Cost of Broadband in other countries

SkepticOne

Originally posted by LoBo
if they are a genuine actual product, make a new thread about them in the forum. Looking at their site I couldn't even find a mention of WHERE they are based or where the offer is available. Just the title of the page "Cablesurf, Dungarvan, Co. Waterford".

If they are genuine why are they only trading in this tiny part of ireland? Also couldn't find any technical details on the site (eg the figure you mention, 256Kb)
Anyone on boards ever hear of them before?

Yes. They have been going a while. They only operate in Dungarvan because that is the extent of their cable TV infrastructure.

stormkeeper

Just been informed that Holland's net access is 5c/min daytime and 1c/min evenings weekend on dialup. This is because they're trying to get everyone on DSL. Flat-Rate Dialup has been done away with recently.

eircomtribunal

Originally posted by Kennett
Just been informed that Holland's net access is 5c/min daytime and 1c/min evenings weekend on dialup.

As in most countries in the Netherlands non subscription dial-up internet access, geared for the occasional user of email is available.

A typical offer would be one of KPN Netherlands:
KPN offer a basic 'no subscription' Internet package through the PSTN via HetNet. This service provides connection to the Internet for the price of the local call charge alone.

Call set-up charge: 0.035
Standard per minute: 0.028
Reduced per minute: 0.015
Economy per minute: 0.010

When comparing those prices with Ireland, we must not forget that - unlike here - ADSL is widely available at prices of around 30 euros a month. So even if flat rate dial-up got scrapped (where did you get that info?), nobody would end up paying more than 30 euros a month.

For example KPN?s ADSL:
Mxstream Basis 128 - 512 Kbit/s: 27.95 euros/month
Mxstream Extra 256 - 1024 Kbit/s: 33.95 euros/month

Peter

stormkeeper

Originally posted by eircomtribunal
So even if flat rate dial-up got scrapped (where did you get that info?)

I got that info from the guy I was staying with. As I have mentioned before in another post, DSL has only been out around a year, but already they have seen modems of a speed of about 1536/384 and faster within that time.

Esse

Originally posted by Lord of Terror
Sweden:

I know a guy who has that.... bastard

Even countries like Israel are way cheaper than here

I also have 10 mbit its a shame that im moving to Cork soon.. well nice in all the other ways though

TheDuke

indeed Cork is one of the best places on the world... trust me, I moved her from mainland Europe.

I heard/read some place that the Minister for Communication is going to enforce a flat rate for internet charges. At least then we will only be 5 years behind ;-))


The Duke

De Rebel

Originally posted by TheDuke
I heard/read some place that the Minister for Communication is going to enforce a flat rate for internet charges.
The Duke

Unfortunately you misheard/misread. What the minister actualy said was

Originally uttered by The Minister
Today, I am announcing that it is my intention to issue such a Policy Direction. I will be directing the Commission that the provision of flat-rate internet access or FRIACO is an absolute priority.

The Minister

Oh and about your other comment

Originally posted by TheDuke
indeed Cork is one of the best places on the world...
The Duke

Whats with this "one of the best" ........ its DE BEST. Don't mind your one of......

Oh and welcome to Cork Esse and The Duke.

TheDuke

my humblest of apologies... :rolleyes:

Cork is the THE BEST PLACE in this world... what am I saying… Universe of course…

must stop now before I get kicked out of the thread for babbling... they are a little sensitive around here about that sort of thing.

Phillip )

pepsiman

High speed and broadband prices in Norway

The prices quoted below are for monthly subscription and installation (Inst.), and includes 24% VAT, quoted in NOK, for residental customers. Customer equipment required by all providers is a network card, other equipment is included (splitter, modem etc). I found no provider offering xDSL that didn't use the incumbent operator Telenor's wholesale bitstream access offer.

Only xDSL is widely available (52% of households), but other options (such as cable internet, wireless and satellite) make high speed and broadband internet available to many of those who can't avail of xDSL. Narrowband, PSTN and ISDN, are available to almost all (Telenor policy is that when an ISDN line test fail, they fix what's needed until it doesn't fail).

