Risky Risky Eircom....

Todays Eircom News......

The Irish Independent says that Eircom is now the fifth riskiest company in the world in terms of the possibility it will default on, or restructure, its debt, according to bond market data. The cost of insuring some forms of Eircom debt is now the fifth most expensive in the world. The cost has been surging this year and spiked in May, around the time of the company's last quarterly results. The company's debt is held through ERC Ireland Finance Limited, which has denied suggestions that a restructuring or a default is on the cards.

As Taken from enn.ie

Now who wants to buy such a risky company?,

Irish Mail On Sunday sucks at reporting about eircom

You all know I think Eircom sucks after all that’s the reason why I started this website and have made numerous comments about Eircom on this site, boards.ie and twitter.

However none the less I'll also give credit where its due, yesterday some of you may have noticed that I tweeted about a blog post Darragh made The Irish Mail On Sunday, well here's my view on it.

Firstly the Irish Mail on Sunday is a rag, yes I've said it and its likely pissed off its columnists including the one that wrote the story about Eircom (Hi Warren Swords).

Secondly they can't even come up with something original as seen from The Mail On Sunday a week prior in the UK about BT's interactions with its customers, some fun reading about it here.

So last Sunday the "Irish Mail On Sunday" ran its copy n paste job about Eircom and social networking, apparently Eircom are “stalking” its customers...I've never heard such shite in my entire life.

You can read about it on Darragh Doyle's blog or the scan below
As I said on twitter yesterday Eircom (as @eircomconnect) on Twitter and Facebook is a good thing, it means they are interacting with their customers in a public forum which means if they feck things up this is also seen by the public.

So yes it can be of benefit to Eircom but it can also go bad for them if they don’t do a good job, this is a good thing as it keeps eircom or for that matter any company on its toes.

In the past Eircom have even interacted with @eircomsucks on twitter and answered my queries, ok perhaps not as well as I would have liked but I understand the lads are "front line" agents and not managing directors.

I personally would like to see Eircom on boards.ie in the future in the same manner as Vodafone currently is, yes it won't be easy but at the end of the day its all good for the customer :)

The Irish Mail On Sunday should be ashamed of themselves with what they are trying to pass off as "journalism" in their rag, its clear they have no understanding of how the likes of Twitter even work.

.....before any ejits suggest I've been paid off by eircom's PR Dept you can all feck off as I'll never take a penny from the feckers.

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.

Eircom To Block Users From Connecting To The Pirate Bay

Yourtechstuff.com is reporting that Eircom plan to block the pirate bay affective from 1st September.

One wonders how they'll do this at the very least I'd speculate that they will likely be a restriction on their DNS servers, in which case simply changing your routers/computers DNS servers to another DNS provider like opendns.com should resolve this easily.

Users on the popular Irish message boards boards.ie are already posting about this new decision by eircom.

Read the Yourtechstuff.com story below or Irish Times story by clicking here.

So apparently, Eircom is to block The Pirate Bay to its customers, starting September 1st. Or so claims the solicitors for the major music labels, who have sent a legal letter to rival ISPs asking them to do likewise.

At least one of those ISPs, Chorus NTL, is to "firmly resist" the request by the record labels to block The Pirate Bay, according to people in there. Not sure of BT Ireland's reaction yet.

Update (15.45pm): Eircom will indeed put the block on, a spokeswoman for the operator has just told me. She said that the company intend to hold a "briefing" on the matter on August 31st. I reckon that might change now.

Update: here's a requested UPC (Chorus NTL) statement on the matter:

UPC can confirm it has received a request from solicitors acting on behalf of the Irish divisions of EMI, Warner, Universal and Sony music companies that UPC blocks access to the Pirate Bay website.

This request is separate to ongoing court proceedings between these same companies and UPC with respect to their demand that UPC take certain actions in relation to subscribers allegedly involved in illegal music downloads.

This latest request is apparently further to an unopposed court action between these companies and eircom whereby eircom was ordered to block access to Pirate Bay as of September 1, 2009.

UPC has informed the rightsholders that there is no basis under Irish law requiring an ISP to block access to certain websites and that it will not agree to a request that goes beyond what is currently provided for under Irish law.

UPC has always taken a strong stance against illegal activity and continues to work with rightsholders where there is a legal basis to do so. It takes all steps required by the law to combat specific infringements which are brought to its attention.

Should the rightsholders proceed with their threat of legal action if UPC fails to block access to Pirate Bay, UPC has every intention of vigorously defending its position in Court.

Singapore Technologies Telemedia to buy Eircom

SiliconRepublic are reporting that STT are to buy eircom for 130m euro.

STT to buy Eircom for €130m

14.08.2009
It has emerged that successful Far East telecoms player Singapore Technologies Telemedia is to buy Ireland’s incumbent telecoms operator Eircom for €130m.

In June, STT originally offered €120m for Eircom, in a move that was strongly supported by the Eircom Employee Share Ownership Trust (ESOP).

