Rural Broadband - National Broadband Plan

ED E

Cabs support 200 / 400 customers, so they need a few to service a town. Some customers will be direct fed and get racks in the exchange, the rest get cabs.

murphaph

ffactj wrote: »

There are far too many people who cant get fibre and are on terrible internet connections but yet their neighbours all have fibre. Eircom just give these people the briush off and there is nothing they can do about it.

Come off it. VDSL was only launched relatively recently. This rollout is not even a couple of years old. **** takes time. They are hooking up customers to VDSL that wouldn't be considered here in Germany. Soooo much negativity related to what is an incredibly positive thing, something Ireland can actually be proud of.

ffactj

murphaph wrote: »

Come off it. VDSL was only launched relatively recently. This rollout is not even a couple of years old. **** takes time. They are hooking up customers to VDSL that wouldn't be considered here in Germany. Soooo much negativity related to what is an incredibly positive thing, something Ireland can actually be proud of.

So someone whose neighbours all got fibre on day 1 of the rollout who is still getting 1mb speeds due to a fault on their line has to just suffer eircom saying tough luck for a few years. Lots of cases of this.

I suppose its easy for someone living in Germany to think this is acceptable in Ireland.

There should be an option that if you are willing to pay for the connection of the service then eircom cannot refuse you.
Then when all your neighbours have fibre and you dont you just say ok, ill pay the fee to get it sorted and all is well.
While the isps can still just tell you to **** off, its not really fair to people.

Like BT Openreach.

bk

ffactj wrote: »

There should be an option that if you are willing to pay for the connection of the service then eircom cannot refuse you.

Like BT Openreach.

I think it is a great project, however just to put some reality on this project, it costs the home owner €10,000 to get a 2km FTTH run from this service and then in addition they pay €150 per month for service.

It costs €4500 for each extra km!

I agree it would be great if such a service was available here in Ireland, but it is very expensive and I don't think many people would sign up for it.

With Eircom launching a FTTH service more widely soon, perhaps they will also run a similar scheme. However people need to be realistic about the costs of this.

murphaph

ffactj wrote: »

So someone whose neighbours all got fibre on day 1 of the rollout who is still getting 1mb speeds due to a fault on their line has to just suffer eircom saying tough luck for a few years. Lots of cases of this.

You don't want to hear this but Eircom are correct to ignore such line faults until the rollout is nearing or at completion. Why? Because if say the 10% (or whatever it is) of line faults on all cabinets were fixed before Eircom moved on to the next cabinet install, the rollout would take DECADES, not years. Line faults could be anything. Finding the fault can be very time consuming and once found may, depending on cable location, be time consuming and labour intensive to fix. It's no comfort to you I'm sure, but that's the reality. A technician can either fix your broadband inhibiting line fault or he can be deployed hooking up another 192 odd premises to VDSL. For the greater good, you lose out.

ffactj wrote: »

I suppose its easy for someone living in Germany to think this is acceptable in Ireland.

Give it a rest with that oul guff. Where I'm located has no bearing on the discussion. I know this though...If I had no fast broadband and I had to pick a country where I thought I would get it sooner, it would be Ireland over Germany. There is no plan being formulated here. The "white spots" (weiße Flecken) as they're called here get filled in by the market primarily and if the market sees no profit then the local council MAY subsidise a roll out...but this is not wide spread.

ffactj wrote: »

There should be an option that if you are willing to pay for the connection of the service then eircom cannot refuse you.
Then when all your neighbours have fibre and you dont you just say ok, ill pay the fee to get it sorted and all is well.
While the isps can still just tell you to **** off, its not really fair to people.

Like BT Openreach.

Agreed, but as bk says, don't expect it to be anything but hideously expensive.

ffactj

bk wrote: »

I think it is a great project, however just to put some reality on this project, it costs the home owner €10,000 to get a 2km FTTH run from this service and then in addition they pay €150 per month for service.

It costs €4500 for each extra km!

I agree it would be great if such a service was available here in Ireland, but it is very expensive and I don't think many people would sign up for it.

With Eircom launching a FTTH service more widely soon, perhaps they will also run a similar scheme. However people need to be realistic about the costs of this.

