NBP: National Broadband Plan Announced

turbbo

I don't think Eir will walk away from handy cash that easy.

Gonzo

ezra_ wrote: »

Does this mean that FTTH lines that have begun but not yet completed will stall?

Or that no new work will commence?

Eir will finish the areas they have started work on. I've a feeling they will finish the majority of their 300k rollout, or hopefully all of it.

I'm also guessing that Eir will make an urban FTTH rollout announcement before December 2018 to fully concentrate back in familiar urban locations once the 300k rollout is finished.

dashoonage

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/eir-withdraws-from-government-s-broadband-scheme-1.3375213

The times saying the have quit.

turbbo

BarryM wrote: »

Maybe, but I suspect the real reason is the ESB pays its owner, the Minister, a substantial "dividend" every year, in the millions. Smells of Dept of Finance meddling. 
The really logical thing is that the ESB has a line into every house in the country, properly managed it could be providing a whole range of services. Admittedly it requires some tweaking but today's technology can provide that. OTOH they haven't even got anywhere with intelligent metering, which would save them millions. 
Several turf battles I'd say, is the real reason, never mind the economic value to the country.

Could also be lack of technical expertise in the area to take on the project. But the market is theirs for the taking when you think about it.

tsue921i8wljb3

Gonzo wrote: »

Eir will finish the areas they have started work on. I've a feeling they will finish the majority of their 300k rollout, or hopefully all of it.

I'm also guessing that Eir will make an urban FTTH rollout announcement before December 2018 to fully concentrate back in familiar urban locations once the 300k rollout is finished.

I would not be so sure that areas that may not yet have been started will now be completed. Obviously relations between the Department and eir have completely soured so they might just pay whatever paltry fine and abandon the 300K project completely.

turbbo

dashoonage wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/eir-withdraws-from-government-s-broadband-scheme-1.3375213

The times saying the have quit.

Class. Wonder what will happen the 2nd half 2018 exchange areas now. Could be a different take on those now too like somebody posted on one of these threads last week.

tsue921i8wljb3

turbbo wrote: »

Class. Wonder what will happen the 2nd half 2018 exchange areas now. Could be a different take on those now too like somebody posted on one of these threads last week.

See above. They may be for the chop I reckon.

turbbo

Siena Gigantic Backyard wrote: »

I would not be so sure that areas that may not yet have been started will now be completed. Obviously relations between the Department and eir have completely soured so they might just pay whatever paltry fine and abandon the 300K project completely.

Absofu@kinglutely.

BarryM

turbbo wrote: »

BarryM wrote: »

Maybe, but I suspect the real reason is the ESB pays its owner, the Minister, a substantial "dividend" every year, in the millions. Smells of Dept of Finance meddling. 
The really logical thing is that the ESB has a line into every house in the country, properly managed it could be providing a whole range of services. Admittedly it requires some tweaking but today's technology can provide that. OTOH they haven't even got anywhere with intelligent metering, which would save them millions. 
Several turf battles I'd say, is the real reason, never mind the economic value to the country.

Could also be lack of technical expertise in the area to take on the project. But the market is theirs for the taking when you think about it.

IF they were interested they could a) take in partners with the knowhow and b) get on with upgrading the network.

TomOnBoard

Eir''s new owners have taken any further investment in rural broadband off the table. Future investment will be focused on improving urban services.

I'd say any area where there's already been considerable investment to service the 300000 households will probably be finished. However any other areas where investment has not begun will be long fingered unless it makes sense from their perspective as a means of shutting any other competition out.

The so-called National Broadband Plan is FUBAR no matter what steps are now taken by Government to react to this Eir announcement.

user1842

Denis Naughten should now most certainly resign as Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment.

turbbo

TomOnBoard wrote: »

Eir''s new owners have taken any further investment in rural broadband off the table. Future investment will be focused on improving urban services.

