SIRO - ESB/Vodafone Fibre To The Home

AlanS181824

I've another 15 months left with Vodafone so I won't be going anywhere any time soon!

Hope their deployment is as fast as what Eircoms was.

fergus1001

AlanS181824 wrote: »

I've another 15 months left with Vodafone so I won't be going anywhere any time soon!

Hope their deployment is as fast as what Eircoms was.

Eircom **is doing at the minute**

AlanS181824

fergus1001 wrote: »

Eircom **is doing at the minute**

Yes you're right, Eircom is still expanding it's VDSL services.

Thankfully it seems to be available in the majority of Irish cities and large towns although Vectoring is hit or miss depending.

fergus1001

AlanS181824 wrote: »

Yes you're right, Eircom is still expanding it's VDSL services.

Thankfully it seems to be available in the majority of Irish cities and large towns although Vectoring is hit or miss depending.

They will probably speed up there deployment so they can start rolling out ftth of there own to compete with esb Vodafone

AlanS181824

fergus1001 wrote: »

They will probably speed up there deployment so they can start rolling out ftth of there own to compete with esb Vodafone

Be great if they would.

Some competition in the broadband area is always a good thing.

bk

fergus1001 wrote: »

They will probably speed up there deployment so they can start rolling out ftth of there own to compete with esb Vodafone

They already have. The well informed rumour I heard is that Eircom decided to enable the 400,000 extra homes with VDSL (from 1 million originally planned to 1.4 million, with the extra ones in more rural areas) was in response to the ESB's FTTH plans.

jca

bk wrote: »

They already have. The well informed rumour I heard is that Eircom decided to enable the 400,000 extra homes with VDSL (from 1 million originally planned to 1.4 million, with the extra ones in more rural areas) was in response to the ESB's FTTH plans.

The plan was always for 1.4 million premises.

OneEightSeven

jca wrote: »

The plan was always for 1.4 million premises.

Eircom fibre rollout – plans to reach 1m homes in three years

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/25879-eircom-fibre-rollout/

crawler

Was originally 1m homes, they extended to 1.2m (bigger footprint) then 1.4m assuming Exchange launched VDSL goes ahead (no vectoring though)

football_lover

same ol sh1te wrote: »

Sorry but I don't see joint venture with Vodafone anywhere in that article which is what this thread is about. It was a press release about a bill that was passed allowing the ESB to enter the broadband market and it was actually truthful, you and others just read to much into it. There still isn't a proper plan (nobody knows the status of the national broadband plan) and there won't be rural fibre until there is a plan and funding available

The government actually put new laws into place so as to allow the ESB to actually do this.

So it should at its heart be for everybody and that includes Rural but as people are pointing out here this deal between the ESB and Vodafone is for urban.

Also when they quote 450m I am doubtful that this amount of money is being invested at all and is only really being used as a headline grabber.


This deal is also at best an Irish Joke that only a few people will really be looking at with joy.

I my self live 5 miles from an exchange and I know people that live close to the exchange and they get amazing broadband but I get nothing.

And the people that get amazing broadband do not contribute anything to the state but I do as do my neighbors and we still get nothing.

If this deal was part of a wider agenda to cover the whole country and even if it took 15 years to achieve I my self would be over the moon at this.

But this is not going to be the case it is a deal only for rural and it is probably (and I am guessing) part of Irish politics were they are trying to win extra votes now I could be wrong about that.

For anybody who gets this service good luck to them I would love it as I could adjust my businesses to what it could offer.

football_lover

crawler wrote: »

Was originally 1m homes, they extended to 1.2m (bigger footprint) then 1.4m assuming Exchange launched VDSL goes ahead (no vectoring though)

All VDSL should be used for Urban and for rural that is close to the exchanges.

Fiber optics can allow for longer lines but requires slightly different network topology but for customers outside normal exchange based copper capabilities.

bk

football_lover wrote: »

This deal is also at best an Irish Joke that only a few people will really be looking at with joy.

What a load of BS!

In just 6 years this will cover 50% of all homes in Ireland with FTTH!

That is no joke, that is incredibly impressive, it will be fantastic news for the majority of people in Ireland. It looks like one of the most impressive FTTH plans in Europe, way ahead of anything UK, France, Germany, etc. has planned.

Just because it won't immediately benefit you, don't be so sore.

football_lover wrote: »

If this deal was part of a wider agenda to cover the whole country and even if it took 15 years to achieve I my self would be over the moon at this.

