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

H

hmmm

Registered User
Messages
128
Re: Has Smart Telecom gone down?

Another miserable failure by Comreg. Firstly they should have forced through phone number portability rather than allowing Eircom to stall the process thereby stifling Smart, and any sensible regulator would have ensured that in the event of a regulated telecom failing (any telecom) that provision would be made to prevent customers having their service interrupted.
 
Re: Has Smart Telecom gone down?

Well said Hmmm! I hope you don't mind, I've incorporated your comments into a complaint to ComReg. I doubt they'll listen though, but I'm so frustrated with their favourable treatment to Eircom that I had to do something.

Excellent article:
[broken link removed]

I'm sure I'll be cut off soon but I refuse to switch providers until I absolutely have to. I'm sure some of the blame lies with Smart's business practices, but the Eircom/ComReg love-in definitely has something to do with it.
 
Re: Has Smart Telecom gone down?

Its only wholesale customers with eircom that are affected, smart customers using smart equip in the exchanges are not affected.

Can't just blame Comreg, Smart business model was doomed to failure - they couldn't possibly afford to keep taking the hit on 100,000 customers not paying line rental. My guess is the mentality of Smarts directors was they were hoping to be bought out by some big multinational or american company with money to burn before they got into this much trouble.

I wonder how much money Smart wasted trying to take RTE to court for not getting the weather forcast sponsorship when they must have known they were already in financial difficulty!
 
Re: Has Smart Telecom gone down?

This is more than a debt situation, this puts Eircom in a very strong negotiating position re the 3g licence....they have Smart over a barrel and one over the regulator should Smart win the 3g licence!
 
Re: Has Smart Telecom gone down?

HelloJed said:
but the Eircom/ComReg love-in definitely has something to do with it.
Click to expand...

dieter1 said:
My outgoing and ingoing were working this morning at 8am. I completely agree with the above poster. The blame ultimately lies with Comreg
Click to expand...

Can HelloJed and dieter1 please explain how ComReg is responsible for the problems with Smart Telecom?

And please don't start mentioning the blocking of local loops and all that. Smart Telecom at the moment have access to circa 600,000 home residential customers I believe, for both telephone and broadband packages.

Out of that potential customer base, they've signed up something like 40,000 phone customers and 17,000 broadband customers. This is 6% and 2% of their potential customers.

They've spent an absolute fortune on advertising, yet still haven't managed to penetrate their potential market any more than that. Having a bigger available customer base (had Eircom been more accommodating) wouldn't therefore mean they'd have been any more successful in attracting customers.

Does anyone actually know what the ISAF Nations Cup is that was sponsored by Smart?

Smart didn't spend their money wisely, bottom line. They hired over-paid former Eircom executives that Eircom doesn't even want back (I wonder how good they actually were in the first place then) and they spent a fortune hiring a door-to-door sales team which defies logic given the kind of product they were selling. The also sold something they were paying Eircom money for (line rental) to their own customers for nothing - not a very sound business policy. And they overextended themselves on their marketing expenses.

I can't see any of this being the fault of ComReg, or even Eircom at that.

Poor management!
 
Re: Has Smart Telecom gone down?

bazermc said:
Eircoms new owners Babcock & Brown are taking this debt of €4m a lot more seriously then the previous managment in Eircom. It is quite likely that Smart will not survive till the end of the year, be warned.
Click to expand...

4m of debt for line rental on their own lines is but pocket money, sure its not even a real debt to Eircom as its only on rental of tehir lines, somehting easily struck off as bad debt in a bigger pic.

There is a much bigger picture here in that Smart may end up with something eircom want and Eircom currently have Smart by the Goolies commercially

Will be well worth watching this one over the next while.
 
Re: Has Smart Telecom gone down?

monkeyboy said:
There is a much bigger picture here in that Smart may end up with something eircom want and Eircom currently have Smart by the Goolies commercially
Click to expand...

Quite possibly, but it's unlikely that Smart Telecom are going to get that 3G licence. At the time, their Finance Director (I think) as good as admitted that the bonds, allegedly provided through a Chinese company, that they said they had weren't all they were cracked up to be because technically they were guaranteed by Smart rather than the Chinese, therefore breaking the terms of the ComReg contract for the licence.

Additionally, the Chinese company who was allegedly providing the these bond guarantees are now manufacturing own-brand Vodafone 3G phones which are to be lodged soon on the Irish market, so it's unlikely that Vodafone will be all that keen to see what relationship with Smart continue.
 
