DCMNR announce next phase of BB rollout

thegills

Minister Dempsey announces €50 million Broadband Programme

Dublin, 21 December, 2004

The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Noel Dempsey, T.D., today approved outline broadband infrastructure investment plans for 35 regional towns and a North West Digital Corridor link between Letterkenny and Derry as part of the next phase of the Regional Broadband Programme.

From Athenry to Youghal, these towns have been selected in a competitive process and will benefit from next generation broadband infrastructure. Once the rollout is completed next year it will provide cheap ‘always-on’ access to the Internet, a vital tool for industry and business and invaluable for educational institutes, health and research bodies and private consumers.

The projects, grant aided by the Government under the National Development Plan 2000-2006, are co-funded by the EU under the European Regional Development Fund. “They will bring ultra high speed communications links to towns with an aggregate population of over 160,000,” said Minister Dempsey.

“With this substantial investment in telecoms infrastructure, coupled with the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources other schemes, I expect to see a significant improvement in the level of services offered throughout the country,” said Minister Dempsey.

“On top of my recent announcements launching the Sligo network, the six North East networks and further Group Broadband Schemes, this is another example of this Government’s commitment to establishing quality broadband infrastructure in every corner of the country, in partnership with the Local and Regional Authorities and industry,” said the Minister.

“The Department is currently examining a further 10 project proposals received in Phase II and an announcement will be made on these in the New Year. The projects in the towns announced today will entail the construction of about 3,200Km of duct infrastructure, 200,000 fibre kilometres and an aggregate of €50M investment,” he added.

Project construction, in partnership with the Local Authorities will begin in the Spring and most projects should be completed in 12 months.

Broadband proposals in respect of more than 50 other towns will be invited early in the New Year.


The 35 approved towns are:
Athenry, Ballinasloe, Ballybofey/Stranolar, Bantry, Blarney, Carrigaline, Castleisland, Castlerea, Claremorris, Clifden, Clones, Cobh, Dingle, Furbo, Kenmare, Kildare, Killarney, Kinsale, Listowel, Longford, Maynooth, Midleton. Mitchelstown, Navan, Nenagh, Newbridge, Passage West, Rathangan, Ringaskiddy, Sallins, Skibereen, Tralee, Tramore, Trim, Youghal.

spongebob

thegills wrote:

Minister Dempsey announces €50 million Broadband Programme

Dublin, 21 December, 2004

The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Noel Dempsey, T.D., today approved outline broadband infrastructure investment plans for 35 regional towns and a North West Digital Corridor link between Letterkenny and Derry as part of the next phase of the Regional Broadband Programme.

Ahern announced the exact same 35 towns 6 months ago , the only new bit is the Derry-Letterkennny fibre, all 25 km of it. I am so totally OMG OMG OMG OMG by it all that I cannot stop OMG OMG OMG

Project construction, in partnership with the Local Authorities will begin in the Spring and most projects should be completed in 12 months.

12 Months me arse The first lot were announced in March 2002 and are still not quite finished...although most were installed in slightly over 2 years from first announcement I will concede .

Broadband proposals in respect of more than 50 other towns will be invited early in the New Year

.
Not before June and that will only be talk anyway. Dempsey just spend his entire 2005 budget in that first quote above FFS or did nobody notice. . I propose we sack Dempsey or else paint him a reddish colour and let a pack of foxhounds after him. hows that

M

thegills

Cork / Kerry done quite well - 17 out the 35 towns or roughly 50%.

seamus

Muck wrote:

I propose we sack Dempsey or else paint him a reddish colour and let a pack of foxhounds after him. hows that

M

Muck, whatever your opinion about Dempsey, and even though he doesn't participate here, there's no reason to lose common civility. Coupled with the comments on your now binned thread, calm down on the ****e talk. If you were making the same comments about another poster, it wouldn't have been tolerated nearly as long.

Paddy20

Ballybofey/Stranorlar to get Broadband ?... Sure we have had broadband for around 6 Months, and Muck was the individual that informed me that it was about to activated in the Twin-Town's, on this forum all those month's ago. Even before the local politicians knew, as a result I was the first U.TV Clicksilver broadband customer in Ballybofey.

