Eir rural FTTH thread II

fritzelly

Also add in Net1 don't include any calls - they're price is not really that attractive if you make any calls

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

Also add in Net1 don't include any calls - they're price is not really that attractive if you make any calls

Mjaeh .. not quite right. Only the first year, that that's unattractive. They do offer VoIP. I haven't checked at what pricing.

Eir retail pricing (one the bundle, if you're not already an Eir customer) after a year is more expensive non the less. And installation is not free.

/M

Andy From Sligo

see the way I look at it is ... OK the ISP that does free installation is loosing what is it 300eur per installation (should be at a bulk rate seeing as they are an ISP and most probably doing a lot of installs) - but then you do have a customer for at least 12months paying that subscription every month (penalise / charge the customer the whole installation price if they want to terminate their contract within that time by all means) (make the subscription 5 or 10 eur extra per month by all means if you want to scrape back the installation charge if you have to )

But in any case getting the customers in the first place is key .. and how do you get that .. by reeling them in with ridiculously cheap installation charge (cheaper than your competitors) or free installation

SKY do special low price deals on installation (might even be free now) because they make so much more profit on the subscriptions the customer takes out and the amount of contract. (think its 18 months)

Mobile phone providers heavily subsidise the price of the phone because they make the money back on bill pay customers and a long term contract (18 months I think)

So if an ISP want to attract more customers to go with them , they are not going to as many subscribers if they are charging 199 or 129 or whatever it is if some other competitor is offering free installation or installation for 25 / 29.99

Even if an ISP said to me "well that includes a Fritz box (ugly looking router, even though it might be fab) thats worth 199 for free" I'd go well forget about the router , the free installation is worth more to me - just put the ODP and ONT in, and I will buy my own router with VLan tagging ... (doubt if they would let you do that)

fritzelly

So eir would work out at 552 for the first year including off peak calls plus 99 install and 30 (?) activation so total 681
Net1 is 660 just for BB - I assume they expect customers to sign up to a VOIP service, 21 euro cheaper but you will pay more than that for a VOIP service (don't know anything about that kinda pricing) if you want a LL

Marlow

Net1 is calls to geographic landlines in Ireland, UK, US, Canada, Australia & New Zealand and calls to Ireland and UK mobiles included and 96 TV channels for 65 EUR.

That beats the hell out of Eirs pricing after 12 months, which is only the Eir Sports pack and irish off-peak landline calls for 65.99.

/M

Marlow

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

sshould be at a bulk rate seeing as they are an ISP and most probably doing a lot of installs

There is no bulk rate, or discounts or whatever. The pricing has been agreed between OpenEIR and Comreg and is regulated pricing. Zero wiggle room. The provider has to pay full whack .. every single time.

/M

Andy From Sligo

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

I think Net1 is a 24 month contract in return for free installation.

ah well if they were a good and reliable i wouldnt mind sticking with the same company for 24 months - with things like SKY I have stayed with them for years and Tesco Mpbile I have been for years .. I'm particularly not one of these customers that change company after 12/18 months like some people - especially if I have found their service to be ok and reliable

fritzelly

That fritzbox router does not cost anywhere near 199 for the ISP
All ISP's work on the assumption of getting the customer and hoping they stay, even just a few months after the contract ends when the price goes way up does a lot to justify the low cost first year charges

Mobile phones are a whole different beast - most people end paying more for something they could have bought outright and gone PAYG. Just makes it easy to get a new phone with no big outright expense - you are still paying for getting credit/loan

Andy From Sligo

fritzelly wrote: »

Also add in Net1 don't include any calls - they're price is not really that attractive if you make any calls

not worried about VOIP with any package TBH (i'd have it if it were included in the price but if not, I wouldnt personally pay extra for it myself) .. I use mobile/skype/facebook phone call

fritzelly

Marlow wrote: »

Net1 is calls to geographic landlines in Ireland, UK, US, Canada, Australia & New Zealand and calls to Ireland and UK mobiles included and 96 TV channels for 65 EUR.

