Recently in eircom Category
Eircom, one of Ireland's largest ISPs, has sent an email to its DSL customers to offer an apology and explanation for their outages and service issues that plagued the company in recent weeks:
Dear Customer
As you are aware, eircom customers experienced disruption to their Internet service over the last two weeks. On behalf of eircom, I apologise for the interruption to service and would like to take this opportunity to update you on the current position.
In early July we saw an increase in incidents known as 'cache poisoning'. This is a malicious activity by a third party to redirect customers to fake websites. We took immediate steps to protect our customers from this activity. This involved strengthening of the filters that block unwanted or suspect traffic. Unfortunately many customers could not, as a result of the incidents, access the internet or experienced delays for a number of hours on two specific occasions.
While our preliminary investigations have shown that, in general, our systems worked as intended when the attack occurred, we are taking additional steps to further protect our customers and their internet service. This involves upgrading and replacing some of our server equipment. Service has been fully operational since 14th July and we continue to monitor the situation closely. We want to reassure customers that eircom treats the issue of Internet security very seriously and will continue to take all necessary steps to ensure that an incident such as this does not reoccur.
We sincerely thank you again for your patience over the past two weeks as the measures outlined above were put into place, and apologise again for service interruption. We know that our customers have made eircom Ireland's largest ISP because of its reputation for reliability and its ability to resolve issues when they arise.
Should you have any queries or indeed any comments on this matter, please do not hesitate to contact our customer care team at eircom_DNS_info@eircom.net
Thank you for your continued custom and support,
Kind regards
Gerry Culligan
Director
Consumer Market
(source)
On the plus side, Eircom have made some effort at communicating with their customer base, but on the negative side.. Should this really have happened?
Wasn't "cache poisoning" the focus of Kaminsky's DNS security hole discovery a year ago?
Dear Customer
As you are aware, eircom customers experienced disruption to their Internet service over the last two weeks. On behalf of eircom, I apologise for the interruption to service and would like to take this opportunity to update you on the current position.
In early July we saw an increase in incidents known as 'cache poisoning'. This is a malicious activity by a third party to redirect customers to fake websites. We took immediate steps to protect our customers from this activity. This involved strengthening of the filters that block unwanted or suspect traffic. Unfortunately many customers could not, as a result of the incidents, access the internet or experienced delays for a number of hours on two specific occasions.
While our preliminary investigations have shown that, in general, our systems worked as intended when the attack occurred, we are taking additional steps to further protect our customers and their internet service. This involves upgrading and replacing some of our server equipment. Service has been fully operational since 14th July and we continue to monitor the situation closely. We want to reassure customers that eircom treats the issue of Internet security very seriously and will continue to take all necessary steps to ensure that an incident such as this does not reoccur.
We sincerely thank you again for your patience over the past two weeks as the measures outlined above were put into place, and apologise again for service interruption. We know that our customers have made eircom Ireland's largest ISP because of its reputation for reliability and its ability to resolve issues when they arise.
Should you have any queries or indeed any comments on this matter, please do not hesitate to contact our customer care team at eircom_DNS_info@eircom.net
Thank you for your continued custom and support,
Kind regards
Gerry Culligan
Director
Consumer Market
(source)
On the plus side, Eircom have made some effort at communicating with their customer base, but on the negative side.. Should this really have happened?
Wasn't "cache poisoning" the focus of Kaminsky's DNS security hole discovery a year ago?
Irish broadband ISP Magnet Networks has announced its plans to pull back from the residential market citing issues with incumbent telco Eircom.
Prior to the story breaking on ENN, Irish blogger and broadband observer / activist, Damien Mulley, had already suggested that Magnet's move was to be expected.
While existing subscribers and certain housing estates will not be affected by the company's move it is still very worrying.
When will there be true competition in the Irish market?
Last year was an interesting year for the broadband market in Ireland.
Early in the year there was the takeover (again) of Eircom, while in the autumn Smart imploded.
What will happen in 2007?
In the latter half of 2006 there were plenty of rumours regarding mergers and acquisitions in the ISP market. Since most of the ISPs are making a loss some level of consolidation is inevitable, though what form it will take is another matter.
Rumours of who is likely to takeover Smart are still in the air, though there doesn't seem to have been any further progress on its supposed merger with Imagine.
NTR owns a sizeable shareholding in Irish Broadband (IBB). While the company may have improved its customer service over the last few months it's still not profitable according to some media reports and maybe sold. Rumours abound that Clearwire maybe a potential buyer.
