National Broadband Ireland : implementation and progress

listermint

TheSegal wrote: »

Got word back from Digiweb today. NBI informed them of a small build issue that will delay the rollout West of the city to October. None of this has been added to the NBI site which is a joke tbh, we shouldn't have to be informed by third party ISPs of delays to the rollout. I contacted NBI for clarification and got the same copy and paste email about the rollout is proceeding as planned and I can pre-order with an ISP now, don't understand why NBI ask people to contact them if they don't even bother to read the damn emails sent to them!! Didn't address the question I asked about the rollout being delayed to October at all.

Tbf. You are not a customer of NBI.

joe123

NBI's level of support is atrocious.

Website has no visibility/painfully out of date and/or they really are running at a snails pace and have fallen way behind on timeframes.

Only yesterday I was chatting to someone on a NBI thread where we were discussing the waste of time BCP's are and suddenly some NBI fella messaged me like "send me your eircode and we can give you an update". I replied in a DM, dont reply if you are going to send me the copy paste template you gave me a few weeks back.

What happened? They sent me the exact same template response with zero additional acknowledgement. They are robots.

For anyone premises pending survey, do not waste your time contacting NBI. Copy paste merchants.

Hi,

Thank you for reaching out to the team at National Broadband Ireland.

Using the Eircode provided we can confirm that this premise is within the Intervention Area, and is currently at the Premises Pending Survey stage. This means that once this premise is ready for connection, it will have access to the NBI™ network, Ireland's new high-speed fibre broadband network. To make sure people are kept informed of rollout progress specific to this Eircode, people can register for updates at https://nbi.ie/eoi

It is not possible to say exactly when connection will be enabled in the area until all surveys have been complete there. Once people are registered for updates, we will e-mail them once the connection is enabled.

The NBI™ network is a Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network, a highly reliable technology using fibre-optic cables capable of delivering speeds up to 10Gb. The NBI™ network will be providing speeds of up to 1Gb for business and residential users, with a minimum speed of 500Mb.

Please let me know if there is anything else that I can be of assistance with.

SkepticQuark

I feel like one of the only people here who are due to be connected some this year and is fine with waiting/delays.

celticbhoy27

joe123 wrote: »

NBI's level of support is atrocious.

Website has no visibility/painfully out of date and/or they really are running at a snails pace and have fallen way behind on timeframes.

Only yesterday I was chatting to someone on a NBI thread where we were discussing the waste of time BCP's are and suddenly some NBI fella messaged me like "send me your eircode and we can give you an update". I replied in a DM, dont reply if you are going to send me the copy paste template you gave me a few weeks back.

What happened? They sent me the exact same template response with zero additional acknowledgement. They are robots.

For anyone premises pending survey, do not waste your time contacting NBI. Copy paste merchants.

Yup. I'm in the survey planned stage. Not sure if thats a step ahead or behind yourself. Anyway got exact same message as you just with survey planned instead of survey pending. Rubbish

clohamon

joe123 wrote: »

NBI's level of support is atrocious.

Website has no visibility/painfully out of date and/or they really are running at a snails pace and have fallen way behind on timeframes.

Only yesterday I was chatting to someone on a NBI thread where we were discussing the waste of time BCP's are....

The alternative Plan Z from the Department of Public Expenditure consisted entirely of BCPs - 1000 of them. Michael Ring (DRCD) was fond of them also.

joe123 wrote: »

....and suddenly some NBI fella messaged me like "send me your eircode and we can give you an update". I replied in a DM, dont reply if you are going to send me the copy paste template you gave me a few weeks back.

What happened? They sent me the exact same template response with zero additional acknowledgement. They are robots.

For anyone premises pending survey, do not waste your time contacting NBI. Copy paste merchants.

I suspect that the combination of eircode/email/eoi is a lot more valuable to NBI than an anonymous visit to their website to check the map.
Reasonable to ask whether the data harvested is sold in any way to retailers or other service providers; NBI's privacy policy is quite broad.
Alternatively a strong cluster of EOIs might provide an incentive to prioritise deployment to a given area.
...and finally I presume they don't want to give competitors (openeir, siro) a head start by giving an accurate roll-out schedule years into the future.

None of which are good enough reasons to be leaving people in the dark.

listermint

joe123 wrote: »

NBI's level of support is atrocious.

Website has no visibility/painfully out of date and/or they really are running at a snails pace and have fallen way behind on timeframes.

Only yesterday I was chatting to someone on a NBI thread where we were discussing the waste of time BCP's are and suddenly some NBI fella messaged me like "send me your eircode and we can give you an update". I replied in a DM, dont reply if you are going to send me the copy paste template you gave me a few weeks back.

What happened? They sent me the exact same template response with zero additional acknowledgement. They are robots.

For anyone premises pending survey, do not waste your time contacting NBI. Copy paste merchants.

