Smart Announce New Broadband Packages

Oracle

At last Smart have announced their new broadband packages, and as widely predicted (and discreetly flagged on the Smart Support forum) they've downgraded the entry level package to 3Mb/256Kb. They've also downgraded the speed, and increased the price, of all the upgrade options:

* 3Mb/256Kb for €39.18 per month.
* 5Mb/256Kb for €45 per month
* 6Mb/512Kb for €50 per month
* 7Mb/640Kb for €55 per month

Previously the basic package started at 4Mb/256Kb and an upgrade to 6Mb/512Kb was €5 extra, and 8Mb/512Kb was €10 extra. To get those speeds now you'd be paying €10 or €15 extra, that's an alround increase of €5 on the previous upgrade prices. Plus the highest speed has been dropped from 8Mb to 7Mb, although there's a slightly higher upload speed.

To be fair Smart's broadband is still one of the best available, it's uncontented, uncapped and they tend to be generous with the speed they send (i.e. If you order 7Mb in practice you connect at a higher speed, so you're really surfing at 7Mb)

Still I'm disappointed that the de facto leader in the residential broadband area has decided to downgrade all their packages and charge more. It sends out all the wrong signals to other providers, and of course offers far less value to customers. A step backwards for the market "leader" and the Irish broadband market in general.

Cabaal

Shame to see prices go up but they still offer a very good product and they have to make money at the end of the day, still a good ADSL service

Liam Byrne

Cabaal wrote:

Shame to see prices go up but they still offer a very good product and they have to make money at the end of the day, still a good ADSL service

To be fair, those prices include the line rental, which eircom have put up, so I'd guess that Smart have absolutely no choice but to put their prices up too, since they're just passing the line rental on to eircom.

As for the speeds, the initial contract that I got was 3MB and they upped it to 4 for a few months after the hassle last November, so in my view we're now back to what we originally signed up for ?

If you remove the line rental cost how much is it actually gone up by ? Are they still just €15-odd for the BB, or have they sneaked in an actual price rise for their own BB portion of the service ?

dub45

Oracle wrote:

At last Smart have announced their new broadband packages, and as widely predicted (and discreetly flagged on the Smart Support forum) they've downgraded the entry level package to 3Mb/256Kb. They've also downgraded the speed, and increased the price, of all the upgrade options:

................................

Still I'm disappointed that the de facto leader in the residential broadband area has decided to downgrade all their packages and charge more. It sends out all the wrong signals to other providers, and of course offers far less value to customers. A step backwards for the market "leader" and the Irish broadband market in general.

Isn't it far better for all of us that they have packages that are viable for them and good value for us customers? And they are still putting it up to the other isps to match them.

There is little point of offering 'incredible value' packages it they are not sustainable either technically or financially.

cerbeus

I still want them to come to my area, Drogheda, and would gladly pay these new prices.

Oracle

Liam Byrne wrote:

As for the speeds, the initial contract that I got was 3MB and they upped it to 4 for a few months after the hassle last November, so in my view we're now back to what we originally signed up for ?

If you remove the line rental cost how much is it actually gone up by ? Are they still just €15-odd for the BB, or have they sneaked in an actual price rise for their own BB portion of the service ?

Liam as far as I know current customers stay on the packages they've signed up to, these are what new customers will be offered. Yes they are still just €15 for the basic service, (now reduced for new customers to 3Mb.)

I still think Smart is great value compared to the other providers, it's just that I'd prefered to have seen any increase in prices, accompany an increase in the speeds.

watty

The previous prices (and indeed these ones) are not sustainable in terms of investemt and profit.

christophicus

I was thinking about changing from NTL to smart , but for the same price as my NTL I would be halving my speed.

dub45

christophicus wrote:

I was thinking about changing from NTL to smart , but for the same price as my NTL I would be halving my speed.

Well then don't change!:rolleyes:

nava

christophicus wrote:

I was thinking about changing from NTL to smart , but for the same price as my NTL I would be halving my speed.

