Eir rural FTTH thread II

tsue921i8wljb3

Marlow wrote: »

It's actually quite funny ... ( actually to cry ) ....

a couple of the Kildare exchanges, like Calverstown, were recently FTTH enabled ... then flagged for either problems or all ports used up ... after a good chunk of FTTH have successfully been installed.

Now they're deploying FTTC to the same homes.

You in the Naas area by any chance ?

/M

They are in Wexford I believe.

Have they not got an exclusion area of X hundred metres around a new EVDSL exchange where they won't install FTTH? What is the point of installing the DSLAM in the first place if they are going to cannibalise it with FTTH?

Marlow

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

Have they not got an exclusion area of X hundred metres around a new EVDSL exchange where they won't install FTTH? What is the point of installing the DSLAM in the first place if they are going to cannibalise it with FTTH?

I haven't got the faintest ...

However, a couple observations:

there are a lot of villages, that have been marked completely for FTTH, yet there's an exchange or a cabinet in the village, that has been marked for FTTC upgrade.

It's always been puzzling, why that is.

Now, the case of the Calverstown exchange ... and the cabinets around there, my suspicion got confirmed:

On 8.8.2018, they listed all those homes in the fibrerollout map ready for FTTH. Roll-out ended up approx 2 weeks delayed, but that's whatever it is.

Now, as of 26.09.2018, the cabinets in that area are going live ... doubling up with FTTC on top of the FTTH already rolled out. In the meanwhile, they've flagged all FTTH ports unavailable again.

So either it's a stunt ... or they're having technical trouble and are compensating with VDSL, to avoid the storm.

Either way .. I've seen a good few places, that a planned like that.

Unfortunately .. as of tonight, the fibrerollout.ie map is entirely toast now. Somebody hasn't paid Google for API access.

/M

tsue921i8wljb3

Marlow wrote: »

I haven't got the faintest ...

However, a couple observations:

there are a lot of villages, that have been marked completely for FTTH, yet there's an exchange or a cabinet in the village, that has been marked for FTTC upgrade.

It's always been puzzling, why that is.

Now, the case of the Calverstown exchange ... and the cabinets around there, my suspicion got confirmed:

On 8.8.2018, they listed all those homes in the fibrerollout map ready for FTTH. Roll-out ended up approx 2 weeks delayed, but that's whatever it is.

Now, as of 26.09.2018, the cabinets in that area are going live ... doubling up with FTTC on top of the FTTH already rolled out. In the meanwhile, they've flagged all FTTH ports unavailable again.

So either it's a stunt ... or they're having technical trouble and are compensating with VDSL, to avoid the storm.

Either way .. I've seen a good few places, that a planned like that.

Unfortunately .. as of tonight, the fibrerollout.ie map is entirely toast now. Somebody hasn't paid Google for API access.

/M

The map has always said

Approximately 90-95% of the homes marked on the map will receive fibre broadband speeds of up to 1000Mb/s. Approximately 5-10% will receive fibre broadband speeds of up to 100Mb/s. Blue means services are planned for this premise. Green means services are now available to order.

I always assumed that the 5-10% was made up in the majority of those exchanges in small villages that were planned but not yet enabled. VDSL was always part of this plan.

It will be interesting to see if some of those homes in Calverstown disappear from the FTTH APQ.

Marlow

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

It will be interesting to see if some of those homes in Calverstown disappear from the FTTH APQ.

[RANT]
That's what they've done in the past (removing premises), but they've been caught out on that, as people keep historical files. So removing premises has backfired a few times too often.

So now, it seems, that they flag clusters as full instead.
[/RANT]

/M

Andy From Sligo

Marlow wrote: »

It's actually quite funny ... ( actually to cry ) ....

a couple of the Kildare exchanges, like Calverstown, were recently FTTH enabled ... then flagged for either problems or all ports used up ... after a good chunk of FTTH have successfully been installed.