Re: Has Smart Telecom gone down?

ronan_d_john said:
Additionally, the Chinese company who was allegedly providing the these bond guarantees are now manufacturing own-brand Vodafone 3G phones which are to be lodged soon on the Irish market, so it's unlikely that Vodafone will be all that keen to see what relationship with Smart continue.
Click to expand...

Dont follow this part??? What is the VF connection ?
 
Huawei Technologies was the company that was allegedly partnering with Smart Telecom for their 3G licence application.

However, in the last couple of weeks, Vodafone have announced that the same Huawei Technologies is manufacturing their new Vodafone branded 3G phone.
 
Yeah Huawei were to be supplying the kit for the network to Smart.

Now they have managed to get the foot in here through VF you say.
 
Re: Has Smart Telecom gone down?

ronan_d_john said:
Can HelloJed and dieter1 please explain how ComReg is responsible for the problems with Smart Telecom?

And please don't start mentioning the blocking of local loops and all that. Smart Telecom at the moment have access to circa 600,000 home residential customers I believe, for both telephone and broadband packages.
Click to expand...


Hi Ronan

Have you actually tried to change phone supplier to Smart telecom?

I live in a Smart enabled exchange. I tried to switch to Smart and found out I would to complete the followings steps.

Cancel by BT connection and move back to Eircom. Possible length of time 1 to 2 weeks
Once I have my Eircom account, I then had to give Smart my Eircom account number and they then apply to move me to Smart telecom. Again length of time is 1 to 2 weeks all going well.

So a minimum of 4 weeks without broadband / telephone is not something I could live with.

Just to note I wasn't rying to keep an existing telephone number, I just wanted a smart telephone / broadband package.

So yes I would say ComReg need to shoulder some blame for allowing such a system to exist.

From talking to friends and family, I was not unique. I had one friend wait 15 weeks to get moved across to Smart.

Cheers
Fintan
 
Re: Has Smart Telecom gone down?

Whatever about sticking it out with Smart you would hardly go back to Eircom after that poor treatment and why three days wait? - Total Joke!
 
Re: Has Smart Telecom gone down?

I'm no eircom fan, but you can't blame them for pulling the plug if they suspect they are not going to get paid, surely? I don't like the fact that they own the "local loop" either, but they do, and they are running a business.

Mind you, if they wanted to win back these Smart customers they might have given 24 hours notice or something...
 
Re: Has Smart Telecom gone down?

extopia said:
I'm no eircom fan, but you can't blame them for pulling the plug if they suspect they are not going to get paid, surely? I don't like the fact that they own the "local loop" either, but they do, and they are running a business.
Click to expand...

The speed at which Eircom disconnected Smart customers contrasts enormously with how long it takes them to connect customers to other operators in the first place. I had to wait seven weeks to get connected to Digiweb as Eircom dragged their feet connecting me in the hope I'd get fed up and stay with Eircom. I must admit I despise Eircom's tactics, and I'm shocked how much leeway they have been given by the regulators for this obviously anti-competitive jape... If they can disconnect the 10,000 in a day then it shouldn't take them weeks to connect customers to other suppliers. The Government sold us into a monopoly situation in '98 and we've been living with the consequences ever since. I'm not a Smart customer but I hope they survive and prosper...
 
I had to wait a month to be connected to Smart. It's understandible that a company like Eircom would put their own customers first.

Which brings me to why I'm so annoyed with Comreg. Why have Eircom been allowed to keep the lines? Line rental is very expensive here - more expensive than in any country I've lived in. And to expect Eircom to treat Smart telecom customers the same as Eircom customers for service is a joke. No-one is making them, and no-one is changing the weird system here. So why should they treat them the same?
 
Last edited:
HelloJed said:
Why have Eircom been allowed to keep the lines?
Click to expand...

I have been wondering this myself-where the (monopoly?) provider of the lines is also a carrier, it is surely a 'dangerous' situation?

Of course Eircom could just argue that anyone can invest in building their own network, the same way that Eircom 'invested' to build the existing network.

Am I missing something? I don't really see the need for the State to have retained ownership of a carrier-but maybe they should have retained the network?
 
but maybe they should have retained the network?
Click to expand...

Rubbish -- can you imagine if the transport networks were nationalised and we didn't have all the competing private toll roads and rail lines!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top