UPC: "Faster Speeds coming, Summer 2008"

lensman

the backroom guys at upc are this very moment undergoing indept training in advance of the upgrade for existing customers, I managed to get my hands on a copy of the 1 PAGE technical manual below

DingDong

LOL lensman How'd you get hold of that

Conchúr

Regarding contracts, I think smart will let you carry your contract over to the new place, once the new place has a phone line which is on one of their enabled exchanges. Which is also one thing to be wary about with UPC - not all of their cabled areas in Dublin are broadband enabled so you may not be able to carry your service over to the new place.[/QUOTE]

If you move house during the period of your contract, then unfortunately this contract will end. Each contract is specific to a particular line, account number and address. All you have to do is set up a new contract at your new address. Call us on 1850 945 549 and we'll be happy to help you with this.

That's on the Smart Telecom website

MartMax

lads,

the packages with new speed hv been advertised on upc website here http://www.upc.ie/internet/ .. good news is that Ultra package comes with 12MB down and 1MB up ... there's 120GB usage limit... rang customer service and they have no idea when exactly the upgrade will take effect..

Marty

lensman

DingDong wrote: »

LOL lensman How'd you get hold of that

start with the rubbish bins, see what else I came across,....

Whatsthisabout

To be honest I hope the do roll out the speeds to the new customers first.

It would be suicide to suddenly upgrade the 1000s and 1000s of customers they had nationwide without properly putting the new speeds through the testing process first.

Trust me if they flick that magic switch you can kiss goodbye to any speed good or bad you had before hand.

Plus all the modems on the network are euro docsis 2 enabled so I can't emagine they will need to swap any of the modems

They already pulled all the incompatible devices back when they upgraded to docsis 2 before.

The reason for the change in modems when the UPC took over is probably down to distribution contracts more so then anything else, its possible that UPC don't deal with ambit hence the motorola and atlaticstar modems being introduced.

ricey

so people on the 6mb package will not be getting a speed upgrade. We will have to go with the 12mb €40 a month package...
I was thinking we were getting a free upgrade??

zoro

Whats the contention ratio on UPC's products?

MartMax

ricey wrote: »

so people on the 6mb package will not be getting a speed upgrade. We will have to go with the 12mb €40 a month package...
I was thinking we were getting a free upgrade??

People on previous 6Mb package (Ultra) will be upgraded to 12Mb as I see it on the website.. the new info say Ultra is 12Mb...

Phlann

zoro wrote: »

Whats the contention ratio on UPC's products?

They advertise 17:1, dunno how accurate it is though

Aquos76

ricey wrote: »

so people on the 6mb package will not be getting a speed upgrade. We will have to go with the 12mb €40 a month package...
I was thinking we were getting a free upgrade??

Well you are already paying €39.99 for your 6meg, so thats an increase of 1c for an extra 6 meg. As good as free imo...

ricey

Hope so i need a better upload speed.

MartMax

Was talking to broadband support again today (speciallist staff as I was transferred to from normal support??). Asked her why I didn't get the 12Mbps upgrade yet and she told me they have started rolling the updates since last Monday mainly targeted to new customers and the whole upgrade including existing customers will complete by early May.

Marty

mickger

Has anyone got the upgrade yet new or old customer? If so whats the performance like?

Ranicand

Still waiting for the upgrade.

Thor

i just ordered the ultra 12mbps package 2 days ago.

its going to be installed tomorrow morning if everything goes well.

i will let everyone know tomorrow how the speed is.

harvy

To all interested in UPC's broadband speed upgrade. Quote from their webpage:
"Please note this change to your broadband package will signal the start of a new 12 month contract. Increases from 3Mb to 6Mb or from 6Mb to 12Mb will not incur any extra costs. Any other changes will result in an increase to your billing amount."
That sucks! If I have to get involved with them for next 12 months I'd rather get better deal! So I called their helpdesk trying to get another deal as new users can get 2 months half price and WiFi router and they told me that existing customers can get nothing of these!!! So the only option to get what new customers are getting is to quit their services and get new connection after this. That's so stupid! They rather not give good offer to existing customers but pay for new installation (free), give new modem (free) and WiFi (free) rather than keeping existing customer without disconnecting.

DingDong

You only get the free router if your on the top 12meg package(it been this way for some time now). As for free installation you probably got that yourself when you signed up first and the modem has always been free so to speak (But it always remains the property of UPC). As for the first two month half price most company do offers like this to encourage new customer, its the way business work, sure like the install you probably got somthing like this too.
What ever way you look at it 12meg for 40 quid is a great deal. All their asking is you stick with them for another 12 month. If you been having no problems with the service you probably would of stayed with them anyway harvy.

RoyalMarine

well said. anyone who wants the 12mb package and has upc without any problems wont give a shít if they dont get the new customer bonus as they got it already.

as dingdong pointed out, 12mb with 120gb download limit is a steal for 40 euro a month.

Thor

cant wait for this 12mbps i didnt think it would be in my lifetime that i saw this kinda speed in ireland.

hope it works well for me as i do hear people having problems with ntl but the guy on the phone said that there where a few people in my area that had it.

will report back tomorrow with the speed test.

harvy

DingDong: I don't know if you're working for UPC but trating old customers far worse that the new ones is just stupid and not fair. Company should count that if you quit and get they offer again in next day after disconnecting him they have to pay for installator to get him connected again and pay for new equpimnet for this customer. And he will get the same offer as for new customer anyway!!!

