Eircom accused of abandoning rural Ireland

bigpaddy2004

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0311/eircom.html

An Eircom executive has said that people in rural Ireland who live more than 5km from a telephone exchange will never get broadband.

Eircom's Paul Bradley said that even when the local exchange is upgraded to handle broadband, a modem will not connect as the signal becomes so weak after 5km.

He told the Oireachtas Communications Committee it was a limitation of the technology.

AdvertisementFine Gael's Noel Coonan accused Eircom of abandoning rural Ireland.

Mr Bradley said Eircom has now connected broadband to exchanges where there are between 300 and 400 customers.

Another Eircom executive, Pat Galvin, said that even when these exchanges are connected, some communities will have to rely on slower broadband because of cost.

Mr Galvin said that it would not be economic to extend fixed line broadband nationwide and that some parts of rural Ireland would have to reply on wireless broadband, which is slower.

godskitchen

I was listening to these clowns on the radio yesterday. They struck me as people who had been briefed on the different tech involved but who knew nothing about it themselves.

What they did have to say went unchallenged apart from the same old "so you are forgetting the people in rural Ireland" shouts.

To most of us on here the things they were talking about were of a pretty basic level, to be honest they did not really go into any depth on any subject....."wireless technologies" and "fibre technology" and of course "copper technology" was as deep as it got.

They claim that fibre would do the job but it is far more expensive than copper..........I am pretty sure that is not the case anymore.

Eircom need the infrastructure taken off them by the government, it needs to become state owned. It sickens me to say that, but hear me out.....

Then what we do is get together with the ESB and run fibre along the ESB lines. We bring the ESB network into the 21st century, something that is already being doen in other countries.

There will be no more guess work as to how much electricity we need, with fibre on the lines we will know exactly how much pressure is on the network and how much each house is using......it even gets as in depth as telling each house how much energy there kettle uses. In this time of conservation, it is key to saving energy.

So we have fibre running to each home via ESB lines. Now sell all the eircom copper.

How do we pay for all this? Well I am guessing it would cost a lot less than the 7Bn going to the banks, 7Bn we will never see again......so what I would do is take some of that cash, pay for the fibre along the lines and rent that infrastructure back to any ISP/TV company that wants to use it......and guess what, it pays for itself over time, Ireland gets the most advanced electricity and internet network in the world.....


Am I just dreaming here or does this sound like it could be done?

bigpaddy2004

Dreaming.......................:rolleyes:

johnciall

godskitchen wrote: »

Eircom need the infrastructure taken off them by the government, it needs to become state owned. It sickens me to say that, but hear me out.....

Agreed, the network should never have been sold off

Then what we do is get together with the ESB and run fibre along the ESB lines. We bring the ESB network into the 21st century, something that is already being doen in other countries.

ESB already have a substantial Fiber network running along the backbone of thier network making it alot easier to roll it out nation wide

cfriel2002

dreaming....

just adding fibre isn't the answer.... requires expensive equipment which needs to be managed/maintained/repaired nationwide 24/7 etc

who wants to pay for this ?? small bus who're struggling to meet their cashflow .... consumers expecting to pay < €10 a month .... filesharers ??

time for folks to rejoin the real world

smellslikeshoes

johnciall wrote: »

ESB already have a substantial Fiber network running along the backbone of thier network making it alot easier to roll it out nation wide

I'm not sure if "alot easier" would be the right phrase, their fibre trunk would be an absolute tiny piece of the puzzle.

Accusations of Eircom abandoning Rural Ireland are completely irrelevant, they are a private company and can do what they see as profitable. A lot of politicians on both sides don't seem to realise that Eircom is not state run anymore and they are not obliged to do things they don't see as profitable for the good of the nation.

It has generally been accepted on these forums for many years that Eircom won't be rolling out to every rural area since it won't be cost effective and quite pointless in some some exchanges. Accusations like these against Eircom are completely useless and show that the opposition are just as out of touch with the reality of telecommunications in Ireland as the government.

Eircom was in the running for the NBS to serve these rural areas, but the contract was given to Three Ireland. To be blunt, ITS NOT EIRCOMS ****ING PROBLEM.

jor el

bigpaddy2004 wrote: »

An Eircom executive has said that people in rural Ireland who live more than 5km from a telephone exchange will never get broadband.

To be fair to eircom, the 5km limitation is inherent to DSL, and nothing to do with them. It also applies to all phone lines, and not just rural ones. There's probably a greater chance that you're more than 5km from an exchange if living in the country, then if you lived in a large town or city though. The crappy line quality, that causes a lot of lines under the 5km range to fail, is however eircom's fault. Also, the use of pairgains is something within their control.

bigpaddy2004 wrote: »

Mr Galvin said that it would not be economic to extend fixed line broadband nationwide and that some parts of rural Ireland would have to rely on wireless broadband, which is slower.

There are wireless services that exceed eircom's maximum speed, so it's very disingenuous for him to claim that wireless is slower than DSL.

godskitchen

cfriel2002 wrote: »

dreaming....

just adding fibre isn't the answer.... requires expensive equipment which needs to be managed/maintained/repaired nationwide 24/7 etc

who wants to pay for this ?? small bus who're struggling to meet their cashflow .... consumers expecting to pay < €10 a month .... filesharers ??

time for folks to rejoin the real world

No the government pay for it initially, then ISP's pay (Irish customers) by leasing the infrastructure from the government/Irish taxpayer.

I really dont know how much more simply I can put it than that. If we are wiling to throw 7Bn at the banks, at least put it into something where Ireland will make money at some stage.

This would revolutionise the Broadband/Tv market, think of the competition if every ISP had fibre to every home in the country, all charged much the same price for using the delivery method.

As for paying for the upkeep.....again it is paid for from the money made from the leasing of the fibre.

This is pretty much how the rail system in the UK works, one company looks after tracks and in effect rents them to the train companies.

My idea is not a new one, just new to this segment.