Eircom accepts it needs to do more

eircomtribunal

Local Loop Unbundling is one major factor for the creation of real competition.
Leaving aside for the moment the awful current situation where LLU is practically on ice – responsible is ComReg, who should by now know that Eircom will do whatever they can come away with – the Irish LLU price set by Comreg is simply too high at €14.67 per month.

Especially when you consider the ****ty network the LLU takers are renting into. Even the incumbent admits to a 22% failure rate of lines for broadband (and what has to be pointed out is the fact that this failure rate will be considerably higher on the 40% of lines which are currently not originating from bb enabled exchanges).
The higher average line length in Ireland is no excuse or justification for the high LLU price.


The German regulator RegTP has with effect of April 2005 lowered the price for accessing the last mile by other operators by 9.75% from €11.80 to €10.65 (after the German incumbent Deutsche Telecom had asked for the price to by raised to € 17.40!).
The price is fixed for the next 2 years.


Link to the German language press release of RegTP:
http://www.regtp.de/aktuelles/start/fs_03.html

P.

Blaster99

The problem with line failure statistics is that they're derived from Eircom's less than perfect automatic line test. Obviously the reality is that a lot of lines that fail their test, can actually carry ADSL without any problems. I presume this is what this amber stuff is about; they probably manually test the line at the customer end when there's an order in place.

SkepticOne

Personally, I think they are only pretending to care about BB take up levels - part of a game being played between Dempsey and Eircom.

I remeber and Eircom spokeswoman banging on about the "fiercely competitive" environment back in 1999. Of course it suits Eircom to have people think they are under pressure, but looking around today, how many people can genuinely take their business completely away from the monopolist. For the most part the most people can do is have their Eircom service repackaged by Esat or one of the other resellers. Eircom still control the game. It is far too early for the victory dance. Eircom are not on the run by any means. While most people don't have any choice, the shafting will continue.

I think there's many people who believe that Eircom should be talked into responding to this (still minimal) competition in some way. Two points. First point is that Eircom have been extremely successful in keeping whatever competition there is to an absolute minimum over the years. They have put fierce pressure on on the regulator to make concessions to them. They have convinced a lot of people that the way forward is for the government to subsidise their monopoly.

Second point is that it is competition itself that is the solution to the problem. If and when Waterford gets upgraded by by NTL, to a large extent it no longer matters what Eircom do. Provided NTL provide a good enough solution, Eircom can hang themselves. One of the problems for consumers though is that not all of them want to sign up for NTLs television package but for those who do, and who eventually get a phone service, Eircom become irrelevant.

The odd thing is that many seem to regard the above as a problem. Surely Eircom should be the ones providing these services. The fact that some company other is doing it is regarded as a problem, not just for Eircom, but for the country.

I think the reason people hold this view is not simple stupidity but rather due to the extremely effective Eircom PR machine and also the fact that people have been ground down by Eircom for so long that they are developing a sort of "Stockholm Syndrome".

lucernarian

Sponge Bob, how exactly do you know how the pairgain technology works? I have tried to find out about them before but to no avail. The only reason I knew that pairgains used voltages higher than 48V is because of an electrical hazard sticker on one of them. I never realised that they were only used on a widespread scale from 1995 onwards. In my area, almost all the houses were built during the bugalow blitz days around the time of the abolition of rates and there are pairgains serving them. They have always had phonelines.

Regarding the digitization of the phone network, that was kickstarted with the telephone capital act 1977 which gave the DoPT £350 million. From what I can tell, most of the phone lines in rural Ireland are dated from that period with "P&T" engraved on the majority of poles and many still have ceramic insulators on top of them for galvanised wire which was phased out around that period.

Anyway, Eircom are misleading people disgracefully. As Sponge Bob pointed out, there seems to be no economical reason for Eircom not to enable every exchange that has the appropriate backhaul but eircom could also eliminate the problem of line distance by using DSL repeaters that would only need the existing phone line to be broadband enabled back at the exchange to give the likes of me with a 6 km line broadband. I dont know the individual prices of these units but they cant be that expensive? Only problem with them is having to pick out the right pair at a manhole or pole within 4 kms of the exchange.

