BT in Ireland

markedone

Does anyone know if BT has a web-page somewhere to see their broadband products? I couldn't find anything for a while now.
If not then is there a number?
Do they use phone line?
I'm stuck with Imagine, and the crappy speeds are only aided by the fact that it sucks on compatability with Apple, I can't even stream a podcast from iTunes.

bealtine

markedone wrote: »

Does anyone know if BT has a web-page somewhere to see their broadband products? I couldn't find anything for a while now.
If not then is there a number?
Do they use phone line?
I'm stuck with Imagine, and the crappy speeds are only aided by the fact that it sucks on compatability with Apple, I can't even stream a podcast from iTunes.

BT are a wholesaler now, only wholesale, to buy from BT you need to go to Vodafone.
BT do no retail products...

markedone

What do you mean go to Vodafone?
My friend, alone (one(1)) has BT Internet, and he's 2 houses away from me.

donnacha

I don't believe BT offer broadband in Ireland anymore. All their customers moved to Vodafone end of 2009/early 2010.

bealtine

markedone wrote: »

What do you mean go to Vodafone?
My friend, alone (one(1)) has BT Internet, and he's 2 houses away from me.

No he doesn't. BT sold all their retail customers to Vodafone.

markedone

Well, they didn't replace his BT box, either way, I'm looking at Vodafones broadband now so thanks.

patrickmooney

Exactly as above, BT in Ireland are wholesale and business to business/corporate only. All retail customers transferred to Vodafone Ireland. They kept all equipment and services, just the company who bill them is now Vodafone. It's still BT's network Vodafone are using etc.

coylemj

markedone wrote: »

Well, they didn't replace his BT box, either way, I'm looking at Vodafones broadband now so thanks.

It would have made no sense to go around changing the boxes so yes, there are thousands of people out there with BT-branded broadband routers but they are now Vodafone customers.

TechnoKid

According to Fiona this is where they are now

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showt...p?t=2056271582

and then this is taken from siliconrepublic

Three has made a €38m contract with BT to see BT’s fibre network rolled out across Ireland, letting Three customers access up to 100MB per second broadband speeds.

The network will be rolled out to support 1,000 sites serving Three’s existing customer base and more than 200 new mobile sites. These sites are located across Ireland, including Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway.

The rollout of this fibre network will take place over 18 months and will allow Three to deliver up to 100MB per second broadband speeds for Irish consumers.

Trials maybe next year? I believe the digital switchover is finished then?

bealtine

TechnoKid wrote: »

customers access up to 100MB per second broadband speeds.

This is utter marketing nonsense. Each of the mobile operators have two 5Mhz channels to supply mobile "broadband" and you cannot squeeze 100MB down such a narrow pipe. If you use the bits per second per hertz measure it becomes obvious the marketing dept of Three are really pushing the boat out on this.
The measure is approx 0.14 bps/hz for wideband CDMA compared to the spectral efficiency of lte-Advanced at 1.8. So you can see just how much can be squeezed into the available bandwidth.

Nollog

bealtine wrote: »

This is utter marketing nonsense. Each of the mobile operators have two 5Mhz channels to supply mobile "broadband" and you cannot squeeze 100MB down such a narrow pipe. If you use the bits per second per hertz measure it becomes obvious the marketing dept of Three are really pushing the boat out on this.
The measure is approx 0.14 bps/hz for wideband CDMA compared to the spectral efficiency of lte-Advanced at 1.8. So you can see just how much can be squeezed into the available bandwidth.

Could it not be a cabled network?

bealtine

/\/ollog wrote: »

Could it not be a cabled network?

This is for 3 Mobile.

Nollog

A company can diversify if they feel like it.
I didn't see anybody mention it[100mb] would be on their 3G network.

jor el

/\/ollog wrote: »

A company can diversify if they feel like it.
I didn't see anybody mention it[100mb] would be on their 3G network.

Em,

TechnoKid wrote: »

The network will be rolled out to support 1,000 sites serving Three’s existing customer base and more than 200 new mobile sites.

Seems it's definitely on the mobile network, which means this is just more marketing mumbo jumbo. An improvement in the back-haul across their existing network wouldn't do any harm, but there'll never really be 100Mbps for the end user.

TechnoKid

bealtine wrote: »

This is utter marketing nonsense. Each of the mobile operators have two 5Mhz channels to supply mobile "broadband" and you cannot squeeze 100MB down such a narrow pipe. If you use the bits per second per hertz measure it becomes obvious the marketing dept of Three are really pushing the boat out on this.
The measure is approx 0.14 bps/hz for wideband CDMA compared to the spectral efficiency of lte-Advanced at 1.8. So you can see just how much can be squeezed into the available bandwidth.

This is not Mobile Broadband, It's broadband for the home.. hence "FIBRE OPTIC".

AlmightyCushion

I don't think it's marketing mumbo jumbo. I remember seeing that article posted elsewhere on boards and it just looked like it was written by some journalist who didn't have a clue. Apart from that though Jor el is correct.

jor el

TechnoKid wrote: »

This is not Mobile Broadband, It's broadband for the home.. hence "FIBRE OPTIC".

The fibre will proved the back haul only, there is no broadband, or fibre, to the end user.

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I don't think it's marketing mumbo jumbo. I remember seeing that article posted elsewhere on boards and it just looked like it was written by some journalist who didn't have a clue.

It was on Silicon Republic, so yeah, I'd imagine it was a re-hash of a press release, dressed up to look like journalism.

