SIRO - ESB/Vodafone Fibre To The Home

Gonzo

/\/ollog wrote: »

not if i'm on an old contract, with sky. It was a tenner more when "fibre" came out, so I didn't bother. Expected siro way earlier.

Siro so far have very few people and areas connected, could be several years before most people will see them. Eir and even Imagine seem to be making progress rather quickly while Siro is doing very little if anything at all.

bk

/\/ollog wrote: »

not if i'm on an old contract, with sky. It was a tenner more when "fibre" came out, so I didn't bother. Expected siro way earlier.

Then you can't be on 17/10, you most be on ADSL2+ which goes up to a max of 24/1. You ight be 17 down, but there is no way you are on 10 up, more likely .6

Nollog

bk wrote: »

Then you can't be on 17/10, you most be on ADSL2+ which goes up to a max of 24/1. You ight be 17 down, but there is no way you are on 10 up, more likely .6

Ah you're right yeah. I added a 0. Freudian slip?
It's 17/1

PeadarB

Letterkenny on the Siro map now showing as live and available at my address. Obviously updated overnight. Now if vodafone can update their in house order interface we're rolling.

Manc Red

Introducing SIRO - a groundbreaking broadband technology brought to you by ESB and Vodafone. Now available in Letterkenny http://goo.gl/ufhyHX

https://www.facebook.com/SIROIreland/

This is what it says when you type in your address:

SIRO’s build has started in Letterkenny. Click below to register for roll-out updates.

PeadarB

Manc Red wrote: »

https://www.facebook.com/SIROIreland/

This is what it says when you type in your address:

http://siro.ie/towns/letterkenny/ brings you to the Letterkenny page on the site. My address at Ashbrook is showing as
"SIRO is available here in Letterkenny from the following provider:

• Vodafone "
  

Final tests were started today prior to handover. Approx. 1,950 premises in the first run. Techs say another two to three weeks before it's ready to go.

Manc Red

So can you order it now?

I wish they had maps that were more accurate and stopped calling it "available now in Letterkenny" when it's pretty much only the gortlee road and new line road that are available or in other words, 80 percent of the map where it's still unavailable.

It seems to be still like that in Dundalk and Sligo as well.

PeadarB

Manc Red wrote: »

So can you order it now?

I wish they had maps that were more accurate and stopped calling it "available now in Letterkenny" when it's pretty much only the gortlee road and new line road that are available or in other words, 80 percent of the map where it's still unavailable.

It seems to be still like that in Dundalk and Sligo as well.

It will give results for specific addresses in the town, mostly Gortlee, Ballyboe, Glencar, and various other housing estates about.

There is a major rollout of pole delivered FTTH under way as well - College Road, Convent Road and estates off those. ESB Networks and KNN are working all hours on this.

Tried ordering it but no joy. Map appears to be linked to the ESB/Siro address database which Vodafone seem to be piggybacking off.

I read somewhere that the actual launch date is mid June (17th - 18th) but these things have a habit of going early (I hope!!!)

Manc Red

PeadarB wrote: »

It will give results for specific addresses in the town, mostly Gortlee, Ballyboe, Glencar, and various other housing estates about.

There is a major rollout of pole delivered FTTH under way as well - College Road, Convent Road and estates off those. ESB Networks and KNN are working all hours on this.

Tried ordering it but no joy. Map appears to be linked to the ESB/Siro address database which Vodafone seem to be piggybacking off.

I read somewhere that the actual launch date is mid June (17th - 18th) but these things have a habit of going early (I hope!!!)

I read that it was May last month - http://www.donegalmatters.com/2016/04/letterkenny-to-become-siro-powered-with-100-fibre-broadband-network-minister-mchugh/

Fine Gael Minister of State Joe McHugh TD, officially launching the event (Friday 15th April) “I welcome the announcement today by SIRO, the ESB-Vodafone joint venture, that construction of a 100% fibre broadband network to 51 towns nationwide is underway on its network in Letterkenny, and that services will become available in mid-May this year.

