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    Wednesday, December 09, 2009

    Eircom's new contract for basic telephone lines


    So imagine that you move into a new house/flat and you need to get a phone line installed before you get ADSL Broadband, you plan on choosing Smart as your phone and Broadband provider.

    So as eircom basically have a monopoly in Ireland you first have to get them to install your telephone line (PSTN line) before Smart can give you any services, so you ask them to install the line/activate the existing line and they advise you that there's a 6 month contract.....your thinking this is new and has never existed before and your 100% correct!

    As per the eircom website
    6 month contract applies to residential lines


    As of approx two weeks ago Eircom have introduced a 6 month contract if you get a phone line (PSTN line) installed and your a residential customer, if you move your telephony service to another provider eircom will see this as breaking your contract.

    Such a move is anti-competitive and only serves to block LLU providers such as Magnet and Smart from competing with Eircom, in addition this will affect other providers such as Vodafone, UTV, Imagine etc if you choose to pay line rental to them instead of Eircom (This has been confirmed with eircom directly).

    Whats most concerning is some Eircom employee's appear to be clueless in relation to why eircom are doing this, accordingly to one user on boards.ie an eircom employee said the following when the user asked why eircom have introduced this new rule:

    How else can we make money? We don't get a cent of the line rental paid to other ISPs


    This is misleading to potential customers and is 100% incorrect, it would appear eircom need to train some of their employees better, a good general rule is if you don't know what to say put the customer on hold and check instead of giving out incorrect info.

    This new change by eircom is extremely concerning as it could affect consumer choice when it comes to which broadband provider a consumer chooses to go with.

    5 comments:

    Bob Quinn said...

    Hi EircomSucks.com,

    Great blog, lots of good stuff. I hope you're getting enough hits for the quality of information you're providing.
    Feel free to contribute to my blog as a guest blogger - I run the money website, www.myrecession.ie.
    I'm always looking for opinions on value, money saving ideas from third parties.

    Kind regards,

    Bob Quinn
    myrecession.ie

    Anonymous said...

    Hi,
    I now find myself in a pickle with this new forced contract.

    I'm moving to a new house where I have to have a line installed.

    I'm currently a Vodafone at Home customer and I'm quite happy with the service.

    Eircon are insisting that I have to take out a 6 month contract with them if I want a line installed.

    I would prefer to stick with my current provider. The service is €20+ cheaper per month.

    If I do take the Eircom contract, then I'll be breaking my contract with Vodafone and penalties may be incurred.

    If I break Eircoms connection, I'll end up paying 6 months worth of line rental twice. Once to Eircom directly as a penalty, and another time through Vodafone.

    This is really not a good situation. Where's the competition?

    P

    Anonymous said...

    If you have a problem with them move to the mobile networks for phone and broadband services. See how the compressed voice calls and broadband works out for you when the weather gets bad. I had mobile broadband for years , finally got rid of it and got in eircom. Landline calls are clear and broadband is great. I live close to an exchange. Dont get country foke who live it the middle of nowhere and expect a company to upgrade their exchanges for them just to keep a handfull of customer happy. Upgrading broadband exchanges is costly not worth for a few households paying a poxey 60 euro a month. Sure why would eircom piss away money on that.

    Anonymous said...

    It's worse now. Now they want to tie in for 12 months!!!!!

    Its redic that this kinda sh!t is legal ]:{

    Anonymous said...

    You don't need to have Eircom install your line actually, there is an independent company based in Dublin that does this http://telephone.lynch.ie we had them install lines in our house, alls we had was a black cable in the hall and they did the rest...