NBP part II

KOR101

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Were most new builds not ducted for 'telephone' as well as ESB as a norm?

I recall a new build from about 2008 that had both put in by builder, (not specifically specified by the owner).

My estate in Balbriggan had those as well as TV ducting which Virgin Media used to fairly seamlessly rollout fibre to us. Estate has been taken over by council, so not sure whether those ducts are owned by individual companies. Anyone?

clohamon

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Were most new builds not ducted for 'telephone' as well as ESB as a norm?

I recall a new build from about 2008 that had both put in by builder, (not specifically specified by the owner).

I guess the difference was "open access" and the fairly sophisticated specification.
Everything from the premises boundary inwards belonged to the owner.

Original doc here.

shanec1928

KOR101 wrote: »

My estate in Balbriggan had those as well as TV ducting which Virgin Media used to fairly seamlessly rollout fibre to us. Estate has been taken over by council, so not sure whether those ducts are owned by individual companies. Anyone?

what happened in a lot of places in Dublin is the above VM struck up a contract with the developer and had exclusive access to that area for a certain period

celticbhoy27

https://m.independent.ie/business/technology/bruton-3bn-nbp-deal-to-be-signed-in-weeks-38372196.html

Looks on course to be signed around ploughing championship

The Cush

celticbhoy27 wrote: »

Looks on course to be signed around ploughing championship

https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/bruton-3bn-nbp-deal-to-be-signed-in-weeks-38372196.html

Likely to be late September than earlier in the month according to the article, no guarantee it'll be ready by the ploughing but a good PR opportunity if it does.

Also in that article, NBI have responded to a series of questions sent to them by the Communications Committee last month after they turned down an invitation to appear before them.

Just in time for the compiling of the Committee's report which is due to be published on August 20th.

ussjtrunks

I’ve noticed something strange in some areas lately, fibre is on the poles outside some towns but the towns themselves seem to be using nova / imagine

tuxy

ussjtrunks wrote: »

I’ve noticed something strange in some areas lately, fibre is on the poles outside some towns but the towns themselves seem to be using nova / imagine

What's strange about it? Most of the towns will also have FTTC available.

The Cush

UK NBP may cost up to £30bn (€33bn)

https://twitter.com/adrianweckler/status/1157937462473383937

KOR101

“Not long ago full fibre was ‘the love that dare not speak its name’ at BT, but now the company is shouting its ardour from the rooftops,” he said.

https://www.ft.com/content/2fafb366-b4f3-11e9-8cb2-799a3a8cf37b

westyIrl

The Cush wrote: »

UK NBP may cost up to £30bn (€33bn)

UK have approx 3.5x the land area but 4x population density of the ROI. Them costs, loose as they probably are, really put the NBP subsidy into context.

Jim

Pique

I happened to catch something on BBC one Sunday recently about a beautiful little remote village in the peak district where they had no broadband.

The community had taken it upon themselves to lay ducting and pull fibre over miles of private farm land to connect the village to the nearest fibre Trunk. I missed any reference to who actually supplied the fibre or if it was subsidised.

It was mainly retired gentlemen doing it themselves over time with a mini digger and then getting the younger stronger men to help in the tricky patches.

It was pretty inspiring to see the generation that will hardly ever use it do so much work for free in order that the younger generation could continue to live in a newly connected yet still remote little village.

I struggle to believe something similar would happen in Ireland tbh.

oscarBravo

Pique wrote: »

I happened to catch something on BBC one Sunday recently about a beautiful little remote village in the peak district where they had no broadband.

The community had taken it upon themselves to lay ducting and pull fibre over miles of private farm land to connect the village to the nearest fibre Trunk. I missed any reference to who actually supplied the fibre or if it was subsidised.

It was mainly retired gentlemen doing it themselves over time with a mini digger and then getting the younger stronger men to help in the tricky patches.

It was pretty inspiring to see the generation that will hardly ever use it do so much work for free in order that the younger generation could continue to live in a newly connected yet still remote little village.

I struggle to believe something similar would happen in Ireland tbh.

It's called B4RN (broadband for the rural north). I've been to one of their open days. It's definitely a commendable project, and it's very successful, but it wouldn't translate well to here, because we have more fragmented ownership of land, and a much less open attitude to letting third parties access it.

ItHurtsWhenIP

oscarBravo wrote: »

It's called B4RN (broadband for the rural north). I've been to one of their open days. It's definitely a commendable project, and it's very successful, but it wouldn't translate well to here, because we have more fragmented ownership of land, and a much less open attitude to letting third parties access it.

