Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
SIRO - ESB/Vodafone Fibre To The Home
Options
Comments
-
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.
450 million for 500,000 building is very optimistic at best. They will need to dig up the roads to get to the cabinets and then from the cabinets to the building is going to require even more digging and then get it into the actual building its self that is not actually going to have any containment for cables.
When you get an electrician into your home or plumber then need to get at the cables and pipes behind walls and that is the same problem they will have with this project.
It will cost more than 450 million. They could easily do 50,000 homes rural for this and it would be houses that are black at the moment or white depending on how you look at it.
This project got legislation passed for it and it is all about ESB/vodapone competing with eircom who already supply homes. On a national level do you not think they going about it the wrong way.0 -
Lol, don't be generalising. Genomic selection of cattle, particularly dairy herds has been around for a few years in Ireland.MajesticDonkey wrote: »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.0 -
football_lover wrote: »450 million for 500,000 building is very optimistic at best. They will need to dig up the roads to get to the cabinets and then from the cabinets to the building is going to require even more digging and then get it into the actual building its self that is not actually going to have any containment for cables.
When you get an electrician into your home or plumber then need to get at the cables and pipes behind walls and that is the same problem they will have with this project.
It will cost more than 450 million. They could easily do 50,000 homes rural for this and it would be houses that are black at the moment or white depending on how you look at it.
This project got legislation passed for it and it is all about ESB/vodapone competing with eircom who already supply homes. On a national level do you not think they going about it the wrong way.
What cabinets would they be then? I would imagine the whole point of the joint venture is to avoid digging...0 -
Lol, don't be generalising. Genomic selection of cattle, particularly dairy herds has been around for a few years in Ireland.
I wasn't generalising.
Yes, it's been "around" for a while, but realistically, how many farms use it? football_lover seems to think there are thousands of these high-tech farms around Ireland, using bandwidth-heavy equipment, when in fact the majority of farms in the country work the same way they have been working for the last 20-30 years.0 -
Join Date:Posts: 14781
MajesticDonkey wrote: »I wasn't generalising.
Yes, it's been "around" for a while, but realistically, how many farms use it? football_lover seems to think there are thousands of these high-tech farms around Ireland, using bandwidth-heavy equipment, when in fact the majority of farms in the country work the same way they have been working for the last 20-30 years.
More than likely true , but how much of that is because they've had to due to lack of access to technology and how much is because they don't want/need to?
Agree it's not the majority that are sitting on their farms clamoring for access to FTTH for high tech farming but I'd imagine if the access was available a significant percentage would take the opportunity, if presented , to update their methods in various areas and leverage technology.
Just like any other small business would if given the ability to use the latest technology...0 -
Advertisement
-
More than likely true , but how much of that is because they've had to due to lack of access to technology and how much is because they don't want/need to?
Agree it's not the majority that are sitting on their farms clamoring for access to FTTH for high tech farming but I'd imagine if the access was available a significant percentage would take the opportunity, if presented , to update their methods in various areas and leverage technology.
Just like any other small business would if given the ability to use the latest technology...
No one can say for sure, but I would say it's because they don't want or need to. The majority of Ireland is made of small farms who make enough to get by, not exactly millionaires or anything. Many of them simply can't afford to install this "disease monitoring" equipment and other high-tech stuff, because it is expensive, so do those really need FTTH?
What I would like to see, as has been mentioned in the thread already, is for some company (ESB likely) to offer FTTH to anyone in the country that wants or needs it, and the customer pays for the installation. Some sort of grant system or government allowance would be nice though. That way, any farmer or indeed any person in the country that wants or needs FTTH can get it.0 -
Join Date:Posts: 14781
MajesticDonkey wrote: »No one can say for sure, but I would say it's because they don't want or need to. The majority of Ireland is made of small farms who make enough to get by, not exactly millionaires or anything. Many of them simply can't afford to install this "disease monitoring" equipment and other high-tech stuff, because it is expensive, so do those really need FTTH?
What I would like to see, as has been mentioned in the thread already, is for some company (ESB likely) to offer FTTH to anyone in the country that wants or needs it, and the customer pays for the installation. Some sort of grant system or government allowance would be nice though. That way, any farmer or indeed any person in the country that wants or needs FTTH can get it.
