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

chriss745

IE2012 wrote: »

is eircom rolling out VDSL2 or just plain VDSL?

my figures were roughly on VDSL

VDSL's maximum upload speed is 3Mbit/sec. In Eircom's offer for FTTC they offer up to 50Mbit down and 20mbit up, so I suppose it is VDSL2.

And in Wikipedia I just found:

"Eircom, in late 2006, announced a plan to start providing VDSL2 from 2007 in large cities. However Eircom has announced phase one of a fibre roll-out which they will deploy fibre cabinets along with vdsl2 and triple services. This roll-out is currently in phase 2."

Hogzy

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.

Thats fine if there is just one single user using the connection and downloading one single file, but what if you have a family of people, each streaming content on the computers/tv's, Thats when bandwidth gets eaten up very quickly. I have a 10mb connection that is more than enough for me downloading most of my stuff, But once someone else needs to stream it becomes a pain for both me and the person trying to stream, the 10mb connection effectively becomes 5mb.

chriss745

Hogzy wrote: »

Thats fine if there is just one single user using the connection and downloading one single file, but what if you have a family of people, each streaming content on the computers/tv's, Thats when bandwidth gets eaten up very quickly. I have a 10mb connection that is more than enough for me downloading most of my stuff, But once someone else needs to stream it becomes a pain for both me and the person trying to stream, the 10mb connection effectively becomes 5mb.

A video streaming is usually max 7Mbit/sec. If these users will get 30Mbit/sec, that means a 4 member family will be able to stream 4 full HD video in parallel, I would say it is more than enough. Of course we can say what happens if they want to download with P2P next to that and they want to skype also, but it is a very extreme case. When we had 20Mbit/sec in the past, we used it heavily, all the family members, we never run into real bandwidth limit either when I ran some P2P stuffs. Higher bandwidth are more flexible for bandwidth sharing.

Hogzy

chriss745 wrote: »

A video streaming is usually max 7Mbit/sec. If these users will get 30Mbit/sec, that means a 4 member family will be able to stream 4 full HD video in parallel, I would say it is more than enough. Of course we can say what happens if they want to download with P2P next to that and they want to skype also, but it is a very extreme case. When we had 20Mbit/sec in the past, we used it heavily, all the family members, we never run into real bandwidth limit either when I ran some P2P stuffs. Higher bandwidth are more flexible for bandwidth sharing.

But what if i also want to download a huge file while streaming too. The whole point of having a fast connection is to allow someone the freedom to do more at once. 20mb is probably fine for todays demands buti in a few years time that 20mb will seem slow as hell and people will need alot faster connections to meet their demands. Its simple planning for the future(something the leaders of this country are usually bad at)

Edit: 4k streaming is only about 5 to 6 years away. Come back to me then and say your 20mb connection is fast enough. 4k will need a minimum of 50mb i would imagine. If not more

MrO

FTTH/FTTB seems to be the only realistic and future-proof way of 'kitting' out this country (where UPC does not have cable or intend to put cable) - complimented with good quality wireless access for rural communities.

You could argue that VDSL2 is just enough (for now) - but given what we've seen in the past, we (as a country) will always be lagging behind if we do not put proper infrastructure out there.

Something like this (from across the water) would certainly help...

http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=476168

Solair

Yeah, I agree.
The way bandwidth hungry applications are becoming the norm, VDSL2+ will be rather pointless in a few years.

You can't really deliver the kinds of future-proofing we need over unshielded twisted pair. It's as simple as that really.

Irish phone lines are longer than average because our housing is spread out.

The US suffers from this problem too, although wider uptake of cable and fibre broadband over there has kept speeds up. ADSL / VDSL hasn't really worked wonderfully anywhere where there isn't very intense housing development with people living in high densities.

All DSL does is move the 'exchange' to your street corner / local bit of landscaped greenery !

My question is:

Do the eircom green cabinets (current being rolled out) actually support fibre-to-home ? Can they be easily upgraded to this by say adding a few modules or something ? Or, are they cheaping out and installing VDSL2+ that isn't upgradable?

I know the initial Alcatel-Lucent test rollouts had some fibre-to-home in Dundrum and Wexford. But, do the phase II rollouts which seem to be Huawei equipment have any at all?!

Sponge Bob

Solair wrote: »

Irish phone lines are longer than average because our housing is spread out.

The US suffers from this problem too, although wider uptake of cable and fibre broadband over there has kept speeds up. ADSL / VDSL hasn't really worked wonderfully anywhere where there isn't very intense housing development with people living in high densities.

This is a tad mythic. Our line lengths on average are mid table and Ireland has a reasonable number of exchanges relative to overall land area. Lines were significantly longer in the US...on average. Obviously every country shown there needs to cabinetise for VDSL2 but the idea that we are an outlier is a myth.

