National Broadband Ireland : implementation and progress

KOR101

It's a miracle really that the Government steered it through all the bulls*it.

heavydawson

To be fair, I believe the point the author was (poorly) trying to make was one that Eir kept yammering on about during and after the tender process. Namely the requirements around service level agreements (which I believe are above those Eir offer their own fibre network customers), and also the requirement for a separate legal entity, when they already had OpenEir. They're the two complaints I heard the most, and I'm sure there was a lot more to it. I'll be really interested if Northern Ireland publishes its own contract for project stratus when that's been awarded so we can get a rough handle on the differing levels of "legalese" imposed in both scenarios. While on the surface both have similar aims, it would appear the requirements are being watered down in NI:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/05/n-ireland-broadband-project-appears-to-scale-back-rural-focus.html

Orebro

KOR101 wrote: »

It's a miracle really that the Government steered it through all the bulls*it.

Couldn't agree more, it's a wonder it survived the process at all.

And the amount of nay-sayers still on social media is unbelievable - 100% of them sitting in houses with already fast internet.

listermint

Orebro wrote: »

Couldn't agree more, it's a wonder it survived the process at all.

And the amount of nay-sayers still on social media is unbelievable - 100% of them sitting in houses with already fast internet.

Theres a really loud one out there whom just signed up to FTTH recently enjoying 500Mb + speeds but going after the contract tender process goodo like there is no tomorrow.

heavydawson

clohamon wrote: »

The point they’re making is that it could have been done better, cheaper, quicker, somehow, by someone else, maybe Telecom Eireann if it still existed; and that it’s too much money to be giving to one company, and that nearly half of it is going to another company, and that European law can be ignored if it’s not convenient, and one-off houses are a bad thing.

None of their alternative suggestions would carry any water if they were put to any scrutiny. I think we all know that here.

Re. one-off houses, they also published this the same day as that opinion piece:
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/parenting/so-that-s-it-we-are-leaving-dublin-behind-and-moving-to-the-country-1.4338513

And actually that's a good thing, it's nice to see diversity of opinion however unintentional it might have been :-)

heavydawson

listermint wrote: »

Theres a really loud one out there whom just signed up to FTTH recently enjoying 500Mb + speeds but going after the contract tender process goodo like there is no tomorrow.

Rhymes with Bavin Meridan?
To be fair:
1. He's an excellent campaigner for FOI (and there are quite a few ardent FOI campaigners who wouldn't be strong proponents of NBP due to long-standing questions over the murky nature of ENET and the MAN contracts).
2. He chose to live in a place where that service happens to be readily available. I don't think the post was rubbing in anyones face. We'll all be posting here with our speedtest results in a few years (I hope)

There are shades of grey here. Even as a ardent supported of NBP, I'm still happy to call out
1. A single final bidder being bananas
2. The amount of redacted information in the contract being suspect when we have _so_ much money on the line

There probably should be some time limit on the publication of the non-redacted contract though. Maybe 5-10 years, or in the case of NBI, perhaps the full contract should be published when the rollout is complete. I realise the contract is for a full 25 years though.....

Nolars

Seen 3 vans around Midleton area today

listermint

heavydawson wrote: »

Rhymes with Bavin Meridan?
To be fair:
1. He's an excellent campaigner for FOI (and there are quite a few ardent FOI campaigners who wouldn't be strong proponents of NBP due to long-standing questions over the murky nature of ENET and the MAN contracts).
2. He chose to live in a place where that service happens to be readily available. I don't think the post was rubbing in anyones face. We'll all be posting here with our speedtest results in a few years (I hope)

There are shades of grey here. Even as a ardent supported of NBP, I'm still happy to call out
1. A single final bidder being bananas
2. The amount of redacted information in the contract being suspect when we have _so_ much money on the line

There probably should be some time limit on the publication of the non-redacted contract though. Maybe 5-10 years, or in the case of NBI, perhaps the full contract should be published when the rollout is complete. I realise the contract is for a full 25 years though.....

Nah people can talk down to others especially when they have an im alright jack mentality. Can guarantee a lack of connectivity would soften peoples voices goodo epecially if their work relied on it.

For me the single bidder is not a fault of the process its a fault of some companies who tried to rip off the process we all know who they are. So blaming NBP on it is well unwarranted.

In terms of the contract, I dont think we ever see the full guts of a contract thats commercial. And i also would absolutely love anyone including campaigners to show a fully costed detailed cheaper plan with the same level of service requirements.