Onto the prices:

The cheapest and dearest xDSL offer, by monthly subscription:
BlueCom (384/128): NOK 395 (Inst. NOK 795)
NextGenTel (4096/640): NOK 1,798 (Inst. NOK 698)

The cheapest (still the only1!) capped xDSL offer:
Telenor (704/128): NOK 349 (Inst. 0, DIY) (1gb download limit)
Exceed limit and downstream droppes to 64kbps. Additional 5gb for NOK 99 per month (unused additional download transferred to next month).

The cheapest and dearest cable internet offer:
Telenor Avidi (512/128): NOK 347 (Inst. 395)
Telenor Avidi (2048/256): NOK 1,047 (Inst. 395)

The cheapest and dearest wireless access offer:
Broadband Wireless (512/512): NOK 390 (Inst. from 2,850)
WAN (2048/2048): NOK 4,500 (Inst. NOK 3,500)

The cheapest and dearest ethernet network offer*:
Smartcall (390/128): NOK 350 (Inst. NOK 795*)
Smartcall (1120/384): NOK 795 (Inst. NOK 795*)

*: These networks are for housing co-operatives only, and they have a separate pre-installation for the estate itself. Then, a per household installation as indicated.

Hopefully useful for someone

/Thomas

eircomtribunal

Originally posted by pepsiman
High speed and broadband prices in Norway
Hopefully useful for someone
/Thomas

Thomas,

Very useful.
We've included your excellent Norway data in the "more information" pop up of our price comparison map and hope that is ok with you. We've given the prices in euro though.

Peter

petercud

....and for a hispeed connection in Yantai, Shandong Province China...I think about 512 - 128KBit/sec ....€60 setup fee and then €6 a month.....I'm using it now ....

LoBo

Worked these out for another thread, so will post here. Details are for Telstra (incumbent operator) DSL. Quite similar to ireland in that there is fairly tight download caps, though prices are about half what we are being charged..

>
Telstra's DSL has a variety of download caps and speeds to choose from: prices are as follows in €

300MB cap. 256/64 speed. €33.90 per month.
1GB cap. 512/128 speed. €43.52 per month.
3GB cap. 512/128 speed. €53.69 per month.
5GB cap. 1500/256 speed. €127.21 per month.
10GB cap. 1500/256 speed. €243.15 per month.

Eircom's cheapest offerring has a 3GB cap, 512 speed and costs €108 per month (those telstra prices include their sales tax).

Muirthile

Originally posted by Canadian
You'll love this:

DSL 128kb/s ... 16 EUR/month

I asked in a different thread a few weeks ago (when ESAT BT announced their €60/month 256k service) why ESAT couldn't offer this for €30-€40 a month, only to be laughed at - see it is possible....

eircomtribunal

Thought the Internet access pricing of a Parisien Internet Cafe was worth publishing. They had a poster in English on one of their machines, to be seen here.

There are also a few other updates on the site, one being a download of our response to the Dep of Comm's call for views on their Internet policy strategy for the next years.

Peter

Canadian

I thought before I left this country I should say thanks to IrelandOffline for all the good entertainment over the last couple years. It's certainly been interesting.

Before I came here I read on a Chorus page that I could shortly get broadband as long as I was line-of-sight to some transmitter on Three Rock Hill.

Well, two years later and I'm leaving Ireland... still connecting at 40 kb/s and being disconnected at random. Also, it looks like you guys are no closer to the first world.... I would even go so far to say that the first world is moving away from Ireland.

I'm off to Tokyo now where 8 MB/s cable access is available for 5000 YEN/month (about 40 EUR).

Memories of Ireland? Great Guinness. Ring of Kerry is lovely. Corrupt leadership who keeps its people drunk and stupid.

