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

Hogzy

Im shocked Eircom didnt have the cop on to launch this service before Sky gets a stronghold on the DSL market. I know FTTC is a better service but people are only going to get stuck into 12 month contracts which will hamper Eircoms rate of uptake.

The Ayatolla

Just started 12 month contract with Sky, hopefully eircom have their own act together in 12 months time

Nonoperational

Wouldn't hold my breath that they'll have it sorted in 12 months, and I'd imagine sky will be quick to join in as a reseller of FTTC anyway.

Praetorian

Nonoperational wrote: »

Wouldn't hold my breath that they'll have it sorted in 12 months, and I'd imagine sky will be quick to join in as a reseller of FTTC anyway.

It will be sorted much faster than 12 months.

Also, I think it's mad anyone changing provider right now and signing up for 12 months or longer.

Wait to see what the FTTC offers are first.

Grudle

Praetorian wrote: »

It will be sorted much faster than 12 months.

Also, I think it's mad anyone changing provider right now and signing up for 12 months or longer.

Wait to see what the FTTC offers are first.

I wouldn't call signing up for a service that will provide your maximum line speed and no cap at all for at most €27.50 a month and in most cases €17.50 a month mad. Those figures include unlimited landline calls so cheaper again without that. Big savings on all current providers and no way will FTTC packages be cheaper, regardless of a bump in speed.

The Ayatolla

I'm paying Sky €9.50 a month for 12 months for unlimited 12mb broadband. No Complaints here. Beats paying eircom €40 a month.

I'm guessing if Sky introduce some sort of FTTC service later in the year we'll have an option to upgrade, but even still, i'm happy with the 9.50

red_bairn

The Ayatolla wrote: »

I'm paying Sky €9.50 a month for 12 months for unlimited 12mb broadband. No Complaints here. Beats paying eircom €40 a month.

I'm guessing if Sky introduce some sort of FTTC service later in the year we'll have an option to upgrade, but even still, i'm happy with the 9.50

Where are you living?

Hogzy

The Ayatolla wrote: »

I'm paying Sky €9.50 a month for 12 months for unlimited 12mb broadband. No Complaints here. Beats paying eircom €40 a month.

I'm guessing if Sky introduce some sort of FTTC service later in the year we'll have an option to upgrade, but even still, i'm happy with the 9.50

Yup, im on the same. Paying 17.50 a month for Unlimited broadband with no fair usage policy, unlimited landline calls to Ireland and loads of countries including USA. I was looking forward to FTTC but the Sky prices are just too good to pass on. Im saving nearly €500 per year from my previous Vodafone package.

AlmightyCushion

Hogzy wrote: »

Yup, im on the same. Paying 17.50 a month for Unlimited broadband with no fair usage policy, unlimited landline calls to Ireland and loads of countries including USA. I was looking forward to FTTC but the Sky prices are just too good to pass on. Im saving nearly €500 per year from my previous Vodafone package.

If you think about it, if you cancel your Sky broadband after 5 or 6 months to get Eircom FTTC, even if you had to buy out your contract it would still be cheaper than staying with Eircom for that 5 or 6 months.

Wambo

Just rang up eircom to see if they'd hook me up early due to them decreasing my speeds. No luck whatsoever. They still have no date as to when it will go live either

Nonoperational

Praetorian wrote: »

It will be sorted much faster than 12 months.

Also, I think it's mad anyone changing provider right now and signing up for 12 months or longer.

Wait to see what the FTTC offers are first.

You must be joking?! I'm paying €10 per month for what eircom were charging €62. Even if eircom bring it out in April/May/June cancelling sky would cost very little. That's assuming sky won't resell FTTC and launch pretty close to eircom.

The Ayatolla

red_bairn wrote: »

Where are you living?

Corcaigh

Solair

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

If you think about it, if you cancel your Sky broadband after 5 or 6 months to get Eircom FTTC, even if you had to buy out your contract it would still be cheaper than staying with Eircom for that 5 or 6 months.

Eircom will have to make FTTC available to other providers. It's likely that BT Ireland who supply service for Sky will have access to it too. So, you might be able to get your FTTC connection from Sky themselves.

Similar wholesale arrangements to ADSL will have to apply.

Stinicker

Solair wrote: »

Eircom will have to make FTTC available to other providers. It's likely that BT Ireland who supply service for Sky will have access to it too. So, you might be able to get your FTTC connection from Sky themselves.

Similar wholesale arrangements to ADSL will have to apply.

What about direct fibre to the home aka FTTH? I understand Eircom are spending a fortune rolling this out in some areas, will this be open to competition or will they be allowed have a monopoly on it for a grace period to recoup the investment cost? I've recently switched to Sky but would happily stay with Eircom if I could get speeds of say 30 - 50megs on fibre and would be happy to pay that little bit extra. Where once upon a time 2-3megs were grand I think you'd need at least 10mb minimum today with high-def streaming and the size of some files.

the world wonders

Stinicker wrote: »

will this be open to competition or will they be allowed have a monopoly on it for a grace period to recoup the investment cost?

will be open to competition, according to this Magnet are already offering FTTH services on the pilot areas.

I've recently switched to Sky but would happily stay with Eircom if I could get speeds of say 30 - 50megs on fibre and would be happy to pay that little bit extra.