It should be there though.
My sister is 300 meters from the cabinet and would gladly pay for the connection.
Eircom wont let her though. All of the rest of the houses in her estate apart from her and her next door neighbour have fibre. There is obviously a problem with their particular lines but she has been at eircom for years to sort it out. She even got another line from vodafone but they just connected from the same one basically.

ffactj

murphaph wrote: »

You don't want to hear this but Eircom are correct to ignore such line faults until the rollout is nearing or at completion. Why? Because if say the 10% (or whatever it is) of line faults on all cabinets were fixed before Eircom moved on to the next cabinet install, the rollout would take DECADES, not years. Line faults could be anything. Finding the fault can be very time consuming and once found may, depending on cable location, be time consuming and labour intensive to fix. It's no comfort to you I'm sure, but that's the reality. A technician can either fix your broadband inhibiting line fault or he can be deployed hooking up another 192 odd premises to VDSL. For the greater good, you lose out.


Give it a rest with that oul guff. Where I'm located has no bearing on the discussion. I know this though...If I had no fast broadband and I had to pick a country where I thought I would get it sooner, it would be Ireland over Germany. There is no plan being formulated here. The "white spots" (weiße Flecken) as they're called here get filled in by the market primarily and if the market sees no profit then the local council MAY subsidise a roll out...but this is not wide spread.


Agreed, but as bk says, don't expect it to be anything but hideously expensive.

You mean like their DSL rollout. How many years is that going on, and look at all the people who cant get DSL.

Every post in every thread from you is "In Germany .... "
Where you are located is mentioned in every single post that you do. Its you who is always on about your location.

There should be a third party who can cech your line for faults. That way the person who need the line looked at can engage someone to look at it at their own cost and get it fixed. Eircom can go and concentrate on anything else they want. At the moment it is eircom blocking all of these people from getting a service. These people cannot get past eircoms bearocracy.

ED E

ffactj wrote: »

It should be there though.
My sister is 300 meters from the cabinet and would gladly pay for the connection.
Eircom wont let her though. All of the rest of the houses in her estate apart from her and her next door neighbour have fibre. There is obviously a problem with their particular lines but she has been at eircom for years to sort it out. She even got another line from vodafone but they just connected from the same one basically.

A fault wouldnt prevent that, if there was a fault when you rang they'd escalate it as it'd be effecting the current service.

Most likely at the end of the row you're fed from an alternate drop point. Each pole does between 5 and 12 homes typically, so the row before them could go back to an enabled cab while her and her neighbour are fed in the opposite direction back to a cab that isnt enabled. They'll get sorted in a similar fashion to what BT are doing later in the rollout.

murphaph

ffactj wrote: »

It should be there though.
My sister is 300 meters from the cabinet and would gladly pay for the connection.
Eircom wont let her though. All of the rest of the houses in her estate apart from her and her next door neighbour have fibre. There is obviously a problem with their particular lines but she has been at eircom for years to sort it out. She even got another line from vodafone but they just connected from the same one basically.

This doesn't sound like a line fault at all to me.

We're buying a site for a house right now. Number 15+ on the road can order VDSL. We're at number 12 and can't, because our 50 pair cable (or whatever it is) runs the other way to a cabinet on the corner with no VDSL (that's if it doesn't run straight back to the exchange-we don't know that much). Your sister probably has the very same issue. Ordering a new line and it having the same characteristics supports that view (ie, not a line fault, just a different route, possibly exchange fed even).

There's no quick or easy fix for these scenarios. The telephone system wasn't laid out with xDSL in mind. These issues arise the world over.

ffactj

murphaph wrote: »

This doesn't sound like a line fault at all to me.

We're buying a site for a house right now. Number 15+ on the road can order VDSL. We're at number 12 and can't, because our 50 pair cable (or whatever it is) runs the other way to a cabinet on the corner with no VDSL (that's if it doesn't run straight back to the exchange-we don't know that much). Your sister probably has the very same issue. Ordering a new line and it having the same characteristics supports that view (ie, not a line fault, just a different route, possibly exchange fed even).

