Broadband and FRIACO

o_donnel_abu

In the debate about different types of user for broadband and FRIACO, don't forget the group who would love to have Broadband but are unlikely to have it available for a long time, if ever.

I mean people like me sitting in a little village in Donegal

Broadband would be ideal for me but at least FRIACO would be better than nothing.

Martin Harran


P.S.
Sorry about 4 posts I a row but I have been away for couple of days and I'm just catching up with this thread, which I have to agree with Adam "is a fascinating thread, one of the best I've seen on the IO forum for quite some time."

Definitely deserves a 'stickie'.

NeilF

Originally posted by o_donnel_abu
don't forget the group who would love to have Broadband but are unlikely to have it available for a long time, if ever

Donegal along with everyone else who doesn't live in Dublin 1-24 :mad:

I think that the only way we stand any chance of getting widespread broadband outside of Dublin any time soon is wireless. I thought Chorus were going in the right direction with Powernet but then it never left Limerick and turned into a trial to be cancelled.

Someone quickly developing a wireless broadband connection and voice line service throughout Ireland would seriously hurt Eircom's bottom line forcing them to either stop fleecing their customers and hope they stay or face going under.

If an OLO (wireless) could offer a package of phone line rental, cheaper call rates than Eircom and uncapped broadband at something like 256k for €60 or €70 a month would you get it?

ykt0di9url7bc3

My job is an AOL Technical Rep,

In the UK AOL members have to choose thier Access numbers, they cannot be dynamicaly assigned unless they ask for them over the internet where AOL will upload new number connections.....
Its a good system and serves well AOL' s 2mil uk customers...
approx 90% of these would be FRIACO users
People seem to go for ISDN rather than broadband and they get a good service

unfortunatley we dont have as good an ISDN service here,
If i had the money and didnt do all my surfing in college then i'd get cable

Fergus

When considering any arguments about flat-rate causing 'capacity problems', a few users 'hogging the network', 'economic unviability', etc., think about the following:

First developed in 1995 by Lucent Technologies, DWDM uses optical mirrors and prisms to put up to 80 or more separate wavelengths onto a single optical fiber. With each channel carrying 2.5 gigabits of data, up to 200 billion bits of data can be delivered each second by one optical fiber. “Suddenly, you can get 100 times the bandwidth on the same fiber-optic line without having to go out and dig up the ground and bury more lines,” said Kathy Szelag, vice president of marketing for Lucent Technologies
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/15_9/tech_features/1609-2.html

Eircom and all the other operators' networks are build on optic fibre technology.

There are 1.6 million phone lines in Ireland.

Say we allow 128 kbps for each one (2 x 64kbps each).

1.6 million phone lines = approx 200 gigabits/sec

The above mentioned capacity of a single optic fibre using DWDM = 80 times 2.5 gigabits = 200 gigabits/sec. That's the total national voice telephone traffic with every line in use 24/7 !

Sure there are other elements such as the switching components (exchanges).. but these have also seen dramatic advances.

Of course, eircom want the public to remain in the dark ages thinking that a 128k ISDN line is some sort of 'big deal' or 'hi speed', while at the same time seeing their already low running costs rapidly diminish further:

According to Karl Traberg, director of marketing for Alcatel, the dollar-per-gigabit-per-kilometer cost has dropped significantly in last decade, from around $1,000/Gb/km to $100/Gb/km because of advances in DWDM technology. Today's DWDM and fiber technology, says Traberg, have reduced the cost of transmission to $50/Gb/km.
http://www.broadbandweek.com/news/010402/010402_supp_dwdm.htm

Fergus

Originally posted by o_donnel_abu

If memory serves me right, this is what prompted an excellent quip from Fergus (?) at the seminar along the lines "now that the three of you are sitting at the same table..."

