Smart Telecom Rollout Update

Sarsfield

Adam, why the venom?

sleur

the corpo wrote:

so, did Crown Alley come onstream today??

www.smarttelecom.ie wrote:

Congratulations, Broadband is available to you! It will be available in May.*
Would you like to avail of this amazing offer?

* this date is indicative only and Smart Telecom will be in contact with you when your exchange is live.

They'd better get their groove on because i've been stuck back on dial-up for far too long.

CyberGhost

Cuauhtemoc wrote:

What's with all the Smart bashing?

From the people who are connected it seems to be a good service.

Yes i know the rollout is going slowly and about keeping(or not) your old number.

Is it a good service or not?

I might like to get it myself when it arrives in my area.

I think most of the people are angry(more like dissapointed that transformes into anger) because, ST is not available to them yet, it would have been better if they FIRST upgraded their lines, sorted out problems with eircom and then started offering BB to everyone, now only like 10 people have it and everyone else has to drool over it.

zenith

dahamsta wrote:

Not hard to provide good service to that few customers...

They've knocked 30% off the leased line market by their mere presence, so I think they're great.

dahamsta

Sarsfield wrote:

Adam, why the venom?

I wouldn't call it venom tbh, I just have a natural dislike of people and companies that have trouble with the truth, and so far Smart have been caught rotten in that regard on at least three occasions that I'm aware of. Not little fibs either, but whoppers.

As well as that, and I've said this before, I simply don't believe the product is viable. If I'm proved wrong, well and good, the competition can only be a good thing. I guess we'll see in a year or so.

But don't take my word for it, ask anyone that's been involved in Irish telecommunications for more than a couple years what they think of this product. I did. Most of them laughed.

zenith wrote:

They've knocked 30% off the leased line market by their mere presence, so I think they're great.

I can't argue with that, but I wasn't really talking about the leased line market. Although many of my colleagues find certain aspects of that side of their business laughable too. Not all, just some.

adam

opus

JNive wrote:

Cork so far is still May/June (probably late june, going on current trends) for Wellington Road, Dennehys Cross, Churchfield, Quaker Road & Cork Central.

Good to hear that, I'm on Quaker Road Not really too pushed if I have to change my number or not so guess they shouldn't be any delays.

Thanks for the update.....

steve-hosting36

Smart are doing wonders for competition. Even those on eircom bb have smart competition to thank for a doubling in speeds, not to mention the impact on business / leased line services.

SeaSide

dahamsta wrote:

But don't take my word for it, ask anyone that's been involved in Irish telecommunications for more than a couple years what they think of this product. I did. Most of them laughed.

adam

If they thought it was so funny why did they respond in the market place??? Perhaps youve been listening to David Mc Redmond for too long

dahamsta

SeaSide wrote:

Perhaps youve been listening to David Mc Redmond for too long

I never thought I'd see the day, but I'd prefer to listen to David McRedmond than Oisin Fanning. McRedmond stretches the truth to it's limits, but Fanning passes it through previously undiscovered dimensions.

adam

beller b

damien.m wrote:

Says he who then says this total incorrect statement:

Way off the mark there.

LOL

beller b

LIGHTNING wrote:

Not fully correct! IF you want smart broadband NOW you will have to switch numbers HOWEVER if you wait until June/July as most people are you keep your existing number.Smart Telecom are in some legal battle with Eircon at the moment so thats why we have to wait.

With no gaurentee of June/ July.. It might be like the March/April re certain exchanges on Smarts site..... !!!!!!!

beller b

sleur wrote:

They'd better get their groove on because i've been stuck back on dial-up for far too long.

Too True !!! Well May 9th has arrived.. Has anyone On These exchanges heard any more from Smart!!!... All I seem to hear is we will contact you in the next few days... It never happens... I have made a least 10 calls to Smart since March .. Smart have made 0 (ZERO) calls to me... Perhaps that is where the venom is coming from!!!!

The Recliner

beller b wrote:

Too True !!! Well May 9th has arrived.. Has anyone On These exchanges heard any more from Smart!!!... All I seem to hear is we will contact you in the next few days... It never happens... I have made a least 10 calls to Smart since March .. Smart have made 0 (ZERO) calls to me... Perhaps that is where the venom is coming from!!!!

