SNL Coverage in The Reg

dahamsta

The Register has published an article about the Esat SNL debacle:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/18656.html

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Click-and-nowt disease travels to Ireland

Nearly 3,000 Net users in Ireland have been kicked off the Esat NoLimits service for "excessive use" in an exact mirror of what happened in the UK last year.

We have had around 50 emails from very angry Reg readers in Ireland, many of who claim they were given no warning that they were about to be kicked off. Others have received a letter that states: "Having analysed our customer usage pattern of our IOL NoLimits service, it has come to our attention that some of our customers are using this service excessively. This over-usage puts considerable pressure on service capacity and affects overall quality of the service for all of our IOL No Limits customers."

The letter then informs the receiver that they are one of these over-users and their Internet access will be cut off from the end of next month. It does offer customers the chance to move to a premium-rate service called IOL Gold (and a special discount if people switch before the end of June), which it claims will work out cheaper than free products if you are a heavy Internet user.

The No Limits service cost £30 a month and offered users Internet access from 6pm to 8 am on weekdays and for the whole weekend. The Gold service normally costs £120 a month - not cheap. Esat Fusion said it plans cut off 2,600 users at the end of the month. However, following heavy criticism, the ISP has partially reconsidered and promised not to cut off users (yet) that are on the Internet for 75 hours or less a month - about two-and-a-half hours a day.

It was also keen to point the finger at the Irish equivalent of BT, Eircom, for refusing to cut line charges, thus making the No Limits package unprofitable.

This is almost an exact re-run of last year's "unlimited access" debacle in the UK. The fault lies 50:50 between ISP and phone network owner. BT/Eircom are not renowned for their generosity and will charge the maximum they can get away with (being a monopolist has its advantages).

And in another re-run of the UK situation, Eircom is foot-dragging with the rollout of broadband connections and the regulator, ODTR (Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation), is giving it too easy a time. It has also seen its share price suffer in the last year or so.

Equally ISPs have leapt into offering unlimited access with too little thought. The golden dream of huge customer bases, fuelled by frenzied competition, has made many an ISP lose its head. And when it starts costing too much money, they have no choice but to cut off users and pretend it's the customers' fault.

In case you hadn't worked it out, the one person that loses here is the customer - the person who was willing to pay a lump sum each month for access to the Internet.

What's that phrase about being condemned to repeat mistakes? ®
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dahamsta

I sent a followup to Kieren McCarthy, in the hope of getting a little more coverage, since it has to be said that the only thing keeping Eircom from giving a toss about the public is a lack of negative press coverage. The last paragraph should of course read "I'm inclined to go for the former". Hey, I'm no journalist, cut me some slack, huh?

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In a follow-up to my email yesterday about being booted from the IOL NoLimits service, I though I'd let you know that the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR - <www.odtr.ie> ) - Ireland's equivalent of Oftel, but without a tool at the helm - announced pricing for Local Loop Unbundling yesterday.

Ireland is now four months behind in complying with the European directive on Local Loop Unbundling. Eircom circumvented the directive by making a ludicrous Reference Offer on December 31, with prices that were multiples - 10x - of European averages. The Regulator, Etain Doyle, has been fannying about with them ever since, but finally pulled her Docs on last month and told them that they needed to get a revised offer in by the end of April. Eircom didn't, and Etain Doyle did, setting prices at about the European average.

The new pricing appears to be better than UK pricing, which has some spectators like myself worried that Eircom will try and come back with a higher offer, and, failing that, try and drag the ODTR through the courts. To come back to the original story about Esat though, it has to be said that the Esat marketing team have either made an enormous blunder; or they know something we don't. I'm inclined to go for the latter. And there's a lot of braying for the head of "Andrew Conlan-Trant" that would suggest I'm not the only one.

The ODTR Decision Notice on Local Loop Unbundling
(Word Document)

http://www.odtr.ie/docs/odtr0127.doc

Cheers,
adam


PS. I/We appreciate your coverage today, thank you.
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Lex_Diamonds

Well, there is something majorly wrong with that article. It sais IOL Gold cost £120 per month!! WTF?! Its PER YEAR!!!

Reduced rate number plus £120 a year is cheaper. At least for me.

Joe22

Lex_Diamonds if iol gold was cheaper for you, you would be getting cut off,
now the article missed afew point, like its £20 not £30, but the 120 is right, for the averages user is looking at 120 a month instead of 20

Lenny

ahh give up yer ****in moanin
at least we got some mention

Joe22

no to happy about this being all over an english web site, but it is about ****ing time the world woke up to the fact irelands in the dark ages

Bard

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Joe22:
no to happy about this being all over an english web site
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What the f**k does the nationality of the web site matter? It's a newsworthy story, and the Register is a well known tech news gathering site.

Joe22

my point is place like this www.electricnews.net an irish website took ****ing ages to say something about this, while that english one didnt, thats all im getting at

Leverz

So how much better would you feel about it, if an Irish site reported the news first?

**scratches head**

jmcc

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Joe22:
my point is place like this www.electricnews.net an irish website took ****ing ages to say something about this, while that english one didnt, thats all im getting at</font>

Electricnews is a press release recycling website. It rarely runs any controversial story because it is not run by technologists who can stand over their stories.

As regards an Irish site running the news, I had it on HackWatch [1] but I had to go through about seven edits to remove references to fscking idiots in Esat management, the scum in eircon, and the suggestion of a blood sacrfice from Esat of that luser Conlon-Trant's head on a plate (logically based on the fact that since he does not appear to use it, he would not miss it!)

Arguably the scum in Eircom are ultimately responsible but Esat got the figures wrong. That snide phrase 'spirit of the service' may sound nice to the marketing droids in Esat but it is a phrase that will be used to hang them. This is public relations disaster of massive proportions and Esat is currently trying to spin it to put *all* the blame on Eircom.

The company I work for (NSA) is currently deciding which vendor to use for a 512K internet connection. This move has shaken the company's confidence in Esat as being a properly run organisation. Some postings on ie.comp have stated that other companies are reconsidering dealing with Esat as well.

Regards...jmcc
[1] Headline: Esat Screws SurfNoLimits Users
http://www.hackwatch.com/