Eircom Broadband just got 20 euro cheaper!

airetam_storm

SkepticOne wrote:

By offering this product Eircom get the reel in extra customers without compromising revenue on more expensive products. When (and if) competition eventually does appear, they can relax the time constraints. The hard bit of acquiring these customers has already been done. They will have done it in advance of the competition while hanging on to existing revenue.

Very smart move for eircom if not for the consumer. I wonder will there be an easily upgradability to the more expensive lines later?

SkepticOne

airetam_storm wrote:

Very smart move for eircom if not for the consumer. I wonder will there be an easily upgradability to the more expensive lines later?

Eircom will always make it easy for you to pay them extra.

Mutant_Fruit

As I said in my previous post, It a step, maybe not directly forward, maybe a little to the side and a little forward, but it gives people choice, and I think that's what matters! No doubt this will encourage the other ISP's to offer more / similar / alterniative products too.

I should hope to god the other ISP's take this as an opportunity to promote how much better there products are. This is the most rediculous step ever!

Fine, they want an entry level package, whats wrong with 1meg, 4gig cap. That suits the "average" late adopter fine. Ok, its a rediculously low cap, but if they are just the average check emails type of guy, it's perfect.

As for time-based products being easier to understand, thats a load of bolax. How hard is it for eircom to include one A5 sized leaflet explaining that you've got a cap of 4gigs, and giving people the link to the stats site. Simple. Costs an extra €0.02 per person hooked in, at most.

Time-based will vanish. Ever wonder why no other country seems to have those kind of products? Its because they don't sell. Everywhere else broadband is marketed as "always on", except in ireland. Where it isn't. Its just fast, expensive dialup.

viking

damien.m wrote:

The product is crap. The product is 20 hours for 20 quid. That's not good value.

Eircom
Line Rental + Basic Time Crippled BB = €44.17 (24.18 +19.99)

BT Ireland
Line Rental + FULL Always On BB = €49

For an extra €4.83 a month, I think its fairly safe to say which one provides the better value. The BT product provides piece of mind that people wouldn't be hit with penalties for going over 20 hours.

Oh and I'm pretty sure the calls would be cheaper too...

Viking

/me sends invoice to Bill/Mike for biggin' up his product

fisab

I think its an excellent business idea by Eircom - just far too expensive.
There is a huge market out there for a time based product (even if the market on this board is very small!!)

Its an ideal upgrade for their flat rate packages - E10 for 20 hours etc.
These flat rate packages suit a huge number of people who simply check email, do their online banking and book the occasional flight FULLSTOP.

If they had marketed it an an upgrade for flatrate (and kept it at E10 for a 24 mth contract or E15 for a 12 mth contract) they'd have cornered the light user market and set VOIP back years.

byrnenj

Agreed!

People are only looking at this from their own perspective. This product is a great way for light users to get BB!

There are Many countries who Time Based BB products.
Here's one example
Just google it and you'll find them. Obviously it's not just eircom who think they are good iseas and I'm sure they just didn't decide to do this for the hell of it. They obviously saw market demand for such a product otherwise it would be a waste of thier time!

Sponge Bob

They will have to leave the DSL modem turned off when they are not online, the 20 hours is the cumulative amount of time in one month that the modem is on.

Then they have to note when it is turned on and off in a diary . Their allowance is 45 mins a day, no more.

Thats how they know they have stayed within the 20 hours for €20 in their month (its not a calendar month but synched with their line rental bill) , rather daft for an always on product is it not ?

fisab

Sponge Bob wrote:

They will have to leave the DSL modem turned off when they are not online, the 20 hours is the cumulative amount of time in one month that the modem is on.

Then they have to note when it is turned on and off in a diary . Their allowance is 45 mins a day, no more.

Thats how they know they have stayed within the 20 hours for €20 in their month (its not a calendar month but synched with their line rental bill) , rather daft for an always on product is it not ?

No, I believe the modem will turn itself off after 10 minutes of non-use.
They should charge 1-2c per minute over 20 hours not 4c though.

RicardoSmith

Shane O' Malley wrote:

....
3. .....believe that people are too lazy to move to other suppliers.....

