Eircom leave Smart Telecom Customers with no service

WizZard

From IrishDev

Friday, April 22, 2005

Smart Telecom has today described Eircoms continual attempt to stifle competition in the Irish marketplace as completely unacceptable, following further efforts by Eircom to block consumers from switching to Smart Telecoms new broadband product.

Smart Broadband offers customers a 2MB broadband connection for just 35 per month, including line rental, making it the most competitive broadband offer available in both the Irish and the European market. To date, in excess of 20,000 new customers have been signed up for the Smart Broadband service, which is being rolled out nationwide throughout 2005.

Eircom, however, is now threatening to leave new Smart Broadband customers WITHOUT ANY telephone service at all during the time it takes to switch customers from the Eircom network to the Smart Telecom network.

Put simply, if a customer signs up for Smart Broadband, Eircom is obliged to switch the customers telephone line over to the Smart Telecom network, a process known as local loop unbundling. In addition, Eircom is also obliged to move the customers existing telephone number to Smart Telecom, a process known as number portability.

Eircom has told Smart Telecom, however, that it can not facilitate both of these processes at the same time and that it will actually take a number of weeks to complete, leaving the customer involved WITHOUT ANY telephone service during that time.

Oisin Fanning, CEO of Smart Telecom, says this is a completely unacceptable situation.

We are providing competition in the marketplace and the simple fact of the matter is that Eircom dont like it. Why else would they bother trying to stifle us at every turn and put unreasonable obstacles in our way? Eircom has known for years that Local Loop Unbundling was on the way and should have been putting processes in place to facilitate this. Switching customers from the Eircom network to the Smart Telecom network should be a very simple automated and integrated service but for some reason its not. While we are working to offer a high quality broadband service at an affordable price, Eircom is busy thinking of ways to stop us.

In a bid to address this problem, Smart Telecom has devised an interim solution for potential Smart Broadband customers. If the customer is happy to take a new telephone number, they can be connected to Smart Broadband as soon as the service becomes available.

Oisin Fanning says that over 80% of the customers who have signed up to Smart Broadband say they are more than happy to take a new telephone number. This means we can get these customers up and running with broadband as soon as possible. Some customers, however, cant take a new number as they may work from home or want to retain their current number. These people are being prevented from getting our service by Eircoms foot-dragging. Currently a customer can switch their telephone provider automatically without changing their telephone number so why should the situation be any different when it comes to broadband? Customers really shouldnt have to put up with problems being invented by Eircom in a bid to stall us. This is just a farcical scenario and one which needs to be addressed urgently.

dahamsta

I'm still not convinced by this product and I'm disappointed by the cherrypicking that went on in the Smart thread on the BB forum, but I will give credit it where it's due:

At least Smart speak out, unlike that shower in Esat that tried to do everything the traditional Oirish way. Fair dues to Smart for sticking up for themselves and making sure that everyone knows just what Eircom is at. Or, to put it another way, doing ComReg's job for them.

adam

damien

Looks like Smart are starting the blame game. Was wondering how long it would take.

seamus

Surely it would be possible for eircom to put a redirect on the old number to the new number while they "facilitate" the change? Smart could make themselves appear like a consumer champion if they absorbed this cost for the period.

A temporary number is a great solution though, particularly when Smart are so vocal on the reasons for the delay. Most people (particularly the knid who'd be gettting 2Mb BB) would have mobiles anyway, so it's not a huge inconvenience.

WizZard

damien.m wrote:

Looks like Smart are starting the blame game. Was wondering how long it would take.

Why, do you dispute their methods? IMO Eircom are to blame for this. BT in England aren't allowed to get away with this sort of behaviour, and I doubt many other incumbents are either.

damien

Full press release they sent out:

Eircom blocking customers from moving to new Smart Telecom broadband service

Eircom threatening to leave Smart Broadband customers with NO telephone service

New telephone number provides solution

Friday, April 22, 2005 For Immediate Release

Smart Telecom has today described Eircom’s continual attempt to stifle competition in the Irish marketplace as ‘completely unacceptable’, following further efforts by Eircom to block consumers from switching to Smart Telecom’s new broadband product.

Smart Broadband offers customers a 2MB broadband connection for just €35 per month, including line rental, making it the most competitive broadband offer available in both the Irish and the European market. To date, in excess of 20,000 new customers have been signed up for the Smart Broadband service, which is being rolled out nationwide throughout 2005.