I'd say any area where there's already been considerable investment to service the 300000 households will probably be finished. However any other areas where investment has not begun will be long fingered unless it makes sense from their perspective as a means of shutting any other competition out.

The so-called National Broadband Plan is FUBAR no matter what steps are now taken by Government to react to this Eir announcement.

NBP was always FUBAR. This is progress in that we're all starting to see that.

turbbo

user1842 wrote: »

Denis Naughten should now most certainly resign as Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment.

Him and all of the Dept. should get the sack too. Won't happen will it?

Johnboy1951

dashoonage wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/eir-withdraws-from-government-s-broadband-scheme-1.3375213

The times saying the have quit.

Some of the same BS reporting ...

The Government’s controversial decision to allow Eir effectively remove 300,000 homes from the department’s original plan ...

(emphasis mine)

The Gov had no real choice in the matter and probably did well to get an agreement signed at all.

The remaining 450,000 homes are located in the hardest-to-reach places and will require a significantly bigger State subsidy.

Bigger than what?
Certainly not bigger than it would have been without the eir 300k being taken out.

Certainly a bigger average cost per premises because of spread of premises without the 300k ....... but no actual figures being quoted for us to compare, so we don't really know for sure if the overall cost will be bigger.

Speculation and guesswork presented as fact!

Gonzo

Siena Gigantic Backyard wrote: »

I would not be so sure that areas that may not yet have been started will now be completed. Obviously relations between the Department and eir have completely soured so they might just pay whatever paltry fine and abandon the 300K project completely.

I'm beginning to think your right. The rumours last week of Eir swapping rural homes for urban fringe homes could be based on the fact that they knew they were already quitting the NBP at that stage.

From now on they will only focus on speed/fibre upgrades to urban areas and the rural areas which already have FTTH in place.

Persiancowboy

If this is true then it’s a total disaster for rural areas. It also highlights the essential weakness in the department’s strategy from the start...a slavish almost servile attitude towards eir whereby the company has been allowed call most of the shots in the process to date. Eir has never been properly challenged on the long list of mostly false promises and commitments they have made...a thoroughly unprofessional and untrustworthy shower of bastards who have no regard for anyone except lining their own pockets (which the senior management did following the recent sale of the company).

Now we are left with enet...a classic case of last man standing. Meanwhile out in the wings the modest and low-profile Seán Bolger and Imagine are waiting patiently to swoop like vultures on what’s left. A truly great f**king day.

Johnboy1951

Gonzo wrote: »

I'm beginning to think your right. The rumours last week of Eir swapping rural homes for urban fringe homes could be based on the fact that they knew they were already quitting the NBP at that stage.

From now on they will only focus on speed/fibre upgrades to urban areas and the rural areas which already have FTTH in place.

Beginning to look that way ...... awful sinking feeling here

turbbo

Persiancowboy wrote: »

If this is true then it’s a total disaster for rural areas. It also highlights the essential weakness in the department’s strategy from the start...a slavish almost servile attitude towards eir whereby the company has been allowed call most of the shots in the process to date. Eir has never been properly challenged on the long list of mostly false promises and commitments they have made...a thoroughly unprofessional and untrustworthy shower of bastards who have no regard for anyone except lining their own pockets (which the senior management did following the recent sale of the company).

Now we are left with enet...a classic case of last man standing. Meanwhile out in the wings the modest and low-profile SeBolger and Imagine are waiting patiently to swoop like vultures on what’s left. A truly great f**king day.

Watch this space the Dept. and Naughten will be brown nosing Eir pretty soon to get them back in the tender.

purpleisafruit

I live in a rural village of about 100 premises. Large town is 4km away from me. Rural FTTH is being brought to about 1km from our village with the NBP supposed to take care of us. To hear that NBP may be dead is so disheartening.
1km of cabling will give fibre to the whole village and revitalise the area completely

turbbo

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Beginning to look that way ...... awful sinking feeling here

I stopped giving a $hite years ago. I'm resigned to the fact I'll have a max 2.5mb connection as long as I live in this pox of a country.

plodder

Wouldn't be surprised if it's a row over timescales. Govt reflecting public desire to have it yesterday and Eir being more realistic. So maybe, it's not quite the bonanza for Eir that some were saying.

