DIY broadband

watty

Even more needed here. We did have the GBS, but that as with most schemes in this country was badly designed and deliberately stymied by the Department to save money. The Government induced failure of GBS was used as an excuse for the terrible design of the NBS (Anyone reminded of Pinky and the Brain?)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8618507.stm

Sponge Bob

This is also true of Ireland

They discovered that there was nothing to stop them becoming a telco.

You pay €50 a year for a licence and are entitled to wholesale terms.......although eircom wholesale terms are generally unworthy of further investigation.

trekkypj

(I was going to post this myself - good job I checked! )

This is the best thing that could have happened for them. And great for anyone who wants to do something similar.

After all, it sets a precedent in the UK and that's important to have when trying to do something like this in the UK or in Ireland.

Fair play to them and I hope somebody here can get a project off the ground too.

Sponge Bob wrote: »

This is also true of Ireland

You pay €50 a year for a licence and are entitled to wholesale terms.......although eircom wholesale terms are generally unworthy of further investigation.

I did not know that.

Very useful to know, thanks! Does anyone know what eircom's wholesale terms actually are, or is it a case by case basis? I'm working on a feasibility study for my own area.

Sponge Bob

trekkypj wrote: »

After all, it sets a precedent in the UK and that's important to have when trying to do something like this in the UK or in Ireland.

BT Openreach ( = wholesale) are much easier to deal with than eircom wholesale. eircom wholesale is a figleaf that pretends to be independent of eircom retail but is not.

I would think that the Rutland crew would pay 1/4 out in the sticks of what eircom would charge in the middle of Dublin for the same 100mbit port...or whatever they got in the end, probably a fractional 1Gbit.

lucernarian

Does the above count as an example of sub-loop unbundling?

trekkypj

Sponge Bob wrote: »

BT Openreach ( = wholesale) are much easier to deal with than eircom wholesale. eircom wholesale is a figleaf that pretends to be independent of eircom retail but is not.

I would think that the Rutland crew would pay 1/4 out in the sticks of what eircom would charge in the middle of Dublin for the same 100mbit port...or whatever they got in the end, probably a fractional 1Gbit.

No doubt you're right. But it may be worth looking into nonetheless. And who knows, maybe the regulator will make them do it for reasonable money! (yeah i know, wishful thinking :P ).

Of course, there are other providers.

Sponge Bob

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Does the above count as an example of sub-loop unbundling?

It probably does, a sub loop in Ireland known as a "D Side" often starts at one of those green cabinets and the segment from the exchange to the cabinet is called an E Side . Sub loop unbundling is now possible here ...at least in regulatory terms it is but good luck with eircom

Sometimes the D side comes from the exchange direct.

lucernarian

Sponge Bob wrote: »

It probably does, a sub loop in Ireland known as a "D Side" often starts at one of those green cabinets and the segment from the exchange to the cabinet is called an E Side . Sub loop unbundling is now possible here ...at least in regulatory terms it is but good luck with eircom

Sometimes the D side comes from the exchange direct.

Thanks. A lot of lines, especially central Dublin ones are direct to the exchange I think. The one I'm using is one of those I believe. I forget the proportion of lines served by various sorts of cabinets but they were in some report on NGN broadband or other.

Sponge Bob

eircom have amended their ARO ( Published Terms and Conditions) in the last 5 weeks. Here is the price list for SLU which applies now. The connection charge is ludicrous. Also read important further terms and conditions here for product number 104.

