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 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!

Irish Gov rules out taking over Eircom

Thank feck for that!

RTE.ie are reporting today that Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan has ruled out State ownership of telecoms provider Eircom.

If the government did nationalize Eircom it would cost them about 4 -5 billion euro's (debt + pensions) and they'd effectively get a outdated telecoms networks.

If the Irish Government wanted to own a telecoms network they'd almost be better off starting a new agency and spend that 4-5 Billion euro on building new infrastructure such as fibre to the home.

Minister Ryan went on to criticize what he called Eircom's short-term ownership model and said he would welcome and facilitate investors with the capacity to invest in a long-term business model for Eircom.

The full story is below or can be viewed on RTE.ie:

State ownership of Eircom ruled out
Saturday, 23 May 2009 13:05

Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan has ruled out State ownership of telecoms provider Eircom.

Speaking at the Telecommunications and Internet Federation's annual charity ball last night, the Minister said that while the Government attached significant importance to Eircom, State ownership of the company was not on his agenda.

Mr Ryan criticised what he called Eircom's short-term ownership model and said he would welcome and facilitate investors with the capacity to invest in a long-term business model for Eircom.

Ireland drops in OECD Broadband rankings

As discussed in the Ireland Off-Line forum on boards, Ireland has slipped in the OECD Broadband rankings PDF Available here.

This is not a good thing for anyone and should be a major concern for the government, of course its hard for the general public to get the facts when journalists report everything arse ways!

Will things improve in the short term....I very much doubt it!

Eircom agrees job cuts

Taken from enn.ie:

The Irish Times reports that Eircom has reached agreement with unions on a restructuring plan that involves 1,200 job cuts and voluntary pay reductions of between 5 percent and 10 percent.

The job cuts will be achieved by the end of June 2011. In addition, no performance-related bonuses will be paid before mid-2011, and subsistence and mileage expenses have been cut by 25 percent, along with other allowances.

The moves are aimed at helping Eircom make annual savings of EUR130 million by the end of June 2011 as it struggles to service nearly EUR4 billion in debt and to cope with an estimated decline in its business of about 9 percent.

Eircom also said it wants to reach agreement by the end of July on measures to tackle its EUR430 million pension deficit.

CWU seeks Govt intervention to protect Eircom

So The Communications Workers Union is looking for special treatment for Eircom by the Government for the good of the economy because they believe the company is part of Ireland's national infrastructure.

While I understand where they are trying to coming from such a move would be anti-competitive in relation to holding up a private company, if a company has 3.8billion in debt and needs to cut costs then cutting 1,200 jobs is going to have to happen.

I'm sure the CWU would be extremely happy if Smart Telecom or BT received Government backing and had some bad debts wiped off.

My guess is the EU won't allow any such action by the government and rightly so in my view.

ComReg (The Mouse) backs down in LLU fight with Eircom

In yet another show of strength and the want to feck over Broadband users in Ireland and protect their bottom line Eircom brought Comreg to court when Comreg (The Mouse) announced back in June that they wanted Eircom to drop the wholesale price it charges other operators for LLU line share from €8.41 a month to €2.94 per month.

Well Comreg have dropped the case and let Eircom win!
Fantastic...great job protecting consumers in Ireland Comreg you deserve some type of award.


Full story from http://www.siliconrepublic.com

Financial costs, the burden of resources and the length of time a court case would take have been cited by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) as the reasons it won’t fight an appeal by Eircom against its decision to reduce local loop unbundling (LLU) wholesale prices.

In June, ComReg directed Eircom to reduce the wholesale price it charges other operators for LLU line share from €8.41 a month to €2.94 per month.

The aim was to have the price cut in place for a year to analyse the effect it would have on the marketplace.

However, in July Eircom appealed this decision in the High Court.

Yesterday, ComReg said that it considered the financial cost of the appeal process, the likely burden such a case would have on ComReg’s own resources and the probability that a judgement would not be delivered until well into 2009, so it decided against contesting Eircom in court.

“ComReg regrets Eircom’s decision to appeal and has decided that it must now act in the most practical and expeditious manner available to it and try to minimise the level of uncertainty in the marketplace arising from Eircom’s appeal.”

ComReg says that in the meantime a detailed expert analysis into LLU line share will enable it to propose a specific and substantive price to the market in place of the original benchmark price it proposed.