Martin

Not I! I don't really think I had enough grasp on the situation at the time (or the nerve) to have come up with that one. But here's an excerpt from the transcript of the seminar that I'm working on:

“Seamus Ryan from Limerick, ‘sceptre’ on the boards…

As Martin says, we are very loathe to turn this into an anti-Eircom gathering, but just to answer, and I’m not pretty technical as regards telecoms, to answer Pat Galvin’s question: We’d like to punish Eircom.. for dragging its feet on pricing.. for a start. Dragging their feet on pricing means that product doesn’t get to market.

But the question I wanted to ask, or the point I wanted to make, was: The point was made that the regulator can only intervene when one of the parties decides that negotiations have broken down. Now, whichever party, I believe there hasn’t been communication between Esat and Eircom for quite some time; now, up on the podium I can see the Director of Telecoms Regulation, and I can see the Chief Executive of Esat in Ireland. So, what I am asking Derek Kickham to do, and I realise he can’t do it now because obviously he’ll want to go away and think about it - maybe he’ll have to ask people below, above, whatever. But, from a particular perspective, there’s no higher person from Esat’s point of view or from the Telecoms Regulator’s point of view, so what I’m asking Derek Kickham to do is.. to turn to the Director of Telecoms Regulation in Ireland, and basically say ‘Madam, I believe that negotiations are going at least too slowly and would appreciate..’ – I certainly as an Esat customer would appreciate – ‘..if you would intervene’. Thank you."

dahamsta

Class! One of my favourite IO quotations of all time, although it only beats Martin's "Have ye lost the plot completely?" by a tiny margin.

Fergus, if you come across any more nuggets in your diligent workings as the Research Head Honcho, you should put them aside for a quotes page on the website!

adam

seamus

I just spent the last 1/2 half hour reading this thread, and I liked it! Some of the most intelligent debate I've seen on this forum for a while.

I agree with the whole FRIACO -v- Broadband issue. Plenty of people in Ireland are still scared of the internet. Most non-technical people I know log on to the internet, check their email, maybe look at a site or two they heard about, then log off again, always cautious about how long they spend online because of phone costs. At most they spend maybe 1/2 an hour per day online, which after calculation comes to €11.81 per month(assuming it's off-peak). Not very much. Try to give these people broadband and 1 of 2 things will happen:

They will see a price tag of €50(for example) and simply refuse it, because they don't want to spend that much, on something that they don't see a need for, or

They will get it, and probably do more surfing than before. However, his improved speed will means he only spends 30 mins online, maybe an hour, and will ditch ADSL because he's spending more for time he's not using (in his mind).

The internet is still something very new to most people. 'Finding your place' online is quite difficult to do, and almost impossible to do when you're worrying about what time your spending online. Yet surfing can become very boring very quickly when your d/l speed is fast - you see everything too quickly. FRIACO seems, imo to be a perfect median between them. Not too expensive, yet slow enough to keep the average person from becoming bored too quickly.

(I should have a point somewhere ) Then there's the other side of the coin. I, for example, am now pretty much joined at the hip to the internet. As a Computer Science student, I have found it an invaluable research/resource tool, and since starting university, I have learned more about technologies in the last 18 months then I did about anything else in the last 5 years. Before I moved out of my parent's house, I was downloading 180MB per month, over a 56K line. If I had ADSL speeds available to me now, I'd easily be doing that kind of mileage in a day.

So for my point - I would be more of a campaigner for ADSL, simply because I hate 56K speeds, and I'm pretty sure that many others at IOFFL are in the same boat. But I now recognise the part the internet is set to play in our lives. Some Japanese company are releasing a fridge this Autumn that connects over a broadband line and does all the stock ordering etc. Within 20 years, we could be controlling specific services within our own homes through a console in the living room for example, with a 24 hour link to the internet. The internet fiasco in Ireland is more about education and familiarisation rather than fairness. Many people in Ireland have never used the internet, yet some of us couldn't live without it. Without some sort of easy access system in place, we could have yet another divide on our hands.

