Smart going belly up?

machalla

Well at least Rasta had the decency to identify himself (herself?) as a former Eircon type. Theres quite a few posters on here who I suspect are either former or current Eircon but don't want to be outed as such.

I wouldn't say ESAT are on the list at all. They make a lot of money for Eircon via bitstream products and preventing actual competition as they will never put it up to Eircon in any real way. How long have they been in the marketplace and what have they done but kowtow to Eircon?

A more likely target would be magnet if they really get going. They actually want LLU unlike almost every other operator.

JNive

never seen eircom techs this quick at getting into exchanges to alter peoples lines lol, its not even funny at this stage, it was clearly an ambush.
yes they owed them money but not THAT much. it was just the excuse they were waiting for cause eircom thought smart would ahve gone out of business before now, and obviosuly were not prepared to risk waiting until the 3G License appeal decision next week, which if successful would have secured more funding from murtagh and possibly others.

smart owed them a certain amount, but as they were undergoing restructuring and as i said, possibly getting a 3G license announcement it would have ensured their ability to pay eircom back, and have spared the most important things here, the workers, the schools, the businesses and the residential population.

There was clearly no real need for them to act so urgently at this point in time, eircom are scared, pure and simple.

And now that their brand is damaged, they use the wholesale records to clearly gain an advantage over ALL other operators, and are calling to smart customers urging them to sign back with eircom, and are capitalising on peoples upset and fear about their phone services.

And thats Pure Truth !

paulm17781

I really hope UPC are working on something fantastic. Eircom have no control over cable and can't play these sorts of games with cable cos

DonkeyStyle \o/

inode wrote:

eircom were just at my house saying i have no option but to go with them! ill told em to clear off. eirscum

inode wrote:

my entire connection has gone off no dsl link or anything. phone has a dial tone but no matter what i ring it has engaged tone. anyone elses gone off?

Hmm coincidence?
Sounds like eircom made you 'an offer you can't refuse'.

FYI my Smart DSL is still up... but for how long.
I heard a ring at the door earlier today (highly unusual) and suspected it might be eircom heavies calling to make me an offer... I wasn't arsed going down two flights to answer the door... now I wonder... hmm.

JNive

this codology only highlights the urgent need to have the wholesale and local loop operations operated as a seperate and commercially neutral entity to eircom retail. As said before, eircom should then need to go through the exact same processes that other do to get customers, and pay the same rates. and the wholesale operation would be blind to the name of the company they are hoking the lines up to, hence the level playing field

Richard Dower

Thing is, even with more competition Eircom can ALWAYS make a profit by pushing up the line rental, everyone has to pay it no mattter what.

Highest line rental in Western Europe....sickening!
Something has to be done to stop this.

Foxwood

Richard Dower wrote:

Thing is, even with more competition Eircom can ALWAYS make a profit by pushing up the line rental, everyone has to pay it no mattter what.

Highest line rental in Western Europe....sickening!
Something has to be done to stop this.

If we actually have an independent regulator, the best response to this fiasco would be to allow eircom a Line Rental increase of €5, but not allow an increase in the price of WLR.

Unfortunately, WLR is set as a percentage of Line Rental, so it'll go up too

Blackdragon

Richard Dower wrote:

Thing is, even with more competition Eircom can ALWAYS make a profit by pushing up the line rental, everyone has to pay it no mattter what.

Highest line rental in Western Europe....sickening!
Something has to be done to stop this.

Richard i totally agree with you but what can we do???

Stench Blossoms

machalla wrote:

Well at least Rasta had the decency to identify himself (herself?) as a former Eircon type. Theres quite a few posters on here who I suspect are either former or current Eircon but don't want to be outed as such.

I work for eircom, i have never denied that fact

If anyone receives a call from eircom and are not happy please pm me or any questions you need answered feel free to pm me and i'll answer them as best i can.

And i find it hard to believe that agents are telling customers they have no other option etc to come back to eircom because the amount of people ringing in and BEGGING to come back is crazy.

Blackdragon

orla wrote:

I work for eircom, i have never denied that fact

If anyone receives a call from eircom and are not happy please pm me or any questions you need answered feel free to pm me and i'll answer them as best i can.

And i find it hard to believe that agents are telling customers they have no other option etc to come back to eircom because the amount of people ringing in and BEGGING to come back is crazy.

