Kathryn Thomas in compromising position


We tried to save the honour and good name of Kathryn by showing the hidden right side of Eircom's newspaper ad for its latest sad and sick joke of a product.

Dear Kathryn Thomas,

we are sorry to see you in such a compromising position.
How could you?

You are giving your good body and name to promoting a product that is nothing but a cynical exercise of Eircom to further gouge and deprive Irish Internet users.
Kicking, mocking and robbing them when they are already on the ground, that's what this product is about.

This product is miss-selling something as broadband, when it is a travesty:
The important broadband feature of being "always on" is missing.

This product is frivolously expensive and on top of that nastily booby-trapped by Eircom:
€ 19.99 (and € 24.99 after the promotional time) for 40 minutes of "broadband" per day is seriously overpriced to start with.
And here comes the day-light robbery part of the product: If customers overrun the time by only 12 hours per month, or 20 minutes per day, Eircom will charge them an extra € 30 – for something that involves no extra cost for Eircom! € 49.99 for 32 hours of broadband – and nowhere in the ad is the customer made aware of this. We rang Eircom's information number and inquired about this charge and were falsely assured that the highest overall bill for a customer could be € 30.
According to EU regulations Eircom has to sell its Internet products at cost orientated prices. This product makes a mockery of that. (ComReg, pull your heads out of the sand or wherever you've buried them.)

Kathryn, if you can find the time, read your paymaster's interview with Matt Cooper on the "Last Word" and see for yourself how the Irish consumer is getting mislead and decide how much longer you want to give your good name to this crowd.

Regards

P.S.: BT Ireland has just pulled the rug from under your and Eircom's feet. Go to BT's web site and see for yourself:
With BT customers will get full, always-on 1 Mb/s broadband (with a generous 12 GB traffic allowance) for €15/month with the line rental of €25. In the first four months BT's offers the broadband free with the €25 of line rental.
Now compare that with the booby trapped, overpriced Eircom product: €24.99 for a mere 20 hours (€ 19.99 during the promotional months) on top of €25 line rental)!

M.: But isn’t the whole thing about Broadband that it is always on, that you don’t actually don’t have to clock-watch to make sure that you are not going over an allotted time in a particular month.

D.: Absolutely, and I think that’s the case for, certainly for heavy Internet users and we are also introducing a standard promotion of 29.99 for the always on Broadband. So we have very good prices on always on broadband and we believe most people should take the standard product. But this product is aimed at people who don’t use the internet that much. Who say, is it really worth my time to switch to broadband and we are saying yes, absolutely you can get up to twenty hours for this, thereafter we charge you at four cent a minute, we also cap the amount at 49 €, so...
It's not only not "always-on", but it's also not a "flat-rate". Capped at € 49.99 is a nice way of saying: Eircom will charge you an additional €30 if you happen to use the Internet for some hours more than 20 – despite the fact that these hours do not cost Eircom anything. This is a ridicoulos concept. It penalises customers for using the Internet more.

M.: So if somebody forgets to turn it actually off, they have it on, they are thinking like in the office, where they always have it on, they forget to turn it off, do they not get an enormous bill.

D.: The modem switches off automatically after 10 minutes. If the key hasn’t been pressed after 10 minutes it goes off automatically. So, there is no catch here, it’s a great product and at € 19.99 it’s as I said Matt, that we believe, is the cheapest in Europe, for 1 Mb.
It is one of the most ridiculously overpriced and booby-trapped products of this kind in Europe.

M.: How many people are able to get it though; because I can already see the text messages are flooding in, David, here on the PC in front of me. People who just can’t get broadband whenever they are wishing it.

D.: This is one of a series of initiatives we introduced. We said in December that we want to get up above the EU average in terms of number of broadband users by December 2007. And we are determined to do that.
The broadband penetration of 12.5 broadband connections per 100 inhabitants (or 500 000 connections), promised by Eircom for Dec 2007 will not bring Ireland above the envisaged EU average by then. The EU-15 had already a penetration of 10 by the end of 2004.
To even reach the miserly 12.5 goal by end 2007 we would need to see 3000 new connections each week. That will not happen with such kleptomaniac products like this one.
We also achieved our target to get broadband to every town in Ireland.
Only 60% of the Irish population live in the towns whose exchanges have so far been broadband enabled. Even of these lines some 22% fail to carry broadband to the customer.
We then said, let’s extend that to cover 90% of the country.
David McRedmond can spread this deliberate and calculated misinformation as often as he wants, it will not change the fact that currently only 60 percent of the population can get broadband. The constant mix-up of the figures 9 and 6 by David is annoying.
And then finally what we said was let’s take a look at some of our operational procedures. And we certainly understand the frustrations of some people who can’t get it. Now if you live for example in Dublin, 90% of people can get broadband in Dublin now with those new operational procedures. So the majority, the large majority of people should be able to get it. And we are determined to meet our commitment to get broadband to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. And today with today’s announcement as affordable as possible.

M.: We always get this kind of queries, like Frank in Attenry says: can David McRedmond explain, why my next door neighbours can get broadband and I can’t, how does that work technically?

