IrelandOffline Press Release on Eircom ADSL Pricing

ekehoe

Thought you all would want to see this...sent out to the news organizations today:

For more information, contact Elana Kehoe
(087) 699 7371
elana@zen.org

For Immediate Release
Dublin, 12 September, 2001:

IrelandOffline Hails ADSL Steps, However Pricing Too High And Must Be Nationwide

In response to Eircom's release of planned ADSL charges to users, IrelandOffline praises the company for taking the steps to release the long-awaited broadband service in Dublin but disagrees with the high prices and proposed bandwidth limits.

"The very fact that Eircom has said publicly that there is no interest in the Internet in Ireland, and the price has been set so high, makes us ask the question: how do they expect the model to work?" said David Long, vice-chairman of IrelandOffline. "This service is aimed at business users and SMEs, not for people who work from home or want to use the Internet recreationally. According to the prices set forth on their website http://www.adsl.ie, the lowest price a user can expect to pay to connect to ADSL is Euro369 with equipment and fees, and then Euro99 a month after that. This is not affordable for the majority of the country."

"In addition," Mr Long said, "to produce a cap on the amount of data that a user can transfer per month and charge those users more when they exceed that limit does not make this a competitive product, despite what Mr Kane says. Eircom needs to release a flat rate Internet access product that will give access to everyone for a low price which will stimulate Internet growth in the country."

IrelandOffline also hopes that the price of the wholesale ADSL product gets reduced, to truly foster competition. "The only way to make ADSL take off in Ireland is to allow true competiton, and affordability is key to that. Euro75 connection fee for other providers makes it difficult for a fair price to home users to be developed." said Mr Long.

----
IrelandOffline was formed in May 2001 by users in response to the removal of 2000 people in Esat's SurfNoLimits Internet access program. Since then, IrelandOffline has focused on the lack of affordable Internet access in Ireland and how users can help to solve that problem. The group, made up of over 1000 members, was originally created in cyberspace and thus far have only held three physical meetings. For more information, please see the Zeddy Award-winning IrelandOffline web page at http://www.irelandoffline.com/, or contact Elana Kehoe at (087) 699 7371 or elana@zen.org.

Paulw

I certainly think the article is very good .. but I think it may be a little soft. I think that Irelandoffline should make known the anger and frustration felt by the users, as well as the comments how bad the offering is.

In general though ... I hope they listen.

smokin' an'chewin' man

Originally posted by ekehoe
IrelandOffline Hails ADSL Steps...... IrelandOffline praises the company

I am pretty shocked that Eircom has been given the opportunity to extract a quote such as above from the press release which should have been worded with this in mind. I may have been expecting too much but it shows a little naivete.

infomat

Originally posted by smokin' an'chewin' man


I am pretty shocked that Eircom has been given the opportunity to extract a quote such as above from the press release which should have been worded with this in mind.

I am inclined to agree.

While one needs to be diplomatic I feel that we should not be praising them in any way as they have done little or nothing to meet our requirements.

I would consider their approach as hostile to the majority of our members:
Their prices are far too high
There is a 12 month contract
There is an additional charge for line rental (as well as the monthly ADSL charge)
There are relatively low CAPS and charges for excess usage are high at 2.6P (less VAT) per MB

To be honest the Press Release is not aggressive enough ... but then it is easy for me to sit on the sideline and be critical.

ekehoe

Originally posted by infomat


I am inclined to agree.

While one needs to be diplomatic I feel that we should not be praising them in any way as they have done little or nothing to meet our requirements.

They're rolling out broadband. That's a requirement. We should give them bits that we can, so that they will still want to work with us (as they are).

I would consider their approach as hostile to the majority of our members:
Their prices are far too high
There is a 12 month contract
There is an additional charge for line rental (as well as the monthly ADSL charge)
There are relatively low CAPS and charges for excess usage are high at 2.6P (less VAT) per MB

To be honest the Press Release is not aggressive enough ... but then it is easy for me to sit on the sideline and be critical.

Yes, the prices are too high, which we point out. Yes, we don't think there should be a cap, which we point out.

But we can't be agressive at this point with the press. If we sound reasoned, logical, etc, they are more willing to cover us. Taking it to a screaming match will just cause us to not be taken seriously. I have already gotten phone calls about this where I do express our frustration and anger, and half the time I haven't had to because the reporter was upset about it. I do still have the radio interview tomorrow, and I will point out that while it's great that broadband is rolling out, it's not affordable and that's what the country needs.

