National Broadband Ireland : implementation and progress

joe123

Friend of mine down in Cork, has gone from available to pre order last month, to December 21 - January 22 build in progress.:rolleyes:

heavydawson

joe123 wrote: »

Friend of mine down in Cork, has gone from available to pre order last month, to December 21 - January 22 build in progress.:rolleyes:

FFS. Did he actually pre-order at the time?

Jofspring

NBI checker at this stage just seems like a complete waste of time.

heavydawson

scunermac wrote: »

NBI vans spotted in the Portlaoise surrounding areas today. I found it a bit strange considering they were also here about 6 months ago. I thought that was when they started the surveying in this area, but maybe that was them only getting the lay of the land, and now they’re back doing the actual surveying now.
According to the NBI site we’re in the ‘Survey Underway’ stage for the last 3 months now with a target date of Feb-Apr 2022. Although given the delays reported lately, coupled with today’s sighting, I’d say that’s very optimistic.

That sounds similar to what I saw here in Tipp. The initial pass in July last year was just checking how each house was connected (from what I could tell) in terms of overhead or duct. Heard nothing again until Jan/February when they started repairing ducts, replacing poles, etc. We had a bunch of poles replaced as recently as a month ago, though still waiting for fibre to be strung up on them.

coolisin

This thread has just ruined any optimism I have had for getting fibre to the home some time during my life!

Hococop

That's worrying, about 6 weeks into the pre order for me, hopefully it still happens

joe123

heavydawson wrote: »

FFS. Did he actually pre-order at the time?

Told me his parents (their home house) contacted them at the time and their details were taken. Would be in touch type response.

Also heres more on Newstalk about NBI completely missing their targets.

Brief mention of if the project is viable and would 4g/5g be a better alternative

https://www.newstalk.com/news/national-broadband-plan-has-seen-effectively-no-progress-at-all-irish-rural-link-1207062

Could easily see this whole thing fall apart / new contracts negotiated etc. I just hope if theres changes, its bringing in Open Eir / ESB to assist with the rollout. Its clear so far NBI are completely in over their head.

ACitizenErased

Heard from a couple of people in the industry now in the last few weeks that Eir are being incredibly difficult and that's why there's delays

TimHorton

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Heard from a couple of people in the industry now in the last few weeks that Eir are being incredibly difficult and that's why there's delays

NBI are incompetent, Putting up welcome advertising billboards and bus shelter posters in the wrong county (30 miles from border)

TimHorton

TimHorton wrote: »

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.

As I was saying weeks ago , NBI are a joke outfit.

listermint

TimHorton wrote: »

NBI are incompetent, Putting up welcome advertising billboards and bus shelter posters in the wrong county (30 miles from border)

Tbf , honestly not sure what this actually has to do with actually operational work on the ground?


And once again I'm still unsure what people were expecting to occur during an actual global pandemic . Nothing about the last year and a half has been normal at all. That goes from work practices , to health and safety to actually being able to staff.


There does need to be some serious reality check. And I do agree NBI should be more honest and up front but people do also need to comprehend the scale of what's gone on. We've literally closed nearly every establishment in the country for a year. I think we should be expecting things to pick up now and get better information. Providing that Brexit also hasn't stuffed contracting workers coming over.

listermint

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Heard from a couple of people in the industry now in the last few weeks that Eir are being incredibly difficult and that's why there's delays

I'm in no doubt that if there is a roadblock to put up EIR will do it with gusto I'm sure there has been intructions to be as slow as humanely possible with anything in relation to NBI

Pique

TimHorton wrote: »

As I was saying weeks ago , NBI are a joke outfit.

Are you replying to your own posts? Forget to change accounts or something??

dam099

joe123 wrote: »

Told me his parents (their home house) contacted them at the time and their details were taken. Would be in touch type response.

Also heres more on Newstalk about NBI completely missing their targets.

Brief mention of if the project is viable and would 4g/5g be a better alternative

https://www.newstalk.com/news/national-broadband-plan-has-seen-effectively-no-progress-at-all-irish-rural-link-1207062

Could easily see this whole thing fall apart / new contracts negotiated etc. I just hope if theres changes, its bringing in Open Eir / ESB to assist with the rollout. Its clear so far NBI are completely in over their head.