Agreed , but I think even the smallest farmers would find ways to make themselves more efficient or cost effective with access to technology - Remote monitoring of livestock for example, especially for the smaller farmers who typically have scattered plots of land around the place making up their farm.. I'd imagine that the ability to install remote cameras or devices to gauge food/water levels in troughs etc. would make their lives a whole hell of a lot easier.. Doesn't have to be bleeding edge technology for them to be able to benefit from high speed access.
Agree totally on your second point - At the very least they should publish a price list for connections so that people understand the costs involved and if they feel they can justify the cost, then they can go for it..
Funding in that area is definitely something that organisations like Enterprise Ireland should be assisting with, either by directly providing funding for specific small businesses or by identifying areas where there are multiple companies/organisations in need of High speed access and lobbying/ providing grants to get the area enabled.0 -
Agreed , but I think even the smallest farmers would find ways to make themselves more efficient or cost effective with access to technology - Remote monitoring of livestock for example, especially for the smaller farmers who typically have scattered plots of land around the place making up their farm.. I'd imagine that the ability to install remote cameras or devices to gauge food/water levels in troughs etc. would make their lives a whole hell of a lot easier.. Doesn't have to be bleeding edge technology for them to be able to benefit from high speed access.
Nothing thats been suggested in thread around agriculture requires high bandwidth. Nada. Monitoring stations like that could work fine sending a few k per day.0 -
Gents.....some of you should get your hands on a copy on "The history of the ESB" by Maurice Manning and Moore McDowell.
The same argument for NOT extending electricity to rural Ireland was made that is now being made regarding rural broadband.
Do we learn anything in this country or are we always going to repeat past mistakes?.0 -
With the eircom e-fibre deployment it was a relatively simple exercise to follow the progress of the roll-out to the Huawei distribution cabinets in those cities and towns concerned. With few exceptions all connections were made using pre-existing copper pairs, suitable geared to allow connections of up to 100Mb back to those cabinets. The pair in my case ran underground for 150 meters before being run up a pole and strung the last 20 or so meters to the entry point at the side of my house.
I'm looking out my window at the moment and I'm wondering how that little ESB "drop" box that services the seven houses in my estate fits into the picture with the proposed roll-out of the ESBT / Vodafone FTTH JV. I am aware that a fairly roomy 1" pipe runs the last 20 meters from my junction box at the back of the house back to this drop box and that my single phase sheathed wire runs through it to the metre box.
Does anyone here know the layout of the "civils" involved in getting the ESB wire to that drop box. What ducts are involved back through the various stages to the various transformers that control the power distribution throughout the network.
What practical difficulties will be encountered in this roll-out? Is the ducting not already in place to allow a relatively simple blown fibre rollout to all pre-ducted ESB connections in the cities and towns in the first phase of this project?0 -
Advertisement
-
Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,794 Mod ✭✭✭✭
Join Date:Posts: 22390
football_lover wrote: »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.
The figure I quoted of €1000 comes directly from a very reliable contact at Eircom. This is the average cost of their FTTH installs in urban areas that they are currently doing in two FTTH trial areas.
This figure is supported by what I've read in numerous articles about other FTTH installs throughout Europe. I'll happily link to them if you don't believe me.
Urban FTTH installs while not trivial aren't as difficult as you make out. Most urban areas have a great deal of ducting. Eircom already use this ducting to bring copper cable to peoples homes, they will simply push the fiber through these ducts to peoples homes. In fact they have already being doing this with the FTTC installs, it has been a common site around Dublin, Eircom pushing orange ducting (which contains fibre) into open ducts. It didn't require any digging.
They won't need to dig up most places like you claim, the ducts are already in place. The only difficulty might be the last 10 or 20 meters from the duct into a persons home, some homes they will be able to use the existing duct, others they might hit a blockage and need to do some digging or alternatively use overhead cables.
Eircom may also now gain access to the ESB's ducts and poles, which would give them a lot more options and they could also take UPC's approach of running fibre overhead from home to home along the eaves. Remember UPC replaced almost all their cable to 800,000 urban homes using this method and they did it with little fanfare, most people didn't even know it was happening!
