Eir Fibre Rollout Mapping

ED E

Gphotos wrote: »

Eir/Open Eir are a joke. They have my address as fiber Build commenced for over 3 years. Then last year we were upgraded to FTTH and go live summer 16. Spring 16 we were moved to winter 16, then winter 17, then in Oct 16 were we down graded to FTTC and live date spring 17. Now I look at the map we have been moved to late 17!

marno21 wrote: »

Can you be more specific as to where you are?

If you've actually been pushed that many times (and not just out of range for VDSL) then I'd be looking to the CoCo. Chances are they said no or a local objected. OpenEir have deployed upwards of 10,000 cabinets. Thats a lot of digging, concrete work and patching. Places that are still not done are very likely to have problems of some sort (ESB, Civils, Planning Objections, Flooding).

Gonzo

ED E wrote: »

If you've actually been pushed that many times (and not just out of range for VDSL) then I'd be looking to the CoCo. Chances are they said no or a local objected. OpenEir have deployed upwards of 10,000 cabinets. Thats a lot of digging, concrete work and patching. Places that are still not done are very likely to have problems of some sort (ESB, Civils, Planning Objections, Flooding).

Some cabinets where removed altogether from the FTTC rollout probably due to planning problems, One such cabinet that I knew off was the one planned in Ratoath village, at the corner of the R125 main street with Corballis shopping Centre/apartments. The planned cabinet marked there was first taken off Open Eir's fiber map many months ago but was still showing up on the Fibre map on Eir's website, then recently that cabinet was taken away from the map on Eir's website as well.

Gphotos

Killashee, Co Longford. There are cabnets in the estate already. We have 24mb but it keeps going up and down. There is fiber going to the cabnet but it needs to up graded to fiber cabnets!

ED E

Gphotos wrote: »

Killashee, Co Longford. There are cabnets in the estate already. We have 24mb but it keeps going up and down. There is fiber going to the cabnet but it needs to up graded to fiber cabnets!

You're on an RSU. They're abnormal (Maybe 100 in the country). Most "old" cabs are just cabling and the new ones for eFibre contain electronics. Yours contains the electronics for a mini exchange.

Its a technical and regulatory mess.

Powerscourt is another example. Still on hold.

PWC1_E01

Fibre Broadband Cabinet is planned for this location

Im not sure any RSUs have been done? @Marno/TheCush etc can ye confirm?

Its probably a case of a complete takedown and rebuild meaning a significant outage for the area.

Hank Scorpio

Network appears to be congested again...

Made a thread about the speeds.

durtybit

Cabinet was upgraded last week after a long few years wait, requested a speed retest and was advised 4Mb if I switch to fibre (getting 10 now). Not happy to say the least. Just over a mile from the cabinet.

ED E

durtybit wrote: »

Cabinet was upgraded last week after a long few years wait, requested a speed retest and was advised 4Mb if I switch to fibre (getting 10 now). Not happy to say the least. Just over a mile from the cabinet.

1750m say of a max of 1700/2000. Was always gonna be slower than your existing ADSL.

sibersha

Seen KN networking working on the underground electrical box outside my house today so fingers crossed.

BonnieSituation

sibersha wrote: »

Seen KN networking working on the underground electrical box outside my house today so fingers crossed.

It could mean something. It could mean nothing. AS I sit and wait to be rid of Virgin...

marvin80

There's 4 cabinets in our town, 1 of them is live and the other 3 are "Fibre Build commenced - completion work is in progress". They have been like this for a good few months at this stage. I presumed they would have completed all four cabinets considering they had worked on all of them, very annoying.
Obviously the one closest to us is not completed yet!!

sibersha

BonnieSituation wrote: »

It could mean something. It could mean nothing. AS I sit and wait to be rid of Virgin...

Call from Eir this week saying a new estimated completion date has been confirmed for 30th of this month so fingers crossed but not holding my breath.

BonnieSituation

sibersha wrote: »

Call from Eir this week saying a new estimated completion date has been confirmed for 30th of this month so fingers crossed but not holding my breath.

EEP! fingers crossed!

durtybit

marvin80 wrote: »

There's 4 cabinets in our town, 1 of them is live and the other 3 are "Fibre Build commenced - completion work is in progress". They have been like this for a good few months at this stage. I presumed they would have completed all four cabinets considering they had worked on all of them, very annoying.
Obviously the one closest to us is not completed yet!!

