UK broadband rise [BBC]

eircomtribunal

The EU average on broadband usage and availability, which Ireland was supposed to reach by mid 2005, is fast speeding away from our development. 100 000 and counting!
According to the newest figures for the UK they will reach a broadband penetration of above 10 bb subscriptions per 100 inhabitants by the end of 2004 and full bb availability by mid 2005.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4110733.stm

"Broadband in the UK gathers pace

More than four million connect to broadband via the phone line

One person in the UK is joining the internet's fast lane every 10 seconds, according to BT.
The telecoms giant said the number of people on broadband via the telephone line had now surpassed four million.
Including those connected via cable, almost six million people have a fast, always-on connection.
The boom has been fuelled by fierce competition and falling prices, as well as the greater availability of broadband over the phone line.
"The take-up rate for broadband is accelerating at a terrific pace," said Ben Verwaayen, BT's chief executive.
"We will be in a very strong position to hit our five million target by summer 2006 much earlier than we had previously expected."

Greater reach

The last million connections were made over the past four months, with thousands of people being added to the total every day of the week.


Broadband

Those signing up to broadband include those that get their service direct from BT or via the many companies that re-sell BT lines under their own name.
Part of the surge in people signing up was due to BT stretching the reach of ADSL - the UK's most widely used way of getting broadband - beyond six kilometres.
Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line technology lets ordinary copper phone lines support high data speeds. The standard speed is 512kbps, though faster connections are available.
According to BT, more than 95% of UK homes and businesses can receive broadband over the phone line. It aims to extend this figure to 99.4% by next summer.
There are also an estimated 1.7 million cable broadband customers in the UK."
P.

spongebob

Noel has a bootload of DSL modems in the Merc as he heads down to Meath for the grimbo to run a few clinics . Its bound to make a difference

M

Zaph0d

eircomtribunal wrote:

According to BT, more than 95% of UK homes and businesses can receive broadband over the phone line. It aims to extend this figure to 99.4% by next summer.

I've asked this before but, why can't Eircom do this? Does anyone know if the UK is using a different kind of hardware from us? Are the Irish and UK systems comparable?

512K isn't great but it's a hell of a lot better than the current Irish situation where hundreds of thousands are being told they'll never get usable broadband ever.

shinzon

Zaph0d wrote:

I've asked this before but, why can't Eircom do this? Does anyone know if the UK is using a different kind of hardware from us? Are the Irish and UK systems comparable?

512K isn't great but it's a hell of a lot better than the current Irish situation where hundreds of thousands are being told they'll never get usable broadband ever.

Basicaly because our copper network is a shoddy mess of patched up cable, line splitters and the lines themselves have degraded to such a degree that only voice is capable

Eircom dont want to spend money upgrading it simply because they want to keep all the profits for there greedy bastards of investors

Shin

Zaph0d

shinzon wrote:

Basicaly because our copper network is a shoddy mess of patched up cable, line splitters and the lines themselves have degraded to such a degree that only voice is capable

The UK has all this, split lines, shoddy old lines etc etc.

shinzon wrote:

Eircom dont want to spend money upgrading it simply because they want to keep all the profits for there greedy bastards of investors

I doubt BT's shareholders are less greedy than Eircom.

BT will be supplying broadband to 99.4% of the population including NI and Scotland. How are they doing this and why can't eircom do the same?

shinzon

yes but you see zaphod bt are actually investing in there network, eircom arent and never will, in my work i see bt bending over backwards getting there lines upto scratch for broadband, im not kissing bts arses or anything here, but if you compare eircom to bt, then you see just how shoddy eircom really is.

as for the issue of split lines, if you have a split line just try and get it removed by eircom, youll end up banging your head against a brick wall

what you need to do zaphod is educate yourself by using the search facility and type in eircom, then youll see exactly whats what.

specifically a thread by i think calhob_ie, in which eircom wouldnt come out to fix his line, he took a picture of it, his telephone line was actually out of the ground over a manhole cover, but because he could make calls they wouldnt put it back under the sod for him, now tell me why eircom wont do anything

shin

Zaph0d

shinzon wrote:

yes but you see zaphod bt are actually investing in there network, eircom arent and never will, in my work i see bt bending over backwards getting there lines upto scratch for broadband, im not kissing bts arses or anything here, but if you compare eircom to bt, then you see just how shoddy eircom really is.

From 10 seconds on Google it seems that BT invests about €50/head per year in their network while Eircom invests about €50/head per year in their network.

what you need to do zaphod is educate yourself by using the search facility and type in eircom, then youll see exactly whats what.

Every thread portrays Eircom as a satanic organisation staffed by idiots dedicated to weasling out of doing any work and managed by evil capitalists devoted to asset stripping the company.

specifically a thread by i think calhob_ie, in which eircom wouldnt come out to fix his line, he took a picture of it, his telephone line was actually out of the ground over a manhole cover, but because he could make calls they wouldnt put it back under the sod for him, now tell me why eircom wont do anything

Horror stories abound for all national telecoms including BT. The BT you see in Ireland is an underdog organisation with no semisate history and bears little relationship to big bad BT in the UK.

OK so returning to the question. What's stopping Eircom from rolling out broadband to 99.4% of the Irish population? Or to put it another way, what happened that changed BT's policy that broadand ADSL was limited to those a certain distance from the exchange?

Moriarty

Zaph0d wrote:

OK so returning to the question. What's stopping Eircom from rolling out broadband to 99.4% of the Irish population? Or to put it another way, what happened that changed BT's policy that broadand ADSL was limited to those a certain distance from the exchange?