Wooh I've waffled. Basically, I think we need FRIACO to educate the masses, but still move on with broadband to ensure it is fully advanced with the rest of the world, as we become more and more dependent on it. No point whatsoever, just a rant, sorry, but I'm not deleting it now :rolleyes:

Xian

Throughout this thread there has been tacit agreement to the importance of FRIACO while maintaining the issue of the rollout of broadband as an equally important platform for IrelandOffline's campaign with anecdotal evidence on how everyone would want it if only they could get it.
Can anyone give me a valid reason why broadband should be on IrelandOffline's agenda? Personally, I smell a rat with the entire broadband debate, that it is being leveraged to try to manoever from one monopoly to another by convincing people that ADSL will be the answer to all our prayers. If there isn't a compelling reason (and I don't want to hear "because country X has it"), IrelandOffline should distance itself from the issue entirely and concentrate on campaigning for full Local Loop unbundling (how can it be said to be unbundled when not one local loop is to date) and FRIACO.

Fergus

I would possibly even go further and say we could just concentrate on getting the UK-style FRIACO process in place, because if that happens there is then natural ongoing incentive on both eircom and the OLOs to exploit LLU and other methods to get IP traffic off the voice network as early as possible.

Manic

Martin said something that really stuck out and he was right in every detail

A few months ago, I spent an evening in the home of one of our members with a well known 'slightly older generation' politician. He had no real understanding of the internet except Email which was 'something his secretary used'
She showed them what it was all about. Its a pithy though she was unable to show him the difference between Broadband and a 56k modem (something that should be remedied FAST) We are dealing with (no offence to anyone) the Older generation in a lot of cases. Its not their fault.... they actually rely on the younger people to educate them. But some older generation people like 20 years ago are set in their ways and wont change. Its up to us to show them.... Not in an offending way....

Manic

I said She sorry about that

Dustaz

After reading (and re-reading in some cases) the posts, It seems there is a roughly even split on what people want to concentrate on. What almost every one of the posts do say tho, is " We concentrate on FIRACO, altho Broadband is very important" and vice versa. It seems that everyone is in agreement that both[/i] things are needed here. Why not continue to campaign for both as has been the case since the conception of Ireland Offline?
I assume thats the general feeling, just stating the bleedin obvious

Originally posted by Xian
Can anyone give me a valid reason why broadband should be on IrelandOffline's agenda? Personally, I smell a rat with the entire broadband debate, that it is being leveraged to try to manoever from one monopoly to another by convincing people that ADSL will be the answer to all our prayers. If there isn't a compelling reason (and I don't want to hear "because country X has it"), IrelandOffline should distance itself from the issue entirely and concentrate on campaigning for full Local Loop unbundling (how can it be said to be unbundled when not one local loop is to date) and FRIACO.

Its faster, more reliable and better in general for small/home businesses than 56k.
Feel free to expound the conspiracy theory tho:)

timod

Originally posted by Dustaz
After reading (and re-reading in some cases) the posts, It seems there is a roughly even split on what people want to concentrate on. What almost every one of the posts do say tho, is " We concentrate on FIRACO, altho Broadband is very important" and vice versa. It seems that everyone is in agreement that both things are needed here. Why not continue to campaign for both as has been the case since the conception of Ireland Offline?

A decent flat rate service could be up and running nationwide in every corner of Ireland, and would arguably do more to make Ireland a tech-savvy nation. It's just a matter of Eircom allowing it. (or the gov forcing it)

Nationwide Broadband is not going to happen for years. (Prove me wrong please.)
Broadband is on the way. Slowly, but it is coming.

So essentially we should focus on flatrate. For now. This could happen tomorrow if there is will at the top.

Yoda

I'll say it one more time. Regarding FRIACO vs. Broadband:

I need a service I can afford. I do not need a "better, stronger, faster" service which might be rolled out eventually in the fogs of future time and which is likely to be too expensive anyway.

IOFFL, I believe, should be campaining for affordable internet services. That is what the monopoly will not let us have, and could let us have right away. Broadband is a different product.