While they do seem to be way behind that article doesn't tell you the full story without knowing their milestones for different points in 2021.

4,000 sounds like a big miss if you divide 115,000 by 5/12 but the plan may not have been linear. As the building blocks fall into place progress in the latter part of the year could get much faster.

joe123

listermint wrote: »

Tbf , honestly not sure what this actually has to do with actually operational work on the ground?


And once again I'm still unsure what people were expecting to occur during an actual global pandemic . Nothing about the last year and a half has been normal at all. That goes from work practices , to health and safety to actually being able to staff.


There does need to be some serious reality check. And I do agree NBI should be more honest and up front but people do also need to comprehend the scale of what's gone on. We've literally closed nearly every establishment in the country for a year. I think we should be expecting things to pick up now and get better information. Providing that Brexit also hasn't stuffed contracting workers coming over.

Goes back to the question, why were NBI being so bullish throughout? They've been asked numerous times over the last year how Covid has impacted them and they've pretty much said "theres been delays but we are doing really well".

It was a perfect excuse for them to lean on, even if that wasnt the reality, it wa s an oppertunity for them to under promise and over deliver. So either those speaking to the media dont know the reality of the problems on the ground, or they are confident they can ramp up to hit their targets, although cant see how theyl manage to go from 4k - 115k or even 80k within the next 6 months.

dam099 wrote: »

While they do seem to be way behind that article doesn't tell you the full story without knowing their milestones for different points in 2021.

4,000 sounds like a big miss if you divide 115,000 by 5/12 but the plan may not have been linear. As the building blocks fall into place progress in the latter part of the year could get much faster.

Thats the hope, but 6 months to ramp up to having 70k+ passed seems a big leap of faith. Im pretty sure the end of year target in 2020 was 7k homes passed. Or at least thats what Eamon Ryan suggested.

If OpenEir were proving difficult, wouldnt we have heard it by now? NBI should have been banging on about the problems in Government sittings etc. Most delays seem to attributed to planning and CoCo issues.

Nolars

Out for a stroll in east cork most of the poles on my road have been replaced recently.

SkepticQuark

Honestly, I'm not sure why people expected perfect plain sailing especially when we had a pandemic to deal with. I also doubt the electrification of Ireland was done in lightning speed with no problems. Infrastructure doesn't happen overnight, people need to be patient otherwise someone like Eamon Ryan is gonna ****ing sell us off to Imagine or a mobile provider and we'll be back here in a few years talking about yet another plan to get fibre.....

It would be ideal if ESB were able to come in on the project just given they are far better than Eir at infrastructure work but I don't see that happening (even though KN are doing fibre work so IDK if ESB or Eir will even be of that much benefit here, the issues seem to lay elsewhere).

If they miss the targets for this year then obviously there has to be some form of consequences if that's contractually what was agreed to (without any clause for getting out of that) but I swear if we hear talk of Ryan and others trying to switch it to something like 4G/5G I will go ****ing ballistic, we've come too far to just give up on the idea of continuing on with a fibre network.

wexfordman2

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Heard from a couple of people in the industry now in the last few weeks that Eir are being incredibly difficult and that's why there's delays

Nbi had to come back and move a pole 4 inches as when they replaced it, it was in the wrong position....by 4 inches!!!

AirGuitarist

listermint wrote:

I'm in no doubt that if there is a roadblock to put up EIR will do it with gusto I'm sure there has been intructions to be as slow as humanely possible with anything in relation to NBI

Why would eir slow anything down? They'll be offering service on NBIs network too, if anything they'd want to speed things up to access more potential customers.

user1842

wexfordman2 wrote: »

Nbi had to come back and move a pole 4 inches as when they replaced it, it was in the wrong position....by 4 inches!!!

Why would NBI be replacing Open Eir poles?

wexfordman2

user1842 wrote: »

Why would NBI be replacing Open Eir poles?

OK, let's put it another way. The poles were being replaced to allow NBI deployment. They were replaced by contractors.

Whether this contractors were working in to eir or nbi, I am not sure.

kaizersoze

user1842 wrote: »

Why would NBI be replacing Open Eir poles?