Thank's Muck, I have always found your informative posts & threads on this forum to be invaluable

P.

dahamsta

Naughty Muck.

I agree with his commentary in general though, it's very hard not to categorise this as classic O'Rourke-style reannouncement and garbage. If that's the route Dempsey is going to take, it's easy to understand why someone would want to throw him to the hounds.

(See Muck, you can get away with it if you're nibbling a cucumber sandwich and drinking Pimms at the time.)

adam /moves his overbite aside

thegills

You can't really blame Dempsey. The proposals were submitted before he took charge of office.

eircomtribunal

thegills wrote:

You can't really blame Dempsey. The proposals were submitted before he took charge of office.

"Once the rollout is completed next year it will provide cheap ‘always-on’ access to the Internet, a vital tool for industry and business and invaluable for educational institutes, health and research bodies and private consumers."

It is this bit of the DCMNR statement, repeated over and over again, that I take issue with.
P.

spongebob

dahamsta wrote:

it's very hard not to categorise this as classic O'Rourke-style reannouncement and garbage. If that's the route Dempsey is going to take, it's easy to understand why someone would want to throw him to the hounds.

Dempsey has not announced anything new since he came into office. He is stuck in the politics of the last relaunch. Next year he will relaunch the next 50 towns in addition to the 35 he just relaunched.

The ESB has anticipated this relaunch already and published a MAP for slow learners. Here is the Map of the next launch by Dempsey...which will be a relaunch.....just so I can say I told you so (again)

http://www.esbtelecoms.ie/infrastructure/national_trunk_fibre_optic_network_dcmnr_broadband_action_plan_towns_2005.htm

Still Waiting to see joined up thinking though .

M

spongebob

seamus wrote:

Muck, whatever your opinion about Dempsey, and even though he doesn't participate here, there's no reason to lose common civility.

Feck off Seamus Ya coulda PM'd me quietly about it if you cared at the time.

M

eircomtribunal

Muck wrote:

Still Waiting to see joined up thinking though .

M

Can somebody explain to me what the idea of the Metropolitan Area Network is? (Not a rhetorical question)
Take the example of Kiltimagh, see Kiltimagh map on http://www.magnumopus.ie/resources.asp?id=18#

How will this duct and fibre, "when completed" (it is in the case of Kiltimagh) "provide cheap ‘always-on’ access to the Internet, a vital tool for industry and business and invaluable for educational institutes, health and research bodies and private consumers".

[Even the linguistics are interesting: The construction of the DCMNR statement is spin master-class or Freudian slip: On a first read you'd think the DCMNR said that the MAN, when completed, would bring cheap 'always-on' access to the Internet for industry, business, educational institutes, health and research bodies and private consumers" of the town in question. Only on a second read you'll find out that the DCMNR does not make this claim. The statement only says that the MAN will provide cheap 'always-on' Internet. It does not claim that the completed MAN will bring this cheap always-on Internet to the mentioned groups, it only explains that Internet in general is a vital tool for these groups.]

And indeed the completed MAN does not bring cheap always-on Internet to the town folk of Kiltimagh.(And I don't mean because of the fact that Kiltimagh's MAN is still not connected) How is it meant to do so?

By means of a wireless supplier? What's all the ducting and cable for then?

By means of Fibre to the Home? How can an interested operator add on connections to the enduser? Was the ducting done envisaging and planning connection to the houses? If this is the case, and Noel is correct in selling the MAN's as an alternative to the copper last mile network, why have the houses not been connected onto the MAN?

P.

eircomtribunal

Thegills or Muck or whoever, can I get an answer to my question above?

(How is the MAN meant to bring cheap broadband to the townsfolk of Kiltimagh?
"By means of a wireless supplier? What's all the ducting and cable for then?

By means of Fibre to the Home? How can an interested operator add on connections to the enduser? Was the ducting done envisaging and planning connection to the houses? If this is the case, and Noel is correct in selling the MAN's as an alternative to the copper last mile network, why have the houses not been connected onto the MAN?")

