UTVip and FRIACO

Scott Taunton

I am conscious that here at UTV Internet, we have not been as active on the boards in recent weeks, but I can assure you that it's not because we've had our eye off the ball. We have been busy trying to develop a FRIACO model which will allow us to continue with our ambition of expanding consumer choice for internet services in the Republic of Ireland.

Given the proposed pricing set out by Eircom in late February, this proved to be more difficult that we had at first thought. While the pricing, at first glance, looked attractive, we discovered two key problems:

1. As an ISP, we are unable to directly order the ports from Eircom and must use a third party telecoms provider.

2. The pricing of €14779 per FRIACO port per annum excludes install and backhaul charges. In some cases, this lifted our base price to over €50,000 per annum, or €140 per line per month.

Clearly this made it difficult for us to get in place a model that represents value to Irish consumers, while allowing us to recoup the other costs of admin, hardware, marketing etc. Furthermore, all orders needed to be placed with Eircom by no later than 12 March for delivery by 25 June.

I am delighted, however, to announce that we have now ordered these circuits and will be operating our FRIACO service in all 48 primary exchanges. Therefore, our offering will be available to anyone with an Eircom phone line. We will be publishing full details of the service offering in the coming weeks.

I would like to thank everyone involved in the process for their assistance. We see this as a positive step toward the goals of Ireland Offline and a strengthening of the competitive landscape within Ireland. Ireland Offline, Esat, ComReg and Energis have been supportive and we are grateful for their efforts. Of course the dedicated team at UTVi have worked hard to prove that UTVip is a valuable stepping stone for us and demonstration of the value of quality service and support.

Whilst our final pricing is still being modelled, I would like to show our appreciation to our existing customers and give the following assurance.

Any UTVip customer, active on or before 1 June 2003 will pay no more for our 24/7 FRIACO product than they currently pay for their UTVip off-peak subscription. We will allow all of our customers to convert to the 24/7 product at no extra cost and without any setup or admin charges. Of course, should our FRIACO price be less than our UTVip service, your subscription will be changed to reflect the price reduction.

UTVip Lite customers will be able to maintain their existing service, although they will be able to use their account during peak times as well as off-peak as part of their 30 hours per month.

We will keep you posted on developments with our FRIACO offering when we are in a position to do so. We would also like to encourage debate within this forum about the final product itself. This occured with UTVip and led, we feel, to a better product for all.

Scott Taunton
Managing Director
UTV Internet

tribble

I'm just about to go home and try out my new 150 hour account with you.


Cheers,

tribble

BArra

wooooooohoooooooooooooooooooooooo




baz

SkepticOne

It is great that day time use will now be brought down in price. This will help those who work from home or are tied to the home, such as people with disabilities and the disabled.

One thing I'd like to see is an affordable off-peak product priced in such a way as to bring in moderate users of the internet in addition to heavier users. Although the ~10 euro packages in the UK might not be possible, the lower the price the better. At a higher price it won't attract the 62% of people that use such services in the UK, but I think that demand would be considerable.

Raskolnikov

Nice one Soon we'll finally have FRIACO, certainly a far cry from the days when we used to be getting charged €100's per month for a few measly hours on the net.

Well done all at UTV and keep up the great work

PiE

Well I'd just like to thank you for informing us of the situation Scott and to say that you'll definately have my custom in the future, whatever happens with DSL & FRIACO.

Tazz T

Another example of superb customer service from UTV. eircom take note.

Even if eircom come out with a lower priced FRIACO product, I very much doubt there'll be anyone from these boards taking it,.:D

Congratulations to you and your team Scott. You deserve every success for listening to your customers, talking to your customers and developing products centred around customers needs.

DMT

Originally posted by Scott Taunton
Any UTVip customer, active on or before 1 June 2003 will pay no more for our 24/7 FRIACO product than they currently pay for their UTVip off-peak subscription.
We will allow all of our customers to convert to the 24/7 product at no extra cost and without any setup or admin charges.

