Finally, "Cheap" ADSL is here

De Rebel

All the details are at www.adsl.ie

Presumably it is now available for order.

Congratulations IOFFL, and a word of thanks to UTV and all at the DCMNR for jerking Eircom into action.

(Wonder if this thread will get the same number of congratulatory posts and Vendor involvement that Adam's did when UTV launched their partial flat rate – can’t wait to see Eircom tailor the product as a result of user feedback here)

The Brigadier

I was just speaking to eircom today.

I finally ordered ADSL after having my line tested 15 times, it finally pased.....why, now after all this time???

Anyway I saw the same page and was wondering how they could offer the starter service, which, according to their website is a better package than Solo, at half the price.

The agent I was talking to (on their sales line) told me he was only doing sales and that was a question for their Tech Support?? WTF!! Well he told me the package was not available yet, and that until approved by comreg it was illegal for them to publicise it in any way.

When I pointed out it was on their website, he told me that was eircom.net and as such a seperate company (buck passed-success!!) When I pointed out it was hosted on eircom.ie, and as such his company he stalled.....

The reason he gave for the price difference, was that the speed on the starter package would vary between 256k and 512k (didn't see that anywhere on the website)
He told me that eircom would guarantee a connection of 512k on i-stream solo. I was impressed by this. So I asked him what the contention ratio was on i-stream solo, expecting him quite naturally to say 1:1. After he pottered off to find out what a contention ratio was, he told me it was 24:1.

Now, I am not a broadband expert by any stretch, but how on this earth can they ***guarantee*** a constat downstream of 512k?????

dahamsta

Presumably it is now available for order.

I can't find anything on the Business section, but in the residential section it says:

"You will be able to order eircom i-stream starter from April 11th on eircom.ie."

adam

Urban Weigl

While it is definitely a step in the right direction, and I think we would not be here today without Ireland Offline (my hat goes off to you), the fight is definitely not over because:

-- Joe Street won't purchase ADSL if it is priced above 30-40 euros a month, inclusive of VAT, and that's according to ComReg themselves. This is 54 euros a month inclusive of VAT, and the installation fee comes to 245 euros, more if you don't want to self-install or need more than just a crappy USB modem.

245 euros installation plus 54 euros for a very low end product is still far to expensive.

-- It is still capped, though 4 GB is an improvement over what it was before.

Balfa

Not wanting to defend my arch-enemy, but maybe because they're using that uh... long-range? somethingDSL that people have been talking about, they only guarantee a 256k connection to the DSLAM, whereas with daddy istream, you have to be closer to the exchange, and they guarantee 512k to the DSLAM, although obviously the connection from there on won't necessarily be 512k.

sorry for the lack of technical termyness.

boob

The Cigarette Smoking Man

One amusing point - they haven't changed the caps on the existing i-stream products. So you can now get i-stream starter for €45 a month with a 4GB cap or else you could go for i-stream solo for €89 a month with a 3GB cap :rolleyes:

Boston

eircom i-stream solo
For a single user, on a single computer

The product has both a USB port or Ethernet option.
Speeds are up to 512kbps downstream / 128kbps upstream.
Connection fee is 165 excl. VAT - Monthly fee is 89 excl. VAT.
Additional equipment required; ADSL USB modem 145 exc. VAT or ADSL Ethernet modem 200 excl. VAT.
For eircom I-stream solo the monthly allowance is 3GB**

eircom i-stream starter
The product has both a USB or Ethernet option.
Speeds 512Kbps downstream/128Kbps upstream*
Connection fee is 165 excl. VAT - Monthly fee is 45 excl. VAT
Additional equipment required ADSL USB modem 120 excl. VAT or ADSL Ethernet modem 200 excl. VAT.
The monthly download allowance is 4GB**

I doubt these two services are there for a laugh, I'd liek to see to contetnion ratio for the starter pack servive. actually i wouldn't because eircom are a shower of tossers

Urban Weigl

They're there so that they can continue billing existing users at the old rates, not to mention the nice 12 month contract... :mad:

PiE

Originally posted by Urban Weigl
245 euros installation...

Hmm.. I still have the splitter from when I was on the trial (they just took the USB modem back)... I wonder if they'd still try to charge me.

Anyway, yea congrats and all that IOFFL but c'mooooooon UTV

Ardmore

Originally posted by James Melody
I was just speaking to eircom today.

