National Broadband Ireland : implementation and progress

mp3guy

daraghwal wrote: »

...
Would the farming industry collapse? No, but similar to if other businesses did not have broadband, it would cause a lot of hardship, time and money.
...

I think the point I left quoted above is where I was coming from. Take 50 farms and cut internet and it will be awful but things could keep ticking over albeit very painfully. Take 50 IT companies and nothing moves.

Thanks for the overview! Very informative, I appreciate the time you spent writing that up, I wasn't aware of most of that.

oscarBravo

mp3guy wrote: »

Take 50 farms and cut internet and it will be awful but things could keep ticking over albeit very painfully.

Take 50 households and cut internet and it will be awful but things could keep ticking over albeit very painfully.

I think we've moved on from "we could probably find a way of coping without broadband" as a justification for not providing it.

mp3guy

oscarBravo wrote: »

Take 50 households and cut internet and it will be awful but things could keep ticking over albeit very painfully.

I think we've moved on from "we could probably find a way of coping without broadband" as a justification for not providing it.

Absolutely. Hence why most people are happy with the NBI, seems to be fair for all rural community members, not just one or the other.

Pique

daraghwal wrote: »

All cattle and sheep in the country now have an electronic tag.

I did not know that. When did that come in?

I pity the old timers in their 70s/80s trying to manage all those regulations having spent their formative years with horse-drawn implements.

Headshot

daraghwal wrote: »

The vast majority of farms now depend on broadband and would find it extremely difficult to move back to an offline system. They would be required to either take on less work, or hire more employees. I'm not going on a rant here, just giving examples of how I/other farmers I know use the internet seeing as you're curious.

The agfood.ie website: This website is ran by the Dept. of Agriculture. It contains a list of all the animals a farmer owns and everything about them. Where they were born, where they have been before, when they were moved, when they were last tested for TB, genetic information etc. It also contains financial services for farmers, grant applications, nitrates information (how much fertiliser the farmer is allowed to spread) and how many animals a farmer is allowed keep which can change based on what schemes the farmer enters into.

To move an animal to another farm or grazing area owned by someone else, farmers log into www.agfood.ie and have to apply for a certificate of compliance to move them. This is usually granted instantly if the farmer is allowed to move animals (denied if e.g. farm had an animal tested positive for TB) and can be accepted by the receiving farmer on his online system using the cert number. It must be done before moving the animal. Previously this had to be done at a mart or took days via post to the dept. of agriculture and the new owner. Before that, there was no system in place but that's not an option anymore and this system is the reason, if you want to, find out all this information about the beef you buy in the supermarket. The same system is used to register new calves. Multiply all that paperwork by a few hundred and it gets into a lot of work.

Everything used on farm has to be logged. Medicines used on animals, sprays used on land. Everything. There is now a qr code on spray bottles that farmers scan into whatever app they decide to use e.g. herdwatch. This is then logged and can be viewed by auditors (from Bord Bia and Dept. of Ag) at the click of a button. A few weeks ago we had a farm audit by Bord Bia. They are not doing on-farm audits due to covid-19. They required pictures of all housing on the farm, feed storage, safety equipment etc., scans of records both offline and online records. It took me hours to upload everything. Luckily we changed ISP just last week and now have a reliable 50/5 connection instead of about 2/0.2

All cattle and sheep in the country now have an electronic tag. This can be scanned by animal handling equipment that automatically uploads animal weights and can be viewed by farmers on their phone.

On dairy farms, particularly robot milking parlours (common nowadays), support services need to be able to log into the robotic milking systems via teamviewer. These support engineers are often in another country so there's enough lag without a bad internet connection on the farmers end! You won't find many milking parlours built in the last 5-10 years that don't have an internet connection requirement.

Most dairy farms use artificial insemination. A lot of farmers are using collars on their cows. These collars monitor the cow and judging by the cows movements, temperatures etc., can tell the farmer on their phone when a cow is ready to be served. Automatic gates are often set up and based on this data the gate opens and allows the cow into a separate pen. This monitor can tell a farmer that their cow is sick before she has any visible signs also.

Calving cameras - calving cameras have cut down on hours of work and sleepless nights for farmers travelling up and down to out-farms.