Will this be done automatically, or will the UTVip user have to request it?

RicardoSmith

Music to my ears. I can't get DSL or really even need it. But I need FRIACO. I assume you still need to switch the telephoney to UTVip aswell? BTW I think that you need to offer a backup connection with different routing for people who need to be able to hook up 24/7 for biz needs etc. In case theres ever problems with the primary connections. Personally I don't use much bandwidth but spend a lot of time surfing for info for development info and also email and forums etc. I haven't switched before since the down times that have happened with dialup users concerns me. The IDSN guys seem to have had no problems however. Also I wouldn't be online 24/7 but need to control the cost of my surfing, so its the primarily the cost saving aspect that has me sold on FRIACO.

Mark_irl

Now I can definitely tell that anoying little sh!t from Eircon who keeps ringing me up to change back to them, where to go. Fair play UTVip, I am going to name my first born after you!!!!

mike65

:eek: At this point I'd just like to say...
Thunk!

Sorry, I fainted!

Mike.

ps

Of course, should our FRIACO price be less than our UTVip service, your subscription will be changed to reflect the price reduction.

Thats what I like about UTVip- unbridled optimism!

KdjaCL

Hmm is this the very 1st actual 100% kill on the IOFFL hit list??
This is excellent news and to me seems 100% genuine and very soon ireland will have FRIACO.

Good job IOFFL and well done UTV for the having the balls to get this product out.

kdjac

ando

We will allow all of our customers to convert to the 24/7 product at no extra cost and without any setup or admin charges

nice touch utv

jonski

-->Scott Taunton<-- he shoots .....he scores ....and the crown here go wild ....

nice one as usual ,just because we've come to except it from ye doesn't mean ye shouldn't get the praise.

dahamsta

Great stuff Scott. Thanks for taking the time to come here and update us on your progress.

adam

DeVore

Well well well... seems like this was the week for interesting developments in FRIACO...

WTG Scott and the UTV guys!

btw, I've dropped a note in your PM box if you get a chance.

DeV.

Nyum Nyum

Nice one Scott

spongebob

congrats UTV, first on the block with a firm FRIACO announcement and price(ish)...and you are a TV station not a telco.

mention it in the Net/Comms forum as well Scott.

M

crazyasafox

I have read most of the posts from the being but cant remember Scot,will isdn be supported?,cause if so I better get cracking and order one as you know how long it takes them
Thanks

Moriarty

Ive been having a think, and a few things popped into my head. Have a few seperate FRIACO offerings.

• A low-end offering that has a 1hour disconnect, 1/2 email addresses and single channel support for as low a price as you can make it. This will attract many people who are just looking for preditability in pricing from their internet access.
  
• An offering aimed at most people that has a 2/3 hour disconnect, 5/unlimited email addresses, a bit of webspace and single channel support for a mid-range price. This will attract the most of any of the three packages and should be designed as such, for a bit extra per month.
  
• Have a high-end offering that has no disconnects (or perhaps every 12 hours/similar? to stop people taking the piss ), 20/unlimited email addresses, a fair bit of webspace (perhaps with mysql etc support?) and most importantly dual-channel support for 128k isdn. Obviously customers pay a premium for this package, but i feel there is a large market for it, whatwith broadband not being available to the majority of people who want it.

Any other suggestions?

Ruu_Old

I wonder will the new package be bundled with the telephony service, time will tell i guess Congrats UTV and IOFFL

sunbeam

Originally posted by Moriarty
A low-end offering that has a 1hour disconnect, 1/2 email addresses and single channel support for as low a price as you can make it. This will attract many people who are just looking for preditability in pricing from their internet access

Well whatever about the 10-15 mins idle timout I'd hate to see the maximum session time reduced from the current 12 hours. I don't have any need for multiple email addresses or webspace, but I do download quite a few large files-and at 16.8kbps some can take a loooooooong time....

