Eircom ! First ever Over usage Charge!

Cabaal

dub45 wrote: »

Where there is a major change in policy on the part of an isp such as beginning to charge for exceeding the cap after many years of not doing so then I believe that customers should have been made aware in advance of any such change.

Perhaps but unless comreg force it or the company wants to be "nice" to its customer base then they don't have to do anything.

In this case people agreed to the T&C';s and then complain when they are followed

dub45

Cabaal wrote: »

Perhaps but unless comreg force it or the company wants to be "nice" to its customer base then they don't have to do anything.

In this case people agreed to the T&C';s and then complain when they are followed

That would not seem to be case in all instances as people are being changed onto new products without, it would seem, being given the opportunity to remain on the old one which they signed up for.

Zab

Am I to understand that they moved you from some other broadband package to NGB without informing or asking you? Have Eircom been doing this?

Cabaal wrote: »

Perhaps but unless comreg force it or the company wants to be "nice" to its customer base then they don't have to do anything.

In this case people agreed to the T&C';s and then complain when they are followed

I completely disagree with you. It's totally unacceptable for a company like Eircom to bait people in to downloading more by not charging anybody for years, allowing them to download more and more over their cap then suddenly trying to impose the frankly rediculous charges that they had in their original Ts&Cs when I signed up 5 years ago. This isn't what they're doing, but it's what you're suggesting they'd be within their rights to do. I have no idea what the legal view of it would be, but I'd guess it isn't as clear cut as you're making out. It's clearly unethical though.

leedsfan88

UPC is the way to go, i have 15 mb broadband and unlimited usage and its like 30€ a month if i remember correctly:D

RandomAccess

GF has UPC unlimited and its quite good.

Myself and four of my mates are all on smart broadband and we are all really impressed with them.

Kensington

Zab wrote: »

I completely disagree with you. It's totally unacceptable for a company like Eircom to bait people in to downloading more by not charging anybody for years, allowing them to download more and more over their cap then suddenly trying to impose the frankly rediculous charges that they had in their original Ts&Cs when I signed up 5 years ago. This isn't what they're doing, but it's what you're suggesting they'd be within their rights to do. I have no idea what the legal view of it would be, but I'd guess it isn't as clear cut as you're making out. It's clearly unethical though.

Non-enforcement is not an excuse as far as I am aware! Just because they haven't charged you up to now doesn't mean they are not within their rights to do so at any time. Their contracts have always quoted data transfer limits.

And it seems with NGB, they're just switching you over automatically. If you complain or don't agree, your only option is to cancel the contract. As long as you're not within a minimum term period, they are not required to continue to provide you with service on those terms and can change them at any time.

As for ethics though, I never found Eircom to be a company with ethics. Which is primarily why we've not been a customer of Eircom for over four years and have no intentions, whatsoever, of ever switching back to them for anything.

jonski

Maybe not the right place to be asking this , but to me ( charged for going over limit this week ) it is relevent , can anyone tell me how long ago was it that the 30 gig limit first came in . I mean the one with the regular 3 meg package .

I download less now than I used to and I find that I now go over the limit regularly , not by much but I still go over whereas before I hardly ever went over the limit . I don't think Eircom have taken into account that the internet has moved on a bit and I think they are pricing themselves out of the regular family package market ........... not that I think they particularly care .

dub45

jonski wrote: »

Maybe not the right place to be asking this , but to me ( charged for going over limit this week ) it is relevent , can anyone tell me how long ago was it that the 30 gig limit first came in . I mean the one with the regular 3 meg package .

I download less now than I used to and I find that I now go over the limit regularly , not by much but I still go over whereas before I hardly ever went over the limit . I don't think Eircom have taken into account that the internet has moved on a bit and I think they are pricing themselves out of the regular family package market ........... not that I think they particularly care .

Are they combining uploads and downloads now?

jonski

dub45 wrote: »

Are they combining uploads and downloads now?

Yup

kenyard

hmm.. i decided to check here.. my internet went dead there the 13th. im on my phone at the moment tethering through that.
i hit 30Gb in those 13 days.
we have a 10Gb allowance now apparently. the 2 euro extra means that our broadband this month is 50 euro which is their max.
rang up today. knew it was that they had changed and added download limits which im sure were never there before and we are with them maybe a year and a half or 2 years.
i played dumb on the phone so maybe they would cut us a new deal and basically the guy on the phone in tech services (foreigner,seems they have their tech services located outside ireland i guess) and he just tried to convince me it was my router was the problem and that i could get a new one but would have to renew my 12 month contract with them - thus not fixing the problem but not allowing me change company for 12 months either then.
or pay 50 euro for a new router which isnt the problem.
i repeatedly told him to check the dsl see if thats the problem and he refused to do so.

am cancelling my broadband and moving to another company asap.
im in tipperary so upc probably wont be an option

"*Unlimited usage subject to a fair usage policy of 250GB."
i mean thats even hittable...but 10Gb in a month. what the hell. i know of people doing that in 1 hour in companies where there is open wifi like.
Eircom own the phone lines and thats where they make it.
irregardless theyre down broadband from us from now on
its why upc are so slow rolling out also i reckon. they want their own lines and they will dominate the market when they have them and with eircom they dont seem to care just want to milk the cow as much as they can before its gone rather than compete

ED E

Slightly OT but I was looking at something on our router earlier.

______________________Downstream____Upstream
Max Allowed Speed (kbps) 5120_______512
SN Margin (dB)____________11.90_______21.00
Line Attenuation (dB)_______38.50______23.00
CRC Errors_________________17________1

Its a stock eircom branded 2247-62.




