Best flatrate package???

spuddy

Can anyone tell me, what in their opinion is the best flatrate package. Eircom seems too expendive @ €30 for 150hrs, so the choice is between Esat & UTV.

UTV is cheaper, but I'm unsure of their telephone package you have to take out. How is this billed & how does it effect your eircom phone bill?

What are the connection speeds like & how reliable are the services?


Any help greatly appreciated!

ozt9vdujny3srf

If you want to use your connection for gaming, you will get better pingss out of the Esat package. Otherwise i would go for UTV (if you dont mind taking their telephony package, which was fine when i had it with their old off peak surfing product)

seamus

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63719

All the info is there. Make your own decision.

Eircom's are the worst value, but crucially are non-contract, so you can unsubscribe whenever you feel like it. Eircom's is also the only one that supports 128K ISDN.
If you don't have ISDN and/or don't plan on upgrading to DSL in the near future, the other two companies offer better value...

spuddy

thanks for the info,

how does the telephone package work, does it appear on your eircom bill? do you have to use utv for all phone calls?

i have isdn (local exchange not upgraded for dsl yet), i've read both utv (on their site) & esat (in forums) support single channel isdn, is this info still accurate? Will upgrade to dsl when available. how long are committment terms for esat/utv?

have to do something soon, got phone bill today & had spent €200 on calls to net!

Ripwave

Originally posted by spuddy
how does the telephone package work, does it appear on your eircom bill?

You get a bill from eircom for the stuff they provide (line rental, voicemail, any calls that you make on the eircom network)

do you have to use utv for all phone calls?

No. If you diall another operators prefix you can direct calls to that other operator. But by default any calls you make will go to UTV, unless you explicitly override it by dialling a 5 digit prefix (13666 for eircom, 13636 for Vartec, etc).

how long are committment terms for esat/utv?

They both specify a 12 month minimum contract, but are reported to allow you to gove 3 months notice.

have to do something soon, got phone bill today & had spent €200 on calls to net!

What are you waiting for?!? You could have had 6 months worth of internet access for that if you'd signed up at the beginning of that billing period. Or 8 months with UTV. At that rate, you could probably afford to just switch over, and even if you switch to ADSL after 2 months, and had to pay the remaining 10 months of your contract, you wouldn't be losing any money (though both IOL and UTV are reported to be quite happy to allow you to "roll over" your dialup contract to a DSL contract, so you should worry tooo much about it).

spuddy

Originally posted by Ripwave
What are you waiting for?!? You could have had 6 months worth of internet access for that if you'd signed up at the beginning of that billing period. Or 8 months with UTV. At that rate, you could probably afford to just switch over, and even if you switch to ADSL after 2 months, and had to pay the remaining 10 months of your contract, you wouldn't be losing any money (though both IOL and UTV are reported to be quite happy to allow you to "roll over" your dialup contract to a DSL contract, so you should worry tooo much about it).

i know, had been putting it on the long finger, till i saw how bb roll out went, but i'm still waiting. rang eircom today & was put on hold for 15-20mins, a voice did tell me they were experiencing "...longer than usual delays in answering the phones today..." but gave no other explanation.

thought i heard utv's contract was for 6mths, but could be wrong???

really would prefer to keep phone bill with eircom for the moment so looks like its a toss up between eircom & esat

oscarBravo

Originally posted by spuddy
really would prefer to keep phone bill with eircom for the moment

Why?

Urban Weigl

Originally posted by seamus
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63719 Eircom's is also the only one that supports 128K ISDN.

I think it is important to note that if you are connecting using 128K ISDN with Eircom, your hours will be used up twice as fast. Meaning you are paying 30 euros per month for just 75 hours!

spuddy

what are the respective services like, i've heard people having trouble connecting to UTV esp at peak times, is it the same story with esat & eircom?

Giblet

Get IOL, end of story. UTV ain't worth the hassel.

oscarBravo

UTV is the best ISP I've ever used. It's very, very rare for me to have trouble getting online, and when I do connections are generally fast and stable. In short, no hassle here.

Creamy Goodness

i've been on IOL Anytime with isdn 64k since 1st august and i've never been dissconnected right after dialing, now staying on longer than 5 hours is a different story.


obiviously i can't talk for utv and eircom offers but i'm very very happy with IOL atm and i don't see myself changing unless IOL broadband comes into my area.

(can you believe a town like Bray with 40,000 residents and it doesn't have broadband! (from IOL anyways))

Mad Mike

Originally posted by Giblet
Get IOL, end of story. UTV ain't worth the hassel.

I have had UTV for about 6 months and have had no problems whatsoever with them. I don't use it for gaming - but then again I don't know if gaming is still possible on a 56k line. They use an unusual scheme with a hidden "backup" number to allow you to connect even when the main FRIACO number is busy. The backup number is essential if you want to ensure connection at busy times. If you have XP you can set this backup number as an alternate but otherwise you need to use a special UTV dialler.

I have seen posts from people with ISDN who have had problems with UTV so that might be a reason to go with IOL.

