EirSport secure the broadcast rights to the Guinness PRO14

Several questions here! Would greatly appreciate some or all answers!

I am currently on Virgin. 70 p/m there or there abouts. Light broadband usage. Netflix is the heaviest traffic it sees. Is Eir significantly worse? (Dublin area)

What are the standard channels like on Eir TV? Is HD an option?

Is the Champions Cup exclusively on BT or do Sky Sports still have some?

Can you get Eir/ BT on Sky? How much is Sky p/m? (TV and broadband)

Eir offering 50p/m for 1 year and 96 p/m after. Not too bad a deal given I will be watching 10+ games a month on Eir and BT

Whichever way I look at it, I am switching from Virgin, not thrilled about it as I find them quite good. But their lack of rugby now means it's time to switch. Pity.

I don't watch, nor have I any interest in watching, Soccer, Golf, F1, Kabbadi or any other sport these companies want to pedal me. If it is on I will watch it, but the only thing I want to watch and will pay for is Rugby

Hurrache wrote: »

But I'm extremely important and demand packages tailored to me god dammit!!

Me too god dammit!

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Have my broadband through my employer so no choice for me. I’ll have to use Premier Sports

Possible to get it in Ireland without resorting to nefarious IP shenanigans??

Former Former wrote: »

Pretty much every house in the country has an Eircom line, it only needs to be activated.

Yes, but some of us are so far from an exchange that dial up would be faster.

irishbucsfan

Zzippy wrote: »

Possible to get it in Ireland without resorting to nefarious IP shenanigans??

Don't think so

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Don't think so

We may have to discuss this further via PM

Dave_The_Sheep

Is it confirmed that said ip shenanigans will work with Premier Rugby? They don't work with BBC, for example.

irishbucsfan

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

Is it confirmed that said ip shenanigans will work with Premier Rugby? They don't work with BBC, for example.

They absolutely do, if you are inclined to perform your own shenanigans.

Former Former

Zzippy wrote: »

Yes, but some of us are so far from an exchange that dial up would be faster.

But do any such people have access to Virgin?

Squidgy Black

arsebiscuits1 wrote: »

Several questions here! Would greatly appreciate some or all answers!

I am currently on Virgin. 70 p/m there or there abouts. Light broadband usage. Netflix is the heaviest traffic it sees. Is Eir significantly worse? (Dublin area)

What are the standard channels like on Eir TV? Is HD an option?

Is the Champions Cup exclusively on BT or do Sky Sports still have some?

Can you get Eir/ BT on Sky? How much is Sky p/m? (TV and broadband)

Eir offering 50p/m for 1 year and 96 p/m after. Not too bad a deal given I will be watching 10+ games a month on Eir and BT

Whichever way I look at it, I am switching from Virgin, not thrilled about it as I find them quite good. But their lack of rugby now means it's time to switch. Pity.

I don't watch, nor have I any interest in watching, Soccer, Golf, F1, Kabbadi or any other sport these companies want to pedal me. If it is on I will watch it, but the only thing I want to watch and will pay for is Rugby

It completely depends on your location. The issue with Sky/Eir/Vodafone broadband is it all runs off the Eircom lines. When they say you're getting Fibre broadband, it's Fibre up until the cabinet in your estate/closest to your house. From there on to the house it isn't fibre. So you could be right beside the cabinet and get the full 100mbps or depending on the run length get 10. The only way they'll be able to find out is when you activate your eircom line and they can run a speed test.

Virgin on the other hand is fibre to the home. Hence the 240mb speeds, doesn't rely on any old lines as they fit their own.

I used to work escalation support for one of the above, and to be honest all ISPs are as bad as each other, there's no one to beat all. And it can all completely depend on your house/location, for some people Virgin is brutal and others they get the full 240mb speed. Same with Eir/Sky/Vodafone, some get 100mb, others get DSL speeds of 4/5mb.

Squidgy Black wrote: »

It completely depends on your location. The issue with Sky/Eir/Vodafone broadband is it all runs off the Eircom lines. When they say you're getting Fibre broadband, it's Fibre up until the cabinet in your estate/closest to your house. From there on to the house it isn't fibre. So you could be right beside the cabinet and get the full 100mbps or depending on the run length get 10. The only way they'll be able to find out is when you activate your eircom line and they can run a speed test.

Virgin on the other hand is fibre to the home. Hence the 240mb speeds, doesn't rely on any old lines as they fit their own.