Ah, but it sort of is. They have already confirmed phase 1, which will cover 500,000 homes. And the CEO of ESB has already said that depending on the success of phase 1 they will likely move onto a second phase to cover another 500,000 homes and that beyond that there maybe more phases.

They also said that they may bid to be part of the National Broadband Plan.

As I have said time again, the ESB entering the market even in just urban areas initially is fantastic news for rural people.

The ESB are the company with the greatest ability to do rural FTTH. The quicker they get the urban areas done, the quicker they get real world experience in doing FTTH installs, the maintenance of it and the skills of running a network and ISP.

It was NEVER realistic that they would do terribly expensive rural installs ahead of much cheaper, easier and more profitable urban installs, it just isn't realistic.

BTW the 450 million figure is very much a real number, it costs roughly €1000 per urban install and they will be doing 500,000 installs, so the numbers add up.

I believe every home in Ireland will some day have FTTH. But realistically it will take 40 years, just like the electrification of Ireland did.

In the meantime we need to come up with more realistic stop gaps to getting a basic level of decent broadband (e.g. minimum 20mb/s at all time, low latency, non caps) to every home in Ireland.

Most urban and semi-urban areas (about 70% of all homes) will have that using VDSL, cable and FTTH.

The trouble is the other 30% of homes in rural areas.

I believe a realistic short term plan to reach these homes is the following:

- Bring a fibre connection to every village in Ireland.
- Have Eircom install their exchange only VDSL in every rural exchange or do cab VDSL in all of these rural villages. At least service the people living in these villages and up to 2km out with decent VDSL bb. And even out to 4 to 5km with decent ADSL2+ type speeds.
- Use this fibre to deliver quality fixed wireless broadband to all the homes surrounding the village.

Once this is complete, we can then start to realistically talk about and plan for rural FTTH. But to be honest, all of the above (in particular fibre to every village) is a pre-requisite first.

murphaph

Unfortunately there are many out there with the mentality that if something doesn't immediately benefit me then it's pointless. Shame really.

football_lover

bk wrote: »

What a load of BS!

In just 6 years this will cover 50% of all homes in Ireland with FTTH!

That is no joke, that is incredibly impressive, it will be fantastic news for the majority of people in Ireland. It looks like one of the most impressive FTTH plans in Europe, way ahead of anything UK, France, Germany, etc. has planned.

Just because it won't immediately benefit you, don't be so sore.



Ah, but it sort of is. They have already confirmed phase 1, which will cover 500,000 homes. And the CEO of ESB has already said that depending on the success of phase 1 they will likely move onto a second phase to cover another 500,000 homes and that beyond that there maybe more phases.

They also said that they may bid to be part of the National Broadband Plan.

As I have said time again, the ESB entering the market even in just urban areas initially is fantastic news for rural people.

The ESB are the company with the greatest ability to do rural FTTH. The quicker they get the urban areas done, the quicker they get real world experience in doing FTTH installs, the maintenance of it and the skills of running a network and ISP.

It was NEVER realistic that they would do terribly expensive rural installs ahead of much cheaper, easier and more profitable urban installs, it just isn't realistic.

BTW the 450 million figure is very much a real number, it costs roughly €1000 per urban install and they will be doing 500,000 installs, so the numbers add up.

I believe every home in Ireland will some day have FTTH. But realistically it will take 40 years, just like the electrification of Ireland did.

In the meantime we need to come up with more realistic stop gaps to getting a basic level of decent broadband (e.g. minimum 20mb/s at all time, low latency, non caps) to every home in Ireland.

Most urban and semi-urban areas (about 70% of all homes) will have that using VDSL, cable and FTTH.

The trouble is the other 30% of homes in rural areas.

I believe a realistic short term plan to reach these homes is the following:

- Bring a fibre connection to every village in Ireland.
- Have Eircom install their exchange only VDSL in every rural exchange or do cab VDSL in all of these rural villages. At least service the people living in these villages and up to 2km out with decent VDSL bb. And even out to 4 to 5km with decent ADSL2+ type speeds.
- Use this fibre to deliver quality fixed wireless broadband to all the homes surrounding the village.

Once this is complete, we can then start to realistically talk about and plan for rural FTTH. But to be honest, all of the above (in particular fibre to every village) is a pre-requisite first.

I am going to be the bringer of reality here to you €1000 is pie in the sky for urban.