"BEGGING" is taking it a little to far.... Glad to see Eirscum havnt let it go to there heads. Long story short Eirscum should not be ringing or calling to anybody full stop.

billy the squid

Because of the position that Eircom is in, and the way things are set up, alot of people have no choice but to go back to eircom before signing up with a different company.

Stench Blossoms

Blackdragon wrote:

"BEGGING" is taking it a little to far.... Glad to see Eirscum havnt let it go to there heads. Long story short Eirscum should not be ringing or calling to anybody full stop.

Oh so do you work in Eircom now? Do you have to listen to people ringing in trying to come back? Didn't think so.

Some people are under the impression that Eircom don't want them back.

And calling them Eirscum? Very mature.

fifth

Blackdragon, 'we' don't ALL use the term 'eirscum' here. Some of us are happy with the service.

My level of sympathy for SMART, it's customers and staff is waning each day, matter of fact. I am also finding it difficult to care about another telco that doesn't operate in my area. I believe eircom is the only one, be it on the cause of eircom or not.

Facts:

Eircom is the dominant player in the market
Comreg probably didn't do enough to free up the market
Eircom is a private company and no longer state owned and therefore will do everything in its power to maintain it's foothold as #1 telco in Ireland. Wouldn't you?!??! Especially under pressure from increasing competition.

Smart squandered money and mismanaged. Eircom inhibited them in some ways yes - but like I said above, they were acting in their best interests, as any capitalist co would!!

I hope it's resolved shortly, but I suggest the smart customers cut their misery and join BT /Magnet / Eircom and get on with their lives..

RasTa

Im afraid Eircom cant push up their line rental when they feel like it. They are the ONLY telecoms company in Ireland who is operated by an outside source, so any price changes they make have to go through an outside company which most people already know is comreg. Then if comreg decide its good for the people of Ireland, eircom can change. Any other telecom provider can push up their price WHENEVER they want Newtel being the worst for this. Now i'm not defending Eircom here, I hated working for them and walked out of the job, but after working their u learn they are not the worst company out there, Gaelic Telecom are.

Oh and BT are the best, but i'd rather the money stay in Ireland then go to England so I kept the mother with Eircom, no Phone line in my house. Paying line rental is a waste of money.

Dellas

funkyflea wrote:

but I suggest the smart customers cut their misery and join BT /Magnet / Eircom and get on with their lives..

For all Smart customers I would call BT on 1904 or logg onto www.btireland.ie and sign up for their Broadband and Total Talk package which they just launched. Its only Eur 45 a month incl line rental / free calls and broadband so there is a alternative to Eircom .

I have said it before and I will say it again Im not a fan of Smart as I had problems with them before and Im glad they went to the wall for the way they treated me . I do however feel sorry for the Staff of Smart and their customers.

Im not a fan of Eircom as I have been trying to get broadband for 2 years and Eircom are lazy and very un helpful in building a proper infrastructure in this country. The government have to take some of the blame also for not making sure we had a proper de regulated telecomunications system and modern broadband enabled network in every town and village. We are a small Island for gods sake if they put their minds to it then we could have a top of the range network.

I dont know why comreg/governtment didnt allow the use of mobile phone masts to be used by IBB/Digiweb etc... to offer wireless BB to the whole country.

I still cant get broadband of any kind, I have applied to Eircom for a new line and told them I want broadband so maybe Eircom will do something useful for a change and put me on a proper broadband enable line as my local exchange is enabled and i am in range . The reason why we couldnt get it before is because my line was on a carrier and two years ago they said they needed to do cable upgrades!!!! Im still waiting !!!!

Anyway if anyone calls you Smart Telecom customers from Eircom tell them you will shop around and ask them what deal they are giving you and you will check with BT also. Tell them you want free connection that will get rid of Eircom sales mafia.

Dellas

RasTa wrote:

Oh and BT are the best, but i'd rather the money stay in Ireland then go to England so I kept the mother with Eircom.

Errr so you dont buy anything at Tesco's/Debenhams/Boots/Virgin Megastore/
Marks and Spencer/Argos the list could go on !!!! What difference does that make . There are Im sure no Irish people making profit from the English economy. :mad: I hate people that make statements like that sorry but it gets my back up . Irish Ferries did alot for the Irish staff that they ''dumped'' where was the loyalty there !!! Also BT provide jobs for Irish people here and pay tax to the Irish government so how is this going to England. They have been re investing in BT Ireland for years. BT Ireland are offering the Irish consumer a fair and good alternative to Eircom which may I add has mostly American directors if you look at the bottom of your phone bill in the very very small print

Gadgetman496

Dellas wrote:

For all Smart customers I would call BT on 1904 or logg onto www.btireland.ie and sign up for their Broadband and Total Talk package which they just launched. Its only Eur 45 a month incl line rental / free calls and broadband so there is a alternative to Eircom .