E

smokin' an'chewin' man

Originally posted by ekehoe


They're rolling out broadband. That's a requirement. We should give them bits that we can, so that they will still want to work with us (as they are).

This is the first time I heard Eircom are working with us.

Yes, the prices are too high, which we point out. Yes, we don't think there should be a cap, which we point out.

But we can't be agressive at this point with the press. If we sound reasoned, logical, etc, they are more willing to cover us.

I regret to say that this is a very misguided notion. Shaping what if supposed to be a 'campaigning' viewpoint to fit what is perceived to suit the press is playing into Eircom's hands and letting our allies in this battle down.


Taking it to a screaming match will just cause us to not be taken seriously.

The issue is not about screaming, it's about smart use of language in the only output 'we' have control over - our press releases. It's about 'seeing' what use can be made by others of our copy.

The intention is good, the execution is something to learn from.

Paulw

Ok, so Eircom are releasing broadband ....

Are leased lines capped ?
Is ISDN capped ?
Are PSTN connections capped ?

So, why on earth should ADSL be capped ?

Just curious.

Urban Weigl

In its current form, even as one of Ireland's heaviest Internet users, I would NOT get Eircom's ADSL. For that price, I would expect higher upstream speed (e.g. 256kbps or faster), 2 static IP addresses, the ability to run my own web/email server, and either no cap or a much higher cap (50 GB for example).

Congrats to IrelandOffline for releasing a press release about this. I was just going to suggest this, but it appears I was too late. Anyway: I too feel that it could have been worded just a little bit stronger. For example: instead of writing "IrelandOffline praises the company", "Although IrelandOffline notes that Eircom has made a step in the right direction etc etc" could have been used.

Just my 2 pennies. Keep up the good work guys and gals.

Urban Weigl

Furthermore, the 2.2p + VAT price for every single additional MB is simply too high. In the industry which my business is based in, the wholesale cost for additional megabytes is usually around IR£1/GB. Eircom's price, once you include VAT and all, is almost IR£30 per GB! This is simply FAR TOO HIGH! A charge of say IR£2 per GB (rounded to the nearest GB) would be reasonable IMO.

infomat

Originally posted by Paulw
Ok, so Eircom are releasing broadband ....

Are leased lines capped ?
Is ISDN capped ?
Are PSTN connections capped ?

So, why on earth should ADSL be capped ?

Just curious.

While I am totally disappointed with Eircom I must point out that your argument is not really valid:

With ISDN you pay for every second you are connected (I have it and find it to be very expensive).
Same with PSTN
Lease line is so expensive that it cannot be compared with ADSL and as well as paying for the physical connection (pricing is distance related) you also have to pay about £2000 per year to the ISP but if you do wish to make a comparison there is no CAP on the highest priced ADSL offering.

infomat

Originally posted by Urban Weigl
Furthermore, the 2.2p + VAT price for every single additional MB

It's worse than that ... 2.6 Plus VAT

Urban Weigl

I know most of you probably can't read German, but I thought I would point this out anyway: AOL Germany recently started offering ADSL, starting at IR£15.96 per month (DM39.90). As far as I know, the service is 768kbps down, 128kbps up. I'm pointing this out just to show that it is indeed viable to offer ADSL to the casual Internet user.

The prices are published at:

http://www.aol.de/software/dsl.html

You only get the cheaper price if you sign for a 12 month contract. There are no caps. Again, this is excluding the ISDN line rental from Deutsche Telecom, which costs an additional IR£8 per month. Still, you end up paying IR£23.96 for 2 ISDN channels + broadband ADSL with no caps. Again, I don't expect Eircom to launch at this price, but I would expect them to charge far far less than IR£100 (including VAT, the prices I quoted in Germany are also including VAT).

Paulw

Bottom line seems to be

1) Remove the cap
2) reduce the price somewhat.

I can see an initial high price but the £100 is too high. They need to approx half that.

But ... what can we do ???

corkie

http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=3180626

But given the events in the US! I doubt if any of the main media
will be focusing on or own issues at the moment!

Also quoted your first two paragrahs and put a link to the board
on my own site!

John.

o_donnel_abu

Originally posted by smokin' an'chewin' man


I am pretty shocked that Eircom has been given the opportunity to extract a quote such as above from the press release which should have been worded with this in mind. I may have been expecting too much but it shows a little naivete.

Smokin' - no offence to you or others who are criticising Elana's choice of words but believe me, she knows exactly what she is doing.

Simple example, read http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/22/21655.html and see how they have interpreted it.

