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E/FIBRE - life Changing - What does it mean to you
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FTTP in South Korea is offered by various Internet service providers including KT (formerly, Korea Telecom), Hanaro Telecom, and LG Powercom. The connection speed for both downloading and uploading is set to be 100 Mbit/s. Monthly subscription fee range between USD20 and USD30 depending on subscription period.
That's what I had at my apartment in Korea.
At entrance to the apartment block...0 -
Population density Ireland 64 people per sq km.
Population density South Korea 504 people per square km
Seoul has the has 25m people in its metropolitan area (about half the pop of South Korea) and about 17,288 people per sq km
County Dublin has 1.2m people giving the area an average population density if about 1302 per sq km.
Parts of rural Ireland eg Leitrim are some of the lowest population density areas in Europe! There are only 20 people per sq km
To make matters even worse (for broadband) is that we also tend to have ultra low density housing.
Even in urban centres we tend to do sprawling housing estates with gardens.
When you get into the fringes of cities it's one off housing, ribbon development along roads and really low densities.
Comparing Ireland and Korea is like comparing apples with oranges. They're both fruits but that's where the similarities end.
That's why our broadband isn't incredibly fast. It's actually comparable with similarly low density parts of the USA where broadband performance is also far from stellar.
Irish people make a choice to live in bigger houses, enjoy lots of space and that's a choice they make democratically by voting for parties and individuals who uphold that right.
So I'm not going to say its bad planning. It's a matter of choice.
Cramped, busy, urban density and fast, cheap broadband, metros etc etc
Or spread out, loads of space, green areas etc etc with slow broadband, no public transport etc etc
We always tend towards the second option.
Even in comparison to our European neighbours Ireland is ultra low density.
I've lived in rural France (similar issues to Ireland but more of a focus on villages than scatter development) and the broadband is similarly not wonderful - long lines and slow speeds in rural places and Ok speeds in villages. It's all DSL tho.
The only difference is that France Telecom has reached all exchanges with DSL though as far as I'm aware where as eircom skipped some very small ones.
That being said, a lot of eircom's small exchanges wouldn't be much bigger than the PABX in a medium office! You're talking about very small numbers of end users in some cases. They're tiny exchanges.
I think we need to be realistic about the Irish situation. VDSL2 is a decent solution for the environment we have.
The capital expenditure to get FTTH in would be too high outside of a few areas in cities and towns.
I'd say FTTH will slowly happen in cities , towns and even villages / housing estates. There are more fibres being connected to those cabinets than they need for VDSL so FTTH is being future proofed already. You just need an aggregation point installed in the cabinet / next to it and push fibres down the ducts or run overhead to homes.0 -
Irish people make a choice to live in bigger houses, enjoy lots of space and that's a choice they make democratically by voting for parties and individuals who uphold that right.
So I'm not going to say its bad planning. It's a matter of choice.
Cramped, busy, urban density and fast, cheap broadband, metros etc etc
Or spread out, loads of space, green areas etc etc with slow broadband, no public transport etc etc
We always tend towards the second option.
Even in comparison to our European neighbours Ireland is ultra low density.
I've lived in rural France (similar issues to Ireland but more of a focus on villages than scatter development) and the broadband is similarly not wonderful - long lines and slow speeds in rural places and Ok speeds in villages. It's all DSL tho.
The only difference is that France Telecom has reached all exchanges with DSL though as far as I'm aware where as eircom skipped some very small ones.
I think we need to be realistic about the Irish situation. VDSL2 is a decent solution for the environment we have.
The capital expenditure to get FTTH in would be too high outside of a few areas in cities and towns.
I'd say FTTH will slowly happen in cities , towns and even villages / housing estates. There are more fibres being connected to those cabinets than they need for VDSL so FTTH is being future proofed already. You just need an aggregation point installed in the cabinet / next to it and push fibres down the ducts or run overhead to homes.
