Finally, "Cheap" ADSL is here

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?????

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.

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:

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

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.

...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

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.

OOOOOHHHH!!!

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

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).

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..

SO finally Eircon has got their finger out, but frankly i still think it stinks so much that i will be happy to wait and see what Utv comes up with or just about anyone else!
If i could get IBB i would not care much about the instalation fee, it is real flatrate after all and that means a lot to me.
If companies like WYSE just made a small effort they could help bring broadband to the masses at much lower prices because they could option for the Business solutions and share it out to whole estates.
Anyway, there are plenty of good ideas, all i hope is that people wont be tempted to lick the Eircon "up the ass finger" and wait for some proper broadband! :mad:

Good news. I did not think they would deliver on this. It is still too expensive to be called "mass market" broadband going on the experience of other countries, but it is less of a rip-off than previous efforts.

Some questions remain: a) Which exchanges have been upgraded to the new RADSL standard? and b) will other companies be offering services over bitstream?

With a wholesale price of 27 euros (I think the most expensive in Europe), it is unlikely that OLOs will be queuing up to provide services. Nevertheless, it is worth holding out a short time to see what is there before signing up for a year with Eircom.

I got adsl off eircom paying 100 quid a month or whatever it is.Ive had it about a month now. Are comreg ordering eircom to allow ppl to switch to the cheaper product?

When i checked my phone and account number a month ago on Eircon it tested fine for ADSL, but today when they have announced the RADSL it says that i am not in the right area, so no nothing even if i wanted to.
I frankly just had it with this stoneage country, it sukx!

Originally posted by Urban Weigl
Do you work for Eircom?

Are you related to Senator McCarthy? Anyone who doesn't see the world through your narrow blinkers must be "the enemy"?

It's none of your damn business who I work for, but, to satisfy your puerile interest, the only relationshop I have with eircom is as a customer, and a ripped-off ex-shareholder whose shares were forcibly repossessed by Valentia.

1. Not true. Joe Street in the UK is purchasing BT Broadband for £27 per month and £30 connection (all inclusive of VAT and including a free modem).

BT Broadband is an "access only" product - it doesn't even include an e-mail address, so it's not exactly a "Joe Street" package. "Joe Street" is purchasing BTOpenWorld at €44.50 (which is why it's the biggest DSL provider in the UK). Until January 13th, installation cost £65, almost exactly what eircom are charging. And you don't get a free modem with either of these packages.

As I made very clear in the bit that you didn't bother to quote, yes, you can get better deals than this. Just not from the 800-pound gorilla in the market, which is where "Joe Street" is buying. Freeserve and AOL are the other big players in the "Joe Street" market, and they're £27 and £28, but with higher up front costs.

None of these packages include "download allowances", but the BT and AOL ones do include a 12 month minimum contract (Freeserve don't publish their "small print").

Packages from other big name companies like Virgin begin at around £20-25, and you can get it from £12.99 if you shop around. Again, all inclusive of VAT.

Your point being? I said there are better deals around - but "Joe Street" is buying from BT.

2. Joe Street in that US is not paying $49.99. ADSL at that price there has turned out a complete flop, with people turning to cheaper alternatives like cable instead.

Did you even bother to look at the Providers I mentioned (again, the biggest players in the US market?) No, you decided to just spout off without bothering to check your facts. Verizon offer 2 deals - $29.99/month for the first 6 months, and $49.99/month after that, or $39.99 from the beginning. MSN use a variety of providers, and state that service costs $39.99-$49.99, depending on your location. AT&T and Yahoo offer 384K service for $39.99 and faster speeds for $49.99 plan, Covad and Earthlink only offer $49.99 plans. None of these prices include tax.

And in case you think this is an example of competition at work, most people will be lucky to have a choice of 2 DSL providers, except in big cities, where, as in parts of Dublin, some will have a choice of 5 or 6 providers.

And DSL and Cable both grew at exactlly the same rate in the US last year, so there's no evidence of people leaving DSL for Cable. (Cable has about a 60-40 advantage over DSL in the US market, the only world market where it leads DSL).

Finally, if you look at virtually any other country in Europe, ADSL did not take off until it was priced at between 30 and 40 euros a month. And that's a fact.

Since when was the UK not in the EU? (Not to mention the fact that, because of our low tax regime, we have a significantly higer discretionary income than in most other EU countries, which is why we happily pay more for our mobile phone access).

Even ComReg have said this (that ADSL is a no-go if it's priced above 30 - 40 euros for consumers).

Do you have a reference for this quote from ComReg?