No body can really give a figure because we do not do this in Ireland as an industry as of yet so it is new ground in all of this.


But getting new fiber to the pavement excluding per house is going to cost more than €1000 (per building) alone with all the planning and trenches that will need to be used in Urban since the ESB historically (not recently) in urban has not used aerial in Urban settings.

And that is only to the pavement and we have not even considered getting to the house at this stage.

Do you think they will be able to use existing ducting to blow down or will they have to install new ducting.

And then there is the internal cabling of the building to deal with since in Ireland we tend to have very poor building services containment since we have an obsession with Brick and mortar and do not plan ahead.

I have worked in the field of building services to include comm's and I can tell you people in this country are in for a shock and that includes you if you think $1000 per installation is about right.


At basic international costings of kilometer of fiber optics networks the figure could be around $100,000 per trench based installation and that excludes from the cabinet to the building.


"Just because it won't immediately benefit you, don't be so sore."

If I thought that I was going to get fiber to the building in 15 years times with this project guess what I would be over the moon and that would be about 2030. I would give it 100% backing. But lets be realistic.


But lets be totally realistic in all of this. There is no national frame work that is realistic for rural broadband.

The government at a conservative estimate have spent about 750m on rural wireless broadband in this country and look at what we have. I cannot get decent 3g in my area yet I live within 5 miles of an exchange that could easily if they decided to get fiber out there could do 1 GBps. My local exchange is a black fiber end point exchange.

This deal will be great for people that get it but some people probably already get broadband that will be included in it.

These plans and phases should be rural as well as Urban because they require two different sets of skills and infrastructural building as well.

By the mid 2020's our urban communications systems will be amazing but our rural will be terrible.

The 500,000 figure you have quoted is just been picked out of the air as a sound bite that will be used in the next elections.

This project is political in nature and is all about getting reelected (not that i care at his point who is elected).

football_lover

"I believe every home in Ireland will some day have FTTH. But realistically it will take 40 years, just like the electrification of Ireland did"


That is too long since we will be competing in our Rural industries within a global market place. Other countries in Europe have plans for rural communications that are a lot sooner than 2040. Our rural industries are worth billions to this economy.

Worse case scenario is that we create a economic divide in this country that then makes our rural industries un-competitive.

Norway is starting to invest billions into its rural communications systems and they intend to use fiber as it is the only realistic method of doing it.


Now does that mean 100% rural probably not as they are not going to run fiber up the side of a mountain for one dwelling.


This deal with the ESB and Vodaphone has had our government passing laws also may include future laws to be passed. This concerns the whole country and not just urban.

football_lover

murphaph wrote: »

Unfortunately there are many out there with the mentality that if something doesn't immediately benefit me then it's pointless. Shame really.

There is not going to be any rural communications at all for this country never mind your immediate benefits concepts.

There are no plans just like the rest of the economy.

This vodafone deal is part of the disgusting nature of Irish society.

AlanS181824

This thread has gone downhill fast IMO...

Everyone seems to cynical about this but no matter how you look at it this is great news for Ireland!

SpaceTime

I realise there are issues with Irish rural broadband, but there is no country in the world that has FTTH to every home in rural areas. At best, you get it in villages.

The best solution for rural areas is fibre-backed wireless using sensible technologies.

Why's Vodafone a bad partner? They're extremely cash rich at the moment having sold their shares in Verizon and are aiming to be a major player in the fixed line / broadband market in Europe. They've just purchased a major cable provider in Germany and they're doing pretty decent FTTH and FTTC products in places like Iceland etc.

ESB on their own probably just want to own the infrastructure and not have the hassle of actually implementing the consumer products in an area that is fairly alien to it.

Norway's possibly the worst example you could pick for comparison too. Try France or the UK instead. Norway's highly unusual as it's basically got limitless funds available for this kind of stuff and can really lash the cash in a way that other countries can't. It's effectively a socialist, democratic, Nordic version of the UAE in terms of its energy reserves.

This ESB project is a good thing and it will bring very fast broadband services to an awful lot of towns around Ireland very quickly.

Also, to be fair to eircom their FTTC product's actually pretty solid and I haven't seen much better in most of Western Europe. It's reaching relatively small towns at this stage and it has the scope to be upgraded to FTTH using the curb-side nodes and ducts they're already putting in place.

UPC's cable products are also extremely fast and seem to compare very favourably with anything on the continent or in North America using cable technology anyway.