There are skills involved in working with the media and Elana has these.

Within four months IOFFL have become the recognised voice for users - this didn't happen by accident

Martin Harran

ekehoe

Originally posted by smokin' an'chewin' man

Originally posted by ekehoe


They're rolling out broadband. That's a requirement. We should give them bits that we can, so that they will still want to work with us (as they are).

This is the first time I heard Eircom are working with us.

Eircom has asked our opinion on some things, and has been very helpful when people have emailed us with questions about ISDN access. Alienating them would serve no purpose...they at least listen to us and seem to take things into consideration.

Yes, the prices are too high, which we point out. Yes, we don't think there should be a cap, which we point out.

But we can't be agressive at this point with the press. If we sound reasoned, logical, etc, they are more willing to cover us.

I regret to say that this is a very misguided notion. Shaping what if supposed to be a 'campaigning' viewpoint to fit what is perceived to suit the press is playing into Eircom's hands and letting our allies in this battle down.

If we want some kind of recognition, some kind of respect, we have to play those games. We're still campaigning, we're still fighting, and by reading that press release, you can see that we're not happy with the prices or the cap or the Dublin-only rollout. We're thrilled with the fact that they're releasing prices and ADSL in whole, so that we have something to grab onto.

Taking it to a screaming match will just cause us to not be taken seriously.

The issue is not about screaming, it's about smart use of language in the only output 'we' have control over - our press releases. It's about 'seeing' what use can be made by others of our copy.

The intention is good, the execution is something to learn from.

Look, I've been working in television since 1994. I've seen tons of press releases, I've seen how PR people work. I'm trying the best I can with what I know. I'm not a pr person by trade, I'm a television producer. I stepped up when asked to do pr for IrelandOffline. I'm using my judgement as best I can, and we are getting great responses now from the media. I've gotten 8 phone calls from this one press release alone...a month ago I would have been lucky to get two.

E

Paulw

I think the press release in general was very good. And it will just take time for Eircom to realise the public outcry about their prices and the cap.

The official response was what was needed.

dahamsta

Elena, don't worry about it, there'll always be knockers. (So to speak. )

I think the press release was very professional, especially given your demonstrated disdain for Eircom. Personally I would have phrased it as "IrelandOffline is pleased to see movement on the rollout of broadband services, but..." - i.e. I would be less congratulatory and I wouldn't mention Eircon by the name in the relevant sentence - but that's just a matter of semantics.

I also think people would do well to remember that Elena didn't want to write that, and it was probably damn difficult to include it in those circumstances. But we're trying to be professional here, and if you want to deal with professionals (and I say that with more than a hint of sarcasm when I refer to Eircom), you have to act professionally.

We're all learning here folks (I'm referring to the group as a whole), I don't think any of us are really professionals. Most of us are just making this up as we go along, and to be honest I think we're doing a damn fine job of it, the committee in particular.

Take for example the fact that David Long is the one most quoted in the media - this in my mind demonstrates the professionalism in the organisation - it tells the media that our Chairman is too busy to talk them. Whether that was intentional or not I don't know, but that kind of thing works. Like it or not, this is all about spin.

adam

Chris_533976

There are skills involved in working with the media and Elana has these.

Thats where I failed...... The media just didnt care....

--Chris Walker--
UIE - Unmetered Ireland....

Drakus

The pricing is a discrace. Whats the point of introducing a service if the majority of the people waiting for it cannot afford it. If the price remains high Eircom will eventually withdraw the product saying there was no intrest. This should not be allowed happen.

sceptre

Great article in The Register - looks like they for one are interpreting the press release perfectly. The fact that they give the last word to David makes it clear whose side they're on.

kendragon

I'd just like to say that I felt that the press release was very well written. It would be very easy for us to try to express just how outraged we all are about this whole Eircom fiasco but we would probably just end up sounding like a bunch of teenagers that didnt get our own way. The only way to show people that we are serious about our greivances towards the state of the Irish Internet situation is to present them in a clear and professional way.

ekehoe

Originally posted by Chris_533976


Thats where I failed...... The media just didnt care....

Trust me, they didn't care originally :-). We just had a couple of lucky breaks, and some members who knew some folk who knew some folk.

I bet if you tried now you'd get some responses :-).

And everyone, thanks for the support. I'll take all comments for the next press release and apply them while writing :-).

E

NeilF

Originally posted by ekehoe
And everyone, thanks for the support. I'll take all comments for the next press release and apply them while writing :-).

They’re an integral part of the show