NBP part II

heavydawson

KOR101 wrote: »

Is any legislation needed? Or, can they just sign the contract.

He challenged Fianna Fail party leader Michael Martin to state whether the party was going to support the Fine Gael-led government when they sign the contract.

“We’re about to sign that contract. Are they going to support us on that contract,” he asked.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/michael-ring-eir-behaving-like-spoiled-child-over-rural-broadband-contract-938056.html

I'd say Martin is secretly delighted. He won't be blamed for any cost overruns, but he can claim credit if FF regain power over the next 5-7 years and the rollout goes well. No more than FG relish dropping FF in it any time the housing crisis is brought up and who's to blame (including on the SOR show yesterday!)

Don't believe any new legislation needed. Just the contract. Would be very symbolic to have it done at ploughing championships, but we'll see how the timing works out.

KOR101

heavydawson wrote: »

Would be very symbolic to have it done at ploughing championships, but we'll see how the timing works out.

Yes, it would be funny if the first deadline in the procurement process to be met was the last one in the process.

The Cush

KOR101 wrote: »

Is any legislation needed? Or, can they just sign the contract.

Probably not to sign the contract but the National Broadband Plan Bill is awaiting publication and was part of the government's summer legislative programme.

The Bill is to provide statutory powers in relation to the National Broadband Plan.

Orebro

With Timmys behaviour on this FF have lost me and my family as voters, for life.

rodge123

Orebro wrote: »

With Timmys behaviour on this FF have lost me and my family as voters, for life.

Me too, and unless the rollout is signed and started before next election FG will be the same for me!

Pique

Southpark has forever ruined me. I can not see the name "Timmy" written down without thinking "Timmaaayyy".

I'm in my 40's FFS.

careless sherpa

heavydawson wrote: »

I'd say Martin is secretly delighted. He won't be blamed for any cost overruns, but he can claim credit if FF regain power over the next 5-7 years and the rollout goes well. No more than FG relish dropping FF in it any time the housing crisis is brought up and who's to blame (including on the SOR show yesterday!)

Don't believe any new legislation needed. Just the contract. Would be very symbolic to have it done at ploughing championships, but we'll see how the timing works out.

Is that correct though as I think FF have played this very very badly. If it goes ahead and goes well it is very clearly a FG scheme. FF have been seen to try and scupper it. I can not see why they let timmy loose in relation to it as he comes across terribly poorly

The Cush

The Cush wrote: »

Have they invited anyone else for next week, the committee meets again next Tue at 2pm, no details yet.

Private meeting next Tuesday, no other committee meetings scheduled for next week.

Has the public part concluded, are they now compiling the report as was the original plan after 6 weeks of public meetings?

heavydawson

careless sherpa wrote: »

Is that correct though as I think FF have played this very very badly. If it goes ahead and goes well it is very clearly a FG scheme. FF have been seen to try and scupper it. I can not see why they let timmy loose in relation to it as he comes across terribly poorly

FF have only been trying to scupper the cost side of things. Timmy hasn't been pushing to scrap the general principle of the NBP (rural broadband), only the final implementation and associated cost. He's in opposition. That's what they do. I agree he really needed to be consistent in his arguments though. As soon as one approach he favoured was debunked, he hopped to plan C, etc.

clohamon

Just looking at a particular spot in Kerry from Department's current map and how encroachment can really play havoc with the viability at a micro level.

Original 300K in light blue and now showing dark blue availability.
Houses with green arrows are now also showing availability on Airwire checker.
House with red arrow is showing not available on Airwire checker.

Marlow

If the house is more than 150m off the main road, it will typically be left out by OpenEir. That was part of their design.

Very few exceptions were made.

/M

clohamon

Marlow wrote: »

If the house is more than 150m off the main road, it will typically be left out by OpenEir. That was part of their design.

Very few exceptions were made.

/M

Yes, but from NBI point of view they would have had a mini-cluster of five premises. Now they've just got one - the hardest, and they have to bring their own fibre all the way to it.

tsue921i8wljb3

clohamon wrote: »

Yes, but from NBI point of view they would have had a mini-cluster of five premises. Now they've just got one - the hardest, and they have to bring their own fibre all the way to it.

Yes. It is completely ridiculous from any objective point of view. The existing open eir (dark) fibre was the obvious solution but that is not happening it seems.

Johnboy1951

I do not put the blame for such as this on the NBI, but squarely on Eir who did this type of thing deliberately.

