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

red_bairn

jd wrote: »

I think the issue is with out of hours customer nga installations, not cabinet provisioning. Anyone know for sure?

No, its' about the commissioning.

ferpur

just to be clear the van was parked beside the cab I did not see anyone doing work

Vico1612

red_bairn wrote: »

No, its' about the commissioning.

10below said it was customer installs in another thread
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=84757179&postcount=316

red_bairn

Vico1612 wrote: »

10below said it was customer installs in another thread
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=84757179&postcount=316

yeah, you are right. For some reason I thought he spoke about the cabinets.

godskitchen

Does anyone know about fixed IPs with fibre?

Can I keep my same ip address?

Mr. G

godskitchen wrote: »

Does anyone know about fixed IPs with fibre?

Can I keep my same ip address?

If you switch providers no. If you stay with the same provider they will change initially, and so its best to tell them you want them when ordering.

Edit: The IP Addresses you have are assigned to a provider and cannot be transfered to another provider.

phog

godskitchen wrote: »

Does anyone know about fixed IPs with fibre?

Can I keep my same ip address?

Yes but you must stay with you existing supplier and probably best to mention it at time of placing the order. The IP address may not be available immediately on install but that might be supplier dependent. The guy I was talking to had Eircom and it took about 40mins after installation but no issues after that.

lucernarian

Solair wrote: »

Eircom's coverage prediction is 1.2m households that's 75% of households which would put it higher than the UK average. Bear in mind Wales only has 34% coverage and some English regions are similar

Northern Ireland's rollout is the exception due to state funding.

UPC in Ireland had 304,000 broadband customers which is about 19% of Ireland's 1.6m households!

Virgin media has about 4.2 million customers : about 16% of the Uk's 26m households

UPC passed a much higher % of homes than Virgin too. There are even large areas of London without cable. Small towns are (which would be major urban centres by Irish standards) are rarely cabled in the UK.

All in all Ireland's broadband situation is improving rapidly. I would prefer to see us benchmarking against Western France or Scandinavia rather than the UK which is a rather low bar to reach right now.

Ah now this is where statistics can be abused in a way that eircom were wonderfully adept at doing. Remember the "1 million lines covered" adverts anyone?! Yes, the pairgain-riddled lines throughout the streets of Dublin 2 and the lanes outside Roscommon town were included in those numbers purely because their line ended within a few metres of a DSLAM. I'd love to know how many people are connected to a VDSL-enabled cabinet yet can't get eFibre because of line faults between NTU and cabinet, loop length in particular or else lack of capacity in the immediate area to remove any remaining Multigain devices. I know nothing changed after the cabinet serving relations 4 km away was switched on.

Anyway, at least the UK (particularly up north) recognised that there was more to broadband than subsidising mobile phone networks...

ramas2

Seen contractors digging for fibre in Maynooth, any ideas what is this for?

bk

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

I'd love to know how many people are connected to a VDSL-enabled cabinet yet can't get eFibre because of line faults between NTU and cabinet, loop length in particular or else lack of capacity in the immediate area to remove any remaining Multigain devices. I know nothing changed after the cabinet serving relations 4 km away was switched on.

In fairness, from what we have read on other threads, one person who ordered Vodafones VDSL product, the engineer found a fault on the line outside the house, called in two more engineers and the three of them spent a few hours tracking down the problem and fixing it!!

It seems like this time, Eircom are actually working to clean up the mess!

georgiecasey wrote: »

Agree with this point but I'd even go lower and say it's way more important to get all of Ireland on a *reliable* 10Megabits or even 5Megabit with a 20-30ms ping and no packet loss.

Well I would say minimum 20mb, but the problem with ADSL is the lack of upload speed (less then 1mb). In the era of cloud services, flickr 1TB free accounts, youtube, facebook, dropbox etc. 1mb upload speed is painfully too slow.

Specially for people working from home.

20mb down / 20mb up would be good.

Fortunately VDSL fixes this with it's 50mb/20mb product, so this is why it is quiet exciting IMO.

crawler

bealtine wrote: »

Well, to my mind, a few points come up here...

