Smart package changes 15meg to 24meg

Spear

They've changed the 15 meg package, so it now gives you the max your line can take, up to the ADSL2+ max of 24 megs.

http://www.smarttelecom.ie/residential_package_broadband.html

http://support.smarttelecom.ie/forums/showthread.php?t=2702

bk

Wow, major fail, they are much more expensive then both UPC and BT.

UPC 20mb/1.5mb €40
BT 24mb/1mb €56
Smart 24mb/1mb €80

UPC 10mb/1mb €30
Smart 10mb/1mb €70

I really can't belive this, I had expected Smart to equal BT's LLU product. If they aren't going to equal BT's product, then what is even the point, most people are just gonig to sign up to UPC and BT.

paulm17781

Have prices changed too? It looks cheaper than I remember it being.

bk

paulm17781 wrote: »

Have prices changed too? It looks cheaper than I remember it being.

No, they have simply separated out the calls bundle charge. Previously it was €80 including unlimited landline calls. Now it is €70 excluding calls with a €10 call bundle option :rolleyes:

Spear

bk wrote: »

Wow, major fail, they are much more expensive then both UPC and BT.

UPC 20mb/1.5mb €40
BT 24mb/1mb €56
Smart 24mb/1mb €80

UPC 10mb/1mb €30
Smart 10mb/1mb €70

I really can't belive this, I had expected Smart to equal BT's LLU product. If they aren't going to equal BT's product, then what is even the point, most people are just gonig to sign up to UPC and BT.

It's uncapped, unfiltered and unthrottled, unlike BT.

bk

Spear wrote: »

It's uncapped, unfiltered and unthrottled, unlike BT.

But not unlike UPC, which is half the price.

Smart themselves know that they are in trouble. Why else would they release this news, this late on a Friday. Companies normally release news at this time on a Friday when they want to avoid attention and bad PR.

Smart are already losing customers to UPC and BT and this isn't going to change anything.

Spear

bk wrote: »

But not unlike UPC, which is half the price.

Smart themselves know that they are in trouble. Why else would they release this news, this late on a Friday. Companies normally release news at this time on a Friday when they want to avoid attention and bad PR.

Smart are already losing customers to UPC and BT and this isn't going to change anything.

UPC is capped, filtered and throttled and very limited in availability. Smart have more LLU'd exchanges than BT so far.

bk

Spear wrote: »

UPC is capped, filtered and throttled and very limited in availability. Smart have more LLU'd exchanges than BT so far.

That is complete BS, UPC has no cap and it isn't throttled, also UPC is available to far more people and has far more customers then Smart has.

And most importantly it is half the price, €40 versus €80 !!!!

Your only fooling yourself if you think people are gonig to sign up for this over UPC or BT, just like the Smart sales and marketing people have been fooling themselves for the last 12 months.

I wish it wasn't so, but I think we are starting to see the demise of Smart, they just aren't competitive any more.

Fresh Pots

Upc is only not capped on the top package and they do throttle torrents

J-blk

Spear wrote: »

UPC is capped, filtered and throttled and very limited in availability. Smart have more LLU'd exchanges than BT so far.

UPC's current 10 and 20Mbps packages are uncapped (subject to the usual fair use spiel) - I've been with NTL/UPC for the last 3 years and nothing is "filtered" or seems to be throttled. Availability also seems to be improving lately though I'd imagine they are still far behind the ADSL providers.

It's good to see yet another provider offer better speeds, but €80 for essentially the same package that UPC offers at €40 is insane...

bk

mad.mike wrote: »

Upc is only not capped on the top package and they do throttle torrents

No cap on both the 10mb (€30) and 20mb (€40) product.

Non of my friends who have UPC have any problems with torrents being throttled.

Spear

bk wrote: »

That is complete BS, UPC has no cap and it isn't throttled, also UPC is available to far more people and has far more customers then Smart has.

And most importantly it is half the price, €40 versus €80 !!!!

Your only fooling yourself if you think people are gonig to sign up for this over UPC or BT, just like the Smart sales and marketing people have been fooling themselves for the last 12 months.

I wish it wasn't so, but I think we are starting to see the demise of Smart, they just aren't competitive any more.

UPC have a cap on their bottom package, it's only the 10 and 20 meg that aren't capped. All packages are still covered by a "fair use policy". UPC filter traffic at the DNS level using the Cleanfeed system. And here's a lengthy thread of their own users accusing them of throttling.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055132322

bk

Spear wrote: »

UPC have a cap on their bottom package, it's only the 10 and 20 meg that aren't capped. All packages are still covered by a "fair use policy". UPC filter traffic at the DNS level using the Cleanfeed system. And here's a lengthy thread of their own users accusing them of throttling.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055132322

Jesus Spear, do you work for Smart or something, you seem to be desperate to justify Smarts awful pricing.

