Eir rural FTTH thread II

Marlow

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

Do you ever see a time where the larger regional ISPs, yourselves, Westnet, Net1 etc could merge to be a truly national competitor to eir, Sky etc?

This has happened in the past. Only one example, that I know of though. Magnet bought up both Netsource and Leap, which were clearly specialist regional providers.

Then again, there's another example, where IBB was bought by a Telco, that only provided Bitstream ADSL before that: Imagine.

And then there's Eurona, which is a spanish provider operating in Spain, Italy, Scotland and in Ireland. They've bought 2 regional WISPs here so far. Arden Broadband and Brisknet.

So things like that happen more often than you think. The likes of Sky or Eir buying regional providers up is unlikely though. Reason being: Eir has the infrastructure and too stiff structures to adapt. Sky doesn't have any infrastructure at all. They just resell. So they clearly don't have the intention of actually running a network, which is what WISPs do.

Matter of fact .. WISPs are scary to most traditional providers. A traditional provider has PoPs/Exchanges that cover vast areas. Generally very few of them. VDSL changed that a bit.

A regional WISP on the other hand, it's not uncommon, that they have 100s of sites with literally over 1000 embedded routers in total just to cover a County or two. A traditional network operator would run out of the room, screaming, at the prospects of having to manage that.

/M

Marlow

Also ... if one went to purchase most of the larger regional WISPs, you would have national coverage.

It's just that not every of them would be willing to be bought or only would sell to those, who continue in the original spirit of the business.

IBB used to (apart from their Ripwave) be extremely quality conscience. Oversubscription to the point of extreme contention didn't exist. Fixed IP was standard. It shows that being bought up is not always good. There are still providers around, that follow similar principles.

/M

fritzelly

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

It seems to me Ireland has a lot of ISPs for a country it's size.

Is that not true for England as well - there seems to be a lot of providers. Admittedly they are probably just resellers in some cases and not interested in any kind of infrastructure building but I wouldn't know too much about it.

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

Is that not true for England as well - there seems to be a lot of providers. Admittedly they are probably just resellers in some cases and not interested in any kind of infrastructure building but I wouldn't know too much about it.

If you extend it to the UK. Yes ... lots of ISPs. Lots of those WISPs. Even providers with other infrastructure.

You'll also find the same in Denmark, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and even in the US. Lots and lots of regional providers.

I even know of one case of a provider, who buys LLU (in Germany) to a cabinet on the curb, installs a VDSL DSLAM and then backhauls wirelessly. Because buildings regulations are difficult, so mounting aerials on houses isn't straight forward.

/M

tsue921i8wljb3

Marlow wrote: »

Also ... if one went to purchase most of the larger regional WISPs, you would have national coverage.

It's just that not every of them would be willing to be bought or only would sell to those, who continue in the original spirit of the business.

IBB used to (apart from their Ripwave) be extremely quality conscience. Oversubscription to the point of extreme contention didn't exist. Fixed IP was standard. It shows that being bought up is not always good. There are still providers around, that follow similar principles.

/M

Surely as margins get thinner and thinner some consolidation will need to happen though. Or do you believe some would rather go out of business than merge?

fritzelly

Marlow wrote: »

I even know of one case of a provider, who buys LLU (in Germany) to a cabinet on the curb, installs a VDSL DSLAM and then backhauls wirelessly. Because buildings regulations are difficult, so mounting aerials on houses isn't straight forward.

/M

Thats interesting and funny - what kind of speeds do they offer?

Marlow

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

Surely as margins get thinner and thinner some consolidation will need to happen though. Or do you believe some would rather go out of business than merge?

First of all ... with the wholesale pricing in place there is no way, that you can provide FTTH for 25-40 EUR and 50 EUR+ is out of the pricing range for a lot of families.

3G/4G are often way too overcontended and limited for most users and definatly a no no for heavy users.

A lot of people also appreciate to deal with providers that have local knowledge.

So there will always be a market for competitive regional providers.

/M

tsue921i8wljb3

Marlow wrote: »

First of all ... with the wholesale pricing in place there is no way, that you can provide FTTH for 25-40 EUR and 50 EUR+ is out of the pricing range for a lot of families.

3G/4G are often way too overcontended and limited for most users and definatly a no no for heavy users.

A lot of people also appreciate to deal with providers that have local knowledge.

So there will always be a market for competitive regional providers.

/M

That is what I'm talking about though. The larger regional providers merging. Obviously it would be logistically difficult and you would know better than me if the appetite was there. Perhaps is is not.

helimachoptor

Marlow wrote: »

You specified ADSL/FTTC (see quote below). FTTC means mostly Urban. Urban means SIRO, not OpenEIR FTTH.

Also .. where does it say "Eir enabled eircode" ?? Nothing what you've referenced says that.



/M

What i was saying was, if you contacted the reps with an eircode that was in an eir enabled area, I'm sure they'd tell you if you could get service..

Or you can just take my word for it:cool:

Marlow

fritzelly wrote: »

Thats interesting and funny - what kind of speeds do they offer?

6-20 Mbit/s for residential for 30-50 EUR/month. I think up to 30 for business.

Vodafone in Germany for example sells VDSL at 16 Mbit/s for 30 EUR, 50 Mbit/s for 35 EUR and 100 Mbit/s for 40 EUR per month. Introduction price 20 EUR/month for 12 months.

It's a different market.

