Eircom announce 512K DSL @55 euros

theciscokid

for the cost of line rental for one month in ireland,

can get you dsl in britain

go figure,

when most other european countries have dsl advertised thats including line rental,

so to speak , i have only one line into my flat, i dont use it for telephone, strictly internet, i will have to pay line rental on top of the €55

meaning its around €73 a month

scojones

I really don't see the point in getting this product when there's a cap on it. The only way to not go over the cap is to only view bloody webpages. This product is NOT a good idea. :mad:

MDR

just come out of an all day meeting,

two words .... Jesus Christ !

Dangger

It all started at 8am this morning with me choking on my cornflakes over my Irish Times. Surely not I muttered as I cut out the article to keep on my person for the rest of the day as I knew I'd be referring to it at some stage later in the day.

By 9am ENN were on to me and looking for comments, but we still had no word on the official costs and specs of the service, so IOFFL played their first "No comment" card today as I set off to try to get to the facts.

On my way into the Eircom HQ in Stephen's Green in search of the elusive "official " press release RTE phoned. They'd seen the press release and confirmed the speeds, which I still couldn't believe. So they prepared a story for the one o'clock news and asked if I'd come in to speak in studio.

Eircom's press office refused to give the release ahead of the embargo, but after they got a call from RTE they forwarded me the press release via email. So I had to Neo it up around town looking for an "operator" to get at my email to see the facts for myself.

Via various journalists during the day, and primarily whilst getting fitted for my gear for the O2 media awards tonight , it became clear that it was indeed a 512k product and understandably EsatBT were not happy.

For some time now it apears that Eircom have been refusing to meet operators to discuss a wholesale reduction, and yet today they had just stole a march, reaped the PR, and begun to prime a starved market. Its the same thing they did with the SMS service over land lines, it worked then, why shouldn't it work again, no body can stop them, nobody's trying.

So seconds before going into the studio I got to my email and the press release, and there you have it another action packed day in the life of IrelandOffline.

There may be an interview with the Minister himself and some of the other government type's in this area on TV3's coverage of the O2 awards tonight.

dahamsta

two words .... Jesus Christ !

Yes?

IOFFL played their first "No comment" card today

Ewww, you didn't actually say "no comment", did you Dave?

For some time now it apears that Eircom have been refusing to meet operators to discuss a wholesale reduction, and yet today they had just stole a march, reaped the PR, and begun to prime a starved market. Its the same thing they did with the SMS service over land lines, it worked then, why shouldn't it work again, no body can stop them, nobody's trying.

ComReg Statement re DSL - 23 Jan 2000

ComReg welcomes the movement towards lower pricing for a DSL product
from eircom which was brought about largely due to the development of
competition in the broadband market in Ireland.


As the major operator in the market eircom have obligations to
provide an appropriate wholesale equivalent and to satisfy
competition law. ComReg will be working with the industry to ensure
that an appropriately priced wholesale product is in place and that
all competitive aspects are examined before sanctioning the product.

Deirdre Healy

Public Affairs Manager
Commission for Communications Regulation
Abbey Court, Irish Life Centre, Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1, Ireland
Telephone +353 1 804 9639
Fax +353 1 804 9680
Email deirdre.healy@comreg.ie

Ardmore

Originally posted by theciscokid
for the cost of line rental for one month in ireland,
can get you dsl in britain

Where can you get DSL in the UK for GBP13?

when most other european countries have dsl advertised thats including line rental,

Where in Europe can you get DSL withou an existing phone line?

so to speak , i have only one line into my flat, i dont use it for telephone

You never call anyone? Or you use a mobile (and you're complaining about line rental?

i will have to pay line rental on top of the €55

Nope, you have to pay €55 on top of your line rental - the €55 is optional, the line rental isn't!

dahamsta

The danger is that Eircom will try to set a wholesale price too close to the retail price (i.e. margin squeeze). ComReg will then be forced to delay the product. Eircom will then blame ComReg for the delay. Eircom win by keeping everyone on dial-up while ComReg gets the bad press.