Good luck with your struggle-

Canucker

pork99

Corrupt leadership who keeps its people drunk and stupid.

and who will be first up against the wall come the revolution (we're having one as soon as we sober up )

MDR

Good Luck Canadian,

I wish you all the very best in the future, please take away for Ireland the impression, that the citizens are starting to stand up for themselves at last, and things are very slowily beginning to change for the better.

p.s. I still blame the people more than the politicans

MDR

Very useful.
We've included your excellent Norway data in the "more information" pop up of our price comparison map and hope that is ok with you. We've given the prices in euro though.

I did a more comprehensive Ireland V Norway document (with the help of pepsiman), you can look it up in the IOFFL Press Pack (www.irelandoffline.org). Its might prove useful ...

TheDuke

u know what really depresses me about this thread... all these guys and girls doing superb work in checking out coverage, cost, etc. for DSL... but why????

It's like that child looking into though that bakery window... or that adolescent going for a stroll in Amsterdam’s red light district... who no matter how much he looks, he can't have any of it!!!! :mad:

I’m off now for a good long sulk.

The Duke : ))

MDR

Information is the key to this thing, of course I know the grass is greener elsewhere, I am the first to get pissed off with other people unconstructively pointing out greener grass.

But we need to draw comparisions between Ireland and other countries, to show the media, politicans, industry and the people, how far we are slipping behind.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by TheDuke
It's like that child looking into though that bakery window... or that adolescent going for a stroll in Amsterdam’s red light district... who no matter how much he looks, he can't have any of it!!!! :mad:

The fact that Ireland has poor internet access is known to everybody. The important thing is to find statistics that allow people to draw conclusions as to what has gone wrong. Of course you need accurate up-to-date statistics on prices and availability elsewhere but you also need to know about government and regulatory policy in these other countries. What are they doing right that we're doing wrong.

Kenshin

I'm going to Spain tomorrow where I have 256/128 ADSL (without a cap).
They have a special offer where they'll upgrade to 512/128 for a month for free so that you can try it out.. I'll probably be doing that for Christmas

TheDuke

So I suppose we will not be seeing you any more then Have a nice life... I remember the 80's when we left because there were no jobs... now it's worse... now we don't have DSL

Happy gaming.

The Duke : ))

pork99

I remember the 80's when we left because there were no jobs... now it's worse... now we don't have DSL

give it a year or two and lack of one will lead to lack of the other :mad:

yellum

In Lessigs Blog he states:

NTT now offers 12 mbs for about $20/month. And 100 mbs (fiber) for $46/month. According to LowerMyBills.com, I can get 1.5 mbs for $50/month in San Francisco.

Wook

not sure if there is link for this page but here goes

http://www.kagan.com/cgi-bin/pkcat/bcs02_toc.html

hmmm

Uruguay (umm yes trust me)

Down/Up/Price (US$)
64/64/$35
256/64/$45
384/128/$50

no bandwidth caps.

zynaps

64/64? Like.. ISDN? Weird...

naitkris

in Sweden Bostream offer 0.5MB/s for only 28 euro a month. studying in Ireland i can't understand why broadband is not available here - it's a small country (both geographically and population wise) and should not be too hard to wire up. in lappland in the north of sweden 100 of miles from the nearest town i can get a connection for the same price as anywhere else. sweden is about 10 times the size geographically and 3 times the population and we have one of the cheapest prices in dsl and one of the highest % of people connected throughout europe.

reading through the IOFFL forums it seems that its just the laziness of eircom and their way of trying to milk as much out of the Irish public through high-dial up and, recently very high broadband charges. if this happened in sweden, the telecoms operator would be taken over by the state to put availibility of service before profits (like the way bus eireann is run providing remote services at a loss).

eircom being privatised was a big mistake i feel and if eircom was still semi-state we would all have the choice of broadband no matter whether we live in cork/dublin city or some remote little island off the coast (well maybe not but then that would be the fault of the politicians in this country who in some cases have other interests other than representing the people of this country).

