Broadband in rural areas

MajesticDonkey

Simple question: why are companies so reluctant to roll out their services to country areas?

I live in the countryside, 200 metres from the M8 Dublin-Cork motorway in Tipperary, and I'm stuck getting my 2mbit connection through a wireless receiver from a mast about 2 miles away, which I pay €35/month for from a local private provider. This connection would do me perfectly if it was actually reliable, but it's not, being a wireless connection. It's either that, or go back to 3 "broadband" or try another mobile network, or Wimax, QSat or whatever other type of ****e is available.

So, why is it that no major broadband provider wants to take the plunge and just go and cover rural areas with DSL connections? If cost is an issue, charge double. I would happily pay it for a faster, more reliable service than what I have.

I've talked with UPC, eircom and a few others and, as usual, "we don't currently have an estimated date when our services will be available to you".

Does anyone have any info as to when companies are planning an honest attempt at actually giving the country the broadband it wants? There are hundreds of thousands of customers screaming out for it.

Big Lar

Simple Answer: Cost

Mast rental cost, Equipment cost, Installation costs, Call out costs.

If you were a service provider would you serve the larger population clusters where you know you can make money or would you take a chance and spend more or less the same money to service a few ?

bealtine

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Simple question: why are companies so reluctant to roll out their services to country areas?


Does anyone have any info as to when companies are planning an honest attempt at actually giving the country the broadband it wants? There are hundreds of thousands of customers screaming out for it.

A bad analogy would be why doesn't my village have a motorway going to it?
The main reason is cost and lack of interest from government (all of them including the current gov)...

You can blame the retarded EU ideologies of the last few years of dropping/watering down of the idea of universal service obligations and our governments slavish/backward implementation of these ideologies. This is changing at an EU level albeit very very slowly.

Some countries have decided that broadband is a universal right and have made it a law that the telcos must provide broadband at all locations in their country, most notably Finland. They are using the same directives as our government use to deny us a USO and Comreg use to tell us that dialup is all that is required.

Without any USO (enforced by gov/Comreg) the telcos will just ignore anywhere they deem as "hard to do" and just concentrate on the cities.

So you can put the lack of broadband down to retarded ideologies and basic ignorance of what broadband is and how important it is...

MajesticDonkey

bealtine wrote: »

So you can put the lack of broadband down to retarded ideologies and basic ignorance of what broadband is and how important it is...

Thank you.

Big Lar wrote:

Simple Answer: Cost

Mast rental cost, Equipment cost, Installation costs, Call out costs.

If you were a service provider would you serve the larger population clusters where you know you can make money or would you take a chance and spend more or less the same money to service a few ?

I've addressed the cost issue in my OP. Charge more for it. The problem is the ISPs don't realise how bad we currently have it and how much we would pay if we had good service.

If I was a service provider I would be ensuring that I could get all the country up to the same standard first, before upgrading existing services. I mean, UPC are currently upgrading (or planning to upgrade in the summer, not sure) their 150mb lines in Limerick to 250mb. I live in Limerick during the week (home at weekends) with a 100mb connection, and I'm not sure what I would do if it was any faster. Once you have 100mb there isn't much else you could want unless you're a hosting provider or something. I can watch 1080p movies without buffering, and can download games through Steam, usually getting about 11-12 MB/s. The ISP is Heanet I believe (UL).

Why not spend the money it's costing to upgrade this service to get more services rolled out?

Having said that, I do believe UPC are one of the better companies, as in, they are probably doing the most rollouts across the country, and I'm not expecting a fibre connection to my house any time soon. But I have expected a DSL connection in this day and age. I don't think it's too much to ask for.

Big Lar

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

I've addressed the cost issue in my OP. Charge more for it.

I agree but you may as well put that out of your head, the majority of people only want the internet for facebook, general web surfing, bit of email and the likes and to do that all you need is the dongle for €20.00pm. The only way is that people will pay extra is for gaming, Voip and streaming but as the majority of users do not use the internet for this purpose then why pay.

MajesticDonkey

Big Lar wrote: »

I agree but you may as well put that out of your head, the majority of people only want the internet for facebook, general web surfing, bit of email and the likes and to do that all you need is the dongle for €20.00pm. The only way is that people will pay extra is for gaming, Voip and streaming but as the majority of users do not use the internet for this purpose then why pay.

I know, and I agree with you. But the thing I would say against that is I currently pay €35/month for the things you mention, plus the ability to game sometimes. But at peaks times during the week, and pretty much most of the weekend, it generally takes Facebook between 3 and 4 minutes to open. My connection was fine up to about a month ago, in which time I believe the mast became severely over-subscribed.

3 "broadband" was worse than this, which there is simply no point in talking about. The NBS is the biggest waste of taxpayer's money in the time I can remember. Nothing more than a brown Conqueror envelope involved.