There's no quick or easy fix for these scenarios. The telephone system wasn't laid out with xDSL in mind. These issues arise the world over.

We have verified with eircom (after a lot of being messed about) that she is on the same cabinet as other houses who have fibre.
Also verified with them that its a line fault, but then they go back to the "we are only required to provide voice service" line.

So, as i suggested, a third party that you can pay to solve the problem without having to go through Eircoms automatons who will not cooperate is whats required.

lucernarian

ffactj wrote: »

We have verified with eircom (after a lot of being messed about) that she is on the same cabinet as other houses who have fibre.
Also verified with them that its a line fault, but then they go back to the "we are only required to provide voice service" line.

So, as i suggested, a third party that you can pay to solve the problem without having to go through Eircoms automatons who will not cooperate is whats required.

If it is on a VDSL enabled cabinet, order a new line. It may not pass initially but it will pass once the prequal is done. If a linesman comes to install, explain the situation and he or she could say if there will be any problems or what the problems could be. If there is likely to be problems just cancel the install.

Is this a good plan or am I leaving out something important? Also in the case of the vodafone install attempt, in what way were they using the same line? Were they going to install a splitter (aka a pairgain) or did they say that it was another cable from the same bunch? If its another cable, it might not have a fault even if the existing one has. One other thing. Is there DSL on the line and how well/fast does it work?

Mayo Yid

This ordering a new line thing is nonsense, you will most likely end up with the same path as there are limited pairs available. Vodafone sales use this as a sales tactic, assure the customer they'll get a new line, it rarely works

lucernarian

Mayo Yid wrote: »

This ordering a new line thing is nonsense, you will most likely end up with the same path as there are limited pairs available. Vodafone sales use this as a sales tactic, assure the customer they'll get a new line, it rarely works

If another line is ordered while keeping the existing line line in place, how is it even possible for a line to have the "same path"? Unless it is pairgained, a new line has to be a physically different pair to an existing one also it should be easy to cancel said install within cooling-off period.

If there are no existing pairs available, the linesman is supposed to inform the customer were the customer ordering broadband at the same time.

Mayo Yid

Because it's very possible the new pair will suffer the same problems, it's part of the same main cable and most likely connects to the same block at the cab

ED E

And most likely its part of the same drop wire.

lucernarian

I don't really know why this point is even being discussed. If it doesn't do any harm to order a new line and then cancel install if things won't work out, why would anybody not do it?! Common sense surely?

Again with common sense, there are probably many other customers all happily using VDSL in this main cable, we'll call it the 100-pair cable running under footpaths back to the cab and all sharing a krone block with no issues. And what about the other neighbours possibly being served by the same DP who have efibre?

As for the drop wire, this could well be a problem and it will likely be used for new install depending on how lazy linesman is or how old it cable is (if it is 1 or 2 pair wire) or how much time there is for install and so on. But if there is a problem noted during install, a replacement drop wire is something that could be done there and then, especially if all overhead or else in ducting for a less than 15 or so yr old house build.

Mayo Yid

No harm i suppose, but don't be expecting magical results.

dbit

More pre electoral Guff ?? Or are there any indications as to who will take this task on ??
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/39477-irish-govt-plans-fibre-roll

garroff

http://www.wlp.ie/rural-broadband-connected-communities/89-rural-broadband-pilot-scheme/796-pilot-scheme-rural-broadband

Have a look at this. Is this going to be a success...does it offer new hope for rural broadband?

bk

garroff wrote: »

http://www.wlp.ie/rural-broadband-connected-communities/89-rural-broadband-pilot-scheme/796-pilot-scheme-rural-broadband

Have a look at this. Is this going to be a success...does it offer new hope for rural broadband?

No, time and time again we hear promises about wireless tech like this and it always fails to deliver.

And what is the point of just barely reaching the 30Mb/s minimum.

Will people in rural Ireland be happy with just 30Mb/s in 2020 when all their urban cousins have 1Gb/s?