Tellox

Although Im no longer a utv customer (I've switched to esatbt broadband), I'd like to offer my congratulations, its great to see an isp working for the irish people,and my past few months on utvip have helped me keep my bill down

If you ever set up a dsl exchange in waterford,you can sign me up as a customer.

exiztone

Hey,
just wanted to say excelent work!
I can't wait to get this product although I'm worried about one thing. Although UTVip has been a perfect ISP for me to date, little to no problems. I fear adding the 24/7 deal may run down the quality of the service. Remember Esat No Limits? Remember how poor it was when all of Ireland signed up for that, no-one could connect from 6pm - 10pm. I don't want to see that happening to UTVip.

Stonemason

Im going to have to get ISDN back in which means more money for Eircon grrrr.

O well at least i can now afford to enjoy the net again

good work UTV

the corpo

that's fantastic news.

i'm in the unfortunate position of using utv dial up during the daytime a lot, and while the peak saver rate has been great, i cannot wait for june 8)

nice one, utv

Valentia

I'm a complete UTVip fan. No dropouts, Pings don't bother me. I've told the Eircon guys on the phone where to go etc etc etc.

I'm with "Great Scott" &Co for the long haul.

Well done and thanks!

Another small step to ADSL here in Trim.

LoBo

great news UTVi - been a happy user since day one - will be even happier to tell the family (I'm in australia) that they need do nothing to get the 24/7 dialup I told them was in the works.

Can I recommend you take up Devore's offer of a few weeks ago for a FREE commercial interaction forum? Go to Community->Commercial Interaction->Komplett to see how well its worked for them - I think it would be a great idea for such a proactive company as yours.


Colm

Malcolm

Originally posted by Stonemason
Im going to have to get ISDN back in which means more money for Eircon grrrr.

O well at least i can now afford to enjoy the net again

good work UTV

To clarify several points:
1. The initial service will only support single channel ISDN similiar to the existing UTVip service.

2. We will not automatically transfer existing customers to the new service as there will be a minimum three month term re-instated. We would prefer customers to request the upgrade to the new service and agree to whatever the new terms and conditions will be. In the meantime those wishing to move to the new service can request this by e-mail or telephone and we will keep this on record and process closer to launch.

LFCFan

I like the fact that Lite users will be able to use the 30 hours at peak times too. Perfect! Nice one UTVip.

Nuphor

This is indeed excellent news. Am I right in assuming that you must sign up to UTV's voice telephony service too in order to use the product?

p2p

I like the fact that Lite users will be able to use the 30 hours at peak times too. Perfect! Nice one UTVip

Does this mean that the non lite users will be restricted to 150 hours per month with the concession that they will be able to connect anytime?

Forgive me if im asking a stupid question but will there still be a limit on the hours imposed but no limit on when the user connects , ie not true FRIACO ? If you can clarify this that would be great..

Cork

It is great to see a company with some customer service.

Have UTVip any idea when a FAIRCO product will be offered?

Will it still be bundled in with the UTV phone service?

I am not a UTVip customer but I am seriously considering it.

Well done - UTVip.

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by p2p
Does this mean that the non lite users will be restricted to 150 hours per month with the concession that they will be able to connect anytime?

Forgive me if im asking a stupid question but will there still be a limit on the hours imposed but no limit on when the user connects , ie not true FRIACO ? If you can clarify this that would be great..

I was just about to ask the same thing. Is this going to be a service that can be accessed at any time, day or night, for as long as you want (perhaps with a reasonable disconnect time every few hours, say every 3 or 4 hours to stop people acting the bo**ocks and using it like an always-on connection) or is it going to be a BT UK style service of an allowance of 150 hours that you can use anytime, day or night? Because if it's the latter then it's not a proper flat-rate service, is it? It's just the same as the current offering only it can be used any time as opposed to just off-peak.

