Friaco pricing.

Dangger · 08-01-2003 11:35am #1

Speaking to siliconrepublic.com, spokesperson for Esat BT, Una McGirr said: “It’s been a long hard road to get to this point, but we’re very pleased. We feel that the news really pushes the game forward substantially and we’re optimistic and looking forward to our discussions with Eircom to get to the point we need to be, price-wise.

Earlier, spokesman for lobby group IrelandOffline, David Long said that it would be a ‘hollow victory’ for them if the monthly flat rate for unlimited access was more than €35 per month: “ I see no value in this if it’s not less than this,” he said.
McGirr concurred, saying that the ideal bracket for the retail end consumer service would have to be €25-€35. “Otherwise consumers won’t buy it,” she said.

McGirr added that Esat BT would begin meetings with Eircom this week to agree processes and terms and conditions. She continued that it would be Esat BT’s understanding that ComReg would see how these discussions go but that ultimately the regulator will set the prices.

Industry sources said that as a result of today’s ruling Eircom may have to cut its broadband pricing to deal with the introduction of flat-rate internet access (FRIACO): “It will be hard for Eircom to dodge this bullet. Short of taking legal action it will have to bend and do it,” said the source.

Broadband pricing will have to improve with the the introduction of friaco. The next few weeks are going to be interesting (how long have I been saying that for now!

)

Interesting to see Esat's continued statements regarding the price they hope to release it for, and how fast the process is moving with meetings to be held this week apparently.

I'm sure we'll see/hear some statement from Eircom shortly, the silience has surely been to allow their legal team to get the electron microscope out.

LFCFan · 08-01-2003 11:43am

if FRIACO becomes a reality at a price we like then €ircon will be forced to lower their ADSL prices as dialup and ISDN won't be as lucrative for them anymore.

scojones · 08-01-2003 11:49am

can you say "progress"?

JohnK · 08-01-2003 11:50am

sounds like good news all round then

MDR · 08-01-2003 11:52am

good news,

but me thinks long term we will still be nashing our teeth until someone buys out Eircom and gives the company some new business sense.

BoneCollector · 08-01-2003 11:53am

Yes!

as i said in a previous post...
once fraico is a reality it will force prices down in adsl, as well as the fact that

150 hrs at 56k is the same as adsl 3gig cap
the only difference is speed
and i for one will not pay 5 times the price to get 150 hrs worth of time faster!

De Rebel · 08-01-2003 11:54am

Originally posted by sjones
can you say "progress"?

haha, can Eircom spell "progress"

BoneCollector · 08-01-2003 11:57am

haha, can Eircom spell "progress"

G.A.M.E O.V.E.R.

Snaga · 08-01-2003 12:13pm

heh, whats the bets that €25 -> €35 will equal €34.99

Meh · 08-01-2003 12:26pm

Originally posted by Snaga
heh, whats the bets that €25 -> €35 will equal €34.99

I bet that'll be €34.99 ex VAT, too.

Tazz T · 08-01-2003 12:26pm

I can't see eircom letting it go retail for under €35 without a drawn out fight and whatever price esat/utv have to sell it for, eircom will still have the advantage of selling it lower because they will have set the wholesale price.

But if eircom sell for €30 and UTV have to sell for €35, I know where I'm going and it's not eircom. This is payback time. Even if it costs more :rolleyes:

Corko · 08-01-2003 12:39pm

I think that Eircom's rivals may sell internet at cost for market share in the telephony side of things.

Tazz T · 08-01-2003 12:47pm

That would be excellent. Like real competition in Irish telecommunications.:)

ando · 08-01-2003 1:45pm

Originally posted by MDR
gives the company some new business sense.

To be honest if I was philip nolan I'd be trying to keep the meetings dragged out as long as possable iswell. The long delays and the whole delay in flat rate introduction is perfect business sence to eircom

DC · 08-01-2003 1:55pm

That bit about FRIACO forcing down the price of Broadband sounds promising and makes sense to me. Hopefully I will only have to pay €270+VAT per quarter (with Esat) till the middle of the year. When FRIACO comes in, surely the price will have to drop to at most €180+VAT per quarter (for 512kbps ADSL). Otherwise a lot of people will be dropping BB in favour of the cheaper 56kbps (or maybe 64kbps ISDN).

crawler · 08-01-2003 2:57pm

Hmmmm....Couple of things here...

