E/FIBRE - life Changing - What does it mean to you

siblers

High Speed broadband is a privelege, not a right :pac:

bealtine

siblers wrote: »

High Speed broadband is a privelege, not a right :pac:

That's debatable...a number of countries have made it a legal right, well basic broadband anyway and they are working towards the Digital Agenda for Europe targets of a minimum of 30Mbs

10belowzero

Can you see the sky. If you can then you can have ''broadband'' - no it's not an ad for Eircom - if you can't get high speed broadband where you live , get on to Sky , BT , UPC , Vodapone ,Niall Quinn , Digiweb , Smart telecom etc.
They are all vast multi national giant's that could have bought Eircom a billion times over - how many people do these great companies employ in Ireland - one of them totally shut up shop here recently and moved 300 JOB'S across the border , such was their massive massive contribution to this country.
Why not ask BT or Sky how many people they employ here or if their profit's are being put in to Irish bank's - why don't UPC who have as many customer's as Eircom do boreen's in the middle of nowhere , better still for all who love to moan , start a company - if their is no proper broadband in your area , it's now and has been for year's a free open market.
I was hoping this could just be a lighthearted thread but God only know's , maybe Sky or BT executive's and even auld Rupert himself is losing sleep some where in their corporate universe worrying if Ireland and it's boreen's have broadband - After the last shower of corporate loser's that ran Eircom - it's a wonder that we're not all using smoke signal's and carrier pigeon's.

siblers

bealtine wrote: »

That's debatable...a number of countries have made it a legal right, well basic broadband anyway and they are working towards the Digital Agenda for Europe targets of a minimum of 30Mbs

Yeah, I was saying that with tongue in mouth. I used to be able to get around 2mb dsl with eircom, connection steadily got worse and now I can't get the fecking thing at all. Struggling away with three at the moment. Its fairly depressing/frustrating when you hear Pat Rabbite blabbering on about Ireland being the broadband hub of europe and all this nonsense. I'm just praying for 4g to become availble down here in Kerry before the NBS scheme expires.

MBSnr

10belowzero wrote: »

.
After the last shower of corporate loser's that ran Eircom - it's a wonder that we're not all using smoke signal's and carrier pigeon's.

Which is why so people get mightily annoyed and any post about Eircom can become a rant against their prior failures. I've had my run ins with Eircom and moved to another provider because of their complete customer service ineptitude - passed from pillar to post and no one able to help. Seems like they are a previous state run enterprise whose employee structure still appears to reflect that public state working mentality - no one takes ownership of anything. However things may have changed over the years and I fully understand that you take pride in working for them and are hardly to blame for the past failings.

I'm very happy that finally Eircom seem to have pulled their finger out and are doing something - it's great - finally... 5 months ago I had to renew my company's 12 mnth contract on the MAN fibre network. 10mb up/down at over a €1000 a month! That was the best price I could get with discount. Why? Well there's was no other fibre option at the time, no UPC/cable and DSL lines don't have the upload we require. I spoke with the Eircom sales guy to try and find out if we could get fibre. He didn't actually know much about it, even though the cabinet was installed months before and the work complete. Complete lack of internal communication I feel. Come next years re-newal we could move to Eircoms fibre.... Something that we should have been able to do years ago.

Our US office nearly died when they found out the cost of a fast internet connection here. Our European office pays €150 per month (Yes 150 Euro) for the same speed fibre directly to their building. Seriously - this is why people have animosity towards Eircom especially. Regardless of who owned Eircom and why they did what they did, these works should have happened years ago and we should not be in this situation now.

So based on the above, I'm not expecting a fibre cabinet to appear at the end of the boreen near me in my rural location - that's unrealistic. But there are rural exchanges around me that are not even DSL enabled in 2013.....I mean come on... That's incredibly inept by any standard.

So in answer to the original post subject. Life changing? Not a chance.

10belowzero

https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1M_lYcvMkt7xIqqSa43TdS1s25oRqtA2JgpxAkYM#map:id=4 - is being updated by the minute by our fellow Boardies.
Staff on the ground in Telecom Eireann wanted and planned this roll out 20 year's ago , Let's not go in to all that now.
Look at the fusion map and zoom in on some of the cab's marked - from Monday , where you might have being living in the internet dark age's you could be zooming in to the future.
And my local cab has not been done yet and I'm afraid to measure how far away from it I am.

Mc Love

Easier to work from home as I will be getting the same speeds that I would get if I was in the office.

bealtine

Mc Love wrote: »

Easier to work from home as I will be getting the same speeds that I would get if I was in the office.

