Eir rural FTTH thread II

tsue921i8wljb3

Marlow wrote: »

Yes, I am. SIRO has different pricing for these wholesale packages. The provider can decide for the normal pricing and do VoIP and TV in-band or they can pay a little bit more and they will get out of band VLans for voice and another package with out of band voice and tv.

They also allow providers to retail business packages with symmetric speeds, guaranteed CIR, QinQ VLan tagging and premium SLA. Something, that OpenEIR wasn't really too interested to offer on FTTH, because it eats into their NGN business.

Like below:


That's on SIRO in Athlone.

/M

Do SIRO publish any publicly available technical documentation do you know?

Marlow

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

Do SIRO publish any publicly available technical documentation do you know?

They are fairly uptight with that sort of thing. Even with the pricing: the original wholesale pricing was based on OpenEIR before Sept 2016, but even that has changed a bit and I don't think it's publicly available. It's still a lot better than the other crowd. It actually has gone down on some of the packages.

/M

Gonzo

Marlow wrote: »

The cap is/was Eir ... that's different to OpenEIR. Don't confuse the two.

As for the packages, it looks like OpenEIR is going to follow suit and adapt to the same packages, that SIRO is changing to shortly. Apart from the upload. They don't have much interest there.

That is 150, 500, 1000 (SIRO is upgrading the 350 to 500 and dropping the 600).

/M

are you saying that Eir's 150/300 and 1000 plans are going to change from 150 /300 /1000 to something similar to 350 / 500 /1000 in the near future?

I'm more hoping for an upload increase more than anything.

I was on 1000/100 for 1 night only when my unlimited data was being executed and the extra 50 meg upload was pretty sweet.

Marlow

Gonzo wrote: »

are you saying that Eir's 150/300 and 1000 plans are going to change from 150 /300 /1000 to something similar to 350 / 500 /1000 in the near future?

No. They are changing to 150/500/1000. So the 300 will be abolished with 500. Not sure what upload is planned for the 500, but the 150 and 1000 will be unchanged.

On SIRO it'll be 500/100 .. instead of the current 350 and 600 packages. But i doubt OpenEir will give you 100 Mbit upload on the 500, when they have that on the 1000.

Thats at least the current mutterings. The SIRO changes are final. Actually, pricing is already on Airwires SIRO pages.

/M

Gonzo

Marlow wrote: »

No. They are changing to 150/500/1000. So the 300 will be abolished with 500. Not sure what upload is planned for the 500, but the 150 and 1000 will be unchanged.

On SIRO it'll be 500/100 .. instead of the current 350 and 600 packages. But i doubt OpenEir will give you 100 Mbit upload on the 500, when they have that on the 1000.

Thats at least the current mutterings. The SIRO changes are final. Actually, pricing is already on Airwires SIRO pages.

/M

great! how soon, do you know are the Eir packages changing? I'm currently on the 300/50 plan.

Marlow

Gonzo wrote: »

great! how soon, do you know are the Eir packages changing? I'm currently on the 300/50 plan.

Nothing final yet. Comreg would have to approve it. But i can not see them not taking any action and let SIRO ( and Virgin) run off with the market.

/M

Gonzo

Marlow wrote: »

Nothing final yet. Comreg would have to approve it. But i can not see them not taking any action and let SIRO ( and Virgin) run off with the market.

/M[/QUOTSE]

I had a feeling something will change soon for a few reasons.

1 - current plans 150/300/1000 have been in place for 2 years
2 - Virgin have their 500mb ads plastered everywhere
3 - Siro are increasing their speeds soon [didn't know this till now]
4 - When I requested my FUP to be abolished, I had an email from Eir welcoming me to 500mb Eir Extreme. In 'myeir' my plan changed to 500mb, now it's back on 300mb, so somethings up.

babi-hrse

How do the sirio and open eir experience differ are they the same in quality (pings QoS ect)
The hardware at customer side is exactly the same
I've had a few calls out to put people back onto VDSL after they've tried sirio could have just been the area they all seemed to be around the same district. Freezing ect.
Must have been a big enough issue that someone would sign back up with eir for alot less speed.

