Smart 6m/512k for Christmas

CyberGhost

Ftth???

WizZard

Fibre To The Home. Real broadband. :v:

GarfieldConnoll

CyberGhost wrote:

Ftth???

Fibre To The Home

Direct fibre connections either directly to the household, or fibre to the basement of apartment blocks.

Garfield.

LoBo

How's this working for everyone?

We're getting approx 4-5Mbit down and 512Kbit up. Very, very nice.

Better in fact than our office which is paying eircom something like €180 a month..

CyberGhost

ah thanks for the explanation

digitalninja

I just wanted to raise a few points regarding the pricing of 6/512 service after the January cut-off.
I think it is fair to say that many people aren't actually going to even notice the speed increase as most people just use the internet for web browsing, and I know most of what I use it for is browsing, the odd game, nothing spectacular.

The problem here is that if you're going to charge extra for this product your current customers are unlikely to pay a lot more for it because as a previous smart customer, frankly the 2/256 service is excellent, virtually no disconnections and while we get 220k/sec over 700k/sec I can't see that many people caring except people torrenting, downloading isos and people who work with very large files daily.

I had the 2/256 because I needed the slightly better upload, but if the residential customers are going to get 6/512 for less than 50 quid I am going to be all over it.

I assume the business packages are going to be upgraded also as knowing how shrewd smart are it wouldn't be like them to stay behind the game.

In the next year broadband competition is going to be fierce...
NTL are going to 10mb.

Eircom/Bt aready have the suckers who don't really understand there is better deals out there (you need to beat them in price not speed).

Magnet will probably realise "gamerz" don't have 250 quid or whatever the **** ridiculous price they're charging and drop their prices. I still can't believe how laughable their prices are, their marketing demographic seems to be gamers with ****LOADS of cash to spend each month (there is so much technically wrong with what they're trying to do I won't even go into it)

digiweb/ibb/clearwire will all have to up their speeds to compete.

Now I think that if you sell this 6 meg product at over 50 quid a month I won't bother, because frankly, why should I? My torrents might get down slightly faster, a linux iso here and there, and my newsgroup binaries are throttled at 2mb anyway so is it worth any more than 15 quid a month?

The answer is No, and if you charge more than that you simply won't get the savvy customers upgrading that you're aiming for here.

I think smart are a fantastic company, (phone support needs some work) but other than that I have been extremely happy with you guys. I wish you all the best in the new year and hope more people switch to you because your hard work and smart (no pun intended) pricing/products deserve it.

If you want to keep ahead of the competition don't **** it up by overcharging for a service which is a quarter of what most adsl2 capable companies will be providing at affordable prices(1) by this time next year

(1) In London https://www.bethere.co.uk/homebroadband.do these guys are offering 24mbps for £24. How long do you think It'll be before an irish company offers the same in Dublin?

If you were really 'smart'...... it'd be you.

kaizersoze

digitalninja wrote:

Eircom/Bt aready have the suckers who don't really understand there is better deals out there (you need to beat them in price not speed).

Really:rolleyes:
Did it ever enter your head that these are the only options available outside Dublin (your center of the universe) and a few other cities? Most other companies won't bother their arse except for the few handy/lucrative exchanges in the cities.

digitalninja wrote:

NTL are going to 10mb.

As yet this is hearsay and not been confirmed. The few hours that users got the higher speeds appears to be a case of someone flipping the wrong switch when the UK upgrades were happening.
It may happen but that's a decision the new owners have yet to take.

digitalninja wrote:

Magnet will probably realise "gamerz" don't have 250 quid or whatever the **** ridiculous price they're charging and drop their prices. I still can't believe how laughable their prices are, their marketing demographic seems to be gamers with ****LOADS of cash to spend each month (there is so much technically wrong with what they're trying to do I won't even go into it)

Magnet are not just targeting gamers, they will be (if they're not already) offering TV, VOD, VoIP and other services on their higher speed connections. They are also after business customers who are currently paying big money for leased lines to Eircom and others. Aswell as that, good pings are the "Holy Grail" for gamers. Huge download speeds are not important.
I'm sure the prices will come down at some stage but that will be driven by competition but at this point in time no one else is offering 24mb.

digitalninja wrote:

digiweb/ibb/clearwire will all have to up their speeds to compete.

These companies, especially IBB, need to get their systems working correctly and reliably at current speeds to compete.

digitalninja wrote:

Now I think that if you sell this 6 meg product at over 50 quid a month I won't bother, because frankly, why should I? My torrents might get down slightly faster, a linux iso here and there, and my newsgroup binaries are throttled at 2mb anyway so is it worth any more than 15 quid a month?
The answer is No, and if you charge more than that you simply won't get the savvy customers upgrading that you're aiming for here.

Based on the fact that Smart currently charge €5 for 256 upload, I'd expect their 6mb/512k to cost between €60 and €70 and thats still good value. There will be good uptake at that price. If you have no use for such a connection don't take it but there's more to the internet than torrents and newsgroups like teleworking and SOHO. Thats what the REAL savvy customers will see.

digitalninja

kaizersoze wrote:

Really:rolleyes:
Did it ever enter your head that these are the only options available outside Dublin (your center of the universe) and a few other cities? Most other companies won't bother their arse except for the few handy/lucrative exchanges in the cities.

Yes it did enter my head but I'm not concerned with that considering most of smart telecom's business is currently in Dublin.

Magnet are not just targeting gamers, they will be (if they're not already) offering TV, VOD, VoIP and other services on their higher speed connections. They are also after business customers who are currently paying big money for leased lines to Eircom and others. Aswell as that, good pings are the "Holy Grail" for gamers. Huge download speeds are not important.

If you have heard or seen the advertising campaign magnet have been rattling on the radio and on paper you would know that they are giving free xbox live subscriptions away with their product, so your wrong, secondly, what have good pings got to do with anything, that is down to latency, interleaving, hops to server and a myriad of other factors which have no bearing on the speed of throughput on a connection, you should educate yourself before talking nonsense. They will NOT be offering TV over 24mb broadband because that is the limit for adsl2 and you need to either split the line to lower segments for data/tv or do full data - their current package for tv is for 4mb, they also have NO VOD currently so please don't talk about products that don't exist yet.

You say that they are going for business customers? You clearly don't work in close proximity to this technology since saying "big money" makes me think you really don't know your facts here and just have a loose understanding of connectivity related to business.

I can tell you for a fact that businesses don't choose leased lines over DSL because of speed, they choose them for the service level agreements with the carriers so that they a guaranteed levels of uptime so that VPNs to satellite offices never go down.

I'm sure the prices will come down at some stage but that will be driven by competition but at this point in time no one else is offering 24mb.

Yes and can you give me a reason why this can't be smart and it can't be now? Seems to me you agree with me yet you don't want the benefits which makes me wonder if you're a bit slow.

These companies, especially IBB, need to get their systems working correctly and reliably at current speeds to compete.

Exactly, if smart strike now they'll blow the competition out of the water.

Based on the fact that Smart currently charge €5 for 256 upload, I'd expect their 6mb/512k to cost between €60 and €70 and thats still good value. There will be good uptake at that price. If you have no use for such a connection don't take it but there's more to the internet than torrents and newsgroups like teleworking and SOHO. Thats what the REAL savvy customers will see.

At that price I wouldn't be taking it for the reasons I've outlined in my previous post. I have a use for the connection, it would get things done slightly faster, but not a lot of things.
Currently teleworking can easily be done on a 2meg connection, I would for a multinational company and I can work from everywhere with broadband via vpn, it doesn't need to be very fast, sure it's better if it does but it is negligible. Again, what you're talking about you seem to have no real experience with since if you worked with what you are talking about you would know that the difference between 2mb and 6mb for commerce isn't all that big a deal.
So to wrap up, I think you need to be a bit better informed about what you're talking about before you can consider yourself a REAL savvy user. :rolleyes:

kaizersoze

digitalninja wrote:

.......which makes me wonder if you're a bit slow.

Oh dear:rolleyes:
Sure I must be. I'm a sucker on a BT connection.

Happy new year:)

Blaster99

digitalninja wrote:

Yes it did enter my head but I'm not concerned with that considering most of smart telecom's business is currently in Dublin.

A small fraction of Dublin, you mean. I'd say they have as many exchanges enabled outside of Dublin as they have in Dublin.

Has Smart released the pricing for the 6Mbps product?

dub45

Blaster99 wrote:

A small fraction of Dublin, you mean. I'd say they have as many exchanges enabled outside of Dublin as they have in Dublin.