Until 1990, Telecom Éireann was able to offer a service whereby all local calls were unmetered, whether voice or data calls -- and Telecom offered that with analogue technology. Now if Eircom were to unmeter the local call, that would satisfy me quite well. Failing that, if they were to unbundle the local loop, Esat could offer an unmetered 1892 number and that would be that.

Xian said:
If there isn't a compelling reason (and I don't want to hear "because country X has it"), IrelandOffline should distance itself from the issue entirely and concentrate on campaigning for full Local Loop unbundling (how can it be said to be unbundled when not one local loop is to date) and FRIACO.

And he was right.

Yoda

Yoda

Dustaz said:
Why not continue to campaign for both [broadband and FRIACO] as has been the case since the conception of Ireland Offline?

Because the plain people of Ireland need affordable internet access quicker than they need broadband. Getting the loop unbundled is what IOFFL needs to be concentrating on. Since both FRIACO and broadband are on the table, it gives our present monopoly an excuse to talk about the technological difficulties of introducing the new service, and month after month of outrageous metered phone usage goes by, while the monopoly laughs quietly all the way to the bank.

Yoda

dahamsta

Failing that, if they were to unbundle the local loop, Esat could offer an unmetered 1892 number and that would be that.

That's unlikely to happen for a long time anyway.

Because the plain people of Ireland need affordable internet access quicker than they need broadband.

I think this brings us back to the "two groups" IrelandOffline represents, which tend to overlap each other. Some business users, like yourself, would be perfectly content with a flat-rate service, even if a broadband service were available. Some consumers would go the opposite way - they would be happy to outlay extra cash to have the luxury of a broadband service.

Of course, as a group, we have to deal with majorities, and you would think that the majorities would work out to consumers wanting FRIACO, and businesses wanting broadband. The problem we're faced with is that rollouts of broadband and flat-rate services will be drastically different - broadband will have to be rolled out gradually, because it requires the installation of new equipment, and the telco's will require demand to make that viable. Flat-rate, however, is like flicking a switch - as soon as the regulations are created and the contracts agreed, anyone in Ireland who so desires can switch immediately to a flat-rate service.

You all know that of course, because some of us have been saying this for quite some time now, but the point Yoda is trying to make - and one I've been trying to get across for some weeks now - is that broadband is on the agenda. Yes, there is a fundamental problem inside the government in understanding what it actually means, but the local loop is being unbundled and bitstream is just a pricing issue. Flat-rate isn't an issue at all though - the only people discussing it is us. And let's be honest, we don't really matter, unless we're trying to make other people discuss it.

Yes, we have to get broadband rolled out, but it's going to take a year to get to most densely populated urban areas, and it's going to take years to get to less populated areas. It's going to be at least a half-decade, and probably a decade, before it's available to everyone in the country, at an affordable price. Flat rate, again, is something that will happen countrywide overnight. It will cut the costs of connecting to the Internet to every single person in the country overnight. That's the majority. That's the people we have to represent.

Again though, that's not to say we're going to just drop broadband -- we're not, and we never said we would. We just have to concentrate on the majority.

adam

o_donnel_abu

Why should we drop either FRIACO or broadband?

IOFFL's objectives as stated on our website are :

Our goal is to drive forward the development of the Irish Internet infrastructure for the consumer. In particular we want to achieve the following:

• Universal flat rate (unmetered) access to the internet for all users.
  
• Complete Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) by Eircom.
  
• Universal access to broadband services for all users.

These objectives were originally agreed after lengthy discussion on ie.comp and at our formative meeting in Dublin last May.

To me, the underlying thrust behind the objectives was - and still is - all about improved internet access in whatever form that takes - for some people it will be broadband, for other people it will be FRIACO.

One of the underlying strengths of IOFFL, in my view, is the range of people committed to it ranging from casual surfers to small businesses to extremely knowledgeable IT professionals.

To focus on any one specific area of access would IMO seriously undermine our power and influence - we should seek to improve internet access in every possible way.

I also see no particular strategic advantage in focussing on any one area - how would dropping broadband from our campaign make the achievement of FRIACO any easier?