For a chance we need to do this properly and finally solve the urban/rural divide once and for all.

garroff

Thats fine but if we can get 30Mb short term.....who wants to wait 10 years to (may be) get 100.
At present I get 3Mb on a good day. If I can get 30Mb next year I know I will grab it.

bk

garroff wrote: »

Thats fine but if we can get 30Mb short term.....who wants to wait 10 years to (may be) get 100.
At present I get 3Mb on a good day. If I can get 30Mb next year I know I will grab it.

But the NBP is talking about delivering 1Gb/s FTTH over the next three years.

Cheap and crap solutions like this just delay the rollout of the proper long term solution. Lets stop hurting ourselves like this!

MajesticDonkey

bk wrote: »

But the NBP is talking about delivering 1Gb/s FTTH over the next three years.

Is the plan to have it fully DELIVERED in three years? I was thinking it was 5-8 years off?

garroff

Once the election is over you will find that all talk of 1Gb broadband will be scaled back. Telecom, at present, has a near monopoly on rural internet. I expect this company, which is nearly broke will do all it can to stop any upgrade of rural broadband.
I believe that the systems already proposed will not advance rural internet in the next 5 years.

ItHurtsWhenIP

Those Wuhan Vstar folks came to my neck of the woods in Tipp during their nationwide tour. From what I gathered they are talking about rolling out 4G gear and allowing the local FWA and mobile operators utilize their equipment.

They'd co-locate where possible, but likely need to put up additional towers to cover what they promise.

They hated the notion of us being sold "up to xMbps". They wanted to provide a service that would pretty much guarantee "speeds of xMbps".

If the pilot proves successful they would expand the scheme nationwide, but also at the same time start back filling with FTTH where possible.

It seemed to good to be true, but I am hoping that it will deliver and quickly.

ItHurtsWhenIP

bk wrote: »

But the NBP is talking about delivering 1Gb/s FTTH over the next three years.

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Is the plan to have it fully DELIVERED in three years? I was thinking it was 5-8 years off?

I think MajesticDonkey is slightly righter than you bk.

The current operators continue what they're doing in the Blue areas and then from 2017-2020 the chosen NBP provider(s) will tackle the Amber areas.

Of course by then the Sinn Fein government, propped up by 45 independents, will be focussed on fixing pot holes in Drumlish, Co. Longford and will not want to spend any money on this vital service.

Danny Boy

MMFITWGDV wrote: »

Those Wuhan Vstar folks came to my neck of the woods in Tipp during their nationwide tour. From what I gathered they are talking about rolling out 4G gear and allowing the local FWA and mobile operators utilize their equipment.

They'd co-locate where possible, but likely need to put up additional towers to cover what they promise.

They hated the notion of us being sold "up to xMbps". They wanted to provide a service that would pretty much guarantee "speeds of xMbps".

If the pilot proves successful they would expand the scheme nationwide, but also at the same time start back filling with FTTH where possible.

It seemed to good to be true, but I am hoping that it will deliver and quickly.

For some reason the monorail song keeps ringing around my head when I read the above.....anyway an interesting interview with eircom CTO up on Silicon covering the Broadband plan etc........
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/40667-the-interview-geoff/

dalta5billion

Danny Boy wrote: »

For some reason the monorail song keeps ringing around my head when I read the above.....anyway an interesting interview with eircom CTO up on Silicon covering the Broadband plan etc........
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/40667-the-interview-geoff/

Some tidbits from that piece.

Eircom really likes caching, because it saves them money. Unfortunately caching is one step along the road towards "Hi Netflix, pay us money or your service will be ****". Indeed we've seen Eircom's peerings continually max out to the detriment of users and frustration of service providers.

ItHurtsWhenIP

Danny Boy wrote: »

For some reason the monorail song keeps ringing around my head when I read the above.....

I know, I know ... it's been bugging the bejaypers outta me.

Why are they doing it?

Whats in it for them?

Two very important questions, that I would need answered satisfactorily.

But come on ... to somebody stuck on 3/1Mbps(ish) ... a guarantee of 10 times that within 3-6 months ...

Danny Boy

dalta5billion wrote: »

Some tidbits from that piece.

Eircom really likes caching, because it saves them money. Unfortunately caching is one step along the road towards "Hi Netflix, pay us money or your service will be ****". Indeed we've seen Eircom's peerings continually max out to the detriment of users and frustration of service providers.