If you are good distance away from the cabinet you may forget about it

marvin80

durtybit wrote: »

If you are good distance away from the cabinet you may forget about it

We're about 150 meters from the closest cabinet

Johnboy1951

marvin80 wrote: »

We're about 150 meters from the closest cabinet

Are you connected to it?

marvin80

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Are you connected to it?

No idea - the cabinet is still in progress though.

talkingpj

I live in lissycasey co. clare and fibre broadband 100mb is planned h2 2017 also ftth 1000mb is also planned h2 2017. Firstly how realistic is the time scale. Secondly who realistic is 1000mb ffth? I appreciate anyone that can give an insight into this.

rob808

talkingpj wrote: »

I live in lissycasey co. clare and fibre broadband 100mb is planned h2 2017 also ftth 1000mb is also planned h2 2017. Firstly how realistic is the time scale. Secondly who realistic is 1000mb ffth? I appreciate anyone that can give an insight into this.

The time scale can be change at time it not set in stone.The thing about FTTH it can go upto 1GB and higher in the future you never get that kinda of speed with wisp that for sure.

Shamrogue

Just see Glasson, Westmeath, GSN1_E01 is due to go live in February 15. Maybe some more of the stragglers are set to be done are are done.

mdfire

Shamrogue wrote: »

Just see Glasson, Westmeath, GSN1_E01 is due to go live in February 15. Maybe some more of the stragglers are set to be done are are done.

Site works being done this past week or so at Carlingford CF01_001 so fingers crossed. Still showing a blue (planned on the map)

Spocker

Gonzo wrote: »

Some cabinets where removed altogether from the FTTC rollout probably due to planning problems, One such cabinet that I knew off was the one planned in Ratoath village, at the corner of the R125 main street with Corballis shopping Centre/apartments. The planned cabinet marked there was first taken off Open Eir's fiber map many months ago but was still showing up on the Fibre map on Eir's website, then recently that cabinet was taken away from the map on Eir's website as well.

What happens when a cabinet gets removed from the map?

My nearest one was removed, despite my meeting (about 12 months ago) with KN Networks, the ESB, the builder of the estate (as it's not taken in charge) - we all agreed what was going where, and I was in a position to give the thumbs up/no objection on behalf of my residents association.

Then, about 4 months ago, the cabinet just disappeared off the map. I suspect it may be planning, as the ESB would have had to apply for the road opening licence to bring the power from the nearest pole, but who would I ask? Planning department of my local CoCo or the Roads department?

Gonzo

Spocker wrote: »

What happens when a cabinet gets removed from the map?

My nearest one was removed, despite my meeting (about 12 months ago) with KN Networks, the ESB, the builder of the estate (as it's not taken in charge) - we all agreed what was going where, and I was in a position to give the thumbs up/no objection on behalf of my residents association.

Then, about 4 months ago, the cabinet just disappeared off the map. I suspect it may be planning, as the ESB would have had to apply for the road opening licence to bring the power from the nearest pole, but who would I ask? Planning department of my local CoCo or the Roads department?

my guess is that if a cabinet is removed from the map it's to do with some planning issue, permanent enough for Open Eir to remove the cabinet from their long term plans in the area.

dar_cool

Alot of Eir activity on the Delvin to athboy road. Any idea when this will become live ?
Thanks

mdfire

Crane lifting a new cabinet into position for Carlingford CF01_001 as I type. This is the cabinet im connected to and its about 900m away. Still showing up on the map as planned.

BlinkingLights

ED E wrote: »

You're on an RSU. They're abnormal (Maybe 100 in the country). Most "old" cabs are just cabling and the new ones for eFibre contain electronics. Yours contains the electronics for a mini exchange.

Its a technical and regulatory mess.

Powerscourt is another example. Still on hold.


Im not sure any RSUs have been done? @Marno/TheCush etc can ye confirm?

Its probably a case of a complete takedown and rebuild meaning a significant outage for the area.

Actually, they're pretty common, most villages and even some urban housing estates and business parks have them and many have VDSL2 cabinets located right beside them.

RSU just means remote subscriber unit. Eir have two PSTN/ISDN vendors: Ericsson and Nokia (purchased Alcatel).

You've Ericsson AXE and Nokia 1000 E10 switches for the PSTN/ISDN system which would include everything from old legacy stuff to modern VoIP versions. You can have an AXE or E10 that's just a single cabinet or occupies an entire data centre. They're both very modular and have been around for decades at this stage and would be gradually phasing in more VoIP and soft switches etc etc ...

Each area (could be a chunk of a city or an area spanning several counties) has a main exchange which hosts large numbers of RSUs which could range from a large local exchanges, right down to a tiny cabinets with a small number of users.