I finally ordered ADSL after having my line tested 15 times, it finally pased.....why, now after all this time???

Because they are now testing to a lower specification. Previously, lines were failed if they couldn't support a 1MB connection, even if you only wanted the 512K service.

The Brigadier

But Eircom tried to sell me up to the I-stream multi 1Mb service?

parasite

who's gonna buy this ?
i'm crying out for dsl but i won't even consider it at that price

LFCFan

have you ever noticed the address in the status bar of your browser when you hover over a link on the €ircon website? It comes up as http://mmm instead of http://.www. What the hell is that all about?

Not a chance I am going to buy this ADSL service at that price(not that I can get it anyway). Max I would go for would be €50 a month INCLUDING line rental.

spongebob

...is of interest too.

Eircom have loaded a mysterious unregistered database with numbers that prequalify

first get the account number off your bill and the phone number in the format 011234567

the click on

http://prequal.eircom.ie/launch.asp?SITE=BUS

and ummmmmm enter the data

Ardmore

Originally posted by Urban Weigl
-- Joe Street won't purchase ADSL if it is priced above 30-40 euros a month, inclusive of VAT,

Joe Street UK is paying £29.99, which is €44.50
Joe Street US is paying $39.99-$49.99, which is €38 to €47.50

(BT Openworld in the UK, Verizon and MSN in the US. Sure, you can get better deals, but this is what "Joe Street" is paying).

the installation fee comes to 245 euros, more if you don't want to self-install or need more than just a crappy USB modem.

Yup, that is still way too expensive. But note that that's still listed as one of their business products. I'm assuming that whatever bod in eircoms propaganda department organized last months pre-emptive press release that specifically addressed the residential market will throw a typical marketing-type hissy fit come monday morning, and a suitably rejigged "At Home" page will be hastly thrown up (the i-stream pages have to be the crappiest looking pages on the eircom websites).

I note that the ZyXel USB modem is available for as little as £60+VAT in the UK, as against Eircoms €120+VAT. Don't the idiots realize that €20 profit on the modem will cost them a lot more than that in lost supscriptions?

MagicBusDriver

As I understand it, the the self-install cost €99 to install. You can buy ADSL modem in dublin for about €90. So its not that expensive. The cap is the only real negative I see.

Ardmore

Originally posted by LFCFan
Not a chance I am going to buy this ADSL service at that price(not that I can get it anyway). Max I would go for would be €50 a month INCLUDING line rental.

Nobody else in Europe is getting DSL for that price. (It's €63 in the UK, including line rental, and even in the US, most people are paying well above €50, if you insist on being perverse about including line rental).

The Smircher

Or you can get the X-Modem from adslnation in the UK for STG£69.99.

Bought one last week for a project that I was working on, and it worked straight out of the box.
It has a USB and Ethernet connection.

They're currently testing it with broadband routers and currently only the Buffalo WBR-G54 is compatible.

spongebob

Originally posted by Ardmore
Nobody else in Europe is getting DSL for that price. (It's €63 in the UK, including line rental, and even in the US, most people are paying well above €50, if you insist on being perverse about including line rental).

You could be more perverse than usual Ardmore and go read around the Boards rather than make incorrect statements like your last one. 512k ADSL IS in Europe for under €50 including Line Rental and VAT , albeit in farsighted countries and not here in the E-Tub

If you read the "Cost of Broadband" thread on top you will note that ADSL in Sweden is available for €32.50 in a country where Line Rental is around €14 a month, not €21 like here.. It is branded istream .... for 298 Kroner .

€32.50+€14 = €46.50

Not surprisingly our Scandinavian correspondent laid into your chums in Eircom in that post about the situation here vis a vis Sweden. He could get the service in the back end of Lapland while in Ireland it has hardly appeared outside the M50

M

The Brigadier

OOOOOHHHH!!!

I'd love an 8Mb Powerstream connection....

spongebob

The 4Mb powerstream would be €82 a month (749 kroner) + €14 Line Rental which is €96 all in...for 4Mb but not very widely available in Lapland it seems

The Clown Man

IBB are offering a €48 inc. VAT service in Dublin. It is there and it is around what should be charged for broadband.

Not to mention that it is 512k 8:1 ratio.

