Fine Gael: we promise 100 MB/s available to 90% of the population by 2013

Cabaal

Magzr wrote: »

I know most people on here are from Dublin and consider Dublin to be "the country" and hence keep on rabbiting on compareing UPC against DSL providers.
I hear no one comapreing caseys in Dungarvan against the DSL providers?

.

I believe you are incorrect in your assumption about most people on here being from Dublin, this is a flawed assumption.

UPC provide lots of coverage outside of Dublin and are very popular in the likes of Waterford City etc.

In addition Casey Cable has been used as a comparison numerous times on this forum by many users including myself, they are well respected as a company for the quality of the service they have provided to people in Dungarvan when other companys had no interest in Broadband...including Eircom!.

When Casey Cable were selling cable internet Eircom were still flogging ISDN big time.

Sponge Bob

bk wrote: »

Just to add, technically speaking, there is no reason why cable can't be used in rural areas. In the US cable passes something like 96% of all homes.

In fact cable being a higher quality, thicker, and shielded cable would actually be much better for rural areas then plain old telephone cable.

I am not sure about maximum Docsis segment lengths BK , there are some 'enhanced' reach lan technologies as well to deal with the ethernet 100m limit ,

eg http://www.telecom-sync.com/pdf/2006/33_George_Zampetti.pdf

Frankly if we are to do this we should run GPON over DWDM which beats Docsis 3 and where segment lengths can be as much as 10km or 20km ...IIRC docsis is limited to 2km before it looses clock synch on the segment .

You may also manage contention with max a 64 nodes per 2.5gbps Lambda ( wavelength) or fewer ....say 16 and the minimum number of 2.5gpbs wavelenghhs on any DWDM fibre is 16 wavelengths . Some other fibre type have over 100 wavelengths .

A single fibre pair can handle 2.5gbit split among 16 users for a contention of 150mbits each on the fibre . It will have 16 wavelenths too.

Therefore a 10km long fibre pair can drop c.150mbits to 16x16 customers along the way...256 customers . Most of the cost is digging .

If only we could send out Fás gangs to do their own neighbourhoods but sure everybody is working nowadays and it would cost a fortune

bk

Cabaal wrote: »

From reading the FG document they want to start a new agency called Broadband 21 who will build and utilize exisiting networks and build new ones, this in my mind means we end up with Eircom 2!

Telecom Eireann was started to roll out PSTN lines in Ireland, now FG want Broadband 21 to roll out cable/fibre and they will control it...

Did we not learn anything from Telecom Eireann???

Actually if they were serious about this and willing to invest the required money, I'd actually be very supportive of this, I believe it is the only way that we will get decent BB infrastructure for everyone in Ireland. I don't believe private enterprise can deliver this, infrastructure at this level is just one of those things that only governments can afford to do.

If they follow a model like in Australia, where the new company is 51% owned by the government, 49% by various ISP's who transfer their own fibre networks into it to gain access to the wider market. Which also integrates all the governments fibre assets and ducting, elelctricity, poles, etc. and will be delivering FTTH to most homes on the content of Australia!!!

Telecom Eireann was actually a decent company, if over staffed, but the problem arose when they tried to privatise it or more precisely privatise the network. So I'd actually welcome a Telecom Eireann 2 for FTTH, I think we need it badly.

However unfortunately I don't think we will get it, I think it is all just talk, we are too busy pissing billions in the black hole that is the banks.

watty

140km is max "Plant length" on DOCSIS (cable Broadband). It increases latency and ranging time to make that figure too high, so it's set to as little as possible.

It's possible on trunk coax to have over 1000MHz bandwidth (DSL is less than 30MHz and drops dramatically more than 1km from exchange). Amplifying and equalising is pretty cheap. You can even line power one or two amps. Since each 8MHz is about 45Mbps of data, that's easily 450MBps at over 20km pretty cheaply. Of course fibre is cheaper if it's just backhaul. But if you have 100 people sharing it strung along the cable that is at 20:1 contention about 90Mbps. Coax + DOCSIS modem is dirt cheap to tap into and connect. Fibre expensive to home or tap, hence Hybrid Fibre Cable. Off the top of my head I don't know how often on trunk grade coax you need a repeater amp (silly cheap compared with a DSL extender). DVB-c2 will increase capacity of cable maybe 30% to 50% at same SNR.

i.e. Fibre feeds cabinets. You then use VDSL (< 300m, one pair per house) OR DOCSIS/Coax (one shared coax passes up to a 100 houses, up to 10km).

