Speculation about Smart Telecom & its future

murrayj

The share price of Smart Telecom fell another 4.5% today, and has completely collapsed in the last three weeks. At the current rate of free-fall it looks like they will reach zero value in the next few weeks. Hard to see how they can fund any Broadband rollout when all their shareholders are selling off?

http://www.smarttelecom.ie/sharepriceinfo.htm

Has the market figured out that they are going to lose the 3G licence court case? It was due around now?

Foxwood

Oh look, MurrayJ on his one man vendetta against Smart Telecom strikes again!

murrayj

Foxwood wrote:

Oh look, MurrayJ on his one man vendetta against Smart Telecom strikes again!

You can hardly blame me... I don't own any SMART shares...maybe you should be blaming all the SMART shareholders who are selling off?

Kristok

You almost seem happy about this, the potential collapse of a telecoms company in ireland is hardly something to celebrate.

murrayj

Kristok wrote:

You almost seem happy about this, the potential collapse of a telecoms company in ireland is hardly something to celebrate.

Schools all over Ireland have been denied access to proper Broadband not because it's not available but because the Dept of Education forced schools to use Smart, Digiweb, IBB and other amateurs. If these guys aren't able to deliver a service, they deserve to go out of business. I don't wish any harm to any of the staff of Smart, but they'll all get other jobs in the current climate. As far as I can see that company is run by a failed stockbroker who has openly admitted that all he wanted to do was fatten it up for a quick sale. It looks as though he has been caught out.

Foxwood

murrayj wrote:

You can hardly blame me... I don't own any SMART shares...maybe you should be blaming all the SMART shareholders who are selling off?

Blaming them for what? Smart's share price isn't all that significant because it has a number of core investors who aren't selling their shares, and who have made significant financial commitments to the company in recent week.

According to the London Stock exchange website, 55,000 Smart Telecom shares were sold today. That's less than £6k work of shares, in a company that announced a new government contract worth €900k last week, and that's about to start a court case over 50 million of it's money that Comreg is still sitting on (even though it wants to deny Smart a license).

With so little traffic in the shares, the price is irrelvant to the companies short to medium term health.

Foxwood

murrayj wrote:

Schools all over Ireland have been denied access to proper Broadband not because it's not available but because the Dept of Education forced schools to use Smart, Digiweb, IBB and other amateurs. If these guys aren't able to deliver a service, they deserve to go out of business. I don't wish any harm to any of the staff of Smart, but they'll all get other jobs in the current climate. As far as I can see that company is run by a failed stockbroker who has openly admitted that all he wanted to do was fatten it up for a quick sale. It looks as though he has been caught out.

I really don't know where you make this stuff up. I think it really is time that you start putting up or shutting up. Provide some citations to back up the absolutely ridiculous stuff you're coming out with. The "fatten it up for a quick sale" one should be easy to back up, if it was true.

The Dept of Education hasn't "forced" anyone to use anything. The Department put the supply of these services out to tender, and these companies won the tenders. I can't find any progress report on the Departments website, so I don't know what progress has been made. But if it's as bad as you make out, I'm sure it would have been reported somewhere - have you got a citatio to back that up too?

dub45

Perhaps a mod could change the title of this thread as it is clearly designed to damage Smart Telecom and possibly put potential customers off siging up?

The substance of the thread (if any!) refers to the collapse of the share price and not the company itself.

MurrayJ adores Eircom and loses no opportunity whatsoever to bash Smart.
Anybody reading this thread should be aware of this.

Smart's presence in the BB field has beneffited virtually every bb user through their innovative pricing and speed in the products they offer. Yes they have faults like every other company but they are certainly not helped by Eircom's tactics which are anti competitive and anti us all. Oh by the way MurrayJ Smart offer a 3Mb product including line rental for 35 euros monthly do you know what your beloved Eircom charge in total for such a product? Almost eighty euros!!!!!

Endymion

Have you ever thought that maybe the problem is the business climate in ireland, rather then the companies tryign the start up?

probe

Kristok wrote:

You almost seem happy about this, the potential collapse of a telecoms company in ireland is hardly something to celebrate.