Firstly - the WHOLESALE cost of FRIACO is what we should be worried about. OLO's have to be able to offer the product and develop the systems to support it at a profit if it is to fly. If the wholesale cost is €30.00 per month then realistically you would be looking at a cost to the end user of at least €35+ per month.

Secondly - we should never compare FRIACO to broadband they are in no way or shape similar animals - FRIACO is a pricing model for Dial-up , nothing else.

What scares eircom is not just the cost of providing the service but the fact that tying up the phone line for long periods fo time reduces the possible income they will make on phone charges , in particular during the Business day.

While all developments on FRIACO are extremely welcome FRIACO at a price in excess of €35 is not good - ntl offer 512k BB for the same price , actually €30.00 if you take DTV , even though this is a tiny tiny part of Dublin.

The best posible thing about FRIACO is that is will encourage people to migrate to BB......one will force the price of the other but not at any cost.

Does anyone agree with this or am I talking brown stuff?

ozt9vdujny3srf · 08-01-2003 3:08pm

does FRIACO include peak times?

Will it be possible for me to leave my connection running 24/7

LFCFan · 08-01-2003 3:10pm

Originally posted by TruckledUncivil
does FRIACO include peak times?

Will it be possible for me to leave my connection running 24/7

That's the whole idea of FRIACO. 24/7 Internet access for a set monthly fee.

BoneCollector · 08-01-2003 3:14pm

What scares eircom is not just the cost of providing the service but the fact that tying up the phone line for long periods fo time reduces the possible income they will make on phone charges , in particular during the Business day.

This is what there scared of but in reality it wont happen.
1stly a good population of the island work during the day so for them it will still be an off peak service.

2nd any one that uses it during the day will probably still limited to the 150 hrs allocation which is reasonable for 24hr access.

and sure what are the possibility that everyone will be on the internet all at the same time, especialy during business hours. You could always implement a timeout limit of 5 mins or something..
that is to say if your not downloading you are cut off in 5 mins, cus your either away from the pc or your reading an article or a page. this also increases the amount of time you have and can get use out of your 150hrs for doing real work like downloading pages websites or data.
there are plenty of ways to give users what they want and still not tie up the network.
But it will be a god send for the likes of the unemployed if they can afford it, cus its more likely they will gain employment through email than post or any other form of communication these days.

scojones · 08-01-2003 4:30pm

Knowing our luck we'll get it for €45. And something like what happend with nolimits will happen. The service will be too hard to connect to (busy dialtone constantly). And when we do connect it will be at a slow rate. And they'll disconnect us every hour!@# Sorry for my mood but i have the flu

De Rebel · 08-01-2003 4:36pm

Originally posted by crawler
Does anyone agree with this or am I talking brown stuff?

By and large I would agree, Fraico and Broadband are 2 different things. However, the point DC makes is valid:

If flat rate were available at say Eur30 and if it was enabled on 64k ISDN, and if the alternative was Broadband DSL at current Eircom prices, then I would probably stick with 64K ISDN FRAICO, for 2 reasons
(1) I'd like to keep my ISDN for other purposes, and having an extra line just for DSL wouldn't work at those prices.
(2) While DSL should give much better performance, for most of my requirements, 64K would be adequate. And if the occasional 500Mb download has to run for 24 hours, so what.

One of two things will happen: either they will manage to get a high wholesale price for FRAICO, which will enable them to maintain the rest of the current price model. Or the wholesale price will be in the Eur18-28 region which will have a knock on effect on the DSL prices.

Three questions -

Have we any reason, based in fact, to believe that FRAICO will apply to 64K ISDN, as well as 56K ? I asked this elsewhere and didn't get any answer.
If yes to Q1, how will 128K ISDN be priced?
What is the norm internationally regarding extent of FRAICO - 56K, 64K, 128K?

