A new visitor to our shores sooo impressed

jwt

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/20/gimme_that_old_time_monopoly/

Irish Broadband's service is intolerable, so it's back to Smart Telecom for me. It's made a deal with one of its investors, Brendan Murtagh, who has already sunk more money in the company than he can afford to lose, so he's going to sink in more until the business turns around, or implodes taking him with it.

I'm not optimistic about Smart. It had wished to sell its landline and pay-phone service as a separate outfit but, after Eircom pulled the plug, that venture is looking less attractive, and will no doubt sell for less money than Smart had hoped. Which Eircom no doubt intended. Lately, a creditors' "action group" has formed, dedicated to ensuring that every cent of Smart's liabilities shall be paid. You can guess who's behind that.

So I'll see how Smart works out. Perhaps it will remain afloat long enough for me to get onto Eircom without an interruption in service. I think of it as a temporary bridge between Irish Broadband and my inevitable embrace of Eircom - because, when it comes to old state monopolies, we all know that resistance, ultimately, is futile.

John

PixelTrawler

Just read the whole story myself, was going to post here.
Warms the cockles of your heart doesnt it...

WizZard

I've just responded to that article. Wonder will this story have any effect?

jwt

It's a pretty damming story. To anyone flicking through, it is worth while to click the link and read it in full.

From IBBs customer service through magical delivery trucks (I deal a lot with a supplier in the UK who consistently tells me he can dispatch and track parcels to outer Mongolia easier than Ireland) this story is sad, not because of what the author claims, but because there isn't one solitary comment you don't know in your heart and soul is absolutely true.


John

limey_tank

It may be prudent for an official Ireland Offline person to contact Mr Greene and try and have a follow-up article written regarding the current state of affairs in this country.

(Not being a frequent reader of The Register, this may already have happened.)

gerryo

jwt wrote:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/20/gimme_that_old_time_monopoly/

Irish Broadband's service is intolerable....
John

Sounds like he had Ripwave, which is problematic & probably not much better than dialup on a good day.

limey_tank

gerryo wrote:

Sounds like he had Ripwave, which is problematic & probably not much better than dialup on a good day.

I'm using Ripwave, apart from the outages which are becoming more infrequent, it's a rather good service. But I appear to have no contention, so I consider myself lucky.

For the record, he's certainly not the only foreigner to be upset with the broadband over here. I work with people from all over the world, everybody is upset and frustrated with the situation over here.

Solair

We're going to kill the celtic tiger and cause a major recession if we don't get some of these major infrastructural weaknesses sorted out and very quickly.

In terms both telecommunications and delivery services, one regulator seems to be at the core of the problem : Comreg. They are ultimately responsible for the postal sector too.

We seem quite intent on getting tied up in endless red tape while achieving absolutely no progress on our telecomms or postal services.

layke

I feel for him. I too have been on the recieving end of IBB overselling their network.

One day it was work fine with ultra low latency of 20ms to the UK beating the locals.

Then BAM! line went dead and never came back up.
I was on the one above Ripwave. the 2mb up dow yolk.

it took weeks to get it removed and onto another ISP.

Curse you IBB, a pox on your house.

watty

I told him he was lucky, it could be and is worse etc etc..
He doen't know how lucky he is to have a choice of IBB, Smart and eircom

thebman

Solair wrote:

We're going to kill the celtic tiger and cause a major recession if we don't get some of these major infrastructural weaknesses sorted out and very quickly.

In terms both telecommunications and delivery services, one regulator seems to be at the core of the problem : Comreg. They are ultimately responsible for the postal sector too.

We seem quite intent on getting tied up in endless red tape while achieving absolutely no progress on our telecomms or postal services.

Yeah I know, its a disgrace that the government is letting this happen.

I was getting a package from Honk Kong and it took 2 days to get to Athlone and 2 and a half weeks to get to my house from there.

Its like they are trying to kill the economy. How can they not realise how important infastructure is to an economy especially one with high/increasing wage costs.

probe

He might have titled his story:

"Ireland – a tale of monopolists, clueless administration, time wasters and backstreet property developers"

.probe