Smart telecom advert on Boards!

kelle

I thought they were gone!

AlmightyCushion

Nope and according to the lads on the broadband they'd be the best broadband provider in the country by a mile.

tallus

Pity their customer care is absolutely ****e.
They were charging me, or trying to charge me for someone elses phone calls over a 6 month period.
Took me many phone calls and shouting down the phone and a call to comreg to finally get it sorted out.
Absolutely piss poor people to deal with, they even had debt collectors knocking on my door. Luckily I wasn't home at the time.

BuffyBot

Not gone, just slightly less ambitious than they used to be..

The_Hustler

They were only gone for like 3 days in most cases, for me it was 3 months! I'm still with them though, very cheap!

Boston

Never went anywhere, and I never had my service stopped. Minor increase in price due to an increase in line rental charges.

spurious

Best provider in the country by a mile.

AlmightyCushion

spurious wrote:

Best provider in the country by a mile.

What did I tell ya OP?

smellslikeshoes

kelle wrote:

I thought they were gone!

Nope they are still providing the best broadband in Ireland. Its a pity that so many people believed eircoms rubbish at the time and believed they closed down.

Sid71

If I change to smart can I still keep my phone number?

barrett1965

Sid71 wrote:

If I change to smart can I still keep my phone number?

AFAIK, no.

Boston

Its more a case of yes and no last i heard. Yes theres apparently a system in place but it takes something like 6 months to work though so afaik smart don't use it.

Marlow

Boston wrote:

Its more a case of yes and no last i heard. Yes theres apparently a system in place but it takes something like 6 months to work though so afaik smart don't use it.

Eircom will make it as difficult as possible, down to the dot in the spelling of the customer address. If you spell your name, address etc. exactly (to the dot !!!) as on the eircom invoice it might go swiftly enuff ...

If you don't (like using "Road", instead of "Rd." --> actual case), they'll just refuse the transfer AND delay your bill, disconnect you for non payment of bill as soon as they can, to make it impossible to move the number.

/Marlow

kelle

I'm glad they're not gone down the swannee! Don't know if I'd risk transferring over to them, though, Eircom made my life hell when I transferred to BT that I ended up having no choice but to return to Eircom!

spurious

kelle wrote:

I'm glad they're not gone down the swannee! Don't know if I'd risk transferring over to them, though, Eircom made my life hell when I transferred to BT that I ended up having no choice but to return to Eircom!

That's what eircom count on - make it as difficult as possible to move and no-one will bother - hell of a way to hang on to your customers, eh?

No-one I have recommended Smart to has regretted it, they've all saved a whack of dosh and I get to ring them for free.

Liam Byrne

Sid71 wrote:

If I change to smart can I still keep my phone number?

Apparently this situation will be clarified over the next few weeks....that's what - only about 2 years after ComReg said everything was just fine and dandy and number portability was available and working :rolleyes:

As for Smart being "gone" - thankfully not......I reckon I've been saving at least €60 per month compared to an equivalent service* from eircom.

Personally eircom's stunt last year didn't interrupt bb or outgoing calls, but it was very sneaky that I was completely unaware that I had no incoming calls.....I just thought I'd suddenly gotten very unpopular Seriously, though, because of the imposed change of number, very few people had the land-line number so it was almost a non-event.

I can't really fault Smart's customer service the couple of times I've had to deal with them, either.....if I was pushed and had to split hairs, I'd say I could come up with one hiccup in the relationship, but nothing really bad or inforgiveable.

Highly recommended, and great to see them advertising again!

*assuming there was one, which there isn't

byte

Another thumbs up here for Smart!

chrislad

Will be getting SMART once I get my own house. Renting for the next 3 months or so and SMART require a 12 month contract, which is non transferrable between addresses.

Gerard_Smith

Smart does look inviting but unfortunately seems to be completely unavailable in large portions of the country (including where I am!).

Is this Eircom making life difficult for them?

Marlow

Gerard_Smith wrote:

Smart does look inviting but unfortunately seems to be completely unavailable in large portions of the country (including where I am!).