Pity such premises have to be included in the NBP ..... if only Eircom could be forcd to provide service to them at reasonable cost it would make the NBP much easier to manage IMO.

wexfordman2

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I do not put the blame for such as this on the NBI, but squarely on Eir who did this type of thing deliberately.

Pity such premises have to be included in the NBP ..... if only Eircom could be forcd to provide service to them at reasonable cost it would make the NBP much easier to manage IMO.

Unless nbi could pay eir to extend into these areas I wonder?

Johnboy1951

wexfordman2 wrote: »

Unless nbi could pay eir to extend into these areas I wonder?

That would get complicated ..... would mean using parts of eir fibre .... who would be responsible for connection and other facets of an ongoing commercial service?

KOR101

Pat Rabbitte in the SBP.

Orebro

Have to agree with Pat Rabitte here - history is not going to smile on Timmy Dooley when this is all done and dusted.

babi-hrse

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

That would get complicated ..... would mean using parts of eir fibre .... who would be responsible for connection and other facets of an ongoing commercial service?

Unless there was a third party service of electrical civil contractors to run ducting and fibre up to a point with eir to provide a joint box at edge of property.

I've seen a few manor houses on huge private lands where it's just about 800m in and the dp is at the entrance. Most are willing to pay for it but can't get past the survey stage due to distance just gets failed for planning which is almost guaranteed to go nowhere as it's all for the benefit of 1 private resident and not actually a network issue.
There are people who do this but it really should be a viable offer. Premises should be included but have their own solution if they live in difficult geography on private property. Maybe a airtight waterproof joint box half way up where cable could be coupled with a sc/APC connector and network side fibre ran and plugged in to there.
I'm sure a few ex telecom staff could start up one.

tsue921i8wljb3

The Cush wrote: »

Private meeting next Tuesday, no other committee meetings scheduled for next week.

Has the public part concluded, are they now compiling the report as was the original plan after 6 weeks of public meetings?

Apparently the Committee members are to be asked tomorrow if they support the Government's position but Fianna Fail are looking to delay the final conclusions.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/tds-question-rural-broadband-timeline-938501.html

The Cush

Emmanuel Lemon Louse wrote: »

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/tds-question-rural-broadband-timeline-938501.html

Another area highlighted was the amount of money going towards renting equipment for connections over the lifetime of the NBI deal. The committee also addressed noted that a large element of the the project cost is the rent projected to be paid to Eir for the use of its poles and ducts — an estimated €900m over 25 years.

“Concern was expressed that a major element of the subsidy was a public reinvestment in Eir’s private pole and duct network,” said the report.

This is the same eir who Timmy said should get the contract for rural broadband.

This is the same eir who said they will be charging the full regulated pricing for pole and duct access to the NBPco.

Falconire

clohamon wrote: »

Just looking at a particular spot in Kerry from Department's current map and how encroachment can really play havoc with the viability at a micro level.

Original 300K in light blue and now showing dark blue availability.
Houses with green arrows are now also showing availability on Airwire checker.
House with red arrow is showing not available on Airwire checker.

Similar thing for me, Eir have fiber both sides of my house but did not cover 6 houses and 1 school. Houses in red and the school in green.

westyIrl

Emmanuel Lemon Louse wrote: »

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/tds-question-rural-broadband-timeline-938501.html

The committee’s draft report says that members are “concerned that the eventual roll-out time for the whole intervention area is a long time for people to wait for broadband, and questioned whether a mixed model of partial fibre could deliver full broadband coverage faster”.

Oh sweet Jesus; Noooo! This where they can learn a lesson from the Australians and see what a disasterous decision it was for them to try to water down the cost by a relatively neglible amount by going with a MTM(Multi Technology Mix) solution.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/tech/2019/05/16/nbn-national-disaster/

Jim

plodder

Falconire wrote: »

Similar thing for me, Eir have fiber both sides of my house but did not cover 6 houses and 1 school. Houses in red and the school in green.

It beggars belief to think it makes sense to run new fibre into these areas just to cover tiny pockets like that. There has to be some deal to be done with eir to fill in these gaps at least.

clohamon

Falconire wrote: »

Similar thing for me, Eir have fiber both sides of my house but did not cover 6 houses and 1 school. Houses in red and the school in green.

Did you check the eircodes of the abandoned houses/school and feed them into the airwire FTTH availability checker?

https://finder.eircode.ie/#/
https://www.airwire.ie/index.php/avail

Orebro

plodder wrote: »

It beggars belief to think it makes sense to run new fibre into these areas just to cover tiny pockets like that. There has to be some deal to be done with eir to fill in these gaps at least.