Theres the whole problem right their. Most people I know don't even shop around for telephony or net products. I've given up trying to talk sense to them.

odie

But isn't the whole point of Broadband to use it whenever you want....even the Government are pushing us all in this direction....like TV...Always on, NTL, Sky, RTE(License fee) We pay monthly or yearly for these items and we can watch TV whenever we want. TV companies provide the equipment at their base stations then relays nationally, then aerials-dishes locally.

Eircom Provide a Dslam and the network, surely the costs are not that different.

Jaysus if the wife thought she was gonna have to pay 4c per min extra to watch Corrie or Home and Away because she had watched her limit. I don't think she would be impressed.

We are suckers because we are now conditioned to the cents per minute on dial up we had.

One monthly fee should cover all usage regardless. Pay for extra capacity fair enough such as 512k, 1mb or 2mb.

TV companies charge for additional channels (whole other argument), but they don't cut us off or charge extra per minute for going over your watching time. Broadband should be based on this charging model.

fisab

odie wrote:

But isn't the whole point of Broadband to use it whenever you want....even the Government are pushing us all in this direction....like TV...Always on, NTL, Sky, RTE(License fee) We pay monthly or yearly for these items and we can watch TV whenever we want. TV companies provide the equipment at their base stations then relays nationally, then aerials-dishes locally.

Eircom Provide a Dslam and the network, surely the costs are not that different.

Jaysus if the wife thought she was gonna have to pay 4c per min extra to watch Corrie or Home and Away because she had watched her limit. I don't think she would be impressed.

We are suckers because we are now conditioned to the cents per minute on dial up we had.

One monthly fee should cover all usage regardless. Pay for extra capacity fair enough such as 512k, 1mb or 2mb.

TV companies charge for additional channels (whole other argument), but they don't cut us off or charge extra per minute for going over your watching time. Broadband should be based on this charging model.

Yea, but I order the occasional box office movie from sky rather than subscribe to an "always on" movie package. It suits me 'cos I only want to watch the occasional movie - I dont need the "always on" package and it would be a waste of money for me.

I cant understand why people are giving out - its not as if they are replacing the "always on" package - they are giving people choice.
Both of their "always on" and "timebased" packages are far too expensive.
But its great to have choice and its a step in the right direction.

bk

viking wrote:

Eircom
Line Rental + Basic Time Crippled BB = €44.17 (24.18 +19.99)

BT Ireland
Line Rental + FULL Always On BB = €49

Just a quick point, I believe €20 is only an introductory price, the normal price is €25

So it is exactly the same price as BT Always On.

Pimp Ninja

I dont see what all the fuss is about.. Its a new product not a change to the existing ones..

Eircom Provide a Dslam and the network, surely the costs are not that different.

Dont they have to pay per gig for their cross channell links ?

bk

byrnenj wrote:

Agreed!

People are only looking at this from their own perspective. This product is a great way for light users to get BB!

I disagree, it is very bad value for money, even for light users.

You can get Always On, with no time limits product from BT including line rental for just €50 per month.

The time limited product from Eircom, including line rental costs €50 per month also
(€24.50 line rental + €25 for BB - remember €20 is only a introductory offer).

Or if you are lucky enough to be in a NTL enabled area, you can get 1m Always on, for just €25 per month (plus free analogue TV service for first 12 months).

Why anyone, including light users would get this Eircom product over BT or NTL is beyond me.

I suppose what is really annoying me is that this proves Eircom could introduce a Always on product in the €20 - €25 price category, as there is little difference in the cost of equipment, etc. between the time based product and Always On. If they had a cheap Always On product for €20 - €25 and a €10 - €15 time based product (this probably isn't possible), I wouldn't mind so much, however €25 for time based is simply far too much when compared to thier competitors and what is offered across the rest of Europe.

bk

Pimp Ninja wrote:

I dont see what all the fuss is about.. Its a new product not a change to the existing ones..

Dont they have to pay per gig for their cross channell links ?