Don't hold your breath waiting for FTTH unless you're in one of the very limited pilot areas.

arctan

BT/Sky will have FTTC if its in an Eircom FTTC area and the customers cabinet is FTTC enabled

BT are already using it to win customers, even though it hasn't gone live

dubmick

Sky told me they won't be offering Fibre for another year or so. This was the reason I didn't take up their deal. Must be mad.

Solair

Stinicker wrote: »

What about direct fibre to the home aka FTTH? I understand Eircom are spending a fortune rolling this out in some areas, will this be open to competition or will they be allowed have a monopoly on it for a grace period to recoup the investment cost? I've recently switched to Sky but would happily stay with Eircom if I could get speeds of say 30 - 50megs on fibre and would be happy to pay that little bit extra. Where once upon a time 2-3megs were grand I think you'd need at least 10mb minimum today with high-def streaming and the size of some files.

No sign of FTTH just FTTC. There were a couple of trial areas for FTTH but the rollout appears to be VDSL cabinets, not fibre to home.

I'm not certain, but it seems unlikely that these cabinets support fibre connections directly to customers homes.

Cheerful Spring

Hogzy wrote: »

Im shocked Eircom didnt have the cop on to launch this service before Sky gets a stronghold on the DSL market. I know FTTC is a better service but people are only going to get stuck into 12 month contracts which will hamper Eircoms rate of uptake.

Well i am pretty sure large numbers of people will stick with Eircom and not switch over. Its an Irish thing.

Also Sky i guess, will be limited to certain exchanges were it can provide customers with a service. Eircom, of course will lose customers but not enough to cause the company to go under.

Solair

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

Well i am pretty sure large numbers of people will stick with Eircom and not switch over. Its an Irish thing.

It's not an Irish thing really, it's just the same inertia you tend to get with incumbent operators everywhere. Same happens with BT in the UK, Orange/FT in France etc etc

Incumbent operators also tend to end up with the 'laggards' who tend to be the people who wouldn't switch as they don't know anything about the technology / product anyway and probably don't spend very much time online to start with. Many of them probably still think they get their phone service from the P&T.

Also, the first generation of competitors to eircom were (are) badly branded and not all that well recognised. The advent of big names in the market like Vodafone and now Sky shook things up.

UPC has also had a massive impact by just having a product that wipes the floor with eircom at the moment and they really have had huge impact and taken loads of customers so it's far from an Irish cultural thing that we have some kind of love of eircom.

Ireland actually has some of the highest rates of mobile operator switching in the world. There's very little love lost with mobile operators here. Customers are increasingly absolutely ruthless about chopping and changing networks, which is why the prices are going down.

Compare Ireland to say Belgium or Canada where a lot of price plans would still make your eyes water.

Redriddick

Cabinets being installed in Roscommon at the mo.Still will be out of reach as im on the knockcroghrey exchange!!!!!

Sponge Bob

No announcement on the 10 exchanges eircom were due to launch in January 2013 to allow a full systems test on provisioning and OAM.

chriss745

I found a very interesting document on the web. Have a look on page 30. Table 2 describes how Eircom initially will offer the speeds based on the distance from the cab, and what are the available profiles. Table 3 includes the IPTV profiles as well.

http://www.nextgenerationnetwork.ie/downloads/nga_pilot_documentation/technical_handbook.pdf

red_bairn

chriss745 wrote: »

I found a very interesting document on the web. Have a look on page 30. Table 2 describes how Eircom initially will offer the speeds based on the distance from the cab, and what are the available profiles. Table 3 includes the IPTV profiles as well.

http://www.nextgenerationnetwork.ie/downloads/nga_pilot_documentation/technical_handbook.pdf

Had a IPTV setup in Korea...never really used it. I watched movies on the laptop.

lionela

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

coaxial cable is still made from copper though.[/QUOTE

Just a thought,

If the ESB can bundle Gas and Electricity together.and vise/versa
And Vodofone can also muscle in on the Eircom line to give Phone and Broadband.

And UPC can bundle Phone and Broadband on the TV cable lines
And all this in the name of deregulation.

Question.... why can't Eircom use the UPC lines to give a better Broadband speed... and save the Company money.

Can anyone enlighten me..?????

arctan

comreg ...

basically Eircom have one set of rules and other companies wanting to use their network have others, this is to stop Eircom having a monopoly and introduce and maintain competition

edit:

Eircom could use the network in theory, but because of the rules and regs, it would probably cost them a fortune, compared to other companies coming in and using theirs ...

I may be wrong on this, but can you even unbundle co-ax connections ?

they do have backhaul agreements with some networks, Magnet, ESB telecoms etc.. where they use some of their fibre and visa versa

bealtine

arctan wrote: »

I may be wrong on this, but can you even unbundle co-ax connections ?

Not in Ireland, no cable unbundling

arctan

I'd imagine it's do-able, yes ? a matter of another stream down the coax ?

Sponge Bob

UPC only pass around 800k out of 2m homes with their cable. In other countries, eg Holland, where cable passed perhaps 80% of homes the cable access network is more highly regulated. Denmark and the US also have very extensive cable networks.

At 40% penetration by the homes passed method UPC stay under the radar in Ireland and are not subject to regulations forcing them to share their network with other carriers. Even the UK has higher penetration of cable on the homes passed measure ( around 50% up from about 0% only 20 years back) and that is also unregulated.

red_bairn

Just reading my CompTIA A+ book here and looking at the fibre optics section. I'm assuming Eircom are using the Multimode for their setup, right?