Tbh Joe I think you know at this point full well that your area is probably off into 23 or 24. So I'm actually unsure why you are bothering yourself into checking it all the time and grumbling. It's not going to make it move any faster. Your worse than the people who know they are getting broadband this year and they're going Bananas.

Mines probably going to be the last place to be connected or one of the last. That's fine il still be here house isn't going anywhere. But it will be great to have when it comes.

joe123

listermint wrote: »

Tbh Joe I think you know at this point full well that your area is probably off into 23 or 24. So I'm actually unsure why you are bothering yourself into checking it all the time and grumbling. It's not going to make it move any faster. Your worse than the people who know they are getting broadband this year and they're going Bananas.

Mines probably going to be the last place to be connected or one of the last. That's fine il still be here house isn't going anywhere. But it will be great to have when it comes.

Was only backing up what TheSegal was saying.

And I hadn't reached out to them, they messaged me. I even told them not to reply if its the template response.

Was giving an example of how robotic their support is yet they keep pushing everyone to contact them.

And I'm expecting much longer than that. Fully expecting 2025/2026. I've made my peace with it long ago :pac:

TheSegal

listermint wrote: »

Tbf. You are not a customer of NBI.

I was venting yesterday after the news of the connection being delayed so wasn't in the best mind set. I don't understand why NBI encourages everyone to reach out to them on social media though when they send copy and paste responses from their customer service which directly conflict with data from ISPs. It gives the impression that customer service in NBI doesn't know what is going on with the deployment team.
I'm still somewhat hopeful that i'll be connected this year. It was originally supposed to be January of this year and now pushed back to October so it's hard to have faith in any of the estimated dates.

KOR101

clohamon wrote: »

The alternative Plan Z from the Department of Public Expenditure consisted entirely of BCPs - 1000 of them.

Yes, that was Robert Watt's plan.

Furze99

SkepticQuark wrote: »

I feel like one of the only people here who are due to be connected some this year and is fine with waiting/delays.

LOL, living in a rural part of the relatively well populated SE and don't expect a decent broadband connection for several years. I've heard it all before over 20 years of sales calls and enquiries.

TheSegal

TheSegal wrote: »

I was venting yesterday after the news of the connection being delayed so wasn't in the best mind set. I don't understand why NBI encourages everyone to reach out to them on social media though when they send copy and paste responses from their customer service which directly conflict with data from ISPs. It gives the impression that customer service in NBI doesn't know what is going on with the deployment team.
I'm still somewhat hopeful that i'll be connected this year. It was originally supposed to be January of this year and now pushed back to October so it's hard to have faith in any of the estimated dates.

I was in contact with NBI again today just to clarify the October date. They have not given me a concrete answer but are trying to pass the blame for the delay from July/August to October to Digiweb and other ISPs ordering systems? Not sure how they could blame ISPs for a delay of their rollout though. I'm still trying to get more accurate information for the Galway townlands rollout but NBIs support are really trying to just skip around the question I have asked and send me back generic info. It's really like the left hand doesn't know the right hand is doing in NBI whatever has caused the breakdown in communication internally.


Edit: Finally got a direct answer from NBI after a lot of back and forth. They confirmed that the rollout for Galway townlands has been pushed back to September-November. I'm not sure if this applies to any other areas than Galway.

fish fingers

TheSegal wrote: »

I was in contact with NBI again today just to clarify the October date. They have not given me a concrete answer but are trying to pass the blame for the delay from July/August to October to Digiweb and other ISPs ordering systems? Not sure how they could blame ISPs for a delay of their rollout though. I'm still trying to get more accurate information for the Galway townlands rollout but NBIs support are really trying to just skip around the question I have asked and send me back generic info. It's really like the left hand doesn't know the right hand is doing in NBI whatever has caused the breakdown in communication internally.


Edit: Finally got a direct answer from NBI after a lot of back and forth. They confirmed that the rollout for Galway townlands has been pushed back to September-November. I'm not sure if this applies to any other areas than Galway.

Thank you for your work in getting a direct answer from them. It is disappointing to hear that it will be Oct, as you said it was originally meant to be November last year.

TheSegal

fish fingers wrote: »

Thank you for your work in getting a direct answer from them. It is disappointing to hear that it will be Oct, as you said it was originally meant to be November last year.

I had completely forgotten about the original November 2020 date from them. Not a good sign when they are delayed for almost a year. I can understand delays from Covid but what sort of a knockon effect is this going to have for the remainder of the rollout and what penalties are NBI going to suffer due to not meeting commitments.

WestWicklow1

TheSegal wrote: »

Edit: Finally got a direct answer from NBI after a lot of back and forth. They confirmed that the rollout for Galway townlands has been pushed back to September-November. I'm not sure if this applies to any other areas than Galway.

I'm truly sorry to hear this and I'm hoping it doesn't have any knock-on effect to this side of the country (west Wicklow). We were Aug-Oct 2021 now Oct-Dec 2021.

Ardent

Met the fellas doing a survey outside my house 10 days ago. One of them told me that a connection could be up to 12 months from from their survey. Two questions -

Is it likely to be even longer than that?