I met Barry Forde of B4RN about 4 years ago and was immensely impressed with his passion and drive for the project. There's quite a few spin off projects out of it too.

I came back to my own rural community and started asking the various farmers if they had any interest in enabling something similar to happen here. I found a total generation gap ... younger farmers (<50) were generally on-board, however the more mature individuals had absolutely no interest in their land being interfered with.

The Cush

The Cush wrote: »

Also in that article, NBI have responded to a series of questions sent to them by the Communications Committee last month after they turned down an invitation to appear before them.

Just in time for the compiling of the Committee's report which is due to be published on August 20th.

Committee on Communications meeting in private session this Wed to discuss members submissions and no doubt NBI's late submission, before a final committee report which is to include the views of all parties is published on August 20.

7 Aug 2019, 12.00
The Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment will meet in private session in Committee Room 1, LH2000.

The Cush

Robert Watt, Sec. Gen Dept. of Public Expenditure

Public services ‘inefficient’, says top civil servant Robert Watt

One of the State’s most senior civil servants has said the public service has “hundreds of offices and thousands of civil servants providing outdated, inefficient and very expensive” services.

…

Mr Watt wrote: “We are pushing ahead with digital strategy as you are aware – I don’t know what is meant by offline strategy. We have hundreds of offices and thousands of civil servants providing outdated, inefficient and very expensive channels when most citizens want [a] better digital offering.”

His digital offering would exclude the NBP of course

Responses to the strategy included calls for the speedy rollout of the National Broadband Plan, which has been the target of criticism from Mr Watt’s department before, which argued that the €3 billion public subsidy for the scheme did not represent good value for money.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/public-services-inefficient-says-top-civil-servant-robert-watt-1.3977062

clohamon

KOR101 wrote: »

Just looking at Dublin, those purple dots are scattered all over the place and not in blocks of areas as you might expect. There were hardy that number of individual submissions. Did the mapping exercise use ISP address checkers to check against some list of all addresses?

The Department is seeking submissions to confirm whether any operator is already offering NGA services, or has concrete plans to provide NGA services to these particular premises. Where premises are not addressed, the Department is seeking submissions on whether particular barriers exist in addressing these premises and if so, to propose solutions on how these issues could be resolved.

Hard to believe UCD Engineering Department can't get a decent connection.


https://dcenr.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=9d14d1255e2242a1b0ce04bf6fc9c5d3

Marlow

clohamon wrote: »

Hard to believe UCD Engineering Department can't get a decent connection.

The map is only for consumer type broadband products.

Most of those in the intervention area could get a enterprise grade fibre connection, if they were willing to pay for it. And that is, what UCD more than likely has .. because a consumer grade connection would not be sustainable for them.

Even if UCD was listed .. for the sake of it .. as being eligable for VDSL or FTTH, it would be of no benefit to them. Their traffic volumes would kill it day 1.

You're comparing apples and oranges here.

So yes .. they're listed as not covered .. because they do not need to be covered. It's useless to them anyhow. Why put infrastructure in place, that never is going to be used ?

/M

KOR101

UCD will be on HEAnet

Marlow

KOR101 wrote: »

UCD will be on HEAnet

And here is another thing ... Schools .. that includes UCD .. are part of the schools broadband contract .. which is not up for another few years.

So OpenEIR didn't give a darn about them in this round. They won't see any new connections nor more money from them until the next tender is going.

Another reason why it doesn't matter.

/M

clohamon

Marlow wrote: »

The map is only for consumer type broadband products.

Most of those in the intervention area could get a enterprise grade fibre connection, if they were willing to pay for it. And that is, what UCD more than likely has .. because a consumer grade connection would not be sustainable for them.

Even if UCD was listed .. for the sake of it .. as being eligable for VDSL or FTTH, it would be of no benefit to them. Their traffic volumes would kill it day 1.

You're comparing apples and oranges here.

So yes .. they're listed as not covered .. because they do not need to be covered. It's useless to them anyhow. Why put infrastructure in place, that never is going to be used ?

/M

Sure, I agree with all that. But question remains, how did a purple dot materialise in that location. They're all over Trinity as well.
So what criteria are being used? Are they simply deducting the known covered eircodes from all eircodes and then depicting what's left in purple?

Marlow

clohamon wrote: »

Sure, I agree with all that. But question remains, how did a purple dot materialise in that location. They're all over Trinity as well.
So what criteria are being used? Are they simply deducting the known covered eircodes from all eircodes and then depicting what's left in purple?