I still believe that sooner or later (albeit more likely later now) the entire country will be covered with fibre one way or another.

IT saying they have withdrawn.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/eir-withdraws-from-government-s-broadband-scheme-1.3375213

TomOnBoard

turbbo wrote: »

Him and all of the Dept. should get the sack too. Won't happen will it?

The Dept have simply been played by the big players for a looolong time, going back to O'Brien's winning the mobile licence in the 90s and the privatisation of Telecom Eireann when O'Rourke was jn charge. The Dept have proved incapable of providing strong telecoms leadership for decades. The NBP is simply another example of that.

Naughten is only the Dept's most recent puppet and would be an easy target for a resignation while the civil service mandarins with the real power and culpability will meet over their G&Ts to plan the next fiasco while they huff and puff about Eir having now followed ESB/Vodafone out of NBP.

Schorpio

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Some of the same BS reporting ...

The remaining 450,000 homes are located in the hardest-to-reach places and will require a significantly bigger State subsidy.

Statements like this grind my gears. Yes, there are some properly rural areas here, but I'm in the NBP and I'm located on the edge of Cork City about 1 mile away from existing fibre. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Hardest to reach you say?!

turbbo

purpleisafruit wrote: »

I live in a rural village of about 100 premises. Large town is 4km away from me. Rural FTTH is being brought to about 1km from our village with the NBP supposed to take care of us. To hear that NBP may be dead is so disheartening.
1km of cabling will give fibre to the whole village and revitalise the area completely

it's a pure kicking! considering the cost is so little compared to what we squander on the HSE and other badly ran departments.

turbbo

Schorpio wrote: »

Statements like this grind my gears. Yes, there are some properly rural areas here, but I'm in the NBP and I'm located on the edge of Cork City about 1 mile away from existing fibre. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Hardest to reach you say?!

Yup in the same boat and you'd swear that this was in anyway different that rolling out copper phone lines in the 60's - if anything it should be a lot easier now.

tsue921i8wljb3

The Department are ploughing ahead with enet apparently.

https://twitter.com/adrianweckler/status/958727512611262464

https://twitter.com/adrianweckler/status/958727892292300800

purpleisafruit

Schorpio wrote: »

Statements like this grind my gears. Yes, there are some properly rural areas here, but I'm in the NBP and I'm located on the edge of Cork City about 1 mile away from existing fibre. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Hardest to reach you say?!

I'm about 10km from the city, I can understand the difficulty of running fibre to a place in the Black Valley or Bere Island or somewhere but within 20 mins of the 2nd city and no broadband other than wireless options.

turbbo

Siena Gigantic Backyard wrote: »

The Department are ploughing ahead with enet apparently.

https://twitter.com/adrianweckler/status/958727512611262464

https://twitter.com/adrianweckler/status/958727892292300800

Tender for 1 - only in ireland.

AngryGoldfish

I didn't have very high hopes for this actually coming to fruition. Actual broadband won't come to my area or the thousands of other areas in the country until the very last minute, which will likely be well beyond 2020. Only when it becomes laughable will anything be done. The tragic thing is, I'm willing to pay a lot for broadband, and I'd wager a few of us on my road and neighbouring roads would too. It's a compromise I'd be willing to make so that I could stay rural and not have to deal with being in an urban area.

shigllgetcha

I think its a shame that the only provider that was actually rolling out fibre to rural areas is out.

Whatever you think of Eir and their motives with 300k they have the experience and personnel in place to roll out the NBP.

KOR101

Siena Gigantic Backyard wrote: »

The Department are ploughing ahead with enet apparently.

https://twitter.com/adrianweckler/status/958727512611262464

https://twitter.com/adrianweckler/status/958727892292300800

Enet are at least more biddable.