Okay, while it would be a start and pretty welcome, a 150 hours allowance service isn't proper flat-rate, though. Of course, surprise surprise, a lot of this will probably come down to what Eircom decides too, I bet.

Can someone from UTVip clear all this up please? That's, of course, if you have any idea yourselves what's going to happen as I'm sure these things are still being worked out.

exiztone

I was curious about this myself.
Either way, it's still a step forward right?
But if UTVip DO however decide to make it peak/offpeak but restricted to 150 hours. I beg of them to increase the hours to round about 200, because if I have the option to go on peak time, I'll use up my hours much much quicker

SkepticOne

I'm a bit worried that people talking about huge numbers of hours will put UTV off offering true flat rate access like they do in the North. Flat rate only works if it appeals mainly to those who want a fixed bill each month and no call charges, but aren't necessarily going to use it all hours.

UTV can easily show that it isn't economical if the average is above a certain number of hours a month. If they are then forced to introduce caps on the number of hours, this will put of light and moderate users who don't want to keep track of the hours they use.

Flat rate is not possible if the ISP (any ISP) only caters to the heavy users. It is only possible if it appeals to large numbers of light users. The relatively small number of heavy users can then be accomodated.

What we need, therefore, is a low cost, true flat rate product that appeals the a very wide range of people. It needs fairly heavy advertising too, to bring them in.

nahdoic

150 hours is still 5 hours a day for me. Personally, that's plenty for me.

Perhaps UTV could introduce a super heavy user package at a more expensive price, that also allows for 2 ISDN lines to be used at once? Personally I don't want to subsidise people who feel the need to use the net more than 5 hours a day. This isn't a broadband service.

Would people who want to use it more than 150 hours be prepared to pay more? If not, I'm not sure what you expect a company looking to make a profit to do.

PiE

I think you're missing the whole point of FRIACO nahdoic.

FRIACO is supposed to make it profitable for a company to allow unrestricted dialup access (within reason of course).

If I'm still stuck with 56k come June, I don't wanna be watching any feckin' online-timer whatsoever.

And 5hours a day may be fine for the average user, but what about companies who need it on from 9am-6pm? (Or 24/7 for that matter.)

SkepticOne

Originally posted by PiE
And 5hours a day may be fine for the average user, but what about companies who need it on from 9am-6pm? (Or 24/7 for that matter.)

In Britain, some ISPs have special day time only services based on FRIACO in addition to 24 hour and off-peak FRIACO based producs. This is the way I would like to see things developing here.

By 24 hour, I mean anytime as opposed to all the time. Flat rate dial-up (based on FRIACO wholesale or otherwise) will never be "always on". For this, you really need broadband.

The problem with different products for heavy and light users is that we are back to the clock watching situation, i.e., non flat rate, since heavy and light users will be defined according to the number of hours they use.

If we want true flat rate, we need to start thinking about those who won't be heavy users. These are the people who make money for the ISP. It is because of these people that the relatively small number of heavy users can be accomodated.

What I would like to see from UTV in particular is something like the Esat, ahem, "nolimits" service, but with idle cutoffs and mandatory periodic cut offs to free up the modem banks rather than time allowances.

Light users won't be affected too much by these cut offs but will be attracted to the fixed monthly bills and no call charges.

This won't be an easy feat to pull off, but if anyone can do it, UTV can. They have the experience and marketing power.

nahdoic

Actually PiE, i think you're getting confused between FRIACO and broadband.

If a company is using FRIACO to stay on-line from 9:00 am to 5:00pm then they are already abusing the service. That's just not profitable for the ISP. If a company needs that, and they can't get it from broadband, then they should be prepared to pay more for it.

Yes, it sure would be nice not have to watch any on-line timer, it sure would be nice to have to pay anything for our internet access, it sure would be nice if we were all on 100mBit/s internet connections, it sure would be nice ...

But let's deal with reality, UTV only have a certain amount of bandwidth available at any one time, and they'll have to portion that out to their users in a profitable way.