pepsiman - Norway is actually quite expenisve for dsl if you convert norska kroner over to euro as it is in general, an expensive country to live in. a Norwegian friend of mine is on a 0.5MB/s connection for about 45 euro and that would be the cheapest for that speed.

pepsiman

Originally posted by naitkris
pepsiman - Norway is actually quite expenisve for dsl if you convert norska kroner over to euro

naitkris, have a look at this IrelandOffline document for comparison between Ireland and Norway (and it's all in euro )

Bear in mind that Telenor (Norway's incumbent telco) have 3,000+ telephone exchanges in operation and it does cost money to upgrade and maintain them. Which in turn give higher prices... They have upgraded 350-400 of these exchanges to ADSL now, covering around 65% of all telephone lines. Any further exchanges will be upgraded if there's enough demand for it - much like BT does in the UK.



/Thomas

naitkris

pepsiman - well pointed out about the high costs in maintenance, however how is it that my home country (Sweden) which is larger geographically than Norway can afford to roll out DSL to very remote areas for the same cost as anywhere else. Norway is so expensive, most Norwegians along the Swedish border and in Oslo actually drive over to Sweden to do all their shopping. a budget holiday to gran canaria for example is 3 times cheaper from Sweden then Norway that Norwegians drive over to the Swedish airports to avail of the cheaper prices.

what i am trying to say is that DSL and the connectivity of a country should be as high a priority as other vital infrastructure such as roads, that even if the cost is very high to deliver the service to certain areas it should be subsidised by the government. Norway is not as high-tech as Sweden or indeed Ireland in terms of multinational companies, the software industry and so on, for them oil and fishing are national priorities. Ireland should follow Sweden in terms of how DSL is set up there and take it very seriously if Ireland still wants to be seen as a good place for multinational companies to set up here, or as is the case, remain here.

pepsiman

With the risk of OT-ing too much:

Originally posted by naitkris
how is it that my home country (Sweden) which is larger geographically than Norway can afford to roll out DSL to very remote areas for the same cost as anywhere else

A couple of points spring to mind:

- Sweden have 4 million more inhabitants than Norway. More people (21 per km2) than Norway (14 per km2) means more business, but not necessarily equally more expenses; thus cheaper end product.

- The Swedish government have established incentive programmes to speed up rollout of fibre, which is not the case in Norway, and in turn coupled this rollout to consumer and business products - such as ADSL.



/Thomas

naitkris

okej nu foerstar jag - du maste vara norsk, eller hur?

highlight

Norway's not in the EU. The laws governing prices are different

zynaps

Ireland's in the eu.... and.. :P

pepsiman

Originally posted by highlight
Norway's not in the EU.

Norway's in the EEA [1], which comprises the 15 EU countries and the 3 EFTA [2] countries (Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein).

Norway must, as an EEA member, transpose EU directives into Norwegian law just like Ireland. Although with the some exeptions, especially concerning natural resources.

/P

1: EEA = European Economic Area
2: EFTA = European Free Trade Agreement

wizard_greece

Hi, I am from Greece and I am 19 y.o.
Below, I provide you with a link to OTE's site so that you can see what the cost of a 56k, 64k isdn and 128k isdn is in my country. OTE is like Eircom or Telefonica. Monopoly is the keyword when it comes to a single word description of OTE..

http://www.otenet.gr/company/english/price.htm

Take into account that we do NOT have flat rate access, nor do we have DSL.. yet.. :rolleyes:

Since none of the ISP's in Greece and especially OTE don't wanna offer us dsl access (nevertheless their dsl network is ready!), we were inspired by your effort and we decided to design our site which will prolly be www.greeceoffline.org(we hope it goes live asap)

We aim in succeeding and we re not gonna fail.
Keep up the good work guyz.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by wizard_greece
Since none of the ISP's in Greece and especially OTE don't wanna offer us dsl access (nevertheless their dsl network is ready!), we were inspired by your effort and we decided to design our site which will prolly be www.greeceoffline.org(we hope it goes live asap)

it spreads

Seriously, though, its great that people in Greece are getting together to form a similar org. Say hello to Soula for us.

eircomtribunal

Originally posted by wizard_greece
We aim in succeeding and we re not gonna fail.

