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

Capt'n Midnight

kenny111 wrote: »

Anybody here have any idea about the costs involved for a dedicated fibre line, i am looking at a house approx 2k from the nearest cab. With the value of the house i would be prepared for a dedicated line if eircom do this option.

it would be way cheaper to pay someone closer to the cab and then setup a wifi link with big antennas

maybe someday when they offer dedicated fibre lines outside the test areas the costs won't be so bad.





Considering how cheap fibre is to the cost of installing it the powers that be should have insisted on dark fibre to every home during the boom , all it would have required is that eircom / esb buy slightly more expensive reels of copper cable that had fibre down the middle. Or even cat 5e to ISP neutral cabinets for homes on estates or even shared ducting. Ah , what if...

And it's still not too late to start doing it to future proof new builds.


Does anyone know if they are using better quality cable these days ?

kenny111

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

it would be way cheaper to pay someone closer to the cab and then setup a wifi link with big antennas

maybe someday when they offer dedicated fibre lines outside the test areas the costs won't be so bad.





Considering how cheap fibre is to the cost of installing it the powers that be should have insisted on dark fibre to every home during the boom , all it would have required is that eircom / esb buy slightly more expensive reels of copper cable that had fibre down the middle. Or even cat 5e to ISP neutral cabinets for homes on estates or even shared ducting. Ah , what if...

And it's still not too late to start doing it to future proof new builds.


Does anyone know if they are using better quality cable these days ?

Even a ballpark figure would be handy as i am under pressure to make a bid from the better half on tuesday

yomamasflavour

kenny111 wrote: »

Even a ballpark figure would be handy as i am under pressure to make a bid from the better half on tuesday

For a rough guess, in the UK with BT's FTTP on demand scheme (which is only available to about 100 exchanges throughout the entire UK).

It's £4350 Sterling minimum plus £3.50 per metre from the cab.
So £11500 Sterling? Not exactly cheap.

(N.b that does include the service for the first three years, after three years their prices revert to the standard broadband prices.)

OneEightSeven

kenny111 wrote: »

Even a ballpark figure would be handy as i am under pressure to make a bid from the better half on tuesday

Try ringing one of the 3 people on the right of this page: http://pressroom.eircom.net/

I got in contact with one of them and he gave me information about eFiber that you wouldn't hear from their customer service.

Nonoperational

To be honest I'd say it would be very difficult for a home customer to get dedicated fibre installed or even to get in contact with somebody who could arrange such. They do offer business solutions, maybe you could go down that route but the monthly cost would be off-putting.

Thetruthking

raytaxi wrote: »

See Blackrock and castlebellingham in county louth pushed back another month . Gone out to July now Just as it appears to be getting close back it goes again lost count now how many times its pushed back.

It's a joke their always putting it back, if it says July Ray you might have it by Christmas knowing eircom

jca

This time last year when I was getting terrible trouble with my sky BB Eircom told me I would get fiber in December. The map said December from around August and Lo and Behold I got connected in December. One of the lucky ones I suppose.

Snake

jca wrote: »

This time last year when I was getting terrible trouble with my sky BB Eircom told me I would get fiber in December. The map said December from around August and Lo and Behold I got connected in December. One of the lucky ones I suppose.

How did you get connected... I'm in distillery road in wexford and I'm on the map, not connected, and no one can tell me when!! Who told you when you'll be connected??

jca

retrogamefan wrote: »

How did you get connected... I'm in distillery road in wexford and I'm on the map, not connected, and no one can tell me when!! Who told you when you'll be connected??

This was last year. I was so fed up with sky last May I rang Eircom as the vdsl cabinets were being installed around town. They told me December.

Snake

jca wrote: »

This was last year. I was so fed up with sky last May I rang Eircom as the vdsl cabinets were being installed around town. They told me December.

I've been phoning them all week trying to find out, they all said "we don't know" it's madness! Awe well.

jca

retrogamefan wrote: »

I've been phoning them all week trying to find out, they all said "we don't know" it's madness! Awe well.