PeadarB

Available to providers maybe. The final ODP check was done by KNN techs day before yesterday at our pillar a week ahead of what they had previously said. They were moving on to check the overhead ODP's after checking our ODP at the mini-pillar. The physical side has been completed by Siro in our estate. It's ready to go now and all we're waiting on is Vodafone to take it from the mini-pillar to the house whenever they get their systems in place and are ready to start the connections. There will be a fair bit of setting up on the provider side so I can't see it ready for at least another two weeks. Having been abandoned by eir, who refused to implement overhead ODP's any time soon, I'm patient enough to wait on vodafone.

Nollog

PeadarB wrote: »

Available to providers maybe. The final ODP check was done by KNN techs day before yesterday at our pillar a week ahead of what they had previously said. They were moving on to check the overhead ODP's after checking our ODP at the mini-pillar. The physical side has been completed by Siro in our estate. It's ready to go now and all we're waiting on is Vodafone to take it from the mini-pillar to the house whenever they get their systems in place and are ready to start the connections. There will be a fair bit of setting up on the provider side so I can't see it ready for at least another two weeks. Having been abandoned by eir, who refused to implement overhead ODP's any time soon, I'm patient enough to wait on vodafone.

Try calling VF, someone a few pages back said they had to call as the site said it wasn't available to them yet.

12Phase

They keep going on about this rollout being in "regional Ireland".

Does this mean Dublin City, Cork City etc will be stuck on copper and coax for years to come? I'm not seeing much evidence of Eir or Virgin pushing out FTTH in urban Ireland.

ED E

12Phase wrote: »

They keep going on about this rollout being in "regional Ireland".

Does this mean Dublin City, Cork City etc will be stuck on copper and coax for years to come? I'm not seeing much evidence of Eir or Virgin pushing out FTTH in urban Ireland.

Dublin won't see FTTH on a large scale until 2020 onwards would be my bet.

VM areas where cabling is modern will see D3.1 much sooner which will be a nice intermediate.

12Phase

Issue is though there are substantial areas of cities where VM and their predecessors never bothered cabling.

This actually includes much of Dublin 1 and 2 and various areas of Dublin and Cork where it was just too expensive - lack of cheap wayleaves or individually constructed homes in some suburban areas.

It's looking a long way off for some areas which are likely to be stuck on VDSL into the future.

Actually, a friend of mine in Dublin 7 can get neither VM nor Eir VDSL. They're actually having issues working from home due to poor broadband and are looking at selling and moving.

I could see this stuff starting to have a significant impact on house values.

ED E

Central Dublin is problematic due to the original cabling. Crown Alley/Ship Street/North Main reach to areas they shouldnt and there arent always copper cabs in place. Excavating an underground passage then erecting a copper cab and another VDSL one on a crowded D1/D2 footpath is a bit of job.

12Phase

Yeah I think most cities have isolated examples of areas where automatic telephone service was extended to a suburb using long wires rather than a new exchange. It's just reflective of the state of technology in the first half of the 20th century when large central exchanges were used and building smaller ones wasn't technically or economically practical.

It's crazy though that the situation persists as the modern data networks are overlaid on the old voice network wiring with local cabinets. Those areas really should be rewired, even if it is a bit disruptive to install cabinets.

There's far more urgent need for high speed data these days than preserving wiring routes planned for technology that predates television, never mind the internet!

All I'm saying is it's not just rural Ireland that's stuck in a broadband-free zone. Quite a few urban areas are caught in a mid 20th century time warp.

In London large areas of the City of Westminster are still stuck on exchange based ADSL too!!

PeadarB

Here's hoping that old 1 1/2" uPVC pipe carrying my power to my meter box from the ESB mini-pillar is not blocked. I should know by tomorrow as the Siro/KNN lads are now bringing the fibre from the mini-pillars into the houses in my estate. One rider though - if it can be done easily it will be done there and then. If not, some other crowd will bring it in, after a lot of digging, but only when FTTH is actually ordered from the ISP(Vodafone)

bk

12Phase wrote: »

Does this mean Dublin City, Cork City etc will be stuck on copper and coax for years to come? I'm not seeing much evidence of Eir or Virgin pushing out FTTH in urban Ireland.

Yes, it looks like Eir and Siro will be focused on rural Ireland for the next few years.