I used to work escalation support for one of the above, and to be honest all ISPs are as bad as each other, there's no one to beat all. And it can all completely depend on your house/location, for some people Virgin is brutal and others they get the full 240mb speed. Same with Eir/Sky/Vodafone, some get 100mb, others get DSL speeds of 4/5mb.

Cheers for the detailed response. Didn't realise that fact about Eir.

Truth be told if they can give me a fairly consistent 40MB I am happy. I am a pretty maintenance user. It's if it starts dropping off that my patience goes

EDIT: I am also assuming they run a Cat5/6 cable from the cabinet? I am definitely less than 100m from a cabinet so no real concern there

Tigerandahalf

Virgin is no longer an option for many. They will shed thousands of customers over this.

Sky will lose urban customers but possibly gain rural customers whose internet speeds are not upto scratch and thus people will have no choice but to get the sky package in order to add the eir sport channels.

There is an option for people who have crappy rural eir broadband. If you do get/have eir broadband and sky tv you will be able to add the eir sports/bt sports for free over the satellite dish (you need to have eir broadband/landline bundle)

Some rural people have to be with other niche broadband providers and those people will have no choice but to get sky tv plus pay the extra for eir/bt sports, so a heavy hit. They'd also have to pay Sky extra for hd.

I live about 500m from a cabinet and am getting 65mbs download/20 up with eir and the service has been very good. I am regularly streaming 3 or 4 different things at a time and no issues.

Like Former former it is a great deal for me with all rugby from the pro14/champions cup available for the next 3 years in HD and in English plus Champions League soccer (Ronnie Whelan is too much for me).

Eir also have the 2019 rugby world cup plus the u20 world cup every year, so for rugby fans it is great value.

For me I can use Now Tv to chromecast the Ire matches v Australia in the summer.

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Virgin is no longer an option for many. They will shed thousands of customers over this.

Sky will lose urban customers but possibly gain rural customers whose internet speeds are not upto scratch and thus people will have no choice but to get the sky package in order to add the eir sport channels.

There is an option for people who have crappy rural eir broadband. If you do get/have eir broadband and sky tv you will be able to add the eir sports/bt sports for free over the satellite dish (you need to have eir broadband/landline bundle)

Some rural people have to be with other niche broadband providers and those people will have no choice but to get sky tv plus pay the extra for eir/bt sports, so a heavy hit. They'd also have to pay Sky extra for hd.

I live about 500m from a cabinet and am getting 65mbs download/20 up with eir and the service has been very good. I am regularly streaming 3 or 4 different things at a time and no issues.

Like Former former it is a great deal for me with all rugby from the pro14/champions cup available for the next 3 years in HD and in English plus Champions League soccer (Ronnie Whelan is too much for me).

Eir also have the 2019 rugby world cup plus the u20 world cup every year, so for rugby fans it is great value.

For me I can use Now Tv to chromecast the Ire matches v Australia in the summer.

This seems enough for me. Time to switch!

TimHorton

Guys , Leave them all behind - IPTV is the way to go ....

Squidgy Black

TimHorton wrote: »

Guys , Leave them all behind - IPTV is the way to go ....

If you can get a decent stable broadband service yes. Otherwise it's a nightmare.

But then again the same can be said for Eir's TV service which is IPTV too.

Former Former wrote: »

But do any such people have access to Virgin?

Well I for one don't. We're over 2km from the cabinet so can't even get 3MB landline BB with eir. So far from the cabinet that our little corner, along with 10 or so other homes, is excluded from the national broadband plan proposed upgrade for our area. Currently paying €60 a month for Vodafone 4G BB which is completely unreliable and often drops to unusable speeds. Also paying €29 a month for basic Sky package. Eirsport will be an additional €27.50 a month.

Instead of €40 a month for BB including Eirsport, I will have to pay almost 3 times as much to watch Pro14 next season. Ah well, the joys of living in the countryside probably outweigh the inconvenience...

irishbucsfan

Zzippy wrote: »

Well I for one don't. We're over 2km from the cabinet so can't even get 3MB landline BB with eir. So far from the cabinet that our little corner, along with 10 or so other homes, is excluded from the national broadband plan proposed upgrade for our area. Currently paying €60 a month for Vodafone 4G BB which is completely unreliable and often drops to unusable speeds. Also paying €29 a month for basic Sky package. Eirsport will be an additional €27.50 a month.

Instead of €40 a month for BB including Eirsport, I will have to pay almost 3 times as much to watch Pro14 next season. Ah well, the joys of living in the countryside probably outweigh the inconvenience...