Eircom, however, is now threatening to leave new Smart Broadband customers WITHOUT ANY telephone service at all during the time it takes to switch customers from the Eircom network to the Smart Telecom network.

Put simply, if a customer signs up for Smart Broadband, Eircom is obliged to switch the customer’s telephone line over to the Smart Telecom network, a process known as “local loop unbundling”. In addition, Eircom is also obliged to move the customer’s existing telephone number to Smart Telecom, a process known as “number portability”.

Eircom has told Smart Telecom, however, that it can not facilitate both of these processes at the same time and that it will actually take a number of weeks to complete, leaving the customer involved WITHOUT ANY telephone service during that time.

Oisin Fanning, CEO of Smart Telecom, says this is a completely unacceptable situation.

“We are providing competition in the marketplace and the simple fact of the matter is that Eircom don’t like it. Why else would they bother trying to stifle us at every turn and put unreasonable obstacles in our way? Eircom has known for years that Local Loop Unbundling was on the way and should have been putting processes in place to facilitate this. Switching customers from the Eircom network to the Smart Telecom network should be a very simple automated and integrated service but for some reason it’s not. While we are working to offer a high quality broadband service at an affordable price, Eircom is busy thinking of ways to stop us.”

In a bid to address this problem, Smart Telecom has devised an interim solution for potential Smart Broadband customers. If the customer is happy to take a new telephone number, they can be connected to Smart Broadband as soon as the service becomes available.

Oisin Fanning says that over 80% of the customers who have signed up to Smart Broadband say they are more than happy to take a new telephone number. “This means we can get these customers up and running with broadband as soon as possible. Some customers, however, can’t take a new number as they may work from home or want to retain their current number. These people are being prevented from getting our service by Eircom’s foot-dragging. Currently a customer can switch their telephone provider automatically without changing their telephone number so why should the situation be any different when it comes to broadband? Customers really shouldn’t have to put up with problems being invented by Eircom in a bid to stall us. This is just a farcical scenario and one which needs to be addressed urgently.”





Editorial Note on Smart Telecom:

Smart Telecom plc is the second largest provider of residential, business and Metro telecommunications services in Ireland. The company offers homes and businesses the highest quality telecommunications services at the lowest possible rates.

Smart Telecom employs 330 people between offices in Dublin and Cork, making it the third largest employer in the Irish telecommunications sector.

All Smart Telecom residential customers benefit from FREE telephone calls to other Smart Telecom customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Customers receive just one bill for line rental and call charges. ‘Smart Broadband’ incorporates voice and broadband and is the most competitive on offer in the Irish and European market. The service is four times faster and almost half the price of broadband products offered by rival companies such as Eircom.

Sponge Bob

seamus wrote:

Surely it would be possible for eircom to put a redirect on the old number to the new number while they "facilitate" the change?

Tis easy as I explained to Smart a long time ago Séamus , cost €10 a month if you forward to Eircom voicemail during the port + €25 setup and local calls to check the voicemail. Smart have been less than forthcoming with details about their telephony service which makes me wonder what else they are hiding . Line rental is 'free for life' from Smart but not Voicemail <cough> .

SparkyLarks

WizZard wrote:

Why, do you dispute their methods? IMO Eircom are to blame for this. BT in England aren't allowed to get away with this sort of behaviour, and I doubt many other incumbents are either.

Does that not mean Comreg are to blame??

If eircom are acting illegally then obviously they are wrong. and Comreg should step in and give tem a swift kick.

If not then as a private company are they not mandated to get as much profit as possible for their shareholders?? so Comreg should step in and get them for using unfair trade practices using their dominant position to disadvantage compeditors.

either way Ball is in Comreg's court,( and smarts obviousl who have to start hounding Comred and the Dept of posts and Telegraphs)

Can't Smart move the line over one month and the number over the next month. what's the extra cost involved in that

dahamsta

WizZard wrote:

Why, do you dispute their methods? IMO Eircom are to blame for this. BT in England aren't allowed to get away with this sort of behaviour, and I doubt many other incumbents are either.

Eircom are certainly to blame for the problems with the LLU process WizZard, but Smart knew about them before they went ahead and launched the problem, and they decided to gamble. The numbers just don't add up though, and numbers I've heard in the intervening period make the whole thing even dodgier.