Now they're deploying FTTC to the same homes.

You in the Naas area by any chance ?

/M

i reckon thats what may have happened in our area - because one minute it was showing up on airwire as "FTTH available now" ..... and now it says "available soon"

Andy From Sligo

Marlow wrote: »

...... Unfortunately .. as of tonight, the fibrerollout.ie map is entirely toast now. Somebody hasn't paid Google for API access.

/M

maybe its being updated

Marlow

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

i reckon thats what may have happened in our area - because one minute it was showing up on airwire as "FTTH available now" ..... and now it says "available soon"

No. In your area, there is no alternative. There it just means, they weren't quite ready or they have problems with the gear or cabling, that was installed.

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

maybe its being updated

No. I work with the API and maps like that every day. They've simply either not paid for their maps licensing (Google Maps API is not free anymore) or they forgot to renew their licensing. Either of the two scenarios is embarrassing. And ok, I could accept once, but this is twice in 3 months, meaning, that when they fixed it the last time they took a shortcut instead of doing it right.

It's not just the fibrerollout map. It's also all of the OpenEIR NGN and NGA maps.

/M

UrbanFret

Airwire: MartinL wrote: »

Fixed Wireless: The Aran Islands/Connemara to Athlone and Claremorris to Ennis.

SIRO: currently in Athlone, Carrickmines, Ennis, Limerick, Portlaoise, Shannon and Sligo.

Planned are: Carrick-On-Shannon, Castleconnell, Celbridge, Clarecastle, Galway, Kilcock, Leixlip, Longford, Maynooth, Roscommon and Sixmilebridge.

OpenEIR VDSL and FTTH: we can provide in the entire country, but can be selective. We have customers anywhere from Galway to Dublin and Donegal to Cork and Kerry. It depends a bit, what exchange zone/group of OpenEIR you are in as we prefer to have our own infrastructure in place and only use OpenEIR for the last mile.

West county cavan

Airwire: MartinL

UrbanFret wrote: »

West county cavan

Only VDSL and FTTH so, where available, but yes, we cover that area. Net1 do very decent fixed wireless using Jet in that area, if that's not an option.

m99T

Airwire: MartinL wrote: »

Only VDSL and FTTH so, where available, but yes, we cover that area. Net1 do very decent fixed wireless using Jet in that area, if that's not an option.

Real companies support competition. Always good things from Airwire and people always put first.

Airwire: MartinL

m99T wrote: »

Real companies support competition. Always good things from Airwire and people always put first.

No point in not giving people options. Competition keeps the market healthy.

Airwire: MartinL

We have updated the database for OpenEIR FTTC/FTTH today.

There was another update from OpenEIR on Wednesday, that we didn't spot in a timely fashion. So there are a few extra premises, that were added with that.

Additionally, we've updated our VDSL checker massively. We now have accurate data of all NGA and eVDSL cabinets integrated into the search, so if you're within 500m radius of a cabinet, it will list your home as enabled.

If you're within 1 km radius of a cabinet, it will tell you, that you are within reach, but should contact sales to get a precise idea, how far you are from the cabinet.

It still is a bit hit and miss, but it remedies the issue with premises, that are within VDSL coverage, but aren't in the qualification list, that OpenEIR provides us with. We can then attempt to add these manually.

It can be found at https://www.airwire.ie/avail

tsue921i8wljb3

Airwire: MartinL wrote: »

We have updated the database for OpenEIR FTTC/FTTH today.

There was another update from OpenEIR on Wednesday, that we didn't spot in a timely fashion. So there are a few extra premises, that were added with that.

Additionally, we've updated our VDSL checker massively. We now have accurate data of all NGA and eVDSL cabinets integrated into the search, so if you're within 500m radius of a cabinet, it will list your home as enabled.

If you're within 1 km radius of a cabinet, it will tell you, that you are within reach, but should contact sales to get a precise idea, how far you are from the cabinet.