Slow down a minute. Your statement is typical of what the Irish people have to put up with on most promotional literature.

You forgot to mention that the €45 is for 1MB

It is €63 for 3MB...with BT

Some alternative to the 3MB for €35 that Smart charge.

RasTa

You probaly wont belive me but its true, I'm a veggie and prefer local and fresh food so I dont go near chains. In terms of clothes, what i have does me fine and Dunnes does the trick. It's more of a history thing with Eircom as my Grandfather worked with them and they looked after my granny when she died at 55.

DonkeyStyle \o/

gadgetman496 wrote:

Some alternative to the 3MB for €35 that Smart charge.

Mmmm, that's only the entry-level broadband product too... you could get 6Mb if you wanted.
It's shocking to see what you get for your money with other providers, I thought things would have moved on since I last shopped for broadband, but it's like going back 5 years from what I'm looking at.
Back to paying line rental aswell... *Marge Simpson grumble*

Dellas

RasTa wrote:

You probaly wont belive me but its true, I'm a veggie and prefer local and fresh food so I dont go near chains. In terms of clothes, what i have does me fine and Dunnes does the trick. It's more of a history thing with Eircom as my Grandfather worked with them and they looked after my granny when she died at 55.

lol, ok i will let you off this time then

The bones

scottr wrote:

Unfortunately we do not know what is going on. I have a job but who know's for how long?

One issue about this whole incident which has only been mentioned on
a small scale is we are talking about people's jobs here. A huge amount of staff have been made redundant, people with mortgages to pay, familys to feed.

Don't get me wrong, i do sympathise with people not being able to use their broadband and landline, both my familys home and business have been affected, but lets look at the bigger picture here, this is about Eircom and there ruthlessness in not letting competition into the irish marketplace.

Wrong, this is about a bluffer as a CEO, poor managment, crap strategy, crap marketing, sponsoring the Rose of Tralee when you haven't even got a service there, opening up 600,000 potential LLU subscribers while spending 6 million on a national broadband advertising campaign without ever once explaining the benefits to the non tech savvy market, targeting the entire country instead of starting off in Dublin and branching out, targeting residential markets when BT had struggled for years to operate profitablly, hiring an entire feet on the street team at crazy wages when the marketplace simply didn't want to have reps knocking at their doors, chasing and winning a 3g licence without having the requisite finance you said you had in place, offering deals you know aren't profitable just so you can hit a magic number of broadband subscribers then quickly sell the company on making millions for the top guys .... being told 15 times to pay a bill and not doing it, being on the verge of going to the wall and not having the decency to warn your customers.....it's all of those things and more. Badly run telecom companies go to the wall every day in the US - the most competitive market in the world. This was a badly run telecoms company. Find yourself a good one.

Dellas

gadgetman496 wrote:

Slow down a minute. Your statement is typical of what the Irish people have to put up with on most promotional literature.

You forgot to mention that the €45 is for 1MB

It is €63 for 3MB...with BT

Some alternative to the 3MB for €35 that Smart charge.

Yeah but correct me if Im wrong but have BT been ''harassing'' Smart customers to sign up with them??? Also I have never found BT to be pushy actually if anything I have had to do the chasing. I have had my problems with BT but they are the least of the worst. That total talk package includes line rental , all calls day or night to Ireland and the UK and broadband so even the 3mb for Eur 63 is very good value dont you think ??? Did Smart offer the free calls to any landline UK and Ireland???

I have been with them all here , started off with Telecom Eireann then went to Cable and Wireless then went to Esat, then Smart then to Eircom and now BT Ireland so I have quite a bit of experience with switching. I switched when no one here was switching. If I could get broadband I would jump at the BT offer.