The point is a fibre cable pushed through 1km of ducting in an urban area will pass hundreds if not thousands of homes!
A fibre cable run along 1km of poles in a rural area might only pass a couple dozen homes at best.
Fibre is expensive, it is the cost per homes passed that make it affordable and doable.
Also your comments on Norway or also painfully wrong! I visit Norway almost every year to go hiking and I have many Norwegian friends but there and here in Ireland.
It is one of the richest countries in Europe. It is the UAE of Europe, awash with oil money. Being a good social democratic country, the government of Norway is pouring the oil money into vast infrastructural projects, roads, ports, Metros and yes Broadband:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303442004579121831681639504
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/d58e4180-2f93-11e3-8b7e-00144feab7de,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fd58e4180-2f93-11e3-8b7e-00144feab7de.html%3Fsiteedition%3Dintl&siteedition=intl&_i_referer=
This is a country where the average salary is €3554 versus €2160 here in Ireland!
But you are also wrong about rural Norway. Having hiked through great deals of it I can assure you it is vast stretches of nothing (well stunningly beautiful mountains). You can hike for days without meeting another hiker, never mind seeing a house!
Actually I was quiet shocked when there to see some many deserted rural one off homes. There seems to have been a mass migration in Norway from rural one off homes into villages and towns. And most of these towns and villages are along the coast. My Norwegian friends confirmed this, saying people over the last 40 years have being moving closer to towns to benefit from better services. The distant countryside homes are simply too isolated in the cold winters.
Norway is a terrible country to compare Ireland to for rural FTTH.0 -
Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,794 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 22390
Gents.....some of you should get your hands on a copy on "The history of the ESB" by Maurice Manning and Moore McDowell.
The same argument for NOT extending electricity to rural Ireland was made that is now being made regarding rural broadband.
Do we learn anything in this country or are we always going to repeat past mistakes?.
No one is saying that every home in Ireland will not have FTTH. I can guarantee it will happen. Eventually 100% of homes will be FTTx, just like every home has electricity today.
However what I'm saying is that realistically it will likely take 40 years to achieve, just like rural electrification took 40 years to achieve.
The problem some people want it to happen overnight and that just isn't realistic.
In the meantime we need to find more realistic stop-gap solutions to get decent broadband to those suffering in rural Ireland today.0 -
And in Switzerland...
http://www.lightreading.com/broadband/fttx/swisscom-boasts-fttx-milestone/d/d-id/710163?
Similar approaches with competition being driven by infrastructure....0 -
And in Switzerland...
http://www.lightreading.com/broadband/fttx/swisscom-boasts-fttx-milestone/d/d-id/710163?
Similar approaches with competition being driven by infrastructure....
The article is a few days out of date... 1GB/sec now
http://internet.swisscom.ch/en#fibre
It is forcing Sunrise and Orange and others in the market to share infrastructure to compete. Of course, the Swiss Federal Government still wisely owns 51.2% of Swisscom. Not that I am pro-gov ownership of business, quite the contrary, I have no problem with the government owning the roads, and electricity grid and similar assets.
We are seeing a needless duplication of fibre going from door to door in Switzerland. However it is a small country, compared with Ireland (much of it is uninhabited due to the Alps), and therefore has a high population density. CH probably has the economic luxury of duplication of fibre, given the density of population and high incomes and well educated population, which few other countries can match.0 -
Eircom does not do widespread FTTX and they use copper to get from the cabinet to the building. So all that E-fibre is not FTTX.
Most ducting in Ireland and that includes Dublin is outdated and is not designed for modern communications and it is not suitable for blowing or for that matter pushing fiber optics cables down.
And how do you propose that they get from cabinet to the actual house.
Commercial installations are not domestic dwellings. Walk down any Dublin street or town street in Ireland and look at the buildings where do you think this magical ducting is.
If you think it is as simple as just pushing the fiber down then you are in for a shock. Most ESB ducting has runs that are a lot longer than just a few feet.
Do you propose that they just push it to the meter? I am confused as to what you think this process will be. In a new build estate where containment is planned for this it will be easy but not all of them will be easy either as it will depend on design and planning.
I have overseen projects that involve the containment of building supply systems and they are not easy by any account and they are not standardized either.