Hopefully Smart's outspoken attitude might push things along a little quicker than usual. Particularly if certain other OLOs were to jump on-board with them on criticism of the process, and ComReg's handling of it. I won't be holding my breath.

BTW, I was on a telco's site yesterday and they were offering DSL service from a limited number of exchanges, which struck me as odd. Are other OLOs unbundling I wonder?

adam

WizZard

dahamsta wrote:

BTW, I was on a telco's site yesterday and they were offering DSL service from a limited number of exchanges, which struck me as odd. Are other OLOs unbundling I wonder?

Hopefully. I am on an unbundled Esat exchange at the moment, but the costs of that service over my current, IOL BB are not that much reduced. Especially when you want a higher upload speed!

cgarvey

I'll blame ComReg more than eircom. How long is LLU around now, and ComReg never envisaged this would happen? Never had a decent LLU process in place? Blurt out, on every media source that would listen, that LLU is here (yet there's such a shambles of a process in place that all OLOs regard as piss poor)? Surely it's ComReg's fault as the regulator. After all are eircom doing anything illegal? I don't think so.. they just have the morality of <insert low life scum example here>. The problem is that they are allowed to get away with it. In my book anyway.

(Yes I'll try and stop posting that opinion everywhere now !!)

Sponge Bob

dahamsta wrote:

BTW, I was on a telco's site yesterday and they were offering DSL service from a limited number of exchanges, which struck me as odd. Are other OLOs unbundling I wonder?

If it was Leap then its their highly limited availibility SDSL service, otherwise the only DSL kit owners are Eircom , Smart(LLU) and ESAT (LLU) . Esat are resold as are Eircom but I was not aware of any Leap resellers and Smart were adamant in February that they would not resell their product .

damien

WizZard wrote:

Why, do you dispute their methods?

Which methods ? I'm wondering why Smart waited until they had 20,000+ people signed up for the Broadband service before they went public with the fact that theese people would lose their voice service if they wanted to retain their number ?

cgarvey

Good point .. both Damien and Adam make .. Smart knew exactly what they were getting themselves into, and presumably the "poor me" was always part of the plan.. they knew the LLU court case wasn't due for months (let alone any decision, or delays) but they signed up en masse anyway. That tactic was almost eircom like .. hopefully they aren't!

SparkyLarks

damien.m wrote:

Which methods ? I'm wondering why Smart waited until they had 20,000+ people signed up for the Broadband service before they went public with the fact that they people would lose their voice service ?

Because Smart in their own way are as devious as Eircom.

If your a company looking for investors, i.e cash , you need to have customers. Smart's 100000 free frre line rentals for life, would allow them go to investors saying look we have 100,000 customers signed up we just need the cash to pay weircom for the unbundling. venture capatilists look and say well those customer are probably for life cos there not going to want to give up their free line rental and smart have made loads of money.

Maybe 20,000 is enough customers for them, or maybe they are using this delay as a comvenient delaying tactic ( and advertising) to gt their numbers up.

Now I could be wrong but that's what it looks like their doing to me

Xterminator

The attitude of some of the posters here amazes me?

They knew eircom was abusing its position, so they should either shut up, or not get into the business in the first place?

Is that really what you are saying cgarvey + sparklarks?

People were/are crying out for affordable broadband, and smart have already affected 1000's of users for the better, (by making the incumbents change their speeds, and caps etc)!

They gave Eircom, and Comwreck time to sort their **** out, but between them, they still havent come up with a fair plan to allow LLU switchovers in a timely manner?

When this didnt happen, and is now affecting Smart and their customers, they release this statement, that explains what the problem is, and how its out of Smarts hands. Admittedly it smacks of spin, but then thats the playing field they are in. Do you not see the spin on documents from Comwreck and Eircom?

X

vinnyfitz

It won't be easy to "get their numbers up" if everyone knows there is this huge pitfall in changing over from Eircom.

Why (technically) should it take several weeks to arrange both LLU and number portability?

I find this wierd (but it is the reason I have not switched over to Smart so far).

dahamsta

Nah, it wasn't Leap Sponge Bob, and I found it off a clickthrough on Foot.ie so I'm having trouble tracking it down again. Ironic because I was checking whether I needed to add them to my blocklist (several providers are blocked from advertising on Foot.ie). 'Twas a bizarre outfit anyway, DSL was kinda shoved into a general services page, almost as an afterthought. Could be an Esat reseller with an outdated website I guess.

adam

jimmycrackcorm

It must be possible to have calls to your old eircom number redirected to your new smart phone number for the duration until the old number can be ported. Eircom should be forced to absorb this cost as they are the ones providing the LLU in an inadequate manner.