Is this Eircom making life difficult for them?

It's down to the cost of getting equipment and bandwidth into the exchanges.

10% of the irish exchanges cover somewhat like 90% of the population and eircom requires a 6 digit amount to get established in an exchange. That's before you've put kit in there.

The next step is then to get bandwidth in there. Smart uses ESB and the MANs for connectivity back to Dublin, so if they can't get that, they probably opt for not enabling an exchange. Eircom's fiber would be too expensive and again, we know the business relationship there.

The nice thing now, if you are a business that has fiber from them is, that they can provide you PRI truncs (30 lines ISDN or split of that) "eircom free" directly over the fiber. No chance of Eircom pulling the plug on that, at least not on the last mile.

/Marlow

ircoha

kelle wrote:

I thought they were gone!

back doing BB and corporate fone only: no residential fone
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/06/smart_telecom_takeover/

spurious

You get the phone with the BB and calls to other Smart people are free.

Rather_b_diving

Marlow wrote:

The nice thing now, if you are a business that has fiber from them is, that they can provide you PRI truncs (30 lines ISDN or split of that) "eircom free" directly over the fiber. No chance of Eircom pulling the plug on that, at least not on the last mile.

/Marlow

Yeah but there's still the issue of no one being able to call you if you're on Smart and they can't pay their bill yet again. That happened to all their business customers last time.

I heard they got kicked out of Parkwest recently for poor performance on their IPTV service anyone got an update?

spurious

Smart get that a lot.
People 'heard', people 'thought', some old biddy in eircom 'told' them.

Meanwhile those of us who are their customers just laugh wiht our high speeds, no cap and our low costs.

According to the Smart forums, there was an issue with some hardware in Parkwest which has been fixed. If that is being 'kicked out' I guess they were.

AlmightyCushion

spurious wrote:

Smart get that a lot.
People 'heard', people 'thought', some old biddy in eircom 'told' them.

Meanwhile those of us who are their customers just laugh wiht our high speeds, no cap and our low costs.

According to the Smart forums, there was an issue with some hardware in Parkwest which has been fixed. If that is being 'kicked out' I guess they were.

It's uncontended as well.

Rather_b_diving

I don't live in Parkwest but I hear they're offically gone!

Their broadband wasn't the issue it was their TV service that caused the issue - still a bit of work to do on their IPTV platform

chalkitdown

I have had no problems with Smart since installation over a year ago. My only regret is that Eircom are still making money from me.

Liam Byrne

Rather_b_diving wrote:

Yeah but there's still the issue of no one being able to call you if you're on Smart and they can't pay their bill yet again. That happened to all their business customers last time.

Firstly, that was an eircom action, not a Smart one.....and like I've said before, while eircom are entitled to get paid I can also see how eircom's dragging their heels on the LLU stuff that they were legally obliged to do meant that Smart could not be viable - Smart had been promised that this would all be sorted, and it wasn't.

Secondly, the loss of incoming calls for 2 days is nothing compared with saving a fortune every month!

Ardent

Almost 3 years with Smart now. The best move I ever made, their BB offering is peerless.

dub45

Liam Byrne wrote:

Firstly, that was an eircom action, not a Smart one.....and like I've said before, while eircom are entitled to get paid I can also see how eircom's dragging their heels on the LLU stuff that they were legally obliged to do meant that Smart could not be viable - Smart had been promised that this would all be sorted, and it wasn't.

Secondly, the loss of incoming calls for 2 days is nothing compared with saving a fortune every month!

Comreg should have a scheme in place that will ensure that even if Telco goes bang its customers will be able to make and receive calls for a certain period to allow new arrangements to be put in place - otherwise Eircom will always have the upper hand and people will opt for the old reliable.

Rather_b_diving

Ardent wrote:

Almost 3 years with Smart now. The best move I ever made, their BB offering is peerless.

Hmmmm first customer on Smart network - March 2005 now August 2007 - yes thats almost 3 years - say hi to O'Riordan (Smart CEO) when you see him in the corridor