D.: As I say Matt, around it used to be 78% of people in an area, in a town like Attenry where broadband is available, that could get it. We believe that with our new procedures we can get that up to 90%. There are some restrictions to the technology. Some people can live too far from the exchange, in that instance obviously, as his neighbours can get it, it’s unlikely to be that. There are some other issues around the line and the likes of those costumers they just should call Eircom, get their line retested and as I said we believe we can resolve a large proportion of those issues. Those we can’t resolve, we try to provide other services, whether it be through wireless internet or through satellite. But today is about, is really about the 400 000 dial-up users there out in the country that still have not signed up for broadband.

M.: A lot of them would actually in fairness say they would love to sign up for broadband but they could get it.

D.: They’d be able to get it Matt. 90% of them would be able to get it.
Standing on your head again, David? It is 60%. By the way that is one of the worst broadband coverages in the EU. Only Greece is worse. NI has 100% coverage.

M.: A couple of other queries coming through. This price that you’re saying, the 19.99 for the time based broadband product, the 29.99 for the always-on broadband, does that include VAT?
D.: Correct. Those are VAT’s included prices.
It is telling that the VAT question has to be asked. Since a decade consumer prices should have been given including of VAT. We had to make complaint after complaint until finally Eircom adheres to the rule.

M.: And does it come on top of rental?
D.: Yes, it does.
M.: What is rental at this stage?

D.: Rental is at 24 euro. So it comes on top of line rental. And, but even then if you combine the two, I mean, the 19.99 price is so far below the European average, for an entry level product, is 34 euro, and that’s for, sorry for a time based product its 34 euro. There is a huge differential there.
David must think we are stupid. Calling €19.99 for 20 hours of "broadband", going up to € 49.99 for 32 hours, "so far below the European average" is showing some serious brass neck syndrom. For €34 you get real, unlimited Internet all across Europe, not some Mickey-mouse 20 hours travesty of "broadband".

M.: Also one caller is suggesting that the amount of time isn’t what’s really relevant, the cost for Eircom in providing broadband is the amount of material that people try to download. So could you not work it on that basis?

D.: We certainly looked at that and I think that..., we considered that, we said with downloads it’d be easier. I think we decided that for most people, it’s easier for most consumers to understand the concept of time than to understand the concept of the amount of material downloaded. And of course for people who are expert in the Internet it might be the other way and we might consider at some stage introducing a volume based product.
This is the most outragious misinformation delivered by David McRedmond (nose growth approx 3 inches):
All of Eircom's consumer dls offers are really volume based offers. After reaching the 8 gig cap of Eircom's € 39.99 per month entry level broadband, Eircom charges penalty money for each additional Mb of 3.6 cent, which is a whopping € 36 per gig!. The cost for Eircom to provide an extra gig of bandwidth is below €1!

Eircom's non volume based real flat-rate broadband products start at a monthly €169 (plus VAT) in form of the "business enhanced" product.
But the time based product is something we can all understand and can all grasp. I think certainly for the majority of people who use the Internet for less than 20 hours to be able to get it at this price is a fantastic way to get on to broadband.
It is not. This is not broadband. Per definition broadband is an always-on service. This is a fantastic method of Eircom to gouge the poor Irish Internet novice even more.

M.: There I have to say this is the last item on the program and it’s probably getting the heaviest and largest amounts of comments coming in on our text line. You have a lot of work to do to persuade people that you are rolling this out as quickly as you can.

D.: Matt, I accept that and I think that we have made five major initiatives over the last seven months, as I say we’ve extended broadband to 90% of the country,
(Nose growth another 2 inches) 60% of the population can avail of broadband. That is a fact. Stop turning the figure "6" upside down!
We doubled the bandwidth at no extra cost,
Only the download speed was increased, the upload was left at a dismal 128 Kb – no faster than ISDN. And all this happened only after SMART announced an uncapped 2 Mbs product for a tenner in addition to the line rental (€ 35 including line rental for the first 100 000 customers).
We introduced new technology procedures, we’ve set that target for broadband usage. We are doing everything we can to make broadband available to as many people as possible as affordable as possible.
You have made young, educated and English speaking Ireland the laughing stock of the World with serioius negative consequences for the future of the country. All done for short-term profits of your shareholders. Thank you very much.

The Internet access trend over the past few years was first to move from dialup to flatrate dialup and then to always-on broadband. The new eircom offering now means consumers are back to a pay per minute charge. IrelandOffline stated that this product will do nothing but increase peoples fear using broadband instead of encouraging them. This product will confuse anyone who is unsure of what to expect from broadband, having the effect of further decreasing the take-up rate in this country.
"To charge €20 for 20 hours and then include a €2.40 an hour penalty for staying online and enjoying the benefits of broadband is scandalous. Eircom are introducing entirely artificial pricing mechanisms with this product. Unlike a phone call, it costs eircom nothing for a broadband connection to be permanently connected. This is little more than a cynical ploy by eircom to price gouge consumers new to broadband who know no better." stated Committee member Aidan Whyte.
"A 'light-user' broadband product should be based on data downloaded not time spent online, such as in the UK where BT's 'Broadband Basic' product is just as fast as BT's mainstream consumer broadband but has a 1Gb a month usage limit." he added.
"For 24/7 usage on an existing dsl product it will cost €40 a month. With the new eircom per minute product it will cost €20 to start with and with fines totaled in it will go up to €50. Additionally a user needs to then pay for the highest line rental in EU of just under €25. All these various pricing structures will needlessly confuse the consumer who simply wants broadband for a flat price but instead they are offered a pay per minute product for perpetuating eircom's revenue stream." commented Mulley.


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