For info Digiweb PR

Wcool

To dahamsta: Touche about submitting a story
But a bit of ranting and raving doesn't hurt anyone

To Sponge Bob and jwt: I don't know how they do it.
Until 2 weeks ago, I thought I had to wait for WiMax to get some permanent internet connection. I always thought that existing wireless technology had only a limited range (200 meters).

But then I became aware of the existence of www.irish-wan.com
This is a network of amateurs using the unregulated 2.4 GHz band as their links. They reach over 15 miles with directional antenna's! I was (and still am) about to order gear (under 250 euro!, once off) to get me on their network.

Of course with Irish Wan (as the faq says), internet connectivity is not garanteed, as someone has to pay somewhere in the end.
But I thought I could maybe pay a node in Galway for a share in his/her bandwidth.

What I have learned is: the higher the frequency, the shorter the distance you can get. Digiweb apparently broadcasts at 10.2 which is higher than the usual 2.4 or 5.4 I guess they must use a lot more Watt to broadcast.

I live right across a huge bog north of Galway, so I expect my LOS to be perfect, there really isn't any obstacle.

Sponge Bob

you can see Tonabrocky then where IBB and Leap are <hint there is a red light on the NTL mast there at night> ....seeing as you are around Clonboo somewhere

not sure where Digiweb are located .

Wcool

Sponge Bob wrote:

you can see Tonabrocky then where IBB and Leap are <hint there is a red light on the NTL mast there at night> ....seeing as you are around Clonboo somewhere

not sure where Digiweb are located .

I didn't know Leap and BBI use Tonabrocky. I called BBI and they told me I was living too far away. I haven't looked at Leap at all, the last time I looked was 2 years ago, after a very sunny press release. Nothing happened after that for a year.

cgarvey

Wcool wrote:

This is Ireland Offline, shouldn't you be happy that yet another (different) product has entered the market?

As an organisation? I don't think they condone any product offering, in the interests of staying objective.

As individual members? People are entitled to their opinion.. as long as their justified in their opinion, which I think they are on this thread!

Me? I'm not happy. I think they made a complete balls of the release, and for the sake of a few weeks could have done a lot better. Information and confusion all over the place. It's 2005. An ISP should have all the information that anyone has asked here or in BB forum, on their website (ignoring those who are just to lazy to go read it).

Also, there's nothing ground breaking in the pricing, IMO. Not with those caps anyway. As a heavy users (home/soho/business), I've to pay 169+VAT for eircom's unlimited package. There is nothing on offer from Digiweb's offering that suits my needs. I think the caps are rediculously low, and that the 6Mb pricing is excessive. I'm surprised to hear there are "many" signups to that package especially when used in the context of frame relay and centronix replacement (think of the cap.. will somebody think of the cap).

As alwyas, competition is welcomed, but this is a poorly released product, available to a few people (rented acommodation leases nearly always prohibit external antannae, and LOS can be a hairy issue). Also price is good, but only in an Irish context. That doesn't mean it's cheap. High insurance prices, higher staff costs, and marginally higer bandwidth prices don't make up for the huge variance in Irish prices vs. abroad (not finger pointing at Digiweb here). Also, there are other companies who offer better value, depending on your metrics.

When Digiweb get serious about their offerings (and start getting the information right), and rethink the caps issue, then I'll be more interested (and happier).

3 suggestions to Digiweb.

1. Sort out the misinformation/lack of clarity
2. Rethink the caps on the higher products
3. Consider an offering between Plus and Xpress to attract current DSL users (who are stifled by the 256Kb upload). 4Mbps/1Mbps/unlimited traffic, for €125-150/mo. (ex VAT).

I, alone, use min of 50GB traffic for work use (and sometimes the same again for personal use). Heavy usage for a single user maybe, but not for a business with 20-30 employees. Whilst the Xpress offering would cover me, I'm not interested in paying well over what I pay now for unlimited transfer. Yes the upload speed is a huge temptation, but that's all it is.

