Smart Telecom - Eircom Dispute -- Who is to blame?

The current situation is like it's nationalised - but instead of the lines being owned by the government, they are owned by a company that will always put their own profits first.

IMHO, until the lines situation is sorted out, we'll never have proper telecoms competition here in Ireland. We'll certainly never see a reduction in the line rental cost. Why should Eircom lower the line rental charge? They own all the lines - there's no reason why they should.
 
HelloJed said:
The current situation is like it's nationalised - but instead of the lines being owned by the government, they are owned by a company that will always put their own profits first.
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Well every company has the right to make a 'fair profit'-and should seek to maximise same as much as regulation allows.

The problem I have is that the supplier of lines is competing for business with carriers-and given their monopoly on the provision of lines, there exists too much temptation to make life difficult for other carriers.

Btw, I don't really care whether ownership of lines is State owned or private, but everyone should have the right to a line, something that may be better executed by a State owned company.
 
Sorry, should have made myself clearer in my previous post. I certainly don't expect that companies should do anything than seeking fair profit, and I completely understand why Eircom would make it more difficult for other providers. They are a company, full stop.

Which makes the whole situation so ridiculous - one company in charge of all of the lines in Ireland - it's not good news for consumers.
 
HelloJed said:
Which makes the whole situation so ridiculous - one company in charge of all of the lines in Ireland - it's not good news for consumers.
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But other than the laying of separate networks/new lines (as SMART tried to do), there isn't really a way around that, is there?
 
The state of the telecommunications industry in this country is a perfect example of the mess that be made by incompetent government. You have a private company controlling all the lines in the state (built with taxpayers money). You have a regulator that despite been given a months notice by Eircom that there were problems with Smart and were going to take this action, decides to bury their heads and hope their problems go away. Broadband in this country is a expensive and the coverage area is a national disgrace. I was in France recently. Free calls, unlimited broadband and 30 tv stations for 25 Euro a month.

Having said all that Smart are in trouble because they have a poor business model. They haven't been helped by Eircom but again that is something for the regulator to sort out.
 
Sunny said:
You have a regulator that despite been given a months notice by Eircom that there were problems with Smart and were going to take this action, decides to bury their heads and hope their problems go away.
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What is it that the regulator could have done here? They regulate, not interfere in day to day business operations? You want them to make up the rules as they go along?
 
ronan_d_john said:
What is it that the regulator could have done here? They regulate, not interfere in day to day business operations? You want them to make up the rules as they go along?
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No, but surely if they know that a company that they supposedly regulate is in financial difficulty and that 40,000 people are about the lose their services, they can intervene and try to broker some deal to ensure that consumers don't lose out. They did it quickly enough once Eircom pulled the plug. Did they think Eircom were bluffing or something when they said they would do it.
 
Sunny said:
No, but surely if they know that a company that they supposedly regulate is in financial difficulty and that 40,000 people are about the lose their services, they can intervene and try to broker some deal to ensure that consumers don't lose out.
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You mean interfere in normal business practices? That's hardly the right thing to do?

Sunny said:
They did it quickly enough once Eircom pulled the plug.
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Only because the Government forced them to. And I don't agree with that either.

Sunny said:
Did they think Eircom were bluffing or something when they said they would do it.
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No, I don't thing they thought eircom were bluffing. They were, however, carrying on like a lot of Irish companies (except on a larger scale) by withholding payments for services received for as long as possible seeing if they can get away with it.
 
CCOVICH said:
But other than the laying of separate networks/new lines (as SMART tried to do), there isn't really a way around that, is there?
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Why not, they have a monopoly and it's plain to everyone that they are exploiting this with the highest fixed rental costs in Europe.

The regulator is supposed to provide a level playing field for all companies in the market. Why is it unrealistic to think Com Reg could force Eircom to unbundle.
Proper targets should be set for Eircom to unbundle and they should be fined if they don't meet them.

I'm a Smart customer and have had another look around at other providers in the light of recent problems and I'm facing an increase of at least 15-20 Euro a month for a lesser service.
 
ronan_d_john said:
You mean interfere in normal business practices? That's hardly the right thing to do?
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It is not normal business for one company to owe another nearly 4m in arrears and have it service cut off in a so called regulated industry. One of the major arguments for the regulation of crucial industries is the prevention of a market failure that will effect a large number of people. Do comreg not have any powers to try and prevent this from happening. If not, why not?
 
Sunny said:
It is not normal business for one company to owe another nearly 4m in arrears
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The arrears were €1.5m, not €4m.