Nolars

Anybody that is moaning about this needs a good kick up the backside.

SpaceTime

Having competition for eircom's FTTC service will also drive them to rollout FTTH much more quickly than they'd intended.

It's also going to drive UPC forward in areas where this ESB network crosses over with them too.

MajesticDonkey

I used to feel like football_lover did, but then I realised how bloody amazing this project is. Realistically, TWO CITIES in the US have 1Gb/s symmetric FTTH through Google Fibre. In 5 years' time, at least half of Ireland will have this - not something to be giving out about.

football_lover

SpaceTime wrote: »

I realise there are issues with Irish rural broadband, but there is no country in the world that has FTTH to every home in rural areas. At best, you get it in villages.

The best solution for rural areas is fibre-backed wireless using sensible technologies.

Why's Vodafone a bad partner? They're extremely cash rich at the moment having sold their shares in Verizon and are aiming to be a major player in the fixed line / broadband market in Europe. They've just purchased a major cable provider in Germany and they're doing pretty decent FTTH and FTTC products in places like Iceland etc.

ESB on their own probably just want to own the infrastructure and not have the hassle of actually implementing the consumer products in an area that is fairly alien to it.

Norway's possibly the worst example you could pick for comparison too. Try France or the UK instead. Norway's highly unusual as it's basically got limitless funds available for this kind of stuff and can really lash the cash in a way that other countries can't. It's effectively a socialist, democratic, Nordic version of the UAE in terms of its energy reserves.

This ESB project is a good thing and it will bring very fast broadband services to an awful lot of towns around Ireland very quickly.

Also, to be fair to eircom their FTTC product's actually pretty solid and I haven't seen much better in most of Western Europe. It's reaching relatively small towns at this stage and it has the scope to be upgraded to FTTH using the curb-side nodes and ducts they're already putting in place.

UPC's cable products are also extremely fast and seem to compare very favourably with anything on the continent or in North America using cable technology anyway.

Norway does not have unlimited funds its Sovereign fund does not get used for mainland investment.

They produce a balanced budget and they are going to be developing their fiber optics so that rural communities get access to digital communication system.

And they are not going to be building their networks tomorrow either they have long term plan as to how they intend to fund and build such a network.

Norway is similar to Ireland in that it has a 48% rural population and before any of you jump in it is not village rural.

Norway is a perfect country for us to observe and use as an example as it has a population of 5 million only their country is 5 times bigger.

Norway also produces balanced budgets without actually touching the Oil money so their unlimited funds does not apply.

football_lover

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

I used to feel like football_lover did, but then I realised how bloody amazing this project is. Realistically, TWO CITIES in the US have 1Gb/s symmetric FTTH through Google Fibre. In 5 years' time, at least half of Ireland will have this - not something to be giving out about.

Half of Ireland is not going to have FTTX.

It is not going to happen what this ESB project is about is them entering the market but they are only really interested in the existing development market.

There are massive challeges to building a urban FFTX network that is just as big an issue as a rural network when factors like the actual installation of cables to the building are taken into account.

The problems with Rural is the distance of the cable runs but the issue with urban is actually getting the cable from the street to the building.

And for anybody to think that urban is easier simply has not experience of dealing with urban building systems.

To have a nation wide Fiber optics network would cost about 3 billion and that does not include getting the cables into the building.

Urban would just be as costly as rural as both of these have existing problems but are different.

Broadband in Ireland today to the building is achieved by copper not fiber and this is an existing infrastructure that was built over 40 years.

Government laws have been passed to assist the ESB and Vodafone in this but it is only really for Urban. But why should a government pass laws that is for a commercial project but it will exclude rural.

football_lover

AlanS181824 wrote: »

This thread has gone downhill fast IMO...

Everyone seems to cynical about this but no matter how you look at it this is great news for Ireland!

Cynical no but realistic yes.

Cynicism that is unfounded is intellectually barbaric and is generally driven by ideology.


This is not about ideology but the engineering challenges and the actually planning that is occurring at national level. And to be honest there is no planning only politically maneuvering.

The vodafone and ESB deal is just the same old Irish way of doing things. Screw a million people over at the expense of the other 3.5 million.

There is no point having deals like this that get government laws passed to suit it and then it is not for everybody.

In this country I get sick of the whole move to the urban if you are unhappy yet my community is expect to produce the food that everybody eats.