Do the eircom green cabinets (current being rolled out) actually support fibre-to-home ? Can they be easily upgraded to this by say adding a few modules or something ? Or, are they cheaping out and installing VDSL2+ that isn't upgradable?

You can launch a limited number of FTTP connections out of each cabinet but these will be some metro ethernet over fibre feed for a business ( a modern leased line tail) and not domestic product.

MrO

Solair wrote: »

Do the eircom green cabinets (current being rolled out) actually support fibre-to-home ? Can they be easily upgraded to this by say adding a few modules or something ? Or, are they cheaping out and installing VDSL2+ that isn't upgradable?

The VDSL kit itself wont be upgradable for FTTH but the cabinets are more than fit for purpose - a passive solution would require optical distribution and splitter hardware, an active solution would require replacing the VDSL kit (or putting along side) with pt-pt ethernet switches of some description.

The issue is that the cost of doing that transistion is minor compared to running the last section of fibre, which it seems neither eircom or BT have any serious plans to do.

Hogzy

For arguements sake lets say Eircom are installing FTTH in every house tomorrow morning.

I live in a housing estate. How will eircom install the fibre from the cab to my home? Will they have to dig up all the roads and my driveway to install it?

Or will it go above ground?

Praetorian

Hogzy wrote: »

For arguements sake lets say Eircom are installing FTTH in every house tomorrow morning.

I live in a housing estate. How will eircom install the fibre from the cab to my home? Will they have to dig up all the roads and my driveway to install it?

Or will it go above ground?

In a lot of cases they can put fibre through the existing ducts. An Eircom engineer told me when they remove some old cables, it makes a lot of room. It only takes a very small amount of fibre to replace a lot of copper.

swoofer

I love this thread, last time I checked eircom have 16000 customers on fibre, according to the timetable 10 areas were earmarked for completion in August 2012 and as yet nothing. We can only hope phase 2 will get completed soon ie end of dec 2012 but I think sky made their announcement too soon.

Fibre to the home is a no go unless other providers cough up if eircom did it users would just jump ship to other isps who would undercut eircom quite easily. It will happen but I would say another 30 years. And by then wireless will have taken over anyway.

bealtine

GBCULLEN wrote: »

but I would say another 30 years. And by then wireless will have taken over anyway.

I seriously doubt that there's much more to be gained with wireless as we are currently nearing the Shannon Limits so unless we suddenly get lots of more spectrum for wireless we aren't going to see any more advances with wireless perhaps some more efficiency maybe but that's it...

That's a common myth that wireless will somehow "takeover", mostly pimped about by the mobile phone companies looking for state investment. In my opinion the only and best future-proofed investment is fibre to the home

Solair

There should be plenty of space in the existing ducts.

In fact, in part of Cork the cable television wiring shares space in eircom ducts.

You also have to remember that, unlike phone cables, fibre does not producer nor is it in anyway impacted upon by RF / EM fields. It also does not conduct electricity nor does it corrode. Telephone wiring is essentially unshielded bundles of twisted pairs of solid copper wire and you can get interference and crosstalk if it's not installed properly. It's very similar to what you'd see in network cabling like CAT5 (just a bit fatter to cope with the voltage drop over longer distances).

DSL tends to make the problem even worse as you have to shield against a much wider range of frequencies than voice and some older installations just don't work very well with it.

As the rollout of fibre becomes more widespread around the world, more companies are involved in the production of cables, routers, switches, splicers and all that gear and the cost is definitely dropping rapidly.

Also, I don't really understand how fibre can cost THAT much given the price of copper these days.

Telephone wiring actually requires lots of very high quality copper wire which is damn expensive given there's a copper shortage at the moment.

Fibre optic cables are essentially made out of silica (sand). They're just bundles of glass strands.

Long term, fibre production should be more cost-effective and sustainable than copper!

Telephone wires also have to be pressurised (they actually pump air into them from the exchange) to keep water out and identify cracks in the insulation. That's unnecessary with fibre as there is no particular issue with corrosion etc.

There have also been some massive improvements in fibre optic cable technology over the last decade or more. Older fibre optic cables were fragile and quite difficult to handle relative to traditional copper. That's no longer the case and it can be quite easily pushed down ducts, slung along poles etc. It's pretty robust stuff these days.

It's certainly no more difficult to handle than the heavy-grade coaxial cables that cable tv companies like UPC use for their last mile connections.

Getting rid of thick bundles of copper wire going back to the exchange would make a hell of a lot of sense, as it would reduce all that complicated equipment and maintenance procedures, which is why I cannot for the life of me understand why eircom's not also providing voice service directly from the cabinet too. Although, they can do what UPC does and just do the whole lot over fibre/VDSL with VoIP i.e. a socket on the back of your router for the phone.

This ESB Networks potential rollout of fibre (which needs a new thread on here) should really shake up the market as it will mean fibre products in places that neither UPC nor eircom currently provide high speed internet!