I think I remember a report that the Department was unhappy about the amount of wireless that Enet were proposing.

There is actually no harm in progressing with Enet and seeing whether they can get it done for an acceptable price and with acceptable technology. I guess things will be held up until the proposed legislation passes and any challenges are dealt with. Eir withdrawing suggests they don't think they face any sort of real threat to their rural monopoly.

turbbo

shigllgetcha wrote: »

I think its a shame that the only provider that was actually rolling out fibre to rural areas is out.

Whatever you think of Eir and their motives with 300k they have the experience and personnel in place to roll out the NBP.

It was a shame when Siro pulled out too - the idea of a tender process is that you have bidders. Having 2 bidders was just barely acceptable having one bidder is laughable.

purpleisafruit

I'm at a point where I don't care who supplies broadband to me as long as it's unlimited/high usage limit and the speed is consistent 24/7.

Gonzo

shigllgetcha wrote: »

I think its a shame that the only provider that was actually rolling out fibre to rural areas is out.

Whatever you think of Eir and their motives with 300k they have the experience and personnel in place to roll out the NBP.

that's very true. I am not a fan of Eir the retail end of things, but they were the only company doing anything about proper broadband in rural areas. OpenEir with the help of KN were doing a very good job, however it is taking a lot slower than all of us originally hoped.

Now that they have learned how to do FTTH and see many of the problems associated with it, they can proceed to upgrade the urban areas currently left on aging copper. Even their FTTC network is aging and that has been far surpassed by Virgin Media. It is only a matter of time before Virgin offer speeds of 1000 megs and it's going to take Eir years to upgrade urban areas.

Rural areas that currently or soon will have FTTH live, will probably always get looked after too in regard to future speed upgrades, however I'd like to think there would at least be a plan to place to connect new homes along these existing rural fibre routes.

It's a real shame what has happened. Enet are now the only remaining party and there is rumours that they may pull the plug too. If they don't then how are they going to deliver to over 500k rural homes.

The only party who's probably throwing a party right now is Imagine. Their current LTE coverage zones are secured for a long time to come at this stage and can probably comfortably roll out more masts to more rural areas, knowing that Eir and Siro are out of the picture completely.

Johnboy1951

KOR101 wrote: »

Enet are at least more biddable.

I think I remember a report that the Department was unhappy about the amount of wireless that Enet were proposing.

There is actually no harm in progressing with Enet and seeing whether they can get it done for an acceptable price and with acceptable technology. I guess things will be held up until the proposed legislation passes and any challenges are dealt with. Eir withdrawing suggests they don't think they face any sort of real threat to their rural monopoly.

Makes me wonder ....... if eir could sue the gov if they changed their mind about the NBP, for the costs incurred in preparing their (eir) proposal, is there any way the gov could sue eir for pulling out of the process at this late stage, for all the costs incurred by the eir submission? ......... ok wishful thinking on my part, but it would seem that such a withdrawal should be subject to sanctions.
If only life were as simple as that ....

shigllgetcha

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Makes me wonder ....... if eir could sue the gov if they changed their mind about the NBP, for the costs incurred in preparing their (eir) proposal,

Highly unlikely, it was a tendering process, companies bid on tenders every day of the week that dont come to anything

Johnboy1951

shigllgetcha wrote: »

Highly unlikely, it was a tendering process, companies bid on tenders every day of the week that dont come to anything

I think (though not sure) that having tendered they were then named as one of three on a short list, then they might well have some cause to seek redress.

TimHorton

shigllgetcha wrote: »

Highly unlikely, it was a tendering process, companies bid on tenders every day of the week that dont come to anything

So was giving eir the 300k low hanging fruit now an expensive mistake by the government ?

joe_99

TimHorton wrote: »

So was giving eir the 300k low hanging fruit now an expensive mistake by the government ?