Those costs are trivial compared to the equipment (dslams) and labour costs. Ireland has some of the cheapest international backhaul prices in Europe and Eircom owns their own national backhaul network, so the per gig charges are very low and could easily be curtailed using a cap.

bk

Really, non of this makes sense, most industries (and I'm not just talking about telecoms) have recognised that people don't like unit billing and instead are moving towards subscription based services, examples include:

- Music industry with all you can eat, subscription services from Napster and Yahoo (and even Apples iTunes is rumoured to be preparing such a service).

- Movie industry with the UGC Unlimited card and mailorder DVD rental services like Netflick and Blockbuster in the US and dvdrentals.ie in Ireland.

- Mobile phones in the US, you can now get unlimited calling plans, even in Europe they are sort of heading in this direction.

- Even in Telecoms, UTV, BT and Eircom have all introduced fixed price unlimited landline calling services.

This is a big step back by Eircom, it will damage their image and this product will be gone by this time next year. Actually given all the bad publicity it is getting, it mightn't even get launched.

odie

fisab wrote:

Yea, but I order the occasional box office movie from sky rather than subscribe to an "always on" movie package. It suits me 'cos I only want to watch the occasional movie - I dont need the "always on" package and it would be a waste of money for me.

If you read what I said you would find I covered this comparison of ordering extras here.

One monthly fee should cover all usage regardless. Pay for extra capacity fair enough such as 512k, 1mb or 2mb.

TV companies charge for additional channels (whole other argument), but they don't cut us off or charge extra per minute for going over your watching time. Broadband should be based on this charging model.

AdMMM

It is so blatantly obvious that the Eircom Product Development crowd are geared towards milking the Irish people for all they are worth. I bet Eircom are going to send out a massive amount of mail to all their dial up customers telling them about this great new offer.

It makes me sick!

byrnenj

Well that's the stupidest comment yet! Of course they are! They are a business.
The point of a business is to do market research, see what area can be develpoed and then target them! Do you think they are developing products for a laugh?

Come on lads, have a little cop on! All this eircom moaning is really gettng boring! They are a business! They have shareholders! Shareholders demand performance or they will sell their stake! Eircom need to make profits! It's simple!

rymus

I've said it once and I'll say it again... "theres always one"

Mutant_Fruit

They're using their monoply position to foist crippled products on us. This offering is far worse than any previous offering, even for "extremely light users". An always-on connection with a 4 gig cap would be MUCH more useful to them as compared to a dialup connection replacing a dialup connection.

Also, Eircom are going to be supplying new "Modem" thingies to all customers on the Time product, and thats how they track actual online time. All in all, a rediculous product, which i can't wait to see the end of. Hell, i'm all in favour of download caps now as compared to this!

mang87

Oh holy mother of Jesus Christ, give me patients.

Eircom can shove their DSL up their @rses. This is definatley the last straw. I'm moving DSL provider.

cal29

on the other hand if eircom are going to start charging for going over the cap

the maximum charge is 49.95 for this with no download cap

or 39.95 and an 8 gb download cap if you go 1 gig over the cap that would be more than the 10 euro difference

never mind some people on here who are downloading 75 gigs a month how much would that cost you if eircom charged for going over the cap

AdMMM

My comment was pointing out their abuse of the monopoly that they in the telecommunications industry. If Eircom had to compete with other ISP's in Product Development then they would have undoubtedly have delivered a much better and usable product. As it was said before, this is a massive leap backwards in terms of broadband in Ireland. A low cap based service would have been much better, a 512k connection with a 2 gig cap would have been perfect for "lite" users who only want to browse and surf the odd time!

L1011

byrnenj wrote:

Agreed!

People are only looking at this from their own perspective. This product is a great way for light users to get BB!

There are Many countries who Time Based BB products.
Here's one example
Just google it and you'll find them. Obviously it's not just eircom who think they are good iseas and I'm sure they just didn't decide to do this for the hell of it. They obviously saw market demand for such a product otherwise it would be a waste of thier time!

Thats in SINGAPORE ffs.

The other country I can think of with pay-by-use broadband is the FALKLANDS

Its always either really backward tiny countrys or really opressive countries where the monopoly telco can pull stunts like that.. now, which one are we?

DemonOfTheFall

No, it wouldnt. because it's still very nearly as expensive as getting home starter or something and it's much more expensive than smart or ntl.