SparkyLarks

Xterminator wrote:

They knew eircom was abusing its position, so they should either shut up, or not get into the business in the first place?

Is that really what you are saying cgarvey + sparklarks?

X

No not what I'm saying, well not what i meant to say anyway.
The first point is that everone know eircom are ,lets say difficult( massive euphism) to deal with especiallly when looking to change things, but that is what the directors of eircom are charged with doing , i.e make a profit for their shareholders. To do that they

Comreg are charged with regulating the communications market, but they are not doing that effectively at all.

The blame lies with Comreg not eircom.

As for Smart if they really wanted they could have had this sorted out long ago.Why not release this information when they started their campaign, get the media on their side, get Cullen to mention it at the IMI confrence ect.

Did they not know that this would happen. That implies that they did not have the process worked out with eircom in advance of advertising their offer.

Obviously Im delighted that Smart has come along with the offer which has shaken the Broadband market up. But I've yet to hear of someone who has a smart connection nad acutally avail of the offer.

damien

vinnyfitz wrote:

Why (technically) should it take several weeks to arrange both LLU and number portability?

This is from an upcoming briefing document from IOFFL:

Automated LLU Ordering Process

At present, all processes associated with LLU (initial ordering, handling of faults, billing) are handled manually by eircom. Unbelievably, orders are passed between the other operator and eircom using email communications this means only a small number can be processed each month due to the manual work involved. Operators have forecasted significant demand and the manual nature of the process is not adequate and is not scalable for the predicted demand.

Movement of Bitstream Customer Base to LLU

Bitstream customers are those who are currently receiving ADSL from IOL, UTV Internet, Netsource etc. These companies are simply reselling eircom's ADSL service and are unable to offer much competition through product differentiation. At present, a company cannot move one of its bitstream customers to LLU because if it places an LLU order on that bitstream customers line, the order is rejected.

Currently, the only way a bitstream customer can be moved to LLU is by cancelling the bitstream service and ordering LLU on the line, however this results in several weeks of service outage for the customer which is obviously unacceptable.


Loss of Voice Service due to LLU and GNP being separate processes

Firstly, Geographic Number Portability (GNP) is the process for “porting” a telephone number between different operators. For example, when you change your calls from eircom to Smart your telephone number is seamlessly ported from eircom's network to Smart's network. It is identical to the way you can move from Vodafone to O2 but still keep your 087 number.

At the moment, when an operator places an LLU order on a telephone line they must wait for the line to be fully unbundled and connected to their network before they can apply for the telephone number to be “ported”. However, this means that a customer can be without a voice service if they wish to retain their existing number because the telephone line is now essentially “off-network” as there is no telephone number associated with it.

The timeframe involved with this can be several weeks. Obviously this is a serious issue for other operators as they cannot have their customers without a voice service while LLU occurs.
The new operator can instead assign a new number which does not result in loss of service but this is obviously quite inconvenient. It is only when the phone number is ported that the customer’s voice service returns. A parallel or integrated ordering process for LLU and GNP needs to be established.

Eircom's internal systems use the actual telephone number as the “unique identifier” in their database. Each record in the database stores all the associated services (voicemail, diverts, etc) in relation to that particular telephone number. If that telephone number is unbundled and a GNP order is then placed by the other operator to move the number onto their network, eircom's internal systems identify that number as having moved off eircom's network and therefore all services associated with it are cancelled including LLU. This results in the customers telephone line being completely cut off when the number is ported.

Moriarty

It's worth remembering that Smart were well into signing up customers before the ComReg/eircom high court fluff blew up. It wasn't necessarily expected at the time that eircom would do what they ended up doing.

flamegrill

thats a cop out. Every man and his dog knows that Eircom don't have a LLU process in place for the mass market. I would suggest that Smart were chancing their arm and thought that eircom would simply comply. Now they are hurting with bills to pay and crying out to the press/public/government for help.

Granted they shouldn't have to. However they should have put the pressure on eircom before commiting themselves.

Paul

nahdoic

Well all I can say is fair play to smart.

