Eircom Chat Transcript

FirA_Fascio

I thought I'd share my experience with an Eircom drone:

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New Conference with broadband
from e-channel
Friday, 10 October 2003 18:35:22 GMT+01:00
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broadband : Welcome to eircom ie Web Chat , How can I help you?

You : hi, do you have any plans to reduce your DSL prices?

broadband : I do personally, but I can't vouch for the management. I'm sure the
price will come down eventually as the market grows and competition increases.
Are you aware of the current promotion?

You : yes, but i have heard that UTV Internet are offering a better service for
a lower price, and with a cap that is twice the size of eircom's. could you tell
me why i should opt for the eircom package as opposed to UTV Internet's?

broadband : The cap will probably change here too to match the competition, and
as for "a better service" you need to ask yourself what the support is like,
what the contention ratios are and if there are guaranteed speeds.

broadband : There's other stuff too like static IP addresses (availability of),
is the modem USB or Ethernet, OS support and so on.

You : i see...

You : the minister for telecommunications (mr. dermot ahern) has said that
eircom's wholesale prices are preventing other companies such as esatBT and UTV
Internet from offering better, cheaper services... is this true?

broadband : You'd need to speak to ComReg about that. They regulate the telecoms
industry, so we have, to a certain extent, to do what they tell us.

You : oh, ok i'll have to contact them

broadband : Or, to put it another way, we can't just go around charging what we
like, when we like.

You : if you do what comreg tell you as regards wholesale DSL prices, then why
do you not listen to them when they ask you to lower your LLU charges?

broadband : I can't answer that question as I'm not in the position to do
anything about it.

You : One of my friends has repeatedly failed the DSL line test, and
IrelandOFFLine have told him that it is because of the splitter (pairgain) on
his phone line eircom have rejected his pleas.. and i stress "pleas", to
remove it, every time. the splitter also cuts his dialup speed in half! is it
possible to have DSL through this carrier system?

broadband : You cannot have DSL on a carrier line, no. But you should be able to
get a new line installed which doesn't use a carrier.

You : but, he already ordered a new line, and instead of getting a 2nd phone
line, eircom stuck that huge grey box on his wall, and said "here you go, enjoy
your two half phone lines"

You : i thought pairgains were outlawed?

broadband : Outlawed? By whom?

You : comreg i think... www.eircomtribunal.com has some information on it.. but
how come they didnt give him a 2nd line, only two half-lines? isnt that a bit of
a cheap way out? or even a lie to the consumer?

broadband : Did he specifically ask for a full line for DSL?

You : he specifically ordered a second phone line for his grandmother who is
living in his house that was a couple of years ago and im STILL wondering, why
didnt he get a second phone line?

You : now he wants DSL, but cant get it thanks to the splitter

broadband : That's not answering my question, so I take it he didn't. Eircom, by
law, have to provide a phone service. They do. Broadband is an addition to that
service that we cannot provide in every case and are not obliged to do so. We
will do our best to provide it to as many people as we can, because it's
revenue.

You : so eircoms service is solely based on revenue with no consideration for
the consumer or the consumer's needs? and no, he didnt order the full line for
dsl, because eircom was charging over 100 euro per month from it, and have only
lowered their prices due to the presence of competition and pressure from the
minister

broadband : Eircom's service isn't solely based on revenue. Stop putting words
into my mouth. I just said that we would obviously try to supply DSL to as many
customers as possible because it brings money in which every company needs.
Otherwise there would be no company.

You : ok ok i meant no offence to you personally. eircom get massive grants from
the government, and you just said that you would obviously try to supply DSL to
as many customers as possible, so why stick splitters on lines after a request
for a 2nd phone line?

broadband : I have absolutely no idea. If the request for a line is made
specifically in order that the customer can get broadband, we would obviously
know not to put in a carrier line. But you can't guess at these things, or just
assume that's what's required. I guess it's just cheaper to provide a phone line
using a carrier. If we started putting in full lines every time someone wanted a
new line, labour charges would increase and then there'd be a big fuss about the
money being squandered by eircom fitting DSL-capable lines for people who don't
need them. Someone will always be attacking us over something.

You : I know that every company has it's problems that people will not agree
with, but most people think charging a massive wholesale price for DSL is going
a bit too far, as is constantly raising line rental. Do you know why eircom's
line rental is one of the highest in Europe, especially when the ones we are
paying rental on are of inferior quality due to bad maintenance? I had to get my
line replaced a few years back because I could not even hear someone on the
other end as the line had deteriorated so badly.

You : Yet when I asked an eircom engineer to check it before I got it replaced,
he said it was fine as far as he was concerned.

broadband : You're getting into debatable territory now. I really can't answer
those questions - why is Dublin the most expensive city to live in in Europe?
Who knows.