I have more bandwidth to my home network than the whole company has:)
(Well not really but it's not shared)

10belowzero

beatine are ye going to tell the Boss ? .
All right I have my beloved XP hooked to my TV for nearly the last 12/15 year's.
What do you recommend I do now , I love watching / downloading old movies like Charlie Chan , Mr Moto movies , western's and ww2 movies.
I love and hate XP - if I move to win 7/8 (can't afford Mac) - are these now foolproof without flaw's (I mean without patch's) - If anyone here get's 70 mb on Monday what's the best network or home entertainment system(and the cheapest) to set up, should I give up my XP or what?.

bealtine

10belowzero wrote: »

beatine are ye going to tell the Boss ? .
All right I have my beloved XP hooked to my TV for nearly the last 12/15 year's.
What do you recommend I do now , I love watching / downloading old movies like Charlie Chan , Mr Moto movies , western's and ww2 movies.
I love and hate XP - if I move to win 7/8 (can't afford Mac) - are these now foolproof without flaw's (I mean without patch's) - If anyone here get's 70 mb on Monday what's the best network or home entertainment system(and the cheapest) to set up, should I give up my XP or what?.

Heh a million issues there:)

Personally I'd give up on XP or switch to Mint or Debian if your hardware is a bit long in the tooth but that's your decision. Win7/8 are ok generally and have regular patch sets but if XP works for you then I wouldn't be in any rush to change. XP will hit "end of life" next year iirc. Win 8 is a bit annoying but can be made to work "properly":)

No OS is foolproof:)

Boots234

A guy just called to the door offering us the efibre option but as we don't have a landline it's only the internet that we are interested in. We are living in Cork city and are the least technical people that he is going to meet. At the moment we have the Metro Express package with Digiweb but have had a few difficulties with their internet service. We have 30Mb download speed, 1Mb upload speed and 100Gb monthly data allowance. He kept mentioning 50Mb download uncongested but didn't mention the upload speed or data allowance, but as none of this means anything to us I am wondering is it worthwhile changing over? We are paying €45 a month with Digiweb and this would cost us €40

red_bairn

Boots234 wrote: »

A guy just called to the door offering us the efibre option but as we don't have a landline it's only the internet that we are interested in. We are living in Cork city and are the least technical people that he is going to meet. At the moment we have the Metro Express package with Digiweb but have had a few difficulties with their internet service. We have 30Mb download speed, 1Mb upload speed and 100Gb monthly data allowance. He kept mentioning 50Mb download uncongested but didn't mention the upload speed or data allowance, but as none of this means anything to us I am wondering is it worthwhile changing over? We are paying €45 a month with Digiweb and this would cost us €40

Yeah, but it's capped at 30GB usage. We are currently on 8MB NGB (get 6) @ €45. So hopefully our line can handle 50+ at the same price.

10belowzero

Thank's B - but what's this Mint or Debian ye be talkin about - I know no OS system is foolproof - I suppose I have been fighting and loving XP too long.
If I gave you a blank cheque tomorrow - what would you buy for me (economy wise) to give the best possible home entertain value in your average 3 bed semi with kid's (leave out teenager's , they should be studying).I love the way you put "properly".

Cheerful Spring

For 40 per cent of the population it is not life changing at all.

I pay 32 Euro ( a month) plus tax at 23% and line rental and other charges just to have a basic wired Eircom broadband service in my home.

The technology used is ASDL1, this tech has been in use since the early 90's

Surely as its 2013, the 40 per cent of the population about 2 million people deserve a better service than ASDL?

Eircom isn't exactly undercharging for this service either. So how is it fair all the good services go to urban areas?

siblers

10belowzero wrote: »

https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1M_lYcvMkt7xIqqSa43TdS1s25oRqtA2JgpxAkYM#map:id=4 - is being updated by the minute by our fellow Boardies.
Staff on the ground in Telecom Eireann wanted and planned this roll out 20 year's ago , Let's not go in to all that now.
Look at the fusion map and zoom in on some of the cab's marked - from Monday , where you might have being living in the internet dark age's you could be zooming in to the future.
And my local cab has not been done yet and I'm afraid to measure how far away from it I am.

I live in Kerry, the only cabinets are in Kilarney and Tralee. They are as about as useful as the cabinets up in Dublin

red_bairn

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

For 40 per cent of the population it is not life changing at all.

I pay 32 Euro ( a month) plus tax at 23% and line rental and other charges just to have a basic wired Eircom broadband service in my home.

The technology used is ASDL1, this tech has been in use since the early 90's

Surely as its 2013, the 40 per cent of the population about 2 million people deserve a better service than ASDL?

Eircom isn't exactly undercharging for this service either. So how is it fair all the good services go to urban areas?