As a result, the decision to reduce LLU line share down to €2.94 has been permanently shelved.

The news has been greeted with dismay by independent licensed business Telco Magnet, which described the original directive to reduce line share pricing as a progressive step by ComReg and indicated a willingness to take a more forceful line against Eircom’s anti-competitive pricing.

Magnet chief executive Mark Kellett said he was extremely disappointed that ComReg felt it necessary to back down in light of Eircom’s legal action.

“Eircom has once again shown that they will use any and all means to protect their monopoly position in the market. Struggling under €4bn of debt ,the company’s sole objective is to protect its cash flows from its legacy product suite.

“Eircom clearly do not want competition and as a consequence are frustrating Ireland Inc’s desire to move with the rest of the developed world to have a digital economy,” he said.

“Despite the anti-competitive pricing of LLU services by Eircom, Magnet has successfully launched innovative voice and data business services and high-speed, dedicated broadband over its LLU infrastructure.

“These services bring real benefits to our customers and allow them to benefit from modern telecom services — these services are not and never will be available from Eircom,” Kellett said.

By John Kennedy

Yet another good bloody reason why Eircom Sucks!

True ADSL choice....your kidding me right?

So who exactly re-sells Eircom Wholesales Bit-Stream ADSL product, well here's a short list: (if I'm missing anyone drop me a e-mail)

- Eircom Retail
- BT
- Imagine
- Perlico
- Vodafone
- UTV
- TalkTalk
- Digiweb
- Irish Broadband
- IFA Telecom

Some of these providers also may have their own LLU (Local Loop Unbundled) ADSL or ADSL2+ services but you'll find that the vast majority of their home/consumer ADSL services are likely provided via Eircom Wholesales offering.

This is often all new to some people and it really shows how limited true choice for a different ADSL package in Ireland really is, especially when compared to the packages that the likes of a true LLU provider like Smart Telecom provide.

In short you'll find that basically all the package the above providers provide are more or less the same...yet another reason why Eircom Sucks!

No Surprise! Dial-up still "popular" in Ireland

This is honestly no surprise, its nothing to do with people choosing dialup over Broadband and its more to do with people have NO CHOICE when it comes to using dialup over Broadband because they just can't get Broadband!

Its certainly not popular...popular is used incorrectly its more to do with no other available internet access for most people.

Discussed on Ireland Off-Line forum on boards.ie

Taken from: http://www.enn.ie/article/10124572.html

Some 35 percent of Irish internet users go online using a dial-up connection, far higher than the European average of just 12 percent.

That's according to the European Commission's 'E-communications Household Survey', which shows that although Ireland's PC penetration rate (58 percent) and internet penetration rate (49 percent) are on a par with the average European rate, our broadband take-up still lags behind. Broadband penetration in Ireland stands at 20 percent, well below the European average of 36 percent.

Eircom's Official Reponse to delays on 8MB Upgrades.

It seems Eircom Press Office is running overtime using templates when people send them e-mails querying the 8MB Upgrade delay.

Here's their response:


Sections in brackets are removed or advising.

The speed upgrades have been taking place on a phased basis over the last number of months and will continue throughout the next 6 to 8 weeks. We have extended the list of exchanges that will be upgraded which has naturally had an impact on our date for completion of all upgrades.

If your telephone line is connected to the (EXCHANGE NAME HERE) exchange, then speed increases on the eircom 2Mb broadband product and the eircom 3Mb broadband product will come into effect in this exchange in the next 6 to 8 weeks.

The speed upgrades for these specific products will apply to all telephone exchanges nationwide for customers whose telephone line qualifies for these speeds. The 2Mb product will be upgraded to 3Mb and the 3Mb product will be upgraded to 7.6Mb. The 3Mb broadband product upgrade to 7.6Mb will not utilise ADSL2+ technology.

(THE BELOW SECTION DEPENDS ON YOUR EXCHANGE BEING ENABLED FOR ADSL2+)

The (EXCHANGE NAME HERE) exchange was ADSL2+ enabled last month. Customers served on this exchange who wish to avail of our 12Mb product, and whose telephone line qualifies, can contact our broadband customer service team on 1800 242 558 to place an order.

Best Regards

Press Officer

So lets hold Eircom to their word, I expect to see 8MB speeds available to Eircom and Eircom Wholesale customers in 6-8 weeks.