I mean we are all waiting on that....

oscarBravo

heavydawson wrote: »

To be fair, I believe the point the author was (poorly) trying to make was one that Eir kept yammering on about during and after the tender process. Namely the requirements around service level agreements (which I believe are above those Eir offer their own fibre network customers), and also the requirement for a separate legal entity, when they already had OpenEir.

To be fair in turn, a requirement for better SLAs than open eir offers its customers is by no means a bad thing, and open eir isn't a separate legal entity. The regulatory hoopla that exists to try to enforce transparency, fairness and non-discrimination between eircom and its customers is quite simply not an issue with NBI.

heavydawson

oscarBravo wrote: »

To be fair in turn, a requirement for better SLAs than open eir offers its customers is by no means a bad thing, and open eir isn't a separate legal entity. The regulatory hoopla that exists to try to enforce transparency, fairness and non-discrimination between eircom and its customers is quite simply not an issue with NBI.

Yup, I wasn't suggesting it was a bad thing, but it inevitably did add to the overall cost of the project, and made the chance of penalties that much higher than Eir felt they were willing to support.

joe123

So this post back in May, nothing ever really came of it, or did I miss something? We never got a big quarterly update.

https://twitter.com/NatBroadbandIrl/status/1262322082433716225

I was expecting more detailed info on what areas will be surveyed and when. So far its still all very vague with no updates. Just recycled articles, posts of "Connecting Ireland" and being told to sign up and keep an eye out for updates.

TheSegal

I'm hoping that an update will come in the next 2-3 weeks since work has begun in Carrigaline, might give them a better idea for a timeline for the public. I imagine they are quite scared of any PR nightmare of "they promised me FTTH at X but no sign of it yet". Plenty of people waiting to criticise the NBP at the slightest opportunity.

baz9375

Saw two vans in Cavan Town early this morning :-)

Tony H

two NBI vans in my area this morning ,just outside Cobh , 3 guys surveying , no real info from them apart from put your postcode in and check there , he did say that Carrigaline was under way already but we know that already

clohamon

KOR101 wrote: »

ESB may be asked to help with broadband roll-out

Duncan Smith TD (Lab) knew all along that the ESB would be needed for the NBP.

https://kfmradio.com/news/31082020-0922/listen-labour-concerned-esb-only-asked-now-help-national-broadband-plan-rollout

TheBody

Mapping started in Longford. https://bit.ly/3hPIf34

davpower

Have seen a couple of NBI vans around East Cork in last week. One in Ballinacurra and one coming back from Churchtown South. Haven't seen boots on the ground but they're definitely in the area.

wexfordman2

davpower wrote: »

Have seen a couple of NBI vans around East Cork in last week. One in Ballinacurra and one coming back from Churchtown South. Haven't seen boots on the ground but they're definitely in the area.

Yep, there been around east cork a fair bit last week's, I saw them the morning after the storm out surveying my road, which is a boreen, and neighbours spotted them too.

slade_x

slade_x wrote: »

Wasn't sure what to expect in Tipperary Town. There was a survey team out about 2 weeks ago in James Connolly park inspecting all access manholes; out on the street and 2 further in, inside the estate itself.

KN installers showed up yesterday and looked like they ran 4 fibre cables in parallel underground along the road up from the cabinet.
But they came back this morning and ran 4 cables in parallel from the street into one of the access manholes in the corner of the housing estate. they didn't go near the other one at the other side of the estate which is the one outside my house. They then continued to run 4 more in parallel further up and across the road.

I was expecting FTTC as a lot of houses around here including me can only access up to 12Mb adsl. I was not expecting a run of fibre to an access manhole inside the estate itself.

Slight update, Im sitting in Tipperary town and still no access to fibre in my area. My girlfriends family lives over 5km outside of town, Not only can they order fibre that's available to them at present but they had FTTH 150Mbit fibre installed today from Eir, Its Up and running.

I need to move out to the middle of nowhere to get access to the amenities of a town or city.

Orebro

Not really sure what this means on the NBI site:

https://nbi.ie/news/latest/2020/09/04/update-to-geo-directory-q1-2020/

Too much to hope it will then give people an idea of when they can be expected to be surveyed?

Manzoor14

Orebro wrote: »

Not really sure what this means on the NBI site:

https://nbi.ie/news/latest/2020/09/04/update-to-geo-directory-q1-2020/

Too much to hope it will then give people an idea of when they can be expected to be surveyed?

