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

Cheerful Spring

Can you buy smaller cabinets i read somewhere you can? If you can why don't broadband provider buy the smaller cabinets and install them in rural areas.

Cheerful Spring

jackaroo2012 wrote: »

How can they not do the city centre that makes no sense! :mad:

I don't live anywhere near Galway or even close but it is very likely they will upgrade there just for commercial reasons alone.

jackaroo2012

thats what I would have thought too

Sponge Bob

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

Can you buy smaller cabinets i read somewhere you can? If you can why don't broadband provider buy the smaller cabinets and install them in rural areas.

This could well happen but seemingly not in this rollout, maybe later. eircom are installing 192 port units and you would be hard pressed to find 192 punters within 1km of a rural exchange. 192 ports is a bit lumpy and large so they need to be in cabinets on the ground.

However you can mount units like these (below) on poles and use overhead pole mounted fibre backhaul, which is what is required for a rural area with perhaps 24 or 48 customers within 1km. They can be powered by bonding 2 or 4 wires back towards the exchange/nearest street cabinet to pick up 48v DC .

http://www.calix.com/systems/e-series/calix_e3.html

dazdrog

IE2012 wrote: »

i have seen very little activity of cabinet installs in the Drogheda area
apart from the hole in the ground that was dug, over a week ago.. at wheaton hall.

i would guess that it will be a slow rollout.

ive seen a few in drogheda the last week, theres a finished one behind the boundary wall in brookville near the entrance of the estate (first left from entrance) and a nearly finished one at the entrance of moneymore

eircom sales reps are also hittin the area quite hard, its FTTC tho so there goes my hopes for FTTH and any decent speeds too as if ya follow the line route from moneymore down to my house in laurence drive its quite a distance

Sponge Bob

dazdrog wrote: »

iif ya follow the line route from moneymore down to my house in laurence drive its quite a distance

Not sure if eircom use this precise profile. OK You can get faster by bonding 2 pairs.


VDSL2 Profile 17a, cabinet to premises speed estimate

Distance to cabinet' (metres) 'Estimated connection speed Cumulative%age of premises at this distance

100m 100 Mbps 5%
200m 65 Mbps 20%
300m 45 Mbps 30%
400m 42 Mbps 45%
500m 38 Mbps 60%
1000m 24 Mbps 90%
1500m 15 Mbps 98%

flutered

i am two miles from an upgraded exchange, they cannot give me 3megs, my service is on its third breakdown since may, i am down since thursday, next doors fone was gone, the service crowd came and sorted him, they left me with broadband (yeah) but no fone or telly, i am thinking that as they know that i have a sam knows router, the dsl would be gone as well, when i rang again yesterday (friday) i was told that the repair crew would fix it today saturday i did not believe them, both they and i know that they do not work on saturday

dazdrog

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Not sure if eircom use this precise profile. OK You can get faster by bonding 2 pairs.


VDSL2 Profile 17a, cabinet to premises speed estimate

Distance to cabinet' (metres) 'Estimated connection speed Cumulative%age of premises at this distance

100m 100 Mbps 5%
200m 65 Mbps 20%
300m 45 Mbps 30%
400m 42 Mbps 45%
500m 38 Mbps 60%
1000m 24 Mbps 90%
1500m 15 Mbps 98%

1500M+ for me

Sponge Bob

I reckon you need one in the estate @ 500m distance. Stop and ask the lads if they are installing one. At 1500m it will be like ADSL2.

IE2012

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Not sure if eircom use this precise profile. OK You can get faster by bonding 2 pairs.


VDSL2 Profile 17a, cabinet to premises speed estimate

Distance to cabinet' (metres) 'Estimated connection speed Cumulative%age of premises at this distance

100m 100 Mbps 5%
200m 65 Mbps 20%
300m 45 Mbps 30%
400m 42 Mbps 45%
500m 38 Mbps 60%
1000m 24 Mbps 90%
1500m 15 Mbps 98%

interesting, from what i have seen so far in Drogheda, with it being part of the phase II rollout, is that only a tiny percentage of houses between 1 and 2 % will be close enough to the cab, to get speeds faster than those on adsl, who lived 1km or less from the exchange. (15-17mb)


my friends house for example is 800M from the nearest cabinet, so i would guess that speeds around 15-20 max will be the norm, due to the planning and layout of the cabinets.

heck ill even offer eircom space to install a cabinet my property if it means that i can get 100 or even 50mb.


there will be a lot of disappointment with this rollout.

stevenf17

Looks like the ESB are seriously looking at getting into the game too!
http://www.etenders.gov.ie/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=SEP384475

starviewadams

Very interesting,could stuff Eircom royally if it actually happens.

