M.A.N.'s (Metropolitan Area Network)? For all you ISP/Broadband gurus

smartblaa

Hi all,
Ok, so the government have rolled out all these new M.A.N.'s in the bigger towns and cities in the country.

I am in the process of setting up a small/medium enterprise which will consume quite alot of bandwidth AND have quite a few end users.

In essence, i'm looking for a 100MB/s download and 75MB/s upload connection at the very least.

I have heard that a one year connection directly to the fibre optic M.A.N. costs in the region of €10,000 per annum. Can anybody confirm if this indeed is the case?

Also, if I got set-up with one of those... how exactly do I get my connectivity?

Does the M.A.N. operator have their own servers, or do I have to provide my own DNS CACHE server?(I don't know if that terminology makes sense)

In summary, I want to know how I can get connectivity thru a M.A.N. without having to buy a 2MB package from an ISP!! :-)

Appologies for posting this in the Broadband and Net Comms forum.. i just need a quick answer.

Regards

Eoin

Sponge Bob

smartblaa wrote:

Hi all,
Ok, so the government have rolled out all these new M.A.N.'s in the bigger towns and cities in the country.

Tis true

I am in the process of setting up a small/medium enterprise which will consume quite alot of bandwidth AND have quite a few end users.

In essence, i'm looking for a 100MB/s download and 75MB/s upload connection at the very least.

technically not a problem on the larger MANs with ESB backhaul. Some MANs have iffy backhaul and may not have 100mbits left over.

As 100mbits is the smallest package the ESB sell cross country you may even be best off getting a basic licence ( basic authhorisation ) from Comreg and dealing with esb and enet yourself as a licenced operator, costs €50 for the licence . But its not a problem . First approach enet.ie about a 100mbit port on a man and a 100mbit cross country connection and a drop from esb into a dublin data centre for ip transit options or ip transit in esb dublin

I have heard that a one year connection directly to the fibre optic M.A.N. costs in the region of €10,000 per annum. Can anybody confirm if this indeed is the case?

yes and no. that would get you around 5mbits or 10 at most.

20k would get you about 20mbits so I would think you will pay at least 60-70k per annum to a carrier for what you propose ...which will be 100 down and 100 up .

Also, if I got set-up with one of those... how exactly do I get my connectivity?

a cisco switch with fibre out back and a 10/100 port in front is typically what shows up at your end.

Does the M.A.N. operator have their own servers, or do I have to provide my own DNS CACHE server?(I don't know if that terminology makes sense)

least of your worries TBH

look at 100 down 100 up costing you around 60-70k per annum from an isp and with them hosting dns for you as well if you like ....otherwise you can look for a block of your own ip addresses which can move to any isp in future.

not sure its a priority for a startup though . There are other ways to configure the setup with some servers in a datacentre and a smaller pipe to your office which may make more sense ???.

smartblaa

Thanks for that Spongebob.
I'll just try to absorb all of that information!!

Cheers

Eoin

Sponge Bob

Ring enet and talk to them , lots of isps only have 100mbit pipes themselves into any given man location ..Galway Limerick etc.

again I say, are you sure that you need a full 100mbits down the country or would 100mbits to a datacenter be better with a smaller pipe down the country .

do not forget that Cork now has a datacentre, the cix

http://www.cix.ie/category/cork/

it would be a lot cheaper for starters

smartblaa

Ok...story is that I need 100Mb/up and 100MB/down between my clients and my servers.

On reflection I think that after that I only need about 20MB/up and down for external internet access.

If that makes any sense

Sponge Bob

yes, I had suggested the reverse

do you need a constant 100mbits or a burst to 100mbits ??

how many hours a day (average) do you need this burst if applciable ???

are the servers in a dublin datacentre ??

are the clients down the country and on more than one man or on one man only

smartblaa

Do you have I.M.

Prefer to chat off the boards if you can...don't want to be disclosing my whole set-up


Skype: smartblaa

MSN: eoinconnors@gmail.com

Sponge Bob

will im thru gmail

check these maps first

http://www.enet.ie/Shared/Business/MAN.aspx

RangeR

Very interested in this, purely on academic reasons.

You probably won't want to post the details but I'd just be interested in the final outcome. What speed you finally decided on and the price? Obvioulsy any other details that you would care to share that aren't too business sensitive

thegills

smartblaa,
Why don't you contact e-net directly? They sell wholesale to authorized operators so don't sell to end-customers. They do have a section on their website which enables end-customers to get quotes from authorized operators.
Alternatively you can become a authorized operator yourself and get wholesale quotes from e-net directly.
thegills