There are still huge area of the country, mostly out West, without access to real broadband (I exclude 3G as "real" broadband). So availability is still an issue here in Ireland and in the UK too.

I would agree and argue that VDSL is yesterday's technology (slightly resurrected) and is prolonging the misery of copper <g>. To me it is merely a stopgap measure until a proper FTTH is rolled out, the practicalities and financial model for an FTTH rollout are a separate issue but one that certainly needs to be addressed. 100Mbs over VDSL is probably fine for the near future and perhaps the medium term future but in reality the long-term future is FTTH and that should be our ultimate aim.

I'd also disagree that LTE will kill copper, LTE is a huge leap forward that much is true (far better than 3g) but because it's a shared medium it is difficult to guarantee any sort of speeds on "the network" so it will never be a replacement for "real" broadband. LTE is an excellent technology when used for what it was designed for e.g. "bursty" on the move traffic, however when the networks start to be used and become busy the drop-off in speeds will be significant.
This cannot be controlled by the telcos so speeds cannot be guaranteed.

I love tweeting about my breakfast or updating my FB status when I'm out and about but I'd hate to rely on it for remote admin of servers or VPNing if my speeds can vary from fantastic to almost nil

Ahhh but you didn't fully read what I said...

Availability is still an issue for some but in general there is probably availability of 85% and sat broadband has improved - not perfect but not the main debate anymore.

On LTE - I agree with you 100% - but what I said was the combination of fibre AND LTE will kill copper - not one or the other....unless people feel the need to run down the streets with a roll of SMF on their backs

In short, I think we are in furious agreement!!

arctan

the rollout is highlighting a lot of faults on the d-side, that were either not know, or you could "get away" with ... the line must be in good condition so noise isn't swamping the VDSL bins, techs were being told to chase shorts and dis's and if they had the time battery contacts and earths, although if they spent to much time on it, to highlight it as a fault report.

in saying that though, I saw one last week, although testing fine, had a battery contact on it with the customer was still getting 24 megs about 300m from the cab, that would be upped again when it is fixed, seems a good bit resilient VDSL.

bealtine

crawler wrote: »

Ahhh but you didn't fully read what I said...

guilty yer honour:)

Availability is still an issue for some but in general there is probably availability of 85% and sat broadband has improved - not perfect but not the main debate anymore.

In short, I think we are in furious agreement!!

I'd calculate that there are still about 300 exchanges out of ~1200 (some are just boxes or sub-exchanges) not enabled for broadband so I still think availability is an issue but not really the main debate any more...

The debate has moved on to available speeds (ping/latency etc) that's true but we mustn't forget our stranded "country cousins" or those in the centre of Dublin

10belowzero

the rollout is highlighting a lot of faults on the d-side, that were either not know, or you could "get away" with ... the line must be in good condition so noise isn't swamping the VDSL bins, techs were being told to chase shorts and dis's and if they had the time battery contacts and earths, although if they spent to much time on it, to highlight it as a fault report.

in saying that though, I saw one last week, although testing fine, had a battery contact on it with the customer was still getting 24 megs about 300m from the cab, that would be upped again when it is fixed, seems a good bit resilient VDSL.

.

As I pointed out some time ago , the idea is to do a totally clean install , to test the line for all and any fault's and even when the usual fault's are cleared , ''error's'' can still be in place , which mean's even more testing and looking at new cable path's to reduce or clean ''errors'' off the line and that is before actually doing the install.
It just mean's that the customer get's the best possible speed available , and although some may not get the max speed at present , the service will be STABLE and reliable , hth's

Solair

arctan wrote: »

the rollout is highlighting a lot of faults on the d-side, that were either not know, or you could "get away" with ... the line must be in good condition so noise isn't swamping the VDSL bins, techs were being told to chase shorts and dis's and if they had the time battery contacts and earths, although if they spent to much time on it, to highlight it as a fault report.

in saying that though, I saw one last week, although testing fine, had a battery contact on it with the customer was still getting 24 megs about 300m from the cab, that would be upped again when it is fixed, seems a good bit resilient VDSL.

