School broadband: 90% connected [siliconrepublic]

eircomtribunal

Announcing that 90% of schools are now connected to broadband, and the rest to be by September, director of NCTE (National Centre for Technology in Education) Jim Morrissey has frank words:

Another problem, according to Morrissey, has been the limitations of Ireland’s broadband infrastructure. “It’s not a fault of the planning; it’s about the broadband facilities in the country. A sizeable number of schools will be on satellite, for example, simply because there is no alternative.”

He estimates that around 1,200 schools will be dependent on satellite technology that is markedly slower than fixed line and wireless. He makes the point that in Northern Ireland only a handful of schools had to resort to satellite.

From Ian Campbell's article on siliconrepublic one can glean that the content issue, the curricular integration is still in its infancy.
P.

JohnC.

The local secondary school has a dish on the roof for broadband. Since then, the local exchange has been enabled. Would they now be stuck with satellite, or would this scheme transfer them to fixed line? I suppose it would probably be the former, at least for some time?

eircomtribunal

(Exchange enabled does not necessarily mean that the line is capable of DSL. 87% average chance according to Eircom's latest SEC filing. Less than that with more rural exchanges)
Good question to ask the NCTE.
I guess they'll be stuck with satellite for some time. Does not matter much, IMO, as it will also take some time, before "the broadband" is integrated into the curriculum.
This, and it will repeat across the country, is the result of the incumbent being allowed to stunt all intelligent forward planning, when it comes to DSL availability. ComReg even agreed to Eircom blocking the release of a map showing the existing DSL enabled exchanges, when I FOI-ed the regulator some time ago.

Funny thing is though, that, if I remember correctly, Eircom is paying the main share of the broadband for school scheme.

P.

lucernarian

It's a secondary school in a small town so it's probably a kilometre or less from the exchange. If the line fails anyway, I would be very peed off with eircom and demand that they remove the pairgain or fix the fault on the line. Check your school's phone number on www.netsource.ie

eircomtribunal

To_be_confirmed wrote:

It's a secondary school in a small town so it's probably a kilometre or less from the exchange. If the line fails anyway, I would be very peed off with eircom and demand that they remove the pairgain or fix the fault on the line. Check your school's phone number on www.netsource.ie

The issue is this: With the school broadband scheme schools got (will get) connected to broadband by a number of providers who won the tender for individual schools. So there are contractual fixes and it is not just a matter of going over to DSL. The school has not say at all, I believe. Albeit it does not make sense for SMART who connected some of "their" schools with satellite to leave it that way, when now DSL is available. But again they are probably in a contractual fix with the satellite provider they subcontracted for the job.
P.

Sponge Bob

VSAT schools are smart or digiweb

digiweb can be persuaded to change vsat to bitstream dsl as it becomes available or to metro , therefore your school is not stuck on vsat for ever.

smart seemingly can not , they have no bitstream package to offer and no wireless offering

eircom supplied all the routers (ciscos) for all the schools and they can be reconfigured no probs I understand .

lucernarian

I remember a few posts here telling of how a school could change provider but I'm not sure on specifics. And like sponge bob said, the likes of Digiweb could be persuaded to change. Mind you, several schools in the Drogheda area are served by Digiweb FWA, even with lines passing for DSL. One school had BT broadband before Digiweb set up their FWA connection. 2 mbits FWA I think.