Martin

Dustaz

Originally posted by dahamsta

the point Yoda is trying to make - and one I've been trying to get across for some weeks now - is that broadband is on the agenda.

Yes, the iron is hot. we must strike

Seriously, now is the time to put pressure on the relevant parties with regards to pricing and other issues involved in broadband while nothing is finalised. The current broadband model is far from ideal and it would be a wasted oppurtunity to just move away from it while it is so close to fruition.

Personally, i dont think either issue should be a 'priority' as both models are needed badly.

I'd also repeat the view aired previously in this thread that the reason that broadband is being discussed so much on the forum is that , well theres more news on it. Genuine inroads are being made and thats no reason to stop talking about it, or even pressuring about it.

With regards to FRIACO, Id love to hear more about the state of the the legal pricing case.

Xian

Originally posted by Dustaz
Its faster, more reliable and better in general for small/home businesses than 56k.

These are perfect reasons NOT to campaign for broadband. It is a LUXURY. Campaigning for a luxury is a Bad Thing(TM). The saying goes "be careful what you wish for: you might just get it". The terms you get it on might not be your own, though. Bitstream access and ADSL will not increase the number of internet users because people will not be willing to pay for it. IrelandOffline's influence would be devalued if it campaigned for this, won it and then turned around and said "oh, that's not what we *really* needed - we needed full Local Loop unbundling and FRIACO". By that stage you will have successfully navigated yourself from one monopoly to another, paying inflated prices for anything better than pay-per-minute internet access while the rest of us bay in taxes to subsidize this monopoly.

Eircom, pardon my Somalian, need to be told to sh1t or get off the pot on LLU. If they are not going to do it willingly, the ODTR needs the teeth to force them. This can only happen with the passing of the Telecommunications Bill. I don't trust any politicians statement that the bill is going to be fast-tracked until I see it enacted. This is the target IrelandOffline should be focussing on.

Finally, some clarification is needed:

The globalization rating that I pointed to earlier where Ireland came out on top made no reference to broadband in assessing a country's technological status. It referred to internet users and ISPs. Providing broadband, by subsidy of otherwise, is not going to change our appalling score in these areas because people still won't want it. It's a luxury. Any subsidy to provide broadband would be foolish. If you want it, pay the price necessary to get it. IrelandOffline campaigning for broadband is like saying "let them eat cake"

Domestic broadband is widely available in the UK. This is largely thanks to the efforts of CUT. They campaigned for unmetered internet access, won it and disbanded. IrelandOffline should do the same. The rest will follow.

Indeed. We are.

adam

Yoda

Before I say anything else, I want to say that I feel really demoralized by the way this discussion has gone.

dahamsta quoted me, and then said:
Failing that, if they were to unbundle the local loop, Esat could offer an unmetered 1892 number and that would be that.

That's unlikely to happen for a long time anyway.

But dahamsta omitted the sentence I had written immediatly just before: "Now if Eircom were to unmeter the local call, that would satisfy me quite well." If it is unlikely that the local loop will be unbundled soon (shame on the ODTR, or on the government for not passing a bill which will give the ODTR teeth), then how about the unmetered local call for the service I have already?

dahamsta quoted me, and then said:
I think this brings us back to the "two groups" IrelandOffline represents, which tend to overlap each other. Some business users, like yourself, would be perfectly content with a flat-rate service, even if a broadband service were available. Some consumers would go the opposite way - they would be happy to outlay extra cash to have the luxury of a broadband service.

I didn't say that, with regard to my business use. If a broadband service were available I would consider its price and I might take it up. What I said, is that I can't afford the service I have right now. I thought IOFFL was an organization that was fighting for the consumer, and if there are two issues, FRIACO and broadband, then let's look at it from the consumer's point of view.

1) FRIACO. The monopoly is ripping us off for the service we have. They are getting richer and our businesses and our budgets are hurt by it. It seems to me that the FIRST PRIORITY must be to address this injustice.

