SIRO - ESB/Vodafone Fibre To The Home

hallo dare

OneEightSeven wrote: »

Eh, no, they get subsidised enough as it it. The rural folk can either move house or wait for a decent wireless provider to be available for the area.

1. they get subsidised enough :> Are you talking about the ESB or Rural Folk? If Rural, then please explain!

2. The rural folk can either move house :> Stupid statement!

swoofer

do you mean the company Imagine?????

murphaph

Only in Ireland could a thread about half a million FTTH installations be so negative and full of moaning.

This is really fantastic news. Eircom's cabinets are apparently FTTH "ready" (they can replace the copper runs from cabinet to premises in the future) so they may be forced into utilising this earlier than they would have wished to hold on to market share.

MajesticDonkey

OneEightSeven wrote: »

Eh, no, they get subsidised enough as it it. The rural folk can either move house or wait for a decent wireless provider to be available for the area.

I absolutely cannot stand this stupid, selfish attitude.

It's not always possible to just get up and move house, and it's quite obvious that waiting for a "decent wireless provider to be available" is not working, because that's what rural people are doing at the moment and there's yet to be a decent wireless provider that I know of anywhere in the country - at least one that doesn't charge extortionate prices.

boardzz

This is the same service which Google are offering in very limited parts of USA right now. This is great news for Ireland. 30% of the country will have FTTH which will shoot us to the top European country for broadband speeds.

7upfree

This is what they're offering in Spain:

http://advanced-television.com/2014/03/24/spain-vodafone-launches-ftth-service/

boardzz

Vodafone will not launch this service and limit it to 100Mbps. They need to take UPC customers so they will offer 500Mbps to do this. They can then offer 1Gbps as a premium.

Quin_Dub

same ol sh1te wrote: »

The first step of decent rural wireless is fibre to the small towns and villages

Exactly - If as part of this program , they were to link up the smalller towns/villages to a high quality Fibre backhaul then Vodafone could clean-up in those areas by being able to offer a ~20Mb service to all those users. which for most would be a ~10x improvement over what's currently available

The reality is that very few people have no access to broadband , but there are still a very large number of people that only have access to extremely poor quality broadband.

That's the gap that needs to be addressed and fundamentally that's all about back-haul capacity.

BeerWolf

7upfree wrote: »

This is what they're offering in Spain:

http://advanced-television.com/2014/03/24/spain-vodafone-launches-ftth-service/

These range from Smart S, which includes 200 minutes of mobile calls and 600 MB of mobile data for €54 per month (including line rental and VAT), to Red XL, which comes with unlimited mobile calls and 4 GB of mobile data for €90 per month. All bundles include 100 Mbps fibre broadband, unlimited fixed line calls and 50 minutes of fixed to mobile calls per month.

What? 100MB speeds with a mere 4GB monthly allowance for €90 ?!

boardzz

BeerWolf wrote: »

What? 100MB speeds with a mere 4GB monthly allowance for €90 ?!

That is currently what Vodafone offer in Ireland now also.

1huge1

I'm glad we kept the 300gb a month from vodafone for our 24mb a month package even though they tried to make us change. 4gb limit is ridiculous for even a very light user.

boardzz

It will be unlimited. The 4BG is for mobile internet usage.

bk

Mallagio wrote: »

I'll keep my UPC Fibre for now and see what the prices Voda/ESB offer on launch.

This won't be available in areas that already have UPC broadband. They are specifically targeting non UPC areas.

Before you ask why? The reason is UPC's network is already very fibre deep and very high quality, so UPC are capable of matching anything the ESB offer with FTTH. UPC will be able to do 1Gb/s over their existing cable network with the new DOCSIS 3.1 standard. And it would also be pretty easy for UPC to do their own FTTH from their local cabs if the competition really heated up.

long_b wrote: »

Apologies for the ignorance but ... for FTTH

Will this be a telephone exchange based type of tech or will they be using new nodes/hubs/centres ?

What's the range on FTTH - like how far can they run a fibre from a "node" ?

FTTH uses very little in the way of "Exchanges", or "hubs/centers". The ESB already has an existing national fibre network, with a number of "points of presence" throughout the country, often at existing ESB buildings and power substations. It is likely this FTTH will run from these centers.

FTTH isn't just about max speed, it is also about quality of service. For instance, Fibre can travel 20km without any signal degradation, you can then pretty much send fibre unlimited distance with repeaters at every 20km. So it is perfect for rural areas.

long_b wrote: »

That's great !
So, in theory, if you pay enough, they could supply anyone, anywhere with this type of service ?

Yes, but it costs a lot. It costs €10,000 for an average rural install. For a 20km install, you would probably be looking at tens of thousands.

I expect they won't be doing "on demand" installs at first (unless you win the lotto/are google), instead targeting and wiring up whole streets and neighbourhoods close to their existing network.

swoofer wrote: »

FTTH has big implications commercially. For example and use ENNIS, if all of Ennis has FTTH what happens to Eircom and all those lovely VDSL cabinets = defunct ie not needed a total waste of money.

And what happens if Eircom announce they are going to run fibre to the home from the cabinet = a lot cheaper and quicker.

I'll believe this network when I actually see it in operation but I am not holding my breath.

The money Eircom has spent on these cabs isn't wasted.

First the rollout of this ESB network will only start in 2015 and it won't complete until 2018 for the first phase. That means many if not most people will be using these Eircom VDSL for the next 4 years or so.

Second, Eircom has always known it will also have to do FTTH, so they have future proofed their VDSL network and cabinets for FTTH in the future. They already have laid enough fibres to each cab to handle FTTH from these cabs.

Even if Eircom went full FTTH from the start, it is likely they would have to build these or similar cabinets anyway. The only extra cost for Eircom was the VDSL DSLAMS in each cab and an extra engineer call, not major costs compared to FTTH.

VDSL is a good stop-gap measure until we get to FTTH.

I expect Eircom will try to sell VDSL as a cheaper "good enough" alternative to the ESB FTTH which will almost certainly be more expensive. Eircom will then slowly start doing FTTH themselves from these VDSL cabs.

If the ESB FTTH rollout forces Eircom to speed up their FTTH rollout, then all the better.

I certainly understand your suspicion about all this. But the ESB aren't Eircom. The ESB are an incredibly experienced, skilled and competent infrastructure company. Their engineers are in demand the world over. The consultancy arm of the ESB has helped build the electricity network of many countries around the world. If I was Eircom, I'd be very concerned about such a competent company entering their market.

boardzz wrote: »

Vodafone will not launch this service and limit it to 100Mbps. They need to take UPC customers so they will offer 500Mbps to do this. They can then offer 1Gbps as a premium.

The ESB/Vodafone JV has specified that they won't be targeting UPC areas.

However they will still need to put a lot of distance between themselves and Eircoms "upto" 100mb/s eFibre. So I expect 200mb/s to be the "slowest" speed offered and it scaling right up to 1gb/s.

They might even just do a google on it and just sell it as gigabit fibre, 10 times faster then Eircom, with no slower speeds.

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Exactly - If as part of this program , they were to link up the smalller towns/villages to a high quality Fibre backhaul then Vodafone could clean-up in those areas by being able to offer a ~20Mb service to all those users. which for most would be a ~10x improvement over what's currently available

The reality is that very few people have no access to broadband , but there are still a very large number of people that only have access to extremely poor quality broadband.

That's the gap that needs to be addressed and fundamentally that's all about back-haul capacity.

A separate project, part of the National Broadband Plan and subsidised by the government is expected to do exactly that. While all the details aren't clear yet, the plan seems to bring fibre to every village in Ireland, to feed the local exchanges, 3g/4g towers and fixed wireless towers and to fix the "back-haul" problem. This project isn't expected to start until 2016. However this isn't part of this ESB/Vodafone FTTH project, so this isn't really the place to discuss this, there are already separate threads on this forum about this project.

irishgeo

i wonder how they decide which houses get it etc and what the biggie for me will be is the install charge and monthly contract tie in.

BeerWolf

boardzz wrote: »

That is currently what Vodafone offer in Ireland now also.

I'm paying €30 a month for a 20GB allowance currently with Vodafone, and €35 for 60GB with THREE...

AlanS181824

bk wrote: »

This won't be available in areas that already have UPC broadband. They are specifically targeting non UPC areas.

Before you ask why? The reason is UPC's network is already very fibre deep and very high quality, so UPC are capable of matching anything the ESB offer with FTTH. UPC will be able to do 1Gb/s over their existing cable network with the new DOCSIS 3.1 standard. And it would also be pretty easy for UPC to do their own FTTH from their local cabs if the competition really heated up.



FTTH uses very little in the way of "Exchanges", or "hubs/centers". The ESB already has an existing national fibre network, with a number of "points of presence" throughout the country, often at existing ESB buildings and power substations. It is likely this FTTH will run from these centers.

FTTH isn't just about max speed, it is also about quality of service. For instance, Fibre can travel 20km without any signal degradation, you can then pretty much send fibre unlimited distance with repeaters at every 20km. So it is perfect for rural areas.



Yes, but it costs a lot. It costs €10,000 for an average rural install. For a 20km install, you would probably be looking at tens of thousands.

I expect they won't be doing "on demand" installs at first (unless you win the lotto/are google), instead targeting and wiring up whole streets and neighbourhoods close to their existing network.



The money Eircom has spent on these cabs isn't wasted.

First the rollout of this ESB network will only start in 2015 and it won't complete until 2018 for the first phase. That means many if not most people will be using these Eircom VDSL for the next 4 years or so.

Second, Eircom has always known it will also have to do FTTH, so they have future proofed their VDSL network and cabinets for FTTH in the future. They already have laid enough fibres to each cab to handle FTTH from these cabs.

Even if Eircom went full FTTH from the start, it is likely they would have to build these or similar cabinets anyway. The only extra cost for Eircom was the VDSL DSLAMS in each cab and an extra engineer call, not major costs compared to FTTH.

VDSL is a good stop-gap measure until we get to FTTH.

I expect Eircom will try to sell VDSL as a cheaper "good enough" alternative to the ESB FTTH which will almost certainly be more expensive. Eircom will then slowly start doing FTTH themselves from these VDSL cabs.

If the ESB FTTH rollout forces Eircom to speed up their FTTH rollout, then all the better.

I certainly understand your suspicion about all this. But the ESB aren't Eircom. The ESB are an incredibly experienced, skilled and competent infrastructure company. Their engineers are in demand the world over. The consultancy arm of the ESB has helped build the electricity network of many countries around the world. If I was Eircom, I'd be very concerned about such a competent company entering their market.



The ESB/Vodafone JV has specified that they won't be targeting UPC areas.

However they will still need to put a lot of distance between themselves and Eircoms "upto" 100mb/s eFibre. So I expect 200mb/s to be the "slowest" speed offered and it scaling right up to 1gb/s.

They might even just do a google on it and just sell it as gigabit fibre, 10 times faster then Eircom, with no slower speeds.

A separate project, part of the National Broadband Plan and subsidised by the government is expected to do exactly that. While all the details aren't clear yet, the plan seems to bring fibre to every village in Ireland, to feed the local exchanges, 3g/4g towers and fixed wireless towers and to fix the "back-haul" problem. This project isn't expected to start until 2016. However this isn't part of this ESB/Vodafone FTTH project, so this isn't really the place to discuss this, there are already separate threads on this forum about this project.

I'm not sure where but I think I read that the ESB/Vodafone will start rolling out their network as soon as possible with the first customers expected in 2015.

hallo dare

AlanS181824 wrote: »

I'm not sure where but I think I read that the ESB/Vodafone will start rolling out their network as soon as possible with the first customers expected in 2015.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/s...work-1.1852617

Cantona's Collars

boardzz wrote: »

That is currently what Vodafone offer in Ireland now also.

?????

€32 pm for unlimited Fibre atm. with Vodafone.

bk

AlanS181824 wrote: »

I'm not sure where but I think I read that the ESB/Vodafone will start rolling out their network as soon as possible with the first customers expected in 2015.

Yes, the is correct. However it will be 2018 until the reach all 500,000 homes of this first phase.

People should keep in mind that FTTH rollout will be slow and complicated. Much slower then Eircoms VDSL rollout. Just because the first customers launch in 2015, doesn't mean most people will be able to get it then. It will realistically take years.

irishgeo wrote: »

i wonder how they decide which houses get it etc and what the biggie for me will be is the install charge and monthly contract tie in.

I expect they have a detailed rollout plan, where they will first run the fibre along the street and then only when people sign up for it, will they come back and complete the install into the actual house that requested it.

zerks wrote: »

?????

€32 pm for unlimited Fibre atm. with Vodafone.

I think people are getting mixed up here between Vodafone wired ADSL/VDSL broadband and Vodafone 3g/4g mobile broadband.

Vodafones wired ADSL/VDSL broadband is typically unlimited and I expect the ESB/Vodafone FTTH to also be unlimited.

BeerWolf

bk wrote: »

I think people are getting mixed up here between Vodafone wired ADSL/VDSL broadband and Vodafone 3g/4g mobile broadband.

Vodafones wired ADSL/VDSL broadband is typically unlimited and I expect the ESB/Vodafone FTTH to also be unlimited.

Posted earlier, seems to have gone ignored --- I'm with Vodafone and THREE mobile broadband, and I'm "only" [still expensive] paying €30 for 20GB/month and €35 for 60GB/month respectively.

€90 for 4GB/month is absurd.

Mr. G

Quin_Dub wrote: »

So - Selfishly looking at Clare where I live - The only 2 places they are covering are also currently the only two places in Clare where you can already get UPC and Eircom eFibre (and Vodafone)...So not giving anything to anyone that doesn't already have it...

What's the f***ing point.........

You can't get UPC in Ennis.

wandatowell wrote: »

I don't believe you would have to lock people down for decades at all. A lot of rural folk dont have a fixed line option at all and would only love to pay for the vodafone/ESB.


Voda/ESb would be flooded with people throwing their money at them

If you this of the logistics of it, it makes sense.

They are investing €450,000,000 into this project in order to reach 500,000 customers. Assuming they gain 400,000 customers, they will need to earn €1,125 from each customer to run at average cost. That makes it approximately €93 a month on a 12 month contract at cost price, which is excessive. On a 24 month contract that's €46 which is in line with the industry average. Vodafone will be able to off a VoIP service for practically nothing since they already have a large customer base and because they are the largest mobile provider in the country it gives them considerably more economies of scale.

They may want a return on investment within 5 years. In order to cover costs over 5 years, they must charge at least €18.75 a month which is very competitive. If they charge €40 a month for phone and broadband, they're revenue per year based on 400,000 customers is €3,600,000,000, making a profit of €3,150,000,000. If they reduce their price to €30 in line with Vodafone's Simply Broadband plan, they still make a large profit at 80% of the customers they pass by. They may also get grants from the Government and from the EU to help fund the service. I think it makes a lot of sense why they are aiming towards larger towns rather than rural areas. Of course I haven't factored in connection fees, call centres etc but it looks like it's worth while since both companies are well funded and have the cash to spend.

I welcome new competition into the market, and it could actually encourage lower prices since the ESB and Vodafone have massive resources.

Cantona's Collars

Vodafone pulled a masterstroke with their Broadband only offering,the amount of people who had foregone fixed line broadband due to having to take a phone also option was staggering.
I for one am looking forward to the upgrade already despite having fttc atm which gives me a rock steady 50Mb/s.

bk

BeerWolf wrote: »

Posted earlier, seems to have gone ignored --- I'm with Vodafone and THREE mobile broadband, and I'm "only" [still expensive] paying €30 for 20GB/month and €35 for 60GB/month respectively.

€90 for 4GB/month is absurd.

MOD: That is Vodafone Mobile broadband, which is not relevant to this ESB/Vodafone project which will be wired FTTH and will likely be unlimited.

Please discuss mobile broadband in a more appropriate forum and thread, such as the midband forum here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1147

Thanks

Mr. G wrote: »

They are investing €450,000,000 into this project in order to reach 500,000 customers. Assuming they gain 400,000 customers, they will need to earn €1,125 from each customer to run at average cost. ....snip....

Interesting numbers, but I'm afraid you are slightly off.

First I think they would be aiming to achieve 40% of people to sign up for it, similar to UPC in their areas. Even when your product is 10 times faster, it still can be slow to get people to switch from the incumbent!

So 200,000 sign ups is more realistic. Also you are leaving out the ongoing maintenance fees for the network, electricity costs, staff costs, international backhaul costs, etc. So the figures would be far from as rossy as you paint.

However the ESB do think different from other companies. They work on long term infrastructure projects. They are looking at this as a long term investment over 30 years.

Steviemak

Mr. G wrote: »

You can't get UPC in Ennis.



If you this of the logistics of it, it makes sense.

They are investing €450,000,000 into this project in order to reach 500,000 customers. Assuming they gain 400,000 customers, they will need to earn €1,125 from each customer to run at average cost. That makes it approximately €93 a month on a 12 month contract at cost price, which is excessive. On a 24 month contract that's €46 which is in line with the industry average. Vodafone will be able to off a VoIP service for practically nothing since they already have a large customer base and because they are the largest mobile provider in the country it gives them considerably more economies of scale.

They may want a return on investment within 5 years. In order to cover costs over 5 years, they must charge at least €18.75 a month which is very competitive. If they charge €40 a month for phone and broadband, they're revenue per year based on 400,000 customers is €3,600,000,000, making a profit of €3,150,000,000. If they reduce their price to €30 in line with Vodafone's Simply Broadband plan, they still make a large profit at 80% of the customers they pass by. They may also get grants from the Government and from the EU to help fund the service. I think it makes a lot of sense why they are aiming towards larger towns rather than rural areas. Of course I haven't factored in connection fees, call centres etc but it looks like it's worth while since both companies are well funded and have the cash to spend.

I welcome new competition into the market, and it could actually encourage lower prices since the ESB and Vodafone have massive resources.

400,000 customers out of 500,000 is not going to happen, Not even close. The business case would have to only assume max 30% take up.

At the moment eircom have 900,000 premises that can be connected to VDSL and the take up so far is just over 100,000. This is with a huge migratable ADSL base across several operators (eircom, Vodafone, Magnet etc). Don't forget eircom's fibre is in all these locations and UPC are also in many of the city locations (not sure how they will avoid UPC customers in towns like Portlaoise (hardly worth going there if they avoid all UPC areas)).

As BK says eircom will have to have a FTTH solution to compete. If they do it could end up a 50/50 carve up. Even if we assume a 80% broadband penetration i.e. 400,000 homes take some form of broadband in these locations then 200,000 customers is more realistic.

Praetorian

bk's figures and summary are dead on. 200k subscribers is likely a target. This is a very long term investment that will definitely pay off. Once they have fibre in your house, it will last for upgrades for countless years. Way beyond 1000m/bit would be possible without having to blow new fibre to your house. It will be able to carry 4k streams, 8 k streams, video calling, ridiculous internet speeds, phone calls (lol), anything that you care to throw at it.

It's really fantastic to see a 3rd proper hard wired separate system in place other than eircom's and upc's. The competition and value should be excellent for consumers and profitable over the long term for the 3 big players.

AlanS181824

I hope Eircom start worrying and deploy FTTH from their already existing FTTC cabinets.

Then there'd be serious competition which is always good for the consumers

Praetorian

AlanS181824 wrote: »

I hope Eircom start worrying and deploy FTTH from their already existing FTTC cabinets.

Then there'd be serious competition which is always good for the consumers

People will always ask why didn't they do FTTH in the first place. Obviously price came into it. They have also future proofed themselves for fiber in the future so that was smart.

Perhaps they didn't expect this competition from Esb/Voda in the short term.

I can't see them do a widespread rollout of FTTH for at least 5 years. What do others think? Their Vdsl is really good.

irishgeo

Praetorian wrote: »

People will always ask why didn't they do FTTH in the first place. Obviously price came into it. They have also future proofed themselves for fiber in the future so that was smart.

Perhaps they didn't expect this competition from Esb/Voda in the short term.

I can't see them do a widespread rollout of FTTH for at least 5 years. What do others think? Their Vdsl is really good.

The rollout depends on where the fibre is already in place and how close it is to all the towns.

Quin_Dub

Mr. G wrote: »

You can't get UPC in Ennis.

I stand corrected on UPC broadband for Ennis apologies, however Eircom eFibre is available...

Azhrei

Quin_Dub wrote: »

I stand corrected on UPC broadband for Ennis apologies, however Eircom eFibre is available...

And I'm sure the residents of Ennis will be only too happy to sign up for FTTH over Eircom's current offering. I don't see a problem with ESB/Vodafone going after the more heavily populated areas that UPC hasn't reached yet, nor with their not offering it to rural customers in the first phase since they have to get some return on their investment.