Yeah, i agree. I'd rather have the space and comfort over the cramped apartments of Asia. Even though we had free accommodation and a great lifestyle, I just felt mentally ill from the place.0 -
Parts of rural Ireland eg Leitrim are some of the lowest population density areas in Europe! There are only 20 people per sq km
That's why our broadband isn't incredibly fast. It's actually comparable with similarly low density parts of the USA where broadband performance is also far from stellar.
Irish people make a choice to live in bigger houses, enjoy lots of space and that's a choice they make democratically by voting for parties and individuals who uphold that right.
Even in comparison to our European neighbours Ireland is ultra low density.
I'd say FTTH will slowly happen in cities , towns and even villages / housing estates. There are more fibres being connected to those cabinets than they need for VDSL so FTTH is being future proofed already. You just need an aggregation point installed in the cabinet / next to it and push fibres down the ducts or run overhead to homes.
While most of this polemic is probably correct I would disagree with some of the conclusions made here. These are the arguments blandly trotted out as truisms time and time again as an excuse to do nothing by the DECNR and eircom (and other telcos).
Let's examine them in a more realistic way:
Ireland is far from the most sparsely populated country in Europe.
Take Finland which has a population density of 17 people per sq. km
Finland has managed to rollout decent broadband of a 100Mb/s to within 2Kms of every citizen of that country with little reliance of 4g/3g.
Finland have also made broadband a legal right and telcos HAVE to comply...and make it happen even above the Arctic Circle
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/finland/population-density-people-per-sq-km-wb-data.html
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ireland/population-density-people-per-sq-km-wb-data.html
Finland has a total area of 338,424 km2 with approx 5 million inhabitants They all have good broadband...
Similarly Estonia:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/estonia/population-density-people-per-sq-km-wb-data.html
They have population density of 30 per sq km and they have an extensive FTTH rollout too
Sweden also has reasonable broadband and a population density of 22 per sq km...
the list goes on.
In comparison Ireland is rather more densely populated. Ribbon development is indeed a factor in our poor performance in the broadband stakes but that's easily overcome if we even cared and weren't too busy playing the "it's not economically viable" card, that's simply another version of the Irish thing : "sure isn't it grand".
Basically it's pure laziness on our part and too much slavishly following the failed UK model.
I've lived in rural France too and the broadband is many times better than here..to be precise St Nicolas de Bourgeil in Tourraine a tiny village with lots of ribbon development and 10 years ago it had reasonable DSL out in the country, the area I lived in was 3 houses about 3 kms from the village. Of course if you had a really long line you couldn't get broadband but they put in "amplifiers" to get to those houses0 -
I don't see why we shouldn't be en par with Northern Ireland, Scotland, Western France, etc all of which are comparable (although not completely).
However, I still think the comparison with South Korea (especially on price) isn't really very useful.
Ireland most definitely does have unusual low density though. Most of Finland's not populated at all, and where it is populated it's in clusters. Nordic countries tend to be organised, planned and have housing in villages/towns. We don't do that properly at all.
French, Scottish and Northern Irish planning requirements also tend to avoid rural sprawl. Ireland's specialised in that. So, there are most definitely planning issues which are more comparable to parts of the US than with Europe.
The kind of low density sprawl here is just not normal in Europe at all and it does make infrastructure lot more expensive to rollout. It's not just broadband, but also things like water, sewage, public transport, even road infrastructure.
Ireland's population is basically distributed totally chaotically once you get outside of the parts that were built before the 1950s.
The other big reason for lack of rollout here was that eircom was basically doing absolutely minimal investment until relatively recently.
That was driven by lack of competition and poor regulation allowing it to happen but also by eircom being bounced from one speculative investment entity to another. It suffered very badly from short-term speculation rather than being run as a normal telco until it was eventually landed in examinership!
There is a major issue with the current setup in Ireland in so far as it is not economically viable for a telco to reach all areas. It's not in France, it's not in Finland or anywhere else unless you subsidise it somehow.
That's where you have to look at some kind of state funding / cross funding by charging other operators public service levies to achieve it and that doesn't just mean handing money over to one company but tendering it out to anyone who's capable of providing it.
They shouldn't have ever have accepted UMTS/3G as being suitable technology for the National Broadband Scheme. There were perfectly good wireless technologies that should have been used instead and that are in use at many of the better FWA operators.
I agree too, they could have used DSL repeaters on longer lines, but didn't. That was due to lack of competition, lack of regulation (only requiring 28.8k functional internet access) and there was really no support given for rollout of services. Eircom was just left largely to its own devices.
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Quite honestly, I think Ireland's ability to plan infrastructure is extremely poor.
We've had poor broadband.
Sewage getting into water in various places due to uncontrolled development in rural areas and no control of septic tanks.
Poor road infrastructure on rural roads as there are just vastly too many of them to maintain.
Really bad public transport as a lot of areas are too low density to serve.
We've no logic to hospitals and are being faced with having to rationalise a chaotic system that just 'evolved'
The school system is chaotic and there's no planning of what resources are needed where because it's just run by some kind of historical model where by charities were paid to run schools so, we've endless versions of schools and they're all spreading resources ridiculously thin.
It's not extreme low densities, it's this low density scatter development that causes the problem. Having really genuinely rural areas like Finland has with a few people is fine, but we have this tendency to just spread ourselves out at densities that just make everything awkward and damn expensive.0 -
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While most of this polemic is probably correct I would disagree with some of the conclusions made here. These are the arguments blandly trotted out as truisms time and time again as an excuse to do nothing by the DECNR and eircom (and other telcos).
Let's examine them in a more realistic way:
Ireland is far from the most sparsely populated country in Europe.
Take Finland which has a population density of 17 people per sq. km
Finland has managed to rollout decent broadband of a 100Mb/s to within 2Kms of every citizen of that country with little reliance of 4g/3g.
Finland have also made broadband a legal right and telcos HAVE to comply...and make it happen even above the Arctic Circle
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/finland/population-density-people-per-sq-km-wb-data.html
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ireland/population-density-people-per-sq-km-wb-data.html
Finland has a total area of 338,424 km2 with approx 5 million inhabitants They all have good broadband...
Similarly Estonia:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/estonia/population-density-people-per-sq-km-wb-data.html
They have population density of 30 per sq km and they have an extensive FTTH rollout too
Sweden also has reasonable broadband and a population density of 22 per sq km...
the list goes on.
In comparison Ireland is rather more densely populated. Ribbon development is indeed a factor in our poor performance in the broadband stakes but that's easily overcome if we even cared and weren't too busy playing the "it's not economically viable" card, that's simply another version of the Irish thing : "sure isn't it grand".
Basically it's pure laziness on our part and too much slavishly following the failed UK model.
I've lived in rural France too and the broadband is many times better than here..to be precise St Nicolas de Bourgeil in Tourraine a tiny village with lots of ribbon development and 10 years ago it had reasonable DSL out in the country, the area I lived in was 3 houses about 3 kms from the village. Of course if you had a really long line you couldn't get broadband but they put in "amplifiers" to get to those houses
I don't think Finland has managed that yet although it is planned. But there will still be 5% of the population in remote areas which commercial companies will not serve and will require a public subsidy to connect.
http://www.lvm.fi/web/en/broadband
Outside built-up areas telecom operators are expected to build fast data connections on market terms. This way, approximately 95 per cent coverage of the population will be achieved. Public funding is required to make fast connections available to some 130,000 households in sparsely populated areas, which will raise the population coverage to over 99 per cent.
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However, I still think the comparison with South Korea (especially on price) isn't really very useful.
I'm not comparing South Korea with Ireland. 50million to 4.5 million people and 100,210 km2 VS 70,273 km2...
The economy is completely different as well, that's why it's between 10-20$ per month on the internet subscription. You can have a package for 15$-30$.
I was just showing where you would get TRUE fibre. In my case though, I think it was FTTP/FTTB where the fibre ran all the way to that 'junction box' near the entrance and CAT6 cables were inside the walls to each living space(even though the little fibre box inside the metal opening says "FTTH").Top 10 FTTx operators around the world since the end of 2009 (in number of subscribers)
Rank # Operator / Main technology & architecture = FTTx Subscribers
1 # NTT (Japan) / FTTH/B GEPON = 12 779 000
2 # China Telecom(1) / FTTH - FTTx+LAN EPON LAN/DSL = 11 160 000
3 # China Netcom(2) / FTTH - FTTx+LAN EPON LAN/DSL = 5 590 000
4 # KT (South Korea) / FTTB EPON/GEPON = 4 630 000
5 # Verizon (USA) / FTTH BPON/GPON = 3 430 000
6 # SK Broadband (South Korea) / FTTB/LAN GEPON = 3 032 099
7 # ER Telecom (Russia) / FTTB = 2 140 000
8 # AT&T (USA) / FTTN VDSL2 = 2 100 000
9 # Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan) / FTTB GEPON = 1 639 824
10# LG Powercom (South Korea) / FTTH/B EPON/GEPON = 1 566 206
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This video, in that same article linked above is good at describing the network that Eircom is setting up.0 -
I don't see why we shouldn't be en par with Northern Ireland, Scotland, Western France, etc all of which are comparable (although not completely).
That was driven by lack of competition and poor regulation allowing it to happen but also by eircom being bounced from one speculative investment entity to another. It suffered very badly from short-term speculation rather than being run as a normal telco until it was eventually landed in examinership!
There is a major issue with the current setup in Ireland in so far as it is not economically viable for a telco to reach all areas. It's not in France, it's not in Finland or anywhere else unless you subsidise it somehow.
Well my point is simply that these arguments are used over and over as a reason for doing nothing, that is simply wrong.
I saw a similar type of sprawl in France (especially in the wine growing region of Indre-Loire and in Northern Ireland too. I haven't been in Northern Ireland for a few years but I took a virtual spin around Omagh on google maps and it looks very like Kildare. Both these regions have overcome these "issues" and just got on with it...
I agree the sprawl is not as bad as here but it does exist elsewhere and is dealt with.
The "not economically viable" is simple to deal with...make it a requirement that telcos must deliver broadband (not only eircom)...end of problem. If it's not economically viable to deliver to remote islands or valleys we should be thinking of how we can deliver not "woe is us". We tend to favour the Hayek model of economics and I'm no fan of Hayek, it's a model that belongs to the 1950s (and in my opinion to the Victorian era) not to a modern economy:)
Having said all that this is indeed a problem of bad regulation, political will and foresight and also a lack of investment. In NI gap funding was used to help rollout broadband to areas that were not economically viable (not sure what they did in France)
However here areas that are not "economically viable" are areas like Dublin city centre and regions around Dublin like Wicklow and Louth etc. None of these areas are hard to reach...I know of villages in Wicklow that have no DSL but do have fibre running to/through the village and so on. These are not Inisvickaulane or the Black Valley they are areas that are less than 50km from Dublin.
We need to stop wringing our hands and saying we made mistakes in the past, sure we did, now the question is how do we deliver infrastructure, in this instance broadband. Here proper planning would indeed help, a coherent plan to install proper ducting on motorways and roads, this doesn't have to be done in a "big bang" way it can be done piecemeal. This is now dawning on the various regional and local authorities that it can be done relatively easily and over a period of time.0 -
dxhound2005 wrote: »I don't think Finland has managed that yet although it is planned. But there will still be 5% of the population in remote areas which commercial companies will not serve and will require a public subsidy to connect.
http://www.lvm.fi/web/en/broadband
Thanks for that.
Here is a report of the most recent public briefing on the progress in Finland:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/10/finland-plan-for-universal-100mbps-service-by-2015-on-track/0 -
I think we allowed a policy vacuum to emerge after Telecom Eireann was sold off because all of the state's telecommunication policy to that point had come largely from TE itself as it had been the public body tasked with providing national telecommunications services.
When the market opened, it became a purely commercial entity and was then sold off,
However, we should have held on to the access networks and we should have created a state telecommunications agency that was tasked with continuing the public service aspect and policy driving aspects of TE.
We now have a very narrowly focused market regulator that's more about competition law than standards of service and that has no role in driving policies or infrastructure rollout.
Meanwhile we've a government department responsible for telecoms and a load of other stuff and umpteen other agencies, bodies etc all with bits of the puzzle.
I'd narrow comregs role to pure competition law (maybe even send tgat askect of it to the competition authority) and regulation and create a telecoms body that drives policy and could for example use public service levies and other tools to balance investments and avoid cherry picking of urban areas and ignoring small exchanges / towns etc.
It would also be tasked with things like managing numbering, frequency allocations, technical standard development and policing standards of service provision.
However, it would have to have a public policy role to drive investment and telecommunications network planning.
The current system seems to still assume that the operators, especially eircom, will operate in the national interest. They're private, for profit companies that have an obligation to deliver their shareholders profits and nothing else.0 -
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I think we allowed a policy vacuum to emerge after Telecom Eireann was sold off because all of the state's telecommunication policy to that point had come largely from TE itself as it had been the public body tasked with providing national telecommunications services.
When the market opened, it became a purely commercial entity and was then sold off,
However, we should have held on to the access networks and we should have created a state telecommunications agency that was tasked with continuing the public service aspect and policy driving aspects of TE.
We now have a very narrowly focused market regulator that's more about competition law than standards of service and that has no role in driving policies or infrastructure rollout.
Meanwhile we've a government department responsible for telecoms and a load of other stuff and umpteen other agencies, bodies etc all with bits of the puzzle.
I'd narrow comregs role to pure competition law (maybe even send tgat askect of it to the competition authority) and regulation and create a telecoms body that drives policy and could for example use public service levies and other tools to balance investments and avoid cherry picking of urban areas and ignoring small exchanges / towns etc.
It would also be tasked with things like managing numbering, frequency allocations, technical standard development and policing standards of service provision.
However, it would have to have a public policy role to drive investment and telecommunications network planning.
The current system seems to still assume that the operators, especially eircom, will operate in the national interest. They're private, for profit companies that have an obligation to deliver their shareholders profits and nothing else.
Yes I think that nails it well...0 -
Not really, fibre is nothing new UPC have been offering it for years. At least with UPC your not tied into an 18 month contract.
Now if fibre connections were made mandatory for every household in the country that would be something to be in awe of, unfortunately even the most affluent areas in Ireland are without fibre infrastructure.
Much of this country is still in the dark ages in regard to high speed Internet.
True. And UPC managed to do in five years what Eircom haven't even achieved yet. Makes you think where things would still be if it weren't for UPC really.0 -
True. And UPC managed to do in five years what Eircom haven't even achieved yet. Makes you think where things would still be if it weren't for UPC really.
They wouldn't have progressed. UPC is what has driven competition on speed and cost.
It's the same in almost all markets though, the cable companies have traditionally been the speed leaders with the DSL providers following their lead.
Realistically, only FTTH can beat UPC on speed.
I think however, UPC should be forced to upgrade cable in all cable areas they're licensed to do without leaving gaps in coverage.
There's also really no reason why they can't cable up small towns either. All they need is a couple of cabinets and some coax runs.
Eircom had it very easy with NTL and Chorus neither of which had done very much with broadband.0 -
Why can't other resellers use UPCs network just like they do with eircom's network.
Also, didn't BT get government funding for the fibre rollout in NI.0 -
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So tomorrow Thursday 23 - the E Fibre NGA install begin's - (have posted over there - if you are given an appt time - BE THERE).
Hopefully we will start seeing some positive result's by friday.
This is going to be a brilliant time for some , I just hope to see an improvement for those on 1mb and less.0 -
Got upgrade this afternoon - Business premises.
Friendly Eircom guy arrived on time.
On Dun Laoghaire exchange. He said it was his first E-Fibre install so far.
Modem tall and flat. Looks nice. Very quick install. Guy replaced wall socket as standard to integrated filtered socket.
Speed test on Wifi 33mb down 15mb up (main concern is upload - faster than UPC). Likely 50mb down on Ethernet as advertised (no time to check earlier). Just a note - it comes with an A4 welcome page and very basic instructions. No mention of config address. This is 192.168.1.254 (I expected 192.168.1.1).