That beats the hell out of Eirs pricing after 12 months, which is only the Eir Sports pack and irish off-peak landline calls for 65.99.

/M

I'm only talking first year contracts - with this market it doesn't make sense not to keep switching. And that package has a 99 euro install charge on top of a first year price of 780. No idea what channels they offer - only need so many news and shopping channels (they don't list the channels that I can see)

Surprisingly the eir sports is a big draw for people

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

That fritzbox router does not cost anywhere near 199 for the ISP

Depends on the model. They do cost a lot compared to others, but not 199, no. Apart from the 7490 and 7590. They are pricey.

Retail pricing in Germany for a 7560: https://www.mediamarkt.de/de/product/_avm-fritz-box-7560-2168792.html (AVMs home market)

Airwire retail for the routers: http://www.airwire.ie/index.php/products/ruralftth .. actually cheaper for the 7560 than in a german electronics superstore.

/M

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

Surprisingly the eir sports is a big draw for people

You are in Ireland. GAA and Soccer are a big thing. Remember Imagines "GAA Telecom". That was one of their biggest marketing stunts ever.

/M

fritzelly

Marlow wrote: »

Depends on the model. They do cost a lot compared to others, but not 199, no. Apart from the 7490 and 7590. They are pricey.

Retail pricing in Germany for a 7560: https://www.mediamarkt.de/de/product/_avm-fritz-box-7560-2168792.html (AVMs home market)

Airwire retail for the routers: http://www.airwire.ie/index.php/products/ruralftth .. actually cheaper for the 7560 than in a german electronics superstore.

/M

Retail pricing! They are buying it wholesale (never found mediamarkt all that cheap)

Westnet: Paul

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

Even if an ISP said to me "well that includes a Fritz box (ugly looking router, even though it might be fab) thats worth 199 for free" I'd go well forget about the router , the free installation is worth more to me - just put the ODP and ONT in, and I will buy my own router with VLan tagging ... (doubt if they would let you do that)

Here's the problem with letting the customer provide their own router: when the customer rings up and says "my broadband is slow", and they're using their own router... what's the ISP supposed to do with that?

Sure, it might not be your router that's the problem, but with an ISP-supplied router, at least the ISP (a) knows what they're dealing with, and (b) has management access to the router to investigate the problem.

fritzelly wrote: »

All ISP's work on the assumption of getting the customer and hoping they stay, even just a few months after the contract ends when the price goes way up does a lot to justify the low cost first year charges

Not every ISP hikes the price after the contract term. Some of us would consider that a dick move.

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

Retail pricing! They are buying it wholesale

The margins are not as big as you think. Not at all. And serious volumes required at that. 10-15% at most.

/M

fritzelly

Westnet: Paul wrote: »

Not every ISP hikes the price after the contract term. Some of us would consider that a dick move.

True, most ISP's (like Sky, eir), sorry Paul

Marlow

Westnet: Paul wrote: »

Here's the problem with letting the customer provide their own router: when the customer rings up and says "my broadband is slow", and they're using their own router... what's the ISP supposed to do with that?

Yeah .. i tried to explain to Andy, that his choice of router doesn't have the CPU power to drive FTTH. Providers have tested the routers they provide for a reason.

Westnet: Paul wrote: »

Not every ISP hikes the price after the contract term. Some of us would consider that a dick move.

Yep .. providers that care about their customers either give a very clear price, that does not change. Or an incentivise to stay. Even some of the big players grasp that, like Virgin. Eir and Sky love hiking it though.

/M

fritzelly

Marlow wrote: »

The margins are not as big as you think. Not at all. And serious volumes required at that. 10-15% at most.

/M

Dunno what volumes the companies are ordering in at but if you are not getting in the 40% region at least then they are doing something wrong.
Shops wouldn't even buy stock at those margins and ISP has buying power to be ordering in the thousands.

