Ahern proposes independent co-location facilities near eircom COs

Dangger

If not, I hope you'll do the same if you make a submission to the Department on this subject.

IOFFL have meeting with the DCMNR next week to further investigate this latest announcement.

wexfordman

In my humble opinion, its a start. Its a start cos, for the first time, the governemnt are considering bypassing Eircom as much as they can. Maybe they have finally realised the mistake of privatising them in the first place, but thats not something that can be rectified now.

However, now that some real, sensible sugestions are comming fro the gov, how about a few more idease:-
1) Seeing as we've sold off and privatised our best chance of rolling out a broadband network (eircom), lets look at what other state assets we have left that wol dallow us do this....
2) The ESB, still state owned, has one of the biggest private networks in thecountry, and has both fibre and radio rings all round the place, a 155Mb radio backbone runs from Dublin right around the south, through to Cork,Limerick and back up to Dublin. On top of this, the have radio towers in every rural area and town in the country. Why not make use of this before its too late.
3) RTE. If you want to look at getting good penetration around the country, look at RTE, who also have a HUGE radio back bone (at least 155Mb SDH ring in the south of the country again). Who in the country does not have tv reception, and so it would be possible to put in a wireless infrastructure this way.

I know the technologies are different, and theres a bit more to it, but there's two large semi state companies with near 100% geographic coverage, service by fibre and radio backbones.

Why not bring this in to government strategy for broadband also. If you even hint at some form of serious strategy at all ireland coverage, that alone might scare eircom into getting there act together.

Anyone know if this ahs been mentioned or looked at before ?
wexfordman

spongebob

Yes. We know about these.

Add in the Bord Gáis fibre, Aurora Telecom as its known.

You will probably have to relay out from Waterford using ESB towers/pylons if you are in rural Wexford. Alternatively use Mt Leinster in Carlow from the north. Not all ESB towers are of a high standard, some are but twigs in top of a spare pole.

The ESB have few or no 3G contracts so far so they are feeling a bit neglected. The ESB will also allow Microwave backhaul and transmission antennae on their steel pylons , those used for 110Kv and 220Kv lines. If you see a line crossing an N road on your travels then scan along it, they are surprisingly common.

RTE has more towers per sq mile on the west coast owing to terrain and RnG TG4 being there but the ESB only has a couple of mouldy poles which are not up to carrying Dishes and sectoral antennae. RTE have no spare capacity in their network, it is High frequency LOS (10Ghz plus) and suffers in fog. They do have the towers though. Get your own backhaul .

HTH

M

wexfordman

The ESB have a lot more than a ffew Mouldy poles with twigs on them, and they make very good use of them by leasing to third parties. The ESB are also very proactive in looking for good locations, applying for planning and building large masts al around the country, anything from 15metre to 36metre masts. These masts are used for GSM 2G and 3G transmission.

The ESB have very good 155MB SDH radio links, which, yes is about the 10G range, but does not suffer from fog as you say, at least to my mind it should not, as I can name 2 other identical SDH radio networks (one of which is RTE),in the country running 155mB links on freqs between 10 and 13Ghz that do not suffer from fog.

RTE also have a very good network infrastructure, which is leased out to other operators on a regular basis. Capacitywise, if the will was there, it could be carried, as radio networks are easily upgradeable with regards capacity.

To get into wexford using radio hops from waterford is easy, its been done, you could link waterford city and wexford town in 2 hops.

Dont dismiss the networks we still manage to own, if we wanted to, they could be put to use to rollout broadband to everyone. The infrastructure is already there...
wexfordman

spongebob

Originally posted by wexfordman
The ESB have a lot more than a ffew Mouldy poles with twigs on them, and they make very good use of them by leasing to third parties. The ESB are also very proactive in looking for good locations, applying for planning and building large masts al around the country, anything from 15metre to 36metre masts. These masts are used for GSM 2G and 3G transmission.

They are the most active buildout at the moment, I suspect that it has slowed down this year. Do you know anyone in Towerco?

The ESB have very good 155MB SDH radio links, which, yes is about the 10G range,

Do they rent cacacity within the P2P SDH links ? Towerco hum and haw about this and won;t answer the question .

.. but does not suffer from fog as you say, at least to my mind it should not, as I can name 2 other identical SDH radio networks (one of which is RTE),in the country running 155mB links on freqs between 10 and 13Ghz that do not suffer from fog.