Field measurements - I use my phone a lot to measure different sections of fields.

Would the farming industry collapse? No, but similar to if other businesses did not have broadband, it would cause a lot of hardship, time and money.

They definitely find music comforting and we leave on the radio but haven't tried netflix on them, yet

I live in rural Ireland and feel id have a good bit of knowledge on farming but you've blown my mind

scottyboi_2016

St. Westy wrote: »

is this still planned to take 7 years? the only internet i can get is 2.5mb and 600m up the road they are in the eir fibre catchment, breaks my heart seeing them fibre black yokes on the poles beside my house yet they didnt bother connecting my house :mad: and they last house they connected on the line is a empty farmhouse, it made no sense, and me and 4 neighbors all with big families have next to zero internet, im in sligo so i presume we are going to be last in the pot to get rolled out unfortunately :cool:

I'm in the exact same position in Louth. Myself and neighbour are first two houses passed by fibre, and only two who cannot get it on the road. Incidentally, the first premises that can get it is a chicken house with no office, phone line or need for broadband. Worse still the drop point that is ~150m from me only has 5 of its 8 ports in use according to the KN engineer I spoke to. He said the capacity is there for us to be connected, and we're not too far from the drop point, but OpenEir says no.

westyIrl

Pique wrote: »

I did not know that. When did that come in?

I pity the old timers in their 70s/80s trying to manage all those regulations having spent their formative years with horse-drawn implements.

It's been available a couple of years now. I don't think you have to have electronic types but standard visible only tags are yesterday at this stage. Had an inspection recently and DAFM inspector just waves the reader about through a flock of sheep and has every tag read within 5-10 mins. 10 years ago the same job involved catching each sheep and reading individual tag numbers..days work.

I know a good few old timers who actually are taking it in their stride and register calf births etc. Anyone who doesn't embrace the online services or get a son/daughter to do it for them is really getting left behind as more and more of the services daraghwal mentioned in his post are being shifted to online only, which further highlights the necessity of the NBP.

Jim

daraghwal

Pique wrote: »

I did not know that. When did that come in?

I pity the old timers in their 70s/80s trying to manage all those regulations having spent their formative years with horse-drawn implements.

I'm not sure when exactly it came in. Definitely over 10 years ago for cattle and mandatory since June 2019 for sheep. I'm not sure if that's enforced yet though and there are some exceptions.

westyIrl wrote: »

I know a good few old timers who actually are taking it in their stride and register calf births etc. Anyone who doesn't embrace the online services or get a son/daughter to do it for them is really getting left behind as more and more of the services daraghwal mentioned in his post are being shifted to online only, which further highlights the necessity of the NBP.

Jim

I am said son/nephew Yep, the amount of farmers that go for computer training to avail of these services really is surprising. It probably won't be long before the offline options are gone altogether and of the farmers I know, all of them use these online services unless they can't get broadband or are downsizing/retiring and it wouldn't be worth their while changing at this stage.

Another recent addition I forgot to mention is the marts! They closed due to covid-19 and went online. Some experienced higher demand than they would have in-person. Farmers watch the animals and bid on them live. A good internet connection is needed to reduce buffering and allow farmers get their bids in. A decent upload speed is needed in the marts too.

Ultima Thule

Could cost up to €5000 in some places


https://www.businesspost.ie/ireland/new-rural-homes-to-shoulder-cost-of-connection-to-broadband-6a921313

mp3guy

Ultima Thule wrote: »

Could cost up to €5000 in some places


https://www.businesspost.ie/ireland/new-rural-homes-to-shoulder-cost-of-connection-to-broadband-6a921313

For a second there I thought that would apply to existing homes.

