New Educom Service

bkehoe

Thank you for your interest in our DirecWay Internet via Satellite Service.
Please find enclosed revised provisional pre launch pricing



SoHo User 1 – 3 Users
400k Download 128k upload Punts Euro

Standard Installation* £500 €635
Monthly Service Charge £90 €115
Equipment (3 Year lease / pm) £51 €65

Optional Equipment Purchase £1397 €1775
This system requires the use of a windows
Based pc with USB support

BizPro 4 – 10 Users
800k Download 128k upload

Standard Installation* £700 €889
Monthly Service Charge £161 €205
Equipment (3 Year lease / pm) £51 €65

Optional Equipment Purchase £1397 €1775
The use of a Windows 2000 Machine
is required for this service

BizPro 5 – 25 Users
800k Download 128k upload

Standard Installation* £700 €889
Monthly Service Charge £161 €205
Equipment (3 Year lease / pm) £POA €POA

Optional Equipment Purchase £POA €POA


*Standard Installation is defined as
The mounting of a Dish no higher than 5M from the ground and no more than a 20M cable run
All prices subject to VAT
Installation @ 12.5%
Service charge / equipment 20%

Special introductory offer
Order a system before 21st December 2001
and get
£100 discount on installation and one months free service


Order Process

The customer selects the desired package following sales consultation.

A contract is forwarded to the customer.

The customer returns completed contract with installation fee and direct debt authorisation.

A Site survey/verification will be undertaken within two weeks.

Installation and commissioning will be arranged within three weeks following site survey.

The monthly service charge begins the day following commissioning.

Customers who wish to pay for 12 months in advance will get one month free.

Equipment purchase shall be paid with the installation fee. For those wishing to take out leasing the installation will only take place after the leasing contract has been finalised.


We will forward more detailed information in the coming weeks.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me

rymus

Standard Installation* £500 €635
Monthly Service Charge £90 €115
Equipment (3 Year lease / pm) £51 €65

Do I understand this correctly? After paying a whopping 500 quid installation you must then pay 141 quid a month for the service and rental of equipment. this is truly crazy.

yellum

Or you can buy the equipment outright.

oscarBravo

Originally posted by rymus
Do I understand this correctly? After paying a whopping 500 quid installation you must then pay 141 quid a month for the service and rental of equipment. this is truly crazy.

It is a tad rough, but it could be just what I need. Because I will never, ever, ever get DSL or cable, VSAT is about my only option.

No word on download caps. I replied to the mail asking about that, and I'm waiting for a reply. If it is unlimited (or a realistic limit), I'll probably apply for this.

rymus

If there is a download cap on that it would be like the straw that broke the camels back. Paying that much for a service only to have it capped would be completely insane!

phaxx

... as we've all been saying about i-scream for the past few months.

I can't believe the installation is so high, otherwise I'd sign up pretty much right away. ~£150 a month isn't much of a problem, but five hundred, right away? £100 would be acceptable, possibly a bit more.

rymus

indeed.

the thing with the installation charge being so high is that the installers give the usual garb about it being highly specialised work and how only a few people in the country can do it, yadda yadda yadda. Anyone with a spectral analyser and a screwdriver could give it a shot

Hopefully there wont be any cap or at least a not too restrictive cap because then I'll order the 800/128k flavor for de workplace and hopefully it should be installed before my fabled sky digital is.

chernobyl

Originally posted by rymus


Anyone with a spectral analyser and a screwdriver could give it a shot

yeah, i just bought my spectrum analyser in superquinn and it only cost me £3000, the deals you get when you have some time and discount vouchers.

bkehoe

Lol, not to mention how much harder it is to actually set up a 2 way system; any bit of misalignment will drastically kill the upload speed, especially if the weather is bad.

rymus

Originally posted by chernobyl



yeah, i just bought my spectrum analyser in superquinn and it only cost me £3000, the deals you get when you have some time and discount vouchers.

alright smartarse, I was only 'aving a larf

oscarBravo, your words have inspired me.. I'm gonna ring educom tomorrow and see about ordering this mother of all satellite packages Hell, its only money - not like you can take it with you!

I shall return to let ye know how I got on

rymus

So the story from Educom is that for the home service you get the full whack of 400k/sec UNTIL you download 400MB. then your bandwidth is throttled down to 100k/sec.

So seeing as with an always-on broadband connection, you could in theory download your 400mb allowance in a day then be ****ed for the rest of the month. And for this pay 140 a month? Homey dont think so.

The above is 'unconfirmed' as of until Monday. The so called 'expert' on this service didnt strike me as much of an expert really as when I asked him a simple question on protocols he said "woah man, thats way over my head". Thinking about it now, he might have been an ex Chorus technician

bkehoe

rymus, where did you see that? They told me that your speed could be dropped if you abuse it, not a 400MB per month limit at full speed (sure you're not mixing it up with Xantic?).