Can BK or someone explain the more technical parts around GPon and the NBP etc?

dbit

Carrier pigeon any one ? NBP seems a bit of a political namby pamby promise of nothing , the reason , its our government.

jaytobe

MMFITWGDV wrote: »

Those Wuhan Vstar folks came to my neck of the woods in Tipp during their nationwide tour. From what I gathered they are talking about rolling out 4G gear and allowing the local FWA and mobile operators utilize their equipment.

They'd co-locate where possible, but likely need to put up additional towers to cover what they promise.

They hated the notion of us being sold "up to xMbps". They wanted to provide a service that would pretty much guarantee "speeds of xMbps".

If the pilot proves successful they would expand the scheme nationwide, but also at the same time start back filling with FTTH where possible.

It seemed to good to be true, but I am hoping that it will deliver and quickly.

Find it hard to imagine a local company could not roll this out?

Also, the leadership program is government funded but they have decided to go it alone because of fears of the NBP being able to deliver.

one man clappin

While I would love for the NBP to be a success, I have my concerns.
I am working in the middle of Nenagh town and rang Eircom the other day to upgrade our line to Fibre, only to be told that the line is currently not activated and they do not know when it will be active for upgrade.

bk

Danny Boy wrote: »

Can BK or someone explain the more technical parts around GPon and the NBP etc?

Yes, actually some really interesting tidbits in this video and some really positive news.

So up till now we have been talking about FTTH like it is a singular thing. In fact FTTH can be implemented by dozens of different technologies and standards, all with different pros and cons. You have p2p, APON, GPON, 10GPON, WDM-PON, etc.

The "best" and most future proof is p2p (point to point) where each home gets it's own individual fiber from the exchange to their home. However obviously that is the most expensive option.

PON runs a single fiber from the exchange to the cabinet, where it is then optically split into 32 individual fibers from the cab to 32 homes. These 32 homes share the bandwidth of the single fiber running to the cabinet.

GPON seems to be the most popular FTTH technology being deployed at the moment throughout Europe. We have heard about both Eircom and ESB trialling GPON [1]

But now even better, we hear that Eircom are in fact using 10GPON, the faster evolution of GPON.

- GPON is 2.488 Gbit/s downstream and 1.244 Gbit/s upstream, divided by 32 customers, so max 76Mb/s per customer uncontented [2]

- 10GPON is 10 Gbit/s downstream and 2.5 Gbit/s upstream, divided by 32 customers, so max 312Mb/s down per customer uncontended

Eircom say they have 20 spare fibers running to each eFibre cab, so that is 20 x 32 = 620 homes that can be serviced by FTTH from each cab [3]

He also talks about G.Fast. He says G.Fast will serve 8 homes within 30 to 100 meters from the pole and it will be powered from the homes. In their trials they were getting 750Mb/s down, 250Mb/s up and seemed to be very happy with the performance of this technology.

As I expected they said G.Fast would be used as part of a FTTH rollout, using it in the cases where they would have to dig up a driveway, etc. to run a fiber connection into the home. So expect to see a mix of GPON and G.Fast

He also mentioned that they are trialling FTTH in Mayo so that they will be ready for the NBP. Again Eircom really seem to be pushing FTTH for the NBP which I think is great news.

[1] Up to now we had only heard of GPON being used. Now that Eircom is using 10GPON, then I'd be surprised if the ESB don't use it too. Perhaps this is the cause of the delay in the rollout of the ESB network.

[2] That is the max speed if all 32 people were using their connection to the max at the same time. That rarely happens in the real world. Speeds close to 1Gb/s should be possible most of the time.

[3] I assume they won't use all 24 pairs and keep a few as spares if another is damaged, etc. So I'd assume the total number of homes would be lower.

murphaph

Great to hear the concrete details of how many dark fibres they've connected to the VDSL cabinets. These are not the actions of a company that intends sitting on VDSL for all that long IMO. I believe they geneuinely see VDSL as a stopgap and are looking beyond it already.

