Eircom eFibre VDSL/FTTC rollout – plans to reach 1.6m premises by mid 2016

bk

Hmm, I'm wondering how this install would go for my parents house.

The Eircom cable goes from a pole outside the house, into the attic. In the attic it is split to three phone points (hall and two bedrooms) and also to a monitored alarm box that is also in the attic.

Currently the DSL modem is in one of the bedrooms.

How would they wire this up?

The options I can think of are

- put the NTU in the attic and thus also put the broadband router in the attic!
- put the NTU in the attic and run cat5e down to the router either in the hall or bedroom
- put the NTU in the hall and run a second cable back up to the attic to the split up there

For the third option, rather then run a second telephone cable, could they simply use the second unused pair in the cable to run the filtered signal back up to the attic, or would this cause interference?

Anyone any idea how this setup would be done?

arctan

if the cable is cat5 or good grade twisted pair, it'd be possible to wire one of your sockets as the MTU and send the dial tone back up to the extensions and alarm on the second pair like you said ....

techs are issued with outdoor cat5 also, so they might even catch it before it even enters the attic and do the above and install a junction box on the side of the house and drill into wherever the MTU is to be placed

copacetic

Think NTU has to go at main entry point, I'd say they would suggest NTU in the attic and then powerline to wired adapters.

bk

arctan wrote: »

techs are issued with outdoor cat5 also, so they might even catch it before it even enters the attic and do the above and install a junction box on the side of the house and drill into wherever the MTU is to be placed

The cable comes into the side of the house, the hall and bedroom are both far away on the front of the house, so I seriously doubt it, it would be a lot of wiring.

copacetic wrote: »

Think NTU has to go at main entry point, I'd say they would suggest NTU in the attic and then powerline to wired adapters.

We don't really care about the multiple phone points as DECT cordless phones are being used instead now anyway.

If the NTU is placed in the attic, does that mean the broadband router also go up there?

It isn't the most convenient location when you need to reset the router, plus the attic can get quite cold and damp, which might effect the electronics.

I suppose you could put the NTU in the attic and then drill down to one of the rooms and run cat5e from the NTU down into one of the bedrooms for the router.

DECEiFER

Could someone on FTTC be so kind as to throw up some DOS/terminal ping times? :pac:

Maybe with the following commands:

ping google.ie -n 20
ping boards.ie -n 20

It'd be nice to see how this compares to UPC and how it compares to Eircom's heavily interleaved ADSL packages.

Thanks.

Solair

For Smart Telecom ADSL2+ 24mbit/s

--- boards.ie ping statistics ---
20 packets transmitted, 20 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 34.550/36.444/39.262/1.265 ms

--- google.ie ping statistics ---
20 packets transmitted, 20 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 34.189/42.945/69.334/10.935 ms

DECEiFER

Solair wrote: »

For Smart Telecom ADSL2+ 24mbit/s

--- boards.ie ping statistics ---
20 packets transmitted, 20 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 34.550/36.444/39.262/1.265 ms

--- google.ie ping statistics ---
20 packets transmitted, 20 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 34.189/42.945/69.334/10.935 ms

Yeah those will be in the 30s, which is unaccaptable. But that's what Eircom did when they brought out speeds of 7.6Mb/s in 2008. They turned on packet interleaving so instead of getting 15ms pings on ADSL, we were getting 40+, until they calmed it down a bit but they never turned it off (fastpath) like it was pre-7.6Mb/s.

With the new VDSL FTTC packages and infrastructure, I'm sure many would expect it to be much better than that and even better than 15ms (avg.).

Tommy Lagahan

DECEiFER wrote: »

Yeah those will be in the 30s, which is unaccaptable. But that's what Eircom did when they brought out speeds of 7.6Mb/s in 2008. They turned on packet interleaving so instead of getting 15ms pings on ADSL, we were getting 40+, until they calmed it down a bit but they never turned it off (fastpath) like it was pre-7.6Mb/s.

With the new VDSL FTTC packages and infrastructure, I'm sure many would expect it to be much better than that and even better than 15ms (avg.).

Will they be using interleaving with VDSL do ya know? I'm always looking for better pings, even though mine are fine at the moment with the NGB 8Mb package.

DECEiFER

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Will they be using interleaving with VDSL do ya know? I'm always looking for better pings, even though mine are fine at the moment with the NGB 8Mb package.

Aren't you getting 30ms domestically? That's double what you would have once got before July 2008 on ADSL and it's double what you'd get if you were using UPC broadband.

It's not that you'd always get double the ping times. International ping times, for example, if you'd get 45ms normally to the UK, you might be looking at around 60ms instead.

Hopefully their VDSL doesn't have the same. We'll know as soon as someone posts us some ping times.


