A Smart Telecom Review

Dara Robinson

I have to say, I never thought of Smart as a company that had it together. From the reviews and threads I read when they started people seemed to be pretty unhappy and I really did not consider using them. I actually was a IBB customer and a pretty happy one at that. I recently moved into a new area where IBB were covering but I had the bad luck that a building was blocking my signal completely so I had no option but so go with someone else. The options that were available to be were not great tbh imo and when I saw Smarts offer of the 7mb line that has no real download limit it seemed a pretty good one.
I had a huge paid at the start because they cannot transfer an account from one person to another (the last guy living there had Smart also) so I had to wait until his line was cancelled and then open my own account with Eircom and then contact smart. This process took for ever. Eircom would also not give me my account number over the phone and it took 2 weeks for me to receive the letter with my account number on it (so at this stage with the cancellation I was at 4 weeks now) I also got charged around €150 connection by Eircom even though a few weeks ago there was a working phone line in the house. Once I received that account number things were pretty smooth, I rang Smart and did everything over the phone (took all of 10 mins and my verbal contract was sorted and completed) and now I just had to wait for the modem.
I received the modem and then encountered a problem, it was not working. I rang Eircom (as I had paid them my connection fee) and was told to contact Smart. I contacted Smart who contacted Eircom (and this is the nice part) Smart contacted me every day to find out how I was getting on. Each day they would then ring Eircom and hassle them to find out what was going on. Turns out that there was a messup when Eircom handed over the line to Smart and Eircom fixed it and I am now connected. TBH most of the problems I encountered were down to Eircom. Smart genuinely seemed to be attentive, helpful and always in contact with me. And most of all everyone I talked to seemed genuinely happy and nice.

I am very impressed.

smellslikeshoes

Dara Robinson wrote: »

I have to say, I never thought of Smart as a company that had it together. From the reviews and threads I read when they started people seemed to be pretty unhappy and I really did not consider using them.

Everyone is constantly saying how good smart are! The only complaints Ive ever really seen on this forum or any other is because of people wanting to get them but not being able because of the small amount of exchanges they have unbundled. Smart are the best in Ireland and have been the best for years at this stage.

jor el

Dara Robinson wrote: »

I have to say, I never thought of Smart as a company that had it together. From the reviews and threads I read when they started people seemed to be pretty unhappy and I really did not consider using them.

From the very start, Smart's biggest problem has been lack of availability. They can't grow a decent customer base if they don't get into more exchanges, and it's been very slow going. However, I don't know of anyone who's unhappy with the service.

Also, there was the whole eircom cutting them off and nearly driving them out of business. Something that should not have been tolerated by Comreg or the Minister, but as is typical of a banana republic, eircom got away with it.

messinkiapina

I've had UTV, EsatBT, and Vodafone, now I have Smart and it's the best service I've had by far.

MickH503

Anyone know if they are still upgrading exchanges/ expanding their coverage?

Praetorian

Their rollout is no longer rolling. I think they're happy with the city exchanges they've upgraded. They often complain of having no backhaul from a lot of exchanges, but I think they've just run out of money for ADSL2+ equipment. It costs something like 50,000 to upgrade a single exchange.

MickH503

Praetorian wrote: »

Their rollout is no longer rolling.

That's too bad ...

bk

smellslikeshoes wrote: »

Everyone is constantly saying how good smart are! The only complaints Ive ever really seen on this forum or any other is because of people wanting to get them but not being able because of the small amount of exchanges they have unbundled. Smart are the best in Ireland and have been the best for years at this stage.

Except for those of us trapped on the Smart Vision service which is fairly awful.

Imagine having your TV image pause and break up every 30 seconds, making it completely unwatchable, now imagine this happening constantly for 3 years, with Smart doing nothing about it and you not able to get any other TV service.

Now imagine being a Smart Vision customer, being treated like a third class citizen, as the Smart customers on DSL can get up to 15mb and unlimited local and national calls, while those of us on Fibre can only get 3.5mb (despite the line being capable of 12mb).

It is amazing that when Smart have their only monopoly, they actually act far worse then Eircom. I always say judge a company by how it treats it's most dependent customers, Smart treats its most dependent customers like dirt.

JNive

they cannot transfer an account from one person to another (the last guy living there had Smart also) so I had to wait until his line was cancelled and then open my own account with Eircom and then contact smart.

yet another example of 'competitive market' here in ireland