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

arctan

precisely

one of the biggest telecoms network infrastructure rollouts in the last 2 decades

always gonna have snags, anyone who says different is just personal begrudging

AlanS181824

jca wrote: »

Sister lives in Amsterdam. Her internet is with kpn it's dire. Barely above dialup speeds sometimes. Other sister is in zwolle and her kpn internet is brilliant although she recently changed to a cable provider for tv internet all in one deal and she's very happy with it after a shaky start.

KPN is what my friend has. He has they had 500/500 but for some reason they now have 90/90 again. I've seen a speed test so he's definitely telling the truth.

jca

AlanS181824 wrote: »

KPN is what my friend has. He has they had 500/500 but for some reason they now have 90/90 again. I've seen a speed test so he's definitely telling the truth.

I'm not implying that you're lying it just shows the huge differences in any country even with the same provider.

jca

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

LOL it's all fibre to the cabinet. FTTH isn't exactly common on efibre.

Yes it's a pain to ring UPC but haven't done that for years , apart from haggling for a better contract everytime they up the price.

Ringing them was always the easiest part. Getting them to provide and decent reliable service wasn't so easy.

D'Peoples Voice

degsie wrote: »

eFibre network reaches over 750,000 homes and businesses, with Eircom having recently connected its 100,000th fibre customer. Fair Play. They now have more fibre customers than UPC.

For what it is worth....

As of Dec 31, 2013

Homes passed - 859,600
2-way homes passed - 748,600
Analog subscribers - 51,100
Digital subscribers - 338,300
Internet subscribers - 338,300
Telephony subscribers - 293,500
2-way meaning TV + broadband available.
[\QUOTE]
Source: Liberty Global Reports Fiscal 2013 Results

SpaceTime

So, basically they have less than 1/3 the number of fibre customers than UPC has and offer them a top tier product that is less than 1/2 as fast (UPC actually delivers 200Mbit/s, eircom theoretically delivers 100 Mbit/s if you can see the cabinet out your window.)

I'm not dissing the eircom rollout, it's very fast and the technology's a huge leap forward over ADSL but UPC's still firmly in the driving seat in terms of top speeds.

The only big advantage of eircom's setup is geographical spread. UPC have done very little to grow their footprint, even in areas you'd expect them to be in like Cork City's satellite towns.

Also, they've little/no interest in connecting 'awkward' homes in cities. Lots of places where an odd house here and there / street or development isn't on UPC's network for 'legacy reasons' i.e. no way leaves or the distance between homes is too far to be bothered cabling them.

Where as Eircom's effectively forced to connect everyone to the phone network under their USO.

I'd actually like to see UPC compelled to connect homes in their licensed areas tbh. It's bad for competition not to have that.

D'Peoples Voice

SpaceTime wrote: »

So, basically they have less than 1/3 the number of fibre customers than UPC has and offer them a top tier product that is less than 1/2 as fast (UPC actually delivers 200Mbit/s, eircom theoretically delivers 100 Mbit/s if you can see the cabinet out your window.)
......
I'd actually like to see UPC compelled to connect homes in their licensed areas tbh. It's bad for competition not to have that.

+1 Agree with everything you said!

I'm delighted with what both Eircom and Imagine's Wimax are achieving, it brings serious competition to UPC and helps to "moderate" the recent price increases from UPC.

What I want to know is what percentage of Eircom fibre-fed houses are already covered by UPC - it might be a poor return on their investment if its a high percentage! Prices might have to rise rapidly in a year or two if the take-up by customers does not increase from 1-in-7. (100,000 customers from 700,000 houses passed).

Danny Boy

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

+1 Agree with everything you said!

I'm delighted with what both Eircom and Imagine's Wimax are achieving, it brings serious competition to UPC and helps to "moderate" the recent price increases from UPC.

What I want to know is what percentage of Eircom fibre-fed houses are already covered by UPC - it might be a poor return on their investment if its a high percentage! Prices might have to rise rapidly in a year or two if the take-up by customers does not increase from 1-in-7. (100,000 customers from 700,000 houses passed).

http://www.eircomwholesale.ie/Our_Network/ see the nga network - I'd say a fair chunk is non UPC, also certainly wouldn't include WiMAX as next generation anything

Johnboy1951

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

For what it is worth....