Liamario

JV with multiple companies? Also what's FTTB and what does it mean in terms of speed.

_John C

I imagine its the same as FTTH & FTTP

Fibre to the home
Fibre to the premises
Fibre to the building

Hogzy

stevenf17 wrote: »

Looks like the ESB are seriously looking at getting into the game too!
http://www.etenders.gov.ie/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=SEP384475

Probabl;y deserves a thread of its own, Does anyone know if such technology can be run through existing ESB cables or will cables need to be modified?

Sponge Bob

looks like the ESB will do urbanish areas where tv cable does not exist. They are not proposing to do most rural areas.

Praetorian

Hogzy wrote: »

Probabl;y deserves a thread of its own, Does anyone know if such technology can be run through existing ESB cables or will cables need to be modified?

I'm sure data will run on their existing fibre and new fibre. The ESB is the ideal company to take this project on as they already have a decent network and good access to every single home / business.

My question is who would we want to see join them in this venture? I have a feeling Digiweb / Imagine / Magnet or are they possibly too small. UPC & Eircom obviously not. What about BT or SKY?

I hope the ESB are serious about this.

jackaroo2012

Sky are rumoured to be getting into broadband in Ireland as they dont want UPC to eat the arse off them. I suppose at this stage they have to be able to offer a fibre option or they will be left behind. This is just me talking out my hole thou!

iMuse

jackaroo2012 wrote: »

Sky are rumoured to be getting into broadband in Ireland as they dont want UPC to eat the arse off them. I suppose at this stage they have to be able to offer a fibre option or they will be left behind. This is just me talking out my hole thou!

Theres no rumor, Sky are entering the market here but are offering DSL services similar to Eircom, Vodafone etc.


Seen Eircom working at Cabs in Letterkenny today so hopefully they are getting closer to launch.Will the ESB target towns such as Letterkenny that has no Cable with FTTB? How will Eircom be able to compete against them and UPC if they are both offering a superior product?

flutered

is there not quality wireless broadband advailable throught most southern ireland, at cheaper rates and higher quality than eircom can deliver, all this requires is a change in peoples mindset, also it requires the kind of advertising that only eircom and upc can afford.

Solair

Honestly, I think VDSL is a waste of investment. It's a hell of a lot of money to spend for what could end up being a very minor speed boost for a lot of customers. Fibre-to-home is the only thing that will cut the mustard in terms of being able to compete with UPC.

You either rollout fibre, or a cable network like UPCs to get serious speeds.

Most Irish housing developments are pretty spread out compared to continental developments which tend to be more apartment-type stuff where VDSL is practical if you've a cabinet in the basement or on each block of tight-together houses.

Unless you have the VDSL cabinet on your front lawn, it's not going to be remotely as good as DOCSIS over shielded coax which is what UPC have.

Can the cabinets they're installing even support fibre-to-the-home??

We're just going to end up with eircom offering sub 50mbit/s speeds totally inconsistently depending on how long your line is while UPC can offer a consistent 100mbit/s and probably way beyond that too if they decide to.

The housing densities outside of city centre / town centre areas and apartment blocks are just not high enough to support it at top speed as the lines will ultimately end up being too long and the signal will end up being lost to noise.

IE2012

Solair wrote: »

Honestly, I think VDSL is a waste of investment. It's a hell of a lot of money to spend for what could end up being a very minor speed boost for a lot of customers. Fibre-to-home is the only thing that will cut the mustard in terms of being able to compete with UPC.

You either rollout fibre, or a cable network like UPCs to get serious speeds.

Most Irish housing developments are pretty spread out compared to continental developments which tend to be more apartment-type stuff where VDSL is practical if you've a cabinet in the basement or on each block of tight-together houses.

Unless you have the VDSL cabinet on your front lawn, it's not going to be remotely as good as DOCSIS over shielded coax which is what UPC have.

Can the cabinets they're installing even support fibre-to-the-home??

We're just going to end up with eircom offering sub 50mbit/s speeds totally inconsistently depending on how long your line is while UPC can offer a consistent 100mbit/s and probably way beyond that too if they decide to.

The housing densities outside of city centre / town centre areas and apartment blocks are just not high enough to support it at top speed as the lines will ultimately end up being too long and the signal will end up being lost to noise.

the average user might just get 10-15mb on VDSL due to distances from cabinet, FTTC is a half arsed job, as how could they provide TV down a 15mb line going forward?

most people i know locally, are between, 500M-850M from their nearest cabinet! so no 50MB speeds for them!

actually come to think of it, i don't know anyone close enough to their nearest cabinet to get the 50MB on VDSL!