It's actually also a possible way that UPC could extend the reach of their cable platform very cost effectively. I know in the UK Virgin Media have been involved with small scale rollouts of this kind of stuff in rural areas. So, there is a precedent.

All they'd need is national fibre network access (ESB provide that already) and then local access over the ESB network and voila ! you have some kind of fibre cable network service delivering their TV, phone and broadband to a lot of homes that were previously 'off grid'.

bk

I've started a new thread about the ESB news here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=80779718#post80779718

Solair, yes fibre optic cable is already cheaper then copper and also cheaper to maintain.

However the reason Eircom aren't going here is because the most expensive part of laying new cable is labour. Labour makes up 70% of the cost of laying cable, weither fibre or copper.

So Eircom are saving a lot of money by simply reusing their existing copper network, rather then laying a new one.

However for the same reasons it makes sense for a new entrant like the ESB to use fibre instead of copper when rolling out a new network. Fibre is cheaper to buy, cheaper to maintain, costs the same to rollout and obviously gives you much higher speeds.

Having said all that, I agree that Eircom doing VDSL2+ is too little, too late.

VDSL2+ while a nice improvement over ADSL for existing customers, it just isn't anywhere fast enough to compete with UPC or this new ESB fibre network.

_John C

Its like eircom is working on bringing yesterdays news to its customers next year!!!!.
These guys should forget about VDSL and go the fibre route. They are wasting more of their money on VDSL equipment that will be obsolete very soon.

_John C

bk wrote: »

So Eircom are saving a lot of money by simply reusing their existing copper network, rather then laying a new one.

They are not saving in the long run as they will eventually have to go the fibre route sometime in the future. Instead they are wasting money on VDSL equipment!!!

Sponge Bob

You may well find eircom plugging their VDSL cabs into ESB fibre in some areas

chriss745

Here is UPC's answer for Eircom's fiber rollout:

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/29239-upc-doubles-entry-level/

Liamario

chriss745 wrote: »

Here is UPC's answer for Eircom's fiber rollout:

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/29239-upc-doubles-entry-level/

It's not much of an answer, if they don't expand their network. If the ESB roll out goes ahead, it could potentially screw UPC...

MrO

Liamario wrote: »

It's not much of an answer, if they don't expand their network. If the ESB roll out goes ahead, it could potentially screw UPC...

Or they could possibly just use the new network...

Liamario

MrO wrote: »

Or they could possibly just use the new network...

They could, but it would still make this 'announcement' moot, due to every other ISP having the same speeds.

Sponge Bob

UPC can only reach 500k homes with their higher speeds and around 800k homes with any form of cable ( some quite old and analogue only even today) . UPC are not present in Business Districts, mainly only residential areas.

There are 2m homes.

Liamario

Why is there such a limit in their reach?

Sponge Bob

Cable is an urban thing not a rural thing (too expensive)

Liamario

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Cable is an urban thing not a rural thing (too expensive)

But even parts of Dublin can't get UPC. Surely this is something they need to rectify?!

Praetorian

Eircom could previously offer max 24m/bit in theory, so UPC's slowest package was 25m/bit but vastly superior in reality. Average Joe knows bigger numbers are better.

Eircom are not far away from offering vdsl based upto 50m/bit, so again UPC trump that with their slowest package starting at 50m/bit.

If I were running UPC I would do the same thing.

I do wonder though, will UPC's determination to make Eircom look bad actually hurt their revenue. As surely many people who were paying for higher connection speeds will be happy to get the base package of 50m/bit and save some money over the more expensive packages. As greedy as I am for bandwidth, I'd settle for 50m/bit.

Solair

Not only that, but UPC demoed 1.4Gbit/s over their existing infrastructure.

If nothing else, it should leave a few eircom execs feeling a slight chill.

They're competing with a well-resourced, high-tech cable company that's actually a global player in this kind of technology. Totally outclassing eircom in the areas where they're available.

swoofer

but are upc very expensive? i cant get it here in clare anyway but I think the charge quite a bit more.

starviewadams

UPC's entry level broadband (50mb download/5mb upload 500gb usage cap) is €46.88 per month if you just get broadband on it's own without TV or phone.If you take the phone it's €44 per month.

Eircom's basic (up to 8mb download,a measly 10gb usage cap) is €40 for the first 6 months then €45 per month thereafter.

So for a €1 less with UPC you get a far,far superior service and a much bigger download allowance.

aindriu80

I am with Eircom 8mb unlimited (and so called unlimited cap) and its ok although I would take a price reduction over faster internet connection. Its €55/month for me and I really think I should be paying less, perhaps €40 month.

I asked UPC did they do broadband in my town and they couldn't check my address, they said it wasn't on their system and they would get back to me. Even if I took broadband only from UPC at their lowest package it would be cheaper and faster than what I have with what was the national carrier for years.

In truth the service on offer to republic of Ireland is terrible, on the same island U.K connections are much better and cheaper.