If an individual intends to use the service, keeping their line always on 24/7, that just isn't profitable for any company. Or excessively using the service more than the average person, why shouldn't they have to pay more? Why should the average users, who use the service reasonably have to subsidise these people?

nahdoic

We don't want clock-watching of couse, but there's a heck of a difference between clock-watching for 150 hrs a month, and clock-watching for per min. charging.

I personally don't mind, slightly restricting my use of the internet, if it means I can get a cheaper net package.

And with FRIACO it would be possible now for UTV to introduce a more expensive and a good deal more unrestricted service for the heavy users. While keep a nice and cheap service for the light users.

seamus

Originally posted by aidan_dunne
Is this going to be a service that can be accessed at any time, day or night, for as long as you want ........ or is it going to be a BT UK style service of an allowance of 150 hours that you can use anytime, day or night? Because if it's the latter then it's not a proper flat-rate service, is it? It's just the same as the current offering only it can be used any time as opposed to just off-peak.

Originally posted by Scott Taunton
Any UTVip customer, active on or before 1 June 2003 will pay no more for our 24/7 FRIACO product than they currently pay for their UTVip off-peak subscription. We will allow all of our customers to convert to the 24/7 product at no extra cost and without any setup or admin charges. Of course, should our FRIACO price be less than our UTVip service, your subscription will be changed to reflect the price reduction.

That seems pretty clear to me UTVip have earned my (and hopefully everyone else's) respect, but even if they say it's 150 hours, it's still good.

I like the "June 1st, 2003" touch (is this an official/estimated release date for UTVip FRIACO? ). I've been seriously considering this, and now have more reason then ever to take a gander at my finances and see if I can make it.

I officially invite everyone from UTVip to the boards beer in McTurkels (Dublin) next Saturday. You'd probably be guaranteed that you won't have to pay for a single drink

SkepticOne

Originally posted by nahdoic
And with FRIACO it would be possible now for UTV to introduce a more expensive and a good deal more unrestricted service for the heavy users. While keep a nice and cheap service for the light users.

Yes, and this would be a vast improvement on what is there already. It would be the end of true flat rate, though, and this would be a great shame.

For true flat rate, I believe the following is needed:

1. Cheap price, possibly limited to off-peak use only (e.g. Freeserves 'hometime'). Aim to capture a large number of users rather than profit from a small number of heavy users.

2. Measures to free up resources (e.g. on Freeserves 'hometime' service users agree to: "All internet calls will be subject to network traffic management controls. Freeserve reserves the right to disconnect you after 2 hours continuous use and/or 10 minutes of inactivity during a connection session.") This would rule out certain activities, but would not affect the light to moderate users too much.

3. Differentiate FRIACO based products on time of use (e.g. evening off peak, day time, and 'any time') rather than number of hours. The complete removal of clock watching will be attractive to all and be a major selling point.

4. Advertise widely, emphasising convenience, lack of call charges and the fixed monthly price.

5. Encourage heavy users onto broadband, if available. This will become possible once the 54 euro product is out. A lot of these users will want broadband anyway.

Urban Weigl

A 150 hour monthly limit would defeat the purpose of having a FRIACO based access product. And for those using much less (I know there will be a lot of people only using it for about an hour a day), they may feel ripped off because they aren't using all their "pre paid online time".

On the other hand having some fair use restrictions such as a 15 minute idle timeout and a kickoff time of between 2 and 4 hours would be much fairer. Clock watching just should not to forced upon people again.

PiE

You'll notice I said "within reason", but if for example I need to be online for 200hrs the odd month, I don't wanna have to pay extra for that. If I was continually using it for 200-300 hours per month, well of course I'd expect to be warned by the ISP, but I don't wanna have to buy a more expensive pre-paid minutes package just on the off-chance I might need it once or twice during the year.

Hopefully this is all pointless anyway, and UTV will have DSL out before then.

Why should the average users, who use the service reasonably have to subsidise these people?