Yes, UPC have a cap on their lowest package, but have no cap on their 10 and 20GB packages, which are half the price of Smart, Smart also have a cap on their entry level package, so what is the point?

Smarts packages are also covered by a "fair use policy".

Any filtering is trivial to bypass using encryption, certainly I never had any problems with it last year when I had it and neither does any of my friends or colleagues * who have it, or just look at J-blk post above.

* Funnily I'm the only one in the office with Smart, half of the people on my team have UPC.

Spear

bk wrote: »

Jesus Spear, do you work for Smart or something, you seem to be desperate to justify Smarts awful pricing.

Yes, UPC have a cap on their lowest package, but have no cap on their 10 and 20GB packages, which are half the price of Smart, Smart also have a cap on their entry level package, so what is the point?

Smarts packages are also covered by a "fair use policy".

Any filtering is trivial to bypass using encryption, certainly I never had any problems with it last year when I had it and neither does any of my friends or colleagues * who have it, or just look at J-blk post above.

* Funnily I'm the only one in the office with Smart, half of the people on my team have UPC.

I don't work for Smart and I'm not defending their pricing, it is too high, your criticism of that is totally valid. But UPC's access and network aren't better, you may be paying less, but it's for a lesser service.

And in my department of network engineers, half have Smart, only 1 has UPC.

bk

Spear wrote: »

And in my department of network engineers, half have Smart, only 1 has UPC.

Software engineers here, we have always been the more clever

Spear wrote: »

I don't work for Smart and I'm not defending their pricing, it is too high, your criticism of that is totally valid. But UPC's access and network aren't better, you may be paying less, but it's for a lesser service.

I wouldn't quite say that, the BB enabled parts of the UPC network is a very modern Hybrid Fibre Coax network, perhaps one of the best in Ireland. Certainly UPC last mile network is superior to Smarts as Smart has to use Eircoms poor rotting phone lines, while UPC can use lots of nice new shielded co-ax cable.

Honestly when I had UPC last year, it was perfect, I had 6mb/500k BB and I use to get the full speed, including torrents all the time.

That isn't to say that there aren't areas on the UPC network that might be having problems also, but it is no different with Smart, they certainly aren't saints, for instance Smart are having major problems with their network in Letterkenny and my Smart BB connection went down three times last week (and that is is Smarts FFTB network!!!) and their TV service is truly awful.

J-blk

Spear wrote: »

But UPC's access and network aren't better, you may be paying less, but it's for a lesser service..

In what way is it a lesser service? I've seen the huge thread on UPC throttling torrents, yet over three years, I've never seen that - I doubt I'm the only one. The same applies to filtering. As to availability, judging by the also huge thread on the latest upgrades, that seems to be improving but I don't really know - I've been lucky to have UPC available for years.

Spear wrote: »

And in my department of network engineers, half have Smart, only 1 has UPC.

I don't know, but I think most people will bottom line on the pricing - €80 is quite steep for what looks like a very similar product to UPC's 20Mbps package.

At the end of the day, that's what we're all commenting on here - the pricing. There's no point in turning this thread into a UPC is better/Smart is better contest - I'm perfectly happy with UPC, as are many others, you're obviously perfectly happy with Smart...

Spear

J-blk wrote: »

In what way is it a lesser service? I've seen the huge thread on UPC throttling torrents, yet over three years, I've never seen that - I doubt I'm the only one. The same applies to filtering. As to availability, judging by the also huge thread on the latest upgrades, that seems to be improving but I don't really know - I've been lucky to have UPC available for years.

UPC is also a contended service, Smart isn't, though that's not UPC's fault, that's the nature of the cable modem system. The services they supply aren't the same, there's more than just price.

Hank Scorpio

smart imo are the best isp in ireland

bad points for ntl:

Poor routing
congestion problems
horrific support
contention problems

Plus points:

Price..

Smart have the best pings i have ever seen, they also offer 1/1 contention
have good support, best isp in ireland by miles imo
ye there a bit overpriced but imo seriously worth the money

lucernarian

Smart's the best ISP if you live near a phone exchange. Otherwise, if UPC say you can get broadband from them, you get it in style!

bk

Spear wrote: »

UPC is also a contended service, Smart isn't, though that's not UPC's fault, that's the nature of the cable modem system. The services they supply aren't the same, there's more than just price.

Oh, don't get me started on that. Smart service is contended also, no where on Smarts website do they claim that their service is not contended.

The only part of Smarts network that doesn't have contention is the last mile, just like all ADSL providers including Eircom.

The rest of the Smart network, their backhaul and their connection to the rest of the web all has contention, just like with all ISPs.

This is proven by the problems they are having in Letterkenny, where people who singed up to the 15mb product are only getting about 6mb, because Smart don't have enough bandwidth in the area and they are suffering from too much contention.

