Eircom I-Stream

icdg

http://icdg.tvfromireland.com

phaxx

This story comes with a health warning: Eircom is a company in the middle of a takeover by Tony O'Reilly and his Valentia consortium of venture capitalists. These are idely expected to engage in cost-cutting, and providing broadband is one area which may suffer heavily...

EH?
cost-cutting? The company is a flipping monopoly making fortunes from per-minute billing! (per-second, whatever)

OOooooh that's annoying.

1gb limit per month, ahahaha that's just funny.

LegacyUser

While the trial may be limited to the Southside one hopes that the commercial offering is not also limited to the Southside.
The cap would also make the service unattractive.

LegacyUser

Why are Eircom limiting the service to S Dublin? What about the rest of the country? Wonders if Esat will provide ADSL more widespread initially or will they have to do whatever Eircom does?

Would it be very expensive to update telephone exchanges to accomodate ADSL?

---

WILL D

LegacyUser

From the link icdg posted

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">The Eircom I-Stream product - available from September 2001 - will provide a 512kbps "always-on" downstream link to the internet, with 128kps upstream. It will be available to customers in the Southside of Dublin initally who are within 2km of their telephone exchange. Final details of the cost of the service have yet to be finallised by Eircom's marketing department, but will be high - a residential connection is expected to cost between £50-£70, and will have a monthly download allowence of around 1GB. Business customers will pay more, around £80-100, but will not have a limit</font>

What an utter waste of time to the home user. No-one in their right mind is going to sign up for a broadband service that capped at 1gb, is this a joke???? Just what market are they going to sell this too? Members of the monster raving loony irish broad band party?

LegacyUser

1 Gigabyte ...... My god, that is just not an option. For a months surfing the net, you could download over 100MBytes of Pictures from webpages, I mean, FOR F**K SAKE... 1GB is nothing, that is not an option .......

I myself would rather pay the extra 30quid or so for the unmetered service, but maybe that is Exactly what Eircom want people to do..... In the end, we'd all be paying nearly 100 quid for a decent service which is an absolute disgrace ...

ALSO, why the F**k are they limiting the initial service to S Dublin ??????????? WHy is it always south dublin that always gets services like this first ??? They already have Chorus Powernet, NTL and now I-Stream... while NDublin has silch, like the rest of country

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by ando:
ALSO, why the F**k are they limiting the initial service to S Dublin ??????????? WHy is it always south dublin that always gets services like this first ??? They already have Chorus Powernet, NTL and now I-Stream... while NDublin has silch, like the rest of country </font>

Why the South side of Dublin?

OK. Chorus have not yet launched in S.Dublin. They are goint to launch a wireless PowerNet service from the Three Rock mountain. This hill overlooks a variety of south dublin locations. Consumers in these locations are going to switch from heavy per minute 56K, ISDN and expensive leased lines to this new Chorus wireless service.

Eircom know that they are going to lose these customers if they don't act. They also know that eventually they are going to lose the LLU war. They would rather not sell ADSL but will do if it means retaining customers.

Imagine you are an Eircom executive. What do you do? Which exchanges do you start selling ADSL from first?

Eircom are a business. They are not Mother bleeding Theresa.

[This message has been edited by Skeptic1 (edited 13-07-2001).]

LegacyUser

hmm Skeptic1

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Eircom are a business. They are not Mother bleeding Theresa</font>

So why on earth are they (rumoured) to provide a service such as

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">residential connection is expected to cost between £50-£70, and will have a monthly download allowence of around 1GB</font>

which, everyone knows, no-one(except the really naive) is going to uptake with that kind of restriction in place?

LegacyUser

Because then they can say "we've provided broadband, but only .0001% of customers took it up, so there is no demand". And our politicians and media would be too stupid to notice. Eircom are scum.

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Longfield:
hmm Skeptic1 So why on earth are they (rumoured) to provide a service such as:

"residential connection is expected to cost between £50-£70, and will have a monthly download allowence of around 1GB"

which, everyone knows, no-one(except the really naive) is going to uptake with that kind of restriction in place?</font>

No. It is still cheaper than the other Eircom offerings. And remember, they will probably offer ADSL for £100 with no limit. This is far better than a 64K leased line and certainly better than ISDN for business users. ADSL will wipe out this sort of leased line business and they are only going to do it where they have to.

These figures are only rumors but £100 is very minimal use of a business ISDN line per month.