Pique

Ultima Thule wrote: »

Could cost up to €5000 in some places


https://www.businesspost.ie/ireland/new-rural-homes-to-shoulder-cost-of-connection-to-broadband-6a921313

Text for those without a sub?

fergus1001

Ultima Thule wrote:

Could cost up to €5000 in some places

flup sake I'm in the middle of planning at the moment I'll probably be hit with this

rounders

fergus1001 wrote: »

flup sake I'm in the middle of planning at the moment I'll probably be hit with this

I'd imagine the paper is sensationalizing it. 5k is probably is the line is full and they have to run a new line from the exchange for you

clohamon

Pique wrote: »

Text for those without a sub?

https://twitter.com/saloreilly/status/1282395212866883584

westyIrl

rounders wrote: »

I'd imagine the paper is sensationalizing it. 5k is probably is the line is full and they have to run a new line from the exchange for you

I think you might be right as regards it being sensationalised. Also it appears he is referring moreso to the ducting rather than the fiber itself. I wouldn't have any problem if it was made mandatory for owners to have ducting installed (on their property) at their own cost for new builds. That pretty much the way it works for most services at the moment

However, if he's suggesting going down the road of having to pay increased costs to connect/lay the fiber itself. Well it will be about as bright as his idea of reintroducing wolves. The NBP is after all about minimising the digital divide between rural and urban areas and not being at a disadvantage because of where you live. Suggesting rural dwellers would have to pay significantly more to access the same service flies in the face of what is at the heart of the NBP. He's blurring the lines between service provision and planning policy to suit his own narrative.


Jim

SkepticQuark

TBH as a green voter, the Dublin style greens are pretty bad in that they are simply disconnected from the reality of rural Ireland, even rural towns that realistically they should support the development of. Like it's just plain tone-deaf to suggest it's somehow a bad thing rural homeowners are getting a better deal out of the broadband plan, that's the point of the plan, it's fixing an inequality.

The Cush

Also in the SBP, an opinion piece by Kevin Barrins, Sky's director of wholesale and regulatory.

The piece discusses the cost of accessing eir's wholesale network and the profit generated by eir as a result of these high access charges and how these current regulated access cost models will impact the NBP

... Comreg is in fact consistently overestimating Eircom's actual costs and therefore allowing for super-normal profits on these services.

Well, if we simply take the 12 per cent ROCE (return on capital employed) as outlined earlier for 2018/19, that amounts to an over-recovery of €51m for that year alone, around €5 a month extra on the average bill of the almost one million customers on Eircom's network.

Worryingly, this is not the only way consumers will get hit. The wholesale price models underpinning Eircom'ssignificant over-recovery are the same models it will use to levy charges on National Broadband Ireland for access to its infrastructure under the National Broadband Plan. This means the subsidy to NBI and the cost to the taxpayer will also be higher than it should be.

A review of these charges was promised by Comreg late last year to resolve a High Courts appeal - https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=111525587#post111525587

Comreg plans to initate a review of the Access Network costs incurred by all providers, That review is already 2 years late and could take 12-18 months to complete.

oscarBravo

I saw an NBI van and "survey in progress" signs outside Castlebar this morning.

ECO_Mental

NBI Surveyed my area a few weeks ago (West of Carrgaline) and I am due to be connected early next year by the website. Anyway a couple of weeks after they surveyed my area I had KN (under contract to Eir on their vans) replace 2 poles about 100-200 meters down the road from me.. coincidence? or are Eir having to replace poles for NBI?

naughto

oscarBravo wrote: »

I saw an NBI van and "survey in progress" signs outside Castlebar this morning.

Where abouts was this

recyclebin

I'd say, it's more a case of Eir having to fulfil their obligations more than anything. NBI will have more clout to get rotten poles replaced than an ordinary Joe Soap.

NBI will be renting use of the poles, so it's in Eirs interest to replace them too.

oscarBravo

naughto wrote: »

Where abouts was this

N84 end of the Derrycoosh road.

joe123

oscarBravo wrote: »

N84 end of the Derrycoosh road.

Interesting that. When I spoke with NBI about Galway, they sent me a list of additional areas in Galway and one was just down simply as N84.

As it runs through Headford I asked did that mean it was included and they said yes. I wonder are they just running that entire route? More likely they are working outward from Castlebar though if they are now in Mayo.

I haven't seen a single van around my area anyways so I'm not at all convinced my area is actually surveyed.

recyclebin

joe123 wrote: »

Interesting that. When I spoke with NBI about Galway, they sent me a list of additional areas in Galway and one was just down simply as N84.

As it runs through Headford I asked did that mean it was included and they said yes. I wonder are they just running that entire route? More likely they are working outward from Castlebar though if they are now in Mayo.