Wexford is not the wesht. The RTE network in the wesht can be afected by fog under certain circumstances. Maybe we have a better class of fog around here. Wexford is probably a short hop Mt Leinster - Kippure and a short hop Kippure Donnybrook

RTE also have a very good network infrastructure, which is leased out to other operators on a regular basis. Capacitywise, if the will was there, it could be carried, as radio networks are easily upgradeable with regards capacity.

Agreed, also up in the 10Ghz and above band.

Dont dismiss the networks we still manage to own, if we wanted to, they could be put to use to rollout broadband to everyone. The infrastructure is already there...
wexfordman

I also agree with that statement. We have a government with no integrated plan to use these assets. That is our problem. I discoursed the issue with Antoin O Lachtnain recently. You could reactivate This Thread maybe . One matter on which we could NOT agree was whether we could get INTO the existing SDH links at an affordable cost or whether we would be better off providing our own Wireless backhaul.

M

De Rebel

Originally posted by iwb
Irish Times Friday, 19/09/03

Mr David McRedmond, Eircom's director of strategy, <snip> blames the slow pace of Eircom's broadband rollout on the telecoms regulator who would not provide the firm with a broadcast licence in 2000, when it first sought to launch broadband.

Can anybody expand on this?

wexfordman

Muck, in response to your post:-


1), I dont know anyone in towerco direct, I work as a radio planner for a mobile firm, and so deal with them for matters of rollout.


2)The ESB have very good 155MB SDH radio links, which, yes is about the 10G range,


3)The ESB's SDH Radio links would form part of a ring, with the facility to drop a pipe out of the ring at any hub. So it would be simple to provide a 2Mb pipe from say, a mast located in Youghal, back to Dublin. Again, I dont know the specifics of their network, but what we are debating here is the basic principles of any SDH network, and they have one, along with RTE



"Wexford is not the wesht. The RTE network in the wesht can be afected by fog under certain circumstances. Maybe we have a better class of fog around here. Wexford is probably a short hop Mt Leinster - Kippure and a short hop Kippure Donnybrook"

3)I am not talking about wexford specifically, there are many SDH hops in the country operated by the likes of ESB, RTE and mobile operators. THese hops form part of SDH rings which are the backbone transmission networks fo rthese operators. These high capacity links can be in excess of 50-60km. Capacity can be doubled by using x-polarasition techniques, (doubling your 155Mb capacity to over 300Mb's). This has been the case all over the country, and these networks have been up and running for quite a while now. Weather can be afactor, but overall, these links are extremely reliable

"RTE also have a very good network infrastructure, which is leased out to other operators on a regular basis. Capacitywise, if the will was there, it could be carried, as radio networks are easily upgradeable with regards capacity.

Agreed, also up in the 10Ghz and above band.
As above, there is nothing wrong with using links above 10Ghz, and weather is not an issue here either."



I read the post you pointed to, and I agree with many of the points. Lets look at it realistically, if we want broadband, we could using various existing types of infrastructure, have a very robust wireless broadband network rolled out in a relatively short period of time. Yes, also use existing public, private or council owned structures, water towers etc. But why spend millions burying a fibre around a couple of towns, when in reality, to meet todays (and future) needs, at a much lower cost, and a shorter time frame, a couple of good wireless sites would provide the solution. If we'd only get the government to sit back and look at the infrastructure its got.....

rtrt :cool: :ninja: :ninja:

bk

Originally posted by De Rebel
Irish Times Friday, 19/09/03

Mr David McRedmond, Eircom's director of strategy, <snip> blames the slow pace of Eircom's broadband rollout on the telecoms regulator who would not provide the firm with a broadcast licence in 2000, when it first sought to launch broadband.

Can anybody expand on this?

Yes, it is the latest spin from Eircom.

But first let me explain the history as I understand it (I'm open to correction).

A few years ago Eircom where really worried that NTL would rollout broadband infrastructure and compete with Eircom as a full service company offering TV, Telephone and Broadband (the trinity holy grail) in one affordable package, like NTL have done in the UK.

Eircom decided that if NTL was going to encrouage into it's markets (telephone, net) then Eircom would have to strike back at NTL.

So Eircom spent a great deal of money buying and trialling one of the most expensive types of DSL and media encoding servers that would allow them to send TV over DSL and they applied to the ODTR for a license to broadcast TV.

The ODTR turned them down and then the threat failed to materialise from NTL. So Eircom decided to scrap all this spanking new gear they bought and went away and bought more affordable DSL gear that just does standard DSL. They of course needed to trial it all over again (one of the reasons why it took so long for DSL to hit Ireland), but now we eventually have this DSL.

