IrelandOffline to appear on Morning Ireland on Tue 14th

Paddy20

Who exactly is Eircom's real boss. I would love to know, as I am sure would many of the staff working for Eircom's multitude of seperate companie's.

Eircom has become a money game for capitalist's using every trick in the corporate business guide. For gaining most financial benefit's for it's Director's, while still obtaining grant aid from a hapless government, trapped in to supporting a fiasco, simply because it is supposed to be supplying a vital 'range of telecommunication's' service's for the citizen's of Ireland.

It has clearly failed all sector's of the Irish community, and no one could really consider it a real service industry anymore. When it has literally kicked it's own customer's in the teeth, once too often.

Bertie, should now take step's to bring back a state owned Telecom's organisation along the line's of the old P&T which belonged to the people, and supplied a service to all, to the best of it's ability and it's mandate.

DonegalMan

eircomtribunal wrote:

Let us as well not forget the big picture. Comreg and the DCMNR should stand in the dock with Eircom.

I emailed Morning Ireland and pointed out that whilst it was an excellent and welcome piece, they did not cover the role of Comreg in all this.

Tom Dunne

Just e-mailed morning Ireland, congratulating them on the piece and asking for a debate bewteen Damien, Jamie Smyth and Dr. Phil. I also mentioned that Eircom seem to shy away from debates such as this and that it would open peoples eyes to the real state of broadband.

mike65

What struck me most was that ppl are still waiting months for a flippin' phone line never mind DSL!

God, its takes me back to the p&t era before Albert Reynolds got hold it.

Mike.

Dangger

I'm sure Richard Downes will be able to handle this, but it's a sure thing that ADSL2plus which was nicely heralded in the press today will be thrown into the dialogue tomorrow morning from Eircom just to blur things as usual. However the facts as put across by Mr. Downes himself speak volumes regardless of what is around the corner technology wise.

Eircom's ADSL was around the corner since 1998, but took almost 5 years to turn it.

Ciaran500

I emailed morning Ireland saying that it was good that there are people finally taking attention at the problems of Eircom.

And I said they should set up a debate between Damien and an Eircom rep.

dahamsta

Ciaran500 wrote:

And I said they should set up a debate between Damien and an Eircom rep.

I mentioned that Eircom has effectively refused to debate with IrelandOffline for two years now, and if they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear. But of course they have plenty to hide, and plenty to fear. It's a pity the media don't take advantage of that and tear them apart. It's politics, pure and simple, they're afraid of losing their advertiser, and getting a slap on the wrist from all those in power that still support Eircom by the back door. Typical Oirland.

adam

dahamsta

See what I mean? From Morning Ireland:

Mr McRedmond and Minister Dermot Ahern are on the programme tomorrow morning(seperately). If you've anything you feel we need to be putting to either or both men, feel free to e-mail us.

He's chicken, they're chicken, everyone's bucking chicken.

adam /makes chicken noises

dahamsta

Ah well, they asked...

Thanks for the reply.

You could start by asking David McRedmond the question I just asked: Why will he only talk to the media alone? Would he be willing to prove his willingness to debate the situation by staying on the air while IrelandOffline committee member(s) ring in? I can get you their numbers in readiness.

You could ask David to provide the line failure data to Morning Ireland, since a spokesperson from his company refuted the figures stated by SiliconRepublic and EsatBT recently. They say 20%, but if they're going to call SR, IOFFL and EsatBT /liars/, shouldn't they prove it?

http://snipurl.com/92fe
http://snipurl.com/92f7

Here's another one for David: When an Eircom customer that is using another provider for telephony changes /any/ detail on their Eircom account, the calls revert back to Eircom. Why does this still happen 5+ years after the introduction of CPS (Carrier PreSelection)? Isn't it /fraud/?

Here's several questions for Dermot Ahern, based on his lunchtime appearance on RTE News today, where he effectively told us that sure and begorrah we should just shop around, sure isn't dere plenty of udder tings we could be doin like!?

1) Does he realise in how few areas wireless is available?
2) Does he know how much satellite costs?
2a) Does he know what "latency" means? (If you're telecommuting, latency can be a big, big usability problem).
3) Why do I need a community scheme in a town of 6000-7000 people? Moreso, why would you need a community scheme in the middle of Dublin?
4) If you're renting a flat (where you've no permission to affix things to the building), how does he propose you get either wireless or satellite?

http://snipurl.com/92ff

You could drop ComReg Chairman John Doherty a line while you're at it, and ask him why ComReg is just "expressing concern" about line failure rates (which is /exactly/ what they did /last year/) instead of actually doing something about it -- forcing Eircom to fix the network?

http://snipurl.com/92fl
http://snipurl.com/92fc

I'm sure you'll find plenty more questions to ask both David and Dermot on the IrelandOffline forum if you spend a few minutes browsing the threads. There's no shortage of people out there asking. I'll try and come up with a few more of my own this evening.

http://snipurl.com/92fx

Thanks

(Apologies for ripping off the Ahern questions.)

adam

damien

I have heard that Doherty got interviewed for Morning Ireland and will be on this morning.