Where do you live, 1995?

OldRio

Well we get 4mb with eir. I have the Eir app. Cast to TV. No Sky sub needed.

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Where do you live, 1995?

Lol. I moved 3 km out of town and went from 100MB with Virgin to sweet FA. It might as well be 1995!

irishfeen

No mention of upgrading EirSport 1 to HD on satellite in their press release today - yesterday's press release for Premier Sports had all games in HD plastered all over it where as this does not mention it.

Very disappointing if they don't upgrade to the 21st century!

Tigerandahalf

Zzippy wrote: »

Instead of €40 a month for BB including Eirsport, I will have to pay almost 3 times as much to watch Pro14 next season. Ah well, the joys of living in the countryside probably outweigh the inconvenience...

It is €53 p/m for me and I think it will probably be getting more expensive with these rights after been added.

The one advantage of going with the sky system is that you have pause, rewind, record features - something you don't have with streaming.

Also if your broadband goes down you still have the satellite tv to watch.

Tigerandahalf

According to Wales Online there will be no games on Sundays - same as before.
2/3 games on Friday nights and the rest on Saturdays.
Contract is worth £30 million per season.
You do wonder how eir/premier will recoup that money. Going by the article it seems the fight for the Irish rights really pushed up the value of the deal - I wonder who else competed?

Also on a separate note C4 will show Wales' summer tour matches live - a game in Washington on June 2nd v SA and then 2 tests against Argentina.

...
Overall competition income for the Welsh sides - from TV and sponsorship - will rise to more than £2m per region next season, compared with less than £1m per side two years ago;

* That means the Welsh regions will be receiving twice the money from PRO14 that they do from EPCR;

* Premier Sports will utilise three channels to show all seven matches lives each weekend - Premier Sports 1 & 2, plus their FreeSports channel;
.......

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/exactly-how-much-new-guinness-14611706

Re the attempts at rescheduling the Pro 14 final so it doesn't clash with a soccer game, Pro 14 CEO has said

With anything, you want to make sure you don’t cannibalise your audience

I think the new deal will do a pretty good job of that all by itself without outside interference.

phog

I know access to the broadcasts might be a problem for some fans but this is a great deal for the teams - the revenue from TV seems to have more than doubled.

I'm delighted as I have eir BB & TV so I have access to all CC and Pro14 games next season on the one package with the facility to record games too.

thomond2006

Celtic Park rumoured as a venue for the Pro14 final next season. Given Edinburgh's resurgence there's a better chance of a Scottish team in the final.

phog wrote: »

I know access to the broadcasts might be a problem for some fans but this is a great deal for the teams - the revenue from TV seems to have more than doubled.

I'm delighted as I have eir BB & TV so I have access to all CC and Pro14 games next season on the one package with the facility to record games too.

I understand the financial benefits, but the fans need to be brought along with it.

Those already with Eir are doing great with this deal, but everyone else not so much. When I saw the deal for the UK I was thinking that's great, I'd buy into that right away.

But looking at the Irish deal and the cost to anyone not already in the Eir platform, and who may not like soccer, it's a costly ****ty deal. Did they even consider an IPTV platform for Ireland?

awec

I think the IPTV part of the UK deal is just purely coincidental.

phog

Hurrache wrote: »

I understand the financial benefits, but the fans need to be brought along with it.

Those already with Eir are doing great with this deal, but everyone else not so much. When I saw the deal for the UK I was thinking that's great, I'd buy into that right away.

But looking at the Irish deal and the cost to anyone not already in the Eir platform, and who may not like soccer, it's a costly ****ty deal. Did they even consider an IPTV platform for Ireland?

One of the problems for Irish fans is one of the TV Providers in Ireland refuses to carry eir Sport. If enough fans jump ship then that stance will change.

True, it's hard to know what Eir would prefer though. Virgin resolute in their stance, whatever their reason, to carry Eir and therefore people will move to Eir who really want the sports package. Or if they'd like Virgin to carry Eir Sports and therefore they increase their subscribers on their Eir Sports package that way. I'm sure there's some thinking that they'd prefer the former as they'd like to see their broadband subscriber numbers increase.

awec

Virgin's reason was Eir wanted to charge too much

thomond2006 wrote: »

Celtic Park rumoured as a venue for the Pro14 final next season. Given Edinburgh's resurgence there's a better chance of a Scottish team in the final.

Glasgow is a bit of a hole.

But very good place for a budget weekend.

If it ends up there and Leinster manage to make it I'd have no qualms about going