do....excellent chess move

KNIGHT to QUEEEN SIX.....check mate i believe....lets see what the muppets do now


HUAP!!!!!

Dangger

The site is TRULY FANTASTIC and I have no qualms whatsoever linking to it from the IOFFL site.

I have circulated the url to some government officials that I feel could do with having a peek.

This site must stay up. It may need some protecting (legally here and there) but its attempted removal should provoke outrage and as we have seen in the past its replication 10 fold.

seamus

Excellent site. I love the plain and basic way it's all just laid out in front of you. No conjecture, no opinions, just hard facts.

Stick a zip of the website on some boards.ie webspace. If eircom try shut this down, then they'll know what to expect.

pencil

Excellent site.......

Everyone I know with even a passing interest in IT has received a link to it with instructions to pass it on.

Bertie's my local TD - writing a letter to him tonight.

spongebob

I know that they will get their €200 an hour wind and piss in a pinstripe suit merchants onto these poor secondary school students.

Talk about sledgehammers and nuts. If they do I will have another domain ready to take the load..and another..and another

hmmmmmm who is eircomare****e.com

ahhhhhh!

M

rymus

Bravo to the creators.. Was reading it a while ago, its very good. Must add it to the links on my site

BoneCollector

I have circulated the url to some government officials that I feel could do with having a peek.

Nice One! (as it should be!)

BKtje

Can Eircom actually have it taken down?
The site gives only factual informatiom as far as i could see unlike errorcom, which was obviously taking the piss.

For them to try and close it down would be like them trying to hide the facts. There is no law against showing facts? is there?*

(seeing as this is Ireland i aint 100% sure )

Hannibal_12

Fantastic, absolutely fantastic. Finally more people are starting to realise how terrible internet access is in this country. Terrible in so many ways that are all wonderfully elucidated in that brilliant website. I have fired of Emails to everyone I know with a link to it as well as a email of praise to the creator(s).

matthiku

Here are some more facts from independent sources about the comateous DSL/broadband situation in Ireland:

http://www.point-topic.com/cgi-bin/download.asp?file=DSLAnalysis\The+struggle+for+copmetitive+broadband+access+in+Europe.htm
Watch all the nils on the Ireland line! :mad: And look below on that page for more interesting details.

Or this: http://www.point-topic.com/scripts/directory/profile.asp?country=6
I am sure, you will find more interesting figures on this site. And I hope you won't get charged too much by surfing there! ;-)

NUA, "the worlds leading ressource for internet trends & statistics", ironically an Irish company, also talks about DSL:
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/?f=VS&art_id=905358314&rel=true
But I haven't seen them mentioning the situation in Ireland! :mad:

Isn't it a shame and disgraceful to see that even Greenland has a better Internet usage then Ireland:
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online/europe.html


Briefly , as a background on myself:
I came to this wonderful country Ireland about 4 years ago, to work in the software industry and found myself thrown back into Stone Age regarding Internet access, despite living in Ennis, the "Information Age Town". Being used to have ISDN for several years in Germany (highly subsidized at that time), my first question in the Telecom shop downtown was: And what about ISDN? (DSL or brodband generally wasn't yet a major topic) The answer was bleak ignorance! I couldn't believe it. And that in the Information Age town! Ok, after further investigation I found that ISDN (under a different name which I can't remember now) was actually available, but only for businesses (and I didn't dare to ask for the prize at that time!), due to availabilty limitations, as I was told. So I gave up about that idea for the time being and was forced to fall back on analog dialup lines. Since then I moved to another area within Ennis and there the line was so bad that I only got a connection speed between 26k and 33k (rarely) with my 56k modem. On top of that, (I had signed up to Eircom.net, oceanfree and gofree.indigo) I sometimes had to try several times and different providers to get a connection at all! Finally, I gave up wating for broadband and signed up for ISDN recently and now I surf on a still unsatisfactory 64000 baud speed, but at least without the dial up hassle. I still feel betrayed because of the outrageous cost for beeing online. And my children very often have to do researches on the Internet for their homework! How does the Government thinks I should be able to afford that?

Looking at the fact that Ireland is one of the most expensive places in Europe to live anyhow, I wonder why there is not more outcry about this in other areas (like food) as well. Please forgive my impertinence now, but is there not a certain apathy in the general Irish community about high prices? And/or the opinion/perception that "the higher the price, the better the quality"? I am talking generally here, of course this site (irelandoffline.com and eircomtribunal.com) are showing that some people are starting to think and rebell.

Sorry for that long winded posting....

Matthias

---

Once freedom is outlawed, only the Outlaws will have freedom!

williamb

On the question of taking it down..I'm not a lawyer, but have been involved in some episodes like this.