I am not saying it is impossible just that 450 million will not close to what is required for full FTTX for all these Urban properties. And for all those out there who imagine that Urban is easier and so much cheaper they are just being delusional.
A rural property is actually easy for aerial installations but they have issues of distance to deal with.0 -
I did not mean to start a debate about Norway because that would require a completely different thread.
But Norway actually banks its oil funds in the form of the Sovereign fund and it does not go out and spend it Willy-nilly. Norway is not just pumping money into Fiber so they are not just building a fiber optics network tomorrow for the whole country.
They have a long term plan and they are not just pumping in hundreds of billions into. And their plan to use fiber optics is only part of the development plan.0 -
MajesticDonkey wrote: »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.
That is the future of farming.
Genomics does not just apply to the animal but the diseases that animal actually come into contact with.
With a proper communications systems the farmers them self do not actually study genetics but the use of national level data that can use real time data as well as global trends data.
What we are interesting in all of this is a national level system that farmers for the most part do not actually notice.
But there will be lots of applications the farms will notice and that also stretches out as far as the cooperatives and dairy creameries.
You do understand that Teagasc already uses genetics but the move will actually be towards a move distributed model.
I am only really touching the tip of the iceberg with this I could go into a lot detail if you like in terms of the importance of communications for industry and applications.
3G and 4G will enable a lot of capabilities but it will not be enough and to be honest it will not be realistic to expect wireless to enable what is coming down the line.0 -
What cabinets would they be then? I would imagine the whole point of the joint venture is to avoid digging...
Cabinet is a general term but it they will be needed because it would not be feasible to actually get fiber and take it point to point for each user.
So the ESB are not going to connect one customer at a time from building to infrastructure sites (Fibers equivalent of an exchange).
In urban the ESB cables are not in the air they tend to be under the pavement.0 -
MajesticDonkey wrote: »I wasn't generalising.
Yes, it's been "around" for a while, but realistically, how many farms use it? football_lover seems to think there are thousands of these high-tech farms around Ireland, using bandwidth-heavy equipment, when in fact the majority of farms in the country work the same way they have been working for the last 20-30 years.
Farmers use the technology of the day and agriculture is developing into an information science.
Not many farm obviously use this technology because they do not have the communications systems.
In Ireland there are plenty of intensive farms because that is what dairy farming and crop farming is.
We are now only starting to see this develop. 20 years ago genetics what not used in Irish agriculture but to day it is common place.
We in this country will be competing with other countries and high yields equals lower costs.0 -
football_lover wrote: »3G and 4G will enable a lot of capabilities but it will not be enough and to be honest it will not be realistic to expect wireless to enable what is coming down the line.
Yes, it will be. Data centres around the world are still on 100Mb connections, and have been for the last 10 years. For the majority of applications, a higher speed is not needed. You could stream a typical HD video perfectly with an 8Mb or 10Mb connection for crying out loud.football_lover wrote: »Not many farm obviously use this technology because they do not have the communications systems. .
How do you know that's the reason? Maybe it's that they don't want or need these communications systems? Show a source please.0 -
Advertisement
-
At the end of the day it does cost significantly more for one off installations. If it cost the same then the ESB would target one off customers first because they have the crappiest broadband and would be almost guaranteed as customers, whereas competing against VDSL and to a lesser extend UPC it will be harder to win customers (most people don't care too much about their BB so long as they can do what they need to do and VDSL is more than adequate for the vast majority of customers).football_lover wrote: »A rural property is actually easy for aerial installations but they have issues of distance to deal with.
The ESB & Vodafone are doing towns because they are cheaper/easier per installation even when you factor in the civils (which I agree with you will be more extensive than most people think because the ducting isn't there in many cases)...end of story. It comes down to money.
Someone touched on a point above though....they might be able to string it along the eaves of properties just like UPC do in lots and lots of places. That would be a very cheap way of getting it done.0 -
MajesticDonkey wrote: »Yes, it will be. Data centres around the world are still on 100Mb connections, and have been for the last 10 years. For the majority of applications, a higher speed is not needed. You could stream a typical HD video perfectly with an 8Mb or 10Mb connection for crying out loud.
How do you know that's the reason? Maybe it's that they don't want or need these communications systems? Show a source please.