Blame Comreg for Smart’s current share price. Comreg issued Smart with a 3G mobile phone license and minutes later took it away for no apparent material reason.

No doubt this license takeback had nothing to do with the fact that Eircom had just purchased Meteor and meteor had no 3G license and the other three Meteor competitors had.

Smart also started an aggressive programme of local loop unbundling (unlike most other eircom “competitors”) which if it was allowed to continue might (would) seriously threaten the eircom monopoly. Ireland might end up with 24 Mbits/sec broadband connections for under €16/month as in France with no traffic limits, no installation fees and no minimum contract periods. Heaven forbid. Everybody might start using it!

As it stands, most other DSL broadband providers are happy to be re-sellers of eircom broadband – just as guys on the street peddling evening newspapers sell the Evening Herald or Evening Echo and have no plans to buy the newspaper operation and are happy to sell the paper and take a small margin and wouldn’t dream of adding other products to the package.

Perhaps murrayj works for eircom?

Perhaps Comreg is not independent?

Anyway "Collapse" has nothing to do with share price. Collapse is when you run out of cash!


probe

paulm17781

I'd love to know your agenda. Anti-smart and anti-cable broadband. I wonder who you work for.

Share price can go to 0, it doesn't bankrupt the company.

Nietzschean

this guy is clearly a complete Eircom fan boy and SMART hater, can the topic be edited and maybe get this guy banned from broadband? i can't see any of his posts as being usefull just attacks on smart or promoting eircom for the most part.........

Ronan|Raven

And anti anything Wireless.

murrayj

Foxwood wrote:

The Dept of Education hasn't "forced" anyone to use anything. The Department put the supply of these services out to tender, and these companies won the tenders. I can't find any progress report on the Departments website, so I don't know what progress has been made. But if it's as bad as you make out, I'm sure it would have been reported somewhere - have you got a citatio to back that up too?

I'm not going to name any schools because I don't want parents to stop sending their kids there due to lack of Broadband. However, ask around a few teachers and you will find that a huge number of schools have had their Broadband delayed, and a huge number have ended up on inferior technologies, totally unnecessarily.

Yes - I suppose I am am biased. The school where I work has been promised Broadband by both Digiweb and Smart, and neither have delivered. I have eircom at home (also available at the school) and I am very happy with it. I know it costs more than SMART or IBB, but hey...it works... and I don't mind paying a bit extra for that.

By the way, I don't just pick on SMART, I am critical of any other companies with a similar track record.

Regarding my dislike of Wireless - I am not totally against it. I acknowledge that it can work, and is good as a last resort. Many of my posts are testament to that. However, most of the wireless operators in Ireland are either crammed into unlicensed spectrum, or else don't have enough base-stations to serve their customers. The Board is jammed every night with messages that prove this.

Akula

FUD strikes again.

The title and the tone of his post is misleading.

I don't think he should be banned but I agree the title should be changed. I think the comments made here is enough to spell it out for anybody who then decides to read the thread.

dub45

murrayj wrote:

I'm not going to name any schools because I don't want parents to stop sending their kids there due to lack of Broadband.

So you dont like being honest with parents?

murrayj wrote:

However, ask around a few teachers and you will find that a huge number of schools have had their Broadband delayed, and a huge number have ended up on inferior technologies, totally unnecessarily.

How can a few teachers tell us about a huge number of schools?

murrayj wrote:

Yes - I suppose I am am biased.

In fact given the responses in this thread to your diatribe and deliberately misleadingly titled thread you are actually doing Smart 'some service' .

probe

murrayj wrote:

Yes - I suppose I am am biased. The school where I work …

Which school is this please? The eircom staff training centre?

Most of us have come across you on various parts of the net - not just boards.ie.

It is inconceivable that any normal teacher or doctor or butcher or school cleaner or car park attendant would be so consistently pro-eircom!