Fibre can have 40Gbps. But the box at each end is expensive for that.

Fixed Wireless if you have only 100 people sharing at 20:1 contention can deliver near 45Mbps per user for LOS sytems but for non-LOS, trees, a hill and up to 40km you can do 5Mbps per user. LTE in comparison would give about 1Mbps for 10 people at 2km. A huge amount poorer than Fixed Wireless. At similar loading you might get 150kbps to 200kbps from 3G/HSPA.

The above assumes UHF DTT + Satellite for Broadcast TV rather than wasting fibre/cable/DSL unicast spectrum on a broadcast service. Give people decent smart PVRS with 1 Terabyte HDD that record even when not asked and then folks have VOD.

Sponge Bob

What we really need to do is to haul some Blueshirts and Alan Kelly onto Boards and make them cost this
€2bn for 90% of households ( I mean INHABITED houses not holidday homes) IS roughly €1500 per household @ 1.5m households . We also have businesses to do .

One key advantage of CoAx is that it can be strung between houses where fibre is a bit too delicate and needs burying .

The 'network equipment' cost ( leaving out digging) would be €200 per household if this OLD estimate by a GPON kit supplier is right .
http://www.broadlight.com/docs/pdfs/wp-gpon-vs-bpon-cost-comparison.pdf

The home end is a unit called an ONT , we need to know how much they each cost .

After that it is all civils , digging and Fibre Joining at the ONT and the 'exchange' gear , a GPON switch .

But we do not have an Irish model for costing these schemes . Give me 3 good civil engineers, Watty and a whip

watty

A DOCSIS modem is under 60 Euro and Trunk tap inexpensive.

Fibre tends to be a whole bunch of fibres in an armourmed sheath with suitable plastic out side. It's as roboust as coax. But considerably more expensive to put a "connector". There is no concept of a tap in the cheap simple sense of coax. That's why you string fibre to a cabinet at the end of each street in suburban/Urban. For the linear development in country side maybe running fibre bundle and coax in parallel makes sense with cabinets every 5km to 10km. Coax extends 2.5km to 5km either side of cabinets for the houses and boreens to tap into. A powered tap on coax main road could drive a 1km up the boreen to the house (maybe one repeater). I've certianly bought some kind of 88 channel trunk amplifier in IP66 box under 100 Euro.

So basically a multi fibre backbone between villages with cabinets feed branches of coax (DOCSIS) or cabinet taking over existing copper in the villages to run VDSL from cabinets.


There is this stuff to hang between poles and buildings
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/207139073/Outdoor_optical_fiber_cable_GYTC8A_figure.html

This is armoured stuff, about as robust as Coax for Limerick City (not very)
http://www.teldor.com/catalogue.php?actions=list&parent_cat=105
You can get more robust stuff.

http://www.legoo.com/suppliers/46685/5671691-china-Fiber-Optic-Cable-GYDXTW-.html

The cable DOCSIS Amplifiers are practically sold in US supermarkets. I bought an 8 amplified way tap for 10 Euros of a trade show counter (Chinese). In volume 8 Euro! Passed all tests. 5MHZ to 65MHZ upstream, 110MHz 960MHz downstream.

Fibre ALL the way to the home for various reasons doen't give much more speed download, about 2x to 4x upload speed, but could easily cost 800 Eur per connection inc modem. A home user can easily move or extend a VDSL (copperpair) or DOCSIS (coax) point.

If a home requires two to 5 separate accounts this requires more copper pairs for VDSL and expensive HW for FTTH. For coax you just stick in a 10 Euro splitter amp and 20 Euro worth of coax and outlet points. Additional modems 60 Euro.

bushy...

Just give the job to the ESB ( nice n safe along powerlines ) and Mr. Casey since he did it all years ago in Dungarvan ?