However that shouldn't really be an issue for people on Virgin coax as it already does 360Mb/s and they can pretty much turn on 1Gb/s whenever they want with the new modem. So people with access to VM should be fine.

I also suspect that we may see Eir rollout G.Fast in the FTTC cabs to upgrade from 100Mb/s VDSL to 300Mb/s G.Fast, similar to BT are planning in the UK, to give an interim "good enough" upgrade to keep urban people happy until to get around to rolling out FTTP in urban areas.

Having said that, as ED E pints out there are some very high density central areas that are badly serviced and around the cities there are one off houses and estates that aren't adequately serviced for a variety of reasons.

12Phase

I suspect Eir will probably get a large chunk of the cities as it has more infrastructure and ducting to be able to just get on with the job.

In many areas FTTH would actually be less obtrusive as there will be no need for above ground cabinets to house active gear.

I would say ESB would run into issues in my area as the power lines to houses seem to be direct buried armoured cable, not ducts.

bk

12Phase wrote: »

I suspect Eir will probably get a large chunk of the cities as it has more infrastructure and ducting to be able to just get on with the job.

In many areas FTTH would actually be less obtrusive as there will be no need for above ground cabinets to house active gear.

I would say ESB would run into issues in my area as the power lines to houses seem to be direct buried armoured cable, not ducts.

In urban areas with Virgin Media, Eir has about a 50 to 60% market share. Everywhere else they have close to 100%.

When Eir comes to rolling out FTTH in Virgin Media areas, I don't see their market share really changing. Virgin can match or even better them with coax and can rollout FTTH of their own when they finally (if ever) tap out coax.

Eir will rollout FTTH in VM areas eventually, as a purely defensive measure, to try and keep SIRO out of these areas and to keep up with VM and not lose any more market to VM.

I don't expect SIRO will ever likely target VM areas, not if Eir does FTTH in those areas too. Three is a crowd and all that.

In non VM urban areas, Eir is currently busily rolling out FTTH as fast as they can. The reason being that they hope it will dissuade Siro (and also VM) from rolling out their and if Siro still rolls out, at least Eir have a competitive product in place, which they hope will limit market share lose to SIRO.

Eir has to aggressively compete and rollout new tech now. Previously Eircom had close to 100% of the market country wide. But then they lost about 50% market share in areas where UPC/VM rolled out. Eir risk the same happening in non VM urban areas and rural areas now if SIRO's rollout and the NBP goes to another company. So while Eir are well positioned, they have everything to lose.

PeadarB

/\/ollog wrote: »

Try calling VF, someone a few pages back said they had to call as the site said it wasn't available to them yet.

16th June is the official launch date. There will be 2,000 ready to go then in the 1st phase. Flat out at upper Ashbrook today with more provisioning. Tails will be run to the meter boxes over the next couple of days. Just had a calll from Vodafone as I type this they will ring me as soon as it's ready to go.

10mm sub-duct shoved as far up the 1 1/2" uPVC pipe as they could get it. A lot of blockages encountered and cleared, allowing for a clear blown fibre run to the meter box. Luckily mine was clear. Only when it's ordered will the fibre be blown from the ODP to the meter box, as far as I can tell.

Mgit

Hey nothing will be run to your meter box until you actually order the service and have it installed. I know cause I had the service installed mid April and 4 of my neighbors have it now too. I had it installed on 14th and guys came by on the 13th and pushed fibre from mini pillarge to my meter. Next day guys put box on side of house and installed modem etc

PeadarB wrote: »

16th June is the official launch date. There will be 2,000 ready to go then in the 1st phase. Flat out at upper Ashbrook today with more provisioning. Tails will be run to the meter boxes over the next couple of days. Just had a calll from Vodafone as I type this they will ring me as soon as it's ready to go.

10mm sub-duct shoved as far up the 1 1/2" uPVC pipe as they could get it. A lot of blockages encountered and cleared, allowing for a clear blown fibre run to the meter box. Luckily mine was clear. Only when it's ordered will the fibre be blown from the ODP to the meter box, as far as I can tell.

digiman

Mgit wrote: »

Hey nothing will be run to your meter box until you actually order the service and have it installed. I know cause I had the service installed mid April and 4 of my neighbors have it now too. I had it installed on 14th and guys came by on the 13th and pushed fibre from mini pillarge to my meter. Next day guys put box on side of house and installed modem etc

How do you and your neighbours find it? Any congestion?