I haven't seen a single van around my area anyways so I'm not at all convinced my area is actually surveyed.

Saw an NBI van parked at the end of side road between Ballintubber and Ballyheane this evening.

Grnsj

ECO_Mental wrote: »

NBI Surveyed my area a few weeks ago (West of Carrgaline) and I am due to be connected early next year by the website. Anyway a couple of weeks after they surveyed my area I had KN (under contract to Eir on their vans) replace 2 poles about 100-200 meters down the road from me.. coincidence? or are Eir having to replace poles for NBI?

Of course Eir (KN) have to replace the poles. Who else will do it? That's part of the deal. NBI survey says "we need X poles replaced and X chambers rebuilt" then Eir get their subcontractor KN to carry out the work.

MBSnr

recyclebin wrote: »

Saw an NBI van parked at the end of side road between Ballintubber and Ballyheane this evening.

They were the Castlebar side of Ballyhean in the morning.

Jakey Rolling

Fibre run to village near us about a year ago - one of the existing Eir poles it was strung on has fallen over, looks like it was rotted at the base. Been lying on its side for a couple of weeks now, dragging the cables down with it. Doesn't instill confidence!

This is why in principle I would have preferred fibre wrapped over ESB lines. At least ESB networks keep lines clear of obstructions, maintain poles and pylons to high standards and repair breakages immediately.

The Cush

Don't think this was posted last week, meant to do it myself but slipped my mind.

From the SBP last Sunday week, Firm behind rural broadband plan says it can speed up delivery

Peter O'Dwyer
@peterodwyer1

5th July, 2020

Firm overseeing the project tells operators it can ‘significantly’ speed up roll-out to 540,000 homes and businesses nationwide

The company overseeing the National Broadband Plan has told operators it can significantly speed up its roll-out.

National broadband Ireland, which is controlled by David McCourt, a US businessman, was awarded the contract for the National Broadband Plan (NBP) late last year.

The ground-breaking scheme aims to deliver high-speed fibre broadband to more than 540,000 homes and businesses across the country.

Surveying and design teams began work in early January in the first deployment locations which include Carrigaline, Co. Cork; parts of Connemara in Co Galway; and towns in Kilkenny and Limerick.

Addressing broadband operators through an online engagement session last week, NBI indicated that it was hopefulof being able to expedite the scheme.

Joe Lavin, the chief commercial officer at NBI, said the company was on track to pass a minimum of 115,000 premises with the network by the end of 2021.

Once the network has been completed in the initial deployment areas, NBI would review the build of the network to find efficiencies and identify oppertunities to "go faster".

"That's probably not going to have a massive impact on ou 2021 number but it will have a significant impact on 2022/23/24," he said.

Richard Bruton, the former communications minister, said in May that he believed NBI could reduce the NBP roll-out period from seven years to five.

Bruton told the Dáil that he had asked his officials "to investigate the feasibility of accelerating the roll-out of the National Broadband Plan so that those [premises] now in year six and seven can be brought forward". There are around 192,000 premises not due to get connected to high-speed broadband until the final two years of the plan.

Asked about Lavin's comments to operators and whether they indicated that the NBP roll-out could be fast-tracked, a spokeswoman for NBI said there would be "regular reviews" of the plan like there are with all major infrastructure projects, including one to be conducted after teh first deployment sites have been finished.

"This is best business practice and was already integrated into our processes. NBI plans to pass 115,000 premises with the new fibre network by end of 2021, and between 70,000 and 100,000 per year thereafter.

"We remain committed to rolling out the national broadband plan ahead of time, and our regular discussions with the Department of Communications include exploring how that might be expidited."

Lavin told operators NBI planned to have a "soft launch" of the network prior to launching it generally.

As a wholsaler, NBI was also reliant on individual operators, like those on the call, to be successful, he added. NBI would work with them to stimulate demand for the network as a result, he pledged.

bazzz

The NBI surveyors were out in force in Dunmore East yesterday.
Hopefully it's a good sign, of things to come.

joe123

Anyone been chatting to the NBI fellas around lately? Would be curious to hear what timeframe for rollout they are expecting for these newer batch of areas being surveyed.