ANNEX C
SERVICE SCHEDULE 104
Sub Loop Unbundling
The charges applicable to Sub Loop Unbundling are as follows:
1.1 Survey Charges
Service Price €
Cabinet Survey 99.17
1.2 Offer
Service Price €
Cabinet Site Offer 81.96
Cabinet Site Preparation (including Process Charge) Actual cost of Materials and Labour plus a process charge 15% of the direct costs
1.3 Connection Order with Successful Completion
Service Price €
Sub Loop ULMP (with survey for spare pair) 168.65
Sub Loop ULMP (without survey) 135.92
Sub Loop Line Sharing (with survey for spare pair) 172.51
Sub Loop Line Sharing (without survey) 139.78
1.4 Connection Order Failing Validation
Service Price €
Sub Loop ULMP (with survey for spare pair) 45.21
Sub Loop ULMP (without survey) 17.38
Sub Loop Line Sharing (with survey for spare pair) 45.43
Sub Loop Line Sharing (without survey) 17.60
1.5 Cancel Order
Service Price €
Sub Loop ULMP 24.12
Sub Loop Line Sharing 24.12
1.6 Monthly Rental
Service Price € Applicability
Sub Loop ULMP €13.62 Applies from
10/12/05 to 30/11/06
Sub Loop ULMP €14.15 Applies from 01/12/06
to 30/11/07
eircom ARO Price List
07/04/10 Version 4.4 29
Sub Loop ULMP €10.53 Applies from 09/03/10
Sub Loop Line Sharing €0.77 Applies from 01/11/09

trekkypj

Never mind then

Still, useful info as always. I thank you.

Sponge Bob

My ultimate reservation about SLU is that you rely on rotten copper , rotten maintenance and no SLA or pride in the linesmans work to deliver that last mile or three ....cabinets in many areas are close to the exchange not the consumer.

The culture of uselessness in eircom runs too deep, we are better off building anew.

trekkypj

Sponge Bob wrote: »

My ultimate reservation about SLU is that you rely on rotten copper , rotten maintenance and no SLA or pride in the linesmans work to deliver that last mile or three ....cabinets in many areas are close to the exchange not the consumer.

The culture of uselessness in eircom runs too deep, we are better off building anew.

Heh.

If only Ryano would start a scheme where local communities build an open fibre network which any operator can access easily, and de-commission said victorian-tech copper cable. Collect enough and I'd say you could recoup a few euro on the fibre cost by recycling the copper cable.. :cool:.

Eircom might even go for that if they get access without having to maintain or repair it.

paulm17781

watty wrote: »

Even more needed here. We did have the GBS, but that as with most schemes in this country was badly designed and deliberately stymied by the Department to save money. The Government induced failure of GBS was used as an excuse for the terrible design of the NBS (Anyone reminded of Pinky and the Brain?)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8618507.stm

Does this not imply LLU is not, yet, irrelevant?

Sponge Bob

In a fibre age, no. Spectrum and Copper constraints are too great so we must move to fibre. Copper is on the way out.

watty

If you read BBC link carefully you will see Orange HAD invested in LLU and now see no value in further investement, nor even keeping any LLU. For DSL, they are just going to be a reseller.

Sponge Bob

Orange even claimed to have unbundled 1100 exchanges ...until they effectively admitted they didn't late last year

Orange aka Wannadoo was the worst of all the LLU operators and was not able to offer 24mbits on the exchanges they originally unbundled. Faced with building a proper network they chickened out.Their call centres in India were notorious.

With this combination of a crap network and crap customer care and support they were the worst of all LLU ISPs in the UK and were eventually spat out of the market for their own failings. Their many failings in the LLU space probably impaired their reputational capital overall.

Give em a ring there trekky, they have 944 job lots of ADSL exchange gear to offload

trekkypj

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Give em a ring there trekky, they have 944 job lots of ADSL exchange gear to offload

LOL.

Like the man said, if they don't want it, I don't want it either.

paulm17781

watty wrote: »

If you read BBC link carefully <snip>.

I did. I also read carefully this article where LLU has given a town 40mpbs broadband. It would seem LLU was quite relevant to them.

trekkypj

paulm17781 wrote: »

I did. I also read carefully this article where LLU has given a town 40mpbs broadband. It would seem LLU was quite relevant to them.

It's relevant alright, but BT Openreach only did so on foot of intervention by the UK regulator. Also, the local loop from the exchange was replaced with fibre by a reseller, with only the so called 'last mile' from the cabinet delivered by copper. That greatly improves performance.

In Ireland, that's not such a straightforward situation. From my limited understanding, the loops in Ireland are much, much longer in rural areas, and not as well maintained. There are legacy issues such as pair gains. And as pointed out earlier, Eircom's wholesale prices are not exactly cheap.

watty

paulm17781 wrote: »

I did. I also read carefully this article where LLU has given a town 40mpbs broadband. It would seem LLU was quite relevant to them.

