Eir rural FTTH thread II

Marlow

thehorse wrote: »

Any fibre rollouts now are mostly all FTTH.

Any roll out is going to be FTTH going forward, full stop. OpenEIR has no plans on putting copper into any new housing estates.

They only use the copper, if it's there.

The bad thing about that decision is, that they're not going to divert any resources from the 300k until it's finished. So any build outside of that will have to wait.

/M

AidenL

Nice morning here in Ballyshannon today, so went out for a walk, and checked what KN had been doing the past couple of days.

So, at my gateway, we have a pole:

And we have a coil of fibre tied up on it:

Then just around the corner, we have another pole about 10m away, theres a duct with the other end of the coil which is rolled up at my gate, and this is marked on the road, referencing 10, and 16/20, with arrows in two directions.

Then back towards town, we have an arrow and 30 marked on the road.

And further back, closer to town, we have a dot marked on a wall, which is, I think, the last house connected to the existing fibre cabinet.

So I'm no expert, but Im guessing that this means FTTH will start at that point and head out the road towards where I live.

Im guessing the 30 with the arrow indicates 30 houses to be serviced from one DP?

Im guessing the 10 with the straight arrow at the crossroads means 10 houses that direction - I counted 6 on the fibre rollout.ie map, so its leaving 4 spare. Im guessing 16/20 with the angled arrow towards where I live means 16 to be connected that way, 4 spare again - I count 14 on the fibre rollout.ie map. So, hopefully for me, the extra two are my house , and my next door neighbour. Airwire told me that we should be included, so happy days !:D:cool:

Marlow

OpenEIR can service 32 homes per cluster. 4 ports in each DP. Some poles carry 8 ports in the DP, if the pole services more homes. 284 connections total per OLT (that's the aggregating unit in the exchange).

Up to 36 fibers in the main fiber run from the exchange, 1 fiber per cluster, distance from the exchange usually 20km max (fiber run, not distance).

Not all fibers in that cable are used for FTTH.

/M

AidenL

Marlow wrote: »

OpenEIR can service 32 homes per cluster. 4 ports in each DP. Some poles carry 8 ports in the DP, if the pole services more homes.

Up to 36 fibers in the main fiber run from the exchange, 1 fiber per cluster, distance from the exchange usually 20km max (fiber run, not distance).

Not all fibers in that cable are used for FTTH.

/M

Ah, Im only guessing !

One fibre strand will do me nicely !

cnocbui

Who would ever want Vodafone anyway? They have been voted the worst mobile operator in the UK - for the 6th year in a row. When I had them for BB, they would drop the connection every single night at some point after midnight, which was beyond inconvenient when you are co-op gaming with someone in another country.

Marlow

AidenL wrote: »

Ah, Im only guessing !

One fibre strand will do me nicely !

30 houses makes sense though. That's one cluster. (32 ports max)

It'll only be one fiber strand for those 30 houses to share. But it'll carry 2.5 Gbit/s down and 1.25 Gbit/s up.

So unless everyone orders 1000 Mbit/s and goes full throttle, it's unlikely that you see any contention in the FTTH section of the build.

/M

Marlow

cnocbui wrote: »

Who would ever want Vodafone anyway? They have been voted the worst mobile operator in the UK - for the 6th year in a row. When I had them for BB, they would drop the connection every single night at some point after midnight, which was beyond inconvenient when you are co-op gaming with someone in another country.

The daily disconnect is normal for most ISPs. In some routers, you can schedule it to a point that's convenient for you ... the AVM Fritz!Box for example lets you set the time.

The thing that's annoying with Vodafone dropping the connection is that they enforce an IP change on the drop. And yes .. that would indeed cause you some issues if you're using the connection at that time.

/M

cnocbui

Marlow wrote: »

The daily disconnect is normal for most ISPs. In some routers, you can schedule it to a point that's convenient for you ... the AVM Fritz!Box for example lets you set the time.

The thing that's annoying with Vodafone dropping the connection is that they enforce an IP change on the drop. And yes .. that would indeed cause you some issues if you're using the connection at that time.