Did you try Magnet or VF? I think it's just pot luck with who you get on the phone tbh.

Snake

jca wrote: »

Did you try Magnet or VF? I think it's just pot luck with who you get on the phone tbh.

Vodafone are just as useless.. Didn't try magnet. They'd probably tell me nothing unless I agreed to sign up with them

raytaxi

Thetruthking wrote: »

It's a joke their always putting it back, if it says July Ray you might have it by Christmas knowing eircom

Believe it or have seen december come and go then it was March, June now July lol think you could be right about December now its just which year

Gonzo

murphaph wrote: »

What would you propose they do?

ok I propably do sound a bit over the top when saying how slow Eircom are at rolling out their fibre to beyond urban areas/towns.

They have done a fantastic job rolling it out to many towns and some small villages over the past 2 years. Our broadband has gone from the laughing stock of Europe to one of the top countries, I think we just hit the top 10 recently, currently beating the UK.

What I am frustrated about tho is that while the rollout programme is good for those who live in a town or even smallish village, there is no effort to extend the fibre just a little bit further out from the towns, where quite a few people live.

I live about 2.5km from the centre of Dunshaughlin, plenty of housing around the place but no plans for a cabinet as all the cabinets are clustered within 1km of the town centre. I am sure there are plenty of other exchanges similar to this where many people who live quite close will miss out.

Eircom's current fibre cabinets are too big for areas like this, but I'm sure I read here before that smaller fibre cabinets and even pole mounted solutions are readily available for areas close to towns and villages that can easily manage installs of 30-60 houses.

I also read here previously that it's possible to offer wireless from the cabinets bringing a decent fibre signal a few km beyond the towns.

This would go along way towards bringing most people fibre to all but the more rural once off housing which is too expensive to provide a solution for every home in the country.

I would like to think that Eircom has some sort of plan to extend fibre a bit further beyond most towns/villages e.g. a 5km/6km radius of most towns or villages would sort most people out.

bk

yomamasflavour wrote: »

Let people who want it pay for it.

arctan wrote: »

them if they want it so much

That is very fair and I'd fully support that.

BT in the UK do this with something called Fibre On Demand, but it is very expensive:

- £750 once off connection charge
- £3.50 per meter connection charge for the distance between the closest Fibre connected cab to your home.
- £99 monthly rental

So lets say you were 3km * from the closest exchange, it would cost £11,500 to get installed and then £99 per month. Not cheap!

* I picked 3km as a sample distance, because to be honest if you are 2km or less from an eFibre cab, you would probably be better off just going VDSL.

Expensive, but I hope Eircom eventually offer a service like this.

kenny111, Eircom currently don't offer a service like this to residential customers, however they do it for business customers, so you could get in touch with their business arm. However expect to pay €€€€€

You might also look into options for fixed wireless access and point to point wireless services. These might deliver a reasonable service at a more reasonable price.

kenny111

guys, thanks for all the replies. I will be contacting eircom about a direct connection

bk

Gonzo wrote: »

What I am frustrated about tho is that while the rollout programme is good for those who live in a town or even smallish village, there is no effort to extend the fibre just a little bit further out from the towns, where quite a few people live.

I live about 2.5km from the centre of Dunshaughlin, plenty of housing around the place but no plans for a cabinet as all the cabinets are clustered within 1km of the town centre. I am sure there are plenty of other exchanges similar to this where many people who live quite close will miss out.

The reality is that no wired Broadband solution is suited to serving such low density housing far outside towns and villages.

Such homes are just very expensive to service.

FTTH is the best solution as there is no signal loss over distance, however as I just detailed above it is very expensive in a rural setting, making it uneconomical.

VDSL is distance limited (max 2km, but max 1km for decent speeds) and as you rightfully point out the current cabs are large and service 192 homes, which are too many for rural areas, making it currently uneconomical.

As to the wireless thing, the VDSL cabs themselves don't do wireless, but the point we were making is that if a cab is placed in a town or village, fibre most be run to the cab. That fibre can then be run from the cab to a antenna somewhere in the town that can then feed wireless connections to the surrounding homes.