Gonzo

babi-hrse wrote: »

How do the sirio and open eir experience differ are they the same in quality (pings QoS ect)
The hardware at customer side is exactly the same
I've had a few calls out to put people back onto VDSL after they've tried sirio could have just been the area they all seemed to be around the same district. Freezing ect.
Must have been a big enough issue that someone would sign back up with eir for alot less speed.

The only difference between the OpenEir and Siro offerings is a slightly higher upload speed on Siro. The pings differ between providers on both platforms, but there isn't a big difference.

Eir has probably the lowest pings in the country. Airwire are almost identical on the OpenEir platform, they are probably similar on the Siro platform too.

Not sure about Sky, Vodafone and Digiweb's pings as I haven't really seen their ping times but they are possibly slightly higher than Eir and Airwire.

Airwire: MartinL

On SIRO ping times should be generally lower. That is because we connect directly with SIRO in each town/city and don't use 3rd party to deliver the connections to us. Some SIRO providers don't connect directly, so that can result in higher ping times.

Airwire's implementation of OpenEIR interconnects also aims at having our customers as near to our network as possible (the least amount of OpenEIRs network between the customer exchange and our interconnect).

So the biggest differences in latency come from how much of the wholesale network (in this case OpenEIR) you traverse before reaching your providers network and how well connected your provider is to the world.

I can't speak for other providers, we have been very picky about our internet connectivity to ensure, that we have good connections to both Europe, the US and Asia plus as many local direct peerings, as we can get.

Marlow

babi-hrse wrote: »

I've had a few calls out to put people back onto VDSL after they've tried sirio could have just been the area they all seemed to be around the same district. Freezing ect.

Is this specific providers ?

There can be various reasons:

Vodafone abolished all packages apart from Gbit/s on SIRO, once the promotion came into place. Not sure, if you could order the other ones.

Also .. if they have capacity issues on SIRO, it shows quicker .. due to the higher speeds. With VDSL, they could entirely rely on OpenEIRs network all the way to Dublin. Who knows.

And then there is that issue, that we've seen in Letterkenny for example, where Vodafones RAS just stopped giving out PPPoE sessions on a regular basis. That won't help.

So when issues like that crop up, I can very easily see why people move back to VDSL. Especially when it's cheaper.

But all of the above doesn't apply to all of SIRO. It applies to the individual provider.

/M

Gonzo

babi-hrse wrote: »

How do the sirio and open eir experience differ are they the same in quality (pings QoS ect)

I forgot to mention another very important point and difference between providers and that's data caps/usage limits.

Eir and Airwire have completely unrestricted data usage with no caps, so no watching the clock worrying about exceeding data.

Eir FTTH lines that were installed over a year ago would still have a 1tb data cap in place, it's up to the customer to ring up and request the data cap be removed.

Vodafone, Digiweb, Pure Telecom and Sky all have 1tb data caps with FTTH. Despite being labeled unlimited, they are clearly not and these providers can suspend or terminate an account for breaching the monthly data cap regularly.

If I was signing up to a FTTH provider on a freshly installed line, I would only go with either Eir or Airwire for peace of mind.

babi-hrse

Marlow wrote: »

Is this specific providers ?

There can be various reasons:

Vodafone abolished all packages apart from Gbit/s on SIRO, once the promotion came into place. Not sure, if you could order the other ones.

Also .. if they have capacity issues on SIRO, it shows quicker .. due to the higher speeds. With VDSL, they could entirely rely on OpenEIRs network all the way to Dublin. Who knows.

And then there is that issue, that we've seen in Letterkenny for example, where Vodafones RAS just stopped giving out PPPoE sessions on a regular basis. That won't help.

So when issues like that crop up, I can very easily see why people move back to VDSL. Especially when it's cheaper.

But all of the above doesn't apply to all of SIRO. It applies to the individual provider.

/M

I would say it was a capacity issue this area in question has slogans all over the place for siro all the lamposts have siro bpeo boxes. Maybe got too many subscribers all at once without time to scale up the backbone of it.
I did say it was a specific area.

brianbruff

Gonzo wrote: »

I forgot to mention another very important point and difference between providers and that's data caps/usage limits.