Brendan

rymus

nope Brendan it was definately Educom I rang today to interrogate. After a while the technical sales lad reckoned it was a transfer cap then throttling.

Must admit tho that your post is much more encouraging for the future of the service. What exactly do you mean by 'abuse' though? Are we getting into Esat No limits territory here by abuse meaning 'overuse'. If by abuse you meant hacking, DOS, etc then woohoo, wheres the order form?

As I have said above, they did say that the package was unconfirmed until Monday, so maybe I'll send them an email on monday to see if they have themselves sorted out.

chernobyl

"if you abuse the service" as in "we will define abuse when we want to"

rymus

ahh thought so.. the whole thing smacks of Esat no limits

"Spend too long connected to our always-on broadband satellite service and we'll cancel your account"

This could be a good thing unless they deem abuse to be downloading approximately the capacity of your hard drive every month, which for me averages around 40 gigs

bkehoe

The is no download cap per se.
There is a fair use policy and Hughes are capable of reducing you bandwith if you are abusing it.

We are still putting the finer touchs to the service level agreement with Hughes. when this is done (next week hopefully). I will send you a copy detailing gaurnteed level of service, definition of fair use etc

So next week we'll know. Personally, I think something like 10 - 20GB is fine for a person who doesn't download illegal content and stuff.

For regular usage, I'd use around 5-10GB per month, including downloads.

Brendan.

rymus

Therein lies the problem. what do they call illegal content? MP3's? Hell I download them all the time! software, ISO's, games.. the list goes on and on. lets just pray they arent going to be deadly restrictive on what they allow you to download. I do have a feeling that this is going to go the way of the SNL agreement.

Grand and leniant in the first few months/year and then as time rolls by they'll start claming down on stuff till its reached and extreme level and you cant even download some of your mail because its censored.. the world is a crazy place. (And I'm a born pesimist)

chernobyl

The lines between legal/illegal software are clearly defined but no ISP is gonna start monitoring downloads of each user they will just make a logical decision and that is :

if you are pulling 100+gigs through the sky a month then what else could you be downloading?

rymus

Danish nun on donkey porn of course!

oscarBravo

Originally posted by rymus

oscarBravo, your words have inspired me.

Always happy to inspire...

ando

I didnt realise that they were an irish company ? (www.educom.ie) hmmm, brendan, will you tell us when you get the information next week ?

Rags

rymus I'd advise you to ring educom again and this time get the facts right, your about 10% right in what you say in your post about the caps but where you got that idea about that being per month I dont know. It certainly isnt.

Oh ya and pray tell what was this simple question on protocols you asked him ?

james

bkehoe

I assume, if they did say a 400MB, that it would be a per day restriction, have you heard something like this Rags; they haven't sent me any new info yet btw.

Brendan

Rags

ya I asked him about the limts on the phone and he said it was 400k/sec UNTIL you download 400MB. then your bandwidth is throttled down to 100k/sec. I asked in a shocked voice is that per month and he said oh jesus no. He told me that after a day or so the speed would go up to 400k/sec again.

Should be interesting to see what the real cap will be when the info is released next week.

james

ando

thats a relief

i thought the info was suppose to be released this week ?

rymus

Originally posted by Rags
rymus I'd advise you to ring educom again and this time get the facts right, your about 10% right in what you say in your post about the caps but where you got that idea about that being per month I dont know. It certainly isnt.

Oh ya and pray tell what was this simple question on protocols you asked him ?

james

I was kept on hold waiting to speak to a technical person up there about the service. I posted EXACTLY what he told me. So I 'got that idea' directly from the educom technical staff. 400MB limit then down to 100k/sec. He said nothing about it going back to 400k/sec.

What exactly is the point of cutting your speed for a couple of days? They might as well just not bother.

The simple question I asked him was "Will this work ok with POP mail and ICQ, etc" He didnt know. Thats about it.

Tellox

ummm... anybody thats even considering paying £500 for installation and £141 a month then for "unmetered" and speedy internet... will receive my boot up their arse for their stupidity.

bkehoe

Cheaper than the crowd with a rat for a mascot were proposing anyway

oscarBravo

Originally posted by Tizlox
ummm... anybody thats even considering paying £500 for installation and £141 a month then for "unmetered" and speedy internet... will receive my boot up their arse for their stupidity.

OK: I'm in the sticks, stuck with a 28k8 carrier line, permanently denied ISDN let alone ADSL or cable, and probably unable to get a second phone line.

I would be delighted to hear your alternative to this "stupidity" for high-speed unmetered Internet access.

ando

some of you are reacting like that 400k going down to 100k is on a per month basis. may I remind you that this is not confirmed yet, and is (what I believe) a misunderstanding. Either that, or a complete rip off !!

ando

has there been any news of late about this service ? are there any caps ?

i've sent 3 emails, but still have got no responce ...