Hearing conflicting reports that McRedmond is on after 8 or 9. Stay tuned ! He gatecrashed First Tuesday last night and turned into an Eircom press conference.

eircomtribunal

damien.m wrote:

Hearing conflicting reports that McRedmond is on after 8 or 9.

From the intro it seems McRedmond is going to argue with one of the statistical tricks, that Comreg have published in some of their Quarterly Reports: As Broadband came magically some three years late to these shores – no mention of course why and caused by whom and by means of which trickery – we statistically turn Irish broadband growth curves three years back, and voila, our current growth curves look better than the curves of others three years ago.
It would be serious if they would not, but it is not at all an indication that we are doing good.
The serious issue is of course that we are three years late with broadband development and no stats game should let anyone detract from that fact.
P.

damien

McRedmond is smooth. Summary of what he said later.

remember to keep emailing morningireland@rte.ie to refute all his claims.

Ciaran500

Is it true that he was disinvited to yesterdays talk.

eircomtribunal

Oh stupid us! Now we know:
Our network is as good as any other, we'll pass out most of our European neighbours, probably getting better than most European neighbours,
phenomenal 5% broadband usage (75 000 out of 4 000 000 is 5% then - a lot of students failed the ordinary maths today, I've heard).

Can anybody make a transcript?

P.

damien

Working on getting a transcript this morning.

Once it's up I take it everyone will be emailing Morning Ireland again to refute his claims. Don't leave it up to anyone else to email on your behalf. The more people that contact Morning Ireland the better.

Mr_Man

after listening to the Eircom response this morning. Firstly McRedmond mentioned that he would look at the complaints that RTE had received from people who had been unable to get BB. I'd suggest that people who have a problem getting BB pass their details on to RTE and ask them to forward them to Mc Redmond. The followup to see what kind of resolution they get.

Secondly, suggest to RTE that it might be, in the interest of fairness to Eircom, worthwhile to get Eircom to-gether with their critics so they make their points face to face ?

M.

cgarvey

Will rip, once link is up.
.cg

AndrewMc

dahamsta wrote:

(Apologies for ripping off the Ahern questions.)

adam

No problem - Sure I e-mailed them to RTE, too. Got a nice reply (after I had to leave for my commute) saying he'd pass my questions onto Morning Ireland for this morning. Missed it though... Will have to dig out the programme and see what's said.

I'm encouraged that people seem to be listening *properly* now. Keep it coming!

dahamsta

I dunno guys, if it's true that The Fibber is running around trying to save grace, it seems to suggest that we've put the little weasel into a tizzy. How bad? Kepp hammering away at him, break his spirit.

Love and kisses Davey! Mah mah!

adam

damien

Part 1:

PRESENTER – RICHARD DOWNES

Now many in the technology sector are furious at what they see as the slow rate of rollout of the network of broadband connections to the internet across this country. Yesterday we heard about concerns that many people are digital dinosaurs, literally using 1980’s, maybe even 1990’s style dial-up connections to the internet, while our European partners and indeed now our competitors, are flying high with high-speed access from home, work and everywhere else.

The finger of blame is being pointed squarely at the man opposite me here, who’s been waiting very patiently in our studio here to talk about this, this is David McRedmond of course, the Commercial Director of Eircom. Eircom of course operates ninety percent of our telecom’s infrastructure and David the accusation that people have been making in e-mails to us and in conversations with us, is that you’re milking Eircom for dividends; you’re not investing in the network in a way that would allow us to compete with our European neighbours. How do you respond to that?

DAVID McREDMOND – COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR – EIRCOM

Well two years ago there was no mass market broadband available in Ireland. Today seventy percent of the country is covered with broadband, in those areas eight out of ten people can get broadband. A year ago the price was twice the price it is now, we’ve halved the price in a year and we’re very proud of that. We had five thousand broadband customers a year ago and we set a target then to say we’d get to a hundred thousand customers, which many commentators at the time thought was over ambitious. We now have seventy-five thousand broadband customers, yesterday we signed up six hundred and thirty-five, that’s the rate it’s going at, so we’ve huge momentum behind broadband. We are catching up very fast with our European neighbours.