RoyalMarineComm: I don't think that 12m for 40e is a steal. Ireland is still light years bedhind the rest of the Europe. I am from Poland and that's the offer in Poland from UPC: http://www.upc.pl/internet/ 10mb for 24 euro and 20 mb for 39 euro ) That's a good offer! Still Poland should be years behind Ireland...

Whatsthisabout

It is very naive of anyone to think any company would offer better deals to people already signed up and in contract then trying to get new customers.

This is basic business logic.

If you by a box of cornflakes today, go into the shop tomorrow and find the same box now has 50% free are you going to write to Kelloggs to complain about how they are treating there new customers better.

Everyone at some stage got a sign up deal so that means fair is fair everyone gets the deal of the day, so during the lifetime of everyone's contract you will have had one special offer all is fair.

I remember a couple of years ago the offers where even better then now, free cable for a year, first three months free, free router, free install,

paulm17781

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

well said. anyone who wants the 12mb package and has upc without any problems wont give a shít if they dont get the new customer bonus as they got it already.

I find when it works it works well. However when it doesn't it's painful to deal with them. For this reason, I may now cancel as I'm not sure I can put up with a year of their awful service. If they weren't forcing me to sign up for a year, I'd probably stay.

I don't expect new things, that is done to get new customers, fair enough. I find when companies are forcing you to take a new contract, it is often because they know customers want to leave.

Whatsthisabout

paulm17781 wrote: »

I don't expect new things, that is done to get new customers, fair enough. I find when companies are forcing you to take a new contract, it is often because they know customers want to leave.

You are not being forced to take the 12 month contract if you read th rest of the statement on the UPC website it is an optional upgrade.

In fact if you are happy to stay on the 6Mb pack it will now be 10 euro cheaper.

Everybody wins I think

daveyjoe

Whatsthisabout wrote: »

It is very naive of anyone to think any company would offer better deals to people already signed up and in contract then trying to get new customers.

This is basic business logic.

If you by a box of cornflakes today, go into the shop tomorrow and find the same box now has 50% free are you going to write to Kelloggs to complain about how they are treating there new customers better.

Everyone at some stage got a sign up deal so that means fair is fair everyone gets the deal of the day, so during the lifetime of everyone's contract you will have had one special offer all is fair.

I remember a couple of years ago the offers where even better then now, free cable for a year, first three months free, free router, free install,

Conflakes is a product with a once-off payment, Broadband is a service with recurring payment, so the logic doesn't follow.

It is quite common for service providers to bump up the speed without requiring a new contract. 'Something for nothing' can create customer loyalty for life, contracts enforce customer loyalty for 12 months.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, I just think that it's not a black and white business decision.

christophicus

Yeah I am fairly pissed off about them making you sign another 12 month contract. We have been with them for years at this stage, even though we have had very poor service in the past from them. As such we are no longer bound by any contract and are free to leave whenever we want, we have not done so. It really is a poor show the fact that they are making us sign up to a new contract even though we have been with them for so long. Would it really be such a poor business idea, to allow us long time members to not have to sign up to a new contract?? They must be expecting a load of complaints during the upgrade for the current members if they are extending the contract.

Whatsthisabout

There is some duplication here with another tread may a mod could close the other one but as I said on the second tread

upe.ie wrote:

If you are an existing broadband customer and wish to avail of these new faster speeds as they become available in your area, simply complete this form. We will contact you in June to confirm your broadband package has been updated.

They are giving you a choice.

This type of thing is the norm in most ISP strategy across Europe.
In England where the broadband market is so saturated all the providers do things like this, where all the new deals are available to everyone but all they ask off the existing customer is that they sign a new contract.

This is the norm so I wouldn't be thinking upc are doing anything too bold here


I can't speak from fact here, but I would imagine if you don't opt for the upgrade you wont be subject to the new contract.

However if you Downgrade to the express pack from the ultra pack you wont be subject to a new contract either. This will mean you will still have 6Mb but at the express price of 10 euro cheaper.

RangeR

Whatsthisabout wrote: »

There is some duplication here with another tread may a mod could close the other one but as I said on the second tread



They are giving you a choice.

This type of thing is the norm in most ISP strategy across Europe.
In England where the broadband market is so saturated all the providers do things like this, where all the new deals are available to everyone but all they ask off the existing customer is that they sign a new contract.

This is the norm so I wouldn't be thinking upc are doing anything too bold here


I can't speak from fact here, but I would imagine if you don't opt for the upgrade you wont be subject to the new contract.

However if you Downgrade to the express pack from the ultra pack you wont be subject to a new contract either. This will mean you will still have 6Mb but at the express price of 10 euro cheaper.

Here's one for you, knowing NTL / Chorus / UPC, in fact other ISP's as well. Will they charge you for "downgrading" your package? I hope not.

paulm17781

Whatsthisabout wrote: »

In fact if you are happy to stay on the 6Mb pack it will now be 10 euro cheaper.

If you're right it's not so bad.

Daveyjoe, it typically costs 10X as much to keep a customer as to retain one. This is how businesses tend to work. I don't agree but I see it from their perspective. UPCs problem is they make their customers hate them with their awful customer service and probably end up spending near as much to retain them.

Whatsthisabout

Unless things have changed ntl never charged for downgrades the only condition was that once changed you couldn't change again for 1 month

This was the same for all there services digi and Broadband