P.

jwt

I made the same point in the newstalk interview a few weeks ago.

"Islands of connectivity in a sea of dial up" I believe was the expression I used

I am at a loss as well as to how MAN's offer connectivity to locals as well.

Telephone line connects to the nearest exchange anyway, wireless kind of defeats the purpose so what else?

I think MAN's are more a commercial product for businesses that are on top of the MAN but I am open to correction.

FWIY I too would appreciate some opinions on how MAN's are supposed to help people get broadband (I may well be missing some totally obvious facts here)

John

SkepticOne

The MANs are just rentable fiber and ducting around towns. They are not a last-mile solution in themselves and were never intended to be so. In a sufficiently large town, multiple regional fibre operators will likely connect up over time. This may allow relatively cheap backhaul to wireless providers once competition kicks in and reduce the reliance on Eircom/ComReg leased lines but the pricing of the rings themselves needs to be looked into.

I would not listen to politicians when it comes to what MANs will deliver. They may be part of the solution but not the whole solution. The rest of the solution will consist of last-mile competition like it has in other countries.

jwt

Emm right so....

"Regional fibre providers" are who?

If the backhaul is provided to a town what difference does it make if a wireless provider connects to it at the point where it enters the town or connects to it somewhere along the MAN ring?

Where I get confused is that ...

The MAN doesn't provide backhaul in and of itself.

It doesn't provide last mile

A WISP doesn't really care where, geographically in a town, they set up a mast once its high enough; so a ring is no use in and of itself to the WISP

In fact once there is a decent backhaul to the town and a WISP decided to operate there, what benefit does a MAN offer at all?


I'm not being deliberately negative about this, just cannot see the logic.


John

SkepticOne

jwt wrote:

Emm right so....

"Regional fibre providers" are who?

Whoever have fibre in the vacinity and are willing to connect up to the MAN presumably.

If the backhaul is provided to a town what difference does it make if a wireless provider connects to it at the point where it enters the town or connects to it somewhere along the MAN ring?

Where I get confused is that ...

The MAN doesn't provide backhaul in and of itself.

It doesn't provide last mile

A WISP doesn't really care where, geographically in a town, they set up a mast once its high enough; so a ring is no use in and of itself to the WISP

What if several points are needed around the town to get good coverage or to maintain proper contention ratios (this won't be the case in very small towns, of course)? In the absence of a fibre ring, will backhaul be very expensive? Does it make more sense to dig once for several users of bandwidth rather than a separate tail for each company?

In fact once there is a decent backhaul to the town and a WISP decided to operate there, what benefit does a MAN offer at all?

Without the ring, does it make sense for a regional provider to bring backhaul to a town? With a ring, the provider essentially gets relatively cheap access to each of the companies on the ring for the cost of bringing the network to one point on that ring. Demand can be agragated. Companies should be able to arrange for their own trench to the ring and not rely on Eircom/ComReg.

Eircom, of course are happy to run separate lines from this point to each of the companies and charge accordingly, but there is no incentive for them to rationalise the route and pass the savings on. They get paid ComReg approved rates per metre.

What makes it decent bandwidth? The ISP needs to be able to switch between multiple providers without paying a large fee for switching.

That is my understanding of it. I think the larger towns should see some benefit though not immediately. A lot depends on how rational the ring route is and how much the fibre costs to rent.

You should speak to people in DCMNR to get their rationale of it.

jwt

OK i buy the point about aggragating, not sure it's the best bang for buck but whats done is done.

You should speak to people in DCMNR to get their rationale of it.

Funny enough thats pretty much what I plan to do

John

spongebob

Whats Not done is more Pertinent , Dempsey and Roche have a lot to do .

Read the 2002 Dept of the Taoiseach 27 page Report Again , 3 years old in Feb 2005 with a few holes dug and thats it .

http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/attached_files/upload/publications/1320.pdf

Does Dempsey know it exists ? , he should

He was Minister for Environment in Feb 2002 but not for much longer as the election came up.

M

dealgan

Excuse my ignorance, but ...

WIth all the digging up of roads, and laying of pipes (ducting for fibre-optics ?) over the past 12 months .. what is the idea of this ?