/M

fritzelly

Small company serving a small catchment area - employing people, making a bit of money on the side, top notch customer service. Why sell up, don't need to be making millions to be a successful local business


Was thinking today would it even be cost effective for the likes of eir to even bother offering FTTH in the urban areas (as seems to be the way if the new owner follows thru)
If supervectoring comes in as a viable, cheap to rollout, technology then what is the point of offering 1Gb connections - seriously how many households need it? 100mb is more than enough and nearing 300mb will serve pretty much everyone (always those edge cases). Surely cheaper to install more cabs as necessary

Incidentally does anyone know how their trials went with it?

fritzelly

helimachoptor wrote: »

What i was saying was, if you contacted the reps with an eircode that was in an eir enabled area, I'm sure they'd tell you if you could get service..

Or you can just take my word for it:cool:

What is an "eir enabled area" - the whole country is (well bar a few odd places)

fritzelly

Marlow wrote: »

6-20 Mbit/s for residential for 30-50 EUR/month. I think up to 30 for business.

Vodafone in Germany for example sells VDSL at 16 Mbit/s for 30 EUR, 50 Mbit/s for 35 EUR and 100 Mbit/s for 40 EUR per month. Introduction price 20 EUR/month for 12 months.

It's a different market.

/M

Far cheaper the higher you go in relative terms - always found the internet when abroad pretty decent and fast tbh in the like of Germany, Spain, Czech etc.

helimachoptor

fritzelly wrote: »

What is an "eir enabled area" - the whole country is (well bar a few odd places)

given we're talking about FTTH, how about an eir enabled FTTH area, come on its not that hard

fritzelly

helimachoptor wrote: »

given we're talking about FTTH, how about an eir enabled FTTH area, come on its not that hard

Well that is the million dollar question - they are not asking for people that have FTTH already...

helimachoptor

fritzelly wrote: »

Incidentally does anyone know how their trials went with it?

quite well from what I've heard, however i'd expect to see Eir change tact and look to start rolling out FTTH in more urban areas

More standard connections, greater concentration of customers, potentially a sports TV tie in to sweeten the consumer deal

Calhoun

Looks like we are in the program and coming online soon. Have only been offered 30MB line initially anyone know how this works? Will it go up over time?

helimachoptor

fritzelly wrote: »

Well that is the million dollar question - they are not asking for people that have FTTH already...

Yes, because i'd assume they want to test their upgrade proceses.

Not sure who said it earlier, but the product works so no need to test it too much

tsue921i8wljb3

Calhoun wrote: »

Looks like we are in the program and coming online soon. Have only been offered 30MB line initially anyone know how this works? Will it go up over time?

Who offered you a 30Mb line or where did you get this number?

fritzelly

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

Who offered you a 30Mb line or where did you get this number?

Yeah, if thats the starting speed its probably the finishing speed

Calhoun

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

Who offered you a 30Mb line or where did you get this number?

Eir offered it.

fritzelly

Calhoun wrote: »

Eir offered it.

So FTTC and at those speeds you are either too far from the cabinet (300m max for supervectoring) or the line is really bad quality

Dave147

Lads what about if Eir don't plan to upgrade you to fibre but you happen to meet a fella from KN who did some work commercially for you before who's now management, and they say they'll look into it for you and try get you FTTH... Should I be somewhat hopeful?

tsue921i8wljb3

Calhoun wrote: »

Eir offered it.

If you enter your Eircode here what does it say (check rural 300K);

https://fibrerollout.ie

fritzelly

Dave147 wrote: »

Lads what about if Eir don't plan to upgrade you to fibre but you happen to meet a fella from KN who did some work commercially for you before who's now management, and they say they'll look into it for you and try get you FTTH... Should I be somewhat hopeful?

Unless you are next to the rollout line or withing 50 meters of the end then no chance

Marlow

helimachoptor wrote: »

given we're talking about FTTH, how about an eir enabled FTTH area, come on its not that hard

Until we see them ACTUALLY making a statement or enabling OpenEIR FTTH lines it's guesswork. So far there is no official statement on that.

So anything you've posted here is pure speculation. All Sky press releases have been clear statements against OpenEIR FTTH.

/M

tsue921i8wljb3

fritzelly wrote: »

Unless you are next to the rollout line or withing 50 meters of the end then no chance

Depends on how high up within KN he is maybe and how much pull he has with Openeir.If Dave is not massively far from the end of a line he could have a chance. This is Ireland, it's who you know!

Dave147

fritzelly wrote:

Unless you are next to the rollout line or withing 50 meters of the end then no chance

He had a fella down on the site today and he said Eir don't want to put copper into new developments and he'll see if he can arrange to put fibre into the 4 houses soon.

Calhoun

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

If you enter your Eircode here what does it say (check rural 300K);

https://fibrerollout.ie

Its not showing on the rural 300, so maybe we arent part of that scheme. Showing on the other one though and below is what shows.

"Great News, Fibre broadband with speed up to 1000Mb/s is available at your address. You can order from the list of service providers here."

fritzelly

Dominique Loud Waistband wrote: »

Depends on how high up within KN he is maybe and how much pull he has with Openeir.If Dave is not massively far from the end of a line he could have a chance. This is Ireland, it's who you know!

KNN don't make the decisions tho - so doesn't matter how high up he is.
Like I said within 50 meters then good chance they may say yes - anymore probably no chance.