Big Lar

Why not speak with your feet and move to other providers in your area. IoffL have a map that may be able to help you with your quest, its in its infancy but may point you in the right direction.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056856715

MajesticDonkey

Big Lar wrote: »

Why not speak with your feet and move to other providers in your area. IoffL have a map that may be able to help you with your quest, its in its infancy but may point you in the right direction.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056856715

Nice, thanks!

I suppose my problem is at this stage I just don't have faith in wireless internet, and that's all that's available unfortunately.

bealtine

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

I just don't have faith in wireless internet, and that's all that's available unfortunately.

Some FWA providers are crap some are very good, you can't really paint them all with the same brush...

Check the map for alternates in your area and contact those providers?

MajesticDonkey

bealtine wrote: »

Some FWA providers are crap some are very good, you can't really paint them all with the same brush...

Check the map for alternates in your area and contact those providers?

Maybe I'm wrong in thinking this, but all the local providers use the same mast. I know that for a fact. Assuming they are all using fairly similar technology, won't that mean that the service is essentially the same with every provider?

bealtine

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Maybe I'm wrong in thinking this, but all the local providers use the same mast. I know that for a fact. Assuming they are all using fairly similar technology, won't that mean that the service is essentially the same with every provider?

Possibly but it depends on what the problems are...

Sponge Bob

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Assuming they are all using fairly similar technology, won't that mean that the service is essentially the same with every provider?

No, some are utterly incompetent and waste their customers time and money...eg 3 Ireland.

MajesticDonkey

bealtine wrote: »

Possibly but it depends on what the problems are...

I'd imagine it's simply because I'm about 2.5-3km from the mast, although I do have a clear line of sight. My current provider just blames it on "interference" every time, and of course he's right. There isn't any signal in the world that doesn't have interference, but I don't believe it's the interference that's causing the current slowness. My opinion is that it's just over-subscription to the service...*brainwave* in which case every provider would not be the same. Thanks bealtine, you kind of indirectly helped me there.

Big Lar

Yep your wrong.
There are many variations that could effect your service, by the sounds of it, its your providers backhaul that is the issue when you are suffering at peak times, technology has also changed a lot over the last few years and some providers have not upgraded their kit to take advantage of this. There is line of sight an noise issues also

MajesticDonkey

Sponge Bob wrote: »

No, some are utterly incompetent and waste their customers time and money...eg 3 Ireland.

What's new?!

Big Lar wrote: »

Yep your wrong.
There are many variations that could effect your service, by the sounds of it, its your providers backhaul that is the issue when you are suffering at peak times, technology has also changed a lot over the last few years and some providers have not upgraded their kit to take advantage of this. There is line of sight an noise issues also

Ah ok. I'll take a look at some of the (few) other providers around. The one good thing about my current ISP is there is no contract - just cancel the direct debit to cancel your subscription.

Harry Deerpark

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Thank you.


I've addressed the cost issue in my OP. Charge more for it. The problem is the ISPs don't realise how bad we currently have it and how much we would pay if we had good service.

If I was a service provider I would be ensuring that I could get all the country up to the same standard first, before upgrading existing services. I mean, UPC are currently upgrading (or planning to upgrade in the summer, not sure) their 150mb lines in Limerick to 250mb. I live in Limerick during the ...

Yeah, right. Your company would go bankrupt shortly afterwards.

Piece of advice: Don't become an entrepreneur. It will end in misery.

MajesticDonkey

Harry Deerpark wrote: »

Yeah, right. Your company would go bankrupt shortly afterwards.

Piece of advice: Don't become an entrepreneur. It will end in misery.

Thanks for the business advice, something I wasn't exactly looking for. But seeing as you brought it up, attracting new customers as opposed to keeping existing ones is exactly Sky's business model.

There seems to be a fundamental problem with business in this country, where making money is 99% percent of a business and the other 1% is customer satisfaction. Let me tell you something...that doesn't work either. But please, don't bring this any further off topic.

majorminor

The area your in is covered by several providors. They do not all use the same mast or infrastructure, i' ve seen antennaes pointed in every direction but usually a some high point, mountain or hill.It is line of sight so maybe interference is a problem. I get a 4Mb package at present from one of them, it's pretty good, for the countryside, i'm in the same general area you described.
I'll send you their number if you mail me, but i won't advertise them. They can pay me for that!

MajesticDonkey

majorminor wrote: »

The area your in is covered by several providors. They do not all use the same mast or infrastructure, i' ve seen antennaes pointed in every direction but usually a some high point, mountain or hill.It is line of sight so maybe interference is a problem. I get a 4Mb package at present from one of them, it's pretty good, for the countryside, i'm in the same general area you described.
I'll send you their number if you mail me, but i won't advertise them. They can pay me for that!

Thanks, I know there are several providers in the area but I am just fed up with the speed and reliability of wireless connections. The country should be covered with DSL at minimum at this stage.

I'd appreciate if you'd PM me the details anyway so I can take a look