We are not talking about video streaming and no crying is needed so please calm down.
We are talking about sensor systems and some of them will be using high bandwidths.
Here is a few links I will provide you more if you want in terms of agriculture as an information science.
http://windermere.aston.ac.uk/~kiffer/papers/Kaloxylos_HAICTA13.pdf
http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac79/docs/pov/Connected_Agriculture_POV.pdf
http://gigaom.com/2013/10/17/the-agriculture-business-is-a-sleeping-giant-for-companies-building-the-internet-of-things/
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/527356/business-adapts-to-a-new-style-of-computer/
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-540-69968-2_12#page-20 -
football_lover wrote: »We are talking about sensor systems and some of them will be using high bandwidths.
What exact type of systems? How much do they cost? You still haven't shown that farmers actually WANT to install, and more importantly are capable financially of installing them, because like I said earlier, I believe it's only a very small minority of farmers that both have the cash to spend on these systems and actually want to install them at all.0 -
football_lover wrote: »We are talking about sensor systems and some of them will be using high bandwidths.
Temp sensors, moisture sensors, wind sensors, PH sensors, UV sensors. Allll use sweet f'ck all bandwidth.
Football you're talking junk. There isnt a necessity.0 -
football_lover wrote: »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.
Not quite true.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303442004579121831681639504
Norway actually spends up to about 4% of its $750 billion oil fund every year. That's 30 billion a year coming from the oil fund.
Other aspects of the fund are available for capital investment in industries that may pay be classified as investments. That includes IT and telecoms.
Also, the country is pledging to spend $16bn on Norwegian infrastructural projects.
I've looked quite a bit at Norway's economic system and while yes they do have a huge sovereign wealth fund, a huge % of GDP comes indirectly from oil revenues and oil industry spend.
They are putting most of the oil revenues aside, but a combination of having basically unlimited AAA+++ borrowing ratings backed by a huge oil fund, and even using a small % of that fund puts Norway into a position that other European countries could only dream of.
Any other small EU country is a valid comparison, as are less densely populated areas of France (i.e. all of Western France has similar development patterns to Ireland) or parts of the UK.
Scotland's an ideal comparator!
Comparing Ireland (particularly post celtic tigre meltdown) to Norway isn't really reasonable at all.
Infrastructure projects here like this will have to be done on a primarily commercial basis without all that much state backing.0 -
Lots actually, all pedigree herds would have been genome testing and with the recent beef genomic scheme most of the commercial suckler herds would be involved now too. You probably haven't heard of anybody doing it because the process is not that interesting. There's lots of threads about it in the farming forum on boards if you do want to find out more.MajesticDonkey wrote: »I wasn't generalising.
Yes, it's been "around" for a while, but realistically, how many farms use it? football_lover seems to think there are thousands of these high-tech farms around Ireland, using bandwidth-heavy equipment, when in fact the majority of farms in the country work the same way they have been working for the last 20-30 years.
But back to the topic at hand......0 -
Not quite true.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303442004579121831681639504
Norway actually spends up to about 4% of its $750 billion oil fund every year. That's 30 billion a year coming from the oil fund.
Other aspects of the fund are available for capital investment in industries that may pay be classified as investments. That includes IT and telecoms.
Also, the country is pledging to spend $16bn on Norwegian infrastructural projects.
I've looked quite a bit at Norway's economic system and while yes they do have a huge sovereign wealth fund, a huge % of GDP comes indirectly from oil revenues and oil industry spend.
They are putting most of the oil revenues aside, but a combination of having basically unlimited AAA+++ borrowing ratings backed by a huge oil fund, and even using a small % of that fund puts Norway into a position that other European countries could only dream of.
Any other small EU country is a valid comparison, as are less densely populated areas of France (i.e. all of Western France has similar development patterns to Ireland) or parts of the UK.
Scotland's an ideal comparator!
Comparing Ireland (particularly post celtic tigre meltdown) to Norway isn't really reasonable at all.
Infrastructure projects here like this will have to be done on a primarily commercial basis without all that much state backing.
They are not spending 16 billion on broadband. Most of that money is for overall infrastructure. And as you have noticed they are spending 4% of their returns from the oil fund and not the actual oil fund its self. And it is part of their normal budget. So that there means they are not taking billions out of there oil fund to pay for the broadband.