This is the type of service I WILL accept. (Luckily enough it is coming to me in the next couple of weeks. )

MarVeL

As to who is going to buy this product I'm afraid I may be one. Much and all as I would prefer to give my ill earned gains to someone else (UTV or IBB any chance of a bb link to Lucan????) I need to get in a flat rate product soon and this seems to be the only game in town :-(. The price would roughly half what I am currently paying (to Eircom) every 2 months. I know this situation doesn't match up with the average Joe Public but I'd say there are quite a few poor sods like myself who are heading towards bite the bullet time.
This leaves me with 2 questions:
1) is there any confirmation on the €99 self install price mentioned above or is that a best guess at the moment?
2)Anyone know if theres even a guess as to a date for the other companies to have pricing (or in the case of IBB a mast in Lucan) out?

Eircom for at least another 12 months?????
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

CuLT

http://homepage.eircom.net/~cult/internet1.jpg

milltown

Marvel,
I spoke to IBB about Lucan the other week and was told they are looking at sites for a transmitter but reckon any offering is still a couple of months off.
Me, I'm going to hang fire for the time being and see if it happens or else see what Esat and UTV come up with.

Ardmore

Originally posted by Muck
You could be more perverse than usual Ardmore and go read around the Boards rather than make incorrect statements like your last one. 512k ADSL IS in Europe for under €50 including Line Rental and VAT , albeit in farsighted countries and not here in the E-Tub

or the UK, or the US. Nobody gets DSL without paying line rental, even in a farsighted country like Sweden.

I don't have any "chums" in eircom, but I can tell you this for nothing. If we all play the béal bocht like you and LFCFan, and refuse to go anywhere near this offering, you can be damned sure that it'll be a long time before we see any improvement in the situation. But if the offering is widley taken up, and other operators see that there is a market that they can profit from, then we will see a difference in the next 12 months, just as the UK saw a difference over the last 12 months. I'd love to pay my €54 to UTV or ESAT (and €49 would be even better if they can swing it) rather than eircom. But I'm not going to cut my own nose off just to spite my face, and turn down a service that is now available within my price window.

I would also qualify for both Wisp and IBB, but the €350 or so that installation would cost is too rich for me (and having been burnt by Formus, I have an inherent preference for wires over wireless).

Ardmore

Originally posted by MarVeL
1) is there any confirmation on the €99 self install price mentioned above or is that a best guess at the moment?

It's printed right there on www.adsl.ie (€81.81 ex VAT - it's still listed only as a "business" solution).

MarVeL

Thanks Ardmore eyesight must have been failing me earlier.

Now if anyone could come up with as nice an answer to my second question I would be even happier :-)

Ardmore

Originally posted by MarVeL
Now if anyone could come up with as nice an answer to my second question I would be even happier :-)

Yes, I'd like to know too - if UTV indicated that they'd have something a month or two down the road, I'd be happy to hold out, but if there aren't any hints, I'd be inclined to go ahead. I'm already in range of IBB and IrishWISP, but with installation of €380 for IBB, or €360 for IrishWISP, as against €210 (assuming I don't have to buy the modem from eircom), the wired option is a lot more attractive to me.

Dawg

Thread should ne renamed "finally, "cheap" ADSL is there" cos it certainly aint here. I'm in Balbriggan and the options are pretty slim for BB in the next year.

I received a mail from a Georgina Mc Hale in Esat last week stating that they do not cover this area and have no intentions of upgrading any more exchanges across the country in the near future.

Residential DSL is available in Ireland. Unfortunately it's not currently
available in your area.
At the moment we have no plans for to rollout any more exchanges.

If anyone knows of any providers, wireles or otherwise, I'd be happy to hear from them. I'm haqppy for the people that can avail of the current BB services but in reality it means nothing to the rest of us (majority of the country) stuck on crap dial-up connections.

As for Eircon, I'd wait an extra year before giving them a cent more than I have to. Cutting off your nose to spite your face? Fair enough, I can live with that easier than giving them feckers anything more than I'm currently forced to.

Come on UTV, do us all a favour..

dieselfreak

Dawg.. you may allready have looked at this option...

But if your really interested in getting BB at a low cost... try getting involved with IrishWAN it may take you and a few others but if your exchange isnt upgraded, and its on eircoms long finger, it may be the easiest way of getting networking from you house to an area where the exchange has been upgraded....

just a thought