I'd guess it'll just add newer builds to their search. At the minute if you are in a new house with a new Eircode (probably last 12 months or so, maybe longer depending on when they last updated it), its not available on the search.

I'm not sure why they are applying the Q1 2020 update, when there is a newer Q2 update available, and Q3 update will be available a week or so after they update it. Almost immediately their updated dataset will be 6 months out of date!

Wing126

They've started surveying in Tipp.

https://twitter.com/NatBroadbandIrl/status/1303645411949907969

heavydawson

Wing126 wrote: »

They've started surveying in Tipp.

https://twitter.com/NatBroadbandIrl/status/1303645411949907969

They've been in Tipp since June:

https://twitter.com/NatBroadbandIrl/status/1275852874598232065

Ah-Watch

Wing126 wrote: »

They've started surveying in Tipp.

https://twitter.com/NatBroadbandIrl/status/1303645411949907969

Brilliant news. I only messaged them earlier this week about this area and there was no mention of it.

joe123

Its pointless even going to their website/reaching out to them.

Its just a copy/paste template response and any article usually contains the exact same messaging.

Ah-Watch

joe123 wrote: »

Its pointless even going to their website/reaching out to them.

Its just a copy/paste template response and any article usually contains the exact same messaging.

In fairness on this occasion it wasn't a copy and paste but completely agree that the website is a waste of time as was the last time I messaged them. Even a rough guideline on times for areas would be useful- "Pending survey" could mean 4 years time

The Cush

The Cush wrote: »

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

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

That post was from early Jul, also there has been several articles in the Irish Times since then about the long overdue Comreg review of wholesale access charges.

Yesterday, Comreg published the first of these consultations, a review of pole and duct access pricing.

https://www.comreg.ie/publication/pricing-of-eircoms-civil-engineering-infrastructure-cei-consultation-and-draft-decision

A proposed change that sticks out is the NBP annual pole access charge drops from €18.63 to €6.24 for year 1, good news for the state subsidy.

Tweet from Ronan Lupton, ALTO Chair, on this yesterday

https://twitter.com/ronanlupton/status/1303709018968526850

heavydawson

The Cush wrote: »

That post was from early Jul, also there has been several articles in the Irish Times since then about the long overdue Comreg review of wholesale access charges.

Yesterday, Comreg published the first of these consultations, a review of pole and duct access pricing.

https://www.comreg.ie/publication/pricing-of-eircoms-civil-engineering-infrastructure-cei-consultation-and-draft-decision

A proposed change that sticks out is the NBP annual pole access charge drops from €18.63 to €6.24 for year 1, good news for the state subsidy.

Tweet from Ronan Lupton, ALTO Chair, on this yesterday

https://twitter.com/ronanlupton/status/1303709018968526850

Does the price quoted encompass all that was due to Eir ? i.e, does this mean the 1 billion referenced in rental costs throughout the NBP process will drop to ~330 million? If so, wow! Is there any flipside to this in terms of reduced returns to the government WRT VAT,etc. ?

KOR101

The chairman of the National Broadband Plan company says that the €3bn state-subsidised project may now be completed in five years rather than the seven years initially agreed under contract with the Government.

The remarks from David McCourt ........

"Hopefully we'll get it [the rollout] done in five years," Mr McCourt told a Reuters podcast.

Also.....

Covid-19 related matters have not triggered any part of the €480m contingency costs, the spokesperson said. The contingency subsidy can only be accessed under specific pre-designed circumstances and it does not cover any potential impact of Covid-19.

Separately, regional broadband officers around the country have told the Irish Independent that the first community broadband connection points are to go live to the public in the coming weeks.

The "target", say officials, "is to try, from the second half of next year, to accelerate the rollout".

https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/hopefully-we-will-get-the-rollout-done-in-five-years-39518535.html

KOR101

The Cush wrote: »

A proposed change that sticks out is the NBP annual pole access charge drops from €18.63 to €6.24 for year 1, good news for the state subsidy.

This was my earlier prediction that the €20 was bound to be reduced, especially as it was an amount that was arrived at before the NBP was agreed. But, I was corrected by posters that the Dept had already negotiated a discount, and so weren't paying based on the €20 rate.


Also, I forget the exact ROI permitted. Is it about 8.5% and should be about 5.5%? That's going have a really big impact on wholesale prices.