Isn't that whats causing so much aggro in rural Ireland - the country is full of pockets like this!

I absolutely believe this was done by Eir on purpose.

JasonRyan

Orebro wrote: »

Isn't that whats causing so much aggro in rural Ireland - the country is full of pockets like this!

I absolutely believe this was done by Eir on purpose.

I think so too.
Case in point on the screenshot below.

The roads in this area form a triangle if you can imagine that.
The left and right sides of this triangle have full FTTH coverage.
The base of it, there is a gap of less than 500m not covered - the road is just shy of 1km long...

For the road that forms the base of the triangle the fibre and DP's were ran along the road (left side of image) a couple of hundren meters, as well on the top of the road (right side of image) a few hundren meters.
Leaving a gap of less than 500 meters not covered.
With 3 houses left out - their Eircodes fail for FTTH.
The road only has 12 houses in total, so for 9 it's happy days, the other 3, not so much.
Why this was planned this way, God only knows.
I asked the crews putting the fibre and DP's up why the fibre would't just cover the length of the road.
The different crews all though it mad that a section was being left out, but couldn't do any more as "it's that way on the works/plannng jobsheet"

plodder

Orebro wrote: »

Isn't that whats causing so much aggro in rural Ireland - the country is full of pockets like this!

I absolutely believe this was done by Eir on purpose.

Whatever the reason for it, I'm just saying that, looking forward, even if NBI is not going to use Eir's dark fibre, only their poles and ducts, there has to be many cases like this, where it makes more sense to come to some agreement where they get served by Openeir rather than NBI.

westyIrl

plodder wrote: »

Whatever the reason for it, I'm just saying that, looking forward, even if NBI is not going to use Eir's dark fibre, only their poles and ducts, there has to be many cases like this, where it makes more sense to come to some agreement where they get served by Openeir rather than NBI.

I'd imagine the problem NBI may have in such instances is that OpenEir have them over a barrel. Further, OpenEir have no reason to reach out the olive branch and every reason to leverage the situation for all it's worth as OpenEir want them same subscribers. As ludicruous as it may sound, running parallel fibre to serve just a single dwelling may be the only realistic solution. I'd wager OpenEir may start to connect up these sporadic dwellings once they see NBI coming their way. They are now the low hanging fruit for OpenEir. Encroachment payments will be significant should that happen. The effects of loss of stake in the network by the state is really coming home to roost.

Jim

heavydawson

westyIrl wrote: »

I'd imagine the problem NBI may have in such instances is that OpenEir have them over a barrel. Further, OpenEir have no reason to reach out the olive branch and every reason to leverage the situation for all it's worth as OpenEir want them same subscribers. As ludicruous as it may sound, running parallel fibre to serve just a single dwelling may be the only realistic solution. I'd wager OpenEir may start to connect up these sporadic dwellings once they see NBI coming their way. They are now the low hanging fruit for OpenEir. Encroachment payments will be significant should that happen. The effects of loss of stake in the network by the state is really coming home to roost.

Jim

Perhaps, but the subsidy that will be available to the bidder is part of the overall €545 million contingency set aside by the government.

Under the terms of the contract, NBI will be entitled to compensation for “encroachment” if other operators provide broadband to any of the 540,000 premises, in instances where the department determines it has “a negative impact on NBI’s business case”.

The subsidy that will be available to the bidder is part of the overall €545 million contingency set aside by the government.

The contingency fund can only be drawn down in 14 specific circumstances, and can only be sought by NBI where additional unanticipated costs have been proven to have occurred.

However, the Department of Communications has refused to outline the terms under which compensation will apply, citing commercial sensitivity.

It is unclear whether an operator would only have to make broadband available to a premises for compensation to be payable or whether the customer would have to be connected to a network before NBI could seek payment.

“One of the specific capped subsidy categories that has been set aside relates to the potential for commercial operator encroachment in the intervention area post contract award.

“The amount of subsidy as well as the specific terms and conditions under which NBI may seek access to this encroachment subsidy are commercially sensitive as, for example, it could influence commercial operator actions in the wider market,” a spokesman said.

The department has also declined to outline how much of the €545 million contingency has been set aside to compensate NBI for encroachment.

From: https://www.businesspost.ie/news/government-tight-lipped-potential-compensation-broadband-backers-446782