Sponge Bob

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I don't think it's marketing mumbo jumbo. I remember seeing that article posted elsewhere on boards and it just looked like it was written by some journalist who didn't have a clue. Apart from that though Jor el is correct.

Jor El is always correct and Irish Technology journalists are clueless low rent gobsh1tes who merely regurgitate press releases they do not understand. BT backhaul mobile cells, sometimes with fibre and more often with radio pairs that are dimensioned for an ethernet backhaul at 100-700mbits.

bealtine

TechnoKid wrote: »

This is not Mobile Broadband, It's broadband for the home.. hence "FIBRE OPTIC".

If only this were true it would be nice...
This rollout is simply to provide backhaul for the future upgrading of the masts for LTE and in the meanwhile providing backhaul for the masts.
Not a bit of it is for the enduser so nothing for the home there.

bealtine

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Irish Technology journalists are clueless low rent gobsh1tes who merely regurgitate press releases they do not understand.

In fairness to them (journalists) they just report on what companies say and the outrageous claims they make for some technology and then just print it.
If asked for an opinion they would probably say something completely different.
(at least I hope so)

lucernarian

bealtine wrote: »

In fairness to them (journalists) they just report on what companies say and the outrageous claims they make for some technology and then just print it.
If asked for an opinion they would probably say something completely different.
(at least I hope so)

The journalists involved don't *have* to just print the claims they make. It's not like websites have to worry about looking after their advertising customers like a newspaper has to. If the editors and staff actually know how inaccurate the press release is and still publish it unaltered, that's even worse. I have never seen any comprehensive array of opinion pieces on Siliconrepublic which put the lie on the regular news articles like the BT and three article. The only recent opinion article I read was for calls of proper coordination and planning and investment for NGB rollouts in Ireland, I think. Call me cynical but I expect many journalists would describe 3G and LTE mobile networks as a form of broadband, for example.

bealtine

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

The journalists involved don't *have* to just print the claims they make.

I don't disagree with you...

However I'm more interested in the fact that the should be a balance between outrageous claims like the one in the piece that are technically impossible and a press that can analyse the claims and make a realistic analysis of these claims.
Some of the claims for 3G and LTE are simply outrageous and yes a lot of journalists and the government believe them without using their critical facilities.
That's what I'd like to see and I suppose the only way of changing things is to interact with the journalists and to educate them. That's one of the goals of IrelandOffline...

Sponge Bob

I doubt you can educate people who are basically low rent gobsh1tes.

jor el

While I don't share the same language that Sponge Bob uses, I do tend to agree with him. Having heard various Irish tech journo's on radio shows, I've found the general theme has always been one of their steadfast belief that they are 100% right in their "reporting".

I applaud you for trying to educate such people, but I fear you're wasting your time. If a journalist can't be bothered to make the most simple attempt to verify what's told to them (just Google the claim that's made), then they don't deserve to be called journalists, and I wouldn't like to be the one trying to correct them. A journalist should want to question what's put to them, and verify by investigation whether it's true or not. Simply accepting what's said, and blissfully reporting how great everything is, is part of why the broadband infrastructure in Ireland is so bad.

The writers on SiliconRepublic are among the worst offenders of such lazy reporting.

jmcc

bealtine wrote: »

In fairness to them (journalists) they just report on what companies say and the outrageous claims they make for some technology and then just print it.

Fairness? They are for the most part mere ex-Arts students without a technological clue covering a field that they know f*ck all about. Fairness? Accuracy would be a good start. Journalism involves getting the facts of a story right. These bozos just reprint press releases that are supplied to them on drool-proof paper. That is not journalism - that's acting as a sewer for PR crap.

The Irish "technology" media scene is so incestous that the coverage is more inbred than an Egyptian Pharaoh's family and almost completely untrustworthy. Most of them are just product pimping, gadget geeking lifestyle journnalists. The use of the term "technology" in their job description by these spoofers is not accurate. That said, there is some hope with a few of the newer Irish journalists covering technology but it is not much.

Regards...jmcc

Sponge Bob

jmcc wrote: »

That is not journalism - that's acting as a sewer for PR crap.

Exactly. ...speaking of which my old mates in /dev/bull have given up publishing this material and now concentrate on writing it so that some low rent bozo can regurgimatate in full.

bealtine

jor el wrote: »

Having heard various Irish tech journo's on radio shows, I've found the general theme has always been one of their steadfast belief that they are 100% right in their "reporting".

I know the guy you mean:-) He's always on and is always right regardless and utterly clueless.

Sponge Bob

bealtine wrote: »

I know the guy you mean:-) He's always on and is always right regardless and utterly clueless.

Not mentioning any names or anything but Matt Cooper invited Adrian Weckler on a few weeks back to explain Digital TV to the masses. Weckler is allegedly a tech journalist.

I was driving along in the car saying **** me out loud about every minute until they got Weckler off. He was even worse last year in fairness. :cool:

dub45

There have been many consumer bb issues which journalists could easily have pursued.

Can anyone point towards even one decent article in that vein?

bealtine

jor el wrote: »

While I don't share the same language that Sponge Bob uses, I do tend to agree with him. Having heard various Irish tech journo's on radio shows, I've found the general theme has always been one of their steadfast belief that they are 100% right in their "reporting".

We should let these shows know that the "journalists" they use are clueless. The simplest way of letting them know is to email them the real facts, this is specially true for broadband issues and indeed DTV issues too, only in that way will media outlets become aware of stupidity.