The criteria is, that the dots are based on the data supplied by the provider by openeir, virgin etc. .. everyone who submitted the data. That's data for consumer connections only.

And if none of them has put infrastructure in place to service that premise with consumer grade internet and it's not been reported as covered, then it gets a purple dot.

The fact is, that none of these providers would have the infrastructure in place for that premise ... because it's pointless. They will never ever get an order for a consumer broadband product for that premise. Simples. It's a fact of economics.

And yes .. the department would exactly do that: take all eircodes, remove the ones that are covered/have been reported, leave the remainder purple. Because how else would you do it ?

/M

clohamon

Marlow wrote: »

And yes .. the department would exactly do that: take all eircodes, remove the ones that are covered/have been reported, leave the remainder purple. Because how else would you do it ?

/M

I'm not sure it's quite that simple. In some places in Trinity there are more purple dots than there are eircodes. So there must be some other dataset they're using also, or instead.

Marlow

clohamon wrote: »

I'm not sure it's quite that simple. In some places in Trinity there are more purple dots than there are eircodes. So there must be some other dataset they're using also, or instead.

The eircode data does not only consist of single eircodes. There can be multiple premises on an eircode, especially in indutrial/business areas.

The eircode website however only shows a dot per eircode. But the database itself looks a bit different.

Either way ... also in Trinity .. anything that is University, School, even some government buildings or the likes .. doesn't matter to the providers when it comes to consumer grade broadband. So they do not need to be enabled.

/M

BarryM

https://dcenr.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=9d14d1255e2242a1b0ce04bf6fc9c5d3

Is (I hope );) a portion of a rural village, not much overlap of postcodes here?

There is a FFTC cabinet in the dark(ish) blue area, and the fibre passes all the locations in the light(er) blue area.

So, how would you interpret the purple?

clohamon

BarryM wrote: »

https://dcenr.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=9d14d1255e2242a1b0ce04bf6fc9c5d3

Is (I hope );) a portion of a rural village, not much overlap of postcodes here?

There is a FFTC cabinet in the dark(ish) blue area, and the fibre passes all the locations in the light(er) blue area.

So, how would you interpret the purple?

You'll have to take a screenshot and upload it. The map url doesn't include any location data, it's just a map id.

heavydawson

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/private-ownership-of-national-broadband-network-unfair-1.3979895

The cross-party Oireachtas Committee on Communications is in the process of compiling a report into the controversial broadband plan, and met on Wednesday to formulate a number of recommendations on how to proceed with the project.

Sources at the meeting said it had been decided that a vote would be held on August 20th on a contentious proposal from Fianna Fáil to recommend that the Government commission an external, independent review around the project’s viability.

A draft version of the report, seen by The Irish Times, also raises concerns around the governance of the broadband plan and the length of time the rollout of the network will take.

Marlow

BarryM wrote: »

There is a FFTC cabinet in the dark(ish) blue area, and the fibre passes all the locations in the light(er) blue area.

So, how would you interpret the purple?

Not sure, where the purple are (since I can't see, what you are referring to), but if the purple are in the dark blue area, then the copper to them is too bad to achieve 30 Mbit/s or they are on legacy wiring.

They could also be premises, that have been connected with a USO line using wireless.

/M

heavydawson

https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/07/warren-makes-85b-federally-funded-broadband-promise/

Her alternative is to shovel billions to everyone but ISPs to improve internet infrastructure.

Only electricity and telephone cooperatives, non-profit organizations, tribes, cities, counties, and other state subdivisions will be eligible for grants from this fund,” she wrote, “and all grants will be used to build the fiber infrastructure necessary to bring high-speed broadband to unserved areas, underserved areas, or areas with minimal competition.

Pique

heavydawson wrote: »

https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/07/warren-makes-85b-federally-funded-broadband-promise/

Her alternative is to shovel billions to everyone but ISPs to improve internet infrastructure.

Only electricity and telephone cooperatives, non-profit organizations, tribes, cities, counties, and other state subdivisions will be eligible for grants from this fund,” she wrote, “and all grants will be used to build the fiber infrastructure necessary to bring high-speed broadband to unserved areas, underserved areas, or areas with minimal competition.

Judging by what I read about customer experience with Comcast and Verizon actively screwing customers and attempting to block community schemes, I reckon this will be broadly welcomed by the majority of users.