Dellas

The bones wrote:

Wrong, this is about a bluffer as a CEO, poor managment, crap strategy, crap marketing, sponsoring the Rose of Tralee when you haven't even got a service there, opening up 600,000 potential LLU subscribers but spending 6 million on a national broadband advertising campaign without ever once explaining the benefits to the non tech savvy market, targeting the entire country instead of starting off in Dublin and branching out, targeting residential markets when BT had struggled for years to operate profitablly, hiring an entire feet on the street team at crazy wages when people simply didn't want to have reps knocking at their doors, chasing a 3g licence without the finance in place, offering deals you know aren't profitable so you can hit a magic number of broadband subscribers then quickly sell the company on .... being told 15 times to pay a bill and not doing it, being on the verge of going to the wall and not having the decency to tell your customers.....it's all of those things and more. Badly run telecom companies go to the wall every day in the US - the most competitive market in the world. This was a badly run telecoms company. Find yourself a good one.

Yeah I do agree and as I said I hate Smart as a company but I do feel sorry for the staff and their families and christmas is comming up and bills need paid so that guy has my sympathy.

bk

funkyflea wrote:

My level of sympathy for SMART, it's customers and staff is waning each day, matter of fact. I am also finding it difficult to care about another telco that doesn't operate in my area. I believe eircom is the only one, be it on the cause of eircom or not.

What you have conveniently forgotten, is that when Smart first entered the market with their 3m BB, Eircom were only offering 512k BB at the time.

Smart's entry into the market shocked Eircom and Eircom nearly immediately introduced 1,2 and 3m BB and dropped their prices.

If it wasn't for Smart there is a good chance that we would all still be on 512k or 1m and paying a lot more.

So even if Smart wasn't available in your area, it still had a very good positive effect on what was available to you.

That is why healthy LLU competition is so important, otherwise Eircom can just go back to charging whatever it likes for slow BB.

Losing Smart for the market is really bad news for everyone, including Eircom's customers. Unless Magnet and BT now step up to the plate, it is very unlikely that Eircom will bother to roll out ADSL2+ and you won't see faster speeds like in the UK (8m is the basic package there now).

Sponge Bob

My mother gets the pensioners line rental and pays out a grand total of about €25 a month to BT for 1mbit always on, all her landline calls day or night and a few mobile calls.

eircom OTOH once tried to bill her €25 for a single call.

bk

RasTa wrote:

Im afraid Eircom cant push up their line rental when they feel like it. They are the ONLY telecoms company in Ireland who is operated by an outside source, so any price changes they make have to go through an outside company which most people already know is comreg. Then if comreg decide its good for the people of Ireland, eircom can change.

Don't make me laugh.

Eircom says jump and Comreg says how high.

Other wise please explain why:
a) Irish line rental is €24 pm while the EU 15 average is €15?
b) Eircoms line rental is the highest in Europe?
c) The second highest line rental in Europe is only €18, a whole €6 pm cheaper then Eircom.

And currently Eircom is looking for another line rental increase. :mad:

Also why don't you tell all the folks here about the basket of prices system (scam) Eircom has set up with Comreg?

Basically when Eircom drops the prices of phone calls (where they have competition with others like BT), they are allowed to increase the line rental to compensate for the loss, in an area where there is no competition and everyone has to pay.

I welcome you to boards here and I wish more people from Eircom would post here, but don't drink the cool aid too much.

Gadgetman496

Dellas wrote:

3mb for Eur 63 is very good value dont you think ??? Did Smart offer the free calls to any landline UK and Ireland???

Yes, Smart have a package called "Broadband Plus" for €11 extra & you get unlimited land-line calls day or night, peak or off peak, for local, national & Northern Ireland. So add the €11 to the €35 = €46 and remember that is with no cap on the Broadband.

So now it becomes €46 V's €63 with BT

And you think that BT is good value????

digitaldr

I always thought smart was too good to be true especially in Ireland. At least their broadband is still working for me.

Dellas

gadgetman496 wrote:

Yes, Smart have a package called "Broadband Plus" for €11 extra & you get unlimited land-line calls day or night, peak or off peak, for local, national & Northern Ireland. So add the €11 to the €35 = €46 and remember that is with no cap on the Broadband.

So now it becomes €46 V's €63 with BT

And you think that BT is good value????

LOL we are getting there !!! When I said UK i mean Scotland/England/Wales so thats worth at least Eur 17 !!! Hey we just broke even 63/63!!!!

Gadgetman496

Dellas wrote:

3mb for Eur 63 is very good value dont you think ???

I see from your profile that your occupation is in "SALES"

Do you work for BT? or, are you just originally from the UK?

If you believe that €63 for 3MB is good value, Then I'm very happy for you.