Finally, here's to hoping that QoS/SLA (that's being touted as one of the reasons for higher product pricing) includes customer support, as that is worth money, IMO. Having minimum query response times .. someone that will answer your query correctly (even if it is a scripted response), is worth money. So, instead of the current ISP attitude "find something else to blame, and keep the call under 45 seconds", try something like "sorry, sir, but you have a networking problem in Windows, which is preventing you from using our service. Try website X or we can arrange someone to call for €xx", same story, same time, but a hell of a difference in the quality of the answer.

So, to summarise my rant. I'm happy Digiweb have brought a new product to market, and I wish them luck. I'm not estatic as some people seem to expect me to be. That's down to the caps (I've no issue with the pricing, in the Irish market context .. the entire market is overpriced, is all), and the piss-poor product release.

[Edit: Jaysus, that was some rant, sorry!]
.cg

Sponge Bob

Wcool wrote:

I didn't know Leap and IBB use Tonabrocky

You never asked

Wcool

cgarvey wrote:

3 suggestions to Digiweb.

1. Sort out the misinformation/lack of clarity
2. Rethink the caps on the higher products
3. Consider an offering between Plus and Xpress to attract current DSL users (who are stifled by the 256Kb upload). 4Mbps/1Mbps/unlimited traffic, for €125-150/mo. (ex VAT).

You're 100% right. The website is a mess, but I got some good answers on the phone.

I actually pointed out that all their other products had an unlimited option at around 80 euro, no good answer was returned. Maybe they are afraid for contention if many people buy unlimited.

You're last idea is a good one too I think, it would be interesting to a lot of people, not in the least to get rid of Eircom.

crawler

cg....

Comments taken on board...

I am a bit confused...

4Mb down and 1Mbps up
2 phone lines
60GB transfer guide
€90.00 + vat

You think this is bad value?

What do you think would be a fair price to add to the "plus" option for an unlimitied download quota? (not saying it will be done but I will consider it)

OfflerCrocGod

crawler wrote:

4Mb down and 1Mbps up
2 phone lines
60GB transfer guide
€90.00 + vat

You think this is bad value?

60GB is poor, if you are paying over €100 a month you expect to be able to transfer more then 60GB. If you look across the pond quite a few ISP are introducing 24Mb services and already offer 8Mb - why are you guys not trying that? 4Mb is great compared to €ircon's 2Mb but compared to the rest of Europe it's not that great, especially at that price. Is 6Mb the top speed that this tech can offer?

Come on guys! Try and bury €ircon by offering an affordable home package that is FAR superior to eircom's. €90 PLUS VAT is NOT something most household will pay. Bring that down to €50 incl VAT and you will truly have a usefull package. Your 3Mb package should be even lower; decrease it's cap and price it at €30 it can easily compete with UTV/BT/Eircom's best offers. You have the advantage over them now so you should be trying to aggressively build your market share instead of timidly increasing your useless profits.

PRICE, PRICE, PRICE, PRICE, PRICE, PRICE, PRICE, PRICE.

I hope that makes it clear? I don't care what you offer if I'm JoeAverage I'M NOT GOING TO PAY OVER €50 FOR SOMETHING I DON'T DEEM NECESSARY. You have an infrastucture free of eircom and you come up with these weak packages? Are those truly the best prices you could offer? Remember that the Irish market is seriously UNDER DEVELOPED.

Why is the top package capped!? The price of it means only businesses will be considering it; a proper business package shouldn't be capped. In the middle of a busy month the internet suddenly starts to crawl I AM ONE UNHAPPY BUSINESS MAN!!!

The majority of the market is interested in CHEAP BB; Something for €30 total with phone will be far more interesting then something for €50++. Market it to every one who can avail of it!

KILL EIRCOM

cgarvey

I don't think it's really bad value, more that I think it's an unattractive offering. For a home user considering this option, the cap is clearly going to be well below their intended use. I accept that a lot of that might be illegal P2P traffic, but a heavy legitimate home user would comfortably reach in or around that cap. The point, I think, is more that they shouldn't have to be watching the cap when paying that big a premium for their usage pattern. Similarly a business choosing that option could use that cap easily, so it's not an attractive option for a, say, small publishing firm, or a medium software house, etc.. the SMEs that couldn't justify the Xpress product.

So it's not good value .. which doesn't mean it's awful.. the pricing/speeds seem good to me (in the Irish context), but not the cap.