Is it to provide a fibre-optic (hence high speed, high bandwidth) link from the central eircom exchange to more remote points around the outskirts of the town(s) ?

.. or am I away with the fairies ?

Only 4km from exchange, but still "not available"

Mr_Man

Part of the rational for the MAN's is to reduce the dependence on Eircom and provide an alternative way of rolling out broadband. (Not selling of the Eircom network in the first place might have been a better approach but what's done is done).

The MAN's are going to be connected to backhaul and thus provide a way for a Wireless operators, or other ISP's to offer a service in an area and do so economically. Esat, ESB and Aurora have I believe agreements to provide backhaul connectivity to the MAN's and a deal is under negotiation with Eircom.

It is therefore very unlikely that Eircom will use the MAN's to extend the range of their service, so I wouldn't get your hopes up on that front

HTH

M.

Sarsfield

I'm still confused on one issue - what(&who) will connect my house/office/factory to the MAN?

seamus

Sarsfield wrote:

I'm still confused on one issue - what(&who) will connect my house/office/factory to the MAN?

Pfft. That's irrelevant.

Let's just keep sticking fibre in the ground. Eventually there'll be enough fibre, that it'll travel through the electromagnetic ether into people's homes.

dahamsta

seamus wrote:

Let's just keep sticking fibre in the ground. Eventually there'll be enough fibre, that it'll travel through the electromagnetic ether into people's homes.

Ah come on seamus, to get frequency leakage we'd have to actually light up the fibre...

eircomtribunal

Sarsfield wrote:

I'm still confused on one issue - what(&who) will connect my house/office/factory to the MAN?

A "triple play" fibre to the home provider, like Magnet could make some use of the MAN fibre.

Promising competition to the Mickey Mouse dls we are fed by Eircom. See http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?uid=&sid=&storyid=single4345
http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9585060.html

P.

Moriarty

eircomtribunal wrote:

A "triple play" fibre to the home provider, like Magnet could make some use of the MAN fibre.

I'm not sure about that.. they're already laying tens/hundreds of kilometers of fibre in the area, so why would they decide to lease their backbone links from another company when they can lay their own and have full control over it for comparatively little extra?

Magnet's offering isn't that hot anyway.. they stuck a 12gb cap on the internet connection for some completely unknown reason and their channel line up isn't great.

eircomtribunal

Moriarty wrote:

I'm not sure about that.. they're already laying tens/hundreds of kilometers of fibre in the area, so why would they decide to lease their backbone links from another company when they can lay their own and have full control over it for comparatively little extra?

In case they want to implement their business idea in new housing developments in towns other than Dublin, they could well use the MAN for part of their connectivity needs. I'm not saying this is redeeming the MANs.

Magnet's offering isn't that hot anyway.. they stuck a 12gb cap on the internet connection for some completely unknown reason and their channel line up isn't great.

You are right. Look at their tel line rental price of € 23.99 and this idea: "If you buy a video on demand tonight, we could offer two extra movies or free telephony minutes.".
That's not the bright future we are looking for (as seen in France), but the result of the pricing norm being set by the incumbent for too many years by now.
It is inexpensive to offer much higher speeds and have no volume cap of this sort; those restrictions are nothing but a method to increase profits in a way that suggests to the naive consumer that they would be somehow cost related.
These methods of artificially reducing dsl's possibilities, which the consultants of Forrester and Co are selling to the European providers, are the reason why Europe is lagging behind with broadband. Viviane Reding, the new Commissioner for Information Society, only recently expressed this: "I see this as an “opportunity gap”. Especially, as we are behind major competitors such as the USA, Japan and Korea in both penetration rates and speed. We need to seize this opportunity. Think of the economic possibilities of having Europe on line and at high-speed."

P.

BoneCollector

rollout, rollout, rollout!?

how many times can we rollout the same bloody thing...
lets face it..

gov has its heads up its ass and everyone elses
what its smells is what it does and talks...

Where standing still and unless the people do something its all just smoke and mirrors giving us all the illusion of progress while where not noticing,
where going no where..