Lies?

donegal2003

Julian from Vodafone was on the box early this morning, yakking on about his company’s results.

While doing his best do defend the fact that the €17bn odd money down the drain in 3G license fee payments haven’t yet been written off* in their books, he left slip that Vodafone does not in fact have 3G services operating in Ireland. Or anywhere else in Europe for that matter. Contrary to what we were left to believe by all and sundry, including comreg.ie and ahem others. Which surely creates a breach of license scenario?

And how come we have a 3G tariff at vodafone.ie at all? Is this not dishonest and misleading?

While the Chinese owned www.three.com reported signing up 60,000 3G customers in Italy in the first few weeks of operations and seems to be powering ahead ever since in that state, their British operations are experiencing problems with heads reportedly rolling etc. and as for www.three.ie they haven’t even got around to creating the index.htm page for their website ! The same old tape as per DSL?

Perhaps three.com might run a few Irish "RSUs" off their Milan switch and send their advertising copy to ther Irish cousins to get the show on the road?


Donegal03

*and of course vodafone's non-write off policy has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Julian’s boss is retiring shortly [any write-off would chop the boss’s retirement bonus by perhaps €10 million+].

dahamsta

Not sure this belongs here, however...

Julian from Vodafone ... left slip that Vodafone does not in fact have 3G services operating in Ireland.

Vodafone haven't announced general availability of 3G, only that the network's been switched on and they'll be putting some business customers onto it. "Network" could mean a single mast and "customers" could mean Vodafone. Or not, but you get my point.

Contrary to what we were left to believe by all and sundry, including comreg.ie and ahem others.

I wasn't led to believe that. I very much doubt ComReg was either.

Which surely creates a breach of license scenario?

I dunno, what were the deadlines? I can't remember. Where's Muck when you need him?

And how come we have a 3G tariff at vodafone.ie at all? Is this not dishonest and misleading?

I guess so, but I doubt many people who know and care took much notice.

as for www.three.ie they haven’t even got around to creating the index.htm page for their website

The domain name three.ie doesn't appear to belong to Vodafone. Furthermore, it's unlikely Hutchison Whoampa - the operators of the "3" service in the UK - would let them use it.

adam

spongebob

Not sure this belongs here, however...

Julian from Vodafone ... left slip that Vodafone does not in fact have 3G services operating in Ireland.

Vodafone haven't announced general availability of 3G, only that the network's been switched on and they'll be putting some business customers onto it. "Network" could mean a single mast and "customers" could mean Vodafone. Or not, but you get my point.

They need not launch until December 2003 (earliest) same as Three, c.30% Pop coverage by end 2005, Voodoofone have a 'B' licence, as do Oh Poo so their coverage targets are chilled to the max. They can do that by covering Dublin/Kildare/Meath only as is now likely.

Three must appear outside of Dublin in 2004 or 2005, 53% pop coverage requirement by end 2005

Contrary to what we were left to believe by all and sundry, including comreg.ie and ahem others.

I wasn't led to believe that. I very much doubt ComReg was either.

Which surely creates a breach of license scenario?

I dunno, what were the deadlines? I can't remember. Where's Muck when you need him?

I shall pass judgement in January 2004. Unlike Comreg I got the power. Meanwhile Chill to the Max y'all

And how come we have a 3G tariff at vodafone.ie at all? Is this not dishonest and misleading?

I guess so, but I doubt many people who know and care took much notice.

I never saw a 3G tariff, Voodoofones mishandling of 3G it will be a feckin disaster anyway and we will all be chilling with 2G and Winmax/Wi-Fi for a long time, how many will bother with 144k data speeds by 2005 (or is that 43.2k like GPRS?)

as for www.three.ie they haven’t even got around to creating the index.htm page for their website

The domain name three.ie doesn't appear to belong to Vodafone. Furthermore, it's unlikely Hutchison Whoampa - the operators of the "3" service in the UK - would let them use it.

Too few characters for the IEDR, you know that Adam, tell him. Three is close to 3. as in www.3.ie


Mucky Bits Italicised

M

sceptre

Originally posted by Muck
Mucky Bits Italicised

And a new term was born:D

It's not totally irrelevant to IOFFL (Net access and lack thereof and all that) but I'll move this over to Wireless where people love talking about 3G

sceptre

Originally posted by donegal2003
*and of course vodafone's non-write off policy has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Julian’s boss is retiring shortly [any write-off would chop the boss’s retirement bonus by perhaps €10 million+].

<snort> Nothing to do with it at all, I'm sure</snort>

Ignoring my current status as a comp sys student, the accountant re-emerging in me would say that the provision should have been made for write-off almost as soon as the license payment was made. Over a few years obviously to balance the investment with potential income. Given that the license is for a limited time (at least officially to begin with) it isn't very prudent* to wait until the network is up and running before writing any of the investment down.


*please note accounting term used by me. Graduates of UL Law and Accounting in 1997 will find that funny.

donegal2003

Originally posted by dahamsta
Not sure this belongs here, however...

Surely 3G qualifies as yet another delivery platform for broadband - assuming they can get it working at all! Discussions about non-availability of wireless broadband are as relevant as wireline.

Julian from Vodafone ... left slip that Vodafone does not in fact have 3G services operating in Ireland.

Vodafone haven't announced general availability of 3G, only that the network's been switched on and they'll be putting some business customers onto it. "Network" could mean a single mast and "customers" could mean Vodafone. Or not, but you get my point.

If a company has a product advertised and priced in it's website the product is available (unless there is a note to the contrary in the same material). I'm sure if eircom announced that Ireland had DSL available on similar circumstances, you and others would be screaming and shouting about the "switched on-ness" of that product if you couldn't get it.


as for www.three.ie they haven’t even got around to creating the index.htm page for their website

The domain name three.ie doesn't appear to belong to Vodafone. Furthermore, it's unlikely Hutchison Whoampa - the operators of the "3" service in the UK - would let them use it.


Yourself and Muck aren't on the sauce tonight! ? I clearly referred to a "Chinese" company in relation to three.com - ie Hutchison Whoampa. But what does that matter?

Donegal03

donegal2003

Originally posted by sceptre
<snort> Nothing to do with it at all, I'm sure</snort>

Ignoring my current status as a comp sys student, the accountant re-emerging in me would say that the provision should have been made for write-off almost as soon as the license payment was made.

Given that you brought it up Vodafone Group wouldn't actually be writing off the "license payments". Rather they would be writing off a portion of their investment in their subsidiaries who stupidly wasted chunks of their shareholders' and lenders' money in the non asset in question.

donegal03

jesus_thats_gre

Vodafone Ireland do have a 3G or UMTS network operating. It currently overs about 30% of the population. I have physically used one of eleven Nokia 6650 UMTS handsets that are currently in this poxy country.

Regardless of money and investments, technology wise the networks need to be upgraded, for both data requirements and capacity requirements.