Before you sing the praise of the threat posed bt NTL, think of this: the population of Dublin, Galway, Waterford and Clonmel is roughly 1.25 million. The population of Ireland is 4 million. NTL only makes a difference to less than a third of the entire country. IMO it means almost absolutely nothing to rural Ireland which is starved of high-speed internet.

SkepticOne

To_be_confirmed wrote:

I dont know the individual prices of these units but they cant be that expensive? Only problem with them is having to pick out the right pair at a manhole or pole within 4 kms of the exchange.

I think there might be many people willing to pay for this. Eircom should look into it.

Sponge Bob

The problem is where to use them.

Eircom would try to exclude remote DSL lines from the Bitstream process by the simple expedient of saying they were 'experimental' which may in all honesty be the case at the start of the deployment .

While this remote tech is a must on long loops in order to move the 'start' of the DSL portion of the loop to a sustainable distance I would contend that this tech is entirely inappropriate for use in urban areas .

This is what I am taking about for the more tech minded

http://www.criticaltelecom.com/products/geminiplatform.php

These can normally be fitted IN ADDITION to existing pairgains which can carry vocie as they always have while teh DSL pairgain carries Data .

Voice only capable Pairgains operate in different ways , some at nominal 48v and some on bonded pairs at higher voltages ....distance considerations and power hungry multiplexers play a part. The more powerful are 16:1 at 120v or more , the simple ones are 2:1 at 48v or more

HTH

mkelleher77

Cant get via line, have broadband now via satellite, couldnt get it via eircom (as I live rural).....cant see myself changing back now if they do get it sorted.........

bk

SkepticOne wrote:

The odd thing is that many seem to regard the above as a problem. Surely Eircom should be the ones providing these services. The fact that some company other is doing it is regarded as a problem, not just for Eircom, but for the country.

I think the reason people hold this view is not simple stupidity but rather due to the extremely effective Eircom PR machine and also the fact that people have been ground down by Eircom for so long that they are developing a sort of "Stockholm Syndrome".

In my experience all you need to break this "Stockholm Syndrome" is tell them you can get NTL BB for €25 (compared to €40 from Eircom), just watch how quickly they sign up for NTL.

To_be_confirmed wrote:

Before you sing the praise of the threat posed bt NTL, think of this: the population of Dublin, Galway, Waterford and Clonmel is roughly 1.25 million. The population of Ireland is 4 million. NTL only makes a difference to less than a third of the entire country. IMO it means almost absolutely nothing to rural Ireland which is starved of high-speed internet.

I would have thought that the population of these 4 cities would add up to more then 1.25 million, isn't Dublin well on its way to 2 million?

Remember, NTL has been (sort of) bought by UGC Europe who also own Chorus. So once they integrate they will also cover Cork and Limerick, which means they will cover most urban areas and most of the population.

If Eircom come under competitive pressure from NTL/Chorus in these urban areas which represents most of their customer base, they won't have any choice but to compete on price and spec. People in rural areas who can get DSL will benefit from this competition.

It is never likely that their will be more then one BB provider in rural areas, the best they can hope for is to benefit from competition in urban areas.

mkelleher77 wrote:

Cant get via line, have broadband now via satellite, couldnt get it via eircom (as I live rural).....cant see myself changing back now if they do get it sorted.........

Well DSL is far better and cheaper then Satellite, so if it became available, it would be a good idea to take it up. It wouldn't cost you anything as they all offer free install and equipment.

dahamsta

bk wrote:

isn't Dublin well on its way to 2 million?

News to me. I didn't think Dublin had even hit a million and a quarter yet.

Remember, NTL has been (sort of) bought by UGC Europe who also own Chorus. So once they integrate they will also cover Cork and Limerick, which means they will cover most urban areas and most of the population.

Still an awful lot of those networks packing technology from what, the seventies? We've only just had digital repeaters added onto our network here on the outskirts of Cork city, and the cable is being left as-is.

adam

eircomtribunal

SkepticOne wrote:

Eircom should look into it.