/M

I have not noticed Sky doing a daily reset, but they use BT so that doesn't surprise me as I had them before Vodafone took them over and degraded everything and I don't recall them resetting daily. My router says the connection time is over 70 hrs currently.

BT leaving Ireland was a tragedy.

tsue921i8wljb3

AidenL wrote: »

Nice morning here in Ballyshannon today, so went out for a walk, and checked what KN had been doing the past couple of days.

So, at my gateway, we have a pole:

And we have a coil of fibre tied up on it:

Then just around the corner, we have another pole about 10m away, theres a duct with the other end of the coil which is rolled up at my gate, and this is marked on the road, referencing 10, and 16/20, with arrows in two directions.

Then back towards town, we have an arrow and 30 marked on the road.

And further back, closer to town, we have a dot marked on a wall, which is, I think, the last house connected to the existing fibre cabinet.

So I'm no expert, but Im guessing that this means FTTH will start at that point and head out the road towards where I live.

Im guessing the 30 with the arrow indicates 30 houses to be serviced from one DP?

Im guessing the 10 with the straight arrow at the crossroads means 10 houses that direction - I counted 6 on the fibre rollout.ie map, so its leaving 4 spare. Im guessing 16/20 with the angled arrow towards where I live means 16 to be connected that way, 4 spare again - I count 14 on the fibre rollout.ie map. So, hopefully for me, the extra two are my house , and my next door neighbour. Airwire told me that we should be included, so happy days !:D:cool:

Aiden that black coil is not fibre. It is the ducting that the fibre is pushed/pulled through. The 20/16 is referencing the outer/inner diameter in mm so 20/16 in mm. Likewise what you are calling the 30 and 10 are not likely referencing numbers of homes but are more likely to be about underground ducting or fibre. You can't draw any conclusions from what they have done yet. They were always due to go past your home to get to the homes further out of town. I don't know what Airwire promised you but unless they have got definitive word from Openeir that you will be covered I would not be positive about getting service.

Airwire: MartinL

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

I don't know what Airwire promised you but unless they have got definitive word from Openeir that you will be covered I would not be positive about getting service.

We wouldn't have promised anything, unless we had firm word from OpenEIR. And yes, his house is to be included in the rollout.

tsue921i8wljb3

Airwire: MartinL wrote: »

We wouldn't have promised anything, unless we had firm word from OpenEIR. And yes, his house is to be included in the rollout.

Fair enough. I just did not want to see him get his hopes up only to be disappointed.

shigllgetcha

AidenL wrote: »

Nice morning here in Ballyshannon today, so went out for a walk, and checked what KN had been doing the past couple of days.

So, at my gateway, we have a pole:

And we have a coil of fibre tied up on it:

Then just around the corner, we have another pole about 10m away, theres a duct with the other end of the coil which is rolled up at my gate, and this is marked on the road, referencing 10, and 16/20, with arrows in two directions.

Then back towards town, we have an arrow and 30 marked on the road.

And further back, closer to town, we have a dot marked on a wall, which is, I think, the last house connected to the existing fibre cabinet.

So I'm no expert, but Im guessing that this means FTTH will start at that point and head out the road towards where I live.

Im guessing the 30 with the arrow indicates 30 houses to be serviced from one DP?

Im guessing the 10 with the straight arrow at the crossroads means 10 houses that direction - I counted 6 on the fibre rollout.ie map, so its leaving 4 spare. Im guessing 16/20 with the angled arrow towards where I live means 16 to be connected that way, 4 spare again - I count 14 on the fibre rollout.ie map. So, hopefully for me, the extra two are my house , and my next door neighbour. Airwire told me that we should be included, so happy days !:D:cool:

Didnt realise that was fibre, thought it was a duct but that makes way more sense. Didnt want to go lookin too carefully at it lol

Guess they pull that through and someone comes along and puts fibre on the poles afterwards

AidenL

Airwire: MartinL wrote: »

We wouldn't have promised anything, unless we had firm word from OpenEIR. And yes, his house is to be included in the rollout.

Id have to say, thanks to your intervention, and I appreciate your efforts very much. Its given me certainty.