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

Dunno what volumes the companies are ordering in at but if you are not getting in the 40% region at least then they are doing something wrong.
Shops wouldn't even buy stock at those margins and ISP has buying power to be ordering in the thousands.

That's because some ISPs have grasped that providing a quality router is more important than margins. The Fritz!Box routers are far and beyond from cheap. Full stop. Never have been. The cost for customer support for shoddy routers is far bigger, than a massive margin on the router.
/M

Airwire: MartinL

fritzelly wrote: »

True, most ISP's (like Sky, eir), sorry Paul

The providers, that hike their pricing after a year is actually minimal. You can count them on one hand. But they're mostly large national ISPs. Anyone else gives customers a reason to stay.

fritzelly

Marlow wrote: »

Even some of the big players grasp that, like Virgin. Eir and Sky love hiking it though./M

Virgin continually increase their prices every year. Another 3.50 increase this year for BB - have been increasing their prices beyond the natural inflation rate every year, same as eir and Sky etc. Wouldn't count them as one of the good guys. Plus they own their own infrastructure so no unwieldly access charges to justify it

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

Virgin continually increase their prices every year. Another 3.50 increase this year for BB - have been increasing their prices beyond the natural inflation rate every year, same as eir and Sky etc. Wouldn't count them as one of the good guys. Plus they own their own infrastructure so no unwieldly access charges to justify it

You don't get the discounted pricing with Virgin by default. You have to threaten to leave them. The result of that is that your pricing goes down instead of up.

They have a dedicated loyality team.

/M

fritzelly

Marlow wrote: »

You don't get the discounted pricing with Virgin by default. You have to threaten to leave them. The result of that is that your pricing goes down instead of up.

They have a dedicated loyality team.

/M

True, hope you get thru to the right guy and hold out for 6 months - average guy doesn't know that and will get fobbed off with a tenner off for 3 months.

At Paul - no provider can maintain the same price time immortal - there has to be price increases. Maybe not every year but costs do go up - cannot continually absorb them at the expense of the company.

Airwire: MartinL

fritzelly wrote: »

no provider can maintain the same price time immortal - there has to be price increases. Maybe not every year but costs do go up - cannot continually absorb them at the expense of the company.

In 13+ years of business we have NEVER increased the price on a customer. Ever.


We have increased the speed on customers though. For the same price.


If the price for a package went up, existing customers stayed on their legacy pricing.

fritzelly

Airwire: MartinL wrote: »

In 13+ years of business we have NEVER increased the price on a customer. Ever.

We have increased the speed on customers though. For the same price.

If the price for a package went up, existing customers stayed on their legacy pricing.

Are you serious? Should be advertising that fact on your home page!

Airwire: MartinL

fritzelly wrote: »

Are you serious? Should be advertising that fact on your home page!

Yes, I'm serious.

- if the price goes down, the customer gets the benefit of the reduced price.
- if the price goes up, the customer stays at the legacy pricing.
- if the speed for a package goes up, the customer gets a free upgrade
- when we removed the caps, that only existed for 2 years, all customers got unlimited data .. no matter if they were in contract or not.

It's the way it should be. And Paul will agree with me on that. No fuss, no hidden facts, no fair use policy, straight forward pricing.

It says on our website .. on the box on the right: "Simple pricing, transparency and no hidden costs. Broadband where you need it most.

There are no hidden usage limits with Airwire.

Our aim is to be as transparent as possible."

fritzelly

Box on the right?

Never mind - under products

Still home page - "No customer has ever had a price increase"

Calhoun

I can attest to that, i was on the 3TB Cap package and if i am being really honest once my 12 month was up i might considered other providers. However as i have benefited immediately from the policy change and no longer have a cap i will stay put.

Compare this to a certain provider who was only offering the lack of cap to new customers and was being quite shady with existing ones.