Installer had a Samsung tablet to test connection. Before he left, he showed me (stressed it was protocol) an eircom Youtube video to demonstrate connection in action and finally showed himself disconnecting and "forgetting" wifi network from his device. Good practice.
Very positive - after all these years I have something good to say about Eircom!0 -
Got upgrade this afternoon - Business premises.
Friendly Eircom guy arrived on time.
On Dun Laoghaire exchange. He said it was his first E-Fibre install so far.
Modem tall and flat. Looks nice. Very quick install. Guy replaced wall socket as standard to integrated filtered socket.
Speed test on Wifi 33mb down 15mb up (main concern is upload - faster than UPC). Likely 50mb down on Ethernet as advertised (no time to check earlier). Just a note - it comes with an A4 welcome page and very basic instructions. No mention of config address. This is 192.168.1.254 (I expected 192.168.1.1).
Installer had a Samsung tablet to test connection. Before he left, he showed me (stressed it was protocol) an eircom Youtube video to demonstrate connection in action and finally showed himself disconnecting and "forgetting" wifi network from his device. Good practice.
Very positive - after all these years I have something good to say about Eircom!
Do you have customers that'll be using the network or is this a private business network? You are the first eFibre installation on these forums.If you have the time, please use speed test.net to post us a result from your network. Thanks!
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Should be a special boards award:)
Glad to have the honour, I suspected I might be in there first.
It's our secondary premises which is used for our private network. We are spoilt with a 75mb UPC connection at the main premises and were one of the first in the area to get UPC Broadband a few years ago the moment it was enabled.
The secondary place could only get basic DSL before as no UPC cabling.
Screenshot taken this afternoon.0 -
Have you discovered if the router allows for bridging?0
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Results probably substandard in the main due to being on mobile phone Wifi.0
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Have not gotten into config yet. Will be back on site in morning to configure port forwarding etc. Will take shots0
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Modem appears to have phone ports. Possibly for future VOIP service?0
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It'd be handy if you could configure it for any VoIP service, but I would assume the firmware's locked.0
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Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,876 Mod ✭✭✭✭Join Date:Posts: 22472
I think however, UPC should be forced to upgrade cable in all cable areas they're licensed to do without leaving gaps in coverage.
Agreed but then planning laws need to be changed to force home owners to allow UPC to replace the cable running through their property.
Gaps are usually caused when one of your neighbours doesn't allow UPC onto their premises to simply change the existing co-axial cable with new upgraded cable.
My girlfriends house is an example of this. A row of 6 houses that can't get UPC BB, while every other house in the estate can, just because one neighbour was holding out for freebies from UPC in order to allow them replace the cable.
UPC don't want these gaps either, it is lost revenue.Why can't other resellers use UPCs network just like they do with eircom's network.
Because Eircoms network was built by tax payers money. On the other hand UPC came in and ripped out the crappy old cable network originally built by Telecom Eireann * and spent 500 million of their own money replacing all the cable with new high quality BB capable cable.
* TE was the previous name for Eircom before privatisation, the cable network in Dublin was built and originally owned by TE and RTE !!0 -
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Agreed but then planning laws need to be changed to force home owners to allow UPC to replace the cable running through their property.
Gaps are usually caused when one of your neighbours doesn't allow UPC onto their premises to simply change the existing co-axial cable with new upgraded cable.
My girlfriends house is an example of this. A row of 6 houses that can't get UPC BB, while every other house in the estate can, just because one neighbour was holding out for freebies from UPC in order to allow them replace the cable.
UPC don't want these gaps either, it is lost revenue.
Because Eircoms network was built by tax payers money. On the other hand UPC came in and ripped out the crappy old cable network originally built by Telecom Eireann * and spent 500 million of their own money replacing all the cable with new high quality BB capable cable.
* TE was the previous name for Eircom before privatisation, the cable network in Dublin was built and originally owned by TE and RTE !!
The state had great ideas for opening up competition in the old days!
The Cork and Limerick cable networks were never owned by TE or RTE but they also managed to crumble by 2000s and had to be largely rebuilt too.0 -
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Phone on wifi this is a reason why such a big ping.0
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