I think You will save monney if you move from Eircom to Smart €15 for Boadband 3mb + €24 line rental. NTL 3mb is €29 + €24 Line rental from Eircom.

Regards

ixoy

nava wrote:

I think You will save monney if you move from Eircom to Smart €15 for Boadband 3mb + €24 line rental. NTL 3mb is €29 + €24 Line rental from Eircom.

Ummm you don't need line rental with NTL. Having said that, I'd switch over to Smart from NTL if I could but the exchange isn't enabled here. NTL isn't nearly as class an act as I found Smart to be for the two years in my previous apartment.

nava

HI

Just noticed, does anyone know if you can keep your existing number when switching to Smart? last time I checked you had to change number.

Regards

christophicus

Aparently you still have to change your number.

Cabaal

christophicus wrote:

I was thinking about changing from NTL to smart , but for the same price as my NTL I would be halving my speed.

true but unlike NTL, Smart don't put a cap on your broadband service

christophicus wrote:

Aparently you still have to change your number.

What a surprise, once again Eircom make it hard for Smart to get new customers

nava

christophicus wrote:

Aparently you still have to change your number.

Hi

Not sure about it that's why my question, if you go to to the Apply Online scroll half way down you will see the boxes as in the screen below. There's an option "I wish to take a new Smart telephone number" and just above is under the yellow box you can see "Please note that this is the number you will transfer to Smart Telecom." So what I understand from it is that you can keep your number.

dub45

nava wrote:

Hi

Not sure about it that's why my question, if you go to to the Apply Online scroll half way down you will see the boxes as in the screen below. There's an option "I wish to take a new Smart telephone number" and just above is under the yellow box you can see "Please note that this is the number you will transfer to Smart Telecom." So what I understand from it is that you can keep your number.

Why not ring Smart and ask them what the position is?

watty

I think with any provider the fastest route is a new number and apply to port the old number. With LLU (Smart and a small number of others), you may have to apply for the porting at the time of ordering LLU as after LLU you will not have an eircom line.

bk

Do you know what is incredibly frustrating, people who are on the Smart Vision service can only get 3mb!!!

That is right they can't even upgrade to the faster speeds, even if they were willing to pay for it.

So those on DSL, a supposedly inferior technology then Fibre can get up to 7mb, but Smart Vision people have no choice other then 3mb :mad:

I mean in Magnet fibre locations you can get 8mb/8mb BB (versus 3mb/256k from Smart), the same number of channels and free local and national calls, so why can't Smart do the same.

I find it funny, Smart goes on about how Eircom are a monopoly. But when Smart has their own little mini monopoly, instead of showing how good things could be, like Magnet, they threat their customers just as badly as Eircom.

Oracle

That's interesting BK, I was under the impression SmartVision people had hi-tech fibre connections at 24Mb or something.... It's not very satisfactory if you can't upgrade your speed.

I think you've hit on a very relevant issue, Smart talk a lot about being uncontended and no caps because of their own hi-speed fibre optic links, all great advantages. But when it comes to giving out the speeds to their customers, they act like Scrooge, as if every Mb is costing them a fortune. They can't have it both ways. I think Smart should give decent upload speeds to their customers, it would cost them nothing. This was where I was coming from in my original post.

I realise that from a non-Smart customers perspective Smart look more like Santa Clause than Scrooge!!

bk

Oracle wrote:

That's interesting BK, I was under the impression SmartVision people had hi-tech fibre connections at 24Mb or something.... It's not very satisfactory if you can't upgrade your speed.

Fibre can be much faster then even that, but what I was told by their sales person on the phone was they couldn't give you faster speeds as it was already being used by the TV over IP.

Now I know this to be complete BS, as you can get up two three separate TV boxes in each apartment, each which will use at least 4mb/s, but I only have one, so there is at least another 8mb/s lying spear.

Secondly if Magnet can do it with similar tech there is no reason why Smart can't.

Oracle wrote:

I realise that from a non-Smart customers perspective Smart look more like Santa Clause than Scrooge!!

Of course, I'm annoyed as I'm currently moving and I won't have any choice but to go Smart and it feels like a downgrade for me.

