Date: December 5. 2002

The rat has no shame at all

– Eircom's new online calculator allows us to figure out to the last cent how Irish Internet users are fleeced in open daylight. When we put in the hours for one month of Internet usage we got these results:

"You tend to access the Internet frequently hence subscription Dial-up Internet Access is the option for you.

At the moment you spend approximately 168.00 hours per week online. With a free account your Internet access costs would be: 1,039.00 EUR/month.

With a subscription account your Internet access costs would be: 561.51 EUR/month. Hence with a subscription account you will make a saving of approximately 45.96%" Wow!

When will our Regulator enforce Irish law that says that telecom pricing has to be cost orientated? The cost of supplying flat rate dial up is in the region of EUR 5 per month. Why does the regulator let them charge EUR 561.51?

A simple, effective and fair method would be to put a cut-off price cap on the dial-up Internet access at a level of EUR 15 to EUR 20 per month (which seems to be the average flat rate dial-up pricing elsewhere). In other words: the customer is priced at a per minute charge, but his bill will never go over the EUR 15 to EUR 20 level.

The below pic links to the original on eircom's website.

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