But an Eircom employee mentioning this now is just more smoke and mirrors spin. In reality it was very unlikely that this TV over DSL technology would have been possible or affordable 3 or 4 years ago. It is was extremly new and untested technology at the time and it is only now in the last month starting to make an appearance in the UK. It is doubtful that Eircom would have had the infrastructure to deliver TV quality broadcasts over DSL.

It seems to me that IOFFL has been very succesfull at debunking Eircoms excuses for not rolling out DSL quicker (such as there be no interest amongst consumers in bb, there being no content to sell bb, no killer app to sell bb, etc.) and Eircom are desperately searching for a new excuse. It is getting pretty pathetic now to be honest.

It is very simple Eircom, it is all about the two A's, Afordability and Availability.

spongebob

Originally posted by wexfordman
1), I dont know anyone in towerco direct, I work as a radio planner

I think that your experience of Towerco may be to do with having a general licence. If one rings up on behalf of a non licencee then they can be unhelpful. I think that this is simply because they are understaffed. I would advise the ESB that there should be a small team specifically for ad-hoc requests rather than national SDH capacity requests. The ESB often consider that Irish carriers should have an STM-1 with a point code as a starting point. Again this is because they are understaffed at the ss7 signalling level IMO.

2)The ESB have very good 155MB SDH radio links, which, yes is about the 10G range,


I think their spacing is closer than the RTE masts. ESB masts tend to be within 20-30km LOS of their nearest peer.

3)The ESB's SDH Radio links would form part of a ring, with the facility to drop a pipe out of the ring at any hub. So it would be simple to provide a 2Mb pipe from say, a mast located in Youghal, back to Dublin. Again, I dont know the specifics of their network, but what we are debating here is the basic principles of any SDH network, and they have one, along with RTE

If this new carrier ONLY required 2Mb I can see the ESB (currently) as not very interested and helpful. I think the government should sponsor this ad-hoc team and instruct them that Carrier X , a new entity, should be allowed to drop as little as 512k at a given mast. You are describing 2Mbit drops within a much higher aggregate demand I fear.

The ESB could also be dealing with one individual per 512k drop in this scenario. In your experience the same person could be dealing with 10 x 2Mbit on different masts a month . That is good businesd for the ESB but tying up someone for a day over 1 x 512k with the next 512k pipe at least 6 months away is not as profitable so I cannot blame Towerco for deflecting these requests.

That is why the government should sponsor a special Towerco team on a contract to explore this Micro-Carrier market. Irishwan would not string me up for saying this I trust

3)there are many SDH hops in the country operated by the likes of ESB, RTE and mobile operators. THese hops form part of SDH rings which are the backbone transmission networks fo rthese operators. These high capacity links can be in excess of 50-60km.

a) ESB probably has the most capacity. RTE less so and I am not sure if they are willing to partition these pipes. I heard they dont want new business.
b) No large mobile operator (with a 3G licence) will host Wireless BWA network within their SDH and provide masts for them to boot. Turkeys and Christmas come to mind here. Meteor could (and should for lots of reasons) but their network is small in terms of Geographic coverage, remember my 80% threshold argument elsewhere.
c) The quality and cost of kit for resilient 20Km vs 60km is an order of magnitude greater, I would suggest €15k against €150k. If the hops exceed that then the initial Capex is getting a bit ridiculous.

Lets look at it realistically, if we want broadband, we could using various existing types of infrastructure, have a very robust wireless broadband network rolled out in a relatively short period of time. Yes, also use existing public, private or council owned structures, water towers etc.

We are all agreed on the holistic approach then. Nobody in here will dispute that statement you made.

But why spend millions burying a fibre around a couple of towns, when in reality, to meet todays (and future) needs, at a much lower cost, and a shorter time frame, a couple of good wireless sites would provide the solution. If we'd only get the government to sit back and look at the infrastructure its got.....

Ask Mary O'Rourke, it was her idea. It is a stillborn idea (for many) with no LLU on the horizon for another year and without a plan to host outside/nearby Eircom exchanges witha carrier neutral apporach. Almost everywhere with a MAN will also have DSL which costs less to provision because the CPE is cheaper and less costly to install. Ideally the MAN's would be hooked into LLU?DSL combinations at a low cost. Lts see what and who this MSE is , the organisation who will run the MANs and set prices for drops. We should know the 'who ' shortly.