Hi,

wishing you success with your campaign.

If I may give you one piece of advice: push for affordable dsl rollout rather than flatrate dial-up access. The times have changed and dsl is where the Internet is happening now. From a technical point it makes much more sense to invest in broadband than in the narrowband detour.
You should have plenty of campaign arguments form the stats available on the European Commission web sites, where unfortunately Greece always seems to be on last place.
If you need any help, we are always there for you. Just email me at info@eircomtribunal.com.
Is it really true that "our" Soula Evans is working in Greece now?

Peter

MDR

Of course FRIACO is always handy to stimulate demand for BB ....

wizard_greece

Yea it's true: she worked for BT in England, then for Eircom in Ireland and now she works for OTE.

Thank you for your support, indeed!

SkepticOne

DSL makes a lot more sense from a purely technical point of view than dial-up. Dial-up is a legacy of backward telco thinking over the last couple of generations. I regard FRIACO as simply the correct and fair way to charge ISPs for access to parts Eircom's PSTN network. This nevertheless has an impact on Eircom's view to broadband.

Hitherto, Eircom's approach to making profits off the internet was simply to get more people on line and for those already online, keep them on a bit longer [*]. In the case of off-peak use of the internet, every extra minute represents clear profit for Eircom since there is very little extra cost incurred for those extra minutes and they have to pay for the network anyway. This is the basis of the 'mouse' ads and why they keep banging on about stimulating demand.

With FRIACO, the situation changes slightly (although not completely). Eircom.net will probably introduce their own flat-rate service. If they do, then there will be no clear relationship between Eircom.net users staying on line and profits. The very heavy users will simply be a drain on their resources and it makes sense to provide them with a more efficient service. It will certainly make more sense to operate DSL as an actual business in its own right rather than a strategic and political measure.

The other option for Eircom would be to let the OLOs and ISPs run retail flat-rate and Eircom themselves would operate FRIACO as a purely wholesale service. In this case, for Eircom, the relationship between people staying online and profits remains to a certain extent because people staying online longer means more capacity has to be bought from Eircom. However, in this case, the OLOs will have the advantage of an enlarged customer base and, because they are not subject to any supposed "arms length" rules can use usage info for targetted marketing. There is a vague possibility that this may encourage them to roll out their own broadband under LLU.

In either case, the relationship between staying online and profits becomes a little less clear. I believe that once FRIACO is in place, there will be a much larger push by OLOs for a better bitstream deal from Eircom.

A campaign group might push for FRIACO if:

a) There does not seem to be any existing broadband momentum and a something needs to be done now. Broadband needs to be part of a longer sustained campaign.

b) There is some (maybe small) interest from OLOs for a FRIACO deal but it needs an extra push from a consumer group.

The campaign group might push for purely broadband if, for example:

a) There is a substantial Government push for broadband but, for example, it is aimed at the wrong sector or caters to vested interests.

b) There are reasons to believe that flat rate is just not feasible and pushing for it is futile.

These are just examples to illustrate the need to be flexible and understand the unique circumstances in the country.

Part of the reason, I think, that IO emphasised flat-rate, at least initially, was because a large proportion of the membership were on off peak flat-rate but were kicked off. They would have gladly switched to another company but without FRIACO, no other company existed providing a similar service.

Anyway, good luck to GreeceOffline in whatever course of action it chooses to take.

[*] also, taking advantage of ignorance of broadband to rebrand ISDN as "hi-speed" and marketing it in a similar way to genuine broadband products in other countries.

eircomtribunal

Originally posted by SkepticOne

The campaign group might push for purely broadband if, for example:

a) There is a substantial Government push for broadband but, for example, it is aimed at the wrong sector or caters to vested interests.

b) There are reasons to believe that flat rate is just not feasible and pushing for it is futile.

c) They look at a calendar and read: Year 2003

d) They look around and see that dsl is rapidly being rolled out at prices of 25 to 45 euros a month from Spain to Finland. Why should they fight for narrowband access at the same pricing level (let us not forget that with dial-up flatrate the line rental price needs to be added to the flat-rate package price)?