The government didn't give eir the 300k. They had zero way of stopping a licenced network provider building a network.

tsue921i8wljb3

https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/eir-has-quit-the-national-broadband-plan-but-government-insists-rollout-will-continue-36552103.html

However, McCourt said that access to Eir infrastructure is “crucial” for the National Broadband Plan to succeed and that “more work has to be done” to make this happen.

This could be the next major stumbling block.

TimHorton

joe_99 wrote: »

The government didn't give eir the 300k. They had zero way of stopping a licenced network provider building a network.

Were the 300k not removed form the NBP and thus made the NBP less attractive to Vodafone/SIRO who pulled out soon after.

tsue921i8wljb3

joe_99 wrote: »

The government didn't give eir the 300k. They had zero way of stopping a licenced network provider building a network.

That is true but it is looking likely now that the Department opted for the wrong ownership model. This project should have been built and owned by the State with capacity leased to operators as they required it. This option was turned down on cost reasons and perhaps political ideology. It is now coming back to bite them.

shigllgetcha

TimHorton wrote: »

Were they not removed form the NBP and thus made the NBP less attractive to Vodafone/SIRO who pulled out soon after.

Yeh but they couldnt stop eir going ahead and providing fibre if they wanted to. They were in the NBP because no one wanted to give them internet.

I dont know if there was a sweetheart deal or not though or Eir just felt that they could make money on the 300k or if they felt doing it would give them a stronger hand in the NBP tendering.

tsue921i8wljb3

TimHorton wrote: »

Were they not removed form the NBP and thus made the NBP less attractive to Vodafone/SIRO who pulled out soon after.

Yes but under State Aid rules the Government could not subsidise a network build where a commercial entity was operating.

shigllgetcha

Siena Gigantic Backyard wrote: »

This project should have been built and owned by the State with capacity leased to operators as they required it. This option was turned down on cost reasons and perhaps political ideology. It is now coming back to bite them.

Was there an issue over government funding this or off balance rubbish? Did they think it would be unattractive for a company to come in and build infrastructure that the government would own?

Edit just saw this

Yes but under State Aid rules the Government could not subsidise a network build where a commercial entity was operating.

Makes sense

adocholiday

Jaysis, as someone who was about to bid for a rural house that was outside of the 300k rollout I'm now seriously second guessing. I knew it wasn't something that was going to be resolved in the short term, but now that it may never happen I might pull the plug entirely

Gonzo

Siena Gigantic Backyard wrote: »

That is true but it is looking likely now that the Department opted for the wrong ownership model. This project should have been built and owned by the State with capacity leased to operators as they required it. This option was turned down on cost reasons and perhaps political ideology. It is now coming back to bite them.

similar to how the NBN is operated in Australia?

Gonzo

adocholiday wrote: »

Jaysis, as someone who was about to bid for a rural house that was outside of the 300k rollout I'm now seriously second guessing. I knew it wasn't something that was going to be resolved in the short term, but now that it may never happen I might pull the plug entirely

that's probably a wise move. If it was me, I could not move into a home that is facing years, possibly a decade or more of dongles or wireless operators. It would be much better to find a home in along the 300k rural scheme that is already passing by eircode for FTTH.

turbbo

adocholiday wrote: »

Jaysis, as someone who was about to bid for a rural house that was outside of the 300k rollout I'm now seriously second guessing. I knew it wasn't something that was going to be resolved in the short term, but now that it may never happen I might pull the plug entirely

It would be a major concern for me if I was buying a house.

Robxxx7

Siena Gigantic Backyard wrote: »

That is true but it is looking likely now that the Department opted for the wrong ownership model. This project should have been built and owned by the State with capacity leased to operators as they required it. This option was turned down on cost reasons and perhaps political ideology. It is now coming back to bite them.

Couldn't agree more ..

Forget this state aid rubbish .. important infrastructure should be owned by the state and leased to operators who require access and pay the price