2) Broadband. This is a new service not freely available that consumers want. There's no telling when it will be available, by all accounts.

IOFFL is missing the boat, and, in my view, letting us down by focussing the discussion on broadband. I'm told Bertie Ahern has got some inkling of what IOFFL is doing, and that he's saying, yes, there should be broadband. But is he aware that the country's whole economy, of small businesses and households, is hurt by the lack of FRIACO? I doubt it. Why? Because IOFFL is perceived as being interested in broadband more than in FRIACO.

IRELAND LACKS AFFORDABLE INTERNET SERVICES. That means the services we have already are too expensive and IOFFL should acknowledge that dealing with this is its primary goal. (It is first on the list in the charter o_donnel_abu posted!)

dahamsta then said:
Flat-rate, however, is like flicking a switch - as soon as the regulations are created and the contracts agreed, anyone in Ireland who so desires can switch immediately to a flat-rate service.

Then why is this not our priority?

dahamsta then said:
You all know that of course, because some of us have been saying this for quite some time now, but the point Yoda is trying to make - and one I've been trying to get across for some weeks now - is that broadband is on the agenda.

Um, is that the point I am trying to make? No. The point I am trying to make is that broadband is taking up too much of the agenda, and I would rather believe that IOFFL was working to get the regulations created and the contracts agreed, so that anyone in Ireland who so desires can switch immediately to a flat-rate service.

Is this in any way unreasonable?

Is it not the case that even those of you who pooh-pooh the 56K connection are yourselves paying through the nose for the connection you have?

dahamsta then said:
Flat-rate isn't an issue at all though - the only people discussing it is us. And let's be honest, we don't really matter, unless we're trying to make other people discuss it.

Then can this not, please, be our priority? Because if we spend our time discussing broadband, then the people watching this forum will think that FRIACO isn't the priority. And surely it is.

dahamsta

We're all getting confused now. This is probably my own fault for not being clear on a few points, so I'll try and clear them up now:

First of all, Xian, LLU is happening. It's not a case of Eircom doing it willingly or unwillingly, it's being done. Esat are co-locating equipment in Eircom exchanges right now. They will be unbundling loops in March/April. Other companies are already requesting co-location and site surveys. Unfortunately, as the situation stands, we have no idea how that will affect us. It seems OLO's aren't currently interested in supplying ADSL services, and that suggests that they are going to be competing for leased lines business, but ultimately, the local loop is being unbundled.

Also, yes, the Telecommunications Bill is one of our targets. So is FRIACO. So is broadband. We'll campaign on all these issues, but we can't campaign on all of them at the same time. It's impossible, we're a small, voluntary organisation, with a relatively small membership. We're working to correct that, but it's going to take time. So we have to prioritise.

Finally, to clarify my statement saying that "we are", I was referring to FRIACO and CUT. We are campaigning for unmetered Internet access, and I thing my posts in the past few weeks have been quite clear about that. I, personally, want to priorotise flat-rate access, because I'm genuinely worried that the topic is not receiving the attention it deserves. Broadband is getting column inches - even if it's not our definition of broadband. Flat-rate is getting nothing. I want to correct that, because I believe that flat-rate is absolutely essential to Ireland.

Yoda, when I said "that's unlikely to happen for a long time", I was referring to Esat offering flat-rate access on 1892/3 numbers on their unbundled local loops, not flat-rate access in general. I simply don't think Esat are thinking along those lines at the moment. That's not to say that Esat won't offer 1892/1893 access on Eircom's lines though, which is an entirely different matter.

Also, I don't think we are focussing the discussion on broadband, our members and the media are. We talk about flat-rate every day on the committee mailing list, in fact it's been the most discussed topic over the past few weeks. Fergus and myself have had several long chats about it on the phone. We've talked to ISP's about it, we've talked to the press about it. I understand that you're seeing a lot of discussion about it here, but remember - we don't hold our meetings here, we hold them on our mailing list and in private IRC meetings.