Absolutely. Which makes it all the more difficult for me to diss them now, but think about this: Eircom are talking about cutting the price of their retail product in half. That can only mean one of two things, either: a) the original wholesale price sanctioned by the ODTR was NOT cost-oriented, and the ODTR was horrendously negligent in carrying out it's duties; or b) Eircom Net is attempting to sell below cost, which is grossly anti-competitive, if not outright illegal.

I doubt it's the former, so once again: Etain dear? Resign.

adam

MDR

no body can stop them, nobody's trying.

well we do try and stop em occasionally ...

the original price sanctioned by the ODTR was NOT cost-oriented, and the ODTR was horrendously negligent in carrying out it's duties;

short of stopping them from rolling out the product indefinetly (which they prolly should have done) what else could they do. The thing had dragged on a verrrrryyyyyy long time .... ?

two words .... Jesus Christ !

Yes?

disillusions of grandeur again ?

dahamsta

short of stopping them from rolling out the product indefinetly (which they prolly should have done) what else could they do. The thing had dragged on a verrrrryyyyyy long time .... ?

If it was a few quid, well, fair enough. But it's half the price Ray!

adam

MDR

If it was a few quid, well, fair enough. But it's half the price Ray!

I have no doubt the ODTR knew exactily what they where up to but felt powerless (whether they where or not is argueable) to take any further action. They saw that the Margin squeeze issue had been resolved so they allowed the product to be relised ... did the ODTR have a mandate to ensure affordabilty of a product ?

Ardmore

Originally posted by Ardmore
Acck!!! Right, who do I _formally_ complain to about quoting Retail prices "ex-VAT". Is there an ombudsman for this sort of thing?

RTE has updated their report to indicate that the prices are ex-VAT. Their repsonse to my e-mail was "We weren't aware that the
prices quoted were ex-VAT - this has now been verified
and corrected."

Let's see if their coverage of this item on the TV and Radio news later today is also updated to use the VAT inclusive prices.

dahamsta

Where can you get DSL in the UK for GBP13?

Cheapest I can find is £17.99.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/22/27510.html

Where in Europe can you get DSL withou an existing phone line?

Don't Esat bundle it if you take voice on the line too?

adam

dahamsta

I have no doubt the ODTR knew exactily what they where up to but felt powerless (whether they where or not is argueable) to take any further action. They saw that the Margin squeeze issue had been resolved so they allowed the product to be relised ...

I don't doubt it either. It doesn't make it right though.

did the ODTR have a mandate to ensure affordabilty of a product ?

They have a mandate to ensure that products are cost-oriented. If you remember, they went on about it quite a bit at the time.

adam

ozt9vdujny3srf

I rang eircom, 1901, got told to ring 1800 503 303

The persom on the other side toldbe that :

• eircom have sent details to comreg, and are awaiting there approval
• they could offer no specifications at this time
• he quoted 45 ex vat

Ardmore

Originally posted by dahamsta
Where can you get DSL in the UK for GBP13?

Cheapest I can find is £17.99.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/22/27510.html

The offer runs until the end of 2002 .....

neverhappen

Originally posted by dahamsta
They have a mandate to ensure that products are cost-oriented. If you remember, they went on about it quite a bit at the time.

They have a mandate to ensure that <add> the wholesale price of their </add> products are cost-oriented.

As I recall they offered a wholesale price of (roughly) e75 for e95 retail dsl so if they are quoting a retail price of e45 they must submit a wholesale of (roughly) e40 and indicate why their "costs" have halved all of a sudden...

theking

From RTE News

"A spokeswoman for ESAT said they already had a broadband service available at a price of €48.50 per month (€59 incl. VAT). She said only 600 customers had signed on for the service, suggesting consumers do not want the service at this price."

...

Not even at twice the speed do they want it. Not even in the capital city, where we're a bit short of LLU exchanges do they want it. Nope. They don't want it at all. If you're a user, I urge you not to pay any attention to people talking about this. It isn't for you, I assure you.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

How long before Esat has to 'revise' their residential offering a-la the NetSmart pricing?

Seriously though, given the relatively few exchanges Esat were offering their 256k crippled-DSL on, 600 users signed up in a few weeks doesn't seem proof of no interest, given that Eircom had only managed circa 2,000 after all their huffing and puffing.