The older versions of the tiny ones were typically housed in a small building or a green air conditioned containers, but as technology progressed and shrank it became possible to put the whole thing into a compact outdoors cabinets much like it's been possible to do that with VDSL2 equipment for fibre.

The issue with some very small RSUs is likely poor backhaul - in some cases in remote rural locations they just had a microwave link back to their host, so to provide VDSL2 you would need to lay many km of fibre to the site. Also in some cases the number of potential subscribers is tiny so, justifying the spend becomes difficult if there's no return.

You'd find small RSUs in business parks and so on with plenty of fibre maybe with a couple of VDSL cabinets.for example there's an AXE one up at Cork Airport Business Park and there are several Nokia/ Alcatel E10 around Sandyford. Etc etc

Broadband infrastructure is effectively just sharing the last bit of copper that runs into your house with the voice network. The type type of exchange in the area is irrelevant. You can put a broadband cabinet in anywhere you like, once you can get a run of fibre out to it and hook it up to 230V power.

It actually makes way more sense to use RSUs local cabinets than to have crazy long copper lines running back to the nearest town - improved quality of service, reduced maintenance, no issues with line breakages strung along sides of roads etc etc. The issue is that in those areas you just have older 1980s/90s RSUs which were for Voice/ISDN and no easy / cost-effective way of getting fibre to a new cabinet for VDSL2.

ED E

Im aware what they are. Last time I checked they numbered less than 100 in a network of just over 1000 DSL enabled exchanges (excluding the entire NGA network).


The backhaul (12 and 16Mb links) was the issue for DSL services limiting the 8Mb LTs to just 1 or 3Mb(the odd place 2Mb) but relating to this thread thats not the problem.

What I believe(just a deduction, no info) is the issue here is the network layout OpenEir have and want. Keeping the existing minicab in service makes no sense when a slightly fatter new Huawei MSAN can facilitate PSTN/ISDN, ADSL2+ and VDSL2 line cards (even Combo cards for the two DSL techs), GPON card along with a battery bank for a few hours failover. Great. But swapping the entire copper plant over means more downtime than any of the other NGA works. Annoying but nothing in breach of the USO.

We've already seen one derogation of the AFL USO and I suspect OE have these works on hold pending a second that lets them drop POTS from the existing service areas not just skip it on new provides. Then they minicab replacements would be all DSL/PON and just use VOIP OTT. Saves on cards that'll only be used for a year or two.


Have you got any MDF codes of examples where VDSL has been Colo'd? Specifically mini-cab RSUs not the sheds.

BlinkingLights

Plenty. Cork Airport Business Park would be an example. They're are several others on outskirts of Cork City. Rafeen near Ringaskiddy etc.

Also one in Ashmount in North side suburbs that only provides voice / ISDN and VDSL and can't do ADSL. It just serves one housing estate.

The cabinets are usually (but not always) numbered ignoring the RSU with just the nearest big exchange where the traffic is going to listed as their code. The fibre cabinet in Ashmount for example has a Wellington Road code, even though the voice services come from a mini exchange on site.

I wouldn't think the cabinets are the issue tbh. It's about fibre and lack of existing ducts.

Using Huawei MSANS may require Huawei voice switches to host them. Eir just uses RSUs off the local exchanges so, they'll be Ericsson or Nokia-Alcatel fully compatible with the local switch and basically part of it. They don't seem to have any plan to shut the POTS network, rather they'll let it naturally shrink and just modernise it probably using existing vendors as there's a seamless upgrade to VoIP. From what I gather, they have already replaced aspects of the voice network with VoIP anyway starting with things like international gateways and tertiary switches, and moving down the line towards the local stuff. I'd say the aim there is keep costs minimal and not disrupt legacy services. You end up transitioning the POTS system to VoIP without anyone really noticing.

They just add a huawei cabinet to the location and treat it much like they would a PCP cabinet off a large exchange. All the RSU is doing is providing dial tone and maybe some ISDN and you're also keeping equipment much more standardised and so on. It's not the worst approach. Those little Huawei cabs can be clustered too if things get crazy busy.

The backhaul at some of the locations you're describing isn't fibre. It's just usually a microwave dish on a pole either at the site or at a higher site near by. They can barely cope with very basic ADSL traffic which is why they're not upgraded to anything faster.

They'd need to run a fibre out to the site. It could replace the legacy connection for the existing cabinet RSU and also provide connectivity for FTTC.

