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More criticism of Eircom from a public figure

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  • 07-03-2005 2:30pm
    #1
    Mr_Man
    Registered Users Posts: 638 ✭✭✭


    On last Saturday's edition of RTE's consumer program The Spend Eircom came in for more criticism, this time it appears that installing broadband may be bad for your finances. Mary Bannotti (former MEP) was on complaining that her most recent telephone bill was for over €500, and that the bulk of this was caused by spurious calls by her alarm system to the monitoring station.

    The interesting things is that this only happened after she had had broadband installed. Since then friends and contacts have told her about their experiences with broadband causing strange problems and jacking up the phone bill. Eircom customer services were their usual helpful self and Mary was none too impressed by their 'service'.

    The show is looking for people who have had a similar problems to get in touch. The piece on the broadband starts around 17:40

    M.


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    #2
    damien
    Registered Users Posts: 4,290 ✭✭✭damien


    Added to the Newsletter, which is going out tonight.


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    #3
    cgarvey
    Registered Users Posts: 3,886 ✭✭✭cgarvey


    I don't get what eircom are meant to have done here, and she sounded very vague to me in that interview.. rip is here


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    #4
    damien
    Registered Users Posts: 4,290 ✭✭✭damien


    thespend@rte.ie


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    #5
    d-j-k
    Closed Accounts Posts: 109 ✭✭d-j-k


    RE: Mary Banotti's alarm...

    DSL will cause BIG problems for monitored alarm systems for a very simple reason.

    The phone line enters your house via the alarm system, this allows the alarm to "sieze" the line, cutting the signal to all the phone sockets in the house to ensure that it can dial out and not be interfered with.

    No other device, including DSL modems, can be upstream of the alarm box for obvious security reasons. It makes providing the alarm with a DSL filter very tricky. The unfiltered DSL signals on your line will cause problems for the alarm systems modem.

    Eircom actually do mention that DSL isn't compatable with Phonewatch type alarms in a lot of their brochures. I'm not sure if Esat etc do.

    We got around this problem by moving the alarm system to GSM monitoring. i.e. they install a GSM mobile phone device in your attic. The alarm system dials out over a mobile. In many ways it's far more secure as no one can cut your phone line! The GSM monitoring is paid for through phonewatch and they provide the equipment and the vodafone account / sim card etc etc.. It's quite a nice sollution actually!

    Her alarm must have really gone mental to have made 500 euro worth of monitoring calls though. All it does is dial an 01 number and a typical call lasts no more than about 30 seconds at most.

    If she'd Esat BT's advantage plus the calls wouldn't have cost anything at all.


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