I got a call from Smart last week after sending them an email the week before enquiring about the Phibsborough exchange. The guy on the phone was quite helpful, apologetic and honest about there being a delay on the Phibsborough exchange. He said he would forward on an email when he knew more details, haven't had a chance to check that mail account yet so I don't have any info for anyone about it.

sleur

beller b wrote:

Too True !!! Well May 9th has arrived.. Has anyone On These exchanges heard any more from Smart!!!... All I seem to hear is we will contact you in the next few days... It never happens... I have made a least 10 calls to Smart since March .. Smart have made 0 (ZERO) calls to me... Perhaps that is where the venom is coming from!!!!

Nope, called their Broadband number yesterday. Almost instantaneously got through to a real life person who then told me all the CSR's were busy!!!!!! took my number and told me they'd ring back. Smart, please get a proper automated system if you're not gonna ring people back.

sleur

just rang smart, they said the crown alley exchange is gonna be onstream mid-may (i.e. next week) & they'll call before processing my order. Apparently it's due to eircom.

beller b

They gave an exact date 2 weeks ago of May 9th & nothing happened. I wouldn't hold out much hope of next week when you get something as vauge as mid-may. I have also noticed Smarts people don't seem to talk to each other, so dont believe anyone & you won't be dissappointed.. Sorry for being so negetive but its hard to be any other way when you get nothing but lies. Right upto the end of April, even on the 28th when I spoke to Smart they insisted my exchange would be live by end of April. I spoke to them a week later & then again insisted the exchange will be live on May 9th.. Now here we are May 11 tomorrow & still my phone doesn't ring..Again I ask Gaefield for a response if he is about.. he was the one person I tought was truthful with us..

MorningStar

I was told the 9th too but strangely nothing happened. Eircom called to my door yesterday to try and sell me something. Any chance Eircom are delaying them. I actually complained about Eircom trying to get me back to them a week after the last time I changed. They are meant to leave you a month or 2 according to the regs.
It could be just a conspiracy theory.

beller b

Eircom are supposed to leave you alone FOR GOOD if you request them to.! If the delays are still down to Eircom then Smart would take great pleasure in telling you so. The delay is eircoms fault only if you wish to keep your number.. I quote from Smart "If you are happy to change your number we CAN process your order from NOW. Somebody WILL contact you IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS to arrange delivery of your modem" (The capitals are the lies btw)

robo

I am on the Crown Alley exchange and got a call this morning from one of their representatives, she said that they are sending out some modems and I should get mine in the next day or two, but that they didn't mean to send it out so soon as they won't be live now til around 23rd of May - pending legalities!! So at least it is something! She said that she will call me again when it is live!

the corpo

after you sent in your direct debit form did you get any kind of notification from smart?
sent mine in last week and haven't heard a thing

Shougeki

I sent my DD off a few months ago. No reply. Got a letter two weeks ago. No reply.
They dont seem to have a "Customer Service" just a bunch of morons. There telephone system cant even transfer you from one department to another??? Bit ridiculous for a telecomunications company.

mossieh

No, they don't acknowledge them...you can give them a call to check though...
I called today to see what the story is with the Whitehall exchange, the csr said I'd get an update within a week.

Anybody else waiting for Whitehall?

Shougeki

robo - did you get the broads name that called you?

I too am on crown alley but have heard nothing from them, and frankly getting tired.

B

robo

Shougeki wrote:

robo - did you get the broads name that called you?

I too am on crown alley but have heard nothing from them, and frankly getting tired.

B

The girl's name was Liz.
And I got my modem about an hour ago!
But won't be live til 23rd of May or there abouts!

Anarchist

Smart just phoned me just to apologise for their delay and told me their 2mb line is faster then Eircoms but I explained it's still only 128 up and she said she was off to a meeting this afternoon and would say that.
Peeter who is on same exchange as me in Summerhill has Smartcom already and said his d/l speed was 1250, that is far slower then the 1716 I get now but he doesn't play games so I don't know what to do, I believe Smartcom is not RADSL so maybe the slower speed is a better ping?
I know when I was with Esat BB and had 512/256 I pinged 30 better then when I was with Eircom.
Somebody help me plz!!
Explain abit more or if anyone else has Smart what speeds they get or how it is in games.
Much appreciated.

halenger

dahamsta wrote:

No, they just like to think they are. British Telecom are their biggest rivals at the moment.