Incidentally, the 1800503303 call centre's systems had collapsed when I rang a while back due to the surge in calls.

spongebob

Originally posted by theking

Seriously though, given the relatively few exchanges Esat were offering their 256k crippled-DSL on, 600 users signed up in a few weeks doesn't seem proof of no interest, given that Eircom had only managed circa 2,000 after all their huffing and puffing.

This point is most interesting

Eircom bangs on for months at great length and cost about their 512k / 1Mb service and had signed up 2000 punters or so after 6 months. Thats all. Full page ads all over the papers , that feckin Rat everywhere , the works.

ESAT slithers out a 256k product in late October, kinda vaguely launched it in December (just about) and got 600 signups. The advertising budget was Third World to say the least.

Onc product cost over €100 a month the other cost €60 a month.

D'ya think that Eircom may have gotten the message that the Irish are price sensitive.

Next stop from ESAT,
256/128
€49.99 all in per month,
24:1
5GB cap and self install kit. G'wan

dahamsta

The offer runs until the end of 2002 .....

Ha, spotted! Ok, well in that case the cheapest I could find was £19.99 (from two different providers), but I'm not going looking for it again.

adam

Ardmore

Originally posted by theking
From RTE News

"A spokeswoman for ESAT said they already had a broadband service available at a price of €48.50 per month (€59 incl. VAT). She said only 600 customers had signed on for the service, suggesting consumers do not want the service at this price."

That must be why I don't work for a telecommunicationscompany! It suggests to me that consumers don't even know the service is available - I know I wouldn't know about it if it wasn't for forums like this!

ozt9vdujny3srf

tbh i think d/l caps are a necassary part of and=y DSL seervice, it stops the kazaa whores from hogging bandwith.

4gb is better than three, 55 euro's is not that bad

My only reral gripe about the cap is that around a 10gb cap is closer to the mark

and i am very worried about what the contention ratios will be.

I will be waiting until summer, when hopefully esat/utv have offered a product to compete with this eircom product(as hey should because the wholesale price for dsl will have to be reduced)

skrobe

Ok i know im goin be torn apart for this , but did anyone see this coming ?? not a bad price for 512k even with the cap. wonder what esat/utv will release at surely below it. Iwas goin to say fair play to ****** but my keyboard wouldnt let me ... just aswell!!
j

PiE

UTV, Esat etc will (if they bother their arses) be able to launch this product at the same time as Eircom. It's up to the ISP to determine their OWN download allowance/cap. So I wouldn't go saying "feck that, no point with a cap" as they may decide not to introduce a cap at all... and even if they do, I can see UTV being open to suggestions :]

JTMan

It is misleading to say that the price is €55. It's €55 plus Line Rental at €19.60 = €75 . The press should be quoating €75. €75 a month for a capped slower service is still far too bloody expensive. Very few places in the world charge an extra line rental charge on top of DSL. A bloody Eircon disgrace.

DSL can be got for £12.99 in the UK (See the Top 10 low-cost DSL providers in .net magazine)

LoGiE

Personally a cap doesn't bother me. I only have so much HD space. I'd be saving a lot of cash subscribing to a DSL product at this price.

PiE

Originally posted by Muck
Next stop from ESAT,
256/128
€49.99 all in per month,
24:1
5GB cap and self install kit. G'wan

Why would you pay €50 for a 256k instead of €60 for 512k (even taking the contention into consideration)?

Praetorian

I presume this is 512x128...?

Most people in the UK get 512x256 with no cap in the uk....

512 is nice for downloading...but 128 really isnt enough...sure I have that already with my isdn

BKtje

so how much will this self install cost
and any diea if they fixed the ping issue yet?

De Rebel

Originally posted by theking
Incidentally, the 1800503303 call centre's systems had collapsed when I rang a while back due to the surge in calls.

And 1800 512128 is also switched off. The lady I got diverted to said "their lines are down", and didn't seem to realise the sarcasam when I suggested that she call Eircom and report the fault.

Its a bit suspicious that they are not answering. Usually they staff up for a day like today. Why did they send the staff home early. I wonder if there is something we are not being told................

dahamsta

and didn't seem to realise the sarcasam when I suggested that she call Eircom and report the fault.

*snort*