EDIT: This is what I get on UPC (100Mb/s). It's not bad, really. I'd say we'll have to wait for FTTH before we see significantly faster ping times of 1-2ms domestically.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.2.9200]
(c) 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\D>ping google.ie -n 20

Pinging google.ie [74.125.24.94] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=51
Reply from 74.125.24.94: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=51

Ping statistics for 74.125.24.94:
    Packets: Sent = 20, Received = 20, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 10ms, Maximum = 12ms, Average = 10ms

C:\Users\D>ping boards.ie -n 20

Pinging boards.ie [89.234.66.108] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=58
Reply from 89.234.66.108: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=58

Ping statistics for 89.234.66.108:
    Packets: Sent = 20, Received = 20, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 11ms, Maximum = 13ms, Average = 12ms

Tommy Lagahan

Nah its usually under 20ms to Irish servers, 20-30 to the UK, and 45 to Europe.
There is always a chance it could go up with the VDSL given how low it is at the moment.
(They'd be trying hard to do that given I'll be on less than quarter the distance of copper compared to the distance to the exchange!)



Could be because my line is capable of 12Mb but I went for the 8Mb package instead?
I'll make sure to post back here with pings, trace routes and Speedtests on Monday, or if I'm lucky and the engineer finishes early at the neighbors place, Friday evening.

DECEiFER

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Nah its usually under 20ms to Irish servers, 20-30 to the UK, and 45 to Europe.
There is always a chance it could go up with the VDSL given how low it is at the moment.
(They'd be trying hard to do that given I'll be on less than quarter the distance of copper compared to the distance to the exchange!)



Could be because my line is capable of 12Mb but I went for the 8Mb package instead?
I'll make sure to post back here with pings, trace routes and Speedtests on Monday, or if I'm lucky and the engineer finishes early at the neighbors place, Friday evening.

That's not bad. I doubt it'd make a difference if you were on the 12Mb package, the throughput isn't linked. I was sure that all Eircom plans were affected by packet interleaving, even the "NGB" plans, but clearly you're not.

When I had ADSL last it was when I lived in Tralee for over 4 years, which I'm sure anyone who lives there can testify that they are years behind the other major towns and cities in Ireland. You can't get UPC there either and I was on the town's secondary exchange (Killerisk), so I was stuck with the archaic ADSL service with ~30ms domestic ping times until I moved back to modern civilization in January 2012.

I was recently on a computer that is hooked to an Eircom 8Mb or 12Mb connection and got ~30ms, and I'm pretty sure that it's "NGB." Weird.

Count yourself lucky! All you need now is more bandwidth. :pac:

Tommy Lagahan

Yeah these pings are class and all but that 430Kbits/s upload speed I'm on is getting irritating :pac:
Roll on this upgrade anyhow, bout time at least some of the country outside cities gets something decent!

DECEiFER

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Yeah these pings are class and all but that 430Kbits/s upload speed I'm on is getting irritating :pac:
Roll on this upgrade anyhow, bout time at least some of the country outside cities gets something decent!

Ha, I had more than 430 when I was in Tralee. I might not have been lucky enough to be on the Tralee Town Exchange, as I lived near the outskirts of the south-east part of town, but I was able to get 12Mb/s of the old stuff and an upload of 1Mb/s. Plus I lived 100m from the exchange so I had 2dB Line Attenuation up and down.

But, holy shít, when I moved to Limerick, I got the 50Mb/s pack from UPC with the 5Mb/s upload. First thing I did was upload a 4GB video to YouTube thinking I was the bossman :cool:. Great feeling. Now I get 10Mb/s. I wouldn't mind the 20Mb/s that you can get on FTTC, though! I'm in an area of Limerick that's covered so I could in theory switch over tomorrow. I see you're in Letterkenny and according to the coverage map, you're pretty much good to go!

DECEiFER

Anyone thinking of going with Magnet, check this out. Total bummer.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=84730960&postcount=21

Hope it's only Magnet that have these restrictions. That's them right to the bottom of my list.

AlmightyCushion

DECEiFER wrote: »

Anyone thinking of going with Magnet, check this out. Total bummer.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=84730960&postcount=21

Hope it's only Magnet that have these restrictions. That's them right to the bottom of my list.

I don't know what's worse those restrictions or that name*. Who the hell came up with 'Fat Pipe'. Just sounds like something some fella in his late 40's thought all the young, hip kids would find "rad" or "gnarly".

*I kid. No matter how awful the name, those restrictions are still way worse.

DECEiFER

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I don't know what's worse those restrictions or that name*. Who the hell came up with 'Fat Pipe'. Just sounds like something some fella in his late 40's thought all the young, hip kids would find "rad" or "gnarly".

*I kid. No matter how awful the name, those restrictions are still way worse.

Like, totes!
(shoot me now)

4GB in the space of 9 hours (4pm to 1am), what a joke. You couldn't even download a high-bitrate HD movie without being dropped to 1Mb/s. Even though they exclude Netflix and other popular sites, it's still a joke.