Drogheda is in phase II rollout, and eircom have confirmed to me that none of drogheda will get FTTH!

Solair

I'm just thinking of the rollout in Douglas in Cork or Dundrum in Dublin. They're classic 1950s - 1970s Irish leafy suburbia with largish houses all rather spread out.

Most people will be too far away from the VDSL cabinet.

I've also used VDSL in Belgium and the same problem applies there too. It's not very impressively fast and the cable companies there also provide way higher speeds.

The installations I've seen in Douglas seem to all basically have a VDSL cabinet installed on each estate's landscaped green area at the front. So, at minimum you're looking at 250 to 500m runs to the nearest house.

That same situation will apply all over Dublin, Limerick, Galway etc. Suburban Ireland's all very similar looking.

swoofer

Its the same old eircom, we pay a fortune for up to 8mb and now we will pay a fortune for up to 50mb, old technology with top notch prices, it was always thus in ireland and shall remain.

Solair

Hogzy wrote: »

Probabl;y deserves a thread of its own, Does anyone know if such technology can be run through existing ESB cables or will cables need to be modified?

This kind of thing has huge potential. ESB have ducts and heavy duty overhead cables running absolutely everywhere.

Fibre optic cables aren't conductive and are not in anyway impacted by RF as it's a light travelling down glass fibres.

The most likely approach would be to clip the fibre to the ESB cabling overhead or push it through ESB's ducts.

You can access most houses post 1970s via underground ESB ducts, and pushing a fibre up those wouldn't exactly be all that difficult. It would come out in your meter cabinet.

Not only that, but ESB's network could also provide any routers, nodes, cabinets or whatever is needed with 230V 50Hz AC power because it's an electricity grid.

Praetorian

So Mod's can we get the ESB posts transferred into a new thread?

starviewadams

Would the ESB thing be any use to people living in isolated areas?or is it just more realistic competition for UPC in urban areas?(seeing as Eircom can't/won't come close to catching them on speed except in their very limited FTTH areas)

Sponge Bob

Yes, the ESB will look at areas without UPC where eircom are only trying to stop losing customers to UPC ( and cover some central business districts/indstrial areas where UPC is weak)

FTTB ( FTTH) in isolated areas is not that likely unless there is a telecoms mast to be fed some fibre nearby.

and Solair. they can dangle Fibre off poles now, not just wrap around cables. Look up ADSS cable

http://www.aflglobal.com/Products/Fiber-Optic-Cable/ADSS.aspx

Some years ago only wrapped or lashed fibre could be deployed.

chriss745

IE2012 wrote: »

the average user might just get 10-15mb on VDSL due to distances from cabinet, FTTC is a half arsed job, as how could they provide TV down a 15mb line going forward?

most people i know locally, are between, 500M-850M from their nearest cabinet! so no 50MB speeds for them!

actually come to think of it, i don't know anyone close enough to their nearest cabinet to get the 50MB on VDSL!

Drogheda is in phase II rollout, and eircom have confirmed to me that none of drogheda will get FTTH!

I disagree with you. These people who will get 10-15Mb/sec, (if not more because for 850 meters VDSL2 goes with 25-30Mbit/sec), in average have now 5-8Mbit/sec, 25-30Mbit/sec will be a big difference for them. I say it, who had already 1/8/20/30/100Mbit connection in the past. There is a big difference between 1 and 8, 8 and 20, but I didn't feel any difference between 20 and 100, although I am heavy downloader. Downloading something in 3 or 2 minutes is not a big difference, it doesn't matter really. One TCP session very rarely goes above 20-30Mbit/sec, you need a heavily threaded download to feel the difference above 20Mbit/sec.

IE2012

chriss745 wrote: »

I disagree with you. These people who will get 10-15Mb/sec, (if not more because for 850 meters VDSL2 goes with 25-30Mbit/sec), in average have now 5-8Mbit/sec, 25-30Mbit/sec will be a big difference for them. I say it, who had already 1/8/20/30/100Mbit connection in the past. There is a big difference between 1 and 8, 8 and 20, but I didn't feel any difference between 20 and 100, although I am heavy downloader. Downloading something in 3 or 2 minutes is not a big difference, it doesn't matter really. One TCP session very rarely goes above 20-30Mbit/sec, you need a heavily threaded download to feel the difference above 20Mbit/sec.

is eircom rolling out VDSL2 or just plain VDSL?

my figures were roughly on VDSL