Eir and Airwire have completely unrestricted data usage with no caps, so no watching the clock worrying about exceeding data.

Eir FTTH lines that were installed over a year ago would still have a 1tb data cap in place, it's up to the customer to ring up and request the data cap be removed.

Vodafone, Digiweb, Pure Telecom and Sky all have 1tb data caps with FTTH. Despite being labeled unlimited, they are clearly not and these providers can suspend or terminate an account for breaching the monthly data cap regularly.

If I was signing up to a FTTH provider on a freshly installed line, I would only go with either Eir or Airwire for peace of mind.

This was my reasoning also and didn't want the hassle of eir customer service so Airwire was the only show in town for me.
Only signed up for a year as I wasnt sure how it would go, but a month on and I cant see myself moving to any other provider

Ive not checked but I'm sure I exceeded the 1TB the first month (mainly due to the fact I lived on speedtest.net while diagnosing my internal issues)

Unlimited and a FUP is a pet hate of mine, I wish people would avoid companies with this practise.

Gonzo

brianbruff wrote: »

Unlimited and a FUP is a pet hate of mine, I wish people would avoid companies with this practise.

I've told all friends and family to avoid Vodafone, Digiweb, Pure Telecom and Sky for their FTTH orders for this very reason.

Mid 2019 there really is no excuse for still having a 1tb data cap hidden in the fine print for fast FTTH connections.

Johnboy1951

Gonzo wrote: »

I've told all friends and family to avoid Vodafone, Digiweb, Pure Telecom and Sky for their FTTH orders for this very reason.

Mid 2019 there really is no excuse for still having a 1tb data cap hidden in the fine print for fast FTTH connections.

A lot of users do not do anywhere close to 1Tb per month, so other factors are more important to them.

guyinkk

How are faults in the fibre network detected? Does OpenEir monitor parts of the deployed infrastructure or do they rely on customers to report faults through their service providers before they attempt a fix?

If the latter... how do they determine what's at fault? Is it a case of a man driving around in van looking for downed cable or is there a more sophisticated means of monitoring used?

MBSnr

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

A lot of users do not do anywhere close to 1Tb per month, so other factors are more important to them.

Exactly. I really wonder how many people manage to go over. I'm in IT, run a PS4, whole family streaming HD Netflix and other 4k services and don't go over 1Tb....

tsue921i8wljb3

guyinkk wrote: »

How are faults in the fibre network detected? Does OpenEir monitor parts of the deployed infrastructure or do they rely on customers to report faults through their service providers before they attempt a fix?

If the latter... how do they determine what's at fault? Is it a case of a man driving around in van looking for downed cable or is there a more sophisticated means of monitoring used?

For a single premises fault they are probably relying on the customer calling in. A larger fault that takes out several premises may be spotted by monitoring of the OLT but again customers are likely to call in complaining of no service.

Fixing would likely be a case of checking light levels at distribution points and working back towards the exchange unless there was something obvious like a downed line.

cnocbui

MBSnr wrote: »

Exactly. I really wonder how many people manage to go over. I'm in IT, run a PS4, whole family streaming HD Netflix and other 4k services and don't go over 1Tb....

I'll lend you my son, he'll probably find ways to get you over.

Gonzo

cnocbui wrote: »

I'll lend you my son, he'll probably find ways to get you over.

Gaming can really eat through data caps, depending on how many games you download and update. Many of today's games are 50 to 100gigs in size. Certain games can use 10% of data allowance in just one transfer, then theres the patches after that.

Add to that regular streaming, youtube, uploading videos to social media and sending work files, emails, software updates, downloading sky on demand box sets, general browsing and using the wifi on mobiles, it's not difficult for even one person to get close to 1tb per month. If several members of a household are doing similar then the 1tb data cap will be used up.

As we move towards 2020, these files are continuing to get larger, a 1tb data cap will certainly be not much in 2020.