And are you telling me that there are no businesses anywhere that have debts i.e. creditors of €4m, or to be more correct €2.5m?

And as I've already said, it's common practice for many Irish businesses to build up debts by not paying their creditors for as long as possible. You only have to see, on a more minor scale, the number of business people on this site who have problems with non-payment of debts for services provided.

I would say that this is very normal business.


Sunny said:
One of the major arguments for the regulation of crucial industries is the prevention of a market failure that will effect a large number of people.
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Firstly, I don't accept that telephony is a "crucial industry" as you state.

But more importantly, can you please explain how the telephony market failed as you say?

To my mind, Smart Telecom has failed, the market has not. Smart Telecom has failed because of a poor business model as I have explained above, in extreme detail.

You cannot have a regulator stepping in because of a poorly run company - that's insane.
 
Is it possible for the govt to CPO back the infrastructure and let them all (Eircom, EsatBT, UTV etc.) have an equal playing field? As long as Eircom own the copper they have the advantage. Smart's difficulties are just a symptom of a bigger problem.
 
Decani said:
Is it possible for the govt to CPO back the infrastructure and let them all (Eircom, EsatBT, UTV etc.) have an equal playing field? As long as Eircom own the copper they have the advantage. Smart's difficulties are just a symptom of a bigger problem.
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This could be possible, but more in the medium to longer term.

If the new owners, as is expected, split the company into two operating vehicles managing the network on one side, and the retail on the other, then it would be a much easier proposition for the network side to be purchased back by the government.

Letting Babcock and Brown go through the hardship of making this split would make sense. The government could then swoop in and buy the network side at market rates (not via CPO which is a land purchase vehicle only afaik).

I was about to say that this was all possible, but not likely. However, if the government does buy back the West Link Toll Bridge, then a precedent would be set.
 
Around two years ago we decided to go with Smart for our telephone calls.

Disaster.

Repeated incorrect billing,
a refusal to refund,
a promise to refund which never materialised,
hopeless, useless, robotic, lying customer support
eventually paid them off
automated demand letters signed with a facsimile signature kept coming etc etc

We went back to Eircom in the end who, for all their faults, were a zillion times better.

While I feel sympathy for their customers I feel that they are entirely to blame for the mess they are in.
 
dont quite think the word swoop comes to mind when it comes to government decisions


. The government could then swoop in and buy the network side at market rates
 
Does anyone know why Eircom wasn't split into networks and carrier service at the time of the IPO?

Anything to do with unions, who, if I have heard/read/understood correctly, were objecting to B&B buying Eircom for the reason (among others) they would split the business in this way?
 
CCOVICH said:
Does anyone know why Eircom wasn't split into networks and carrier service at the time of the IPO?
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Probably a cultural thing. Most of us grew up in the P&T generation and there was no division between the infrastructure and the services that can be run on that infrastructure. All people did back then was make phone calls (or even dial-up connections). Now that you can have broadband with one company and phone calls with another one, it makes more sense to divide the network from the services.

Regarding, problems with Smart billing services, you can bet that people will have had similar experiences with other companies. I used to have broadband and telephony with EsatBT up till about 1.5 years ago. I switched to NTL for broadband. EsatBT still charged me for broadband 4 months after it was disconnected. Only an email to Bill Murphy sorted that mess out. Then I jumped on the VOIP wagon and had the phone line disconnected. That was about 1.5 years ago. Then, last week, EsatBT sent me a letter saying that because I'd changed my billing preferences to paper (as opposed to online) they were going to start charging me €2.50. I haven't had a phone line for over 1.5 years!!

So you can bet that people have differing experiences with other service providers and you'll probably find a few threads here on AAM to illustrate that.

But to get back on topic, it's unfortunate that this issue getting shadowed by Bertiegate and Aer Lingus/Ryanair. It would have been nice to have this debated and discussed more. Everybody could win if the govt. took back the copper and everyone competed on a level ground.
 
Decani said:
Regarding, problems with Smart billing services, you can bet that people will have had similar experiences with other companies. I used to have broadband and telephony with EsatBT up till about 1.5 years ago. I switched to NTL for broadband. EsatBT still charged me for broadband 4 months after it was disconnected. Only an email to Bill Murphy sorted that mess out. .
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I too had problems with Esat BT and like you had to resort to emailing Bill Murphy to sort them out. Which he did.

At the end of my Smart experience I couldn't even get a human to talk to. Utterly useless.
 
I have used the BT sales contact form three times to ask about transferring to them from UTV but they haven't bothered to get back to me. I think I'll try elsewhere...
 
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