Eir rural FTTH thread II

fritzelly

All good points Marlow but these are people that currently have that infrastructure in place and its not gonna be removed any time soon so why introduce a backwards profile? Still haven't seen a reason for it.
The only possible reason for maintaining copper lines is lifts etc for what I know as they are not future proofed for fibre but surely that would need to be changed. Maybe they should be moved to GSM and if you are stuck in a lift and not even power for a mobile connection then it's probably better you stay in the life...

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

makes you wonder if eir ripped out all the copper out of Ireland off the poles and everything and sold it off as scrap how much money they could get and plough it back into the system/infrastructure ...

Copper pretty high at the moment - some money to be made there!

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

All good points Marlow but these are people that currently have that infrastructure in place and its not gonna be removed any time soon so why introduce a backwards profile? Still haven't seen a reason for it.
The only possible reason for maintaining copper lines is lifts etc for what I know as they are not future proofed for fibre but surely that would need to be changed

It is.

You forget, that some of the switch board circuitry that OpenEir has is ancient. Eventually a line card somewhere in the arse end of nowhere is going to die and they can't find a replacement for that anymore.

That could render the entire rural or urban phone exchange to useless scrap.

For that event, they have to have a legacy solution in place, that they can can connect long distance to a more modern backend.

And then there's the power consumption of copper lines, the upkeep of generators on exchanges for powering that old behemoth etc.

FTTH is mostly passive. The power consumption of the OLT is marginal and the encapsulated ISDN frames can be transported over the existing network across the country to the few remaining voice exchanges.

VoIP however is bound to be compressed somewhere, which renders data transmissions useless.

And GSM data channels are 9600 kbit/s per channel. That doesn't really hack it.

Even high end satellite phones use ISDN framing to communicate. IP is not efficient enough.

/M

Westnet: Paul

tuxy wrote: »

I'm sure it's been asked but does westnet have any plans to offer ftth nationally on the openeir network?

Not any time soon. Our business model makes most sense as a regional play for the moment.

fritzelly

Anything can blow up any time, doesn't need to be ancient - in fact the older stuff is more likely to last for years compared to the newer hardware. Throwaway society and all that.
As for the generators - they will become obsolete with a full FTTH network and probably a very high cost to maintain the copper network - very good reason to get rid it.
Do you have a link to the power consumption of fibre vs copper - tried googling but couldn't find anything. I would have thought that there is a constant power usage with fibre even when not being used? Copper is a circuit vs fibre where there may be a signal being sent continuously? I cant imagine powering a copper network actually costs that much money

ejmaztec

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

makes you wonder if eir ripped out all the copper out of Ireland off the poles and everything and sold it off as scrap how much money they could get and plough it back into the system/infrastructure ...

I'd only wonder how much of it would disappear if they didn't have armed mercenaries guarding the piles of copper before they had a chance to take them for scrap.

Marlow

The phone line, no.

But an old AXE or EWSD were not designed with power savings in mind. And they do have to be powered 24x7 disregardless of the use of the phone lines.

Also, xDSL DSLAMs need to be powered, all the way to the consumer. And that is a constant.

You add all of that up, then the power usage of an OLT is marginal. 40W (plus power for SFPs) for an 8 port OLT servicing 256-1024 FTTH customers, reaching a diameter of 40km vs. 180W for a DSLAM, that services 96 ADSL2+ or 64 VDSL customers with a diameter of what ? 4-10km max ?

So to service 256 customers with VDSL, you need 4 such DSLAMs at a power consumption of 720W vs. the max capacity of 100W which is the peak spec of the OLT power supply, but we're more likely talking about 40-55W. And then the loss of bringing the power out to each VDSL cab, while having the OLT in a central place.

And the higher you scale your power requirements up, the more cost is there in ancillaries: batteries, size of generator, maintainance, diesel reserves, etc.

Dum di dum.

/M

Marlow

Have you ever been in a closed room with an EWSD ?

They call it the "bakeoven" .. for a good reason

Oh .. and extra cost for power for air condition also.

/M

fritzelly

Oh wow, great info Marlow but are you saying 256 people can be served by 100w of power
That is seriously a very low power consumption - my local lamp by the computer uses .1w for light (LED light)

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

Oh wow, great info Marlow but are you saying 256 people can be served by 100w of power
That is seriously a very low power consumption - my local lamp by the computer uses .1w for light (LED light)

I took the Ubiquity UFiber 8 port OLT as reference. Specified for up to 1024 subscribers, but assuming 32 subscribers per cluster, it's 256 subscribers we assume per OLT. Power consumption is specified at 40W without optical interfaces. PSU is specified at peak 100W and it has to be able to operate on one PSU.

On the DSLAM side, I took the ZTE ADSL2+/VDSL unit as reference. They specify 180W operating power consumption per fully populated chassis. 64 subs of that on VDSL.