Some of the small RSUs were connected by fibre to their parent so it's fairly trivial to push more fibre out to the site. If it's a microwave link, your looking at a lot of roadworks if they've no ducts. They might not even have poles to route overhead fibre on it that were possible either.

I'll grab you a couple of photos if I'm passing one.

Examples you can check out :

RFN1_E01 - Rafeen which is an AXE cabinet on the N28 just outside Ringaskiddy in Cork.
FMX1_E01 - Farmers X / Cork Airport Business Park (it seems to be misplaced on Eir's map, but it's actually in a carpark of a business park) - Also an AXE cabinet RSU.
ASM1_E01 - Ashmount, Silversprings - (Was originally numbered as WRD... seems to have changed)
MDV1_018 - Medowvale, Arklow Co. Wicklow E10 [old google maps image - https://goo.gl/maps/QYqNbiPitU22 ] - Odd numbering as I wouldn't think MVD1 has more than 2 cabinets .. I suspect it's an error. Probably should be MDV1_E01

Example from an old boards.ie post too :



Left to right: Huawei VDSL2 cabinet .... PCP Cabinet .... silver cabinets are ESB hook up and meter then ADSL2+ DSLAM and behind that (out of picture) Alcatel-Lucent 1000-E10 voice/ISDN (LiteSpan). It's a bit of a cabinet farm kludge, but it does the job.

BlinkingLights

I'd say though the landline network as we know it only has at most a decade left. I don't think there's a huge rush to push out MSANs because it's likely that the replacement in VDSL areas anyway will just be SIP VoIP through an ATA in the router with your phone plugged in, or using VoIP enabled phones.

Landline usage has plummeted way faster than was predicted, There's 1,145,125 PSTN lines dropped from over 1.6 million in 2006 and the traffic has basically more than halved in 10 years and it's charging much, much less per minute than it would have a decade+ ago. So, revenues are definitely much lower. Most of the time they're throwing in 'free voice calls' to umpteen destinations to hook you into a broadband and TV contract rather than as the main product.
2,624,099,000 mins per quarter in 2006 vs 1,011,941,000 mins per quarter in 2016

Compare that to mobile (excluding machine to machine and broadband only) 4,911,330 mobile subscriptions and 5,924,093 and if you include everything. The mobile networks are also handling 3,119,902,000 mins per quarter now, so really the fixed network is just a shrinking niche market.

When all this 'excitement' about MSANS was going on, the PSTN network was still considered an important thing. Nowadays, it's likely to become as relevant as Telex within 10 years. Businesses will mostly connect to it through SIP trunks, anyone who wants a landline is also likely to be using VoIP with maybe a very small minority of dial-tone lines being preserved where alternatives aren't possible. Although, even in those I could see a push to use mobile replacements.

The Cush

BlinkingLights wrote: »

anyone who wants a landline is also likely to be using VoIP with maybe a very small minority of dial-tone lines being preserved where alternatives aren't possible. Although, even in those I could see a push to use mobile replacements.

The legalising of mobile phone repeaters will be a positive move in that direction.

BlinkingLights

Off topic, but a lot of in-building reception issues are just down to the structures. You can solve them with leaky-feeders, basically a coax cable with gaps in the outer conductor. They act as a passive transmitter/receiver and solve a lot of indoor mobile reception issues. Bit of a roof antenna and you'd be unlikely to need any kind of repeaters at all.

In terms of getting those remaining 'exchanges' / RSUs that aren't on the fibre network connected up, I think the only way forward on it is with state subsidy as essential infrastructure. However, I don't think that should be handed over to Eir so they become the sole provider or lock people in to a VDSL-only solution as it's not really the best tech in some instances, especially for rural long-lines.

I'd prefer to see the state spend some money in rural areas getting ducting and fibre to every one of those RSU sites and every small town/village exchange site. That would allow OpenEir to connect them up, but it would also have the potential to allow other companies to plug-in wireless services to link up a much wider area than could be reached over any wired system.

We should be doing a lot more focus on fibre-to-node and not worrying too much about the last mile which could be FTTH, FTTC or Fibre to the Mast wireless for the next few decades. We're not going to get FTTH to every home in Ireland anytime soon and people need broadband that's usably fast, which is possible with a mix of VDSL and wireless techs like LTE, provided they're well backhauled.

Pretending that they're ever going to be economically viable is a mugs game, we just have to accept some of these nodes will have to be subsidised, as are many other remote services as there simply isn't the critical mass. There are plenty of places in Ireland that would never have seen basic automatic telephone services had they not been subsidised in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. This stuff is no different - it still requires basic civil engineering to get it to work.