Dangger · 08-01-2003 5:07pm

The whole idea of true flat rate is that there is no such thing as on peak and off peak any more. Over use and abuse (such as just leaving a computer conected all day on dial up) will have to be handled by the terms and conditions of the product determined by the Internet Service Provider.

So flat rate does away with metered (per minute) billing which was desiged for voice calls. Eircom on the other hand noting that Internet calls last longer than most voice calls have fought to keep metered billing in to screw the user.

Flat rate or unmetered billing is what the Internet is all about (for the rest of the world

), IP is all about connectionless orientated networks and PSTN is all about connection orientated networks. Different ideas, different billing, we've been forced to wear the metered hat.

STaN · 08-01-2003 5:28pm

just bundel 10 isdn lines and your flying

crawler · 08-01-2003 5:42pm

LFCFan....You can run 24/7 if you use the correct keep-alives to the network.....they will impose caps though.....to stop people doing this.

LFCFan · 08-01-2003 5:54pm

Originally posted by crawler
LFCFan....You can run 24/7 if you use the correct keep-alives to the network.....they will impose caps though.....to stop people doing this.

Not being rude or anything but why are you telling me this? Did I imply somewhere that you can't stay connected 24/7? The auld memory's taking the piss these days!

Serbian · 08-01-2003 6:33pm

Many concerns have been expressed over the price of FRIACO. The following sentence appeared in the article:

She [Una McGirr, spokesperson for ESAT] continued that it would be Esat BT’s understanding that ComReg would see how these discussions go but that ultimately the regulator will set the prices.

So it's down to ComReg to set the wholesale price and not Eircom. Assuming ComReg had some input on the price of Eircom's ADSL wholesale rate (roughly €40?), we are surely guaranteed a price lower than that. I personally recon we will see FRIACO at about €30 at retail level.

As for affecting the price of ADSL, I wouldn't be so sure that Eircom will be forced to lower the price of ADSL, as they have always marketed it as a business product and never as a home product. I can see them pushing this as the thing to have if you are a home user.

Hopefully I am completely wrong though

Dangger · 08-01-2003 6:43pm

Serbian is of course right. I noticed that very point earlier and put it up in a note here on the IrelandOffline site.

Yes it appears that ComReg will be setting the price. But I'm sure that it will be based on the costings provided by Eircom, on their "Roll's Royce" network.

Costings provided provided by Eircom have always been questionable. But correct me if I am wrong here someone please, is the LRIC model an attempt to validate the *actual* costs?

PiE · 08-01-2003 7:40pm

If Comreg and the DCMNR are serious about getting Ireland up there with the rest of Europe, they should be considering the lowest possible wholesale price for FRIACO, lower than the rest of Europe. It's the only way we're ever going to catch up.

Esat said "ComReg would see how these discussions go but that ultimately the regulator will set the prices", so they're obviously expecting that Eircom won't offer a fair wholesale price.

Can't ComReg force a new wholesale DSL price on Eircom too?

Tellox · 08-01-2003 7:57pm

This can be very good news.
If we get a flat rate product early march,it could be €30 a month, and that would force DSL caps to go up (from say 4gb to 10gb/nothing), and prices to go down... If its €40 a month with a 2hr dc, then not too many would take interest, and it wouldnt lower DSL prices and higher the caps as much as the first product would...

either way,it is good news

BuffyBot · 08-01-2003 8:04pm

Originally posted by TruckledUncivil
does FRIACO include peak times?

Will it be possible for me to leave my connection running 24/7

Not nessecarily. The ISP's (like many in the UK) may impose cut-off's where it you have to disconnect and re-connect. This is to stop people from clogging up the networks in this manner.

BoneCollector · 08-01-2003 8:35pm

I personally recon we will see FRIACO at about €30 at retail level.

Look at it this way..
the only difference between the current offering and Friaco is that you can dialup any time of day or night for the same monthly fee and its not just off peak.

So realisticaly it should be no more costly that the current offerings because the only difference is you have access to the same benifits peak times as well as off peak.

the off peak packages are simply restrictive! on errcoms part.
and unless the people in comreg are not savy they should also be aware that a price of €30 or less retail inc VAT is! the golden price point.

Friaco pricing.

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