Does everyone remember eircom? The monopolistic stranglehold on the last mile? Comreg didn't want to tackle it, esat didn't want to tackle but smart are and I would like to commend them for their efforts.

And everyone who got their 2mb upgrade recently should be thanking smart as well. The LLU unbundling issue could be dragging on for many more years but smart have brought it to a head and demanding a solution now.

All I can say is, fair play to them and I hope they get enough pressure placed on eircom to comply. Smart are 100% right in this situation and I just hope the media pick up on this press release. And see the delaying tactics for what they are.

I also think IOFFL should be 100% behind smart and do a press release about smart's press release.

Have a good weekend everyone

SeaSide

What the **** is this.

Are you supposed to wait and let things change at the pace they have over the last ten years or do you see the impact that Smart have made on competition since their announcement. Do you want things to go back to the way it was? Ireland Offline needs to start some cheerleading here.

Do something - lead, follow or get out of the ****ing way!

De Rebel

cgarvey wrote:

I'll blame ComReg more than eircom

Hammer, Nail, Head, Bang, Crash, Wallop.

Comreg's raison d'etre was to smooth the way for competition in the telecoms marketplace. They should be on the job with a bus load of their lawyer friends if necessary tackling this one head on. And Smart should be on Comreg and Dempsey's doorsteps howling about this.

How Smart handle this is a critical test. If they don't manage a resounding victory on this one, then they will prove themselves to be nothing other than another ESAT.

jwt

De Rebel wrote:

How Smart handle this is a critical test. If they don't manage a resounding victory on this one, then they will prove themselves to be nothing other than another ESAT.

Or worse, they will have proven that it is impossible to beat eircom in fair competition*. Thus all other OLO's will decide there is no point and Ireland suffers as a result



John

*Fair as in the other OLOs playing fair and eircom doing their monopoly stuff

Praetorian

All I can say is, fair play to them and I hope they get enough pressure placed on eircom to comply. Smart are 100% right in this situation and I just hope the media pick up on this press release. And see the delaying tactics for what they are.

I also think IOFFL should be 100% behind smart and do a press release about smart's press release.

My friend signed up for them and they never mentioned the number change as part of the deal. Only until he was about to get it connected did they tell him. I decided to see this evening would they tell me I'd lose my number. I rang and asked and they said no. They're doing the same for everyone. Keeping your number is very important to a lot of home businesses.

They knew about this issue ages and ages ago and said nothing. Instead they waited for 20,000 customers which if you remember allowed them to draw down funds from their investors and then they press release it? They basically lied to 20,000 people to get their bank details which enabled them to get funding and then they complained. Why did they not complain in Jan, Feb, March or this month?

If IrelandOffline start kissing Smart's ass in public they'll be condoning this sneaky tactic too and it could reflect badly. IrelandOffline should be supporting the 20,000 people who are now stuck with getting a new number and not smart who are taking their money. Anyway, how many people are actually using Smart? 10? 20?

nahdoic

Hey if it gets the job done i don't have a problem with it. I guess because I knew this was always going to happen, i'm not suprised, i'm just suprised that other people are suprised

Your friend is still very entitled to say "no thank you" smart and choose from the other pathetic over-priced offerings available at the moment. That's what eircom are hoping will happen.

Or your friend can stick with a company that is pushing the agenda and is delivering progress NOW not in 5 years time.

Mr_Man

Smart,

apparently had/have an agreeement with Eircom to unbundle 5000 customers per month. If Smart didn't forsee this issue with number portability and build it into the agreement I'd be very concerned if I was one of their potential customers.

If they did build it into the agreement and Eircom are now deliberately using it to stifle competition after Smart's succesful advertising then Comreg should be all over Eircom like a rash. I know which version I'd believe and would be surprised if Comreg do anything about this other than issue press releases. The more I watch Comreg in action the more I come to the conclusion that they are a waste of space and taxpayers money.

M.

Moriarty

The OLOs involved in unbundling ([strike]Esat[/strike]BT, Leap, Smart) have been trying to get ComReg to force through changes of practice for the ordering/deployment of LLU since the middle of last year. The OLOs shouldn't have had to do this, as it's a fundamental requirement for large scale LLU provision that should have been one of the core factors dealt with years ago by ComReg. The agreements and systems which the OLOs were expecting from all the way back to last summer were meant to be signed and deployed by now.