RICHARD DOWNES

We’ve an awful long way to go though…

DAVID McREDMOND

Well no we believe that very soon we’ll be up there with… we’re already… we’re passed Greece, we’re passed Luxembourg, we’re catching up with the UK and Germany and we see ourselves moving up that table very fast. Forfas have said that this is the fastest take-up rate in Europe. So actually we’re very pleased and we see real momentum behind broadband.

RICHARD DOWNES

You may be but you know that people are very annoyed… you know… they look at things like the failure rate for people who are living in relatively build-up areas, quite close to… say the city of Dublin, city of Cork, and they’re trying to get on to the network and they say their lines are failing and… they say the failure rate is about twenty percent. That’s very high isn’t it?

DAVID McREDMOND

The rate is… the rate is this… is eight out of ten people, where broadband is available, can get it automatically. That two out of ten people cannot get it is a limit to the technology, it is the exact same for…

RICHARD DOWNES

So the technology which you’re using…

DAVID McREDMOND

To the technology which Deutsche Telecom is using, which Telefonica’s using, which Telecom Italia is using… which all the major European telco’s are using and it’s because it’s a distance-based technology and it requires… it only works over certain distances and requires certain…

RICHARD DOWNES

Well also isn’t there an issue there of the type of technology you’re using, that it only enables you to go to four kilometres beyond an exchange, whereas in other countries they’re using technology which can go to six to eight kilometres from an exchange…

DAVID McREDMOND

Well I’m not…actually the technology we’re using is… is leading out technology which is the choice of every major telco in Europe. So we are… and as we are … are rolling this out where we say out of ten people can get it, one out of ten people can’t get it because the line quality isn’t right. There were seventeen thousand lines which didn’t qualify, we’ve replaced thirteen thousand. The final one out of ten is to do with distance and if … if any other European country can do it we can do it… and we will make sure we get there. So we’re achieving real success with this, huge momentum behind it, we’re right up there with our European neighbours and we’re passing most of them out.

RICHARD DOWNES

But there are many people who have been talking to us who say that that’s really not the case, that in Northern Ireland they say that by the end of this year one hundred percent of Northern Ireland and their exchanges will be… will be broadband-enabled…

DAVID McREDMOND

Well now there is an issue… there is an issue around…

RICHARD DOWNES

… that is not going to happen here ever, so it is an issue.


DAVID McREDMOND

Well no there is an issue around the exchanges. First of all we say we’ll get the eight out of ten up to nine out of ten and that will be by the way the exact same as in Northern Ireland, it’s the same technology, it’s the same issues, it’s the same distance limitations. Now there is one other area which is… we said we’d rollout broadband to every town in Ireland… by the end of this year and we will have done so.

Now it’s in exchanges in rural areas below that level, the thirty percent who can’t get it, which will soon be twenty-five percent. That’s what we are very interested in completing; now there’s a real issue there because it simple is uneconomic investment, we are obliged by law not to sell below cost, we have to recover our costs and that would put up the price of broadband. We’ve worked very hard to get down the price.

Now interestingly the government has managed to get thirty-six million euro, and I congratulate the minister and the Department of Communication for getting that, for a rural broadband scheme. Now we want to work with government and say, you know rather than doing this exchange by exchange, because we’re very frustrated we can’t get out there, why don’t you work with us and let’s see if together we can complete this job.

RICHARD DOWNES

There is the question though isn’t there about the level of investment from Eircom in its network in general, ‘cause it’s all related, broadband is related to the rest of the network, and there are those who say, and they’ve been writing to us and say that you are actually investing less in your network than you should be. You’re investing around two hundred million euros this year. Can I just ask you, it’s around two hundred million euros?

DAVID McREDMOND

Our investment is two hundred million euro this year.


RICHARD DOWNES

And how much is your… how much is your… how much is your stock up… capital falling by?

DAVID McREDMOND

Our investment, our investment is two hundred million euro, which is thirteen percent of sales. The average investment of telco’s throughout Europe is twelve point two percent of sales. We’re investing at a level above the level of other European telecom’s…

RICHARD DOWNES

Well that may be the case, but how much is your…how much is your asset depreciating by?

DAVID McREDMOND

… which is why… which is why… which is why we are catching up with and we are… and we are going to pass out most of European neighbours. The issue is the level of investment not the level of depreciation from the past, investment was made five or six years ago that caused the telecom’s crash globally because companies were over-investing in things like dot com companies, multi-media companies etc.

