This article is from page 20 of the 2007-07-17 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 20 JPG
FORMER customers of Smart Tel- ecom in Clare, who are owed money by the telecommunications company, can expect to be reimbursed in the coming weeks.
Around 1,500 people nationwide are owed money almost nine months after they moved to other providers after Smart’s widely publicised row with Eircom late in 2006. There is no exact figure for the number of people owed money in Clare.
Last October,
Eircom ceased
providing whole-
sale services to
Smart Telecom
NACo MLS) DOLCE SC eLO!
that the company owed eircom sever- al million euro. Almost 45,000 cus- tomer voice lines were cut off leav- ing the majority of Smart customers unable to make outgoing calls except those to emergency numbers.
It was reported at the time that Smart owed Eircom €4m including arrears of €1.7m. Shortly afterwards, the then Communications Minister Noel Dempsey intervened, calling on Eircom to reconnect a full telephone service to Smart customers.
In a statement, the company said
that less than 1,500 customers are due refunds of up to €20 each. Re- payments have already commenced and are expected to be completed within the coming weeks. A small number of customers will receive monies over and above their entitle- ment where excess credits were at- tached to their bills last October.” Last month, Smart announced the appointment of Paul Talbot as its new Chief F*1- nancial Officer completing its new manage- ment team. The appointment of a CFO completes eComp an MU CCHRUDM DOTS of Smart ‘Tele- com which com- menced last au- tumn and which has seen numbers employed by the company reduced from 380 to 95. The company statement added, “Smart Telecom is now focused on data, broadband and Voice over In- ternet Protocol (VoIP) services to the Corporate, SME and Residential sec- tors. The company has indicated that it is part of a bidding consortium in a public tender to provide broadband services in areas that have been un- economic to date. If successful, this would see Smart roll out its services over an extended footprint”.