Eircom agrees to broadband triggers

dahamsta

Eircom agrees to broadband triggers
Monday, August 11 2003
by Matthew Clark

Eircom said it is amenable to so-called trigger levels for ADSL roll out, a policy that could spell good news for smaller Irish towns and communities.

The telecoms company on Monday told ElectricNews.Net that if business and community groups in small Irish towns are able to generate enough local interest in ADSL, Eircom would broadband-enable local exchanges more rapidly. Under such schemes local organisations and the former monopoly would agree to a pre-set level, or trigger level, of potential broadband subscribers who would have to "express interest" in ADSL to speed up delivery of the service.

With 800,000 telephone lines in Ireland broadband-enabled currently, and another 200,000 set to go live by the end of the year, most homes and small businesses in larger cities in Ireland can avail of ADSL, or will have the option, by year's end. But in most of the country's smaller communities Eircom has not yet provided broadband and even by the end of 2004 the company is only guaranteeing that exchanges with more than 2,000 lines will be ADSL enabled.

[...]

Moriarty

Intresting, but will they be providing an area somewhere where you can register your intrest - and almost as importantly, keep tabs on your current level wrt the trigger level? Why do i have an inkling that theyll leave it up to others?

Dawg

I don't know if I'd like to trust the rat with keeping tabs on the level of interest. If they made the current interest level for any given area openly available at all times then fair enough but if it's anything like the current 'register your interest' thing they have, whereby you can't actually see how many others have registered interest in your area then I'd much prefer to have someone independant of the telcos looking after it, and keeping Eircom informed on what area's are getting close to their trigger level.

Something like what the broadband4kinnegad heads have done (great site btw), hooked into a central database for all area's would be nice..

dahamsta

I'm a little disappointed that this (apparent) commitment came through ENN and not IrelandOffline. I hope the new committee will pick up the ball now and run with it. Wireless is cool but DSL is here and now, we should be pushing and pushing on price and availability.

adam

From: adam beecher
Sent: 11 August 2003 21:57
To: Matthew Clark
Subject: Eircom agrees to broadband triggers


Hi Matthew,

I'd appreciate it if you would put me in touch with the Eircom spokesperson
you talked to yesterday about exchange trigger levels. I've been putting off
launching a campaign for my own exchange in Cork due to ongoing committments
from Eircom, but their latest statement on the matter...

[url]http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?postid=1045608#post1045608[/url]

...has convinced me that there's little point in sitting on my hands any
more, particularly when I've had a website ready to go...

[url]http://www.broadband4ballinlough.org/[/url]

...for quite some time. If putting me off launching a campaign was Eircom's
goal, well, they've succeeded up till now, but their latest humming and
hawing has convinced me that it's not worth taking a chance.

I might add that I'm not the only one considering this, in fact at least one
campaign is already up and running...

[url]http://www.broadband4kinnegad.com/[/url]

...and I'm pretty sure that there's at least one more. At this stage, I'd
like to start getting commitments and assistance from Eircom, very much
along the lines of BT's programs in the UK...

[url]http://www.shorl.com/fagygrasudrodry[/url]

...with set trigger levels, transparent registration processes and even help
with flyers and information packs. The genie is out of the bottle now, it's
in everyone's best interest to get the rollout process up to speed.

Thanks,
adam

spongebob

Phil told the Tribune yesterday that he expected 100,000 signups by end 2004

1 Million Lines are enabled or will be by next year, again according to Eircom themselves.

Phil therefore expects 10% of lines to be enabled.

If your exchange has 2000 lines, the minimum size considered by Eircom as being worthy of upgrading (again according to themselves) then the trigger level is At Least 200

I suspect they maybe doing 180-200 exchanges and not 150 but I cannot prove that

Only another 900 to go after that.

M

dahamsta

I know that Muck, but we need to tie them them down. And do unspeakable things to them.

adam

spongebob

But Adam, that Flash Expressions of interest thang on the Eircom website goes to \dev\null anyway.

ESATBT send their expressions into a bucket which is then thrown out the window ...periodically but STRICTLY acording to verifiable internal procedures ...... at a loudly rutting Tomcat who interrupts the marketing bunnies every now and then.

SkepticOne

Eircom does however admit that meeting a trigger level target does not equate to instant ADSL. "It could still take as long as six months, but in most of these towns, that is much, much sooner that would have otherwise been the case," the Eircom spokeswoman explained.

LOL. Wonderful. So they get a load of unpaid sales staff to generate interest in their products and they still aren't committing themselves to do any actual upgrading within a given timescale.

This is a very clever tactic on the part of Eircom. People will be sucked into it, even if it is not in their interests in the long run simply out of desparation to get broadband at any cost.