What are we suppose to do buy more houses in the cities/towns and then travel to the farms. And the Ironic thing is I know people who live in council estates that do not work but just because they are a few miles away from me they get welfare and internet.

It is not Cynicism but a reality of the country we live in.

murphaph

If rural was cheaper then why don't the ESB plan to start rural? They always go for the low hanging fruit first.

crawler

I think people forget that the 500,000 is the first phase.....Just thinking aloud.

Google started small too and now there is stuff like this...https://fiber.google.com/newcities/

Competiton drives innovation from all players including UPC and eircom and the best type of telecoms competition is infrastructure competition.

For those who remember NTL only had a small part of west Dublin on their two way network (broadband) and now they pass about 800k homes - look at how this drove eircom's VDSL investment and what has happened pricing.

Look at how U-Verse and FiOS compete in the Us and how Google fibre is driving their investments.

It's really sad everywhere cant get done at the same time but as I said competition drives innovation.

I will always be of the view that LTE and fibre (together not one or the other) will kill copper.

For those interested - some really good stuff here http://www.ftthcouncil.eu/ - like EU households will need 165Mbps - 350Mbps by 2020 (VDSL is NOT going to cut it!!) VDSL is not next generation, it is current generation lets not repeat the same mistake by going for another half measure like G.Fast or other silly copper prolonging rubbish.

football_lover

murphaph wrote: »

If rural was cheaper then why don't the ESB plan to start rural? They always go for the low hanging fruit first.

No body said cheaper as far as I am aware in this thread.

It will not be as cheap as people think with Urban because it will involve getting the cables from the cabinet to the house and that will be very time consuming.

Urban will not just be as cheap as people think for installation due to the fact that none of the cables will be ESB aerial cables.

Most rural developments have aerial cables but will require more cable due to distance.

They are going for existing fruit they want to compete with Eircom in Urban areas that is the whole purpose of this and has nothing to do with a national FTTX.

Rural will never get done in this. I guarantee you this exact same topic will be in discussion by 2024 which will be 10 year from now.

By the time this country actually comes to the realization that rural communications is just as important as urban it may actually be too late.

This deal is all about vodafone getting to the market and beating Eircom and it is also a point of entry for the ESB.

Hope I am all wrong about this but it has all the hallmarks of Irish politics. This topic will be repeated over and over at the next election cycle and the current government will hold it up for people.

ED E

football_lover wrote: »

By the time this country actually comes to the realization that rural communications is just as important as urban it may actually be too late.

Its not. Businesses that really need a link can get one, people who need it for their work will live where they can be connected. If farmers want to have a "smart farm" thats fine, downloading meteorlogical radar grabs isnt bandwidth intensive. John Doe living in rural kerry and wanting to stream 4K isnt important.

football_lover

ED E wrote: »

Its not. Businesses that really need a link can get one, people who need it for their work will live where they can be connected. If farmers want to have a "smart farm" thats fine, downloading meteorlogical radar grabs isnt bandwidth intensive. John Doe living in rural kerry and wanting to stream 4K isnt important.

So how do you propose genomics or real time disease monitoring or other sensor networks.

Do you think existing patchy networks would be able to deal with this and do you actually think in the mid 2020s when this technology will be in full swing that Irish agriculture and other rural industries will actually be able to compete with other countries in Europe.

Some of the towns covered under this deal already can achieve 50Mbps and with proper development they could go higher.


We are not talking about gaming or TV streaming here in terms of the importance.


There are countries in the world that are building intelligent systems networks that will be in rural settings and then there is Ireland where our politicians will be boasting about this deal at the next election.

MajesticDonkey

football_lover wrote: »

So how do you propose genomics or real time disease monitoring or other sensor networks.

Do you think existing patchy networks would be able to deal with this and do you actually think in the mid 2020s when this technology will be in full swing that Irish agriculture and other rural industries will actually be able to compete with other countries in Europe.

Some of the towns covered under this deal already can achieve 50Mbps and with proper development they could go higher.


We are not talking about gaming or TV streaming here in terms of the importance.


There are countries in the world that are building intelligent systems networks that will be in rural settings and then there is Ireland where our politicians will be boasting about this deal at the next election.

Are you away with the fairies?

How many farms around Ireland are interested in studying the genomes of their animals? Most farmers I know wouldn't know what a genome is! How many farms around Ireland use realtime disease monitoring equipment? I don't know of one.