I have yet to get through 1tb of data in a month and usually hit about 800 gigs a month, but I'm the only person in the household who uses the internet. I got my FUP removed because I know that the time will soon come when more than 1tb per month will become a reality, and for peace of mind.

babi-hrse

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

For a single premises fault they are probably relying on the customer calling in. A larger fault that takes out several premises may be spotted by monitoring of the OLT but again customers are likely to call in complaining of no service.

Fixing would likely be a case of checking light levels at distribution points and working back towards the exchange unless there was something obvious like a downed line.

If it's a fault with the network they would plug in an otdr (optical time domain reflectrometer)
Think sonar with light it sends pulses of light on a cable and any dents splices or splits bounce back it measures the time and the amount to determine exactly how far each splice is how far any links are and how far any breaks are.
It gets plotted on a graph. Someone interprets the readings and knows how far out the break is.
There are electrical variants of tdrs too.
A good Megger usually has the function.
Which works by inducing current onto a copper line of a specified capatiance the line acts like a capicator the more it takes therefore the longer it is in simplified terms.
Any sharp drops indicate losses such as shorts that's what tells the tech if the line is going to the cab or just a foot away to the alarm panel.

bizebee

I am looking to see if anyone has been in this situation before and if they managed to get a successful outcome from it or who might be able to offer some much needed advice/help.

The story is -

I've almost completed a new build on a road that is due to be enabled for FTTH in the first half of 2019.
The roll-out map doesn't have my home on it ( naturally enough..) but both neighbours to my immediate right and left are and Openeir engineers have just made a start on the necessary works in the area ( which is great to see ).


For the past 12 weeks I've been trying to get my eircode added to the list for when it does eventually become live.

A customer service rep emailed me back to say that they are "not in a position to include any additional premises at this time as our focus is on the completion of our current roll-out programme"

With neighbours both sides identified to be eligible for it, and me in the middle situated in close proximity to both of them, being told this has left me feeling totally gutted as the need for good broadband speeds is essential for my day job.

Is there anything I can do??

Thanks in advance

savemejebus

bizebee wrote: »

Is there anything I can do??

Thanks in advance

Was in a similar situation and after months of unhelpfulness from Eir Airwire had me sorted in about 2 weeks. Contact them and see what they say. Can’t recommend them enough.

babi-hrse

savemejebus wrote: »

Was in a similar situation and after months of unhelpfulness from Eir Airwire had me sorted in about 2 weeks. Contact them and see what they say. Can’t recommend them enough.

Was your house a new build?

savemejebus

babi-hrse wrote: »

Was your house a new build?

Old building from 1908 that was renovated and so was down as derelict when eircodes were being assigned, so first spent months getting an eircode, and then ages trying to get added even though the poll was right by our entryway and both our neighbours were passing.

brianbruff

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

A lot of users do not do anywhere close to 1Tb per month, so other factors are more important to them.

true, even I don't expect to hit it most months.
still think they should be punished for this sort of unlimited advertising mind ;-)

Johnboy1951

brianbruff wrote: »

true, even I don't expect to hit it most months.
still think they should be punished for this sort of unlimited advertising mind ;-)

I completely agree on the deliberately misleading advertising.
It is (or should be) completely unacceptable.

Gonzo

brianbruff wrote: »

true, even I don't expect to hit it most months.
still think they should be punished for this sort of unlimited advertising mind ;-)

I completely agree. Not everyone reaches 1tb per month, many don't understand what 'unlimited' really means, and could get caught out in the future.

It is unacceptable that companies continue to market FTTH as unlimited, when many of their customers are completely unaware of the cap as it is hidden deep within the fine print. These companies can suspend or terminate an account or charge extra if the customer happens to go beyond their data in the future when more data is required. All it takes is one heavy month such as December/Christmas in a 4 person household and they could exceed the limit.

There is a considerable difference in file sizes and bandwidth requirements since late 2016 when FTTH was first introduced, yet the caps remain the same. Most likely Digiweb, Vodaphone etc will still have the same caps in place this time next year and bandwidth requirements will probably be even greater in a year's time then they are right now.

kazoo106

You do all know that the bandwidth used is metered and charged for by Openeir. For 1TB it's approx €7.18 +VAT