Key Post: smart telecom broadband

P

penang

Guest
anyone spotted any catches with the smart telecom broadband offering yet?

€35 pm for a 2mb connection with free line rental seems too good to be true.... am I missing something?


p
 
it seems this is some months down the line and they want you to sign up to their phone services now.
 
Yep - they tried that with me when I phoned them. My eircom contract is up in July which is about the same time as smart becomes available on my exchange. I told them I'd take my chances on the free line rental - only first 100,000 subscribers get free line rental.

still looks like a good deal though.

p
 
Its an Excellent Deal

but they wont tell you if you are in the first 100,000 if you contact them . Nor will they tell you if Voicemail is included.

a) I am in contract for BB until May but I believe that to be counted among the first 100,000 they must first process and validate a Direct Debit from you.

They then activate it when your exchange is upgraded.

The problem is that I am prepared to tolerate step a) but that I must cease the existing BB before they can proceed to step b) .

There has to be downtime there somewhere as they are unbundling your line and disconnecting you from all Eircom services . I can tolerate about 1 week downtime but Mrs T will go spare if the New Smart Voicemail is not up and running within 24 hours.

I'm sure they will clarify this issue in the next few weeks.
 
Re: Its an Excellent Deal

One to watch, so...

I'm also signed up (by unwary-as-to-d'inertia-clause default!) to a 12-month contract, but I'm looking forward to initiating a spectacular unilateral rescindment, this time 8 months, 3 days and 5 hours hence... :lol

Hopefully by then we won't have to pay E30 + E24.48 for what my French buddies get for E17.99 a month... :mad

Cela dit, sin scéil eile...
 
Re: Its an Excellent Deal

There is much discussion on this on boards.ie.

The main complaint seems to be the upload speed of 256k. Apparently this is too slow for gamers, VoIP conference calls and for emailing large attachments.

A rep from Smart Telecom is answering questions from members.
 
Re: Its an Excellent Deal

256k is twice the speed of most current bb offerings so anyone moaning about it is ridiculous.
a couple of years ago , i saw an eircom dbase with all the residential phone accounts in the country. at the time there were 1.6 million.
Of those 1.6 million, only a small proportion have bb.
of those, most are probably recent subscribers and probably still tied into a contract.
if smart start offering 2mb connections, so will eircom and esat.
i would say smart would be very lucky to ever get 100000 subscribers.
 
smart telecom

Is it as good as it initally sounds? If you ignore the Eur35 a month charge and just call it "Broadband Rental" all your calls are going to be individually charged - minimum charge etc, unlike say Talktime with Eircom or obviously UTV where the calls are really free. You could well end up with more than an extra Eur24.48 a month on the bill for calls - which would leave you worse off than with UTV. Does that make sense?
 
Re: smart telecom

which would leave you worse off

It's certainly possible and individuals would need to profile their phone usage and try to estimate the costs implied by the various phone/broadband packages available (easier said than done!) to see how it would work out for their individual situation but for somebody like me who hardly uses the landline for anything other than dial-up (at least prior to becoming broadband enabled recently) it could be a good deal. On the other hand, while I signed up online for Smart I haven't yet clicked on the authorisation link emailed to me because I am still wary of being sold a pup...

256k is twice the speed of most current bb offerings so anyone moaning about it is ridiculous.

At the rate things are going we'll need dedicated 2Mbps+ links purely for downloading Windows Updates from Microsoft! :\
 
Can I go BB or not ?

Smart Telecoms BB line checker tells me I cannot get their BB service in Swords as the exchange is not BB capable.
UTV tell me I CAN get BB in Swords !!
The eircom BB line tester did not work for me at all (using a Mozilla browser)
Who do I believe ?
I think its probably better to wait till all these jokers get their act together before commiting to any BB service.
 
Re: Can I go BB or not ?

I think its probably better to wait till all these jokers get their act together before commiting to any BB service.

To be fair, the main joker here is eircom.
It's they as the owner of the "last mile" who perform line checks and determine if the line is compatible, and they give inconsistent results.

You will find this sort of problem with any non-eircom BB supplier - how helpful will eircom be if they are not getting the business?
 
BB

OK....so I have BB with Eircon (on the free trial), yet according to Smart, BB is not at my exchange either!! Are smart using different lines or something?

ninsaga
 
Re: BB

Just to correct my earlier post - it's 128k upload and not 256k as I suggested.

Here's the broadband forum on boards.ie
 
Re: BB

128k is still absolutely fine for any domestic and a most small / medium business situations.
 
signed up

I've decided to sign up, been with IOL BB over 12 mths so can give them 1 mth notice. According to the website, my area should be ready March/April!

Again 128k upload is fine. Although no one is saying it, I think its people who want to host their own websites and BitTorrent users & such like that might find this a problem :)
 
Re: BB

Are smart using different lines or something?
Click to expand...

Nearly. They would appear to be using their own equipment so they need physical space in the exchange so their equipment sits beside Eircom's. When the time comes, Smart (or Eircom) will unplug the line from Eircom's equipment into Smart's. I guess it's their solution to Eircom's slow unbundling of lines.
 
Re: BB

They are also using different "backhaul" lines. They can only convert exchanges that are near fibre they have access to. The ESB MAN is one such fibre network:
 
Re: BB

I guess it's their solution to Eircom's slow unbundling of lines.

Esat BT and probably others are doing the same thing - for example Esat BT's recently launched SDSL (symmetric - same speed down and up) packages are based on local loop unbundling and having their own gear in exchanges formerly off limits to all but eircom.
 
access to exchanges

...now thats a bit of a bummer...look like I'll need to have to wait an unknown period of time to take up Smart BB.... I think though that this offer from Smart is really exciting..hopefully resulting in all other BB telco's cutting their prices..

ninsaga
 
Re: access to exchanges

Smart will not be able to offer BB until June/July at the earliest, but when you call them today they will tell you that they have received 70,000 customers already ?????..

to avail of this you also need to move yourr calls to them but they are considerably more expensive that other voice providers..

[broken link removed]

It seems like a carrott, to get new business and pay more that others in the meantime..then maybe you will have BB by the summer.. :-(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top