Airwire: MartinL

fritzelly wrote: »

Still home page - "No customer has ever had a price increase"

Noted. New webdesign needed first. Our current overall webdesign was done over 10 years ago. It's aged well, but needs to get up to date.

But I can assure you, we're not the only ones with that thinking. A lot of regional ISPs look after their customers that same way.

We have increased (and since dropped) the pricing on our SOHO package. It went from 50 to 75 to now 70 EUR or thereabouts. (Not getting the calculator out to calculate VAT on that).

Obviously at 50 EUR, it was only 512 kbit/s in 2006, but we still have customers with us to date, that have SOHO package level at 50 EUR. The only time that would change, is if they voluntarily decide to change package. End of story. Oh yes .. and they'd be at 20 Mbit/s or 50 Mbit/s now. Not 512 kbit/s. The same as the ones paying 70 EUR for SOHO in our fixed wireless or Jet network. It's a matter of customer loyality.

Andy From Sligo

Westnet: Paul wrote: »

Here's the problem with letting the customer provide their own router: when the customer rings up and says "my broadband is slow", and they're using their own router... what's the ISP supposed to do with that?

Sure, it might not be your router that's the problem, but with an ISP-supplied router, at least the ISP (a) knows what they're dealing with, and (b) has management access to the router to investigate the problem.



Not every ISP hikes the price after the contract term. Some of us would consider that a dick move.

Hiya Paul - we have managed before us customers when we have been on ADSL and gone out and bought our own routers from whatever source Currys, PCWorld, online from Amazon or whatever - if ISP's wanted to, if a customer phoned up for support all the ISP provider would have to do is say "we have done all the checks our end and its all ok our end", and if a customer has bought their own router then all the ISP provider has to say "im sorry we cannot support third party routers or give advice for them" and then tell the customer that they will have to get in touch with customer support for their make of router or get someone out (at their own cost) to check the router - or if ISP provider like, say "We can send someone out but there will be a charge for that, if it is found that the problem is with your own supplied router/device"

Thats what we had to do on ADSL if we as customers phoned up ISP suppliers but didnt avail of their supplied routers and used our own

Even with my fixed wireless service once I phoned them up because my speed degraded almost overnight from 11mbps to about 2-3mbps and dropping signal - and because I was not using one of their supplied WAN routers , I was using my own, they could not advise on that - but as it turned out in the end some new provider at the mast on the mountain was conflicting with wireless channel - so they switched me over to another channel (must have been sent to my wall dish) and I was back up at roughly 11mbps again -

If you take the old days when telecom eireann / eircom came out and fitted your phone line - they didnt automatically offer to supply a telephone to you - they installed the socket to plug the phone into and made your line active ... but you had to go out and buy your phone to plug in whether that be corded or cordless phone (plus you could choose the right phone for you with the features you wanted) - sure that phone might have caused problems, or it might of got hit by lightening or something , or the dog chewed through the phone lead, .. but you as a customer had to go out and buy another phone. They didnt say "we will come out and fit that socket and you will have to have the phone we bring with us and you cannot go out and buy your own" - they would say "we are only responsible for the socket - anything (phone fax answering machine) you put onto that socket is your responsibility not ours"

But it seems with this way FTTH they wont just come out and fit a ODP and ONT .. they come out with a router as well and require/want you to use the supplied router then? .. and then say "you get a free router worth €..."

Why do suppliers raise ISP charge after the term , if they wanted to keep customers after their minimum contract why would they raise price? - should be the other way round and lower price after the cotract to keep customers and stop them leaving for another ISP - doesnt make sense.

I know with SKY once when I was out of contract and was thinking of leaving (just going over to Saorview) they really really wanted to keep me . they said "hold on I will have a word with my manager" and after talking to someone else I was offered a reduction in my sub rather than me leaving all together - sure they were left with me paying less of a subscription (think they froze it for 6 or 12 months) - but they still kept me as a subscriber