Peter

PS.: I am not interested in any old flat-rate dial-up versus dsl confrontation.
There are some valid arguments for FRIACO as a temporary measure.
It needs to be slapped on the incumbent at a very low price: as an "encouragement" for dsl roll-out and for the benefit of those customers who are not in a dsl enabled area.
But otherwise, the times the're changin'.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by eircomtribunal
d) They look around and see that dsl is rapidly being rolled out at prices of 25 to 45 euros a month from Spain to Finland. Why should they fight for narrowband access at the same pricing level (let us not forget that with dial-up flatrate the line rental price needs to be added to the flat-rate package price)?

Why, because you can't import dsl from these countries. Someone paying a fortune in metered bills might not care about what is going on in these other countries. Same might be true for someone who doesn't bother much with the internet due to the annoyance of clock watching.

For example, if I felt there was a chance that we'd be getting widespread dsl for 25 euros over the next few months, then I would agree that the case for flat-rate in Ireland would be very much reduced, even if it did not go away entirely.

BTW, I fully accept the argument that DSL is a more modern way of accessing the Internet. I think it might be a shame, though, if Greece lost out on flat-rate for what might be uncertain prospects for affordable broadband simply because no one was there making the argument.

Beëlzebooze

Just as a comparison to Eircom's DSL offering, here is a website from a Dutch ISP, XS4ALL, they where one of the first ISP in holland to provide punters with net access.

The ooferings can be seen on the following web page:

http://www.xs4all.nl/adsl/index.html

Although it is in dutch, these prices are INC. of VAT, as dutch legislation forbids consumer prices to be quoted excusive of VAT.

The power dsl is quite nice, and I would consider a 150Gb cap, as good as no cap at all. the dl speed is 2-8mbits per second.

price? 119 euro's per month



SHAME ON YOU EIRCOM, SHAME ON YOU!

Ardmore

Originally posted by Beëlzebooze
Just as a comparison to Eircom's DSL offering, here is a website from a Dutch ISP, XS4ALL, they where one of the first ISP in holland to provide punters with net access.
...
The power dsl is quite nice, and I would consider a 150Gb cap, as good as no cap at all. the dl speed is 2-8mbits per second.
price? 119 euro's per month
SHAME ON YOU EIRCOM, SHAME ON YOU!

It should be borne in mind that, despite the government investing billions in getting transatlantic fibre to pass through Ireland, actual bandwidth into Ireland is still expensive, especially compared to what it costs in London, or in Amsterdam. As only a small proption of Irish Internet usage is "in country", most of it has to travel over still expensive links to the UK, the US or Europe. A far greater proportion of UK traffic stays within the UK, simply because there is more content there.

Eircom are robbing us blind in many ways, but they can't give you bandwidth for less than it costs them.

Sovjohn

Hello there,

thanks for all the input about GOFFL

My latest 2 threads are here, feel free to contribute:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=78484

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=78486

John

Founder/Administrator
GreeceOffline

Ardmore

Originally posted by Ardmore
Eircom are robbing us blind in many ways, but they can't give you bandwidth for less than it costs them.

I should clarify, of course, that it doesn't cost them anything like 3.7c/megabyte. It wouldn't surprise me if it was more like 3.7c/gig!

stormkeeper

http://www.dejazzd.com/access/home/dsl.php

Nice prices for DSL, well, all things considered.

Bronze: 500 Kbps/128 Kbps = $38.95
Silver: 768 Kbps/128 Kbps = $58.95
Gold: 1.5 Mbps/256 Kbps = $88.95

*Had to edit them a bit to make them look easier to read

Deu

What has this got to do with adsl in Ireland?
I checked the site hoping it was someone offering affordable adsl but no mention of Ireland!!!!!


Deu