I know there needs to be some limit (I'm clueful enough to know unlimited isn't practical, despite the claims for it), but you've got to offset warez monkeys threat, with the targeted user's ability to use the product without watching the cap. That cap doesn't reflect a strucutered balance, in my opinion (and I'm no expert!).

As to what I'd suggest for the unlimited option , I've already said sub Eur150 +VAT would be an attractive price for 4Mb/1Mb/unlimited. Then there's a significant price difference, a massive upload difference, and line rental/2 lines attraction, to swing users of unlimited/top tier DSL.. again just opinion, your own research would be much more authoritative.

Or get greedy .. say 169+VAT for 4Mb/1Mb/200GB cap .. and see if anyone bites ( I prolly would, because I no longer have to worry about cap use, for heavy usage).. yet it stops the warez monkeys.

I guess, I'm just suggesting that you look at a top tier DSL replacement, which I don't think is reflected well in your current offering.

.cg

cgarvey

Above all though, please do keep up the interaction (and don't do another UTV on us).. even if you're just humoring me and asking for more opinion, I think it's a great sign of an ISP who come to face the music in a hostile environment like this. I can't imagine that it wouldn't help in your word of mouth campaign either!

Blaster99

crawler wrote:

Blaster - Cable modem (DOCSIS) is one of the most reliable technologies in existance and is used by Time Warner, AOL, Cox communications and Comcast. It is how cable co's deliver voice and data to end users in the US. See www.cablemodem.com for more on cable labs and certification etc. on coverage, we never had a wireless service in Dublin so I dont know where the 10% came from? The single device we deliver to the home has 2 phone ports ( RJ-11) , one Ethernet port and one USB port, it's known as an EMTA.

I'm guesstimating that you have 10% coverage of Dublin which makes you a very marginal player, hence my comment about the wholesale aspect of this.

I know what DOCSIS is in principle, but what good is it to me? You're not offering any services that nobody else is doing really, so I'm not sure I understand what the media hype is all about. Does it solve inherent problems with wireless technology that your competitors might be suffering from?

What's the max speed that this kit can deliver within your range limit? I presume it's a lot more than 6Mbps?

crawler

Thanks CG and Blaster.

I will genuinely take the comments into account in the product review meeting in 2 weeks time and feedback the outcome here.

We genuinely want to get this right. CG hostile feedback is a good as free market research to us, we just have to make sure it's representative of all views. We cant be all things to all people but we do want to make the majority of our Customers and potential Customers happy. Why wouldnt we?

Cheers.

OfflerCrocGod

crawler wrote:

CG hostile feedback is a good as free market research to us, we just have to make sure it's representative of all views.

I'm not being hostile to you I'm hostile to eircom. I'm simply pointing out that if your main aim is to increase your market share and undermine eircom by bringing in new customers who before didn't have BB then your best bet is to offer a LOW LOW priced offer and to market blitz everyone who can get it. Lets say 2Mb/256Kb with a 20Gb cap and all your phone malarky for €30 or even better for €25 including tax you will get far more people interested in BB then at your high priced current offerings - right now the people who will go for your offerings ALREADY have BB; they are simply moving from one provider to another. What's wrong with 1Mb/256K? Honestly it's the price most people will notice and it's the price most people care about.

crawler

All,

For clarity.

I will post here on 30/09/2005 with the service enhancements made (if any) to the Metro product based on the feedback here and directly from Customers.

Hope this is of some help.

OfflerCrocGod

crawler wrote:

I will post here on 30/09/2005 with the service enhancements made (if any) to the Metro product based on the feedback here and directly from Customers.

Nice to hear; although I doubt you guys will offer something to compete with the lower packages offered by Eircom et all. It doesn't seem to be the market that you guys are aiming for.

Blaster99

I didn't think I said anything constructive, but I'm interested in more coverage and the triple play stuff that's been hinted at.

crawler

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Nice to hear; although I doubt you guys will offer something to compete with the lower packages offered by Eircom et all. It doesn't seem to be the market that you guys are aiming for.

No, I wouldnt say that...have a look here....you may or may not agree, just FYI really

http://www.digiweb.ie/broadband_metro_comparisons.asp?i=80&i2=81&i6=94&zzz=hm

We dont consider "timed broadband" broadband at all.