What do you class as an "urban" area? Would you class Dingle(Kerry) an "urban" area?

siblers wrote: »

I live in Kerry, the only cabinets are in Kilarney and Tralee. They are as about as useful as the cabinets up in Dublin

There are currently 1300+ cabinets mapped by Boards.ie members. The 2000th cabinet was installed in Greystones yesterday. There are 7500 cabinets to be installed in total. I really don't think they are just gonna do Tralee and Killarney. They have Dingle, Cahersiveen, Mucross, Ballyspillane, Killorglin and Listowel planned for Phase 5. So please try to be patient.

briggy

Imagine all the movies I can pirate with these new speeds!

red_bairn

briggy wrote: »

Imagine all the movies I can pirate with these new speeds!

I would put on the kettle and go to the shop for snacks while a blueray movie was downloading and it was ready when I got back...back in Korea.

Cheerful Spring

red_bairn wrote: »

What do you class as an "urban" area? Would you class Dingle(Kerry) an "urban" area?.

It is classed as an urban area. Doesn't matter if you or anyways else thinks it isn't!

I'll be happy once 80 to 90% of the Irish population can avail of something better than ASDL internet.

Eircom can claim certain places (mainly rural) are not commercially viable for them. Why is that though? I've heard cabinets cost in the region of 25,000-

So how many customers do you need realistically. 10? 20?

Eircom, is already charging the user and arm and a leg to use their ADSL. Realistically is cost even a factor?

And the Irish government stated they'll fund better internet for rural Ireland.

Why doesn't Eircom and the Irish government come together and work out something?

If nothing is going to be done. Should the price of ADSL not come down since there is an unequal balance between rural and urban areas?

red_bairn

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

It is classed as an urban area. Doesn't matter if you or anyways else thinks it isn't!

I'll be happy once 80 to 90% of the Irish population can avail of something better than ASDL internet.

Eircom can claim certain places (mainly rural) are not commercially viable for them. Why is that though? I've heard cabinets cost in the region of 25,000-

So how many customers do you need realistically. 10? 20?

Eircom, is already charging the user and arm and a leg to use their ADSL. Realistically is cost even a factor?

And the Irish government stated they'll fund better internet for rural Ireland.

Why doesn't Eircom and the Irish government come together and work out something?

If nothing is going to be done. Should the price of ADSL not come down since there is an unequal balance between rural and urban areas?

ADSL will come down in price. The topology most likely doesn't suit in many rural areas but there are places that this wouldn't be the problem but the houses are dispersed in some exchanges.

I'd be happy to see much cheaper prices and excellent coverage in Ireland but there are many factors that come in to being for networks. I'll hopefully get into that area myself in the future but I just can't see the telecommunications industry get close to 100% coverage with fibre optics due to topology and non-nuclear settlements.

bealtine

red_bairn wrote: »

ADSL will come down in price. The topology most likely doesn't suit in many rural areas but there are places that this wouldn't be the problem but the houses are dispersed in some exchanges.

I'd be happy to see much cheaper prices and excellent coverage in Ireland but there are many factors that come in to being for networks. I'll hopefully get into that area myself in the future but I just can't see the telecommunications industry get close to 100% coverage with fibre optics due to topology and non-nuclear settlements.

Well that's an analysis that's often trotted out and is, well, not particularly true...

Finland and Estonia, for instance are similar in some ways to Ireland and perhaps even harder to do, yet they have managed to dig in fibre above the Arctic Circle. Finland is the eight largest country in the EU and they drove fibre close to every citizen of that country.

It can be done if we WANT it done

red_bairn

bealtine wrote: »

Well that's an analysis that's often trotted out and is, well, not particularly true...

Finland and Estonia, for instance are similar in some ways to Ireland and perhaps even harder to do, yet they have managed to dig in fibre above the Arctic Circle. Finland is the eight largest country in the EU and they drove fibre close to every citizen of that country.

It can be done if we WANT it done

So why won't they work on all of Ireland?

bealtine

red_bairn wrote: »

So why won't they work on all of Ireland?

Well 2 main reasons:

Nobody makes them do it (eircom), for instance Finland enacted laws that forced the telcos to deliver real broadband across the country and with that broadband of at least 100Mbs to within a fixed distance of every citizen(2km)
Finland operates under the same EU regulations as we do and they made broadband a legal right, our lot (Comreg) gave us 28.8k dialup as a legal right and a "best effort" regime

They believe the Irish dispersal pattern myth as nobody really questions the myth (the facts however are pretty clear)

10belowzero

Why should Eircom do it - look up above at previous post's - UPC could fit Eircom in it's toenail - What about BT - what about Vodapone and the rest - look at the SKY.

bealtine

10belowzero wrote: »

Why should Eircom do it - look up above at previous post's - UPC could fit Eircom in it's toenail - What about BT - what about Vodapone and the rest - look at the SKY.