Originally posted by nahdoic
But let's deal with reality...

nahdoic

A 150 hour monthly limit would defeat the purpose of having a FRIACO based access product.
The purpose is for the ISP to be able to get access at a flat rate, no off-peak, no on-peak, no per min. charging. A flat rate charge for a certain amount of bandwidth.

And for those using much less (I know there will be a lot of people only using it for about an hour a day), they may feel ripped off because they aren't using all their "pre paid online time"

They'd be able to get UTVip lite at a really, really cheap price.

On the other hand having some fair use restrictions such as a 15 minute idle timeout and a kickoff time of between 2 and 4 hours would be much fairer. Clock watching just should not to forced upon people again.

You're kidding right? the only way a kick off would work, would be, if you had been on-line for 4 hours, then you couldn't get connected for say another hour. If it's just a matter of dialing up to the net again, then it's not going to make the slightest difference to heavy users.

Urban Weigl

nahdoic, I did not think up the model I am proposing. It is tried and tested in the UK, by ISP's such as Freeserve, Tiscali and AOL (actually AOL don't have any kickoff or limitations at all, I believe). Last time I checked, the laws of physics were the same in Ireland as the UK.

nahdoic

Urban Weigl,

This country, unlike other countries is starved of actual broadband, and believe ISDN to be broadband. You give this country the ability to be connected 24/7 without a real and effective alternative to actual broadband, and propose such limp restrictions as 15 min idle cut off time, and a 2 hour disconnect, watch as the service becomes over loaded, and jammed to capacity by the heavy users. Mark my words.

Urban Weigl

While I take your point, to be absolutely fair about this the UK was in a similar situation when FRIACO was first introduced -- ADSL was unavailable to most people, and the price was far too high.

If we end up with capacity problems, the solution is to improve the customers per port ratio. If that forces the price up, ComReg has a good pretext to make Eircom lower its wholesale FRIACO prices. I for one would like to believe that Ireland still has a chance.

SkepticOne

I think there is a certain agreement that there won't be 24/7 "always on" flat rate internet access out of the FRIACO wholesale product. It would be nice to have it, but it is not realistic to expect it.

In terms of restrictions, however, I think that time based restrictions would be unfortunate. Let's say an ISB brought out a 200 hour a month package. This would not be particularly attractive to light users for whom 200 hours seems to an incredible amount of time to spend sitting in front of a computer. Of course they would not be forced to do so, but they would feel they are not getting their moneys worth if they don't.

On the other hand, Moderate users would tend to increase their usage in order to use up 'their' 200 hours.

These are, admittedly, two extremes, but nevertheless, the ISP would be left catering to mainly moderate to heavy users and might therefore have to reduce the monthly allowance in order to be profitable.

This is why I would follow the UK model with cut offs rather than time based restrictions.

Pure time based restrictions are crude in any case in that they don't take into acccount the peak hours of use.

nahdoic

PiE, Urban Weigl, SkepticOne the freeserver model works by attracting a huge number of people a low, low price and offering 24x7 net access and then kicking off the heavy users, or giving the heavy users a lousy quality of service. This works, is this what we want? Well it will attract in the low end users, so yes that's a good idea.

But with the complete lack of affordable BB, I think an ISP should also offer a better, more reliable service to business/heavy users at a more expensive price, without 2 hour cut offs. However this is going to be very hard to market if you're already saying you're offering 24/7 internet access at a low, low price.

It really does depend, do you want your ISP to be up front and honest, or devious and sly? I really like the 150 hrs a limit, it's up front and honest. But from what I'm hearing not too many people seem to think like that. Freeserve say they provide 24/7 access to get you in, but if you start actually using it 24/7 they kick you off. You'd fall into their 1% of users of whatever.

I really hope people here aren't deluding themselves to think, that they'll actually get 24/7 access? It's just not possible. But if you work with UTV now, who knows maybe we can work out some products that could actually be better than the rest of the world.