RICHARD DOWNES

Okay. Okay but…

DAVID McREDMOND

We’re investing now, very focused way, our line fault index has come down which shows the network is getting better and we have a network that is as good as any network in Europe.


RICHARD DOWNES

That’s disputed by many people and they say that what’s happening is you’re investing around two hundred and something million euro in the network, the network is depreciating, it’s getting poorer, if you like, by more than four hundred million, according to your accounts. So there’s a net shortfall of two hundred million euro which you’re not investing in the network, just to keep it as it is. How do you answer that?

DAVID McREDMOND

Well I answer that by saying that’s… you know that’s… that’s maths that you’re putting forward rather than the reality of a network and the amount of investment that a network requires. We are investing above the level of other European telco’s and they all have the same issues around the levels of depreciation and therefore we are succeeding in… in having a network that is constantly improving and is probably getting better than most of our European neighbours.

And I would say, you know, our job is to rollout broadband and to sign up people to broadband, we completely share the frustrations of people who can’t get it. You know there’s nothing… we’re advertising it hard and saying what a great product it is, and it is a fantastic product, people want it…

RICHARD DOWNES

But they don’t have ten people in those areas…in the areas which are enabled…

DAVID McREDMOND

Absolutely.

damien

Part 2:

RICHARD DOWNES

… which is only seventy percent of the country, now we’re bombarding people with numbers. But you’re actually talking I suppose net there of about, what, fifty-five, sixty percent of people in the whole country can actually get it?

DAVID McREDMOND

And… and that number is increasing all the time, because that eight out of ten will become nine out of ten, because… as the technology improves and the issue of the remainder we really want to work with government. We want to get this task completed and we want to make sure we achieve our objective, which is to get broadband to as many people as possible, as cheaply as possible because it’s important for competitiveness that people in Ireland can buy broadband at a price which is now at the European average, now that’s pretty good going in one of the most…

RICHARD DOWNES

It’s growing…

DAVID McREDMOND

… high cost economies in Europe.

RICHARD DOWNES

But David McRedmond the… the fear of a lot of people is that your company has huge debts and the investors in your company have taken massive dividends out of Eircom, hundreds and hundreds of millions of euro. Your Chief Executive is one of the highest paid executives… certainly the most highest… highest paid executive in Ireland… one of the highest paid in Europe, he took nine point six million euro out of the company last year in various benefits. The point that these people are making is that Eircom is being starved of the…


DAVID McREDMOND

You know Richard yesterday…

RICHARD DOWNES

… type of investment it needs.

DAVID McREDMOND

Richard I have to… to cut across you. Yesterday you had a number of commentators…

RICHARD DOWNES

Very critical of you.

DAVID McREDMOND

… in the studio which… yes, and Eircom, who had been invited to come on was dis-invited before the programme.

RICHARD DOWNES

Well you were invited… and you were always intended to be invited on the programme to answer the charges.

DAVID McREDMOND

And you had… you had, you know you had plenty of “cheap shots” yesterday. The reality is this, is who is rolling out broadband in Ireland? Its Eircom. Who’s making broadband available… Donegal, Kerry, every part of Ireland? It’s Eircom. Which company is actually caring about getting broadband customers at a price that is affordable? It’s Eircom. Which utility in this country is bringing down costs year after year? It’s Eircom. Now all of that is what we want to do, but you know our real concern is for those customers who are frustrated, and certainly your researcher told me last night you’d twelve complaints over the weekend, we’ve taken those complaints, we’ll follow up with them. We absolutely share the frustrations, because it’s a great product. We want to get it to…

RICHARD DOWNES

And people want to get it.

DAVID McREDMOND

… work with government to get it to them.

RICHARD DOWNES

Absolutely. And when do you think…

DAVID McREDMOND

And in the process continue the good work we’re doing in passing out other European countries to be a real leader in broadband.

RICHARD DOWNES

Okay well those who’d say passing out Greek… Greece, which has a point one of a percent penetration of broadband isn’t a great achievement. But be that as it may, when do you think…

DAVID McREDMOND

Well actually… actually where we are… where we are in that table is we are already now at five percent. Five percent seems a critical figure, certainly in terms of the major suppliers of broadband. At that rate it grows exponentially.


RICHARD DOWNES

Okay well…

DAVID McREDMOND

We are getting very close to the levels of Germany, the UK, Luxembourg, Portugal and we would expect to catch up with those countries fairly soon.