I think the rest of my message should cover your queries about priorities, but please, if it doesn't, tell me. Finally, there's no need for you to be disillushioned, in fact you shouldn't be disillusioned - this is construtive. It's helping us to prioritise, which we /have/ to do.

adam

NeilF

These are perfect reasons NOT to campaign for broadband. It is a LUXURY.

Eircom would like you to think so. Everywhere else in Europe it isn't. In case anybody has forgotten how disadvantaged we are in Ireland go and visit the Internet Usage Cost Comparison.

I searched for an always-on connection and said I would transfer 5GB a month. In the UK, France, Germany and Sweden I can get that service (at 512kb) for less than €60. The cheapest in Ireland is €583 for a service not even one tenth of the speed.

The fact remains that broadband, not FRIACO, is the future. FRIACO is a stopgap measure that should be implemented nationally and immediately while broadband is rolled out, in a quick, widespread manner. IrelandOffline's goal (summarised from the three) is unmetered, broadband access to the Internet for all in a competitive market. FRIACO is an important stepping-stone to that.

I am not saying IrelandOffline should concentrate on one or the other. I am saying that we should not accept second best in this country. Everyone in Ireland, be they in Dublin or Donegal, should be able to get broadband if they want. Broadband should be so cheap that using 56k and FRIACO would be a sign of madness!

o_donnel_abu

Originally posted by Yoda
Before I say anything else, I want to say that I feel really demoralized by the way this discussion has gone.

You shouldn't be - it is, by definition, a discussion and it is IMO contibuting to the ongoing debate that we should always be having about what exactly we are trying to achieve.

That means the services we have already are too expensive and IOFFL should acknowledge that dealing with this is its primary goal. (It is first on the list in the charter o_donnel_abu posted!)

The 3 objectives were not listed in any order of priority - as far as I was concerned they were always equal.

As already said, we have 2 broad camps in IOFFL, those who want FRIACO and those who want broadband. It's not a clear cut distinction as a home user, I belong to the first group, as a business user, I belong to the second.

Without wanting to seem repetitive, I think the two go hand in hand, it's all about good quality, affordable Internet access, neither group has an acceptable service at the moment, and the same parties are involved, so we should continue on both fronts.


Martin

Manic

It is ok to have a 56k connection that you only have to pay £20 a month for. But if you had Broadband for £45 per month and seen the difference between them both i gaurentee you you would elect for Broadband. Any buisness would + any internet user that could actually see the difference between them both IMHO would be willing to pay the difference to have it. Eircom are makeing HUGE money from buisnesses and the every day user from ISDN or so called High-Speed lines. They dont want to show you there is a much cheeper and faster alternative out there. They want us to be like a Mushroom .... keep us in the dark and feed us loads of Bull..sh1t. If IOFFL aim at the bottom of the scale they will get NOTHING! But if they Aim High... who knows what they will hit on ?

murcielago

steveconrad wrote 20-01-2002 11:22 PM

My thinking is that widely available affordable fast internet access would be a useful marketing angle, would boost PC sales and thus be in the interest of these powerful players (.......... or perhaps this has already been tried/done and I missed it).

Murcielago previously wrote on 17-01-2002 09:43 PM

...the main concern is about the needs of clients. The client potential could be increased several-fold with a friaco type environment

dahamsta

Just to come back to this posting by NeilF:

When the ODTR blocked I-Scream in September/October she said that Eircom-We-Sell-The-Phones had to allow three weeks after setting a pricing before Eircom-We-Sell-The-Internet could offer ADSL. If Esat went through all the hoops to get Eircom to offer FRIACO does that mean that they then must wait three weeks? And presumably in the intervening period several other OLOs who will have set up their FRIACO offerings so when FRIACO arrives, Esat have no first mover advantage?

I was wrong, it's not six weeks, it's 21 days. However, the legislation is not clear on whether it is 21 days, 21 working days, at least or exactly. What is clear is that it applies to both retail and wholesale products, therefore yes, Esat will have no first mover advantage. Eircom Net shouldn't either, but that's debatable.

adam