IOffL www phone-charge survey site idea

Fergus

Just reading another thread about an eircom/ntl price comparison card got me thinking on another publicity idea..

How about IOffL members put together a web site for public use that provides an independent comparison of the voice and internet phone charges from all the various irish telcos.. but also UK, Germany, US, etc..

I am thinking of something like www.phonebills.org.uk ..

It would provide a useful service for the general public, get recurrent visits, and highlight the stupid pricing in Ireland and the cause of IOffL at the same time..

I can do some work on the code etc time permitting.

seamus

I second this idea, not only for new people who want to see them, but for our own reference too I'm can't do much web coding apart from html, so I'm goin off now to get some prices for use on this page

dahamsta

The easiest way to go about this is probably to create a spreadsheet with the relevant fields, which people can download from irelandoffline.org. Then they can choose a provider, tell everyone here they're working on it, fill it in at their leisure, and submit it to the Boss (Fergus, you've just become the Boss). When we have a reasonable amount of information, the Boss can hand it on to me, and I can import it into MySQL and wrap an interface around it. How does that sound?

We could also compile a database of ISP information from Justin's IIU website on taint...

adam

billy the squid

I third that idea when i seen the thread first it made me think of the site concerning mobile costs in ireland http://www.b4ucall.com

Fergus

Ha.. me and my big mouth

Umm.. well, i've got a MySQL host too... soo, i'm working on some stuff on that at the moment, and don't mind hosting it there anyway? In any case, i'll try and get some basic comparison routine going shortly with hard code, to get an idea of how much is involved in making it data-driven, given the range of wacko discount schemes, etc..

Boston

dahamsta, your right, but unlike a spread sheet, a site can develope to include other things.

like also a comparison between England Ireland Germany and American on internet charges.
its all well and good telling people ones flat rate and ones not, but show people that 50 hours a month in Ireland on 56k at a minimum will cost around 40 and a max of around 80 while in other countries with flat rate your talking, 17 min - 30 max

then develope it to include single and dual channel isdn.


you may say what's the point, well it shows you don't have to be that heaver a user to benefit from flat rate.
were going to have to do some almost childishly simplistic like bar charts if were going to get the average Joe voter to support us or even care.

keep the ideas flowing, this could be a big thing, if we do it right

Fergus

OK.. Lemme know your comments on this - the great qvolution internet rip-off calculator ...

http://www.qvolution.com/phonebill.htm

NOTE: The charges aren't quite right yet.. I'm still fiddling with it. However, could folks please supply for a given ISP / tariff scheme, the following:

Initial setup charge (if any)
Monthly subscription
Any other monthly line rental
Cost per hour during 8am-6pm weekdays
Cost per hour outside 8am-6pm weekdays
Cost per hour at weekends

Keep all prices in Irish Pounds for now, and include any sales tax/VAT.

The more comparisons the better. It would be nice to throw in a few lease line rates too

Cheers

hmmm

That little calculator is super

But (there's always a but ), I always considered the simple stark "24x7 internet access UK 12.50" "24x7 internet access Ireland (1000?)" was the best for getting our point across?

Fergus

Well, I'm going to expand it a bit into 'always-on broadband' and 'crap dial-up' divisions.. one thing would be to show dial-up products within the always-on comparison.

Even as it stands, it's shocking enough. Apart from the campaign, it's also intended to help us poor sods to try and pick the best of a bad bunch.

btw.. what is the current indigo/eircom.net subscriptions for monthly or yearly, and for PSTN and ISDN. Can't find them on either site..

MS

btw.. what is the current indigo/eircom.net subscriptions for monthly or yearly, and for PSTN and ISDN. Can't find them on either site..

I have been searching for ages too but can find anything ? Maby its not on the net but it might be in the phone book. Dont have my glasses so ill take a look later.


MS

Fergus

I've added BT OpenWorld, and the UTV packages (the latter ones don't seem that great). Here's a few more questions:

Do the UTV DeskLine packages charge 2p/min for off-peak hours also when you exceed the prepaid limit (it would appear so).

Does the AOL service work on ISDN? Is there a cheaper one?

Can we have some solid dial-up or ISDN rates for Germany or the US too..

Delphi91

Originally posted by Fergus
...btw.. what is the current indigo/eircom.net subscriptions for monthly or yearly, and for PSTN and ISDN. Can't find them on either site...

I found the following info from Eircom back in late September:

Eircom Subscription Service:
For £14.52 per month (VAT inc.) or an annual rate of £145.20 (VAT inc.)

Indigo only seem to do the local call service - no subscription service.

Maybe someone else can verify this?

Mike

Baz_

****ing hell man, really getting your teeth stuck into this one, I can try to get some German details, if you send me a mail with what you specifically want.

I can tell you though that I have 24/7 internet access for only 6punt a month. Which in my opinion is not bad, broadband too.
Although I am a student so thats why.