Is it normal for the website to STILL show survey pending?

johnnyboy08

Ardent wrote: »

Met the fellas doing a survey outside my house 10 days ago. One of them told me that a connection could be up to 12 months from from their survey. Two questions -

Is it likely to be even longer than that?

Is it normal for the website to STILL show survey pending?

Wait is longer than 12 months, realistically you're talking 18-24 months as it stands today with good chance that that will be increased as rollout schedule appears to be already behind.

Also normal to show survey pending still. The updates to the NBI website are poor. You probably won't see any movement until the whole deployment area is done.

heavydawson

Ardent wrote: »

Met the fellas doing a survey outside my house 10 days ago. One of them told me that a connection could be up to 12 months from from their survey. Two questions -

Is it likely to be even longer than that?

Is it normal for the website to STILL show survey pending?

1. Yes (we were surveyed July last year and not expecting to be connected til September this year)
2. Perhaps
3. Yes, we were showing "survey pending" for months after the actual survey.

FWIW, the preparation work started in Jan/Feb this year, so while you mightn't be connected for a while, you'll see visible progress for the 6-9 months prior to you getting connected. Hang on in there!

Pique

heavydawson wrote: »

1. Yes (we were surveyed July last year and not expecting to be connected til September this year)
2. Perhaps
3. Yes, we were showing "survey pending" for months after the actual survey.

FWIW, the preparation work started in Jan/Feb this year, so while you mightn't be connected for a while, you'll see visible progress for the 6-9 months prior to you getting connected. Hang on in there!

Similar here. Surveyed June 2020. Estimated Aug-Oct 2021 connection.

Peter Hendrick was on local radio back in March 2020 saying we would be connected by Easter 2021. When I saw the KN lads surveying and asked them about it they said no way, it'll be 12 months at least.

Bottom line, Hendrick was optimistic/spoofing and the boots on the ground know more than the NBI helpdesk.

TimHorton

Total Dopes in Charge of this , The west side of Athlone has Billboards and Bus Shelter Advertising welcoming NBP to GALWAY FFS.

kaizersoze

TimHorton wrote: »

Total Dopes in Charge of this , The west side of Athlone has Billboards and Bus Shelter Advertising welcoming NBP to GALWAY FFS.

Yes...shocking mismanagement!:rolleyes:

TimHorton

kaizersoze wrote: »

Yes...shocking mismanagement!:rolleyes:

Honestly - Your work is your signature , To put multiple posters/billboards up in the wrong county does not give confidence that they know what they are doing.

KOR101

TimHorton wrote: »

Total Dopes in Charge of this , The west side of Athlone has Billboards and Bus Shelter Advertising welcoming NBP to GALWAY FFS.

Are these NBI posters or ISP posters?

TimHorton

KOR101 wrote: »

Are these NBI posters or ISP posters?

NBI Posters.

Hococop

Silly question how many ports ( hopefully right word) in one of the nbi boxes?

heavydawson

Hococop wrote: »

Silly question how many ports ( hopefully right word) in one of the nbi boxes?

NBI only terminate the optical connection. The Wifi Router will be supplied by the ISP you choose, so there's no definitive answer to the number of ports.

However....
There will normally be 1 WAN port that will be used to connect to the optical termination box, and usually 4 LAN ports. I'll be buying my own router though. I'm sure others here will do the same

Hococop

heavydawson wrote: »

NBI only terminate the optical connection. The Wifi Router will be supplied by the ISP you choose, so there's no definitive answer to the number of ports.

However....
There will normally be 1 WAN port that will be used to connect to the optical termination box, and usually 4 LAN ports. I'll be buying my own router though. I'm sure others here will do the same

Probably the wrong word, I mean the nbi box on the poles, how many houses would it connect

naughto

Hococop wrote: »

Probably the wrong word, I mean the nbi box on the poles, how many houses would it connect

4 as far as I no

celticbhoy27

Ardent wrote: »

Met the fellas doing a survey outside my house 10 days ago. One of them told me that a connection could be up to 12 months from from their survey. Two questions -

Is it likely to be even longer than that?

Is it normal for the website to STILL show survey pending?

Surveyed Nov 2020. Type in my eircode and it states survey planned. Bar that day I met the guy surveying in Nov i haven't seen any work or personnel from nbi.

joe123

FYI - David McCourt is on Newstalk - Pat Kennys Show now.

EDIT: Can ignore - NBI question came at the very end and its nothing we havent heard. Nearly 1k people working for them now, nearly 1/4 of a million surveys done, and build work happening for 20k premises.

Jakey Rolling

Excited to see Eir vans out running cable today, from the current endpoint of their fibre on our road.
Thought at last they are extending into the intervention area to get ahead of NBI...

Nope - renewing 1km of dilapidated COPPER cable on to the newly replaced poles.
(still running it through ivy covered tree limbs)

FFS!