Realistically this wireless company needs to be done by the town itself or by a small local wireless company. There are a few around the country.

The thing is, we are still in the catch up phase. Even all urban and semi-urban areas still don't have decent high speed broadband. And realistically these low hanging fruit need to get done first, before, Eircom etc. will turn their attention to the more difficult and expensive rural homes.

But the good news is that the VDSL rollout is going so fast, that it looks like it will be complete in the next year and then I hope they turn their attention to the more rural homes.

This is what has happened in the UK, BT are about a year or two ahead of us, they have completed their rollout of VDSL to 85% of homes (though at slower speeds of 40mb/s) and now for the past year they have been aiming to get that figure up to 99% of homes. They are doing this with subsidies from the government and a mix of technologies (FTTH, remote mini VDSL, wireless, etc.)

I'm hoping the same will happen here in Ireland in the next year. What I'd like to see happen is:

- A fibre drop to every single town and village in Ireland. This fibre should be open for use by all, Eircom, ESB, local wireless companies, etc.
- Eircom to start using a smaller remote VDSL unit that could service smaller clusters of homes. *
- Government needs to partly subsidise the rollout of Broadband in these rural areas. The subsidy should be available to various companies, Eircom, ESB, local wireless (not 4G like the Three disaster).

* An interesting idea, if Eircom were allowed to disconnect the telephone line (POTS) and go VoIP instead in these rural areas, they could then use the freed up pairs from the remote VDSL cabs back to the exchange to backhaul the data over bonded VDSL. This would save them having to run fibre to these remote VDSL units, which would make it much more economical to do this.

ED E

You are pretty much bang on there BK, one thing that id like to see included is some cash being thrown back into the ADSL sytem though. I know its legacy and very limited speed but right now there are towns with backhaul fibre running through them but only ADSL1 kit in the racks so max speed is 7.6Mb. Right now all the upgrade budget is being spent on fibre build teams so small jobs that would give large enough areas a very significant boost with 0 lineswork are being deferred.

Additionally the radio fed 1 and 3mb exchanges haven't been touched. They are worst of the worst bar the pstn only ones. Investment in good P2P radio gear could bring many small towns from unusable to useable BB.

All that said, even if vdsl wasn't happening I doubt eircom would bother doing any upgrades of insitue exchanges as they don't compete there.

bk

ED E wrote: »

You are pretty much bang on there BK, one thing that id like to see included is some cash being thrown back into the ADSL sytem though. I know its legacy and very limited speed but right now there are towns with backhaul fibre running through them but only ADSL1 kit in the racks so max speed is 7.6Mb. Right now all the upgrade budget is being spent on fibre build teams so small jobs that would give large enough areas a very significant boost with 0 lineswork are being deferred.

Agreed and it should be possible to do it cheaply. After all with people in urban areas moving to VDSL, there most be lots of spear ADSL2+ gear in the urban exchanges that could be moved to these rural exchanges.

No need to buy new gear.

ED E wrote: »

Additionally the radio fed 1 and 3mb exchanges haven't been touched. They are worst of the worst bar the pstn only ones. Investment in good P2P radio gear could bring many small towns from unusable to useable BB.

I'd rather see them bring fibre to all exchanges, along with my point of breaking a fibre drop to every town and village. That would help greatly.

Snake

I read in the newspaper there's plans to reach small villages (rural) within 3 years

Capt'n Midnight

The long and the short of it is that Eircom are a commercial body and are cash starved. It would be insane of them to do anything other than go for the low hanging fruit first.

Once they've done that then they could look at the areas that would give lower returns on investment, like the villages with fewer potential customers within the effective radius or backfilling in the areas where cabs are maxed out.

Or wait for new technology that will allow smaller nodes.


If you are out in the sticks don't hold your breath for reasonable priced broadband. You'll be waiting for government subsidised BB or the ESB or google blimps or DIY.

