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

yabadabado

What is the best way of checking my connection speeds ?what is the most reliable/accurate ? Speedtest or any other recommendations.

brinks_18476

Hi guys,

Non techie here.

We live in a rural location near a largish town (Tullamore). I don't expect they will be running fibre out to our rural location any time soon
But am I right to assume that if they run fibres to our nearest "cabinet" it will result in faster line speeds? We currently get 2mb
I'm guessing that we must be 3 miles from cabinet located i. The town.

gerryk

gerryk wrote: »

In Soviet Russia, etc etc ...

However, I have this guy's number from a previous repair job.

...and there is no plan to install any new cabinets in my area.

kingtiger

brinks_18476 wrote: »

But am I right to assume that if they run fibres to our nearest "cabinet" it will result in faster line speeds? We currently get 2mb
I'm guessing that we must be 3 miles from cabinet located i. The town.

yep the only limiting factor is the copper line between your house and the cab

Good explanation from a UK site

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/fibre-broadband.html

Solair

arctan wrote: »

not 100% accurate, yes some places the copper is still necessary, but the main reason is because it's a Comreg requirement to keep it in the ground incase other operators want to use it...

it would be to Eircom's advantage though to take out the e-side cables and only have d-side copper to maintain and migrate people to VoIP

Yeah, I'd say eircom would be delighted to just go with a UPC style setup without any analogue services at all.

The Huawei gear seems to have options for supporting POTS, ISDN etc from the cabinet with the right card installed but I doubt they'd waste space as they're tiny cabs!

BT seems to have similar issues though. The main reason being that I heard was they decided that the cost of rolling out PSTN gear to every cabinet (which was their initial plan) was too high and there was little advantage over just keeping the legacy exchanges in place for as long as is economically viable. Sweat an expensive old asset!

Also the BT POTS capable cabinets were creating planning permission issues as they're very large.

I know BT has more pressing issues with finding a replacement for System X exchanges because the company that built them no longer exists and they're almost entirely unique to BT as they were never exported.

However, they've rolled back on their plans to replace them and are only doing it as absolutely necessary.

From what I gather eircom hasn't any such issues as they've no dead switching supplier and two fairly commonly used exchange types with availability of spare parts for quite a while yet!

They were lucky to have gone with Ericsson and Alcatel rather than some small outfit like GPT-Plessey

What eircom are doing seems like a decent compromise.
I'd imagine if you knock a few quid off the line rental for VDSL only, lots of customers will be happy with VoIP from the home gateway in their house.

Other operators could easily provide their own VoIP on their own home gateways too.

gerryk

Solair wrote: »

Yeah, I'd say eircom would be delighted to just go with a UPC style setup without any analogue services at all.

What about emergency services, though? No VOIP provider will stand over use of their infrastructure for emergency calls.

Cheerful Spring

brinks_18476 wrote: »

Hi guys,

Non techie here.

We live in a rural location near a largish town (Tullamore). I don't expect they will be running fibre out to our rural location any time soon
But am I right to assume that if they run fibres to our nearest "cabinet" it will result in faster line speeds? We currently get 2mb
I'm guessing that we must be 3 miles from cabinet located i. The town.

I live close to a small co limerick rural town. The town is roughly 20 miles outside of Limerick city and is listed in phase 5

Solair

gerryk wrote: »

What about emergency services, though? No VOIP provider will stand over use of their infrastructure for emergency calls.

No landline provider will stand over them either!
Lines can and do fail!

A mate of mine had a break in and they cut the eircom line!

He'd actually connected his internal wiring & monitored alarm to UPC's modem so it dialled out as they didn't cut the cable TV line!

There's also a big difference between VoIP set up properly and going over a local managed network and a VoIP service that goes over the public Internet.

UPC for example can manage their VoIP traffic from your house back to the softswitch. It's not just general Internet traffic so QoS etc is all totally managed.

The main reason they wouldn't stand over it for 999/112 & more so 911 in the USA was that the VoIP device could be located anywhere eg someone moved home / supplied wrong address and the cops etc get dispatched to the wrong address as per what's on file.

