donal's blog

So looks like UPC have been found not complying with Regulation 17(4) and Regulation 17(5) of the Universal Service Regulations. The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) have notified them of this non-compliance this week so we have to wait and see what happens... It is unclear from ComReg's notification if it was the price increases on 04 Jan 2011 or the changes to terms and conditions that have resulted in UPC's non-compliance. It's worth noting that the media have been reporting that it is related to the price increases but there is evidence that UPC have been changing their T&Cs on their website without notifying customers for some time too. :/ The regulations in question are: An undertaking referred to in paragraph (1) or a provider of electronic communications services referred to in paragraph (3) shall, not less than one month prior to the date of implementation of any proposed modification, notify its subscribers to that service — of the pr...

A report from the European Commission in October indicates that Irish youth have the lowest interest in Science & Technology news compared to other Europeans... The level of interest in science and technology news was the highest in Portugal and Greece – with 86% and 85%, respectively, of respondents who said these topics appealed to them. These two countries showed the smallest difference between the level of interest in science and technology news compared to news items about culture and entertainment. Interest in the former, on the other hand, was the lowest in Ireland and the Netherlands – with only a slim majority of respondents showing interest in these scientific topics (53% and 54%, respectively). Full link: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/fl_239_sum_en.pdf

I just noticed that the company behind the M4 toll are misleading consumers with their 01 December 2008 price increases... From the http://www.eurolink-m4.ie/ website: Due to the increase in the rate of VAT, from 21% to 21.5%, effective from 1st December, as announced by the Government on Budget Day 14th of October, our prices will rise from the 1st December. If you then check the prices you'll find that the price of a car increases from €2.70 to €2.80 (an increase of over 3.7%)! However, they aren't increasing the rates for all vehicles... bad form! UPDATE-1: some background available over at boards.ie . still doesn't justify the 10c increase though...

Last sunday, Rafael (a colleague from Google) and myself went hiking in Glendalough (following the white route up along the ridge and then back along the valley to the visitor centre). We were fortunate to find a gap in the rain over the weekend - it was lashing rain and extremely windy at 3am and more rain showers arrived towards the end of the hike at 2pm (kudos to www.met.ie having rain radar on their website and to O2/Vodafone for coverage in the area). We warned a few hikers setting out later than us that heavy rain was on the way (particularly 2 folk who didn't look particularly well kitted out) and I'm guessing they got rather wet on top of the ridge. Overall - has a great time on the hike and it was really good to get out and about early on a sunday (loads of people had a similar idea).