They should but they will not for very simple (short-term and possibly but not necessarily short-sighted) economic reasons:
Eircom makes less money from people connecting with DSL than from those connecting with dial-up.
Eircom still manage and are allowed to trick 9% of Internet users, or about 130 000 in numbers, into using the obsolete "net subscription", for which people pay €18.44 each month and per minute charges.

According to latest Comreg figures Eircom make €34 on the average dial-up Internet user. When you figure into that average that an estimated half of the Internet users are extremely light users, having only a few € on the bill for checking their email once a week, then you can assume that the bill of the heavy dial-up users, who stay with dial-up because they cannot get broadband is likely to be much much higher than that of a dls user. A heavy dial-up Internet user also is likely to pay for a second phone line or ISDN, (Just look at the (still rising !) figures of ISDN connections.) again increasing Eircom's revenue for not rolling out broadband.

As long as the regulator does not understand and take account of such simple vicious-cycle mechanisms, we'll see further slow real movement (accompanied by PR claiming the opposite) towards full broadband coverage by Eircom.

All the mentioned technical obstacles are charade. Where there is a will there is a way.

And there is no excuse other than incapacity for the regulator not to change the parameters of the vicious circle:

Stop the "net subscription" abuse. ( I had the most extraordinary exchanges with the ODCA about the issue. I am not privy to publish them, but hope to do at some later stage. In short: incompetence beyond believe in the "Office for the Defence of Consumer Abuse")

Introduce a half-price line-rental for the half-value lines that are not broadband able.

Chop the FRIACO port prices. Eircom are themselves astonished (in their SEC filing) that the regulator has not revisited this item. Only 6% of Internet users are on FRIACO, according to the latest Comreg figures.

Adjust the LLU price to the low value of the network.

P

jwt

Sponge Bob wrote:

This is what I am taking about for the more tech minded

http://www.criticaltelecom.com/products/geminiplatform.php

These can normally be fitted IN ADDITION to existing pairgains which can carry vocie as they always have while teh DSL pairgain carries Data .

HTH

Any ball park notion of costings for the say per per user in an rural location or per 100 users?

I'm thinking of ..
A. the 7k allowance being proposed by comreg to eircom above which customers must pay for to obtain a decent line.

B. future arguments by eircom that line or exchange x, y and z are far too expensive to upgrade


Thanks



John

Sponge Bob

jwt wrote:

Any ball park notion of costings for the say per per user in an rural location or per 100 users?

I'm thinking of ..
A. the 7k allowance being proposed by comreg to eircom above which customers must pay for to obtain a decent line.

B. future arguments by eircom that line or exchange x, y and z are far too expensive to upgrade

They say $120 a port , no extra local copper required in most cases .

As regards backhaul to the exchange the device supports 24 users which implies 24% DSL takeup in a given rural area where we now have 6 or 7% max.

Thereafter they scale by bonding data pairs back to the exchange or else replace the copper backhaul with fibre .

jwt

Thanks

I may need to pm you about this later in the week?


John

lucernarian

About the population figure, I checked the Census 2002 figures I downloaded at the time and the combined population of Dublin, Galway, Waterford and Clonmel is 1,248,153.

Thanks Sponge Bob for the info.

There have been many good points raised on this forum throughout the years and some of them could have solved the country's internet misery within a year or two had the Government and Comreg taken notice and implemented them . The question is, why won't they? We could rebuild a poor network most from scratch before, what's stopping them from doing so again?

By the way, are there any fttc (fibre to the cabinet) installations in this country?

Sponge Bob

To_be_confirmed wrote:

By the way, are there any fttc (fibre to the cabinet) installations in this country?

Yes. This tech is now in use but mainly in Urban areas and always in ground mounted cabs with underground fibre (on the backhaul portion)

As the tech has been scaled down it is now feasible to deploy smaller units on poles which saves lots of $$ over street cabs . It is not feasible to put fibre on poles though, it is too delicate .