There is nothing wrong with all this, as a network engineer you should know well that contention is a natural part of all networks, what is important is how you manage it.

Smart seem to manage their contention well for the most part and so do UPC.

However I hate when I see people come out saying that Smart has no contention when it clearly isn't true, except for the last mile.

Spear

bk wrote: »

However I hate when I see people come out saying that Smart has no contention when it clearly isn't true, except for the last mile.

It is fair to say it's not contended in the same way as UPC, since they have everyone in an area going though the same UBR, leading to noticeable congestion.

bk

Spear wrote: »

It is fair to say it's not contended in the same way as UPC, since they have everyone in an area going though the same UBR, leading to noticeable congestion.

But it isn't comparing like with like.

You are comparing a point to point, 30 year old, rotting, unshielded Eircom phone line to a shared, high quality shielded co-ax cable capable of theoretically carrying 3GB of data!!!

Also UPC's UBR's tend to be much closer to their customers then Eircoms phone exchanges, UPC's network is more like a Fibre to the Estate network.

This all makes a big difference and not at all comparable. In the long term I would much prefer to be on UPC's network then Eircoms. UPC's network has far more room for it to grow.

Cabaal

UPC have a Fair Usage Policy and have disconnected people for downloading 200GB-300GB in the past, Smart have not

Pricing is higher but for those that want to download alot its a more suitable service, you get what you pay for at the end of the day

At the end of the day its another provider offering a higher speed package and thats a good thing no matter what anyone says

bk

Cabaal wrote: »

UPC have a Fair Usage Policy and have disconnected people for downloading 200GB-300GB in the past, Smart have not

That was about 2 years ago AFAIR. They haven't done that in a while.

BTW Smart also has a Fair Usage Policy.

Cabaal wrote: »

At the end of the day its another provider offering a higher speed package and thats a good thing no matter what anyone says

Sure, but as a person who is trapped in a smart monopoly area, while my neighbours just across the road can get the same for a lot less money, I'm not very happy.

I also worry (as I'm trapped with Smart) that Smart are on a slippery slope to a failing business. Most people are going to look at the price and go UPC or BT, it is only natural. I worry about what is going to happen to my TV, phone and BB connection if Smart go under.

J-blk

Cabaal wrote: »

UPC have a Fair Usage Policy and have disconnected people for downloading 200GB-300GB in the past, Smart have not

Up to the recent upgrades, the 6Mbps package (which was their max offering) had a cap of 40GB so people downloading 200-300GB were been booted off the network... When they were offering 12Mbps for a very short while before moving it to 20Mbps, they had a listed cap of 120GB so I doubt that currently 200-300GB is an issue. Some posters are now claiming that UPC will not really bother unless you're going over 500GB in a month frequently, though I'm nowhere near those levels to know if it stands or not:

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055361456

Sad Professor

I recently switched from Smart back to NTL/UPC for the savings and faster speeds. I've only positive things to say about Smart as a company but as already mentioned they're dependent upon Eircom's crappy phone lines so unless you're very close to an exchange you're not going to get half the speeds advertised. And there's no point crying to Smart about it cause they can't help. I'm cautious about recommending them to people for this reason.

UPC definitely do throttle torrents in some areas, they do in my mine and have done for quite some time (a year and half at least) but I've been able to get around this quite easily with encryption.

smellslikeshoes

We only have to look at threads like this and this to realise that Smart are still the best even though they aren't the cheapest or the outright fastest anymore.

paulm17781

Siliconrepublic article

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/11326/comms/broadband-wars-gear-up-as-smart-unveils-24mbps-service

bk

Quote from article:

Smart Telecom revealed an uncontended 24Mbps broadband service at a price point of €45 per month.

This brings Smart on a direct collision course with rival UPC, which offers 20Mbps broadband over cable for €40 per month and Magnet, which during the summer unveiled a 50Mbps package for €73 a month.

Awful reporting there by silicon republic, it isn't €45 per month it is €70 per month or €80 if you want a decent upload speed as everyone has to pay line rental, even people in SmartVision developments that actually have no Eircom line, all Smart gear.

This seems to be completely dishonest and underhand by Smart, they know this product is double the price of UPC, so they are basically lying to try and make themselves look better.

This to me is just another sign of Smarts continuing decline IMO.

Cabaal

bk wrote: »

I also worry (as I'm trapped with Smart) that Smart are on a slippery slope to a failing business. Most people are going to look at the price and go UPC or BT, it is only natural. I worry about what is going to happen to my TV, phone and BB connection if Smart go under.

No bit-stream providers providing services via standard PSTN line in your area?

Mountjoy Mugger

I think he's in Parkwest where the developers did a Smart only deal at the time of construction...