Perhaps someone here might get your IP number and e-mail it to smart telecom? Their lawyers may be interested in finding out who you really are, having started this malicious thread. These bastard lawyers might even find out who you really work for and might even find a legal route to go after them (assuming it is eircom) for your nasty work here!

probe

Cabaal

Murrayj you obviously have a axe to grind with regards to Smart Telecom and you jump at the chance to bring up the subject no matter what thread your posting in, due to this I've changed the thread title to "Speculation about Smart Telecom" as the topic you choose was misleading.

keep it clean people..

Foxwood

murrayj wrote:

I'm not going to name any schools

I didn't ask you to name a school, I asked you for citations to back up your totally bogus claims. If the Broadband for Schools program was the shambles you make it out to be, I'd expect there to be at least one story in the media covering the issue - or a press release from one of the opposition parties uncovering the balls up that the Dept of Eductaion had made in the tendering process.

I also asked for a citation on your claims about Smart being fattened up for a quick sale. If it's true, then it shouldn't be hard for you to point to a press story covering it (unless he "openly admitted" this to you in the pub over a pint, and there weren't any journos there to write it up).

By the way, you're right about some of the schools ending up on "inferior technologies" (satellite). Because the Minister insisted on it.

cgarvey

murrayj wrote:

Schools all over Ireland have been denied access to proper Broadband not because it's not available but because the Dept of Education forced schools to use Smart, Digiweb, IBB and other amateurs.

Have you a source for that (other than hearsay / opinion of a few teachers)? I ask because, NCTE spokesperson claimed in a recent interview that all schools will be on line this September coming. Last I heard (and I know of a few, not many, examples) eircom were holding up the rollout by not supplying routers. That was a while ago now, though, which is why I was wondering if you have a source for that. PM me if needs be.

.cg

jimmycrackcorm

Meanwhile MurrayJ's ESOP shares are doing well.

Slydice

wow, smart shares are really cheap. anyone know how I could go about buying some?

nadir

Yeah, Eircom have refused smart to conenct me for the past 5+ months, why ???
no reason given. This is one of the reasons why smart are losing share price. Because those eircom **** are hording it all for themselves, forcing people to buy a crap service, poor download caps, high phone prices, and no interest in roling out broadband. Having people on dial up at this stage, in western Europe is an absolute disgrace.
I held out so long not paying eircom because I ahte thems o much, however after nearly 6 months waiting I gave in a paid for eircom to conenct me a phone line last week, four days later, I get an email from smart saying they can connect me.
why ????
becuase eircom wouldnt budge until they had my cash, this is Illegal behavour.
That's what they are, total scumbags.
If you cant see this murrayj then you are a fool.

Slydice wrote:

wow, smart shares are really cheap. anyone know how I could go about buying some?

me too!

pizzahead77

Slydice wrote:

wow, smart shares are really cheap. anyone know how I could go about buying some?

the same way you buy other shares - through a stockbroker or online broker

The Fool

As i undersatand it Smart is a "Loss Leader"

They, unlike a normal business, are not concerned with making a profit.
They are gaining market share by undercutting eircom ect on both residential and business market. The hope is that they will be bought out for there market share by a major player.

Foxwood

The Fool wrote:

As i undersatand it Smart is a "Loss Leader"

They, unlike a normal business, are not concerned with making a profit.
They are gaining market share by undercutting eircom ect on both residential and business market. The hope is that they will be bought out for there market share by a major player.

Do you guys just sit around pulling this ****e out of your arses?

There's this amazing thing on the Internet called google - I don't know if you've heard of it? You can use it to find out all sorts of useful information, so that instead of making stuff up, you can actually quote sources.

For instance, you'd find out that only a few weeks ago, Smart announced that it was pushing back it's expected breakeven date by 6 months to mid-2007. Hardly the kind of announcement that you'd make if you were just fattening the company up for a sellout. Or if you were "not concerned with making a profit." (The delayed break-even date was also reported here on boards).

Other articles report that the Commercial Director and IT Director have recently purchased a million shares each of the company.