As of Dec 31, 2013

Homes passed - 859,600
2-way homes passed - 748,600
Analog subscribers - 51,100
Digital subscribers - 338,300
Internet subscribers - 338,300
Telephony subscribers - 293,500
2-way meaning TV + broadband available.
[\QUOTE]
Source: Liberty Global Reports Fiscal 2013 Results

Nice figures but it makes me wonder if the 'homes passed' includes all those home that are within 'enabled' areas but cannot get a connection for one reason or another.

At least they seem to be half way there!

jd

Noticed new cabs in Whitehall Exchange area, one opposite DCU at Collins Avenue and another outside Beaumont House. Also one Santry Exchange, on Shantalla Road near Shangliss. These are the first new cabinets I've seen in the Dublin City Council area for quite a while, (since the issue with the power mini-cabs).

SpaceTime

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

+1 Agree with everything you said!

I'm delighted with what both Eircom and Imagine's Wimax are achieving, it brings serious competition to UPC and helps to "moderate" the recent price increases from UPC.

What I want to know is what percentage of Eircom fibre-fed houses are already covered by UPC - it might be a poor return on their investment if its a high percentage! Prices might have to rise rapidly in a year or two if the take-up by customers does not increase from 1-in-7. (100,000 customers from 700,000 houses passed).

They'd have to cover the same areas as UPC. They're the major urban areas like Dublin, Cork etc.

If they didn't cover those, they'd make very little money.

billyduk

Nonoperational wrote: »

These are all isolated incidents and anecdotes. The fact of the matter is this has been an impressive rollout but not perfect, and there is more to come.

Calling 1.5 years of incessant misinformation about my area "isolated" is an oxymoron.

Danny Boy

billyduk wrote: »

Calling 1.5 years of incessant misinformation about my area "isolated" is an oxymoron.

No, saying it was accurate misinformation would be an oxymoron.

billyduk

Danny Boy wrote: »

No, saying it was accurate misinformation would be an oxymoron.

True. That would be an oxymoron, but incorrect about the point I was making. An isolated series of reoccurring events is also an oxymoron.

Danny Boy

billyduk wrote: »

True. That would be an oxymoron, but incorrect about the point I was making. An isolated series of reoccurring events is also an oxymoron.

That sounds more like a cycle to me, but I'm in danger of being warned for going off topic so I'll leave it there.

bk

jca wrote: »

UPC don't have any fibre customers..... very little fibre in their network. Terrible service too. Sorry I just have no time for UPC. ...

jca that is a loads of nonsense. UPC's network is a HFC (Hybrid Fibre Coax) network, that means it is fibre as far as the local node. The vast majority of UPC's network is Fibre, UPC's Fibre goes much deeper and much closer to peoples homes then Eircoms network.

For instance in my case, UPC put a brand new fibre feed cabinet right on the wall of my apartment building and the cab only serves my building. That makes it Fibre To The Building (FTTB), pretty much FTTH for apartments and vastly superior to Eircom.

Don't kid yourself UPC's network is vastly superior and vastly faster then Eircom "eFibre" network.

However I would absolutely say well done to Eircom. While Eircoms network is much slower then UPC, it is fast enough for most people and it covers a much greater area and number of people (by next year) then UPC. So more people benefit from it and that is great news

The Eircom VDSL rollout has been surprisingly fast and smooth, hopefully Eircom have finally turned over a new leaf, but I remain weary of them.

Also UPC's service is excellent, by far the best ISP in Ireland.

SpaceTime wrote: »

Also, they've little/no interest in connecting 'awkward' homes in cities. Lots of places where an odd house here and there / street or development isn't on UPC's network for 'legacy reasons' i.e. no way leaves or the distance between homes is too far to be bothered cabling them.

Where as Eircom's effectively forced to connect everyone to the phone network under their USO.

I'd actually like to see UPC compelled to connect homes in their licensed areas tbh. It's bad for competition not to have that.

I will defend UPC here, usually when you have a few homes not connected like this, it isn't UPC's fault. In order to get BB, UPC need to upgrade the cable to a new, higher quality one. But the way UPC cable works is that the cable is run from one home to the next one. The problem arises when one of the neighbours refuses UPC to come onto their property to replace the cable!