You are right to think about the telphone package because there no point saving money on the internet if you will spend the difference on your phone bill. UTV's telephone service works just fine its invisible in use - no dropped calls or stuff like that. You still get a bill from Eircom for line rental and for any extras like Ericoms answering service. UTV don't send out a monthly bill - but you can access your account details on line every month. UTVs billing info is just a list of calls - not nearly as pretty as Eircoms beautiful itmeised bill. However the fact that its online means that a quick bit of wrk with excel allows you to quickly sort out calls into categories and see what you are paying fo. (I admit it I am nerd enough to do this every month).

NB: Be aware that if you are with Eircom you are probably on an options package and get some extras free. You MUST ring Eircom and cancel the options package or else you may be liable to pay Eircom the minimum options amount. every month.

With regard to the cost of calls - UTV have a simple billing scheme of 25% below Eircoms cost per minute plus a setup charge (of about €0.039) per call. In order to do an Eircom UTV comparison you need to consider the impact of this setup charge plus any lost discounts due to Eircoms options. I guess if you make a lot of short local calls the setup charge will mean Eircom is cheaper but if you make longer calls or national calls then UTV will be cheaper. In our case (bill for local and National calls about €20 per month excluding Internet) there is damn all difference between UTV and Eircom .

UTV should be cheaper than Ercom for international calls because the 25% reduction in rate should quickly offset any setup charge but I cannot advise using either UTV or Eircom for any international calls - they are both exorbitantly expensive. Use Vartec or someone similar and you can save €10 or more on a single international call. (NB whatever you do don't use Vartec for local calls).

daveyjoe

Originally posted by Ripwave

No. If you diall another operators prefix you can direct calls to that other operator. But by default any calls you make will go to UTV, unless you explicitly override it by dialling a 5 digit prefix (13666 for eircom, 13636 for Vartec, etc).

That's something I didn't know about, do you incur any additional charges when you use this service?

Ripwave

Originally posted by daveyjoe
That's something I didn't know about, do you incur any additional charges when you use this service?

No, but it only works if you have already arranged to pay for this service. Obviously, you're already getting a bill from eircom, so they'll happily bill you for any calls that you make on their network (in fact, most of the CPS providers tell you that you have to do this to call premium rate numbers - if you're stupid enough to pay €1.50 a minute for a "chat line", or the Physic network, then you'll have to do it through eircom).

The whole thing is far more transparent in other countries. For example, in the US, you might get a flyer in the door saying "Calls to Ireland for 3c/min - just dial 1010321", and you could pick up your phione, dial 1010999 011 252 1 xxxxxxx and when you get your next bill from Nynex or SWBell or Pacbell or whoever your local phone company is, there at the back of it would be a list of all your long distance calls made with your normal long distance operator, and then all the calls you made with 1010999, and any calls you made with 1010888, etc. You only get one bill, but you can use any carrier you like for any given call, and you don't have to make any prior arrangements.

This works because the local phone companies aren't allowed offer long distance service, so it's no skin off their nose to allow you to use a dozen different long distance companies - one with great weekend rates for all those calls to your granny in Ireland, a different one to call your partners family in Hong Kong and a 3rd one to call your swiss banker, etc. By handling your whole phone bill, the local phone company gets to charge a service fee, and gets all that cash flow, and the cost of servicing you as a customer is much lower thanpaying 3 or 4 different phone bills.

Eircom, however, have nothing to gain by allowing more efficient operators to get access to their customer base. So they make it as hard as possible for their customers to get access to this kind of service. You have to set up a direct debit or credit card authorization at the very least to use any of these operators - all barriers to competition that just make make it harder for people to switch. Even if you do switch, you have to pay two bills, because eircom are still refusing to allow other operators to provide "single billing".

And none of this is likely to change, unless the Government wake up and smell the coffee - anti-competitive behaviour by a company that receives over €70 million from the Department of Social Welfare each year (over a quarter of a million people in Ireland have their line rental paid for by the Department), is a major drain on this countries economy.

spuddy

Thanks everyone for your replies, been very helpful. I'll make my choice this week & let you know how I got on. One last question, once you sign up for any of the services, how long does it take to get connected to the service, is it done instantly or is it from the next billing month?

Mad Mike

With UTV the flat rate internet begins immediately (you have to download a dialler). I signed up mid-month and they charged me for the fraction of the month remaining.
The voice telephone service took about three weeks to switch over (apparently there was some hold up on Eircoms part).

seamus

Originally posted by spuddy
Thanks everyone for your replies, been very helpful. I'll make my choice this week & let you know how I got on. One last question, once you sign up for any of the services, how long does it take to get connected to the service, is it done instantly or is it from the next billing month?

With eircom, you signup either online or over the phone, and it takes 45 mins to 2 hours to be active.

Regardless of when you signup you get fully billed on your next bill, and receive all your hours. So if you sign up a week before your bill date (and you're billed two monthly), you'll be fully billed for two months' service on your next bill and have two months worth of hours to use up in a week :rolleyes: