Eircom Plan to deliver 500,000 Broadband connections by December 2007

damien

NEWS RELEASE

eircom leads Broadband revolution for Ireland

Plan to deliver 500,000 Broadband connections by December 2007

Ireland now has one of the highest Broadband growth rates in Europe

Ireland to well exceed EU average and UK for DSL penetration, and to be at
EU average for Broadband

Goal of near 100% Broadband availability by March 2007

Wednesday 24 November, 2004: Having achieved its target of 100,000 Broadband connections ahead of schedule eircom has today announced an aggressive new plan to deliver 500,000 DSL Broadband connections by December 2007. The new target, which we believe would position Ireland above the EU average for DSL Broadband penetration, reflects the fact that Ireland has become one of the fastest growth markets for Broadband in the EU. This is the result of an aggressive marketing and promotional campaign by eircom which has resulted in excess of 3,000 customers signing up for Broadband each week.

eircom also announced today that it plans to achieve 90% Broadband coverage in Ireland by March 2006 and is calling on Government to deliver the
remaining 10% so that Ireland can have 100% Broadband availability. Coverage today stands at over 74% and is set to reach 80% by March 2005, ensuring that every town in Ireland with a population over 1,500 will be connected to Broadband.

Commenting on the announcement the chief executive of eircom, Phil Nolan,
said: "We have now made the breakthrough in Broadband in Ireland by
achieving our target of connecting 100,000 customers ahead of schedule. Today we are connecting customers to Broadband at one of the fastest rates
in Europe. We are now set to transform Broadband in this country with our
plan to have 500,000 connections by December 2007. We are also setting a
goal to have 100% Broadband availability in Ireland by March 2007.
eircom will provide 90% availability by this date and I believe that it may be possible for Government, through the funding it has allocated already, to
complete the final 10%.

The Regulator has a crucial role, both to support investors in broadband
infrastructure, and to ensure that innovation is not choked by
over-regulation. Broadband has truly arrived in Ireland and eircom is determined to ensure that as many people as possible become part of the Broadband revolution as quickly as possible".

Note:
eircom has achieved its target of 100,000 Broadband connections by November 17th 2004. eircom's retail division has signed up 77,000 customers. eircom's wholesale division accounts for 23,000 connections (sold mainly by EsatBT). Two thirds of the Broadband base today is residential with one-third
business.
- ENDS -

koneko

When Eircom says 100% BB availability, do they mean all the exchanges should be upgraded, or everyone should be able to get BB? Those two completely different figures. 100% looks impressive at first, but not when you factor in how many people actually fail the line test.

spongebob

koneko wrote:

When Eircom says 100% BB availability, do they mean all the exchanges should be upgraded, or everyone should be able to get BB? Those two completely different figures. 100% looks impressive at first, but not when you factor in how many people actually fail the line test.

Eircom have Wireless Licences in the 3.5Ghz band. The condition s imply that they must install more next year toi meet a 5 year coverage requirement.

I would bet that the 100% is probably.

100% of the 1100 exchange areas Nationally will have FWA or Wired DSL service..sometimes both.....in 3 years. Try to remember that Eircom have not upgraded all their exchanges for ISDN yet ....and that is a 20 year old technology.

It will not be 100% geographic or 100% population .

M

Eurorunner

Try to remember that Eircom have not upgraded all their exchanges for ISDN yet

Thats interesting. Is there a list of those that have not been upgraded somewhere muck?

damien

IrelandOffline reply below. If anyone has friends in the media send the below press release on to them.

Pressure Group calls for Ministerial action after latest eircom statement.

Today Internet consumer and business pressure group IrelandOffline described eircom's latest broadband announcement as something suitable for the late nineties and not for the current century. The group feels Ireland is again being cheated with a target that is set for the end of 2007, at least a year later than Minister Noel Dempsey wanted. The group is now seeking Ministerial intervention in wake of eircom's statements.

Spokesman Aidan Whyte said "Ireland is currently 18th out of 21 countries in the OECD. The OECD countries are our direct competitors and Ireland is currently at a distinct business and cultural disadvantage. With these targets from eircom it shows we will unfortunately remain disadvantaged for the foreseeable future. If our economic progress is to be sustained we need to be on par with the rest of the developed world."