Proves also how proactive a smaller local provider can be, very impressive and worth supporting in my opinion.

AidenL

shigllgetcha wrote: »

Didnt realise that was fibre, thought it was a duct but that makes way more sense. Didnt want to go lookin too carefully at it lol

Guess they pull that through and someone comes along and puts fibre on the poles afterwards

Seems to me the civils gets done first, and then the fibre on the poles must get rolled out?

AidenL

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

Aiden that black coil is not fibre. It is the ducting that the fibre is pushed/pulled through. The 20/16 is referencing the outer/inner diameter in mm so 20/16 in mm. Likewise what you are calling the 30 and 10 are not likely referencing numbers of homes but are more likely to be about underground ducting or fibre. You can't draw any conclusions from what they have done yet. They were always due to go past your home to get to the homes further out of town. I don't know what Airwire promised you but unless they have got definitive word from Openeir that you will be covered I would not be positive about getting service.

I can see how 20/16 on the road, 20/16 ID / OD on the pipe, duct, sheath, whatever that coil on the pole is, can be confusing.

I guess I was looking at 30 out of 32 as the number of points as Marlow said, and it just adds up, when I look at the numbers, it tallys.

Im looking on the bright side anyway ! Airwire have come up trumps for me, so thats a big step forward from where I was 6 months ago.

tsue921i8wljb3

AidenL wrote: »

Seems to me the civils gets done first, and then the fibre on the poles must get rolled out?

Yes they are separate teams. You should start to see poles being sprayed with "L" in the next while. This will signify where the distribution points will be placed. Then the fibre will be deployed leaving coils of cable on the "L" poles. Finally the distribution boxes will be fitted.

tsue921i8wljb3

AidenL wrote: »

I can see how 20/16 on the road, 20/16 ID / OD on the pipe, duct, sheath, whatever that coil on the pole is, can be confusing.

I guess I was looking at 30 out of 32 as the number of points as Marlow said, and it just adds up, when I look at the numbers, it tallys.

Im looking on the bright side anyway ! Airwire have come up trumps for me, so thats a big step forward from where I was 6 months ago.

The road markings are nothing to do with numbers of homes. They are simply a guide for the workers deploying the ducting.

AidenL

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

The road markings are nothing to do with numbers of homes. They are simply a guide for the workers deploying the ducting.

Ah, ok, I'm deffo up the wrong path there then.

So thats just a duct, and its only mentioning fibre on the outside so it can be identified in future if roadside excavations were being carried out I guess?

tsue921i8wljb3

AidenL wrote: »

Ah, ok, I'm deffo up the wrong path there then.

So thats just a duct, and its only mentioning fibre on the outside so it can be identified in future if roadside excavations were being carried out I guess?

Yes. There is probably tape wrapped around the end of it but if you examine it closely you'll see it is essentially a 20mm pipe. When they come to fit the fibre it will be attached to the pole with the galvanised cover over it.

AidenL

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

Yes. There us probably tape wrapped around the end of it but if you examine it closely you'll see it is essentially a 20mm pipe. When they come to fit the fibre it will be attached to the pole with the galvanised cover over it.

Yep, its well taped up at both ends.

Its just fancy hydrodare then !

jaydev

Just sharing this information for folks who are confused about their situation with fibre from eir.

It seems (after a few months of investigation) that customers who are within around 1- 1.5km of the cabinet will not be offered fibre yet.

The networks team seem to have started installing fibre DPs (distribution points) after the 1.5km distance; therefore those that are closer have no DP to run from (i.e. you are not within the 3 pole limit for the KN guys).

The rationale for this is that you can get a good enough signal with either ADSLv2 or VDSL. And the priority is for those that have a much more poor signal further away.

As much as I don't necessarily disagree with this, it is another indication of the terrible customer communication skills of eir. This is absolutely not made public and has only been confirmed through months of conversations with customers, engineers and tech support.

Also - many lines are capped at 9MB/s by default, so a call to eir to request that the line be opened-up further towards 20MB/s on ADSLv2 may be well worth it for you. (Since I found out this was an option, I have jumped from 7.5MB/s to 17.5MB/s).