While these are not the units, that OpenEIR uses, they're are a fairly solid reference. And that means that operating xDSL infrastructure uses 8-10 times the power of operating FTTH infrastructure. At least on the operator side.

And then, with the introduction of voice over fibre products, you can even start removing old phone exchange hardware and bring that all back to a few bigger central places.

Further power savings then by having less generator capacity, diesel, cooling etc. in the FTTH exchange sites.

Nevermind increased power levels with aging copper and higher resistance. With Voice over Fibre, you eliminate resistance completely. You also eliminate the risk of damage to equipment by lightning along the phone lines. Another cost removed.

/M

tsue921i8wljb3

I know it's DOCSIS but in this video they talk about 60% power savings by switching to fibre based 3.1. Saving on power is definitely a large driver for this technology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRxAf8_takA

Marlow

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

I know it's DOCSIS but in this video they talk about 60% power savings by switching to fibre based 3.1. Saving on power is definitely a large driver for this technology.

And TDC is the former danish incumbent. A telco, that's extremely old fashioned ... well parts of TDC are old fashioned ...

/M

fritzelly

OK figures becoming a blur now on a Friday evening but still even more great info - I wonder if anyone in OE actually knows this stuff.

Had a funny one the past few days - AI web had the right address, ARD key reported correct addres, Eircode reported correct address
No one in wholesale had ever come across it, IT department baffled - poor guy had had 4 failed installs as every time they placed the order they double checked it and everything seemed right but SORTs (one of the backend system) had the wrong address when being passed to KN

I know OE were looking at using just the eircode for all orders and abandoning their internal address system but with something like a million addresses on their systems...

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

I know OE were looking at using just the eircode for all orders and abandoning their internal address system but with something like a million addresses on their systems...

They're using Eircode to index all FTTH lines. They're actually blank refusing to index new premises now, if they don't have an eircode, yet .. even though there are like 3500+ premises without eircode in the system.

They then map the eircode to a fibre-index ardkey. Once the fibre deployment is complete, the eircode and ftth port location gets remapped to the old copper ardkey.

So, if your address_eircode table and your APQ are too far out of sync, you're definatly out of luck.

The APQ is still entirely ardkey based and you have to map it first.

/M

fritzelly

Marlow wrote: »

They're using Eircode to index all FTTH lines. They're actually blank refusing to index new premises now, if they don't have an eircode, yet .. even though there are like 3500+ premises without eircode in the system.

They then map the eircode to a fibre-index ardkey. Once the fibre deployment is complete, the eircode and ftth port location gets remapped to the old copper ardkey.

So, if your address_eircode table and your APQ are too far out of sync, you're definatly out of luck.

The APQ is still entirely ardkey based and you have to map it first.

/M

I was talking about abandoning the ARD all together in favour of just the eircode - makes more sense to actually do it rather than multiple versions of prequal between the ARD, eircode, phone number and then when one or the other don't match you have to request a merge on them.
I'm sure 90% could be done automatically (assuming the addresses they have on file are close enough in description)

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

I was talking about abandoning the ARD all together in favour of just the eircode - makes more sense to actually do it rather than multiple versions of prequal between the ARD, eircode, phone number and then when one or the other don't match you have to request a merge on them.
I'm sure 90% could be done automatically (assuming the addresses they have on file are close enough in description)

No. The address data they have is extremely poor.

While the eircode is correct, you can find addresses near Athlone, that have their Eircode and exchange in Louth.

Or premises in Spiddal with correct Eircode, but address in Dublin.

Some of these are bad data entry of people, who don't understand the irish naming lingo. We're talking whole estates mapped wrong here.

And some of these are probably phone lines ordered by businesses/residents for a premise in a different place in the country but mapped to their primary place of business/residence.

It wouldn't be so bad, if this was the exception, but it's far too many bad records.

Secondly, Eircode only publish updates of the raw database only every 3 months. And judging by the quality, OpenEIR syncs their database not on every update.

That means, that new lines take 6-12 months to make it into the system.

/M

fritzelly

Eircode data is not exactly on the ball either - people with eircodes showing one county and the customer saying but I'm in ***
I had one customer a good while ago where the eircode had the right house showing for the eircode on eircode.ie but the data they sent everyone (including Google) had shifted all the eircodes one house to the left (from what I could gather there was an empty/abandoned plot in between the houses and seemed to be the only reason for it) ergo tech went out and said but your house is supposed to be 50 meters down the road and install fail.

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

Eircode data is not exactly on the ball either - people with eircodes showing one county and the customer saying but I'm in ***
I had one customer a good while ago where the eircode had the right house showing for the eircode on eircode.ie but the data they sent everyone (including Google) had shifted all the eircodes one house to the left (from what I could gather there was an empty/abandoned plot in between the houses and seemed to be the only reason for it) ergo tech went out and said but your house is supposed to be 50 meters down the road and install fail.

Dunno. I reckon, that depends a bit on what eircode database/eircode provider you work of. If you have access to a raw ECAD database with GPS coordinates, it's generally spot on.

OpenEIRs eircode/ardkey match is often based on operator data entry. And a lot of eircodes can be streets of their mark.

/M

fritzelly

Marlow wrote: »

Dunno. I reckon, that depends a bit on what eircode database/eircode provider you work of. If you have access to a raw ECAD database with GPS coordinates, it's generally spot on.

OpenEIRs eircode/ardkey match is often based on operator data entry. And a lot of eircodes can be streets of their mark.

/M

For that particular customer I checked multiple maps they all showed the house in the same wrong place.
Dunno what data eircode share - I assumed it was the coordinates based on the eircode but that doesn't tally that everyone bar them showed the house in the wrong area unless their public data is wrong. Got connected anyway after some jiggling of stuff

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

For that particular customer I checked multiple maps they all showed the house in the same wrong place.
Dunno what data eircode share - I assumed it was the coordinates based on the eircode but that doesn't tally that everyone bar them showed the house in the wrong area unless their public data is wrong. Got connected anyway after some jiggling of stuff

Google Maps and the fibre rollout map (as examples) are constantly behind on eircode data and lacking a substantial amount of eircodes.

Eircode.ie is the official reference and the only one, where you can be sure, that that is actual eircode/gps matched data. So if that one is wrong, then the entry is wrong.

If the others are wrong, it's either community gathered data or an out of date data set.

That's why it is important, as an operator, to actually obtain the official data set from eircode. But that's not free .. and far from cheap ... of course.

/M

fritzelly

Marlow wrote: »

But that's not free .. and far from cheap ... of course.
/M

Yup for sure - ahh well it's Ireland, nothing for free

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

Yup for sure - ahh well it's Ireland, nothing for free

The reason, why B4RN can't happen in Ireland: the scottish love to save a penny ... at any cost. The irish want to be paid, disregardless the cost.

/M

tsue921i8wljb3

fritzelly wrote: »

Do you have a link to the power consumption of fibre vs copper - tried googling but couldn't find anything. I would have thought that there is a constant power usage with fibre even when not being used? Copper is a circuit vs fibre where there may be a signal being sent continuously? I cant imagine powering a copper network actually costs that much money

Lots of savings to be made as these are old US prices for electricity.

https://www.lightwaveonline.com/articles/2007/11/green-is-pons-color-53442702.html

oscarBravo

fritzelly wrote: »

I know OE were looking at using just the eircode for all orders and abandoning their internal address system but with something like a million addresses on their systems...

Closer to 2.8 million addresses.

shigllgetcha

Was able to book an appointment for another install on thursday.

I dont know if the person understood that it was eir's duct that was blocked and was now clear but they were happy to book another appointment so well see what happens. I kind of expected that they would need confirmation from eir that it was clear, maybe they had already received that and hadnt done anything with it yet

m99T

shigllgetcha wrote: »

Was able to book an appointment for another install on thursday.

I dont know if the person understood that it was eir's duct that was blocked and was now clear but they were happy to book another appointment so well see what happens. I kind of expected that they would need confirmation from eir that it was clear, maybe they had already received that and hadnt done anything with it yet

Eir don't do communications. Ironic isnt it.

shigllgetcha

m99T wrote: »

Eir don't do communications. Ironic isnt it.

Ironic but not in the slightest bit surprising

Poulgorm

I hope to get FTTH in a few months. Currently, I have FTTC, with the copper cable (from a pole on the boundary fence) fed through the fascia (bungalow), into the attic and down into a room from there.

I hope to continue that arrangement when FTTH comes. I understand that I will have to pull the cable through myself into the attic and down into the room. No problem there. My question is: what diameter hole should I drill through the fascia to enable the fibre cable to be pulled through? Thanks.

Johnboy1951

Poulgorm wrote: »

I hope to get FTTH in a few months. Currently, I have FTTC, with the copper cable (from a pole on the boundary fence) fed through the fascia (bungalow), into the attic and down into a room from there.

I hope to continue that arrangement when FTTH comes. I understand that I will have to pull the cable through myself into the attic and down into the room. No problem there. My question is: what diameter hole should I drill through the fascia to enable the fibre cable to be pulled through? Thanks.

I suggest you put a length of pex or hydrodare piping through the attic with a draw-rope so the installer (or you) does not have to go into the attic on installation day. Make sure there are no sharp bends on the pipe and that it is unlikely to get damaged.

That should ensure a quick and easy run of the fibre cable through the pipe in attic and out where you end the pipe.

Airwire: MartinL

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

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

oleras

Airwire: MartinL wrote: »

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

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

Martin, my Eir contract is up near the end of november so im starting to shop around.

When i enter my eircode i get this :

Fibre to the Home
(150-1000 Mbit/s)
Currently no ports available

Is this just a clerical issue, in that you cant know exactly how many connections in each DP are in use ? there are only 2 coming out of my nearest one.

WRT changing providers, is that all done on your side once i provide that universal number thing and you post out a modem to me ?