Boston

great work man, one thing, the ntl one seems a little high, did you take into account the that weekend is free

Fergus

For ntl@home I'm working off:
18/month subscription (you have to subscribe to the TV part aswell)
14.24/line rental (you still need eircom line)
and then ntl local call charges:
2.10/hour business hours, 1.044/hour off-peak, free at weekends

I've added the ntl dublin24 cable thing too now.. am including the tv subscription cost, because you can't get the internet service without it.

dahamsta

Great stuff Fergus.

adam

Boston

Originally posted by Fergus
For ntl@home I'm working off:
18/month subscription (you have to subscribe to the TV part aswell)
14.24/line rental (you still need eircom line)
and then ntl local call charges:
2.10/hour business hours, 1.044/hour off-peak, free at weekends

I've added the ntl dublin24 cable thing too now.. am including the tv subscription cost, because you can't get the internet service without it.

only the basic service, not the digital, and ntl charges are as follows 3.5p a minute day time and 1.74p off peak.

Blade

Originally posted by Delphi91


I found the following info from Eircom back in late September:

Eircom Subscription Service:
For £14.52 per month (VAT inc.) or an annual rate of £145.20 (VAT inc.)

Indigo only seem to do the local call service - no subscription service.

Maybe someone else can verify this?

Mike

Indigo do a subscription service too for IR£121.00 per year and to quote from a recent e-mail from them:

Your Indigo subscription service provides you with
- high quality access to the internet together with
- low cost connection charges and
- low cost telephone support that is available seven days a week

You also get an email address @indigo.ie!!!!!!!!!!!!

In a country where people are lead to believe that we're the E-Hub of Europe people will actually pay for that attractive deal.

Fergus

Yeah. thought it was about 10/month.. And there is an ISDN Indigo sub which I think is 20/month, but can't find any details on that either.

I've added a few US estimates to the list and two i-Streams. Compare DirecTV DSL (1.5mbps, no cap, static IP, free dial-up account) with i-Stream 'enhanced'

Fergus

updated to include location field and more providers, and new link:

http://www.qvolution.com/phonebill.php

Umm.. anyone got details of the Turkmenistan broadband services? I'd just love to add that in

dahamsta

I think it was Elana picked up that little nugget, drop her a line. I'll try and find out what the status is with the DSLAM's seen in Siberia. (No folks, I'm not kidding.)

adam

drrnwbb

just a quick point.. will this be all done in euros?.. suppose it will.. hehe..sorry crap point... its late.. dw

SkepticOne

Just a quick suggestion, like. I notice that a lot of the services cheaper than those here are broadband (i.e. far better). Just to emphasise the point, it might be an idea to add an extra column with 'NO' for those services that are not broadband.

Fergus

just a quick point.. will this be all done in euros?.. suppose it will.. hehe..sorry crap point... its late.. dw

Yeah. I might change it over shortly. May leave a 'punt' option on the form for the time being (for those people that haven't read the booklet yet and are still 'confused')

The rates for other countries are stored in their own currency and converted when generating the table. Anyone know of a handy XML exchange rate feed?

Just a quick suggestion, like. I notice that a lot of the services cheaper than those here are broadband (i.e. far better). Just to emphasise the point, it might be an idea to add an extra column with 'NO' for those services that are not broadband.

Yeah.. this has to be addressed. I was thinking of dividing into time-charged dial-up and always-on broadband categories - choose one or the other in the form. Also, even if the dial-up table is generated, as an addendum show all the broadband services in other lands that are cheaper than the best dial-up offering here..

There's also the differences between sat, DSL, different broadband speeds, etc.. If we could come up with some sort of 'weighting' formula maybe then we could have a 'value for money' or 'price/performance' type score for each service and sort by that instead.

All suggestions welcome.

I've added Germany's T-Online Surftime service. I've removed the i-Streams again.. really no sense in including them if they're not available.

billy the squid

Could I submit the thing that chorus sent me about thier powernet (Limerick)

http://homepage.eircom.net/~fcd/powernet-pricing.doc

and would be interested in knowing if ou could sort the list of telecom companies in order of cheapest most expensive highest or lowest connection charge

would be interesting to see how far down the list we would be just in case you wanted to confirm information

by the way been looking at the cost of eircom.net service for one month and my last phone bill was with in 50 p of it thats a pretty cool site

dahamsta

by the way been looking at the cost of eircom.net service for one month and my last phone bill was with in 50 p of it thats a pretty cool site

Wahey! Good job Fergus!

adam

Fergus

More updates shortly incl. URLs, etc..

btw, the Powernet service is in there, but it only comes up if you select Limerick location in the form.

Connect Ireland also only appears for Dublin area at present.

Fergus

I've done some more work on this:

1. Prices converted to Euro
2. Currency conversions are based on daily rate feed
3. Added links to sites with details of service providers
4. added 'always-on', MB/month and minimum speed criteria
5. Added notes subtexts, speed column
6. Added cost calculations for data-based charges where applicable

The URL again is http://www.qvolution.com/phonebill.php

Again, if there is anyone out there who can provide full details of costs for some other countries, please message me. Thanks.