But the main reason not to hold your breath is that there are hundreds of thousands of others waiting for BB and it's easier, faster and more profitable to sort out the first.

maybe when the rollout starts making back the investment then they can start filling in more of the gaps

ED E

bk wrote: »

I'd rather see them bring fibre to all exchanges, along with my point of breaking a fibre drop to every town and village. That would help greatly.

While thats exactly whats needed long term, short term better P2P gear is a quick upgrade with a large effect for the people on that exchange. Digging up 10KM of bad quality roads to lay a fibre link is orders of magnitude more expensive than deploying new radio units onto existing masts.

arctan

a good majority of rural fibre is overhead

Snake

arctan wrote: »

a good majority of rural fibre is overhead

But there's a government scheme in place to put all lines underground for safety purposes I thought?

Johnboy1951

retrogamefan wrote: »

But there's a government scheme in place to put all lines underground for safety purposes I thought?

If they ever do that they can drop the fibre at the same time

arctan

retrogamefan wrote: »

But there's a government scheme in place to put all lines underground for safety purposes I thought?

first I've heard of that ... only government scheme I seen was to stop ESB infringments, so any Eircom lines near ESB goes underground, then usually back up overhead when it's passed them

more good news, direct feeds have started being cabinetised in some locations in Dublin

AlanS181824

bk wrote: »

The reality is that no wired Broadband solution is suited to serving such low density housing far outside towns and villages.

Such homes are just very expensive to service.

FTTH is the best solution as there is no signal loss over distance, however as I just detailed above it is very expensive in a rural setting, making it uneconomical.

VDSL is distance limited (max 2km, but max 1km for decent speeds) and as you rightfully point out the current cabs are large and service 192 homes, which are too many for rural areas, making it currently uneconomical.

As to the wireless thing, the VDSL cabs themselves don't do wireless, but the point we were making is that if a cab is placed in a town or village, fibre most be run to the cab. That fibre can then be run from the cab to a antenna somewhere in the town that can then feed wireless connections to the surrounding homes.

Realistically this wireless company needs to be done by the town itself or by a small local wireless company. There are a few around the country.

The thing is, we are still in the catch up phase. Even all urban and semi-urban areas still don't have decent high speed broadband. And realistically these low hanging fruit need to get done first, before, Eircom etc. will turn their attention to the more difficult and expensive rural homes.

But the good news is that the VDSL rollout is going so fast, that it looks like it will be complete in the next year and then I hope they turn their attention to the more rural homes.

This is what has happened in the UK, BT are about a year or two ahead of us, they have completed their rollout of VDSL to 85% of homes (though at slower speeds of 40mb/s) and now for the past year they have been aiming to get that figure up to 99% of homes. They are doing this with subsidies from the government and a mix of technologies (FTTH, remote mini VDSL, wireless, etc.)

I'm hoping the same will happen here in Ireland in the next year. What I'd like to see happen is:

- A fibre drop to every single town and village in Ireland. This fibre should be open for use by all, Eircom, ESB, local wireless companies, etc.
- Eircom to start using a smaller remote VDSL unit that could service smaller clusters of homes. *
- Government needs to partly subsidise the rollout of Broadband in these rural areas. The subsidy should be available to various companies, Eircom, ESB, local wireless (not 4G like the Three disaster).

* An interesting idea, if Eircom were allowed to disconnect the telephone line (POTS) and go VoIP instead in these rural areas, they could then use the freed up pairs from the remote VDSL cabs back to the exchange to backhaul the data over bonded VDSL. This would save them having to run fibre to these remote VDSL units, which would make it much more economical to do this.

I had a read of that article, extremely interesting stuff.
Thanks for sharing!

OneEightSeven

KN Networks are currently (and finally) digging up around my local cabinet. I've been waiting for this day since March 2013 when they first started working in my area.

I remember last year Eircom had to wait 30 days after the cabinet was bilut before they can commission it. This was to make sure the other operators get their **** together. Does this still apply to today?

domeld

Yes, cool of period is 28 days

ClonNGB

http://www.eircom.net/efibreinfo/map/ showing Skibbereen and Clonakilty live. Yet at least in Clon no cabs installed and according to what I hear it will be nears to 2015 before we are live.