BT undertook to repair any phone line that didn't support 512k radsl - for free. As far as we know, eircom refuse to do anything of the sort. BT are planning to upgrade >99% of exchanges in the UK. Eircom has upgraded far, far less than that. About 70%(?) of phone lines in this country will be on a radsl enabled exchange when eircom finish their exchange upgrade program. BT has removed all quality tests on phone lines for 512/256kbit radsl packages, so you can order it with whichever ISP you want and if it doesn't work BT will send out an engineer to repair and upgrade your line until it does - for free.

There is also a big difference in shareholder expectations between eircom and BT. eircom is saddled with billions in debt that it has to service every year. Further, eircom has promised share dividends of ~7% per year to their shareholders. Both of those are significant reasons why eircom has so little cash to service and upgrade their network, when compared to BT.

eircomtribunal

And:

With Ofcom BT has a Communications Regulator at its back that focuses the mind.

ComReg thinks (and expresses this explicitly in its consultations) Eircom can be "enticed" into going forward by regulatory measures that ensure a nice profit for the company.

P.

Zaph0d

Moriarty wrote:

BT undertook to repair any phone line that didn't support 512k radsl - for free. As far as we know, eircom refuse to do anything of the sort. BT are planning to upgrade >99% of exchanges in the UK. Eircom has upgraded far, far less than that. About 70%(?) of phone lines in this country will be on a radsl enabled exchange when eircom finish their exchange upgrade program. BT has removed all quality tests on phone lines for 512/256kbit radsl packages, so you can order it with whichever ISP you want and if it doesn't work BT will send out an engineer to repair and upgrade your line until it does - for free.

Thanks for that. So, RADSL in the UK extends to 5.5km from the exchange and only 4.5km in Ireland. Why is this? And do 99.4% of UK residents really live within 5.5km of an exchange?

There is also a big difference in shareholder expectations between eircom and BT. eircom is saddled with billions in debt that it has to service every year. Further, eircom has promised share dividends of ~7% per year to their shareholders. Both of those are significant reasons why eircom has so little cash to service and upgrade their network, when compared to BT.

I'm not so sure. Eircom seems to have an operating profit of about 16% after this years exceptionals. Meanwhile, BT is paying half its profits out in dividends. Eircom has a debt to turnover ratio of about 124% while BT is running about 139% (from their respective annual reports)

(After looking into this, I'd actually think of buying shares in Eircom.)

I worked with a UK ISP a few years ago. They were scared by competition from cable TV broadband. This doesn't seem to be a factor in Ireland. Maybe Eircom would be getting it together faster if they had some real competition.

I know its easy to be wise in retrospect but if ESB had included a strand of unlit fiber or in all their new connections over the past 10 years they could have a huge market share by now.

Moriarty

Zaph0d wrote:

Thanks for that. So, RADSL in the UK extends to 5.5km from the exchange and only 4.5km in Ireland. Why is this? And do 99.4% of UK residents really live within 5.5km of an exchange?

BT try to run 512/256kbit radsl on every line that's connected to a dsl enabled exchange, no matter how long the line is. Generally if it's under 10km it'll work fine. Eircom decided to have very strict line test stats before they'd enable dsl on any given line. That means a lot of lines that could fully support a 512/128kbit connection will not be enabled. Don't ask me why exactly they did this, I can't figure it out either.

Zaph0d wrote:

I'm not so sure. Eircom seems to have an operating profit of about 16% after this years exceptionals. Meanwhile, BT is paying half its profits out in dividends. Eircom has a debt to turnover ratio of about 124% while BT is running about 139% (from their respective annual reports)

(After looking into this, I'd actually think of buying shares in Eircom.)

The difference is the 'starting point' for each of them. BT have consistently maintained and upgraded their network for the past 20 years. Eircom has consistently underinvested in their network since the first floatation. The network is depreciating at almost twice the rate of investment for the past few years.

Zaph0d wrote:

I worked with a UK ISP a few years ago. They were scared by competition from cable TV broadband. This doesn't seem to be a factor in Ireland. Maybe Eircom would be getting it together faster if they had some real competition.

I know its easy to be wise in retrospect but if ESB had included a strand of unlit fiber or in all their new connections over the past 10 years they could have a huge market share by now.

It certainly has a lot to do with it. Eircom had very little reason to actually roll out dsl since there was no one else providing broadband either. That's when the regulator should have stepped in and forced eircom to do it, but they stalled for years. With NTL and chorus once again starting to invest in their networks and deploy broadband and numerous wireless providers also entering the market, eircom now finally has some sembalance of platform competition to face up to.

That's going to help, but much more needs to be done (for example) in the areas of increased bitstream services and LLU capability/pricing.

Capt'n Midnight

Zaph0d wrote:

I worked with a UK ISP a few years ago. They were scared by competition from cable TV broadband. This doesn't seem to be a factor in Ireland. Maybe Eircom would be getting it together faster if they had some real competition.

Eircom were "testing" DSL for two years until NTL released BB over the cable TV network..

ednwireland

just befor elast xmas my line stopped working , because i'm up the country and know the engineers they said they would see if they could clean up the line for broadband. they told me it swould carry radsl fine but the line still failed the test and they didn't know why so guess what i've still not got broadband 16 months after the exchange was enabled. neither has anyone else until about a mile down the road. (i've written to localk politiciansand the minister for communications and eircom md and all i'm told is that dsl is a new technology and won't work on some lines looks like eircom trying top defend its call revenue to me.