I'm currently with NTL, I get 6mb BB and 120 channel TV for them, I could also get free local and national calls from them.

Now for almost the same money I'll get half the BB (3mb vs 6mb), no Sky One, Sky News, Film Four or any discovery channels (probably about 90% of all the TV I watch being on these channels) and of course no basic analogue TV service for multiple TV's and no free call packages :mad:

I really wish developers included an NTL connection and standard phone line, along with Smart in new developments, so that these sort of mini monopolies aren't created.

Oracle

bk wrote:

I really wish developers included an NTL connection and standard phone line, along with Smart in new developments, so that these sort of mini monopolies aren't created.

Absolutely right, I was at an Enet talk for the Institute of Engineers about fibre and the MANs (Metropolitan Area Networks) they manage. Their Operations Manager made exactly that point. That housing developers should build the infrastructure and access points to allow access and connection to the MAN, (specs available from Enet) but not allow any one service provider to provide all the services. She suggested that to do so would limit the choice of the end user, and potentially allow one provider to dominate the pipe. She spoke a lot of common sense.

bk

Oracle wrote:

She suggested that to do so would limit the choice of the end user, and potentially allow one provider to dominate the pipe. She spoke a lot of common sense.

That is exactly what is happening in new developments all around the country.

Not allowed to put up a satellite dish, antenna and no NTL cable, so no choice but to go with the provider for TV.

No Eircom phone line, so no choice in BB or telephone service either :mad:

Moriarty

.. so don't live there?

I know that's easy to say, but if it's important to you find somewhere that isn't locking you into things like this. Or talk to the other residents and use your votes in the management company to change the rules.

bk

Moriarty wrote:

.. so don't live there?

I'm buying, not renting.

Moriarty wrote:

Or talk to the other residents and use your votes in the management company to change the rules.

I certainly plan on doing exactly that.

However there is a more important point to be made, after all the trouble the government has had with the Eircom monopoly, they really shouldn't allow these sort of mini monopolys be created.

mbur

We are well off topic here. Good old comreg, asleep at the wheel as usual..

Which reminds me.

When I die I want to go peacefully in my sleep, like my Grandfather, not wide awake and terrified, like the passengers in his car.

d22ontour

Oracle wrote:

Liam as far as I know current customers stay on the packages they've signed up to

That is true as until yesterday i was paying €33 a month for 4mb so decided to pay the extra €5 and upgrade to 6mb.

Infini

Only noticed but theyve finally rolled out smart telecom on the cabra exchange. With the crap from NTL's throttling of torrents i might consider switching to smart so long as it doesn't affect my telephone number etc.

xman0r

Another dissatisfied NTL Broadband Max user here at D15..

couple of stupid questions here.

So to get Smart, I need to get a phone line (which I don't have at the moment, but I need to order it from Eircom, this apartment had Eircom earlier and they have an offer now that you can connect for free). After I'm connected and I get my phone number, I can immediately switch to Smart right?

dub45

xman0r wrote:

Another dissatisfied NTL Broadband Max user here at D15..

couple of stupid questions here.

So to get Smart, I need to get a phone line (which I don't have at the moment, but I need to order it from Eircom, this apartment had Eircom earlier and they have an offer now that you can connect for free). After I'm connected and I get my phone number, I can immediately switch to Smart right?

Provided of course that Smart are in your local exchange.

xman0r

dub45 wrote:

Provided of course that Smart are in your local exchange.

Yeah, I live in Blanchardstown and Smart just enabled broadband in Blanch exchange. Thanks.

cerbeus

Is there in existence any list of the exchanges covered by Smart?
And better still does any one know of their future rollout plans?
Their support forum doesn't really give away any information of where they are looking at enabling next.

Garfield used to lurk around boards posting useful information in the past which was extremely helpful.

Are there any Smart people doing this or maybe they'd consider doing this in the future.

I'd definitely switch to Smart if given the opportunity but with no idea of their future plans for any exchange not enabled for Smart, I'll just have to carry on with BT in Drogheda.