RICHARD DOWNES

Okay well that’s the average and looking at the average is all very well, but when do you think we’re going to have the type of access to the internet which will enable us to… and the economy in particular, to kind of move to the levels of broadband usage, which you see for example in Denmark, which has twelve point seven percent of the population having access to broadband. And places like South Korea, which are way, way, way ahead of us. I mean we heard yesterday that the UK is heading there for about 2008 and estimates that it’ll be way after 2010 before we get there?

DAVID McREDMOND

Well I… you know I don’t know how people got to those estimates. I actually think we’re getting there very fast. Firstly the areas that have broadband we are at the same levels as everywhere else in Europe, arguably even possibly ahead and we certainly will be at the same levels or ahead very soon, by the end of this year.

In relation to the remainder, you know we very much look forward to discussing with the government, meeting them part of the way around the money they’ve set aside for rural broadband so that we can get on and complete the job.

RICHARD DOWNES

Okay David McRedmond, Commercial Director of Eircom, we appreciate your coming in to us…

DAVID McREDMOND

Thank you.

seamus

Blood boiling........will formulate a response email...

dahamsta

That was comical, I can't wait to hear it. Well done to Richard Downes for not letting the weasel get away with most of his bullcrap.

Wow, we've overtaken Luxembourg. How many people live there now, five? And we're "catching" up with Britain? At a rate of about one month in sixty maybe...

adam

mike65

I was listening while still mainly asleep so was'nt sure I heard this bit -

McRedmond

in the studio which… yes, and Eircom, who had been invited to come on was dis-invited before the programme.


Downes

Well you were invited… and you were always intended to be invited on the programme to answer the charges.

Whats the story here? I almost felt sorry for the little guy Is poor Eircom being shafted by the media? For shame!

Mike.

ps guess which broadband product the next ad break started with?

damien

That's it everyone, keep emailing morningireland@rte.ie with your opinions. If you like, post what you sent to them up here as well, unless you don't want Eircom to know what you said.

DonegalMan

OK - here's mine:

This morning's interview with David McRedmond is another valuable piece of
work in highlighting Broadband problems in Ireland, I hope that Morning
Ireland continue to run with this story and keep challenging Eircom with the
hard facts.

As usual, Eircom try to waffle their way around the issues, with innacurate
statements. I'd like pick up on just one area - that of comparisons with BT
in general and Northern Ireland in particular.

Challenged about BT, McRedmond said:

"First of all we say we'll get the eight out of ten up to nine out of ten
and that will be by the way the exact same as in Northern Ireland, it's the
same technology, it's the same issues, it's the same distance limitations."

This is blatantly untrue.

a) BT are already achieving a 96% connection rate on enabled exchanges and
are planning to get this to 99.8% this year.

b) Eircom's distance restriction is about 3 km. Up until last month, BT's
distance restriction was 6 km - more than double that of Eircom - and two
weeks ago, BT announced the removal of ALL distance restrictions.

Martin Harran

Paddy20

David McRedmond was allowed to get away with spouting utter misleading rubbish. It also appears he is planning to get his grubby mits on a large chunk of the Rural broadband scheme, thirty six million Euro.

Every single misleading statement he made should be highlighted in detail by IrelandOffline. As there are a lot of innocent punters out there who are falling for Eircom's new 'Housewifey' advertisement's on how "easy" it is to get hooked up to broadband by just plugging a thingy in to the telephone socket.

Perhap's the: Advertising Standard's Authority should be complained to about Eircom's misleading TV advertisement's.

I would really love to state what I really believe Eircom's Board, it's Director's and shareholder's are, but the Irish libel law's prevent me. However, I can state that they should hang their collective greedy heads in shame, and the Director's really should consider if they are really up to the task confronting them ?...

damien

Paddy20 wrote:

Perhap's the: Advertising Standard's Authority should be complained to about Eircom's misleading TV advertisement's.

Lead the way Paddy. www.asai.ie

SkepticOne

Paddy20 wrote:

David McRedmond was allowed to get away with spouting utter misleading rubbish. It also appears he is planning to get his grubby mits on a large chunk of the Rural broadband scheme, thirty six million Euro.

He'll be wanting a lot more than that, and he'll want to make sure that all of it goes to Eircom and not companies that will compete at the infrastructure level like they have in Sweden and all other countries that have had advanced broadband services for far longer than Ireland.

This is what he means by "Working with the Government". The big fear for Eircom is that they will get some competition and this might force them to invest in their network rather than funnel all their monopoly profits out of the country.

Ciaran500

I just got a reply from morning Ireland and it had my name on it.

I've never given them my name.