That's less of an issue with properly managed VoIP installations

brinks_18476

kingtiger wrote: »

yep the only limiting factor is the copper line between your house and the cab

Good explanation from a UK site

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/fibre-broadband.html

For someone like me that link was a great explanation - thanks.

I will keep a look out for cabinet nearer my home and see if there is any sign of newer VSDL cabinet along slide it. Can VSDL cabinets be further than 1.5km described in link ?
How far can nearest "copper" cabinet be from property?

briany

phutyle wrote: »

What also will happen is that as these increased speeds become available to more and more people, more services will become available that take advantage of them, so it's not just current services that will take advantage of these speeds - it's the stuff that we don't even know we need yet

We're definitely going to see a lot more people moving from torrents and cyberlockers as well, I think. It's already much easier to simply use a site like GrooveShark for music needs on a 2mb connection than it is to download the music legally or illegally. I think that'll become the case for HD video content as the upgrade rolls out.

As a result, it'll be interesting to see how the rollout affects the uptake of local storage for the average internet user. If you assume a constant connection to the internet, then what's the need for a whopping big hard drive? That'll become a doubly pertinent question if things like games and programs become increasingly cloud based as well. Big hard drives could end up becoming quite 'niche'.

LFCFan

I rang Eircom again to see if my estate would be getting it and was told by the first chap that no, we can't get it but got cut off half way through the call so rang back and was talking to girl who said, yes, you definitely can get it and to ring back next week to start the process. Who do I believe? She didn't even know about the address checker and insisted that because the Drogheda (DBC) exchange was enabled for it, I would definitely be able to get it. Should that be the case or is it possible that some areas supplied by an enabled exchange could still be in the broadband wilderness once eFibre goes live? Are all estates supplied by a local cabinet or is it actually possible to be directly connected to the exchange with copper?

panda516

Got a call today to offer us the new fibre broadband, living on old slane road just east of the boyne bridge.

Anyway I've tried doing a quick search but it ain't so easy to find things in this mammoth thread... 1) what sort of work is the installation, new cable into the house? 2) do we get a new modem? Our zyxel one that eircom gave us 18 months ago is atrocious and needs regular rebooting.

Solair

brinks_18476 wrote: »

For someone like me that link was a great explanation - thanks.

I will keep a look out for cabinet nearer my home and see if there is any sign of newer VSDL cabinet along slide it. Can VSDL cabinets be further than 1.5km described in link ?
How far can nearest "copper" cabinet be from property?

The fibre can be any distance from the exchange because there's absolutely no deterioration of signal on a fibre. So, it really does improve the reach of DSL from any given exchange. So even outlying areas could be (in theory) served if they made economic sense.

The copper lines can be very long, these would be the ones that tend to not work very well for ADSL.

Some lines aren't connected to cabinets at all. The junctions are done in vaults in the ground or on poles.

In those cases they might be adding new cabinets where there previously was no cabinet at all.

If you're in a very low density area or are a house out on your own in the countryside this technology isn't likely to be much benefit. Although, it might shorten your line a bit.

CraigSmith_IO

panda516 wrote: »

Got a call today to offer us the new fibre broadband, living on old slane road just east of the boyne bridge.

Anyway I've tried doing a quick search but it ain't so easy to find things in this mammoth thread... 1) what sort of work is the installation, new cable into the house? 2) do we get a new modem? Our zyxel one that eircom gave us 18 months ago is atrocious and needs regular rebooting.

They replace the existing socket in the wall and provide a new modem.

Vico1612

panda516 wrote: »

Got a call today to offer us the new fibre broadband, living on old slane road just east of the boyne bridge.

Anyway I've tried doing a quick search but it ain't so easy to find things in this mammoth thread... 1) what sort of work is the installation, new cable into the house? 2) do we get a new modem? Our zyxel one that eircom gave us 18 months ago is atrocious and needs regular rebooting.

No need for new cable : according to posts in this thread, need a new NTU faceplate which includes Network and phone connectors [ with built in filter ]
New modem is also required to support VDSL technology.

trompele

Hi,
I just noticed that cabinet as in picture http://imgur.com/NqxQeQw
Village is small enough for me to believe it could be fibre roll out (Ballaghkeen Co. Wexford).
Any idea what this could be ?

red_bairn

trompele wrote: »

Hi,
I just noticed that cabinet as in picture http://imgur.com/NqxQeQw
Village is small enough for me to not believe it could be fibre roll out (Ballaghkeen Co. Wexford).
Any idea what this could be ?