PeadarB

Mgit wrote: »

Hey nothing will be run to your meter box until you actually order the service and have it installed. I know cause I had the service installed mid April and 4 of my neighbors have it now too. I had it installed on 14th and guys came by on the 13th and pushed fibre from mini pillarge to my meter. Next day guys put box on side of house and installed modem etc

Waiting now to order. They won't take it 'till 16th June. How do you find it so far?

rustalan

I had a failed install yesterday. Siro guys arrived bang on time and couldn't have been nicer. However, my line is to come from the pole in my front garden and not a mini pillar. It seems that the Siro lads are not licensed for going up on the poles to take the lines to the meter boxes. They need an ESB guy to do it. They said they only get 1 ESB guy once a week on either a Thursday or Friday. So I have to go back into their system for a pole install. Once the line is run to the house they bounce back to Vodafone who will then contact me to reschedule the appointment.

On another note, he said that he'd be 99% sure that my duct is blocked (going by what he has seen so far). He said they would try to rod it clear but would more than likely take the line from the top of the pole to my gable and run it down the wall.

He was more than helpful and apologised profusely over the failed install.

bloodyhawk

After having an uncertainty, and the misunderstanding couple of pages back about the Siro broadband Symmetric/Asymmetric service, i decided to contact Siro directly, and ask them for an explanation. To my surprise they were more than willing to elaborate.

(From Siro themselves)



SIRO is a wholesale access provider. This means that we offer options to the Retail Service Provider who decides on which speeds and bundles they offer you as their consumer. To date, Vodafone is our first and only active Retail Partner. We expect to add additional retail partners shortly.

So to your specific queries:

Our standard residential product is not symmetrical. It currently comes in 4 options (download/upload): 150/30 , 350/70, 600/120, 1Gb/150. This is subject to change.

SIRO does however offer a fully symmetrical product which is targeted at Business Customers but there is nothing stopping consumers taking this. It costs significantly more than the standard product!


The current proposed speeds for the symmetrical product are 100/100, 250/250, 500/500, 1Gb/1Gb…

In terms of pricing: unfortunately I cannot help you with this & you will need to ask Vodafone directly for this. Sorry!!

Best of luck with your search and I hope you can connect to SIRO and enjoy our life-changing speeds soon…

Mgit

I can't fault it really, I had 27mb/'s with efibre and don't notice much difference for most stuff cause there is just two of us in the house. Where you really notice the speed is on a torrent download or downloading from a fast website as a once the torrent gets going a 2GB movie downloads in 30 seconds or so. Allot of web servers such as dell support and hp support seem to have poor download speeds so the interent has allot of catching up to do to allow siro customers get the best value from their connections. The speeds seem very consistent and on 5ghz WiFi in my sitting room I'm getting 200mb/'s download speed. I havent tried wired speed tests in a few weeks but I was getting around 400mb/s consistently anytime I tried.
The Vodafone TV is also working quite well, the box is extremely reponsive but the 7 day catchup is a bit hit and miss. For example say the 9pm news is on and you turn on the TV at 9.15 you can restart the news and watch it from 9pm. However say you turn on the TV at 10pm the 9pm news has no catchup and then 2 or 3 hours later the catchup comes available for that program and is available for 7 days. The time you have to wait for the catchup to come available is hit and miss.

PeadarB wrote: »

Waiting now to order. They won't take it 'till 16th June. How do you find it so far?

Mgit

digiman wrote: »

How do you and your neighbours find it? Any congestion?

Hey see my reply to peadarb now

Manc Red

Vodafone are offering only 350Mbps and 1000Mbps Lightspeed broadband on their website so I assume there are other providers making use of Siros access if there are 150/30 profiles?

ED E

Manc Red wrote: »

Vodafone are offering only 350Mbps and 1000Mbps Lightspeed broadband so I assume there are other providers making use of Siros access?

They're the only ones announced so far.