This makes sense as they believe VDSL out in the sticks is more or less pointless as so few properties can benefit from each cabinet over copper. This means the VDSL rollout will essentially end as urban areas are saturated and they won't try to re-route copper bundles to nearer cabinets but rather just run fibre right to buildings (either FTTH or G.Fast, hardly makes a difference to end user).

Exciting times ahead for rural and urban users alike I think. If they manage to roll all this out I would expect Ireland to top the netindex stats as we would have so many Gbps users as a proportion of total users (roughly a third of the buildings in Ireland are in areas that Eircom only sees FTTH as the viable solution for). Can you imagine that?

Gonzo

one man clappin wrote: »

While I would love for the NBP to be a success, I have my concerns.
I am working in the middle of Nenagh town and rang Eircom the other day to upgrade our line to Fibre, only to be told that the line is currently not activated and they do not know when it will be active for upgrade.

If the NBP works out it will be far more reliable than the current eFibre roll-out which is only available in urban areas and even there it's a patchy service with many people missing out or getting speeds not much better than their current dsl due to being over 1km from the cabinet.

The new NBP should cover every home in rural areas just like electricity. Should also be offered to those in efibre areas who get no efibre or low efibre speeds due to distance from cabinet. the only problem with it, is we could be waiting years for this to finally get to our home.

bk

Gonzo wrote: »

The new NBP should cover every home in rural areas just like electricity. Should also be offered to those in efibre areas who get no efibre or low efibre speeds due to distance from cabinet. the only problem with it, is we could be waiting years for this to finally get to our home.

Given that they have already laid 20 extra fibers to each VDSL cab, that is clearly the plan.

I'd imagine they will sell FTTH in urban areas at a premium cost to VDSL.

So that people who get a decent speed 70Mb/s or better will probably stick with it for the foreseeable future. But those on low VDSL speeds are encouraged to order the premium FTTH service.

murphaph

Gonzo wrote: »

If the NBP works out it will be far more reliable than the current eFibre roll-out which is only available in urban areas and even there it's a patchy service with many people missing out or getting speeds not much better than their current dsl due to being over 1km from the cabinet.

The new NBP should cover every home in rural areas just like electricity. Should also be offered to those in efibre areas who get no efibre or low efibre speeds due to distance from cabinet. the only problem with it, is we could be waiting years for this to finally get to our home.

The VDSL rollout has revolutionised how I communicate with my family at home. They went from 3Mb down and god knows what up to 30/10 as the cabinet brought the fibre backhaul about 5km closer to their house.

Skype/Hangouts are now a pleasure in excellent quality with almost no pixellation and perfect sound. They are around 700m from the cabinet. people closer would have previously had ADSL similar to what my mother had, but they will now be on 100/20. That is an incredible difference.

Eircom has installed over 4k cabinets so far. They have brought fibre far closer to hundreds of thousands of properties than before.

Gonzo

murphaph wrote: »

The VDSL rollout has revolutionised how I communicate with my family at home. They went from 3Mb down and god knows what up to 30/10 as the cabinet brought the fibre backhaul about 5km closer to their house.

Skype/Hangouts are now a pleasure in excellent quality with almost no pixellation and perfect sound. They are around 700m from the cabinet. people closer would have previously had ADSL similar to what my mother had, but they will now be on 100/20. That is an incredible difference.

Eircom has installed over 4k cabinets so far. They have brought fibre far closer to hundreds of thousands of properties than before.

that is all very true and great for those who can get decent efibre speeds but there are plenty of people who are not so lucky:

1 - They are on direct fed lines and can't avail of service but may get something once direct fed lines are enabled if they are close to exchange via line length. The Direct Fed fibre solution will probably only really benefit those who currently can't get efibre but live within 1km of the exchange/main street.

2 - Those who are more than 1.2km, particularly 1.5km only get very average speeds if they are lucky to get efibre. Some here have reported slower efibre than their current dsl speeds or exactly the same. (7-12megs)
Speeds of 30megs and under will just be so outdated by 2020.

3 - The rest of us who can't get anything other than dialup/ISDN/dongles/satellite/wireless/DSL.

