UTV insight with Scott Taunton interview

tomk

Originally posted by SkepticOne
They have never made a statement on the timescales for broadband.......

Originally posted by Scott Taunton on 21 May
Tom

Not unlike ducks on water, we are working hard behind the scenes to develop a broadband offering. I would hope to be in a position to announce dates in the coming week or so.

[edit]

Scott Taunton
Managing Director
UTV Internet

I suppose it's all in the interpretation. I accept that there is no absolute commitment in Scott's post, but "the coming week or so" indicates an approximate timescale.

dahamsta

I don't think they're stringing us along either, I just think they should just be more careful about what they say. They need to remember that Boards can be a cruel mistress.

adam /makes whippy noises

Scott Taunton

Apologies for not having posted sooner. There is certainly no intent on my behalf to drag this on.

We now have agreement with carriers for the provision of broadband services. Unfortunately I am not in a position to announce the full details of our product today. I expect that by Tuesday, full details of our highly competitive offering will be available with a view to accepting orders for the service within a week of that.

Kind regards

Scott Taunton
Managing Director
UTV Internet

Dangger

Fantastico, Fantastico!

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by dahamsta
after waiting this long i just don't understand why people are so quick to jump for the first DSL provider that comes along

I'm sure it doesn't apply to everyone, but in my case I think "necessity" is a damn good reason. I can't get DSL right now, but I'll take it off the very first person to offer it to me, for /whatever/ price.

adam

Same here. I doubt that UTVip implementation will bring me any closer to getting it either. IBB wireless looks like the only hope on the horizion however faint.

PiE

Originally posted by Scott Taunton
I expect that by Tuesday, full details of our highly competitive offering will be available with a view to accepting orders for the service within a week of that.

G'wan you beauties! :]

shinzon

Originally posted by Scott Taunton
Apologies for not having posted sooner. There is certainly no intent on my behalf to drag this on.

We now have agreement with carriers for the provision of broadband services. Unfortunately I am not in a position to announce the full details of our product today. I expect that by Tuesday, full details of our highly competitive offering will be available with a view to accepting orders for the service within a week of that.

Kind regards

Scott Taunton
Managing Director
UTV Internet

By carriers i presume you mean eircom, ah well thats number 4 company i cant get it from

sigh
Shin

Lionheart

This news has come just in time for me as I was about to sign up to another ISP.

There is no doubt but that UTVip have the best customer service around and if they are competitive on price and with no download cap I will not hesistate to to sign up.

Keep up the good work Scott and please don't let next week go without making some positive announcement.

jonski

All good things come to those who wait.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by jonski
All good things come to those who wait.

Unless your line test doesn't pass...

oneweb

Hmm, sounds good

Just wondering what the contract length will be? OK, so UTV will need to make sure they make enough back from a connection, but it's not gonna be something awful like 12 months? Is it?

Anyway UTV, you deserve a lot of respect for how you value and treat your customers . I thought Ireland lost all that years ago. Keep up the good work!

tomk

Originally posted by Scott Taunton
Apologies for not having posted sooner. There is certainly no intent on my behalf to drag this on.

We now have agreement with carriers for the provision of broadband services. Unfortunately I am not in a position to announce the full details of our product today. I expect that by Tuesday, full details of our highly competitive offering will be available with a view to accepting orders for the service within a week of that.

Kind regards

Scott Taunton
Managing Director
UTV Internet

Scott, you've made my day. This is excellent news, as I was not looking forward to changing ISP. I was considering it only because I want broadband.

I can't wait for Tuesday.....!

bizmark

their still useing eircon so that means 48:1 ratio and interleaveing on does it not ? ???

netsources are offering the same as utv might be comeing out with and their product isnt setting the world on fire what makes you think utv will be any better ???? and if you say your past experance with their narrowband 56k offering then i have to say ESAT have been a great provider for me.

i dont know much about broadband services or technology and dont pretend to so correct me if im wrong but even after netsources bough more bandwith from eircon the service wasnt really great perhaps Radsl with a massive 48:1 ratio just isnt good for a uncapped service ?

but never the less i have been happy with esat for long time great support great product and a good price ...... im happy anuff giveing them my money for radsl

JTMan

They have said before that BB should be €10 to €15 more than flat rate so I bet the product will cost about €45.

I can't see them sending out engineers so I bet it will be self install only.

UTVi are good listeners and are aware of how angry people are with the cap so my guess is that it will be uncapped.

I also hope the option will be there to bundle it with their great home phone package. I have forms (STILL coming in the post) from ESAT BT for ESAT BT home phone and IOL broadband. I won't sign any forms untill I see what UTVi say on Tuesday.

Lex_Diamonds

This is great news, i'm certainly looking forward to Tuesday now.

With regard to a cap, I wouldn't mind a reasonable one, simply to avoid Netsource style suckage.

My price prediction is €45, but ill go with UTV even if its higher.