You : ok

broadband : The DSL thing is obviously debatable. I'm sure prices will come down
with competition and normal market forces, not to mention those of government
and comreg.

You : ok

broadband : Sorry about your friend's situation.

You : I'd love to stay and inquire about other eircom debauchery, but I have to
go. Bye!

Would anyone care to comment on this?

Seth Brundle

I have pointed out a number of times here before that I kept failing the line test with €ircon in Leixlip. When I asked why, dsl 'support' told me to ring repairs. Repairs said to ring dsl 'support' .
I eventually got pissed off and lied to them and passed the test less than a minute after I hung up from them after yet another line failure (my lie was that I told them that I had previously passed). I received absolutely no help when setting up (still haven't received my CD and it was promised by 'support' 4 times last april/may that it had been posted out to me).
I would totally agree that the companys "service is solely based on revenue" and that is shown by
a) its lack of desire in investing or promoting new technologies over high earning old ones (DSL Vs ISDN for example) and
b) the fact that they re-registered it as a UK shelf company just so the f**king shareholders could milk it for almost 1/2 billion (www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2003/0723/4032286729HM1EIRCOM.html).

Mr. Fancypants

Would anyone care to comment on this?

Fair play to the Eircom guy for answering all your questions when it seemed to be obvious you were just there to take the piss. Are you actually interested in Eircom broadband or did you just decide to take out your frustration on a "drone" ?

seamus

Originally posted by mbroaders
Fair play to the Eircom guy for answering all your questions when it seemed to be obvious you were just there to take the piss. Are you actually interested in Eircom broadband or did you just decide to take out your frustration on a "drone" ?

Agreed.

He answered more than he had to, to be honest. Half of the questions were both out of his area and nothing to do with DSL. Fair play to him.

bk

I have to say fair play to the poor guy.

FirA_Fascio asked some really difficult questions that have nothing to do with the guy and he can't do anything about them, however he tried to be as honest as possible.

In fact weren't a number of boards regulars hired a while back to work in Eircom DSL customer service, so perhaps he was one of them.

jesus_thats_gre

I thought it was bad craic of you, it is possible that some of what he said to you may have been monitored by Eircom for quality reasons, you could put him in hot water..

What was the point on having a go at him, he is probably on about 10 quid an hour and has absolutely no input on eircoms policies...

SoundWave

here was my transcript:

---

You: Hi, can u check my line for bb, number 01XXXXXXX

Broadband: Sure can.. please hold on

You: No prob

Broadband: Sorry your line is not suitable for broadband but we are currently working hard to get this sorted but i cant give you a date as to when it will be avail,

You: ok thanks for ur help...

Broadband: No problem

You: ASL?

Broadband: 21 - f - somewhere hot

You: Cyber......?

Broadband: Sure....

---

and thats how i now have broadband working like a charm

The Insider

I thought I'd share my experience with an Eircom drone:

A bit unfair to you not think, considering he tried to anwser all your questions even though most of them related in no way to his job and in an area which he has no control in. If these kind of response came from a tech in another ISP I think you would be praising the customer service levels....

spongebob

Yeah Fir A, that was not a drone at the Eircom end. If they worked for me they would be owed another pint at christmas ...such was the aplomb with which everything was handled.

For something more amusing why not ring 1901 , press 2 for repairs and use the word 'intermittent' while describing a problem. You will most certainly get a drone at the end of that .

M

yellum

That "drone" was well clued in and very very professional. Are you sure it was Eircom you were talking to ?

I bet that "drone" reads this forum (prob at home since I heard its blocked at work). If he/she reads this then "Hey Drone".

zynaps

Yep, I thought he acquitted himself very well indeed - knew when and when not to take on a question, no obvious attempts to mislead.

[afterthought]
since I'm hanging around college using their cheaper-than-dial-up-and-a-few-100-times-faster internet, I thought I'd try to use that webchat thing and nag them about my line and try to get some info out of 'em, but they only let people with eircom ip's use it.
A bit dumb, really.

zynaps

Stark

God that conversation sounded like he was talking to a bot. (I remember going into a support chat room before, and was convinced the person I was talking to was some automated bot, she got really pissed off when I tried the Turing test on her )

sceptre

Originally posted by k.oriordan
she got really pissed off when I tried the Turing test on her )

You bastard!

well, what was the result?

Redshift

Originally posted by k.oriordan
God that conversation sounded like he was talking to a bot. (I remember going into a support chat room before, and was convinced the person I was talking to was some automated bot, she got really pissed off when I tried the Turing test on her )

Thats just evil:D

Stark

You bastard!

well, what was the result?

I figured that "yes I am a ****ing real person" was a good enough response to pass.