[ILUG] Esat ADSL

[Ronan Waide]

Glad I waited to the end of the thread this time :)

On December 13, niall at linux.ie said:
> I just had my umpteenth conversation with Eircom about ADSL and my ISDN line. 
> I was told that yes, the ODTR had 'passed' the system but it won't be 
> generally deployed until January and their computer system hadn't been 

This is more or less the answer I got from Eircom when phoning around
yesterday, except that no mention was made of computer systems and all
that. Also, on the topic of line charges, Via's offering does /not/
include the cost of the line, i.e. you still pay Eircom.

Here's a summary of what I was told yesterday, for anyone who's
thinking DSL but hasn't yet done the market research:

Eircom:

    ¤199.65 connection fee. ¤107/mo for 512/128 with a 3GB cap,
    3.6¢/MB over that. Eircom are apparently working on a package for
    ISDN folk, but right now it's scheduled for "early in the New
    Year". I neglected to ask if I'd be charged for a downgrade to
    POTS for the line test, or the subsequent upgrade back to ISDN if
    I wasn't DSL capable. Finally, ¤175.00 for the modem (I didn't
    mention the 30 quid plus Linux box option). The funny part was
    where she kept saying ISDN and then correcting herself to say
    Hi-Speed, which is Eircom's marketing name for dual-channel ISDN.

Via:

    Far better phone service, for one. I'd have happily talked to the
    salesperson all day! ¤165.00 once-off installation fee, and
    ¤169.00/mo for 1M/256k with no limit and a fixed IP
    address. Tidy. However, there's an additional charge: you need to
    pay Eircom for the physical line which is about ¤32.00/mo,
    although the salesperson wasn't 100% sure of the cost. Fair
    enough, not her company and all. She mentioned something in excess
    of 200 euro for the DSL modem, and said it's a Zyxel, so I presume
    it's one of the boxes that's been mentioned on ILUG in the past.

EsatBT:

    They didn't call back. Good salesmanship, boys.

The Eircom salesrep mentioned that they had other services, but I
didn't ask for details. Via didn't offer any other options. EsatBT
didn't, er, call back, as previously stated.

On the whole, I think I'll stick with my ISDN for now. The only reason
I have ISDN in the first place is because three months of
"interaction" with Eircom failed to produce a clean enough phone line
for dialup use, and they insisted (at some point) that they are
technically not obliged to provide data-quality phone lines, only
voice-quality.

Cheers,
Waider.
-- 
waider at waider.ie / Yes, it /is/ very personal of me.

"It would be hard to design a worse outdoor chair without making it
 irresistably delicious to squirrels." - L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg