SIRO - ESB/Vodafone Fibre To The Home

hallo dare

same ol sh1te wrote: »

The rural electricity network took 40 yrs to complete

Which took the erection of poles, pylons, etc, along with the use of machines and equipment which wouldn't hold a candle to todays standards. The work is already 3/4 done. The lines are in place only to run the fibre!

Anyway, what should now become the norm in Networks is that any overhead lines that need replacing be it damage or age should be replaced with that line with Fibre wrap on it. This should also be included in the mains to any new installation to home or business.

same ol sh1te

hallo dare wrote: »

Which took the erection of poles, pylons, etc, along with the use of machines and equipment which wouldn't hold a candle to todays standards. The work is already 3/4 done. The "roads" are in place only to run the fibre!

Anyway, what should now become the norm in Networks is that any ovrehead lines that need replacing be it damage or age should be replaced with that line with Fibre wrap on it.

You're just assuming the poles can take the added strain of extra cables (which I'm told they're not), it's not as simple that.

murphaph

same ol sh1te wrote: »

The rural electricity network took 40 yrs to complete

And when it began the number of one off properties was a fraction what it is today. The one off phenomenon is no more than 40 years old. It started in the 60's and gathered significant pace during the bubble years. Rural electrification took decades and didn't have nearly as many properties to connect up and to be honest stringing fibre up is going to be very labour intensive. Almost as labour intensive as electrification itself.

hallo dare

same ol sh1te wrote: »

You're just assuming the poles can take the added strain of extra cables (which I'm told they're not), it's not as simple that.

Don't believe that for a second. Granted, there are poles on every road in this Country that need changing, but this job is happening everyday within Networks. A vast number of poles in my area have gotten changed, even ones in the middle of a poxy bog last September. If ESB really wanted to then they could pull this off, but for the minute it's the easy option then are concentrating on.

If they cannot reach these houses like mine in the middle of nowhere due to cost or what not then the very least that should be done is FWA. Let them run their Fibre to the best possible location and mount a mast.

ED E

Fixed wireless isnt their game. Thats up to entrepreneurs that want to start up an ISP. Im sure they will sell bandwidth to them though.


Wrapping fibre around existing lines isnt super difficult, but its still a fair bit of manpower, as has been said a hundred times before in this thread, the're going for the low hanging fruit first.

boardzz

They are not wrapping it around the existing lines. They are adding the fiber cable next to or under the power cables.

Vico1612

boardzz wrote: »

They are not wrapping it around the existing lines. They are adding the fiber cable next to or under the power cables.

http://www.esb.ie/main/press/pr-4074.jsp

boardzz

Have you watched the video. It's clearly been installed side by side beside the power lines.

ED E

boardzz wrote: »

Have you watched the video. It's clearly been installed side by side beside the power lines.

In urban/suburban itll be mostly UG, in rural areas there arent an ducts. The power comes from pole to the eave/gable of the house. The Fibre will follow the same path.

boardzz

Yes that is true. It will follow alongside it. It will not be wrapped around the power line.

Manc Red

So ESB is providing the access to their power lines and infrastructure while Vodafone will be providing the communications engineers?

ESB are installing the fibre cables and Vodafone will be selling it?... or will the ESB have their own fibre broadband product separate from Vodafone?

ED E

boardzz wrote: »

Yes that is true. It will follow alongside it. It will not be wrapped around the power line.

Thats how its currently done. The HEA network is all run wrapped along ESB lines.

http://www.esbtelecoms.ie/bandwidth_services/overview.htm

See the "related content" on the right side.

ED E

Manc Red wrote: »

So ESB is providing the access to their power lines and infrastructure while Vodafone will be providing the communications engineers?

ESB are installing the fibre cables and Vodafone will be selling it?... or will the ESB have their own fibre broadband product separate from Vodafone?

Vodafone own a large amount of transit fibre to the UK and europe. ESB have the fibre core out to their distribution points. These two things added together will provide a bitstream product like the one eircom wholesale sell to the current ISPs. They then sell to end users.

thomas anderson.

Genuinely excited by this prospect

bk

Ok let me once and for all clear up the confusion here.

There are two separate schemes coming up, which unfortunately both got first rumoured at the same time about 6 months ago and which lots of people got mixed up, including journalists (which then added to the confusion).

1) There is the ESB/Vodafone joint venture to do FTTH to 500,000 homes in mostly urban and semi-urban areas in towns with more then 4,000 premises without UPC.

This is a purely private, commercial, profit oriented venture, with no subsidy from the government. This project is to start late this year, early 2015.

This project was never about bringing fibre to rural Ireland and this thread is purely about this project. It was pointed out by those of us with inside knowledge of this project 6 months ago, that it wasn't about rural FTTH. But many people seemed to totally ignore us and instead go off and believe it was rural FTTH, which it never was.

2) There is a separate project called The National Broadband Plan, which is less firm and less details are known about. The idea seems to be for the government to spend 500 million to bring fibre to every village in Ireland that doesn't already have fibre. This fibre can then be used to fix the backhaul problem for rural exchanges (ADSL and VDSL), 4G towers and fixed wireless. The government has said that they may use the ESB network to bring this fibre to these rural villages. That is where the confusion with the above project comes from, but they aren't the same project. This project is expected to start in 2016.

Here is the problem with rural FTTH, it is shockingly expensive:

- It costs Eircom about €200 per home to do urban VDSL
- It costs about €1000 per home to do urban FTTH
- It costs about €10,000 per home to do rural FTTH

Eircom can do 50 homes with VDSL for the cost of just one rural home and thus make 50 times the profit. Or Eircom/ESB can do 10 urban homes with FTTH and thus make 10 times the profit of one rural home!

That is why no company is going to do rural FTTH, it just costs too much.

The only way rural FTTH will happen is if it is heavily subsidised by the government or if people of rural Ireland pay for it themselves (similar to the way they pay more for electricity in rural Ireland, both in install costs and usage costs).

I think the later is more realistic.

Manc Red

What types of houses won't be eligible for FTTH in the areas where it is said to be coming? Would the age of the house matter or distance from the road? I would imagine FTTH wouldn't suffer from the same distance issues that eircoms VDSL product has?

All the fibre cables will be coming from the one source i.e. no cabinets etc? And the speeds will remain the same despite the distance?

boardzz

ED E wrote: »

Thats how its currently done. The HEA network is all run wrapped along ESB lines.

http://www.esbtelecoms.ie/bandwidth_services/overview.htm

See the "related content" on the right side.

Yes it is currently wrapped or spooled around the wire. This venture will see them running the fiber separately to the wires. ie alongside or under the wires

MajesticDonkey

bk wrote: »

The only way rural FTTH will happen is if it is heavily subsidised by the government or if people of rural Ireland pay for it themselves (similar to the way they pay more for electricity in rural Ireland, both in install costs and usage costs).

I think the later is more realistic.

Well at least this ESB/Vodafone BB will allow this to happen more easily.

When this 1Gb fibre is installed and working, it will allow communities to get together and try and fund it themselves to get FTTH for their community.

bk

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Well at least this ESB/Vodafone BB will allow this to happen more easily.

When this 1Gb fibre is installed and working, it will allow communities to get together and try and fund it themselves to get FTTH for their community.

Exactly, also it will give the ESB valuable experience in building and maintaining a FTTH network, something they have never done before!

The reality is rural FTTH was never going to be done ahead of urban FTTH. The ESB are the most likely company to eventually do rural FTTH. So the quicker they get the urban areas done and gain experience in it there, then the quicker they start getting to rural areas.

I also think the ESB are more likely to do rural areas in the long term as the ESB are the type of company who thinks long term, with solid returns due to long term infrastructural investment.

However the reality is rural FTTH will likely take 20+ years. People need to be realistic about it.

In the meantime the priority should be getting fibre backhaul to every village and exchange in Ireland (the National Broadband Plan), so that this fibre can fix the rural backhaul problem and be used to power better ADSL2+, VDSL, 3/4G and fixed wireless.

With these mix of technologies, I believe we can get a minimum of 20mb/s to most of rural Ireland as a stopgap to full FTTH rollout.

MajesticDonkey

bk wrote: »

With these mix of technologies, I believe we can get a minimum of 20mb/s to most of rural Ireland as a stopgap to full FTTH rollout.

Well the plan, according to the government, is to have a minimum of 30Mb/s in EVERY home in the country by the time they're finished in cabinet (2016). Not sure how likely that is, but it sounds good anyway

bk

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Well the plan, according to the government, is to have a minimum of 30Mb/s in EVERY home in the country by the time they're finished in cabinet (2016). Not sure how likely that is, but it sounds good anyway

They changed this plan, there is no minimum speed now :mad:

Instead the focus is now on building a strong backbone infrastructure, the fibre to every village.

MajesticDonkey

Really? I know this shouldn't be discussed here, but it's still in the NBP document on the DCENR website. Any link to this update?

The Cush

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

I know this shouldn't be discussed here, but it's still in the NBP document on the DCENR website. Any link to this update?

April 2014 update - http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Communications/Communications+Development/Next+Generation+Broadband/National+Broadband+Plan+Update+April+2014.htm

Manc Red

It puts eircoms service into perspective. Don't get me wrong, 100Mb Download and 20Mb Upload is still dream stuff for me but if this goes ahead as planned, it makes eircoms VDSL look quite insignificant.

I asked this before but does anyone know what types of houses won't be eligible to get FTTH? Are there any limitations such as age of a house (i.e. old infrastructure) or distance from the main road?

bk

Manc Red wrote: »

I asked this before but does anyone know what types of houses won't be eligible to get FTTH? Are there any limitations such as age of a house (i.e. old infrastructure) or distance from the main road?

We don't have any details yet, but age of house shouldn't make any difference.

distance from road depends on what you are talking about? 100 meters probably fine, 2km probably not.

Not that fibre has any difficulties with distance, fibre can travel 20km without any degradation and much further with repeaters. However the limitation here would be the cost of going that distance for one house.

Remember this is aimed at dense urban areas, not rural or one off houses.

irishgeo

in towns they will have to blow down ducting to specific houses, any idea how they are going to do that.

jca

Manc Red wrote: »

It puts eircoms service into perspective. Don't get me wrong, 100Mb Download and 20Mb Upload is still dream stuff for me but if this goes ahead as planned, it makes eircoms VDSL look quite insignificant.

I asked this before but does anyone know what types of houses won't be eligible to get FTTH? Are there any limitations such as age of a house (i.e. old infrastructure) or distance from the main road?

A PowerPoint diagram is one thing, people actually getting it is another! I'm looking forward to it but I can foresee a lot of installation difficulties. The estate I'm in is all underground, that should be fun for the installer.

football_lover

murphaph wrote: »

Define rural for me please. I think a lot of this discussion hangs on what people think of when they hear "rural". I think of small country towns and villages as well as the one off isolated properties that were built en-masse in the past 30-40 years.

We certainly are not at a point where we can say all or even most towns and villages in provincial Ireland are getting at least (say) 10Mb broadband. All those small towns and villages are and should be higher priorities than one-off housing. When they are done then we can say there's "no plan", but there is a plan: actually 3 plans, to get these places on to quality fixed line BB.

The plan stops short of figuring out how to serve one-off properties. This is not really surprising as they are really difficult and/or expensive to serve. FTTH is the only quality fixed line solution for those premises because all the xDSL technologies fall off a cliff with distance from the exchange/cabinet, which is unavoidable with such settlement patterns.

To get FTTH to such properties requires a network to exist in the first place. No operator is going to start rolling out FTTH to one off properties as they'd go bust long before they go to the low hanging fruit of villages, towns and cities.

In the meantime, there should be a plan for improved wireless solutions using the fibre that is laid to nearby villages and towns. Wireless has been crap largely because the backhaul wasn't there. That problem is gradually being solved now with the various rollouts.

Small towns are not rural they are urban.

My grandmother, gran aunt, mother and father, cousins, uncles, aunts and many more live in houses that are over 100 year old which are long before the imaginary "one off houses" that green party followers keep talking about.

Many of my family are involved in farming as am I and there are also large proportion of people in my area (not going to name) that are involved in agriculture and its supported industries.

In my area there are very few new build "one off" from outsiders. There are a few new builds on existing family lands but that is it.

Ireland is full of communities like this that the Dublin center population does not seem to understand.

If rural is not part of Ireland communications system plan then urban should not be getting a free ride. (tax rebates and full urban costing should take place).

The telecommunications networks that Eircom got handed where paid for by tax payers as was the ESB's infrastructure.

Telecom Éireann and ESB were both state funded groups that built their infrastructure from taxation.

There is no such thing as one group of people in this country deserving more than another group.

This typical Dublin centered arguments which is now extending its self to small towns through out Ireland does not deserve a communications network upgrade while other communities do not get it.

People have bought into Ireland's taxation welfare state model on the basis that it would be for everybody.

Fiber is the only way rural will get Broadband that can in turn be used from agribusiness and manufacturing.

Every industry today is an information based science that cannot be ignored.

Agriculture to the Irish economy is worth about 20 billion in GDP and it is not based in some of shower bank or inflated property prices but in productivity that we are going to lose if we do not address broadband.


How would you like it if Dublin which needs a water supply ungraded was denied this because people who live in rural area's where to demand water systems upgrades first.

football_lover

bk wrote: »

Ok let me once and for all clear up the confusion here.

There are two separate schemes coming up, which unfortunately both got first rumoured at the same time about 6 months ago and which lots of people got mixed up, including journalists (which then added to the confusion).

1) There is the ESB/Vodafone joint venture to do FTTH to 500,000 homes in mostly urban and semi-urban areas in towns with more then 4,000 premises without UPC.

This is a purely private, commercial, profit oriented venture, with no subsidy from the government. This project is to start late this year, early 2015.

This project was never about bringing fibre to rural Ireland and this thread is purely about this project. It was pointed out by those of us with inside knowledge of this project 6 months ago, that it wasn't about rural FTTH. But many people seemed to totally ignore us and instead go off and believe it was rural FTTH, which it never was.

2) There is a separate project called The National Broadband Plan, which is less firm and less details are known about. The idea seems to be for the government to spend 500 million to bring fibre to every village in Ireland that doesn't already have fibre. This fibre can then be used to fix the backhaul problem for rural exchanges (ADSL and VDSL), 4G towers and fixed wireless. The government has said that they may use the ESB network to bring this fibre to these rural villages. That is where the confusion with the above project comes from, but they aren't the same project. This project is expected to start in 2016.

Here is the problem with rural FTTH, it is shockingly expensive:

- It costs Eircom about €200 per home to do urban VDSL
- It costs about €1000 per home to do urban FTTH
- It costs about €10,000 per home to do rural FTTH

Eircom can do 50 homes with VDSL for the cost of just one rural home and thus make 50 times the profit. Or Eircom/ESB can do 10 urban homes with FTTH and thus make 10 times the profit of one rural home!

That is why no company is going to do rural FTTH, it just costs too much.

The only way rural FTTH will happen is if it is heavily subsidised by the government or if people of rural Ireland pay for it themselves (similar to the way they pay more for electricity in rural Ireland, both in install costs and usage costs).

I think the later is more realistic.

Dublin is going to be getting a 500m water upgrade and knowing how Ireland works it could cost twice this amount.

Why is it not realistic then for existing rural communities that have very poor communications to get an upgrade to fiber that would at a basic level cost about the same as the Shannon water upgrade.

There is nothing realistic about Ireland rural communications plan that will in effect have a cost the whole country because of the loss to rural industries.

football_lover

irishgeo wrote: »

in towns they will have to blow down ducting to specific houses, any idea how they are going to do that.

They are going to do it by spreading the cost out among all user even those that are not going to be getting any real broadband. There will be lots of digging and excavating and laying of new ducting.

Just as the ESB got its infrastructure from tax payers they are going to spread the cost out to users who get no benefits from this type of upgrade.

It is abhorrent that Ireland is allowing a divide to happen in this fashion especially one that uses funding that was derived from all of Ireland population.

A fair and equitable Ireland is nonsense that the likes of the Labour party like to talk of but not actually work on.

Ireland is going backwards not forwards. We are heading for a divide that is 40% rural and 60% urban.

Where the 40% get left behind while the 60% move forward and the 40% are expected to produce the food and agri-products while the 60% consume and gain the benefits of a rich information age economy.

There will be children in the 60% that will get education support via the internet and the 40% will not.

And when human genome sequencing is prevalent and information tools are in the homes the 60% will get this while the 40% do not.

Preventative medicine is where information medicine is heading but how are rural areas going to get this technology.

Sorry for the long response.