Smart might well prove to be a very attractive target for some bigger player in the future, but in the meantime it's investing an awful lot of money, and doing an awful lot of hard work to build an infrastructure that has changed the telecoms market in Ireland, even in places where Smart doesn't currently serve.

stepbar

I agree Foxwood that is horse****, brendan murtagh and his family are putting a lot of money into Smart. Shrewd investors that they are, they wont want to see their investment diluted any further. As well that Sean Quinn's loan of 30 odd mil has recently become non interest baring so that would indicate to me that Sean Quinn is happy to support the business during this troublesome time. As far as I can see, Smart's probs stem from the fact that the 3G licence was taken away from them. Once reinstated, I dont think anything will stop smart.

jimmycrackcorm

I'dsay it would be a good time to buy. It's not as if Smart will disappear tomorrow...

The Fool

Foxwood wrote:

that it was pushing back it's expected breakeven date by 6 months to mid-2007..

They can "announce" all they want it doesn't make it happen, they aslo "announced" to be that they could supply me broadband 18 months ago.
I know this is probably not there fault but they are saying they have 6000 customers "waiting". How many of them (like me) got pi$%ed off waiting and signed up with another provider.

I don't claim to be an expert in shares (quite the opposite) but I would distinguish between turnover and profit.

btw you'd hardly expect them to announce they won't make a profit until 2020:D

spurious

I switched to Smart recently, best thing I ever did. I wish I'd done it earlier.

The only problem was not one of their making it was the dragging of heels by those Eircom wasters in doing the transfer. If ComReg had any teeth whatsoever, they'd put those wasters out of business by fining them every time they disrupt a Smart transfer, or deny Smart personnel access to an exchange or lie about work they have done.

If I knew how to do it, I would buy as many Smart shares as I could.

The Fool

stepbar wrote:

I agree Foxwood that is horse****, brendan murtagh and his family are putting a lot of money into Smart. Shrewd investors that they are, they wont want to see their investment diluted any further. As well that Sean Quinn's loan of 30 odd mil has recently become non interest baring so that would indicate to me that Sean Quinn is happy to support the business during this troublesome time. As far as I can see, Smart's probs stem from the fact that the 3G licence was taken away from them. Once reinstated, I dont think anything will stop smart.

I'm sure they are lovely guys, and as for my conspiracy theory, never said it wouldn't work!!

lucernarian

Just because Smart is aiming to make a profit, it doesn't mean that they are not trying to attract a takeover bid. Smart's share price should be recovering a bit after some progress was made in the LLU talks.

dub45

The Fool wrote:

They can "announce" all they want it doesn't make it happen, they aslo "announced" to be that they could supply me broadband 18 months ago.
I know this is probably not there fault but they are saying they have 6000 customers "waiting". How many of them (like me) got pi$%ed off waiting and signed up with another provider.

I don't claim to be an expert in shares (quite the opposite) but I would distinguish between turnover and profit.

btw you'd hardly expect them to announce they won't make a profit until 2020:D

Dont forget that when Smart come into an area they begin immediately to recruit people most of whom would not have known of Smart's good value offers previously and even people who sign up elsewhere will for the most part only be on a six monthly contract and can move on anytime after that.

The Fool

Slydice wrote:

wow, smart shares are really cheap. anyone know how I could go about buying some?

Hope you guys took my advice and invested in magic beans instead

The Fool

http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/0908/smart.html

Nuttzz

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1685764&issue_id=14628

Answering shareholder questions, Mr Casey said the company had run out of cash and was currently depending on large shareholders to write cheques on a week-to-week basis.


Lots of things have gone against smart, customers unable to port numbers etc. Shame to lose a telecoms company here but i have heard some nightmare stories about them, i'd say an Eircom or BT operation will gobble them up in a couple of months

paulm17781

It would be a shame to lose Smart. They were the first company to take on Eircon in a proper way, sadly with our weak regulator it failed. They set the bar for how telecoms should work here.

Sponge Bob

Whatever about the travails of Smart there is no doubt at all that the BB operation would be taken over as a going concern and kept running. If you are in the process of signing up where there already is a live Smart exchange , carry right on !

