When is a free broadband trial not free ?

I was all set to migrate to UTVs clicksilver package when I decided to check with their support about the mechanics of the move and found out the following :

1) the free 3 month trial offer (and most others as far as I can tell) only applies if you have never had DSL enabled on the line. In fairness this is in the T&C but this is a pretty basic gotcha which deserves to be highlighted a little earlier in the process than at final signing-up stage
2) to migrate from eircom you need to cancel your existing provision with them, get a cancelation number, send that on to UTV with your application and then wait maybe 20 days for them to provision your new DSL service - not entirely seamless. This process (according to their support people) isn't in the documentation so I guess people probably only find this out after they have signed up.

The end result of this is that it is now not worth while migrating because the monthly savings will be negated for a long time by the €99 setup charge and the inconvenience of having to go through the downtime problem.

Has anyone gone through this (moving from an existing DSL provider) and found it to be easier than I imagine ?

z

zag said:

1) the free 3 month trial offer (and most others as far as I can tell) only applies if you have never had DSL enabled on the line.

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Yes - this applies to all ADSL packages and is supposed to be due to the way in which the Government grant aids companies for signing up first time users of ADSL. I've heard anecdotal reports of people managing to sign up for more than one ADSL free trial even if this is not suppposed to be possible.

2) to migrate from eircom you need to cancel your existing provision with them, get a cancelation number, send that on to UTV with your application and then wait maybe 20 days for them to provision your new DSL service - not entirely seamless. This process (according to their support people) isn't in the documentation so I guess people probably only find this out after they have signed up.

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Do you mean to migrate from an existing eircom internet package? I didn't have to go through this rigmarole. I just signed up online and the ADSL router eventually arrived and I installed it myself and was up and running. This was at home. In work I signed up for the eircom Business Broadband Starter packed no hassle and had it terminated once we got our more permanent (non ADSL) link in.

The end result of this is that it is now not worth while migrating because the monthly savings will be negated for a long time by the €99 setup charge and the inconvenience of having to go through the downtime problem.

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Is this cost comparison of any use?

I went through it when Eircom in their wisdom decided themselves that they would order boradband for me, when I had ordered it from Esat/BT. This then meant that I had to cancel the order I never made with Eircom and get the cancellation number for Esat. The whole process took three months.

clubman - yes, I mean when migrating from eircoms Home Starter or whatever it is branded as at the moment. In other words I have DSL at home costing me €35 a month or something like that. I can save by migrating to a package at €30 a month, but it will cost me €99 for the setup (possibly understandable, but it will take a long time to repay itself) and I may be offline for a few weeks while they go through the de-commission re-commission procedure which can be achieved in a matter or minutes/hours.

Dearg Doom - I was that close to signing up on the basis that it was good value all-round when I started to think about how they would handle the migration. Little did I think it would take that long.

z