Exciting times

bk

It seems to be very exciting times in the broadband market. I've been watching the broadband market in Ireland for the past 15 years and I've never been so excited or optimistic about it as I am today. We have:

- UPC offering ridiculously fast speeds of 200mb/s and 120mb/s at very reasonable prices.
- UPC offering 50mb/s for just €30!
- UPC offering their exciting and advanced new Horizon box
- Eircom rolling out 70mb/s VDSL BB at a blistering pace that really has taken me by surprise. This has brought a very good quality of BB to many people who were previously stuck on slow BB, serving many areas not served by UPC.
- 100mb/s to come soon from Eircom via vectoring
- Eircom launching their TV service over VDSL, thus starting a price war with UPC and Sky, hopefully finally bringing down the extortionate rates we currently pay for TV services.
- I expect at least Magnet and maybe Vodafone too to also introduce a TV service over the Eircom VDSL network.
- Sky will also likely try and shake things up when they finally do their own VDSL product.
- 4G services launching, with impressive speeds, which will likely be useful for light, cost concious users who don't want to be stuck with a contract.

All very exciting, Ireland finally has good quality services, at least in the cities.

I realise this might be depressing for those living in rural areas, but I'm also feeling positive for the rest of Ireland too.

The faster Eircom rolls out VDSL in the cities and suburban areas, the faster they will get to rural areas. It was never realistic that Eircom would do rural areas ahead of the cities. But Eircoms rollout in urban areas is going super fast, which is great news when they finally turn their attention to rural areas.

Also their VDSL platform seems to be excellent, it seems to be affordable, quick to install and has a high degree of flexibility. I think it could prove to be an excellent platform for delivering BB to rural areas, at least small rural villages.

So this technology, along with some government funding might go a long way to delivering a decent BB experience to those living in rural areas.

BeerWolf

If you live in an Urban area... /woohoo

I'm only 2km from an exchange - yet it so happens to be the ONLY exchange, in ALL of Co. Dublin, to not be enabled...

I'm not holding my breath anytime soon.

FSL

There is a better chance of getting gigabit fibre in rural areas than ADSL. The state of most of the lines is such that they need replacing. It would be a criminal waste of resources to replace them with copper.

Unless the communities themselves lay the fibre, as they have in areas in the UK, it is unlikely ever to happen.

If the government had allocated (not sold) a part of the analogue tv spectrum to rural community broadband, then rural areas could have had something approaching broadband rather than the pathetic sham they currently experience.

bk

FSL wrote: »

There is a better chance of getting gigabit fibre in rural areas than ADSL. The state of most of the lines is such that they need replacing. It would be a criminal waste of resources to replace them with copper.

No one is replacing the lines with copper. How the FTTC rollout works is that a cabinet is placed closer to a group of homes, then the existing exchange and fibre is run to the cabinet, thus reducing the total length of the copper line and thus reducing problems and issues on the copper line.

Also it should be pointed out that Eircoms new cabs are future proofed for FTTH. You can run Fibre from these cabs instead of copper if you want.

Ideally what I'd like to see is an Eircom FTTC/H cab been placed at the center of every village in Ireland and with fibre run to this cab. This will allow the village and the surrounding 2km area to be serviced using VDSL with pretty decent speeds. If they start doing reach enabled ADSL2+ from these cabs, they might even vastly improve the quality of services to people living even further out from the village.

The Fibre to the cab could then also be used to feed a 4G/fixed wireless antennae to service the surrounding countryside at distances much further out.

Eircom could also look at using pole mounted mini VDSL DSLAMS to help service very isolated rural areas.

The most important thing is to build a fibre network that goes very deep into rural areas and then use a variety of last mile technologies to get decent BB to peoples homes in rural areas.

lockup35

Don't forget the ESB may be entering the market next year. Hopefully targetting areas outside the Eircom rollout.

Kristopherus

Am I right in assuming ESB lines can carry more than just the current?

BeerWolf

lockup35 wrote: »

Don't forget the ESB may be entering the market next year. Hopefully targetting areas outside the Eircom rollout.

Yeah, was told by numerous operators that this would be my possible option come next year.

There's even the Eirgrid cables run along just outside my house gates along the road that's got fibre on it.

Here's to hoping...!!

bk

lockup35 wrote: »

Don't forget the ESB may be entering the market next year. Hopefully targetting areas outside the Eircom rollout.

Is this still going to happen though?

I haven't heard much about it recently. With Eircoms rollout being so extensive, I'm not so certain that the ESB will decide to go ahead with it.

ED E

Kristopherus wrote: »

Am I right in assuming ESB lines can carry more than just the current?

The high voltage lines themselves dont, but they wrap fibre around them. The HEA operate a ring around the country on such a system.



Thats how its fitted, a little machine that runs the line and spins.

lockup35

bk wrote: »

Is this still going to happen though?

I haven't heard much about it recently. With Eircoms rollout being so extensive, I'm not so certain that the ESB will decide to go ahead with it.

The last I heard was that negotiations with potential partners would happen up until the end of this year with an annoucement in Q1 2014. But who knows..

Nolars

This is the last I seen on it. Nothing since which I dunno if that's good or bad.

"Vodafone and BT are both understood to be interested. Bids are due in at the end of next month, and a decision will be made by the end of September, after which it is expected there will be several months of negotiations about the operation of the new company. Work will begin on the network in the first quarter of next year."

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/energy-and-resources/esb-seeks-partner-to-set-up-fibre-network-1.1470736