Sponge Bob

50,000 km of low voltage line alone

http://www.esb.ie/esbnetworks/downloads/esb_networks_summary_statistics.pdf

Maybe 100,000 km of total lines . The fibre alone to wrap all that would be €2bn

It would be cheaper than digging but not enormously so !

ESB line maintenance staff are among the most riduculously overpaid and expensive workers in the country so sending a gang of them out for every line break would utterly bankrupt the scheme.

No to the ESB from me !

watty

And PLT transmission doesn't work sensibly. The system used on "homeplug" is not scaleable to real power lines, wipes out all kinds of radio reception and loses all its own data when a mobile radio passes (Ambulance, Garda, taxi, trucks, CB, Amateur). Any crackly power lines wipe it out too.

ESB just about OK for trunks/backhaul or mast sites for fixed wireless. Not home BB.

Sponge Bob

I meant wrapping fibre round the residential ESB lines instead of Digging , not that powerline rubbish .

It is a good idea for backbone superdense multipair fibre but not a good idea for individual tails to premises I fear .

EVERYBODY who wants fibre should be forced to dig a duct to the nearest road , via the neighbours by all means if a semi and put a feckin string through it .

bushy...

watty wrote: »

And PLT transmission doesn't work sensibly

Sorry , should have specified , it was their fibre wrapped around powerlines I was on about, seems PLT isn't ready yet.

A hockeyed version of the indoor powerline stuff might be ideal in rural areas where you have say 6 houses hanging off a pole mounted transformer.

Have the mini "head end " ( for want of a better word) on the pole , on the LV side of the transformer

• All the houses are already connected to the pole
• The transformer would probably stop stuff travelling back upstream
• They could fit electronic meters , could be read over the 'net
• The units shouldn't be too expensive
• Wouldn't be rocket science to produce a meter with an ethernet socket for dsl.
  

Probably most important , should be able to offer a very basic (web&email) service free , would help people stay in touch , might save even a few suicides.




Obviously have the issue of getting bandwidth to the pole though and would have to "tidy" up the powerline stuff.

bk

Sponge Bob wrote: »

What we really need to do is to haul some Blueshirts and Alan Kelly onto Boards and make them cost this
€2bn for 90% of households ( I mean INHABITED houses not holidday homes) IS roughly €1500 per household @ 1.5m households . We also have businesses to do .

I'm not sure if FG has given any figure for costs. I'm the one who has been bandying about the €2bn cost.

BTW I came to the €1500 cost per home based on a little research. It costs Verizon in the US €690 per home to connect to their FiOS FTTH service. Other European ISP's have indicated a cost of €1000 per home, so €1500 seems like a good max.

Sponge Bob wrote: »

One key advantage of CoAx is that it can be strung between houses where fibre is a bit too delicate and needs burying .

Actually in the US, Verizon run most of their fibre along telephone poles and suspend it into peoples homes, just like with old telephone lines, they don't bury it (on the last mile, they obviously bury backhaul).

They use new plastic fibre cables which can be bent further and are so gentle and can be man handled.

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The 'network equipment' cost ( leaving out digging) would be €200 per household if this OLD estimate by a GPON kit supplier is right .
http://www.broadlight.com/docs/pdfs/wp-gpon-vs-bpon-cost-comparison.pdf

According to Verizon it has gotten a lot cheaper, but that is probably a good figure for Irish margins.

I'm sure the figure to fibre each home could be reduced if the new company got access to all existing government owned fibre and aceess to all ducts, esb and Eircom poles and the ability to kick the City and County Councils up the backside.

Looking at Wattys posts, it looks like Cable could be an ideal technology (balancing cost versus benefit) for rural areas.

flamegrill

"ethernet 100m limit" is purely an electrical thing and relates to cat5/cat6 cabling between switches and pcs.

Ethernet networks span 100s of thousands of miles.

I've 2 that span vast and semi vast distances... dublin > boston ethernet lan extension and then a dublin > carlow lan extension and both are ethernet based.

zod

would it be safe to say that FG are lieing about this ?

Sponge Bob

It would be fair to say there is no plan and that they will have lost the second next general election before there is .