I personally can't wait for this NBP rural fibre scheme to get going. It will fix all of the above, not just rural homes but some urban ones as well and finally put an end to the ever increasing digital divide.

dbit

Looking at the latest offerings from ibup and euro sat , these services are useless for gamers . Ping /latencies are awful . I pray to god that the NBP is a success but as with most government announced news , is ti really to be believed . NBP is something that's been on the back burner for so long and throwing money at private ISP's has done nothing to improve the situation.

I want it to go well , just dont think it will esp when we see things like this : -
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1029987353683488&pnref=story

Sorry for FB link cannot find the orig , i know water related stuff doesnt belong here only its a good example of our gobsh|t3 gov and the antics they get up to .

murphaph

Gonzo wrote: »

that is all very true and great for those who can get decent efibre speeds but there are plenty of people who are not so lucky:

1 - They are on direct fed lines and can't avail of service but may get something once direct fed lines are enabled if they are close to exchange via line length. The Direct Fed fibre solution will probably only really benefit those who currently can't get efibre but live within 1km of the exchange/main street.

2 - Those who are more than 1.2km, particularly 1.5km only get very average speeds if they are lucky to get efibre. Some here have reported slower efibre than their current dsl speeds or exactly the same. (7-12megs)
Speeds of 30megs and under will just be so outdated by 2020.

3 - The rest of us who can't get anything other than dialup/ISDN/dongles/satellite/wireless/DSL.

I personally can't wait for this NBP rural fibre scheme to get going. It will fix all of the above, not just rural homes but some urban ones as well and finally put an end to the ever increasing digital divide.

If the VDSL rollout hadn't happened FTTH would remain a pipedream for the likes of you. Fibre has to be driven out in some sort of structured way and the VDSL cabinets (which in the future will just be pure fibre nodes at some stage) serve this purpose really well.

You're the very type of "semi-rural" customer who is likely to be routed to a VDSL cabinet with fibre. They won't run a new fibre line all the way back from your house and slavishly follow the old copper run.

Are you DF or just too far from the cabinet to get VDSL? If the latter then you will definitely benefit from the VDSL cabinet, if the former then I still suspect you'd be rerouted to a nearby VDSL cabinet. I just can't see any reason Eircom would run your FTTH line back to the exchange, just because your existing copper line may go there.

murphaph

dbit wrote: »

Looking at the latest offerings from ibup and euro sat , these services are useless for gamers . Ping /latencies are awful . I pray to god that the NBP is a success but as with most government announced news , is ti really to be believed . NBP is something that's been on the back burner for so long and throwing money at private ISP's has done nothing to improve the situation.

I want it to go well , just dont think it will esp when we see things like this : -
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1029987353683488&pnref=story

Sorry for FB link cannot find the orig , i know water related stuff doesnt belong here only its a good example of our gobsh|t3 gov and the antics they get up to .

IW is a bloody shambles but to be fair they have seemingly mapped the whole country for this NBP and that is a critical step in the process (and presumably not a quick or easy one). It bodes well for the plan IMO.

Nolars

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/40696-the-interview-alex-white/ So Yesterday was the deadline for submissions by interested parties on the mapping exercise.

By next year 2016 the very first people in broadband-deprived areas will be receiving their first proper broadband services.

“My hope and aspiration is that the last person will be reached by 2020,” Minister White said.

“It is a project that will take the order of three to five years to build out and we will have shovels in the ground by next year. 2019 is possible, but our best estimate is 2020 is achievable and at the same time realistic for the very last person to be connected to fibre. Worst case scenario is 2021.”

MajesticDonkey

Nolars wrote: »

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/40696-the-interview-alex-white/ So Yesterday was the deadline for submissions by interested parties on the mapping exercise.

Well all that sounds lovely, but what happens when he loses post in May/June?

Johnboy1951

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Well all that sounds lovely, but what happens when he loses post in May/June?

I guess if we want any leverage we had better vote him back in again

rob808

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Well all that sounds lovely, but what happens when he loses post in May/June?

I think when the contracts are sign it won't matter who elected into government because don't think they can change it but correct me if I'm wrong.