They have a long term strategy in this and they are not building it tomorrow. If they can spend 2 billion on their fiber optics in a country that is 5 times larger than Ireland and also has more remote locations than us . Then we can also do the same for less money.
The point is they are not spending 2 billion all at once this is a long term project that by the end will cost about 2 billion to cover there rural communities.
Our government has already spend about 700 million in communications in this country and they have also raided the national pension fund to the sum of 750 million for job creation. This is typical of Ireland in that we spend all this money but we really have nothing to show for it.
The mistakes have been made so why can we just not plan ahead over the next 10 to 15 years.
This deal with ESB and Vodafone has already had legislation passed through to aid with the project. This project is all about them competing with the likes of Eircom and UPC who already are servicing urban areas.
How much more urban do we need where Rural just sits with nothing. Could you imagine if our industrial regions like the where Pharma industry are situated had no communications at all. What do you think the out cry would be.
Our agriculture is worth 20 billion in GDP to this economy and is comparable to Pharma and IT. And it is not a simply 20 of GDP that we could easily replace either.
If this project of the ESB and Vodafone was part of a wider agenda I would say power to it but it is not. People may think I am being pessimistic here but I am being realistic with this.
Norway and its political system understand the importance of its rural development unlike us. I am not for a second suggesting that we just drop all urban development but we at least need Rural as well. We like to talk but we are poor on action (I live in hope that it changes).0 -
Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,794 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 22390
We are seeing a needless duplication of fibre going from door to door in Switzerland. However it is a small country, compared with Ireland (much of it is uninhabited due to the Alps), and therefore has a high population density. CH probably has the economic luxury of duplication of fibre, given the density of population and high incomes and well educated population, which few other countries can match.
I don't think duplicating fibre is a bad thing if it can be done on a profitable, economic basis without government subsidy.
It means a greater degree of competition and thus lower prices, greater innovation and better customer care.
It makes sense in a high density country like Switzerland, specially given the high average wage there.
I'd like to see the same happen here in the more densely populated areas of Ireland and I expect it will happen.
However for rural Ireland it doesn't make economic sense to have more then one fiber network and to be honest, even that is a stretch.0 -
Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,794 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 22390
To be honest football_lover, reading your posts is painful! They are so inaccurate and even when people correct you and give you links with factual corrections, you choose to ignore it and continue off in your own fancy land.
For example:football_lover wrote: »Eircom does not do widespread FTTX and they use copper to get from the cabinet to the building. So all that E-fibre is not FTTX..
Eircoms network is primarily FTTC + VDSL, however they currently run FTTH in two areas, Sandyford and Wexford Town:
http://www.joe.ie/news/business/eircom-aims-to-upgrade-broadband-with-ftth/
http://pressroom.eircom.net/press_releases/article/eircom_launches_fibre_broadband_bundles_in_south_dublin/
They use FTTH in these areas to trial the technology, get experience in it and to find the real world costs of installing it.
It is from this experience that they found it takes an average of €1000 per home to do FTTH in urban areas.
BTW it costs about €200 per home to do VDSL in urban areas. These are real figures and they are backed up by the BT Fibre On Demand Scheme in the UK.
With this scheme anyone in rural areas can order FTTH, but they have to pay the full cost. a 2km connection costs about €10,000, while a 4km connection costs about €18,000:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2014/01/bt-openreach-hike-price-already-expensive-330mbps-fibre-demand.htmlfootball_lover wrote: »Most ducting in Ireland and that includes Dublin is outdated and is not designed for modern communications and it is not suitable for blowing or for that matter pushing fiber optics cables down.
And how do you propose that they get from cabinet to the actual house.
Actually most housing and buildings built in the last 20 years all typically have high quality ducting.
Sure there will be older areas, where there will be digging needing to be done, but that is included in the €1000 cost.football_lover wrote: »Commercial installations are not domestic dwellings. Walk down any Dublin street or town street in Ireland and look at the buildings where do you think this magical ducting is.
Just look down!! The footpaths of Dublin and other cities and towns are covered in gratings marked with UPC/NTL/Cable/Eircom/TelecomEireann, the ducts are under these!
