smart telecom vagueness

agrajag

hi there

looking at getting smart bb, crown alley exchange, but the old dear on the phone seemed a bit confused about things, monday morning doziness perhaps:)

i currently have a phone line in the apartment, but i'm not connected to any provider, and havent been since i moved in 2 years ago. i was told that smart would enable the line for me, and at no extra cost. is this correct?

also, she wasnt able to tell me about contention on the line, and the website is just as informative. whats the experience of other users on the crown alley exchange?

thanks,
dave

paulm17781

I don't have Smart but here is my understanding.

Smart will be able to enable your line. Problem is you have to change your phone number.

Smart claim they do not have contentention. I don't know.

I am also in Temple Bar and have NTL Broadband. Maybe look at them. If you need a phone line you could go for VOIP like www.blueface.ie.

This is my set up and I am very happy with it.

colmmloc

http://www.smarttelecom.ie/broadbandfaq.htm

Q. What is the contention ratio on the Smart broadband product?

A. Smart Broadband is not designed around the concept of contention. Smart Telecom owns and operates its own high-capacity fibre-optic network. As any link in the Smart network approaches capacity, it will be automatically be upgraded. Smart Broadband users will continue to enjoy the unrestricted high-speed Internet access.

colm

Blub2k4

Smart is based on ADSL2+ which does not have a contention ratio.
I like their product and the only issues I had were getting initially connected (thanks Eircom ) and since then have problems connecting with a third party router, but the root cause of that is possibly a faulty device.

I'd advise smart all the way.

muckwarrior

I'm in the same situation as the OP, but when I rang smart they told me that I needed to get eircunt to activate the line first and get an account number before I could switch to smart. Still waitin on the stupid ****ers to sort the line!

dub45

agrajag wrote:

hi there

looking at getting smart bb, crown alley exchange, but the old dear on the phone seemed a bit confused about things, monday morning doziness perhaps:)

i currently have a phone line in the apartment, but i'm not connected to any provider, and havent been since i moved in 2 years ago. i was told that smart would enable the line for me, and at no extra cost. is this correct?

also, she wasnt able to tell me about contention on the line, and the website is just as informative. whats the experience of other users on the crown alley exchange?

thanks,
dave

I am on Crown Alley and it is fine so far. It probably would be a good idea if Garfield or any other Smart rep is reading this if they could clarify once and for all what the procedure is for people in apartments say who wish to activate lines for the first time?

agrajag

muckwarrior wrote:

I'm in the same situation as the OP, but when I rang smart they told me that I needed to get eircunt to activate the line first and get an account number before I could switch to smart. Still waitin on the stupid ****ers to sort the line!

hmm, i thought i might have to do something along those lines:( i knew it couldnt be that simple!

thx muckwarrior

CK67

Does anyone have news about the Terenure Exchange and Smart support there. I am waiting but was told that there were court cases holding things up. Has anybody heard any news on this.

Any recommendations for the cheapest VOIP + BB solution.

paulm17781

CK67 wrote:

Any recommendations for the cheapest VOIP + BB solution.

NTL and Blueface (www.blueface.ie) is what I use. It's very good and reasonable. Get to keep your number too!

klorin

CK67 wrote:

Does anyone have news about the Terenure Exchange and Smart support there. I am waiting but was told that there were court cases holding things up. Has anybody heard any news on this.

Any recommendations for the cheapest VOIP + BB solution.

Hi, I asked same about Terenure and was told won´t happen this year so now I´m looking around for someone else BT or Metro..

Klorin

Ardent

agrajag: I was in your exact position a few weeks ago. Had a physical phone line in my apt but it was never connected.

I was instructed by Smart to avail of Eircom's free first time connection offer that they were running up until the end of August. They told me that the exchange my apt complex is on was live with them and they could switch me over when I got my eircom account number etc.

So, got connected with eircom and sent in the form to Smart with my new eircom account number. There was a mix-up on Smart's part with regards to my exchange which led to my application being rejected twice (?!) and a few weeks of limbo.

Eventually they got their act together after a few phone calls amd a bit of harrassment from me and I have to say, two weeks into the service, everything is great. The support from Garfield, Alan and Colm when I was having initial problems was top notch.

If Smart is available in your area, go for it. It might be a bit of hassle at the start but you'll eventually be getting what seems so far to be a very good broadband service.

shamage

Blub2k4 wrote:

Smart is based on ADSL2+ which does not have a contention ratio.
I'd advise smart all the way.

Hmmm. ADSL, ADSL2 and ADSL2+ is a transmitting type and plays no part in contention. You might as well be saying, "His computer is faster because it has a TFT monitor"

With most of the operators in Ireland the term "Planning Ratio" is a better description of what is going on.

To make the math easy lets say that all xDSL users have a 1mb line and are subscribing to a 24:1 product. What eircom will do is bring a 10mb PVC from an exchange they will then connect up to 240 users through that PVC this will give at least 1/24mb to each user however most of the time a user will be able to get most of the 1mb most of the time

Smart do not base their xDSL product around this planning. Even if there are 1000 customers in an exchange they will look at the average traffic from it and then ensure that there is enough bandwidth configured from that exchange to traffic the current demand, while on paper the actual contention ratio could be anything from 10:1 to 100:1. The term "Not based on contention" and un-contended or 1:1 are two totally different things and should not be confused.

Blub2k4

shamage wrote:

Hmmm. ADSL, ADSL2 and ADSL2+ is a transmitting type and plays no part in contention. You might as well be saying, "His computer is faster because it has a TFT monitor"

With most of the operators in Ireland the term "Planning Ratio" is a better description of what is going on.

To make the math easy lets say that all xDSL users have a 1mb line and are subscribing to a 24:1 product. What eircom will do is bring a 10mb PVC from an exchange they will then connect up to 240 users through that PVC this will give at least 1/24mb to each user however most of the time a user will be able to get most of the 1mb most of the time

Smart do not base their xDSL product around this planning. Even if there are 1000 customers in an exchange they will look at the average traffic from it and then ensure that there is enough bandwidth configured from that exchange to traffic the current demand, while on paper the actual contention ratio could be anything from 10:1 to 100:1. The term "Not based on contention" and un-contended or 1:1 are two totally different things and should not be confused.

Effectively the customer will not see a contention, or is that incorrect?