PiE

I'll go with UTV as long as it's under €60 tbh. €45 would be lovely though :]

Isn't it up to the ISP to set the contention ratio? They buy/rent the ports and decide how many people will be able to connect to it?

48:1 seems to be a bit too much for eircoms RADSL... 24:1 UTV... g'wan ;]

jonski

Lets not get our hopes up too high.These are ppl have to make money aswell,they are not a charity.As good as whats on offer atm and i'm theirs.

One thing I would ask for is don't make it too hard to switch over from the utvip contract i'm already on.

DeVore

Originally posted by PiE
I'll go with UTV as long as it's under €60 tbh. €45 would be lovely though :]

Isn't it up to the ISP to set the contention ratio? They buy/rent the ports and decide how many people will be able to connect to it?

48:1 seems to be a bit too much for eircoms RADSL... 24:1 UTV... g'wan ;]

With Radsl the contention ratio is set by Eircom (and currently set at 48:1)...

With Friaco you buy a port. It cost nearly 15,000 a year and it will support 30 virtual modems. 15000 / 30 = 500 quid a year or 40ish a month *just* for the port, any isp has to water that down. You are probably looking at 5:1 contention just to get on the service. Yes, that means we're going back to engaged tones. . I dont know what UTV are planning in the way of modem-contention to be honest with you but they were fighting the good fight when I talked to them. Pity that its a fight noone can win imho. the price forces big contention and the margins get squeezed.

DeV.

Dustaz

Originally posted by PiE


48:1 seems to be a bit too much for eircoms RADSL... 24:1 UTV... g'wan ;]

50:1 is the standard in the uk and they seem to manage allright. I wouldnt worry about contentions (especially on a capped service) untill your neighbours mother in law is using dsl.

MDR

*ray has the queen's dsl conection into his flat in belfast at 48:1 contention and downloads his linux iso's at 60kb's a second no problem*

This great argument 48:1 contention will be the death of Irish dsl doesn't sell to me at all. You never have all 48 users contenting the same connection at the same time, so arguments that involve taking out a calculator and dividing 512 / 48 / 8 to get the projected speed of the connection is nonsense ....

There is usually more backhaul available than the 512 spec'ed and their is never 48 users on at the same time ....

PiE

Ah ok, that set me straight aboot contentions. TBH I don't know how good eircom's RADSL (at 48:1) is, but going by the complaints on the BB board, it seemed like 48:1 was too much.

Maybe it's just because everyone who has signed up so far WILL be using at the same time, as it's new to everyone. So there's a good chance that ~40 of the 48 people will be online at the same time, hence slowing it down. When the novelty wears off, maybe it'll speed up a bit.

Scott Taunton

Prior to the announcement of our pricing and product specification for broadband, I thought I'd take the time to highlight some of the issues we've encountered, hopefully with a view to setting out some realism in terms of caps, contention, telephony and price. It should also give you some idea of the reason for our delay into the marketplace.

<groan>

RADSL, not unlike FRIACO, is VERY difficult to package in a competitive way. The reality is that the wholesale costs are prohibitive at best. See http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=99342 for a second opinion of that!

As an exercise, I thought that I would set out the broad parameters under which we are offered the product on a wholesale basis. The following are the approximate prices under which Esat, Via and ourselves are offered service from Eircom.

RADSL install charge (self install)

€150.00. Attributed monthly over a prudent two year period, this is €6.25 per month.

RADSL wholesale charge

€27.00. Payable monthly per user.

Backhaul of RADSL to OLO

Can be ordered via 45Mb or 2Mb pipes. The most cost effective solution is to order a 45Mb pipe, which when fully utilised at 48:1 offers 4320 users. Install is approx €16k plus €72k p.a.

Even with 90% utilisation of this pipe, and recouping the install over 24 months, this is €1.70 p.m. per user.

Modem and filters

Even wholesale, a dependable modem, two filters and delivery is around €75.00. Over 24 months, this is €3.12 pm.

Bandwidth

Without giving away our total bandwidth costs, including full redundancy, a 34Mb circuit is around €200k p.a. A user utilising 5GB of this monthly (a mere 1.92KB/s) represents around €7.56 per month in costs.

So far we're at €45.65 monthly. VAT takes this up to €55.24. Excluding the bandwidth and modem, all of this goes to Eircom.

Add to that the hardware at our end, modems, routers etc... Administration and office costs, billing, bad debt, marketing, call centre and tech support personnel all of which add a significant additional amount.

Eircom retail their RADSL product at €54.45 and Esat €49.49. We expect to be competitive in terms of price, terms and support.

I understand the concerns surrounding caps, contention etc., but the reality is that if everyone hammered the service it would not be viable.

We will reserve the right to implement caps, either on a PAYG basis or through a step down in speed. We don't expect to need to use them and do not like the thought of having to implement them. We are no different to Esat or Eircom in that regard. As broadband becomes mainstream, the likelihood of anyone implementing them is low.