I mean this link http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/16/orange_bundling/

The village with 40Mbps using "Rutland Telecom" is not remotely LLU as normally done in UK or as ever done here.

It's essentially a replacement FTTC bypassing BT and only using the last part of the copper pair. Not LLU as we know it.

trekkypj

watty wrote: »

I mean this link http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/16/orange_bundling/

The village with 40Mbps using "Rutland Telecom" is not remotely LLU as normally done in UK or as ever done here.

It's essentially a replacement FTTC bypassing BT and only using the last part of the copper pair. Not LLU as we know it.

Nonetheless, it's progress of sorts, however they do it. I only wish someone would crack heads together and facilitate this sort of thing here.

We need regulations and procedures to make it easier to do this - ways of getting permission to have authorised installers lay cabling without having to go through red tape between several agencies, from Comreg to the local authority. A scheme that lets people fund fibre themselves in exchange for opening it up to all operators, including eircom and UPC.

If commercial companies are not prepared to finance the upgrades themselves, then we need to be able to do it ourselves. And it needs to be made easier to do.

Sponge Bob

trekkypj wrote: »

Nonetheless, it's progress of sorts, however they do it. I only wish someone would crack heads together and facilitate this sort of thing here.

What is needed here is that any community can

1. Buy a basic licence for €50 off Comreg
2. Apply to eircom wholesale for a "Community ISP micro quote" ( an OUTLINE cabinet survey 1 page ) where they will be told how many pairs there are in the grographic community and how many d-e side cabinets are in their proposed service area AND how many non d - e pairs that go back to the exchange and cannot be SLU'd but would have to be LLU'd
3. They they have to sort out backhaul fibre and a DSLAM themselves and pay standard eircom SLU tariffs for connection and monthly rentals

Eircom has a GIS that can easily produce such a micro quote and the community can then work out what the addressable market is and can work out what their pricing model would have to be before they proceed.

Comreg might do something under pressure if say 20 communities went and paid their €50 for a licence ( authorisation) and set up a committee to HOUND Comreg for a de minimis SLU unbundling scheme like that ...de minimis regulation being the appropriate form for small localised ISPs.

watty

Also...
you can improve performance by
1) DSLAM at local cabinet.
2) put in a router that aggregates connections and DSL Modems and run all pairs as a single logical connection back to DSLAM at exchange with 2nd router to combine the connections to single 100Mbps or 1000Mbps ethernet to exchange backhaul.

You have dramtically reduced loop length and local connections then go at 24Mbps. At 5:1 contention (with EVERYONE simultaneously downloading and 100% broadband takeup!), then the pairs from cabinet back to exchange only have to work at 5Mbps each.

So even without fibre, a bunch of 20 houses or so, at distance that today only gets 3Mbps or less, could have 24Mbps at 5:1 contention by having VDSL2/ ADSL2+ local dslam and agregating ALL the pairs back to exchange. Even if there is no local cabinet, one can be fitted at base of the pole where the multipair starts back to exchange. If the Exchange was so far that only 0.5Mbps is possible per pair, then that is still 24Mbps at the user but with contention at 50:1. This will still typically be better than any fixed Wireless never mind mobile.

To reduce contention to 10:1 on a 512kbps per pair backhaul, a Cap can be used. Probably about 60Gbyte to 120GByte. Voice is done using built in ATA for regular phone/DEct on user modems and QOS from local cabinet router to Exchange. VOIP is then gatewayed at exchange to ISDN (or backhauled via VLAN/MPLS with QOS and peered in Dublin to Digiweb, Magnet, UPC or Blueface) . Even Fax or SkyDigibox will work on such a setup.

If Comreg was proactive and creative there is a lot that can be done.

Of course the real solution is to spend 1B and give everyone fibre.

AARRRRGH

There is a business to be made if someone started a company that could get something like this going for people. I know id pay €5000 easily to get 24meg BB in my house. And I know plenty more people who probably would too. Plenty of businesses would be interested in that kind of BB too where they cannot get it now.

watty

If you can find 270,000 other people to pay the 5,000 Euro, then we can do it. Though you might get 100Mbps.

It's not feasible to setup for a handful of people.