It does not sound good by international standards but then international standards are not available here. It is all about what is available right now in Ireland. Why should Eircom care what is available in Norway. You can't import ADSL from Norway.

dahamsta

Well said hmmm.

adam

LegacyUser

The irish consumer held to ransom yet again and there is sod all we can do about it.Well done eircom for keeping irland back in the technological stoneage hope their proud that ireland will once again become the brunt of european jokes just to line some all ready filthy rich gits pockets.

Who needs enemies with freinds like these

Stone

LegacyUser

well im for one am relieved,
i can stop worrying about adsl because its not going to happen

1)im in north dublin, which is unlikely to see adsl untill ntl roll out digital tv(competition)which will be months
2)i was slow to think about paying £50 for unlimitted let alone £60(and it probably will be) for a 1gb hell even a 3gb limit,
i will not pay that,
3)i refuse to be brain washed by taken it in the ass off eircom so long to think £100 a month is good because isdn and 56k is so expensive,

the reason only the south side, is one chorus and two thats were the trials are,

allso the fact the majority of people wanting this service are northside or very close to north side on the south side,

meaning the taget audience will be miles away from weres its happening and the market for adsl will be slow
(why would ercom release adsl on the exchanges were 80% of its leased line bussiness is)

ADSL is not an alternative to leased line, leased lines will drop in price but not much, and they will be provided over ADSL but your bog standard ADSL as hudson806
said has a 50-1 modem to user ratio.(i think freeserve has something like 25-1 but dont quote)

so im going to wait and see what ESAT does, the article just said a wholesale launch will happen the same time, thats got to be llu. and since eircom said it will work with the prices set by the odtr untill the outcome of a court battle, then thats good news.Eircom cants provided ADSL with out llu,
esat would sue their ass, thats not to say its going to be easy, but the odtr has learn for the english **** up and has set prices for everything from line rental to sace rental in exchanges.

btw Skeptic1, i hear what your saying, but im able to keep my 6 weeks bill under 50 for the net, im with ntl and im able to download 3.5 gigs on average a month,
im not saying its great, but do the math man,
are you willing to pay £50+ a month just for faster browseing, because for downloads ntl is cheaper for more.

O and the best bite is still to come, we dont know the charge per MB yet,




[This message has been edited by Gladiator (edited 13-07-2001).]

jd

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Gladiator:
ADSL but your bog standard ADSL as hudson806
said has a 50-1 modem to user ratio.(i think freeserve has something like 25-1 but dont quote)


[This message has been edited by Gladiator (edited 13-07-2001).]</font>

Thats *not* what he said. He was talking about contention ratios. In other word if (for the sake of argument) Eircom has 100 adsl users @512k then the bandwith available would be 512*100/50 = 1mgeg between the users if they used a ratio of 50/1. I don't kow what contention ratio is planned.
jd

LegacyUser

that basicaly what i said,
same thing, but abite different,

still 50 people shareing one connection

LegacyUser

Well ill tell you one thing - the adsl will catch on no matter if it has a 1gb limit or not - the average user will say 'ooooh 1gb sure isnt that a million bytes or something, oh sure thats gr8' and the other gobshítes will get it to because its a hell of a lot better than paying what we do for 56k and isdn which usually runs up around £250 a month for the heavy user.

We are being bumfúcked but they will bumfúck us for as much money as they can while they still can. I know personally i will pay the extra £30 for the business line for unlimited access which should take my bills from £150p/m to £100p/m and will get me 512/128kbps connection instead of the crap 56/36.666kbps that i have now.

It's bóllóx but its is all we have and it is a step in the right direction. Until Etain Doyle decides that a new comms company is in order to take up competition i say 'bring on the bumfúcking cause its slightly less of a bumfúcking than were getting now'.

Nuff said...

LegacyUser

no way am i paying £100 for ADSL unlimited(and it would have to be unlimited)
god only know how high the per mb charge is, you could be paying £1-£2 for every hour your downloading pass your limited, imagine the bills

But at £70 a month alot of people would have to do some serious thinking,not just heavy isdn £250per bill users.

what ever way it goes, you would have to be mad to sign up for a year before you see what esat will offer, most likely and unlimited service at the residental price

Dustaz

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Gladiator:
allso the fact the majority of people wanting this service are northside or very close to north side on the south side,

B]</font>

This type of statement amazes me. What are you talking about?

My take on the whole thing is they are Trialling the service.
They havent rolled it out yet, and no firm figures have been announced officially. Yes, the info being bandied about currently sounds pretty harsh, but wait till they look at the home users average usage over the course of the trial. It may make the rethink.