ED E

Marlow wrote: »

And here is another thing ... Schools .. that includes UCD .. are part of the schools broadband contract .. which is not up for another few years.

So OpenEIR didn't give a darn about them in this round. They won't see any new connections nor more money from them until the next tender is going.

Another reason why it doesn't matter.

/M

I was under the impression the BB for schools contract was specifically for Primary/Secondary and didnt include third level institutions.

Neither UCD nor TCD have any shortage though, 10Gb backbones are plenty for them.

KOR101

July and August .....

At least in TUD, most locations are still on 100mbit speeds. It's symmetrical, but whereas before it was outstanding, it's lagging a bit now.

Marlow

KOR101 wrote: »

July and August .....

At least in TUD, most locations are still on 100mbit speeds. It's symmetrical, but whereas before it was outstanding, it's lagging a bit now.

FTTH would not be the solution to that though.

Simply because the 100 Mbit/s they have is uncontended. FTTH is not. And that proves my point in reality.

/M

ED E

KOR101 wrote: »

July and August .....

At least in TUD, most locations are still on 100mbit speeds. It's symmetrical, but whereas before it was outstanding, it's lagging a bit now.

Still only nudges 3Gbps daily avg in peak. Thats for 15,000 odd users.


TUD depends on the campus. There are a few good bits of network but generally its far inferior. Hopefully they can enroll enough Korean and Chinese students to pay for some decent APs.

KOR101

Not sure that this has been decided yet.

An Oireachtas committee is to recommend that a majority of the directors of the company set to supply broadband to hundreds of thousands of rural homes should be appointed by the State.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/committee-to-recommend-state-oversight-of-broadband-board-1.3981046

The Cush

Sir Timmy and the Committee have become a sideshow, like the PAC's report on broadband published last month, the Communications Committee's report will be ignored and end up on the proverbial shelf gathering dust. The only good thing is it kept them occupied for the last few months, devil idle hands, etc. etc.

Can't see anything from the Committee derailing the process now so close to signing

Fine Gael TD Hildegarde Naugthon, who chairs the committee, says the contract should be signed quickly, saying that no evidence exists that a “reliable, cheaper or practical alternative” to the National Broadband Plan exists.

“It is the view of the committee that contracts should be signed, subject to due diligence and the buildout of rural broadband commence as soon as possible. This is essential to the future of rural Ireland and to achieving balanced regional development.”

westyIrl

NBI CEO Peter Hendrick on Tipp FM yesterday;

https://tippfm.com/podcasts/nbi-ceo-broadband-plan-will-affect-tipp/


Jim

KOR101

westyIrl wrote: »

NBI CEO Peter Hendrick on Tipp FM yesterday;

https://tippfm.com/podcasts/nbi-ceo-broadband-plan-will-affect-tipp/


Jim

He says that once the contract is signed, their website will allow people to enter their Eircode and get an estimated date for connection. I wonder about the politics of this and can just imagine all the stories about people with dates 5-7 years hence. It is the way to do it, but......

clohamon

KOR101 wrote: »

He says that once the contract is signed, their website will allow people to enter their Eircode and get an estimated date for connection. I wonder about the politics of this and can just imagine all the stories about people with dates 5-7 years hence. It is the way to do it, but......

They should put the 100 areas on Lotto balls and pull them out in order of deployment, on TV.
(Not forgetting the man/woman from KPMG to make sure it's all kosher)

Johnboy1951

I would hope they only declare those areas to be completed withing six or 12 months or so.
That could be updated every month with plenty of time for changes to be made should issues arise.

celticbhoy27

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I would hope they only declare those areas to be completed withing six or 12 months or so.
That could be updated every month with plenty of time for changes to be made should issues arise.

TBH I hope they give a fairly accurate indication from the get go. If you are 3 years etc down the line so be it. Gives you the opportunity to sign. Contract with a wisp in the meantime. Be annoying checking every few months

ussjtrunks

How did they decide where to connect people to electricity 1st when they rolled that out?

I think it’s be abit fairer to people if people could sign up for a connection and they prioritized areas that had the most signups instead of doing it randomly.

Johnboy1951

ussjtrunks wrote: »

How did they decide where to connect people to electricity 1st when they rolled that out?

I think it’s be abit fairer to people if people could sign up for a connection and they prioritized areas that had the most signups instead of doing it randomly.

It won't be random ..... you can be certain it will have some sound commercial reason for whatever method they use to decide in what order to do the roll out.

clohamon

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

It won't be random ..... you can be certain it will have some sound commercial reason for whatever method they use to decide in what order to do the roll out.