Telephony helps us meet some of the costs of maintaining a service of this nature.

We really are just looking to give consumers the best deal we can in what is a very difficult marketplace.

I look forward to posting again tomorrow with full details of our offer.

</groan>

Kind regards

Scott Taunton
Managing Director
UTV Internet

shinzon

Originally posted by Scott Taunton
Prior to the announcement of our pricing and product specification for broadband, I thought I'd take the time to highlight some of the issues we've encountered, hopefully with a view to setting out some realism in terms of caps, contention, telephony and price. It should also give you some idea of the reason for our delay into the marketplace.

<groan>

RADSL, not unlike FRIACO, is VERY difficult to package in a competitive way. The reality is that the wholesale costs are prohibitive at best. See http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=99342 for a second opinion of that!

As an exercise, I thought that I would set out the broad parameters under which we are offered the product on a wholesale basis. The following are the approximate prices under which Esat, Via and ourselves are offered service from Eircom.

RADSL install charge (self install)

€150.00. Attributed monthly over a prudent two year period, this is €6.25 per month.

RADSL wholesale charge

€27.00. Payable monthly per user.

Backhaul of RADSL to OLO

Can be ordered via 45Mb or 2Mb pipes. The most cost effective solution is to order a 45Mb pipe, which when fully utilised at 48:1 offers 4320 users. Install is approx €16k plus €72k p.a.

Even with 90% utilisation of this pipe, and recouping the install over 24 months, this is €1.70 p.m. per user.

Modem and filters

Even wholesale, a dependable modem, two filters and delivery is around €75.00. Over 24 months, this is €3.12 pm.

Bandwidth

Without giving away our total bandwidth costs, including full redundancy, a 34Mb circuit is around €200k p.a. A user utilising 5GB of this monthly (a mere 1.92KB/s) represents around €7.56 per month in costs.

So far we're at €45.65 monthly. VAT takes this up to €55.24. Excluding the bandwidth and modem, all of this goes to Eircom.

Add to that the hardware at our end, modems, routers etc... Administration and office costs, billing, bad debt, marketing, call centre and tech support personnel all of which add a significant additional amount.

Eircom retail their RADSL product at €54.45 and Esat €49.49. We expect to be competitive in terms of price, terms and support.

I understand the concerns surrounding caps, contention etc., but the reality is that if everyone hammered the service it would not be viable.

We will reserve the right to implement caps, either on a PAYG basis or through a step down in speed. We don't expect to need to use them and do not like the thought of having to implement them. We are no different to Esat or Eircom in that regard. As broadband becomes mainstream, the likelihood of anyone implementing them is low.

Telephony helps us meet some of the costs of maintaining a service of this nature.

We really are just looking to give consumers the best deal we can in what is a very difficult marketplace.

I look forward to posting again tomorrow with full details of our offer.

</groan>

Kind regards

Scott Taunton
Managing Director
UTV Internet

that answers the pm anyways thx

Number 5 down the tube

Ah well

Shin

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

gandalf

Jesus Scott it looks like your having loads of fun with this

I suggest you document this ordeal and present it to Dermot Ahern to prove to him the difficulty in offering the Irish Comsumer and Small Business a choice in this captive communications market.

Gandalf.

SkepticOne

Good to see everything up front. It is a clear demonstration that Eircom on their own can't be relied upon to provide a cost-effective last mile solution.

The monthly charge alone at 27 euros is the highest in the EU.

Eircom would argue that, since they charge themselves 27 euros, it is fair. This is a rubbish argument because charging oneself has no meaning. Eircom.net or whatever the retail arm is called is simply a wholly owned subsidiary of Eircom. If they don't want to sell broadband at a reasonable price, they still make money from dial-up, ISDN and leased lines, so why undercut themselves.

54 euros pushes the product into the niche of heavy users thus forcing the issue of some sort of bandwidth limitation.

Fair play to UTV for giving us the low down on all this.

dahamsta

Thanks for posting that information Scott, very informative.

adam

The Clown Man

Nicely informative post Scott. I certainly sympathise.

And great to see consumer interaction on such a level. My hat off to a comms company that actually cares what it's (prospective) consumers are thinking. Honesty works.

Dustaz

Im getting sick of praising UTV posts tbh

Thats one of the most informative things ive read about RADSL in a while, thanks Scott.

Good luck with the service too, after reading that and other things you guys have posted on the forums UTV will probably get my business once my eircom contract is up.

JTMan

Nice post Scott ...Reading between the lines €50 min with a telephone package thrown in seems to be the backbone of tomorrow's offer.

Maybe IOFFL need to now focus their attention on getting that €27 figure reduced.

bizmark

this really shows how eircon are ripping us all off (and the need for caps) .

good going utv (but im sticking to esat)