From a faults point of view is there any advantage to ditching the link back to the exchange and only having broadband from the cabinet?

Seems like there's potential for cable faults that could hit the broadband. The filters could remove unwanted line noise before adding the VDSL at the cabinet but I mean for example a short to earth or anything electrical is going to screw up the line and pass through the filters.

I'm thinking in my own case of getting a broadband only connection on our second line then porting the landline to blueface

10belowzero

Also the vdsl2 has proved to be much much more resilient on copper than the adsl has amazingly enough, I still do not know how it will behave over longer distances - meaning cust's that are 3/8,000 meter's from a cab , I'm hoping there will be some improvement for these customers (talk on the grapevine of being able to boost speed on these , don't hold me to this yet)- I will let you know when I do.
The apprentices are not allowed by the company to do over time (why I don't know) , the C.W.U has been pushing the company to take on another 290 apprentices this year ,more than that I don't know at the moment.
In order to do the install's , we need all the back office support team's that are never mentioned here , the NMC and our internal b/band support in City West, the controller's in Cork and Sligo , field support in Tralee and Watersford , Field force and the NRT team's to name but a few, when an Eircom tech is working , we have all these support's behind us , without them it can be very hard to get any thing done.

Tommy Lagahan

arctan wrote: »

the line must be in good condition so noise isn't swamping the VDSL bins, techs were being told to chase shorts and dis's and if they had the time battery contacts and earths, although if they spent to much time on it, to highlight it as a fault report.

Whats a battery contact?

crawler

bealtine wrote: »

guilty yer honour:)




I'd calculate that there are still about 300 exchanges out of ~1200 (some are just boxes or sub-exchanges) not enabled for broadband so I still think availability is an issue but not really the main debate any more...

The debate has moved on to available speeds (ping/latency etc) that's true but we mustn't forget our stranded "country cousins" or those in the centre of Dublin

Yep.....100% availability should and must always be the aim....

10belowzero

A battery contact is a fault between two or more adjacent circuit's in a cable caused either by ingress of moisture , water or physical damage to a cable.
One of many such fault's that we encounter on a daily basis.
It should be remembered that in comm's term's , just because a circuit test's ok ,does not mean that it is ok , experienced Tech's know how to access a line test taking in to account the location , type of distribution and the history of the circuit being worked on - nothing is ever as it seem's and as we say on the ground , all result's can make a terrible liar of ya.

ainiseoir

10belowzero wrote: »

In order to do the install's , we need all the back office support team's that are never mentioned here , the NMC and our internal b/band support in City West, the controller's in Cork and Sligo , field support in Tralee and Watersford , Field force and the NRT team's to name but a few, when an Eircom tech is working , we have all these support's behind us , without them it can be very hard to get any thing done.

Don't want to rattle any cages, but may I ask if there is a certain level of experience/seniority, whatever required of the installers, or is it a case of all hands to the pump in the present "surge"?
I've deferred installation as I feel the telephone situation in my house may be a bit complicated and I am considering having it examined and getting a report on it before reapplying for an installation appointment.
Also my NGB ADSL serves my purpose pretty well so even though I'm an upgrader/updater by default, I decided to let the hare sit for a while.

Tommy Lagahan

Right, getting eFibre advanced installed tomorrow morning.
Is there anything you guys would like me to test while I'm still on the 8Mb NGB, to compare with the eFibre tomorrow?

Israeli Superiority

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Right, getting eFibre advanced installed tomorrow morning.
Is there anything you guys would like me to test while I'm still on the 8Mb NGB, to compare with the eFibre tomorrow?

For your own interests, you should compare your ping times. Take some ping tests throughout today and save them (think you might have to create an account). Then do some on fiber and see if your pings are worse/better on fiber.

iPhone.

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Right, getting eFibre advanced installed tomorrow morning.
Is there anything you guys would like me to test while I'm still on the 8Mb NGB, to compare with the eFibre tomorrow?