If you want to be clever, gather a list of names and don't pass it on to Eircom. Rather, use it as a bargaining tool to play alternative wireless operaters against Eircom. Whoever agrees to set up broadband in the town gets the list. Such a list would be very valuable to small wireless operators.

This is what Eircom fear - that they will be cut out of the loop altogether.
This is the only thing that Eircom are concerned about.

spongebob

Originally posted by SkepticOne
If you want to be clever, gather a list of names and don't pass it on to Eircom. Rather, use it as a bargaining tool to play alternative wireless operaters against Eircom. Whoever agrees to set up broadband in the town gets the list. Such a list would be very valuable to small wireless operators.

Absolutely correct Sceptic.

Eircom will not tell anyone what they do with the expressions of interest, gathered through their site Here

BT in the UK are more open about the process as you can see Here

If I ran a site such as Broadband For Kinnegad I would take your advice Sceptic. Keep the data and haggle with everybody.

Phil will have to be a bit more honest ...a la BT in the UK ...... before we take him seriously.

M

dahamsta

But Adam, that Flash Expressions of interest thang on the Eircom website goes to \dev\null anyway.

I knew that too Muck, which is why I said "transparent registration processes". Stop trolling now, it's naughty. Moriarty will smack your botty. (And it's /dev/null, silly.)

ESATBT send their expressions into a bucket which is then thrown out the window ...periodically but STRICTLY acording to verifiable internal procedures ...... at a loudly rutting Tomcat who interrupts the marketing bunnies every now and then.

ROFL

SkepticOne, that's an excellent idea. I also intended providing partial data to pols in order to bring pressure to bear on Eircom.

adam

viking

Originally posted by SkepticOne
If you want to be clever, gather a list of names and don't pass it on to Eircom. Rather, use it as a bargaining tool to play alternative wireless operaters against Eircom. Whoever agrees to set up broadband in the town gets the list. Such a list would be very valuable to small wireless operators.

I fully agree with you about the value of the list. The primary aim of the Broadband4Kinnegad campaign is to achieve broadband access for locals, it was decided that the campaign should focus on DSL broadband. It is nearly certain that if anyone would be upgrading the exchange it would be eircom, therefore all of the registrations of interest that we can possibly get will eventually be sent to eircom in order to demonstrate demand assuming that the numbers meet their "trigger level"(more about that below). However, if our registrations did not meet their "magic number" or they refuse to upgrade the exchange, then I would approach other alternative last mile operators to see if can work together to find a solution, whoever implements broadband gets the list. As you said, a list of all the people interested in broadband in a town would be very valuable as a bargaining tool. In fact I have been contacted by someone who is interested in setting up a WISP in the Kinnegad area but at the moment it is in very early stages and nothing is definite yet.

Regarding "trigger levels", back in May I tried contacting eircom WRT seeking a trigger level for the Kinnegad exchange (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?postid=888022#post888022) without success. The reaction I got from the person I was speaking to was surprise at someone requesting a "trigger level". I must ring 6714444 this morning and request a trigger level again.

viking

SkepticOne

Here's the approach I would take to maximise the chances of getting broadband in a town.

The main effort is getting people on to the list. However once you've got the names, you want to maximise the influence those names will have. A little extra effort should pay off and the extra effort will be insignificant when compared to getting the list in the first place.

1. Approach all the wireless operators. Tell them that you have a list of x names willing to sign up immediately and you are willing to hand over the list exclusively to them if they set up in the town before anyone else.

2. If they don't appear terribly interested, then go to Eircom. Tell Eircom that you have a list of people willing to sign up if they upgrade the exchange. Also tell them that you are quite happy to hand over the list exclusively to wireless operators who have been showing interest. The threat of competition will get Eircom to move far faster than a vague commitment to upgrade your exchange some time in the next six months (if at all).

The point of this is not just to maximise your chances of broadband, but also to increase competition in your area.

If all else fails, you still have the trigger level commitment from Eircom. This, however, should be considered a last resort. For years, Eircom claimed they would be introducing DSL to Ireland, but they only got around to it last year. The reason for the delay was that they never had any competiton so they could take their own sweet time.

Above all, please don't give away the list to anyone without a firm commitment and timescale. Once you have given away the list, it becomes less valuable to other operators. Especially don't give it to Eircom until either you have a commitment to upgrade the exchange. A wireless operator is unlikely to set up if a list of those likely to sign up to their service has been handed over to Eircom since Eircom can then use this list to 'win back' those customers.

Go for independent wireless operators first, because your town represents new business for them whereas DSL for Eircom is merely people switching from one Eircom service to another.

thegills

Viking,

If you manage to get a demand list for Kinnegad make sure to talk to local wireless operators;
WBN - http://www.wbn.ie/
Doster - http://www.dotser.ie/
Last Mile Wireless - http://www.lastmile.ie/

thegills