Partly Unmetered 56k/ISDN options and Broadband Options

sceptre

Two companies have recently announced details of reduced-rate or partially unmetered type products (using wholesale FRIACO offered by Eircom) available in the Irish market

Please read through the detail provided by both companies before asking questions in the product threads here on the forum. Reading through the threads themselves would also be of benefit before asking questions - a query you have may already have been answered!


Esat BT / IOL

IOL Anytime (product details)
Products:
IOL Anytime @ €30.00 per month - 180 hours Internet access any time, day or night
"Business" IOL Anytime @ €54.45 per month - 260 hours Internet access any time, day or night

Outside your allowance, the costs are as follows:
Daytime - 3.8 cents/minute
Evening/weekend - 1.27 cents per minute
(cost details received from call to Esat CS team 10 July 2003)

FAQ not currently available on the site



UTVip
UTVip (product details)

Products:
UTVipXL - €24.95 per month - 180 hours Internet access any time, day or night
UTVip LITE - €9.99 per month - 30 hours Internet access any time, day or night

UTVip are offering one month online free when you subscribe to their FRIACO UTVip XL or UTVip Lite before the 31st of December 2003.

Outside your allowance, the costs are as follows:
Daytime - 3.8 cents per minute
Evening/weekend - 0.95 cents per minute
Chargeable calls (this does not affect your first 180 hours) have a fixed setup fee of 3.87c per call.
You must sign up to their telephony package to avail of the UTV Internet options

FAQ for all products available here


Eircom.net flatrate
Product Details

Products:
Anytime - €29.99 per month. 150 hours on-peak or off-peak
Flat Rate 60 - €19.99 per month. 60 hours off-peak
Flat Rate 25 - €9.99 per month. 25 hours off-peak.

Outside your allowance, calls to the 1892 number cost: 1.26c per minute off peak and 5.07c per minute peak. Minimum call charge 6.35 cent applies.


Both Esat's and UTV's services reportedly support single-channel ISDN. UTV confirm this in their FAQ, there appears to be no documentation confirming that Esat do but it's been confirmed by customer service reps.
According to their site, Eircom.net's product supports single and dual channel ISDN. However, 128K is still counted as two calls, so for each hour of your call at 128K, it costs two hours of your allocation.

All quoted prices include VAT

Off-peak for Esat, UTV and Eircom.net products is:
Monday-Thursday: 18:00-07:59
Weekend: 18:00 Friday - 07:59 Monday
(only relevant if you overrun your usage allowance)

If you're looking for a method of keeping track of your time online with either of these products, have a look here. Additionally, Esat offer a usage tracking facility for customers on their website.

If anyone has any suggestions with regard to this post, please feel free to PM me.


Legal stuff:
While IrelandOffline welcomes the arrival of these options for Irish consumers, it does not not officially or unofficially endorse one product over another. Opinions expressed on the forum with regard to available products by committee members, moderators or members are their own and can not be regarded as speaking officially for the organisation.

Dustaz

The Broadband list that was here is outdated now, but the good guys in the Broadband forum have a much more up to date version. Since its sort of pointless having two versions of the same thing and they ARE the broadband forum after all, ill just link to it here.


Broadband Availability

Thanks coyote

Dustaz

Satellite Options

Please note that the nature of satellite transmission/reception makes it an extremely unpractical medium for certain net applications (Online games, Telnet, SSH, Remote control programs such as PCAnywhere).

Aramiska

Available all over Ireland.
Prices start at €299 (ex vat) per month for 256k down, 64k up with a 1GB monthly limit. Unlimited 1MBit down, 256k up is €599 (ex vat) per month. Total install fee is €800 (ex vat). Aramiska is known to run special offers on certain packages at some times. Contact them to find out if there are any at present. Currently fastest speeds are 2MBit down, 320k up. All standard Aramiska packages plug directly into your network, has a built in mail server, web caching, statistics, etc, and can be used with up to 30PCs.
Website: http://www.aramiska.com


Digiweb (Gilat)

Available all over Ireland.
Prices start at €120 (ex vat) per month for 512k down, 128k up. No download limits, though heavy users will be throttled at certain times. A multi-user version is €30 per month extra. Total install fee is €1495 (ex vat). They are planning on launching higher speed packages in the future.
Website: http://www.broadband.digiweb.ie


Orbitlink (Hughes)

Available all over Ireland.
Prices start at €170 (ex vat) per month for 400k down, 128k up with a 400MB per day limit. No unlimited download packages available. 1MBit down, 128k up for €450/month (ex vat) with a 1GB/day limit is the fastest available. 'Home' user versions (speeds up to 800k) cost €900 (ex vat) for setup, and Business versions (5/10 users) cost €1300 (ex vat) for setup. For all services, you must pay an extra €50/year for a licence.
Website: http://www.orbitlink.ie


Many thanks to bkehoe of the wireless forum for this guide.

Dustaz

FAQ threads merged to save some space

seamus

Eircom have finally launched FRIACO products. Details added to sceptre's post.