A few times I've gotten in touch with UPC about such "awkward" homes, it turned out to be the fault of "awkward" neighbours.

Unfortunately there are far to many NIMBY's here in Ireland.

In fairness to UPC, my apartment building was extremely difficult to wire up. Over 5 years they kept coming out, trying to figure out different ways to connect it up, but they kept coming out and eventually they were able to get it sorted out a month ago. That was despite a director in the management company of the building being a complete NIMBY and pain in the ass!

So I'd think it would be more useful if home owners were "compelled" to allow UPC/Eircom/ESB/etc. to do there job.

Actually the government should have compelled a few things years ago:

- That every new house and apartment being built, be built with carrier neutral ducting.

- That every house and apartment be wired with both coax and ethernet cable from a central point in the building, to each apartment.

- That "exclusive" deals with the likes of Smart Telecom/Magnet/etc. be banned and people allowed to order services from whomever they liked, with those service providers having full access to the central point.

- That all ducting and poles owned by Eircom/ESB/UPC be open to be used on a fair wholesale basis by other companies.

The government should have implemented all of the above 10 years ago. This would allow for much faster rollouts and greater competition.

ED E

bk wrote: »

A few times I've gotten in touch with UPC about such "awkward" homes, it turned out to be the fault of "awkward" neighbours.

Unfortunately there are far to many NIMBY's here in Ireland.

I can attest to this. We were delayed over a year by the pr1ck next door not allowing them onsite despite the fact that the old cable was already there and running over their property.

jca

bk wrote: »

jca that is a loads of nonsense. UPC's network is a HFC (Hybrid Fibre Coax) network, that means it is fibre as far as the local node. The vast majority of UPC's network is Fibre, UPC's Fibre goes much deeper and much closer to peoples homes then Eircoms network.

For instance in my case, UPC put a brand new fibre feed cabinet right on the wall of my apartment building and the cab only serves my building. That makes it Fibre To The Building (FTTB), pretty much FTTH for apartments and vastly superior to Eircom.

Don't kid yourself UPC's network is vastly superior and vastly faster then Eircom "eFibre" network.

However I would absolutely say well done to Eircom. While Eircoms network is much slower then UPC, it is fast enough for most people and it covers a much greater area and number of people (by next year) then UPC. So more people benefit from it and that is great news

The Eircom VDSL rollout has been surprisingly fast and smooth, hopefully Eircom have finally turned over a new leaf, but I remain weary of them.

Also UPC's service is excellent, by far the best ISP in Ireland.



I will defend UPC here, usually when you have a few homes not connected like this, it isn't UPC's fault. In order to get BB, UPC need to upgrade the cable to a new, higher quality one. But the way UPC cable works is that the cable is run from one home to the next one. The problem arises when one of the neighbours refuses UPC to come onto their property to replace the cable!

A few times I've gotten in touch with UPC about such "awkward" homes, it turned out to be the fault of "awkward" neighbours.

Unfortunately there are far to many NIMBY's here in Ireland.

In fairness to UPC, my apartment building was extremely difficult to wire up. Over 5 years they kept coming out, trying to figure out different ways to connect it up, but they kept coming out and eventually they were able to get it sorted out a month ago. That was despite a director in the management company of the building being a complete NIMBY and pain in the ass!

So I'd think it would be more useful if home owners were "compelled" to allow UPC/Eircom/ESB/etc. to do there job.

Actually the government should have compelled a few things years ago:

- That every new house and apartment being built, be built with carrier neutral ducting.

- That every house and apartment be wired with both coax and ethernet cable from a central point in the building, to each apartment.

- That "exclusive" deals with the likes of Smart Telecom/Magnet/etc. be banned and people allowed to order services from whomever they liked, with those service providers having full access to the central point.

- That all ducting and poles owned by Eircom/ESB/UPC be open to be used on a fair wholesale basis by other companies.

The government should have implemented all of the above 10 years ago. This would allow for much faster rollouts and greater competition.