Commenting on the eircom rollout, committee member John Timmons stated. "eircom are talking about 2007, but let's talk about today. Today in Ireland less than half the population can get broadband, broadband rollout is 3 years behind the rest of Europe, 20-25% of lines in areas covered for broadband fail the eircom quality test (compared to less than 1% in the UK) and there is a deepening digital divide between the rural and urban populations."

Timmons added "The eircom press release contains an array of up-beat phrases about high penetration rates, exceeding EU averages, fastest growth rates, aggressive plans and so on. This is a dangerously misleading smoke screen.We have 100,000 broadband subscribers in Ireland today. Meanwhile in the 6 counties in the North they have 70,000 connections and a guarantee of 100% coverage by February while eircom are promising us in the Republic 90% by a far off date in 2007"

IrelandOffline said for eircom to seek to carve up the market and take the easy 90% while leaving the remaining 10% to take their chances is analogous to the ESB saying that it will provide electricity to 90% of the population and for the rest to come up with their own solution.

Aidan Whyte stated: "IrelandOffline now calls on eircom and all the other companies in the market to release their plans for their future broadband rollouts and to include six-monthly objectives from now until the time Ireland has 100% coverage. Further to this we are calling on Minister Dempsey to urgently conduct a review of the state of Broadband in Ireland in the light of eircom's failure to realise the seriousness of the country's plight. "

damien

There may be something on 5-7 live about this later. Maybe send some comments if they cover it. Email is: 57live@rte.ie

Blaster99

Perhaps very obvious, but it's a good idea to compare the Republic with the North because that must be a very similar environment. Whatever can be done in the North can surely be done here, particularly if you consider that we supposedly have a much better performing economy. If the UK regulatory regime and BT can deliver broadband to 100% of people in the North, then the same should be achievable here in the same time frame. Anything else is a sign of significant failure on the part of the regulator. Comparing with the UK as a whole isn't as effective as they have higher population density and greater economy of scale type of excuses.

thejollyrodger

The north is meant to have 100% broadband coverage by 2005. Were 2 years down the track after that. Plus they are introducing ADSL 2 which goes further. no sign of that here.

SkepticOne

damien.m wrote:

IrelandOffline said for eircom to seek to carve up the market and take the easy 90% while leaving the remaining 10% to take their chances is analogous to the ESB saying that it will provide electricity to 90% of the population and for the rest to come up with their own solution.

No, Eircom said that they wished to work in "partnership with Government" (Phil Nolan interview) i.e. the Government pays Eircom, to achieve "practically" 100% in terms of "coverage". There would still be a 30% failure rate (higher in rural areas). This 30% may be reduced with the introduction of ADSL2+ but there will still be the issue of splitters and low line quality. From Eircoms point of view this isn't a great problem since they make money anyway.

They don't say that they want other companies doing the remaining 10% for the obvious reason that the less competition the better.

De Rebel

thejollyrodger wrote:

The north is meant to have 100% broadband coverage by 2005.

Can anybody point me to where this is written down?

bealtine

De Rebel wrote:

Can anybody point me to where this is written down?

Here is one place :

http://www.investni.com/index/locate/lc-key-facts/key_facts_-_infrastructure.htm

vinnyfitz

Nice to hear IOFFL's statement quoted on the RTE business news at 7.05 this morning.

damien

Woah. Impressive.

SiliconRepublic have it too:

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news4a.nv?storyid=single4121

DonegalMan

damien.m wrote:

Woah. Impressive.

SiliconRepublic have it too:

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news4a.nv?storyid=single4121

To steal a saying from DeRebel - that one really hits the spot!

SpiderKiller

they are Very Slow to have DSL install in the Midlands. I have been livin in Dublin all my life and when i move out to the Midlands in a village which is kinda head racking when i have no Line for the internet and i am not going to pay more then the average price for DSL line. If i wanted the internet that bad i would have to go Satellite Broadband wihich i do not want to spend the money on.

I live in Westmeath and i wanted to ask does anybody know a way to get Eircom to Speed them up to get a DSL Line in the area you live in ? ? ? ?

jwt

Where in Westmeath do you live?

there are quite a few towns and villages with bb, either through Adsl or wireless.

John

eircomtribunal

Report on BBC how Scotland is getting supplied with DSL.

Communities get broadband access

Broadband is seen to have benefits for business
A project which aimed to give every community in Scotland access to broadband services has been completed, ministers have announced.

...The only one which has still to be fully enabled serves Foula in Shetland, although an interim solution is already providing broadband access in the area.

Out of reach

Services have been launched in most of its areas, with the remainder due to come on stream within the next few months.

The executive said some people who live far away from the exchanges were unable to access broadband due to the limitations of ADSL technology.

"While the executive is not committed to providing broadband to every household, it has however been working to identify any clusters of 'out of reach' households in Scotland where there is a demand for broadband," said a spokesman.

"The executive is developing the next steps for providing solutions to these 'clusters' over 2006, subject to criteria, including budget and value for money."

With a € 35 million (£24) state contribution Scotland, which has about 5 million people and about the same population density as Ireland (slightly higher) they have achieved near universal dsl coverage.

P.

Solair

If there are exchanges / RSUs that don't support ISDN that would have no relevance to DSL rollout anyway. It would just highlight eircom's total distain for rural areas.

ISDN's actually provided by the voice switch itself and requires the appropriate software/hardware to be present.

DSL is basically piggy-backed ontop of the analogue lines coming out of the exchange. Doesn't really matter what services the local switch provides/doesn't provide. In theory, had DSL arrived in the 1980s it could even have been rolled out on electromechanical switches. All it needs is access to the copper cables.

DialUpMeArse

All in all, this announcement is welcome, to a degree. Like others I have reservations about the actual practical ramifications of this particular stage of Eircoms bb Crusade. Somebody inside Eircom needs to go on the record as to what "100%" REALLY constitutes, and whether line-failure will still be an issue.

As I said elsewhere, GBS is due to go live in my area, Mark McGuinnes has stated that the transmitter is to placed on a hill known as Downs Hill, and as far as I know I have direct line of sight with that Hill, albeit that I live in a bungalow.

So, fingers crossed, that scheme should be a GO by Feb at the latest. Start up fee is €150 with €50 per month for a 2mb DL/ 1 mb UL connection, no Cap, save for some fuzzy talk about "ABUSE"

Eitherways, 2 years is a long time from now, especially when you consider Eircom have made NO guarantee as to the practical effect of their expansion. Its the local GBS for me.

DialUpMeArse

SkepticOne wrote:

No, Eircom said that they wished to work in "partnership with Government" .

In other words the Govt can help foot the bill, which they will gladly do. Gobsheens.

Laguna

eircomtribunal wrote:

With a € 35 million (£24) state contribution Scotland, which has about 5 million people and about the same population density as Ireland (slightly higher) they have achieved near universal dsl coverage.

P.

This ****ing country, mark my words - many, many people in rural Ireland like myself will never be offered DSL broadband through the phoneline as long as Eircom hold all the cards. I live six kilometres as the crow flies from Borris, Carlow, a town which recently had its exchange upgraded, I tried to get broadband in vain, sending email after email to phil.nolan@eircom.ie and all I got back was the fact that Eircom see this area as 'done and dusted', they told me that as I live 6km from Borris (I got the guy who rang me to say it - it says it in the email too), that my phoneline will NEVER be broadband enabled.

uncle_sam_ie

Laguna wrote:

This ****ing country, mark my words - many, many people in rural Ireland like myself will never be offered DSL broadband through the phoneline as long as Eircom hold all the cards. I live six kilometres as the crow flies from Borris, Carlow, a town which recently had its exchange upgraded, I tried to get broadband in vain, sending email after email to phil.nolan@eircom.ie and all I got back was the fact that Eircom see this area as 'done and dusted', they told me that as I live 6km from Borris (I got the guy who rang me to say it - it says it in the email too), that my phoneline will NEVER be broadband enabled.