It still is a bit hit and miss, but it remedies the issue with premises, that are within VDSL coverage, but aren't in the qualification list, that OpenEIR provides us with. We can then attempt to add these manually.

It can be found at https://www.airwire.ie/avail

How are you checking the distance from the cabinet?

Airwire: MartinL

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

How are you checking the distance from the cabinet?

We have the GPS coordinates for all cabinets. Unfortunately, there is no way to determine, how far the cable run is, so we're going by radius and discarding anyone over 500m.

That's pretty much in line with the way, it's been plotted on fibrerollout.ie in most places.

For those between 500m-1000m radius, we make them aware, that they are within reach of a cabinet, but it needs to be checked.

All of this is obviously only needed, if we don't have prequalification data for an Eircode.

tsue921i8wljb3

Airwire: MartinL wrote: »

We have the GPS coordinates for all cabinets. Unfortunately, there is no way to determine, how far the cable run is, so we're going by radius and discarding anyone over 500m.

That's pretty much in line with the way, it's been plotted on fibrerollout.ie in most places.

For those between 500m-1000m radius, we make them aware, that they are within reach of a cabinet, but it needs to be checked.

All of this is obviously only needed, if we don't have prequalification data for an Eircode.

I think you might be causing yourself support issues. There is no guarantee that a premises within 500m is actually connected to that particular cabinet. For estates it is probably a safe bet but there have been plenty of instances here where homes near cabinets are not actually connected and go back to exchanges KMs away.

For example I just checked an Eircode in the estate of the person that posted last night about his new build having no service. There is a cabinet a few hundred metres south of the estate but it's likely the estate will eventually get FTTH as the only service. Your cheker is now saying VDSL is available there presumably because of proximity to that cabinet.

Airwire: MartinL

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

I think you might be causing yourself support issues. There is no guarantee that a premises within 500m is actually connected to that particular cabinet. For estates it is probably a safe bet but there have been plenty of instances here where homes near cabinets are not actually connected and go back to exchanges KMs away.

For example I just checked an Eircode in the estate of the person that posted last night about his new build having no service. There is a cabinet a few hundred metres south of the estate but it's likely the estate will eventually get FTTH as the only service. Your cheker is now saying VDSL is available there presumably because of proximity to that cabinet.

We actually get a lot of queries like that, yes. It's the same with FTTH: new build houses or houses that have been left out because they are a bit too far from the road.

A lot of them, we've managed to add back in.

The problem we're facing, is that the prequalification list for VDSL is extremely poor. And a lot of the premises have to be migrated manually.

At 500m, I only see a few exceptional cases fall completely short.

The example you mention is fixable in my opinion. If the legwork is put in by the provider. Unfortunately, some of the larger providers don't have the escalation path in place to get this sorted. Well, unfortunate for those customers, who only try the larger providers. There's even quite a few cases in this thread, that eventually got connected, when they picked a regional provider, even though they were out of scope.

tsue921i8wljb3

Airwire: MartinL wrote: »

We actually get a lot of queries like that, yes. It's the same with FTTH: new build houses or houses that have been left out because they are a bit too far from the road.

A lot of them, we've managed to add back in.

The problem we're facing, is that the prequalification list for VDSL is extremely poor. And a lot of the premises have to be migrated manually.

At 500m, I've only see a fall exceptional cases fall completely short.

The example you mention is fixable in my opinion. If the legwork is put in by the provider. Unfortunately, some of the larger providers don't have the escalation path in place to get this sorted. Well, unfortunate for those customers, who only try the larger providers. There's even quite a few cases in this thread, that eventually got connected, when they picked a regional provider, even though they were out of scope.

I'm not sure you got my point which is in my opinion it may create dissatisfaction to give false hope to potential customers by saying a service is available that you cannot deliver.

Hypothetically speaking say a customer checks their Eircode in your site. It says VDSL is available. However they are connected directly to an exchange much further away and they can't get the service. The potential customer, not understanding the finer details of broadband technology, blames your company for giving false information and takes their business elsewhere.

I think it is always best to under promise rather than over promise.

Airwire: MartinL

I know exactly where you are coming from. And I agree with that as such.

The thing is, we've been running queries on a lot of lines for VDSL in the last months. Both using UG and and fibrerollout.ie as reference. Even UG comes back as "green" on these lines, but often refers to manual migration needed or line unknown, when they're with a third party LLU.

Even when they're connected back to the exchange currenty, they will be migrated. It takes some time, to sort this out. Typically 1-2 weeks. But it's possible to sort this most of the time.

The thing is, that these lines are still wired through the cabinets near the VDSL cab, so they tend to get patched over on the day, when the line is brought online as a VDSL line.

We've seen a lot of people stuck on ADSL1 and ADSL2+ infstructure, not because they can't be migrated, but because their provider goes by "computer says no".

As we don't provide any of the old bitstream products at all, we see all of this a bit from a different angle.

tsue921i8wljb3

Airwire: MartinL wrote: »

I know exactly where you are coming from. And I agree with that as such.

The thing is, we've been running queries on a lot of lines for VDSL in the last months. Both using UG and and fibrerollout.ie as reference. Even UG comes back as "green" on these lines, but often refers to manual migration needed or line unknown, when they're with a third party LLU.

Even when they're connected back to the exchange currenty, they will be migrated. It takes some time, to sort this out. Typically 1-2 weeks. But it's possible to sort this most of the time.

The thing is, that these lines are still wired through the cabinets near the VDSL cab, so they tend to get patched over on the day, when the line is brought as a VDSL line.

We've seen a lot of people stuck on ADSL1 and ADSL2+ infstructure, not because they can't be migrated, but because their provider goes by "computer says no".

As we don't provide any of the old bitstream products at all, we see all of this a bit from a different angle.

So you have managed to do what Openreach refer to as "network rearrangement" I.e. get lines migrated to a closer cabinet? I thought that was pretty much unheard of in Ireland.

Airwire: MartinL

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

So you have managed to do what Openreach refer to as "network rearrangement" I.e. get lines migrated to a closer cabinet? I thought that was pretty much unheard of in Ireland.

If the line is in a VDSL cabinet, it won't be moved to a nearer one. At least there is no process for that.

Taking a line, that is connected to an exchange and get it onto VDSL is not really a problem. It takes patience and it's a manual process. But it can be done in most cases. It's the same with adding houses within the FTTH rollout, new build or not. It's only problematic, if they're past the rollout.

If we find, that we're getting too many false positives, it's an easy process to adjust the product check. It would be preferable, if we had more accurate data, but even the data we get is often not that great.

We had a case recently, that was down as 60M/20M by OpenEIR. In the end, it came in at 22M/2M. After a more thorough reserach, the cable run (based on the distance by road) and also the attenuation were spot on for 1km .. 18-22 Mbit/s. And that was on a brand new line. It still worked out for that customer, because we only could have offered him 15 Mbit/s fixed wireless otherwise.

So we can't even rely on the data we get. Our best bet is a happy medium and then adjust, as we see, that it doesn't work out.

tsue921i8wljb3

Airwire: MartinL wrote: »

Taking a line, that is connected to an exchange and get it onto VDSL is not really a problem. It takes patience and it's a manual process. But it can be done in most cases.

You're the first person here I've heard say this. The received wisdom was that it was nigh on impossible. Good to know for future reference.

Airwire: MartinL

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

You're the first person here I've heard say this. The received wisdom was that it was nigh on impossible. Good to know for future reference.

If the line comes back as green on UG, then there is a good possibility of success. In some cases they simply have to run a new line. As they can't offer us the other products, it's either that or no business.

That is the advantage of not offering the old systems.

Andy From Sligo

why is there not more transparency of this infrastructure why have only (ISP and others) only got information for open eir problems in areas?

In an Ideal world and freedom of information acts, surely I should be able to go o open eir website and put in my area (or eircode) and be furnished with a idea of where the fault is in my area and an approximate date when the fault is due to be investigated/repaired so something like

"We have identified a fault in your area on pole xxx , in the Laragan area - the fault reported is a faulty DP and engineers expect to have this fault repaired within the next calendar month"

and also why make this APQ list secret as well and just have it only available to the ISP's and eir staff only - it would be beneficial for customers to see this list online i think.

and lastly how much weight do ISP's have to keep getting on to open-eir to get faults fixed and completion of fibre to go live in an area? (in other words give them pressure to finish the job!)

I just keep thinking that if I had really signed up with this door to door eir rep over 3 weeks ago now that I would still be waiting for the fibre to go live in this area and still not be able to have got it installed even now (so glad I refrained ordering with them now) so if I did sign up then and was on the phone to eir customer support and said that the rep said it was definately fibre live in the area and it will be installed within 3 weeks, how much weight could eir/other (isp) load onto open-eir (the people who install the fibre on the pole and do the infrastructure work) and KN (who come out and install the fibre cable / ODP /ONT to the house) - how much weight could they add to get things moving quickly? - (by even saying "look we need this fibre finalised an working for our customer because they have signed up with us and we cannot start charging them until they have the service up and running!" )

Marlow

You have no contractual agreement with OpenEir. They don't have to tell you anything.

Whatever provider you order from will have a contractual agreement with you. That provider needs to provide you with this information.

If you don't have a connection, you will need to talk to the Department of Communications or Comreg. As that's where your tax money goes. Again, they have an obligation, as you pay them money.

Simple economics.

Don't forget, that OpenEir is NOT government owned. Only government regulated. And the government did not pay for the 300k rollout.

/M

Andy From Sligo

Marlow wrote: »

You have no contractual agreement with OpenEir. They don't have to tell you anything.

Whatever provider you order from will have a contractual agreement with you. That provider needs to provide you with this information.

/M

agreed, they dont have to tell us anything ... but they could! - i mean otherwise why have they publish the broadband rollout map and other info on their pages (yes can be taken with a pinch of salt because so outdated info) but what I men is they dont have to tell us anything , but they have published them details

Marlow

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

agreed, they dont have to tell us anything ... but they could! - i mean otherwise why have they publish the broadband rollout map and other info on their pages (yes can be taken with a pinch of salt because so outdated info) but what I men is they dont have to tell us anything , but they have published them details

It's marketing, at best. That map was only actively maintained, while they were in the NBP process. They abandoned it, once they left that process. Didn't need to convince the Department anymore at that point.

Now, all they provide, is the quarterly update to the Department and the weekly updates to the providers. So that's who you need to speak to.

/M

Dunne_bkill

KN are out pulling cable in Ballinakill, Co. Laois today.

Andy From Sligo

Marlow wrote: »

It's marketing, at best. That map was only actively maintained, while they were in the NBP process. They abandoned it, once they left that process. Didn't need to convince the Department anymore at that point.

Now, all they provide, is the quarterly update to the Department and the weekly updates to the providers. So that's who you need to speak to.

/M

thanks. - is the weekly updates always provided on a Tuesday or does it vary do you know?

Marlow

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

thanks. - is the weekly updates always provided on a Tuesday or does it vary do you know?

Every provider is different and not every provider publishes every update. The updates from OpenEir can also vary. Also, not every provider puts the same effort into cleaning up the data. It's messy at best.

Again, it's down to whatever provider you go with.

/M

Rossi IRL

Just used the airwire checker there. Should be available in early October thank ****

I just hope the current duct I have will be OK. Its around 80 feet to the pole so quite a bit of digging if it's not OK.

It will be some upgrade from the current 2.5mb down.