LegacyUser

im talking leased lines, im talking the centre of bussiness for the whole city, hell the hole country, the places that would see the highest level of adsl uptake, is miles away from were they launch adsl.
thats whay im saying,

And you say no offical report, well do you really believe it will be different,
probably be a whole lot worse

[This message has been edited by Gladiator (edited 13-07-2001).]

Dustaz

Its not a launch , its a trial.
Nope, i dont know what the official line will be, neither do you.
Having said that, it doesnt look good, but hey its dsl. at least its available soon, prices can only really drop.

LegacyUser

ba eircom will never tell you how it is,
they will allways fill you will crap and you will only learn the truth through boards like this

o and prices can only go down, give me a break, freeserver just upped its price from 39.99 to 49.99 and BT look about ready to do the same

LegacyUser

Don't worry about it Joe. I live in the centre of Terenure, in an estate no more than 10 years old and 'I'm sorry your cable is too weak we can't get it to you'. Eircon are a write off they've run the Telecoms infrastructure into the ground, pinning my hopes on the ODTR actually doing their job for a change (not likely they're too comfortable in their hands off position) but more likely satellite access where we can bypass both Eircon and the ODTR. Between farmers holding up our roads, bus and train drivers refusing to work, Dublin corporation penalising us trying to get to work, politicians accepting bribes left right and centre and the pretence of a Telecoms infrastructure I'm getting mightily p*****d off at this country.

LegacyUser

>> but more likely satellite access where we can bypass both Eircon and the ODTR

Yeah but for an affordable satellite option you'll still need FRIACO in place as your upstream will be over the phone. The two way satellite option is priced very high at the moment.

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Dangger:
>> but more likely satellite access where we can bypass both Eircon and the ODTR

Yeah but for an affordable satellite option you'll still need FRIACO in place as your upstream will be over the phone. The two way satellite option is priced very high at the moment.</font>

low orbit sat, thats the way to go

LegacyUser

Two way sat is expencive at the moment but hell think of it this way after you have bought the kit its going to be way cheaper up-keep wise and probably have your returns in a year or so and secondly think of all the money your going to save on roid cream from all the **** shafting eircom and co are giving us.I for one (if there was a good system availble now sat send and receive)would take it just the thought of not be forced to endure eircom anymore gives me a warm fuzzy feeling

Stone

LegacyUser

Satellite. Whenever I hear that word now, I think of the heavenly word "Tiscali". Its been mentioned here before. 2 way sat, no data limits, 550k max download, £50 per month, 3 months to launch.

Sod DSL, Chorus, Genesis. Tiscali is the way to go for me.

http://satellite.tiscali.com

--Chris--

Dustaz

are there latency issues like one way satellite?

LegacyUser

Latency issues are greater for two-way than one-way. Neither are suitable for gaming.

dahamsta

All the following is taken directly from Tiscali's website. I'm just quoting now, don't shoot the messenger..

550k max download

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Speeds will often reach 400 kbps with targeted peak-time speeds in excess of 150 kbps.</font>

£50 per month

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">We have yet to announce the pricing of TiscaliSat in each country.</font>

3 months to launch

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">TiscaliSat will be available in Italy, UK, and Germany in the Autumn 2001. Other European countries will follow with full European coverage by 2002, in the countries in which Tiscali operates.</font>

(Tiscali doesn't operate in Ireland.)

Once again, I won't be holding my breath.

adam

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Gladiator:
low orbit sat, thats the way to go</font>

I don't think the OPW is up to launching satelites yet. Even low-orbit ones.

dahamsta

Well, they could save a fortune by employing an Irish National League football player and investing in a small quantity of tinfoil (any brand-name product will suffice). To explain, it's been scientifically proven that the average National League footballer is capable of kicking a football or football-like object into any requested orbit as long as they adhere to the FAI-approved diet of chips and curry, battered Mars bars, Murphys and twenty Rothmans a day. The average player also earn substantially less than the national minimum wage and is only slightly more intelligent than a banana, so your launch mechanism is both simple and affordable. As to he satellite itself, with the Irish governments almost infinite understanding of technology, you could probably hand them a football wrapped in tinfoil and they wouldn't know the difference. Voila, problem solved for a total investment of fifty quid (including the football). NOTE: The abovementioned solution relies on the required launch having a vertical trajectory, as Irish footballers can't kick in a straight line on the ground for toffee.

adam