I'm in the same ****ing shoes. I live about 6 kilometers from my exchange also, although mine hasn't been upgraded yet. My only hope is wireless broadband. I really believe the Government needs to step in. I DON'T want them to give Eircon money though. They need to get those exchanges opened up and some kind of tax incentive to the operators if they give rural Ireland Broadband access. The situation now really sucks.:mad:

damien

Laguna wrote:

they told me that as I live 6km from Borris (I got the guy who rang me to say it - it says it in the email too), that my phoneline will NEVER be broadband enabled.

Can you forward that email to info AT irelandoffline.org?

Sponge Bob

Laguna wrote:

and all I got back was the fact that Eircom see this area as 'done and dusted', they told me that as I live 6km from Borris (I got the guy who rang me to say it - it says it in the email too), that my phoneline will NEVER be broadband enabled.

You have (rare) written proof that we will never have 100% BB coverage, and thats from the CEO s own office . Congrats my friend. In the UK the carrier BT would pull out the stops to give you BB as long as you were within 10KM so 6KM is nothing really . In the wild , and looking at the decrepit ****heap that is the copper access network, many of us knew as early as the early to mid 1990s that the state of the art network was a con job and it has rotted since .

The government has a mind (not really a plan is that spatial thingy ) to disperse the population more evenly around the country ...around smaller towns anyway... but will not be able to so do because of the current state of the last mile telecoms infrastructure. Therefore Eircom sorta have them by the goolies a bit until wireless has serious traction . That about 2-3 years away .

1huge1

I live about 3/4 of a kilometre outside a town called Hospital that has yet to have its exchange upgraded
but what i dont understand is that other towns around us seem to be getting broadband and were not and we have much more people living in hospital
in the greater area theres a good few thousand
i bet ya if i was in leinster we would have it
they are deploying it much better there than they are here in munster

another thing that makes no sense is that eircom say they cover 70% of the population when it comes to broadband i find this very hard to believe we could not possible be in the last 30%
id say the figure is more like 60% at the most

Sponge Bob

Hospital is not on a main road , its near one but actually not on it. Therefore it probably has no fibre unlike the tiny (and enabled) Ardrahan in Co. Galway.

Laguna

damien.m wrote:

Can you forward that email to info AT irelandoffline.org?

I'll try and locate it, it's on my pop mail server which I hardly use at my website, this was some time ago though and I'm not entirely sure if my webspace provider deletes read email after a certain amount of time (Brinkster) .

DialUpMeArse

Laguna wrote:

This ****ing country, mark my words - many, many people in rural Ireland like myself will never be offered DSL broadband through the phoneline as long as Eircom hold all the cards. I live six kilometres as the crow flies from Borris, Carlow, a town which recently had its exchange upgraded, I tried to get broadband in vain, sending email after email to phil.nolan@eircom.ie and all I got back was the fact that Eircom see this area as 'done and dusted', they told me that as I live 6km from Borris (I got the guy who rang me to say it - it says it in the email too), that my phoneline will NEVER be broadband enabled.

Tell you what, when Mark McGuinness gets back from his holidays I'll try and get him to contact you. He's the man beind the Group Broadband Scheme in my area. I think you need to recruit a certain amount of support [ie pull in a certain minimum of interested parties] and then they [the ISP] go to work on it for you.

1huge1

Sponge Bob wrote:

Hospital is not on a main road , its near one but actually not on it. Therefore it probably has no fibre unlike the tiny (and enabled) Ardrahan in Co. Galway.

are you sure you were looking at the right place because hospital is on a main road

SpiderKiller

Well i live beside Kinnegad, Co. Westmeath. And i Got a Eircom line in and guest what FAILED. So no broadband for me GREAT. So does anybody know a way to get broadband faster then the ****y time wasting by Eircom.

i not one for wireless as you know its **** which its can not be used for gaming and downloads. I had broadband for 4 years and when i moved from dublin i have been stuck without Broadband since i moved to here.

Any Help

Sponge Bob

http://www.broadband4kinnegad.com/