I was being tongue in cheek but I forgot that humour doesn't work here. They've (UPC ) a whole town here "cabled" for tv but couldn't be bothered giving us a decent tv service never mind bb. I'd say we were one of the first cabled towns in Ireland ( mid 70's) how's that for looking after your customers. They didn't mind rising the price year on year, no sky type haggling in those days either pay up or dig out the rabbits ears and bog off. A shocking company. They had the whole town in the palm of their grubby little hand and gave the two fingers to everyone.

fat-tony

Normally, when you buy a property, there is a clause in the deeds granting "wayleave" to service providers. I don't know if it applies to UPC, but I think it allows statutory bodies like ESB and eircom etc. to repair or replace cables going through or across your property.

bk

jca wrote: »

I was being tongue in cheek but I forgot that humour doesn't work here. They've (UPC ) a whole town here "cabled" for tv but couldn't be bothered giving us a decent tv service never mind bb. I'd say we were one of the first cabled towns in Ireland ( mid 70's) how's that for looking after your customers. They didn't mind rising the price year on year, no sky type haggling in those days either pay up or dig out the rabbits ears and bog off. A shocking company. They had the whole town in the palm of their grubby little hand and gave the two fingers to everyone.

What town is that?

One town, somewhere in rural Ireland isn't indicative of the majority of the UPC network which has a superb reputation.

Remember UPC only entered the market 7 years ago with the purchase of Chorus and then NTL a year later. In doing so they also bought a bunch of really crappy, under-invested, unconnected cable networks all over Ireland, in towns that were previously built by some small local TV company before being swallowed up by Chorus/NTL.

Since then they have spent 500 million rebuilding almost the entire network from scratch, replacing almost all the the cable with new, much higher quality cable and installing massive amounts of fibre. Basically fixing the awful sins of Chorus/NTL (in particular Chorus who were really bad).

It isn't surprising that they haven't gotten to exactly every little town yet. It is a slow and very costly process and obviously they will target the big urban areas first.

But on the whole your experience isn't the indicative of what the majority of people receive from them.

efb

My house was done today, I'll be back later with speeds

efb

45MB download 17MB upload
(Nephew tested it)

jca

bk wrote: »

What town is that?

One town, somewhere in rural Ireland isn't indicative of the majority of the UPC network which has a superb reputation.

Remember UPC only entered the market 7 years ago with the purchase of Chorus and then NTL a year later. In doing so they also bought a bunch of really crappy, under-invested, unconnected cable networks all over Ireland, in towns that were previously built by some small local TV company before being swallowed up by Chorus/NTL.

Since then they have spent 500 million rebuilding almost the entire network from scratch, replacing almost all the the cable with new, much higher quality cable and installing massive amounts of fibre. Basically fixing the awful sins of Chorus/NTL (in particular Chorus who were really bad).

It isn't surprising that they haven't gotten to exactly every little town yet. It is a slow and very costly process and obviously they will target the big urban areas first.

But on the whole your experience isn't the indicative of what the majority of people receive from them.

It's under my name where I live. There have been many price hikes since UPC took ownership all in the promise of a much improved service. Yea right. I left them in 2010 after sticking a years of their so called digital TV having being an analogue customer for the previous 16 years. Thank god for sky and Eircom eFibre.

efb

Fibre and Chromecast the one day! I may need a washing stick and bedpan...

jca

efb wrote: »

Fibre and Chromecast the one day! I may need a washing stick and bedpan...

OneEightSeven

ED E wrote: »

I can attest to this. We were delayed over a year by the pr1ck next door not allowing them onsite despite the fact that the old cable was already there and running over their property.

You say delayed, so he eventually allowed it, or what happened?

ED E

OneEightSeven wrote: »

You say delayed, so he eventually allowed it, or what happened?

It eventually went ahead. The overseeing engineer couldnt tell us exactly what deal was done but I suspect he got a heavy discount or free service for a year or something. They did the whole road in a day, new "nipples" on the eaves. Previous cable was just slung over a tree in our garden, it was needed for a while and moved us from analogue tv only to full 200Mb+ service.

niallo27

When eircom say fibre is coming to your area in May 14, do they mean it will be switched on then or just start work in it. How accurate is it from peoples experience.

jspuds

Eircom announce plans to roll out 1Gb speeds using new vectoring technique
http://goo.gl/2CEBPI

OneEightSeven

jspuds wrote: »

Eircom announce plans to roll out 1Gb speeds using new vectoring technique
http://goo.gl/2CEBPI

That isn't a new vectoring technique, they announced the FTTH rollout.