This being Ireland there'll be hell to pay if it's not a transparent process. You can imagine TDs getting a lot of stick if areas in their constituency are in the bottom half of the schedule for no apparent reason.

Equally there'll be an inquest if constituencies with FG TDs/Ministers are seen to have done better.

Orebro

I think most people, myself included, won't mind the wait because the fact it's being rolled out is enough and an unbelievably better place to be than having no NBP.

I would imagine though that every county will get a taste of it in the first stage, they couldn't be seen to be concentrating all efforts in the one county for purely political reasons.

grbear

celticbhoy27 wrote: »

TBH I hope they give a fairly accurate indication from the get go. If you are 3 years etc down the line so be it. Gives you the opportunity to sign. Contract with a wisp in the meantime. Be annoying checking every few months

Hard to disagree with that. I held back on signing up for Airwire because everytime I contacted Eir(com back then) they would assure me that my exchange was due to be upgraded in the next wave. Like a fool I stayed another six months using my mobile tethered to my PC before finally signing up for Airwire. It was another eight months before Eir actually upgraded the exchange.

If this proposed postcode checker gives a reasonably accurate installation date then people will know just what their options are.

celticbhoy27

Orebro wrote: »

I think most people, myself included, won't mind the wait because the fact it's being rolled out is enough and an unbelievably better place to be than having no NBP.

I would imagine though that every county will get a taste for it in the first stage, they couldn't be seen to be concentrating all efforts in the one county for purely political reasons.

Don't have anything to quote but I've read that works will begin in all counties at same time. It's not going to be a case of do a bit in Kilkenny onto Carlow the next day. There will be crews in each county

The Cush

westyIrl wrote: »

NBI CEO Peter Hendrick on Tipp FM yesterday;

https://tippfm.com/podcasts/nbi-ceo-broadband-plan-will-affect-tipp/

Just listened back to the interview, always good to get new information from the horse's mouth so to speak.

One thing stood out that no one corrected incl. the interviewee, the person interviewed was Peter Hendrick, yet he was introduced and thanked at the end as Peter Hopkins. The radio station website also misnames him as Peter Hopkins.

KOR101

The Cush wrote: »

One thing stood out that no one corrected incl. the interviewee, the person interviewed was Peter Hendrick, yet he was introduced and thanked at the end as Peter Hopkins. The radio station website also misnames him as Peter Hopkins.

Maybe they're all actors. Well they fooled us on the moon landings......

Airwire: MartinL

grbear wrote: »

Hard to disagree with that. I held back on signing up for Airwire because everytime I contacted Eir(com back then) they would assure me that my exchange was due to be upgraded in the next wave. Like a fool I stayed another six months using my mobile tethered to my PC before finally signing up for Airwire. It was another eight months before Eir actually upgraded the exchange.

I'm not sure, how far back this is.

But if for example a service gets enabled for your premise that suits yourself better (like when you're on fixed wireless and FTTH comes along) and you're in contract with us, we can always change that for you, as long as the service is in our portfolio.

Our portfolio currently covers 2 generations of fixed wireless, VDSL, OpenEIR and SIRO FTTH. We have been negotiating with eNet on access to their FTTx platform in Loughrea and we will be negotiating with NBI, should the contract get signed.

That way binding you to a contract (at least with us) doesn't really matter.

The Cush

In the SBP later today, this from in front of the paywall

Broadband firms in stand-off with state

State in process of nailing down final number of premises National Broadband Ireland must cover:
Department has requested ‘legally binding commitments’ from operators, but firms have refused

Internet providers will not enter into official agreements with the government to roll out high-speed broadband across the country, in a move that could cause considerable uncertainty for the state’s multibillion-euro rural broadband scheme, The Sunday Business Post understands.

National Broadband Ireland (NBI), a firm owned by US businessmen David McCourt and Walter Scott Jr, has been named as the preferred bidder for the National Broadband Plan (NBP) which intends to cover about 540,000...

https://www.businesspost.ie/business/broadband-firms-stand-off-state-449917

I assume this is about the Dept's latest consultation on Conclusion of the NBP Mapping Exercise for the Intervention Area - https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/communications/consultations/Pages/Conclusion-of-NBP-Mapping-Exercise.aspx/

Without seeing the full article, is this really a story anymore? We know eir will not sign any further commitments to roll out commercial fibre into the intervention area as they have said many times and SIRO aren't in anyway interested.