Our line is shoite. How'd I know? Cause you can here it. In bad weather it sounds like AM radio. We've never had much issue with contention though, areas full of OAPs.

What I'm wondering is if we're running under a software limit of 5Mb/s or is that a maximum auto detected by the router.
If its purely a preset, can I do anything about it? If we're gonna be paying around ~60 a month we may as well get the full 7.

deelite

The Eircom lady rang me yesterday about upgrading as I'd gone over the usage limit. There's only one lap top in our house - and it's only used for general purposes, she couldn't understand how we'd gone over the usage but the minute I said the son uses Xbox - she said that was the problem. I told her when I was sold the package at the door the guy said it was near to impossible to go over your usage with "XBox and regular surfing"...I'm confused now.

slave1

when I was sold the package at the door the guy said

therein lies your problem, sales folk will say anything for a sale

deelite

slave1 wrote: »

therein lies your problem, sales folk will say anything for a sale

Well I'm waiting for a call back from them about it now. Do you think I can have eircom broadband without the phone is that possible?

Webmonkey

deelite wrote: »

Well I'm waiting for a call back from them about it now. Do you think I can have eircom broadband without the phone is that possible?

Yeah but I think it almost works out cheaper with the phone?

jay93

What?10gb limit on NGB??
God love all yas on eircom they are a ripp off:(

lynchie

deelite wrote: »

Well I'm waiting for a call back from them about it now. Do you think I can have eircom broadband without the phone is that possible?

Not possible, naked DSL not available here.

Baneblade

deelite wrote: »

The Eircom lady rang me yesterday about upgrading as I'd gone over the usage limit. There's only one lap top in our house - and it's only used for general purposes, she couldn't understand how we'd gone over the usage but the minute I said the son uses Xbox - she said that was the problem. I told her when I was sold the package at the door the guy said it was near to impossible to go over your usage with "XBox and regular surfing"...I'm confused now.

you should not go over the limit just playing games, but if you are watching/downloading videos and demos then you could go over the 10GB allowance

cormie

I'm in a bit of a pickle here.

I signed up to NGB on a pretty good deal, I only pay 21.42 a month (deal here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056002429) for 10gb cap. I went over my cap and was charged an extra €19 or so and I recall being told when I signed up that at any stage I could get a 30gb cap for €5 extra (26.52 pm) and it wouldn't effect anything.

I rang up to go for this but just found out that getting it means I've to get new contract, so the 10 month trial period I'm on will still expire in June/July, but my contract will now be until October, instead of August (July/August will be 46.79 with 10gb cap), meaning I'll have to pay an extra €103 (51.77 per month with 30gb cap) or so over the space of September/October when I would have been out of contract at this stage to choose a new provider.

So it's basically go for it and have to pay €103 extra, or stick with the 10gb limit and risk exceeding the cap every month.

I'm pretty sure I was told I could get an additional 20gb without effecting the contract.

Lenny

God I feel so sorry for yor poor eircom people I downloaded 78 gigs last night and this morning

cormie

Just posting to say I was on to Theo in Broadband sales who upgraded me to 30gb for €5 extra per month, without extending the contract or changing anything else in it and he also backdated it so I won't be charged excess for October

deelite

Eircom rang me back and have changed me over to the other package of 30gb (an extra 5 euro p.m.) They have also credited me with the 10euro I was charged for going over my limit last month. So I'm happy.

Nobody is downloading - movies, music or games - the internet is just used for xbox live and for surfing the net. I was told though that when the son is on xbox it's downloading graphics for whatever game he's playing - (I don't know anything about the xbox tbh).

bealtine

deelite wrote: »

Eircom rang me back and have changed me over to the other package of 30gb (an extra 5 euro p.m.)

That's the reason for the NGB "upgrade" that extra fiver makes all the difference and what it's all about.

Lenny

deelite wrote: »

I was told though that when the son is on xbox it's downloading graphics for whatever game he's playing - (I don't know anything about the xbox tbh).

hahaha, thats the biggest load of shíte I've ever heard.
More than likely your son is/could be downloading
a) game demos(can be anything up to 3GB)
b) downloadable content(such as a game addon - sequel, more maps etc.
playing against players on live in general does not use much bandwidth at all. its keeping up with the updates etc. that may eat into it.
also note you can also watch live TV & movies on xboxlive also, you can rent them via Microsoft points, which can be bought in the shop

deelite

He does download maps for 2 games - would that be the problem.

You'd probably use about 25mb an hour on a game like COD on the 360.

Gypsy10

Just got a bundle with Eircom. Cant connect to router.Think there is a problem with the line.Is it possible to use a different modem/router ie Netgear? to plug into, would the signal be better?

Webmonkey

you shuld still be able connect router regardless of line. What is wrong that you can't connect?

And yes you can use another modem, the details are on eircom support page.

Gypsy10

Not sure their support guy told me to just turn off and on again, and as long as the DSL light is solidly on for a half hour or so I should be able to connect, but still cant, still not coming on the wireless devices list when I go to "Connect to".

Webmonkey

Gypsy10 wrote: »

Not sure their support guy told me to just turn off and on again, and as long as the DSL light is solidly on for a half hour or so I should be able to connect, but still cant, still not coming on the wireless devices list when I go to "Connect to".

Again, the DSL light should have nothing to do with the wireless side of it as far as I know. You should still see your router, eircomXXXXX. Maybe you should consider resetting it with the reset button. YOu'll need a paper clip or something.

By the way is there a wireless light. Is this on? -Have you tried another laptop/computer to see if you can see it.

Alternatively, connect a cable directly to it and go to http://192.168.1.254/