Can you check your down stream line attenuation figure atm and use it to check your current distance from exchange HERE

Then do the same when you get the all new shiny fttc installed?

Would love to see the 'real' before and after figures of an actual install

Tommy Lagahan

Right, tried to keep as much interference out of these tests as possible. Only the stated programs were accessing the internet at the time in the screenshots, and only the PC was connected apart from during the Netflix test. I'll repeat the same set of tests tomorrow. If there's anything else give me a shout this evening, I won't be going back to the 8Mb after tomorrow
My network is set up with the Eircom Zyxel modem bridged to my ASUS router. Everything is turned off on the Zyxel, apart from stuff necessary for PPPoE bridging. PC and PS3 are wired up to the Asus with Cat5e.
Distance to exchange is approx 2462m.

Here's an imgur album of the tests I've done so far: http://imgur.com/a/k1JRD
Speedtest:

Pingtest:

gordonnet

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Right, getting eFibre advanced installed tomorrow morning.
Is there anything you guys would like me to test while I'm still on the 8Mb NGB, to compare with the eFibre tomorrow?

when did you place the order and what exchange are you on ?

Tommy Lagahan

gordonnet wrote: »

when did you place the order and what exchange are you on ?

I'm on the cabinet at the crossroads near the Swilly Inn, Gortlee in Letterkenny.
Ordered several times since the start of April, Eircom's order reset a few times because the system wasn't set up fully. Re-did my order on Tuesday 21st there as I hadn't heard back from the other orders. Rang me on Wednesday to confirm and get an install date. Rang again to confirm and get an install date yesterday :rolleyes: they have 2 systems at the moment which the girl on the line explained to me weren't synced up, so I ended up getting 2 appointment texts set for tomorrow morning. Could have half the engineers up at the house the amount of times I ordered the damn service :pac:

swoofer

when you sync your modem ie the one you are using now, what does it sync at? And has it changed recently?

Also do you know the profile they have allocated for efibre? How far from cabinet are you? And those pings are impressive.

Tommy Lagahan

GBCULLEN wrote: »

when you sync your modem ie the one you are using now, what does it sync at? And has it changed recently?

Also do you know the profile they have allocated for efibre? How far from cabinet are you? And those pings are impressive.

There's a screen shot of the modems line info on the imgur album, looks like imgur is down atm...
Mode: G.DMT (ADSL1)
Speed: 8160kbps / 512kbps
Line attenuation is 34dB down 14dB up, Noise margin is 8.5db down 22dB up.
Has never changed since I had Eircom tidy up the wires, remove an extension and replace the old socket that was in this house before I moved in. Even before that it was stable at 7Mb.
Noise margin fluctuates between 7.5 and 8.5 alright, so its just at the edge of 7Mb stability afaik.
When I got it in the Eircom rep said that the line would handle 12Mb on ADSL2, but I couldn't be bothered paying for 24Mb and getting half speed, with a helping of interleaving latency courtesy of ADSL2. I'm well pleased with these pings for an old ADSL connection!
I'm about 430m from the cabinet.
No idea about any of the VDSL particulars yet, I'll throw up plenty of screenshots of the modem's interface when its running tomorrow.

PeadarB

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

I'm on the cabinet at the crossroads near the Swilly Inn, Gortlee in Letterkenny.
Ordered several times since the start of April, Eircom's order reset a few times because the system wasn't set up fully. Re-did my order on Tuesday 21st there as I hadn't heard back from the other orders. Rang me on Wednesday to confirm and get an install date. Rang again to confirm and get an install date yesterday :rolleyes: they have 2 systems at the moment which the girl on the line explained to me weren't synced up, so I ended up getting 2 appointment texts set for tomorrow morning. Could have half the engineers up at the house the amount of times I ordered the damn service :pac:

Tommy looking good there.
Mine are as follows at the minute. Roll on Thursday.

Tommy Lagahan

PeadarB wrote: »

Tommy looking good there.
Mine are as follows at the minute. Roll on Thursday.

Whats your modem stats at the minute? Pings a fair bit higher than mine