M

wexfordman

Muck,

Not sure about the price comparison you are giving depending on length of hop, however the sums are still small. 150K (which is on the heavy side) for hop of 60kms is not much when you compare it to digging even 30k of fibre ring. On top of that you've still got hardare costs for the end fo the fibre/muxes etc, whereas 150k will pretty much get you there on a hop.

Anyway, I see from what you are saying that there are many "politcal" red tape issues with regards to getting some form of strategy together.

Hopwever, my point is still the same, I dont see how any of the red tape is insurmaountable. The technical issues are certainly not. You have existing networks, the companies that own them are semi state, and yet the gov seems to prefer to pump millions more into buriny fibre in the ground, rather than some for of subsidy/incentive/push or even threat to the companies that we own, to get together to provide the facilities to allow rapid rollout of wireless broadband.

Look at digiweb for example. If they had the network capacity for a backbone, and the offer of an antenna location on a rural ESB mast which would cover Youghal town for example, do you think they would take it ? If they would'nt someone else would. There is as it happens an ESB SDH mast just outside of Youghal. A 2M pipe from there to Dublin cound be set up in a matter of minutes....... If the willingness was there.

On the point of ESB not interested in a 512k link, I'm not sure I agree. If they they already have the network sitting there, why not sell the capacity, stimulate demand and sell 100 512k's. Eircom would bite your hand off if you wanted a 512k leased line, what makes the ESB any different.

Waht I'm saying, is that the state we are in, is a bit like drowning in a shallow pond, when all you have to do is get off your knees.
wexfordman

Dangger

Eircom would bite your hand off if you wanted a 512k leased line, what makes the ESB any different.

There genuiely does not appear to be a will within ESB to diversify into this area. They are pre-occupied with prettying themselves up for privatisiation against the wishes of the Minister and view that as their end game.

Pitching in on the broadband deficit should benefit them ultimately but it appears they are content with having the capcity and not selling it at this stage.

They had to be pushed into the power line trials and no one would be advised to hold their breath on them announcing its to be green lit throughout the country.

It appears to be off the radar of current management. Are there many customers on their North and South Rings (perhaps one is still incomplete - I'm not sure)? Are they still only selling large chunks instead of smaller more accessible 2mb chunks?

spongebob

Thanks for your insight. Many in here had considered the ESB fibre as useful (it GOES somewhere) but had not considered the existing Wireless LOS SDH network out to the Towers themselves......the same towers being a good spot to sling up a Base Station and Sectoral Antennae while one is at it.

It would be instructive to see what happens if a stack of people ring up (THIS WEEK LADS) looking for 2Mbit from their location to Dublin and 23u of rackspace in the shed below !

If the ESB demur on a large scale then an amendment or two to the Critical Infrastructure Bill may be required?.

M

wexfordman

I'm sorry guys, maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong angle.

If eircom was still in state hands, there would probably be a big push to roll out broadband. So its, not, so the state goes about building a new network!!!!!

It just seems a little odd to me that I am served by Chorus mmds, which goes back to a mountaintop just above youghal (the sign name relates to my roots, not my present abode by the way). Anyway on this mountaintop are several masts. 1 for chorus (we wont even discuss them any further), 1 belonging to the ESB, An RTE Mast, and I think a mobile operator is on it also.The ESB have 155MB capacity into this mast which routes back to Dublin. In fact, you can route from Youghal to Dublin in just 5 SDH hops (its been done already), each of these hops being a point where you can drop off pipes with great ease to serve other local masts, houses, cities, towns etc. You can get to wexford town in 3 hops, Limerick city in 2 etc etc etc....

With a bit of co-ordination, using existing publicly owned resources, and spending a lot less money, it could be done. You already have a wireless backbone network going through every major city in the country.

The recent announcement that the gov were going to look at public access points next to eircom exchanges was a good idea, but why not go a step further. Apply for planning in large towns, and rural areas for masts, owned publicly for the use of broadband infrastructure. Sign a deal with the ESB for access to their backbone throughout the country, link these masts back to ESB backbone. Then lease space on these masts for small operators to install wirelss broadband cells. This way, they not only have the physical infrastucture, but access back into a good backbone also.
Never mind planning, every town and village in Ireland has a Garda mast, most with LOS that can be utilised to get back to some backbone somewhere. There is ALWAYS a method to link masts together wirelessly, thats why there are thousands of mobile masts around the country, and most of these would eventually link back to similar points of access as ESB masts etc.

I get your point about the esb not being interested in one off 2Mb links for individuals/small operators, but like I said above, if one organasiation (the gov) signed a deal with the ESB for several access points on their infrastrucure, then its a good commercial move for the ESB.

One mast in a town like Youghal, Portarlington, Wexford etc would give good LOS for wireless broadband for 90% of the town. Thats a hell of a lot cheaper and quicker than running a ring of fibre. And anyway I bet once you started something like that rolling out, Eircom would move into higher gear.

Just a thought, I know there are a lot of niggly bits, but the basics are there.
wexfordman

spongebob

Originally posted by wexfordman
Apply for planning in large towns, and rural areas for masts, owned publicly for the use of broadband infrastructure.

That alone is the key. A raft of planning applications will have Eircom in a tizzy.

(Pm sent)

M

iwb

I can confirm that ESB is uninterested in dealing with even a 2Mb request as we got a 'thanks for your interest' from them a few months back. I was responding to the competition for funding for three towns in the BMW regions.
To be honest, I think we pitched it well to them, but they weren't in the least interested. One guy there thought it was crazy that we only wanted such a small bandwidth for backhaul to a whole two towns! Muck is probably right that they couldn't be bothered for the small business, or it is not cost effective.
Now, to wade into the debate a little. I really don't agree with either of you on this wireless backhaul notion. At least not to the degree that you would use it. It is too short term and real money would have to be spent to be able to use it effectively imho.
ESB will sell 34Mb to anyone and will drop it off in chunks at any of the locations on its network for a one off, per location charge. This means that a proper demand aggregation exercise can be looked at and it has future upgradeability built in for very little or no extra capital cost.
Take a look at their map, ESB cover a large area of the country with the fibre network. You might also find that if you were a customer (one of the few?) on this network, that they would be very cooperative on the towerco side for rural delivery, past the rings.
Now, how difficult would it be to use 34Mb in total over the whole network?

wexfordman

IWB,

Interesting about the 34Mb statement. Basically, the ESB are not interested in someone looking for one 2Mb carrier, but they would be interested in someone looking for a combined capacity of 34Mb's, spread around different locations in the country ?

Thats more or less what I am talking about in my previous post, although I have no idea about what it takes to get teh ESB interested. Also, I agree, that the ESB towerco, would be happy to lease space on their infrastructure for broadband providers, as they do to mobile operators.

Just on a note on wireless backbone, it is actually extremely reliable, and easy/qucik to rollout when compared to fibre rollout. As I said its been used for years as backbone for major wirelsss operators across the world, and weather factors can be engineered into the reliability of the link.

Anyway, if you say the ESB would be interested in someone looking for a spread of 34Mb capacity, how about this then for a governemtn rollout strategy?-
1) Governemt sets up a national wirells broadband rollout program
2) Negotiates provision of 34MB capacity (to start off with), split around the country into 2MB pipes at esb hubs (fibre and radio hubs).
3) Negotiates co-location on ESB/RTE masts in regional areas/towns, and provides a transmission link (radio) from this point abck to the ESB hub.
4) Leases out the transmission backbone it has just established to the regions to wireless operators for the provision of broadband services.
5) in areas where no rte/esb/garda masts are available, use council owned facilities/watertowers/ private masts, or apply for planning to provide one.

Well ?
wexfordman

iwb

Absolutely. Why nobody has done anything in this regard yet is beyond me.
I guess IrishBroadband are going out to a few cities as was reported in the newspapers and I would assume that they will use ESB and Aurora to get back to the centre of the universe.
We were somewhat disappointed by the lack of interest in the BMW regions for our proposal to get three towns live and go from there with a plan to bring on new towns as we could. I really think there is huge inertia within local and national government when it comes to anything beyond that which is well established. I hope to help in changing that.
BTW, I am from New Ross, so a fellow Wexfordman.

wexfordman

IWB,

Not only that, but how much cheaper would an option like this cost, as opposed to running miles of ribre rings around "designated" towns, and still having no last mile access ?
wexfordman

spongebob

Mind you we have more chance of seeing Phil Nolan and Bill Murphy in amicable and learned discourse in here than we have of getting a lists of who is who and what is what in ESB telecoms.

There is a Fiberco and a Towerco within ESB Telecom but there is another group responsible for Carrier relationships as well...whatever they are known as.

M

azi

Originally posted by dahamsta
One suggestion that was mooted at the LLU Forum was portacabins in the car parks...

adam

Hmm. How come you know this? AFAIR, you weren't there when I made that suggestion ;-)
It was in response to Eircom's statement that they had no room in most exchanges, btw.
ODTR (this was in 2000/1) were not uninterested in the concept. Some space was found then, as it seems...

azi.