Has Smart released the pricing for the 6Mbps product?

No. They have not confirmed that they will offer such a product.

Sponge Bob

NTL are likely to offer a 5mbit with maybe as much as 512k up (and maybe only 300k up ) at around €49.99 a month vat incl .

I suspect the 10Mbit will be held in reserve until the old Chorus network catches up with the old NTL network over the next 2 years. 10Mbits will appear at some stage in the next 2 years , yes , not in Jan 2006 I will wager .

Gone West

Couch Potato wrote:

seems silly to me to give the customer something for free and then take it away

not at all.
basic marketing.
they have some smart people on the books.

dub45

FuzzyLogic wrote:

not at all.
basic marketing.
they have some smart people on the books.

Its also a good way for themselves to trial a product and test what speeds customers lines can actually handle etc etc.

ricey

Chorus owns NTL in the south now right?

dub45

ricey wrote:

Chorus owns NTL in the south now right?

Well they are both owned by the same company.

Liberty/NTL deal cleared

Liberty Global has been given the all clear for the purchase of NTL Ireland by the Minister for Enterprise Trade and Employment Michael Martin. It follows the approval of Ireland’s competition authority for the takeover that will create a national cable operator in the country. Shane O’Neill will be the executive chairman of the new business that will combine NTL Ireland with Liberty’s Chorus. The company is planning to invest up to €300 million on the development of digital and broadband services.

Mountjoy Mugger

Back on topic; it seems that my initial speed of 6MB down has dropped to 3.8MB on irishisptest. Upload also dropped a little. Still, it's free.

Summerhill Exchange.

Anarchist

My speeds have remained at almost 6mb down and 512 up

MadsL

@ GarfieldConnell

Fibre To The Home

Direct fibre connections either directly to the household, or fibre to the basement of apartment blocks.

I have this in Smithfield (Tripleplay TV, Voice & Data), but at the moment the speeds are very disappointing, when first installed was happy with ~3Mup/4M down, but at the moment 1.2M is a bit of a stretch. I know Smart are working on this. Cheers for the 2 month rebate - but really I want my 4M back! Any news on this??

digitalninja

i want ftth:(

Mountjoy Mugger

Anarchist wrote:

My speeds have remained at almost 6mb down and 512 up

Hmm - what exchange?

LoBo

With the month of 6Mb almost up, any word from smart on whether they will extend the offer / bring out a product at this speed?

If so, any details on the costs?

dub45

LoBo wrote:

With the month of 6Mb almost up, any word from smart on whether they will extend the offer / bring out a product at this speed?

If so, any details on the costs?

Smart have never said that the will provide any new products as a result of this trial - a visit to the website I am sure will provide any up date on new products -there are none at present!

http://www.smarttelecom.ie/broadband.php

http://support.smarttelecom.ie/forums/

pointofnoreturn

layke wrote:

I know Eircom like forcing people who need phat pipes to purchase leased lines thats where the big bucks are and they would lose huge profits if people started getting cheap affordable BB. Hence the reason why most of you are stuck with crappy 128k u/l speeds and capped. It's not about Eircom being unable to do this, I know a load of engineers in that ompany and the entire network is wrigged with the latest Juniper gear and is fully ADSL2.

Once again rip off Ireland has come into play.

The ISP's in this country are stingy when it comes to bandwidth, the technology and infrasture (well the little there is) can do crazy! speed's it's just like any tipical Irish company, squeeze every penny out of you! slowly!

like IBB's new WiMAX technology can work up to 12Mbits but the maximum speed for the customer can be programmed between 2Mbits to 12Mbits.
they can't use this now for a 1Mbit connection

There technology caught up with them!

If eircom have ADSL2 then once they have enough back haul, which the probably do, they could offer speeds up to 24MBit's with better upload speeds, once the connection is good quality.

Some real ISP has to get in here and start offering speeds at the full potential of the technology and reasonable prices, we need serious completion!

OfflerCrocGod

pointofnoreturn wrote:

If eircom have ADSL2 then once they have enough back haul, which the probably do, they could offer speeds up to 24MBit's with better upload speeds, once the connection is good quality.

LOL, the physical network is in a bad state in this country - even if it were in an excellent state they couldn't offer 24Mb to anyone but a lucky few; you have to be quite close to the exchange to get full ADSL2+ speeds.