There's two approaches Eircom could try to get it removed :-

1. Trademark/copyright infringement. I don't see them getting very far on this. I see an obviously parodic version of the Eircom logo, which no one could possible confuse with the real thing, and very little else under this category.

2. Libel. Truth is an absolute defence in libel cases. If Eircom threaten to sue for libel, they're going to end up in court arguing about what parts of the site are wrong. I don't see this as an attractive route for them.

Of course the problem is that i suspect Eircom have more financial resources than the site owners, and probably more than the site hosters. The fact they're unlikely to succeed legally doesn't mean they're not going to try legal threats to get the site removed.

I see the site is hosted in the States, that makes Eircom's lawyers job harder.

Stokolan

Nice job...

I have mailed the link to most ppl i know and shall get mailled around work tomorrow..

pertinax

The more i read of it the more i like it.
The rat might be fodder for their lawyers even though i dont think they eat much ratburgers.

There is a bend over and take it culture in ireland. I Think theirs a lot of reasons for it. One is the ignorance and contempt of polititians and civil servants who demand the public be punished for having the audacity to exist.

But the real killer is the valley of the squinting windows. Except it isnt a a valley its a country. that and the apathy whether its cause they dont know that theres better out there i dont know.

spongebob

or is that the other way around?

pertinax

rats know when to leave a sinking ship, come to think of it so do i!
emigration ahead.

Mark_irl

If only school projects were like this in my day,

Dustaz

Somehow i dont think its a school project

Jaysus, if it was, A+++++++++

mike65

Fantastic (why hav'nt any of us done something this good?! )

I've just e-mailed Pat Kennys radio programme. I suggest you do likewise including the url of course.

todaypk@rte.ie

Mike.

eircomtribunal

We are thrilled by your response!
Thanks for your emails and postings.

All contributions to the site are welcome, be it ideas, texts, pictures or notifications of typos.

We have not heard from EIRCOM and don't think we will.
Of course we are angry at the goat plundering the garden, but we know (and hope to have made it clear), that the ones who let the goat in are deserving the blame. We have not heard from them either.

We take up your kind offers in case of eventualities:
A ZIP file of the entire web site is now available at:
http://www.eircomtribunal.com/et.zip

Peter

Xian

Originally posted by mike65
Fantastic (why hav'nt any of us done something this good?! )

Cos we're tihk, das whoi!

Class!

mike65

Originally posted by matthiku

Looking at the fact that Ireland is one of the most expensive places in Europe to live anyhow, I wonder why there is not more outcry about this in other areas (like food) as well. Please forgive my impertinence now, but is there not a certain apathy in the general Irish community about high prices? And/or the opinion/perception that "the higher the price, the better the quality"?

Hi Matthias,

You might want to read this thread -

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=61517

fisty

This is exactly what was needed...
This is what journalists want, they'll have a field day with all these hard facts from the one source, writing letters to major newspapers now....
have the zip file tucked safe (although I don't think we'll need it).
Once again Fair Play.

Hannibal_12

Going to write a few letters myself as well. With regards to that, does anyone have the email address of that guy in the Evening Herald that does the Log On section. He done a review of mac OS 10.2 the other day and seems quite knowledgeable. Ronan something ahh cant remember.

pork99

excellent - best Irish web site I've seen this year

ediot awards spot on!!!! deadly!!!!

congratulations on putting our case so well in these ediot awards, if I was writing anything about Bertie Ahern, Dick Roche, Mary O'Rourke etc it would just degenerate into a string of expletives. You really point them up as worse than useless and do it very skillfully - well done again

Meh

Congratulations, you made it to the Register:

Eircom savaged by satire site
By Tim Richardson
Posted: 03/09/2002 at 14:32 GMT

Campaigners in Ireland have launched a scathing attack on the country's lack of affordable and fast Internet access.

A new Web site, EircomTribunal.com, rips into what it describes as the "saboteurs of the Internet development in Ireland" pulling no punches as it tears into incumbent telco, Eircom, regulator ODTR and the Government.

Wickedly funny and satirical, EircomTribunal.com also delivers a serious message. It claims that Net access in Ireland is so expensive it makes email "more expensive than letter mail".

And it points to independent research that relegates Ireland to little more than a Third World e-Nation.

"In an act of national sabotage the Irish citizen has been priced out of using the Internet.

"Its [EircomTribunal.com's] aim is to prepare the ground for a 'Counterstrike' against the saboteurs of the Internet development in Ireland.

"EircomTribunal.com will approach the incompetence and gullibility on the side of the State, and the lack of vision and the greediness of the de facto monopoly, EIRCOM, with serious argument and with satire," it said.

A spokeswoman for Eircom declined to comment on the site or its content. No one from ODTR was available at the time of writing to comment on the site. ®

Mr E

Fantastic!

- Dave.

Clamor

Is it my imigination, but is the site down already?