Never forget that without the activities of Smart and the old skool NTL none of us would have a 3 mbit package under €100 in this country and would not have an upload greater than 128k at under €200.

I assume carphone warehoouse (aka talk talk) and Sky are the biggest potential taker overs, they will take no **** from eircom either . Smart , in hindsight, may have ben the devil eircom knew

paulm17781

This can only sound jingoistic though it isn't meant too....

One of the things I like about Smart is that they are Irish owned. It is well and good to say Sky or Talk talk will take no crap from them as they are big companies, BT have yet to show any muscle on those grounds so I don't see another big company doing so.

Maybe Smart will pull through, has the outcome of their 3G license come yet? If they hold on to that they will be fine.

Foxwood

I wouldn't be so quick to write Smart off. They didn't announce that they're going out of business yesterday, despite the aptly named Fools comments. The actual volume of shares sold off yesterday still wasn't all that significant.

They're still doing substantially better than Magnet on the LLU front, despite eircoms best efforts. Perhaps this sudden scare might even give ComReg a clue about what ComRegs screw ups really mean.

spurious

Smart are like the Cuba of Irish telecoms - fighting against outrageous practices by a big bully and still in business despite the best efforts of Eircom.

Viva Smart - Venceremos!!:)

Foxwood

The Fool wrote:

Hope you guys took my advice and invested in magic beans instead

There are 379 million shares in Smart. 4.4 million of them were sold yesterday. Not much of a crash there.

(According to the Smart Investor Relations web page, there were 55 million shares traded on the 17th of May, 54 million traded on the 13th of June, 37 million on the 7th of July, 52 million on the 7th of August, and 35 million were traded on the 5th of September. So I don't think a sell off of 4 million shares necessarily amounts to a particularly significant event).

The Fool

Foxwood wrote:

There are 379 million shares in Smart. 4.4 million of them were sold yesterday. Not much of a crash there.

(According to the Smart Investor Relations web page, there were 55 million shares traded on the 17th of May, 54 million traded on the 13th of June, 37 million on the 7th of July, 52 million on the 7th of August, and 35 million were traded on the 5th of September. So I don't think a sell off of 4 million shares necessarily amounts to a particularly significant event).

Will you take your head out of you a$se, shares fell in value by over 50%!!

themonk

Loads news last few days about smart having problems ... usual mumbo jumbo about business but there was mention that plans to be llu unbundled in 60 exchanges by jan 2007 maybe scaled down ( "stop expanding reach of the service" source tribune.ie ) .... worryingly could the existing residental access service go into decline >? .... what happens to services that go tits up .. are contracts cancelled if they do ... sound like nostradamus here dont i

dub45

themonk wrote:

Loads news last few days about smart having problems ... usual mumbo jumbo about business but there was mention that plans to be llu unbundled in 60 exchanges by jan 2007 maybe scaled down ( "stop expanding reach of the service" source tribune.ie ) .... worryingly could the existing residental access service go into decline >? .... what happens to services that go tits up .. are contracts cancelled if they do ... sound like nostradamus here dont i

If the worst comes to the worst we move to a new isp - and who would be around to worry about contracts???????

tech

They got a savage hammering on Today Fm Sunday Business show yesterday morning, I think you can download them as Podcasts if you want to listen !

Sponge Bob

BB/DSL customers will not suffer any loss of service from all this .

Moriarty

Guys, please remain civil. Hostile attitudes will get people banned.

spurious

Smart are still the best option out there, regardless.

Thank Smart for Eircom's recent announcement of dropping prices.

Thank Smart if you're lucky enough to be away from the evil clutches of Eircom as they up the price of their outrageous 'line rental' scam.

paulm17781

spurious wrote:

Smart are like the Cuba of Irish telecoms

Smart are yet to murder a person who disagrees with them. They are nothing like Cuba.

byte

I'd imagine if the worst came to the worst, Smart would be bought by some other telecoms company for a nice price. Maybe the likes of Digiweb would be possible takers. I'd like to see another Irish company take the company over if it came to it and Digiweb seem pretty wise in their expenditure.