Really the ducting is much more comprehensive then you think.
How do you think the copper telephone cable gets into your house?!
It does either by overhead poles or a duct!!
They can reuse many, if not most of these ducts or poles. Yes in some places they will hit a duct with not enough room (duct collapsed, etc.) and they will have to dig a few meters from the main duct to the house, but they certainly won't have to do that in most houses. And it is these houses that make the cost €1,000 on average, rather then €200 like VDSL.
Remember these is an average cost over all homes passed in an urban area. The fiber cable and gear will cost less then €200. Many houses will be easy to install, they will be able to use the existing ducting or overhead poles and thus the total install cost for that house will probably be less then €500. But then the house down the street might have a collapsed duct, so they have to dig a new duct. The cost of this install might work out at €2000. However the cost of passing all homes in the area balances out to an AVERAGE of €1000 per home.
I don't know why this is so hard for you to understand!
The job will be made much easier if they also are allowed access to the ESB's ducts and poles. If they find the Eircom duct has collapsed, then they could potentially route through the ESB's duct/pole instead.
And as I pointed out earlier, they could also take UPC's approach of stringing fibre from house to house along the eaves of the houses.
In fact, I suspect in the long term UPC will also do FTTH and they may will likely take exactly this approach.
Another thing Eircom might do is use G.Fast.
This basically running fibre to the distribution point (FTTdp, a distribution point is the last place in a telephone network where the line splits and goes to your house, usually the last pole or high quality duct outside a group of houses). You then use G.Fast over the last 20meters or so of copper into the persons house.
They should be able to do 1Gb/s over G.Fast at this distance, with no need to dig a new trench, etc.
I expect Eircom will use a mix of true FTTH (where the duct/overhead pole exists) and FTTdb/G.Fast for the more difficult installs where digging a new trench would be required. This would certainly keep the costs of urban FTTH down. Almost certainly below €1000 per home.football_lover wrote: »A rural property is actually easy for aerial installations but they have issues of distance to deal with.
Assuming the pole can take the weight of the extra cabling. Seemingly many of Eircoms rural poles can't!
But as you say distance is the problem in rural Ireland. Again I'll repeat the issue, 1km of Fibre in urban areas can serve hundreds or even thousands of homes.
In rural Ireland the same 1km of Fibre might only pass a dozen homes. Thus a much higher average install cost.
Also running fiber along poles isn't as easy as you think either. They can't use the robots that they do on the high power distribution poles, the medium and low power poles can't take the weight. Instead they will need to use two cherry picker trucks to string fiber cable between each pair of poles. Not cheap or easy either.
If rural Ireland was cheaper then urban areas, then please explain to me why no company, UPC, Eircom, ESB, etc. has down rural FTTH and instead are all rushing to do urban installs instead?
Am I supposed to believe that the network planners and accountants at Eircom, ESB, Vodafone and UPC are so incompetent that they can't accurately calculate the cost of doing FTTH?
That the experts in these companies are all totally mistaken and that they should listen to you football_lover instead and do rural installs first :rolleyes:0 -
Advertisement
-
Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,794 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 22390
As for the need of high speed broadband for farmers, that is also a load of BS.
Most sensors, humidity, motion, etc. use mere kilobytes of data, you don't need broaband for these, hell GPRS is enough for most of these sensors. Just look at smart meters or the Dublin Bus RTPI, they all do this over GPRS.
The only sensor that needs high bandwidth data would be video. But even then you can just do that over a local network from the barn/field to the farmers home.
All the talk about live genetic monitoring is laughable!!!
Most farmers don't use such services at all and those that do (e.g. rich stud farms) do so by having an expert come to the farm, draw samples from the animals, bring it to a lab where highly specialised equipment and computers are used to analyse it and sequence here.
This is certainly not something a farmer does themselves. The bottleneck is not high speed broadband, rather it is the highly specialised and incredibly expensive lab equipment that requires highly trained technicians to use!
Also this isn't something you do live and frequently. It is typically done just once in an animals lifetime, after all it isn't like their genome just changes over time!
So no need for FTTH for rural farmers here. You still haven't given a real world application that rural farms need gigabit broadband yet.0
Advertisement