That image isn't showing up. Can you check that you type it out right?

Solair

trompele wrote: »

Hi,
I just noticed that cabinet as in picture http://imgur.com/NqxQeQw
Village is small enough for me to believe it could be fibre roll out (Ballaghkeen Co. Wexford).
Any idea what this could be ?

That's not eircom gear. No idea what it is tbh
Could be something to do with water metering or ESB or some other utility.

trompele

Solair wrote: »

That's not eircom gear. No idea what it is tbh
Could be something to do with water metering or ESB or some other utility.

Damn it!

liamnojo92

Suprised there's no info from magnet or vodafone on pricing yet only 2 weeks till launch.

red_bairn

liamnojo92 wrote: »

Suprised there's no info from magnet or vodafone on pricing yet only 2 weeks till launch.

I don't think prices have been officially released.

ferpur

liamnojo92 wrote: »

Suprised there's no info from magnet or vodafone on pricing yet only 2 weeks till launch.

hi I signed up with magnet 2 weeks ago if you go to the fatpipe tab on there web page register your interest they will ring you back with prices €65 for 30 to 70 mg broad band with free any time calls is what you are looking at with 3 months free when they switch on the fttc

pistolpetes11

I wonder what the contention ratio will be on this service ?

Seen a load of Eircom lads doing work on the newly installed cabinet in my estate in Newbridge last Thursday , I am starting to hope we may be up and running from the 20th , it would make sense that the equipment is in place for it to start paying its way ASAP !

JerG

Will newcastlewest co.limerick be upgraded any time soon does any 1 no?

LFCFan

Solair wrote: »

Some lines aren't connected to cabinets at all. The junctions are done in vaults in the ground or on poles.

Is there a chance that a largish housing estate could be in this situation or would there definitely have to be a cabinet? I'm worried now that there's no cab directly outside my estate and Eircom line checker is telling me I can't get it and have also been told by one sales person we won't be getting it :eek:

dave1982

Just onto my broadband provider asked if I can get fibre her reply.

"We will be unable to release this information until the 21st May 2013. Do you want me to contact you on this date?"

:rolleyes:

Mickalus

dave1982 wrote: »

Just onto my broadband provider asked if I can get fibre her reply.

"We will be unable to release this information until the 21st May 2013. Do you want me to contact you on this date?"

:rolleyes:

Who is your provider?

chriss745

ferpur wrote: »

hi I signed up with magnet 2 weeks ago if you go to the fatpipe tab on there web page register your interest they will ring you back with prices €65 for 30 to 70 mg broad band with free any time calls is what you are looking at with 3 months free when they switch on the fttc

I was told by Magnet that 55 EUR if you don't need phone. Same speeds what ferpur mentioned.

MMAGirl

chriss745 wrote: »

I was told by Magnet that 55 EUR if you don't need phone. Same speeds what ferpur mentioned.

Neighbour was onto magnet about fatpipe and asked about getting the line replaced. They have the same crappy shredded line coming from the pole that I had. Magnet said no they wouldn't be changing the line from the pole. That they could get Eircom to do that in a few weeks if they couldn't get BB on it.

I think he is going with Eircom as they will upgrade bad lines on the day of install.

liamnojo92

Magnet Networks facebook "Many thanks for sending us this message over the weekend. At the moment we are still working on our final pricing for our Fatpipe products and these will be available in time for the 'launch' of the service on May 20th. I can confirm that we will be offer a broadband only (no contract) service and this will allow you to continue to enjoy your Netflix experience. As soon as the pricing of our products has become available we will send you a message to confirm this to you. Thanks again for getting in touch."

Hi @pelowj if you place an order on the 20th May when #fatpipe is live - it will be delivered within about 2 weeks. Thx

@MagnetNetworks is there no possibility of ordering now so that I'll be ready to roll on the 20th?

Hi @pelowj unfortunately not, we are restricted to be being allowed sell the product under regulation agreement until then