Getting to grips with broadband service providers

Finding the right package for your internet needs can save you money, writes Laura Slattery

It's fast: up to 40 times faster than traditional dial-up internet access. It's convenient: you can flick from web page to web page and talk on your landline at the same time. And, according to the Government's information site at least, it's good value: one flat fee per month with no additional internet call charges.

There are now around 40 different companies selling broadband internet services in the Republic and the latest figures from the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) show that by the end of March there were 152,3000 subscribers.

Broadband is still an elusive technology to vast swathes of internet users.

The most common way for people to connect to broadband is through their telephone lines, but many don't live or work close enough to broadband-enabled exchanges, while in some cases the copper wire telephone lines have not yet been sufficiently upgraded to be able to carry broadband.

Other ways to connect to broadband include cable, fixed wireless and satellite.

Outside urban areas, satellite broadband is often the only option, but these services can be prohibitively expensive to set up for consumers who only want broadband to download e-mailed photographs and the odd song from iTunes without ageing visibly in the meantime.

Despite the patchy availability, broadband take-up increased at a rate of 16 per cent in the first quarter of 2005, compared to the previous quarter.

The next high-profile launch, by market leader Eircom, has a monthly rental charge of just €19.99 if you sign up between July and September, meaning broadband is now available at lower prices than ever before.

But Eircom's Broadband Time is a departure from the rest of the residential broadband market in other ways.

The Department of Communications lists "always-on" access, "no time restrictions" and "one flat fee per month with no additional internet call charges" among the benefits of broadband.

But Broadband Time restricts customers' use of broadband to 20 hours a month. The €19.99 rate is a special offer: customers who sign up after September will be charged €24.99.

Its launch has prompted an attack from Smart Telecom, which has accused Eircom of mangling the idea of broadband with the product.

"Broadband is about always being online. Broadband services like e-mail and messaging work best when you're always online. That's the point of broadband," said Oisín Fanning, Smart Telecom's chief executive.

Broadband Time is a more expensive version of the pay-as-you-go broadband services that are popular in countries like France, Italy and the UK. These services are pitched at occasional surfers rather than online junkies and home workers.

"Our research indicates that there is demand for a more flexible entry-level broadband product.

"Eircom's Broadband Time product will attract lighter internet users who have yet to experience broadband," said commercial director, David McRedmond.

If these lighter users become internet addicts, however, they will pay a price. Customers will be billed excess use charges of four cent per minute if their eyes are glued to the screen for more than 20 hours a month, subject to a monthly cap of €49.99.

In fact, broadband fees have never been quite as flat as the Department of Communications makes out. Eircom, which has managed to persuade over 100,000 people to subscribe to broadband, already charges excess use fees on its existing Home Starter and Home Plus products if users exceed the allowed capacity.

In other words, if they spend all their waking hours downloading a catalogue of movie, games and music files and go over either 8 or 16 gigabytes (GB), they will be charged at a rate of three cent per megabyte (MB).

Eircom's rival, BT Internet (formerly Esat BT), also charges three cent per excess megabyte used, but it gives customers a higher capacity per month.

Sending and receiving text e-mails and browsing text-based internet pages uses 0.02 to 0.05 MBs, while sending and receiving still images can use up to 0.25 MBs per picture.

Most people who buy broadband, however, want to do something more adventurous like downloading music, which could use about 4 MB per track, and a five-minute video could use up to 30 MB.

The table above shows a selection of some of the bigger providers targeting residential users. Not all of the services will be available in every area.

A full list of service providers by location, including details of those more suitable for business users, is available from the Department of Communication's broadband information site, www.broadband.gov.ie.

Apart from the monthly rental charge, installation or connection charges and allowance per month, consumers might want to take into account the download and upload speeds promised and what is known as the "contention ratio", or the number of subscribers sharing a fixed amount of bandwidth.

The higher the contention ratio, the more likely that users could get stuck in rush hour internet traffic.

Some preconditions will apply when buying broadband.

For Irish Broadband's Ripwave product, which offers unlimited usage, customers must use what is known as a plug and play access device. Its Breeze products are wireless and require a small antenna to be placed on the customer's premises, hence the higher than average installation cost.

To get NTL's broadband service, users must also be signed up to its television package. The company has expanded its cable network to increase its number of potential customers to over 100,000 homes and, as of the end of March, had about 10,000 broadband users.

Meanwhile, Smart Telecom and UTV Internet's products are bundled, meaning you must also be landline customers.

Smart's €35 fixed monthly broadband price also includes the monthly landline rental, which costs €24.18 a month at almost all of the main landline providers.

This makes it the most competitive landline-plus-broadband package on the market, although the company has just started introducing its services and is not yet available in as wide a range of locations as some competitors.

At UTV Internet, customers pay an additional €24.18 for landline services on top of the €29.99 or €45 broadband charge.

But consumers shouldn't be put off by this extra cost, as they will be rewarded for it in other ways. UTV Talk is one of the most competitive fixed-line services around and charges absolutely nothing for calls of less than 60 minutes' duration if they are made in the evenings or on the weekend.

Finally, BT Ireland's broadband products can be purchased on a standalone basis, but the company discounts its normal landline rental charge to €10 for broadband users, meaning a combined package here could also prove good value to consumers - that is, for consumers who overcome their inertia, make the calls and manage to successfully self-install their long-awaited, super fast broadband.