Well, eircom have been designated as having Significant Market Power (SMP) aka a new name for incumbent.
But yes indeed why should eircom do it? That's the 64million dollah question.

Nobody is going to do it without gap funding that's for sure but there's an ideological blockage in the DECNR, they believe as you seem to do that satellite is broadband and is in the running as delivering anything like DSL or cable For that matter 3G/4G is barely broadband too (if the moon is in the third quarter and the wind comes from the east) so I don't think there's salvation there...most of what we hear about 4G is marketing driven wishful thinking.

BT have done nothing of worth in Ireland except for a trial of SLU/FTTC in Dun Laoghaire and UPC are happy to milk their city bases for every cent.

So between the National Broadband Plan and a mixture of eircom and BT it can be done it just needs government will and support

Solair

VDSL2 / FTTC can and is being rolled out in small towns and even villages. It's a very scalable technology as you can litterally just throw in a single cabinet to serve a village or a remote housing estate.

The problem with all of these wireline and cable technologies is that they are not practical in one-off-houses in the middle of the countryside or even on the outskirts of towns and cites. They need a density of at least a 40+ homes before they make any sense.

Ireland's very unusual in Europe in so far as we have a lot of very scattered housing due to choices we made about planning. I'm not going to call it 'poor planning' as that's what people opted to do and that's how they voted. It's a cultural / social choice.

The trade off is you get a huge garden, lots of space but your broadband's quite likely to be pretty poor and you'll have to provide your own well and septic tank in most cases and forget about public transport.

For houses in remote areas and in very low density bungalow-blitz type areas, we need to look at cutting-edge wireless (FWA) services. DSL, FTTC and cable will never be able to serve these areas. So, while you might have 100Mbit/s FTTC in the local village, if you've a big house out in the middle of the countryside, you're not going to benefit from these technologies.

With proper FWA, we should be easily able to deliver 50mbit/s + in rural areas using an antenna on your roof and masts connected directly to fibre infrastructure.

"FTTT" (Fibre To The Tower) might be the way forward i.e. provide transmission sites on mountains / high sites and state-fund unlit fibre that providers can use.

red_bairn

bealtine wrote: »

Well 2 main reasons:
our lot (Comreg) gave us 28.8k dialup as a legal right and a "best effort" regime

So what don't we scream and shout at ComReg? Why are people going ballistic over Eircom when ComReg are the ones to make up the rules?

10belowzero

B you know as I do - sat ain't broadband I'm sorry but the day being in it - I am sick to my back teeth of people bad mouthing Eircom - the company I am so rightly proud of today and Not the corporate comeallya's that latch on to an pr photo shoot.It's an acheivment that tech's I work with every day and KN Service's and the sub contractor's that need to take the bow.
This is the biggest communication's breakthru in 20 year's - TODAY - I'M PROUD TO BE AN EIRCOM TECHNICIAN.

Cheerful Spring

10belowzero wrote: »

Why should Eircom do it - look up above at previous post's - UPC could fit Eircom in it's toenail - What about BT - what about Vodapone and the rest - look at the SKY.

Eircom foundations are in Ireland. Most of the other telcos came in from abroad.

So the Irish people naturally expect better from Eircom.

The arrival of outsiders like UPC is one of the main reasons to why the broadband situation changed in Ireland. Eircom was not doing much before that. And still it took years for Eircom to get with the programme and introduce fibre to the Irish consumer. I don't hate on UPC , because we may not be where we are today without them.

Solair

10belowzero wrote: »

B you know as I do - sat ain't broadband I'm sorry but the day being in it - I am sick to my back teeth of people bad mouthing Eircom - the company I am so rightly proud of today and Not the corporate comeallya's that latch on to an pr photo shoot.It's an acheivment that tech's I work with every day and KN Service's and the sub contractor's that need to take the bow.
This is the biggest communication's breakthru in 20 year's - TODAY - I'M PROUD TO BE AN EIRCOM TECHNICIAN.

I don't think it's eircom of today that people are annoyed about though. Unfortunately, due to a period of lack of investment, asset sweating and high prices, a lot of people have serious axes to grind with eircom.

I'm delighted to see that it's turned over a new leaf under new ownership and that it finally has some investors who seem to want to run it as a serious telecommunications business again.

I think much like UPC has turned around the rather battered image that the cable industry had here in the recent past, eircom's now going to have to prove it can actually be a cutting edge broadband provider.

The seem to be finally off to a good start and I'm seeing a lot of positives with the NGN build-out and now the NGA/E-Fibre rollout. So, fingers crossed it all keeps going onwards and upwards!

---

I do however still think a lot of very rural / one off housing dwellers will just have to accept the technological limitations of both VDSL2 and DOCSIS (Cable TV) technologies and lobby harder for good wireless FWA services instead.