STT, which is understood to have interests across Asia and owns fibre optic cable player Global Crossing, has bid €130 to buy Eircom Holdings, formerly known as Babcock & Brown Capital.

The deal is expected to be concluded next week subject to a number of issues being addressed, namely the management fee that STT will p[ay to run Eircom.

Eircom, which has debts of €3bn, still has an integral role to play in ensuring Ireland has the telecoms infrastructure it needs for the future of the economy and it is understood STT has met with the Irish Government about addressing infrastructure deficit.

It has been suggested that Eircom may return to the stock market by 2011 to enable STT to get a return on its investment.

By John Kennedy

Eircom Pole removal fees

So I was browsing boards.ie the other day and I came across this interesting thread about a land owner looking for eircom to move a pole but eircom are looking for crazy money. (350e for plant survey and removal fees on top of this)

Well it reminded me of this story Today FM covered back at the start of July 2009...

Hi Ray and Gang,
I thought I should forward you on this picture as possibly the worst location yet for a telecom pole, the pole is placed just in front of the window and door of my parents' new house, and was put in place after planning permission was granted but before houses were built, the best bit... Eircom are now asking for €16,000 to remove the pole. And my parents are unable to connect to water and sewage with the pole in place. The house is in Strand Street in Wicklow town.

Love the show ,
Jillian.



So basically eircom erected a pole infront of this property on the basis that a house was going to be build and eircom failed to check where this house would have its windows.

Clearly no eircom employee actually came to look at the house after it was built to see what a stupid mistake they had made.

Eircom receive Denial of Service (DoS) attack

So Eircom are reporting that "hackers" have attacked their network, rte.ie reports

A number of Eircom customers had no internet access or experienced delays in browsing due to a suspected attack by hackers last night.

It is the second time recently that Eircom services have been affected by an 'unusual and irregular volume' of traffic directed at the site.

Eircom acknowledged many of its customers have recently experienced significant congestion while trying to log onto the internet.

Service was down for some customers from yesterday afternoon, but the company said it was fully restored by 11.15pm.

Eircom said it is too early to confirm an attack by hackers, but it believes that an unprecedented volume of traffic was deliberately directed at its network in recent days.

In the US, the Department of the Treasury and the Secret Service experienced similar problems when high volumes of traffic were directed towards its sites on 4 July - in what is believed to have been a coordinated cyber attack.

Eircom said its technical specialists have and are continuing to work to restore service and determine the source of the problem.

ComReg plan to cut Eircom fees approved

enn.ie report this week that Comreg has received EU approval to get Eircom to lower the price it charges competitors for access to its telecoms infrastructure.

To sum things up this basically means the price that LLU operates have to pay each month to provide a service to a customer.

ComReg has received EU approval for its decision to direct Eircom to cut the price it charges competitors for access to its telecoms infrastructure. The price cuts will also include charges by Eircom for migrating customers from one wholesale product to another.

The European Commission said the proposed measures represent an important step towards facilitating direct investment in infrastructure and enhancing competition on the Irish broadband market, which should lead to lower prices for consumers.

Now lets see how long it takes Eircom to fight Comreg on this!

Eircom sees profit plunge

Eircom's third quarter results show an operating profit of EUR69 million, down 27 percent from last year's EUR95 million.

Meanwhile, revenue fell 5 percent to EUR488 million. The company lost 22,000 telephone customers in the quarter, but garnered an extra 19,000 broadband subscribers.

On the plus side, profits at Eircom subsidiary Meteor jumped 17 percent to EUR35 million; however revenue at the mobile operator slipped 2 percent to EUR117 million.

In line with the experiences of rival mobile operators Vodafone and O2, Meteor's average monthly revenue per user fell 6 percent to EUR37.52 over a year.

Given that Three have been effectively handed the Governments Broadband Rollout contract this may hit Eircom hard in both the fixed line ADSL market and "Mobile Broadband" ala Midband market with Meteor's "Broadband" packages.

Once Three begin rolling out their Midband packages across all of Ireland and they pump up advertising on it it will be interesting to see how this will hit Eircom's profit margins even further.

We all think eircom sucks but compared to Three I'd rather see the people of Ireland receive a ADSL Broadband service instead of a Three Midband (Mobile Broadband) service which is frankly not suitable for on-line gaming, VoIP etc.

Some content Taken from enn.ie

Electricity company to buy Eircom?

Taken from ENN.IE

The Irish Independent says that Bahrain-based private equity firm Arcapita, which owns electricity company Viridian, has emerged as a potential buyer for Eircom. The other private equity group involved in discussions that could lead to a sale of the beleaguered telecoms firm is CVC Capital Partners, which is housed in Luxembourg. Eircom executives are this week putting case-for-investment presentations to the two groups and Singapore Technologies Telemedia.

Better a power/utility company take them over then the Irish Government!