God knows what agreement they have in place with Eir but all pole replacement, chamber work, duct unblocking etc I've seen done has been done by contractors working on behalf of NBI.

On a positive note, a lot, and I mean a lot, of jointing, splicing has been done around Ballinasloe in the last week.

user1842

kaizersoze wrote: »

God knows what agreement they have in place with Eir but all pole replacement, chamber work, duct unblocking etc I've seen done has been done by contractors working on behalf of NBI.

On a positive note, a lot, and I mean a lot, of jointing, splicing has been done around Ballinasloe in the last week.

I would love to know the agreement that was made.

Surely Open Eir must be then contracting NBI to replace the poles.

How else would this work?

Very messy and definitely contrituting to delays.

If tax payers money is being used to replace Open Eir poles then this would be a disgrace.

heavydawson

user1842 wrote: »

I would love to know the agreement that was made.

Surely Open Eir must be then contracting NBI to replace the poles.

How else would this work?

Very messy and definitely contrituting to delays.

If tax payers money is being used to replace Open Eir poles then this would be a disgrace.

Tax payers money was always going to be used to replace Open Eir poles. 1/3 of the 3 billion allocated to the budget was for pole/duct rental costs. Those rental fees go towards maintaining the poles/ducts.
https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/regulator-set-to-cut-state-subsidised-900m-fee-to-eir-for-national-broadband-plan-access-to-rural-ducts-and-poles-39521365.html

Eir have possibly sub-contracted the pole replacement back to NBI to save time/money, and also because they likely can't scale their own replacement crews for an operation the size of NBI.

listermint

AirGuitarist wrote: »

Why would eir slow anything down? They'll be offering service on NBIs network too, if anything they'd want to speed things up to access more potential customers.

Because they would ultimately prefer for end users to be on their own eir network . Chip away at zones they haven't previously covered. Of course theyd have no interest in helping out. They don't want their market share shared with other NBI operators

TheSegal

kaizersoze wrote: »

God knows what agreement they have in place with Eir but all pole replacement, chamber work, duct unblocking etc I've seen done has been done by contractors working on behalf of NBI.

On a positive note, a lot, and I mean a lot, of jointing, splicing has been done around Ballinasloe in the last week.

Seeing a lot of splicing around Carnmore and Turloughmore in Galway too. Seeing them put a second DP on a few poles now where a long length of cable is coming from underground. Is this normal?

user1842

heavydawson wrote: »

Tax payers money was always going to be used to replace Open Eir poles. 1/3 of the 3 billion allocated to the budget was for pole/duct rental costs. Those rental fees go towards maintaining the poles/ducts.
https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/regulator-set-to-cut-state-subsidised-900m-fee-to-eir-for-national-broadband-plan-access-to-rural-ducts-and-poles-39521365.html

Eir have possibly sub-contracted the pole replacement back to NBI to save time/money, and also because they likely can't scale their own replacement crews for an operation the size of NBI.

Thanks and fair enough.

What I meant was that NBI would be footing the full cost of pole replacement.

mun1

Couple of things:


Eir took 300,000 home out of initial IA .
NBI were only tenderer remaining after this happened.
This left only “non commercially viable “ houses in the IA.
Quality of Existing eir infrastructure (required by NBI) was probably over estimated.
Local authorities are a nightmare to deal with.
Huge Skills shortage in Britain and Ireland for overhead line workers (both electrical and telecoms)
ESB, eir, SIRO, NBI all use similar skilled staff, all companies on big capital build programmes.
Covid.

On a positive note , the DP was put up outside my house in , fedamore , limerick today.

NBAiii

There was an update to the NBI rollout page today. No further pushback on dates, thankfully, with Drogheda and Waterford moving to "Build in progress" and Carrickmacross, Carrick-on-Suir, Castlerea, Curragh Camp, Mountrath, Navan and Templemartin moving to "Survey underway".

NBAiii

TheSegal wrote: »

Seeing a lot of splicing around Carnmore and Turloughmore in Galway too. Seeing them put a second DP on a few poles now where a long length of cable is coming from underground. Is this normal?

Are you sure it is not one NBI distribution point and one eir DP? I haven't come across two DPs on one pole from the same company and I don't see why it would be required.