[ILUG] ISP's - how many subscribers?

[Chris Higgins]

> 
> Hey all,
> 
> Does anyone know how many subscribers the various ISP's have
> in Ireland? I'm just looking for very rough figures -
> +/- 1,000 is fine.

Do you count one 'dialup account' as 'one user' - and if you do -
are you then saying that any corporate ISDN account has only one
user at the end of it ?

> 
> Are we talking around 5,000 users, 20,000 users, 50,000 users or what?
> Who's the bigest ISP in terms of numbers subscribed ?

Indigo give away free accounts, so do Eircom, IOL, Ocean and EsatClear
(the first two being the same, and the last three also being the same)
How many people have accounts with all five ? 
I suspect the answer is lots...


So the answer you will get is very dependent on who you ask.. I know
that Eircom/Indigo/IOL/EsatClear/Oceanfree will *probably* count 
based on registered mailboxes rather than unique dialup users 
as some homes have multiple users on the one phone line... 

If you count that way, then you miss all the corporate SMTP delivery
accounts which may have thousands of users ... ie: The ISP that
delivers service to HEAnet provides internet access for all the
academic institutions in the country... do you count that as one
subscriber or 150,000 :-)


The point that I'm trying to make, is that no matter what number 
you get - it's completely useless for any purpose.. you can't use
it as a count of irish connected users, you can't use it to
compare popularity of ISPs, you can't use it to grade or
rate ISPs..

So with that in mind, the figures are all in the 50k mark. Except for
<insert ISP whose marketing dept doesn't understand maths> who have
100k users and therefore are better[1] .... 



Sorry - but I spent too much time in the ISP business hearing
marketing people throw around made up numbers just so they could
swing their respective tackle in the air at the breakfast meetings
where they met their own kind... so 'subscriber count' and the
garbage that floats around with is - happens to be one of my
pet hates.. 


[1] Whatever better means..
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Paul
>
> -- 
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-- 
** Chris Higgins                         e: chris.higgins at horizon.ie **
** Technical Business Development        tel: +353-1-6204916            **
** Horizon Technology Group              fax: +353-1-6204949            **