Gonzo

murphaph wrote: »

Are you DF or just too far from the cabinet to get VDSL? If the latter then you will definitely benefit from the VDSL cabinet, if the former then I still suspect you'd be rerouted to a nearby VDSL cabinet. I just can't see any reason Eircom would run your FTTH line back to the exchange, just because your existing copper line may go there.

I am both! I have a direct fed line as do all the houses around here. My line length to the exchange is 2.9km. My modem syncs at just about 10megs.

The distance to the nearest cabinet is 1.7km by road length. Basically the efibre in Dunshaughlin is highly concentrated in the centre of the town and does not extend beyond 500meters from the main street.

The road I live on has ribbon development for about 1km and so has 2 other roads close by that join onto the road I live on. About 60 houses in the area. There is also a shop, some engineering company and a few small business in the area.

murphaph

We bought a site in Brieselang. It's a dormer town outside Berlin. It has 12k inhabitants and as you can see is has no ribbon development outside the built up area (it's forbidden here). So, our site is about 800metres from the exchange as the crow flies. At our site we will get a maximum of 12Mbps-we know this from the neighbours (ADSL maxes out here at 16 anyway). A town like that in Ireland would probably have at least VDSL 100/20 to most/all of the properties and possibly also UPC.

I was under the impression you were getting like 1 or 2 Mbps. 10Mbps while you're waiting for FTTH is surely not soooo bad.

Gonzo

murphaph wrote: »

We bought a site in Brieselang. So, our site is about 800metres from the exchange as the crow flies. At our site we will get a maximum of 12Mbps-we know this from the neighbours (ADSL maxes out here at 16 anyway). A town like that in Ireland would probably have at least VDSL 100/20 to most/all of the properties and possibly also UPC.

I was under the impression you were getting like 1 or 2 Mbps. 10Mbps while you're waiting for FTTH is surely not soooo bad.

8-10meg is not the worst but it's just a case of being so near getting 100/20 just a 20 minute walk from the door that's annoying. But at least this issue should be fixed within the next 5 to 6 years. But before that happens the current connections are going to feel much slower in the year's to come before it's fixed as the internet is getting progressively much more connection intense as the months/years slip by.

Surprised by the connection speeds in Germany, I would have taught that most if not all customers could get at least 50megs+ in rural Germany and at least 100megs+ in all towns and cities! I thought it was fibre all the way throughout countries like The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden!.

bk

Gonzo wrote: »

8-10meg is not the worst but it's just a case of being so near getting 100/20 just a 20 minute walk from the door that's annoying. But at least this issue should be fixed within the next 5 to 6 years. But before that happens the current connections are going to feel much slower in the year's to come before it's fixed as the internet is getting progressively much more connection intense as the months/years slip by.

Yes and that is exactly what the minister said in his recent interview.

That it will be very tough as people see high speed broadband get closer and closer to them, neighbouring villages, etc. getting FTTH, while still being stuck on crappy connections themselves.

In fact we already see that here on boards. You often see rural people complaining about urban people finally getting decent high speed broadband or that their village is getting 100Mb/s VDSL. All the while ignoring the fact that that means 100,000's of people who previously had slow connections now have great connections and that it is gradually getting closer and closer to them.

People can be quiet narrow minded like that.

However if it means that we finally put high quality infrastructure in place and finally eliminate the urban/rural divide completely, then it will be well worth waiting for.

I agree with the Minister that expectations need to be carefully set and managed not to upset people.

Personally as long as I see this project actually start, people actually getting connected to it, good technology being used (e.g. FTTH) and a very clear and transparent timeline as to when people will be connected. Then I think it is ok if it takes 5 years.

What I worry most is if it survives a change in government.

Gonzo wrote: »

Surprised by the connection speeds in Germany, I would have taught that most if not all customers could get at least 50megs+ in rural Germany and at least 100megs+ in all towns and cities! I thought it was fibre all the way throughout countries like The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden!.

Norway, Sweden (along with Lithuania and Latvia) yes, all heavily use FTTH. The rest no, they tend to be stuck largely on xDSL tech (even ADSL2+ instead of Vectorized VDSL) and cable.

In many ways they are now well behind urban Ireland and Ireland is likely to speed past many of these countries over the next two years.