I don't see how. BTIreland pay Eircom to sell their services. SMART are a lot less entwined.

Anyway I'm not really all that impressed by SMART yet. Their offer looked great and sounded great but it's really not doing anything for me anymore. IBB's 2048/2048 looks incredibly appealing though.


As for their services being unviable? I dunno. I'd say a lotta people thought that, perhaps still do, about Meteor's free texts for life offer. Fine they stopped offering it to new customers but SMART only offered 100,000 people their offer.

They've a long way to go and everything to prove. If BT get back off of their backsides they could make an impact but NTL/UGC look more like to make a big impact. For now though my attention remains on IBB and looking into VoIP.

dub45

Anarchist wrote:

Smart just phoned me just to apologise for their delay and told me their 2mb line is faster then Eircoms but I explained it's still only 128 up and she said she was off to a meeting this afternoon and would say that.
Peeter who is on same exchange as me in Summerhill has Smartcom already and said his d/l speed was 1250, that is far slower then the 1716 I get now but he doesn't play games so I don't know what to do, I believe Smartcom is not RADSL so maybe the slower speed is a better ping?
I know when I was with Esat BB and had 512/256 I pinged 30 better then when I was with Eircom.
Somebody help me plz!!
Explain abit more or if anyone else has Smart what speeds they get or how it is in games.
Much appreciated.

God such nonsense!!! Do they really think people are idiots? No contention,
no download limits (except ...) and now our 2mb line is faster than theirs!!!!!!!!

Its very hard not be cynical about Smart and say those people who accused them of exploiting boards at the launch of Smart BB were correct.
When Smart needed to drum up business and give the product a high profile Garfield was ever present - where are the Smart reps now when people are daily posing the questions.

And as regards the speed - the quoted speeds so far by the very few people connected who have posted on here have not seemed any better than those routinely got from the other isps whereas you would expect super performance given the relatively few people connected (presuming that not everyone connected has an iffy line.)

dahamsta

halenger wrote:

I don't see how. BTIreland pay Eircom to sell their services.

So does Smart, Eircom don't lease them the lines for nothing. Granted, the majority of BT's customers are provisioned via bitstream, but then they have a whole lot of customers. Only the gods know how many Smart have, but at this stage I think they're saying thousands, and everyone else is saying hundreds. (Most people actually say tens, but I think that's probably out of date at this stage.)

SMART are a lot less entwined.

Smart is at the mercy of Eircom just like everyone else, in fact many would argue that the shoddy unbundling process puts them at an even bigger disadvantage.

As for their services being unviable? I dunno. I'd say a lotta people thought that, perhaps still do, about Meteor's free texts for life offer. Fine they stopped offering it to new customers but SMART only offered 100,000 people their offer.

With the current system, even taking into account the "new numbers" fiasco, it would take several years to get all those customers hooked up. Even then the numbers don't add up. The revenue has to come from somewhere, so be prepared for a shocking price list for calls, or a snaky shift to bitstream at some time in the future.

adam

zenith

dahamsta wrote:

The revenue has to come from somewhere, so be prepared for a shocking price list for calls, or a snaky shift to bitstream at some time in the future.

adam

If backhaul is on ESBT, with the exchanges they're unbundling lit by MAN, then where *exactly* does/could the bitstream come in? Smart pay eircom their LLU, and then Smart have fibre from the exchange back. To interact with bitstream, they'd have to go back onto the Eircom DSLAM, right?

Assuming that Smart get a good enough deal from ENET and ESBT - and they should, sure they're their only customer as far as I'm aware - then what's the problem with the business model/price? They also intend to sell you telly, if you're into ARPU.

I mean, it's working in France: is there a reason other than your cynicism that it won't work here, adam?

beller b

Another day gone, Dub & still nothing!!! Don't be fooled Garfield is still around, He was online again this afternoon.. Like the rest of Smarts staff he hasn't got the decency to reply & answer the questions being put forward.. If this is the attitude of Smarts Programme Manager it's no wonder the simple CSR's treat us the same.. Garfield I put it to you again, if you have the time to read our posts then have the decency to answer them , along with my PM which you promised to reply to.. All your silence is doing is proving everyone right!!!