Hell, with those speeds, people might be looking to run some small game servers or even a web server. I know it's not strictly allowed but you know, it's not as though that matters, as a lot of people around the world use their home connections for this purpose. A guy I know in Sweden with FTTH since 2004 has been doing it from his apartment with some dedicated Windows and Linux boxes he has.

Magnet have just spoiled the fun.

ctlsleh

Who is providing the best vdsl router for e-fibre? Eircom, vodafone or sky, im out of contract so will upgrade with one of them but want to ensure I get a highly featured router with good wireless range also......any opinions out there?

Israeli Superiority

ctlsleh wrote: »

Who is providing the best vdsl router for e-fibre? Eircom, vodafone or sky, im out of contract so will upgrade with one of them but want to ensure I get a highly featured router with good wireless range also......any opinions out there?

"Best router" is subjective and it takes more than a good wireless range to make a good router. You could have a router with a wireless range of 2 km and it still could be a piece of shite.

I'll note that Eircom are now giving out routers with as "n" radio type, which means the range is better than their "g" counterpart. Wireless "n" is also faster, but that's totally dependent on how fast your line is. Here's a video with more info.

returnNull

Israeli Superiority wrote: »

I'll note that Eircom are now giving out routers with as "n" radio type, which means the range is better than their "g" counterpart.

but its not a dual band router,so will only use 'n' when all devices are 'n' radio type,it reverts back to g if theres 1 or more devices that use g

Solair

returnNull wrote: »

but its not a dual band router,so will only use 'n' when all devices are 'n' radio type,it reverts back to g if theres 1 or more devices that use g

That's a bit stupid! It would happen in most home networks as there'll always be one older device on the wifi

red_bairn

Solair wrote: »

That's a bit stupid! It would happen in most home networks as there'll always be one older device on the wifi

Dad bought a dual band router only last year. But I don't think we'll have any problems

bk

Solair wrote: »

That's a bit stupid! It would happen in most home networks as there'll always be one older device on the wifi

There is a couple of ways to work around this:

1) You can work around this by attaching an old G wifi router (maybe your old Eircom router if you have adequate access to the settings) or you can buy G wifi routers on amazon from £13.

You then set the Eircom router to operate on N wifi only and use the attached G router for G devices.

2) Buy a new dual band wifi router and use that connected to your Eircom router with it's wifi turned off and only being used as a modem, ideally in bridge mode.

I agree it does seem to be a major oversight not to support dual band in the Eircom router.

Solair

Is this also the case in the new eFibre gateway ?

bluemachaveli

They seem to be moving along with the roll out much quicker than planned. My exchange (Crossagalla, Limerick) was set for phase 5 with a build date of Dec '14. When it launched on Monday the map was updated to Dec '13 and has now been changed to Autumn '13!

LFCFan

bluemachaveli wrote: »

They seem to be moving along with the roll out much quicker than planned. My exchange (Crossagalla, Limerick) was set for phase 5 with a build date of Dec '14. When it launched on Monday the map was updated to Dec '13 and has now been changed to Autumn '13!

Don't believe a word from Eircom about rollout times. I heard from 3 different Eircom people that I would have it when May 20th came around because I was on the Drogheda exchange but low and behold it seems that the actual live date for the majority of Drogheda will be some time in the future whenever they can be bothered to commission all the vDSL cabinets. For a while there I was actually thinking Eircom were finally going to do something right and I was finally going to change my opinion of them. Fat chance of that. :mad:

allen175

returnNull wrote: »

but its not a dual band router,so will only use 'n' when all devices are 'n' radio type,it reverts back to g if theres 1 or more devices that use g

Don't know where you got your info from, but the e-fibre modem is in fact a dual band wireless N modem. Range is better than the other zyxel modems they released, i would say it is on par with the 2247.

irishgeo

what about the vodafone router?

anyone got some specs on that?

red_bairn

LFCFan wrote: »

Don't believe a word from Eircom about rollout times. I heard from 3 different Eircom people that I would have it when May 20th came around because I was on the Drogheda exchange but low and behold it seems that the actual live date for the majority of Drogheda will be some time in the future whenever they can be bothered to commission all the vDSL cabinets. For a while there I was actually thinking Eircom were finally going to do something right and I was finally going to change my opinion of them. Fat chance of that. :mad:

SKY and UPC complaining to ComReg that Eircom are ahead of the competition, so now they can't work overtime to finish commissioning other cabinets. Total c...

Israeli Superiority

irishgeo wrote: »

what about the vodafone router?

anyone got some specs on that?

I started a tread on their forum if you have any queries:

http://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2056952828

LFCFan

red_bairn wrote: »

SKY and UPC complaining to ComReg that Eircom are ahead of the competition, so now they can't work overtime to finish commissioning other cabinets. Total c...

For years Comreg have been utterly useless at facilitating proper telecoms in Ireland and now when Eircom are finally rolling something out to benefit the consumer, they go and stick their oar in and screw us over yet again. They actually seem to go out of their way to make sure broadband rollout is painfully slow