Hopefully this is useful information for folks.

ED E

That was all already well known on this board. The strands run directly under the VDSL cabs but those DSLAMs are a way off paying for themselves. Would be nuts for OE to waste time on customers they've already caught and with SV on the way.

Sorry you wasted a "few months of investigation".

jaydev

No worries, just wanted to share what I knew.
I've used the other eir thread and certainly didn't get an answer to this.
I'll make sure to check-in here in the future to those of you 'in-the-know'.

Gboyd

On this point I contacted OE last week as currently my local exchange has no broadband service at all. On the NGA Fibre map it shows my local exchange in dark green stating ‘fibre build commenced’ and says completion work in progress. My house is literally next door to this exchange so I presumed that FTTC would be coming to me shortly.

However, on the rollout map my house has the blue icon and is part of the rural 300k rollout and Open Eir have stated that I can only avail to the FTTH service when it finally arrives and no other service will be made available.

I really don’t understand why this exchange would be upgraded and then the village serviced exclusively by FTTH. It also goes against everything I read about FTTC being used for houses within a 1km of the exchange.

Marlow

Nobody understands OE.

I know of places ... particularly one place .. where the hardware in place. The fiber was run 1 1/2 years ago. The exchange at the other end of the fiber is lit.

Yet .... 18 months later .. they haven't turned on the darn thing.

Sure .. the fixed poles (back then) are already crucked again !!

/M

tsue921i8wljb3

AidenL wrote: »

Yep, its well taped up at both ends.

Its just fancy hydrodare then !

I asked a contact about the 1⌀ and 3⌀ road markings. Apparently the 3⌀ refers to 3-way microduct that is already in the ground coming from Ballyshannon. It ends just past the turn off for your home.

The 1⌀ refers to 100mm plastic pipe that is also in the ground. It also comes from Ballyshannon but continues out the Knader Road (I think that is the correct name, none of the roads have numbers on any maps I looked at).

tsue921i8wljb3

Gboyd wrote: »

On this point I contacted OE last week as currently my local exchange has no broadband service at all. On the NGA Fibre map it shows my local exchange in dark green stating ‘fibre build commenced’ and says completion work in progress. My house is literally next door to this exchange so I presumed that FTTC would be coming to me shortly.

However, on the rollout map my house has the blue icon and is part of the rural 300k rollout and Open Eir have stated that I can only avail to the FTTH service when it finally arrives and no other service will be made available.

I really don’t understand why this exchange would be upgraded and then the village serviced exclusively by FTTH. It also goes against everything I read about FTTC being used for houses within a 1km of the exchange.

Any news from either of the suggestions I made to you?

AidenL

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

I asked a contact about the 1⌀ and 3⌀ road markings. Apparently the 3⌀ refers to 3-way microduct that is already in the ground coming from Ballyshannon. It ends just past the turn off for your home.

The 1⌀ refers to 100mm plastic pipe that is also in the ground. It also comes from Ballyshannon but continues out the Knader Road (I think that is the correct name, none of the roads have numbers on any maps I looked at).

The names are right, that’s great info! I never knew there was ducting underground out our way, lots of overheads already, but great to know there are loads of options on place.

Is that the norm in rural areas, overheads and ducts on the same routes? There must have been lots of prep work done years back?

jgbyr

AidenL wrote: »

Is that the norm in rural areas, overheads and ducts on the same routes? There must have been lots of prep work done years back?

AidenL, I'm in a similar position to you, passing outside our gate to feed houses further out. KN were doing work a few months ago & I see manholes have been rebuilt to give better access. It's a mix of overhead & ducts out for a few miles from the town.

Do they put the DP's then into the manholes for nearby properties?

AidenL

jgbyr wrote: »

AidenL, I'm in a similar position to you, passing outside our gate to feed houses further out. KN were doing work a few months ago & I see manholes have been rebuilt to give better access. It's a mix of overhead & ducts out for a few miles from the town.

Do they put the DP's then into the manholes for nearby properties?

I thought the DPs had to go on the poles?