Broadband roll-out still hampered by long delays

molinaalexis

HUNDREDS of thousands of people are unable to get high-speed internet access because of poor quality telephone infrastructure, consumer watchdogs have warned.

Over 2,000 people a week in Ireland are signing up to get broadband installed, but patchy blackspots in coverage are hampering many more from enjoying its benefits, forcing thousands of extra commuters onto the roads each day because they cannot work from home.

COMMUTING

"A lot of people are just giving up. They've moved down the country after being told broadband is the way of the future that'll let them work from home, and then they find they can't get it and they have to spend all their time commuting back to the office,"said Dermot Jewell of the Consumer Association of Ireland. "People are told it's a must-have in today's world, even for schoolchildren, but it seems very arbitrary where it's actually available," he said. Broadband allows high-speed internet access and data transfers from remote locations.

Eircom estimates that around 200,000 Irish people have now had broadband installed, with the latest official figures from regulator Comreg showing the numbers almost trebled from 65,000 in June 2004 to 175,500 in June of this year, still way behind most other European countries.

Even though over 8,000 people are signing up each month, and companies are carrying out an advertising blitz to hook more users, the numbers still fall well short of the target of 500,000 users Communications Minister Noel Dempsey has set for the end of 2006.

The problem arises because only 1.36 million of the country's 1.6 million telephone lines have the high-speed DSL copper lines which can transmit broadband in the first place, and just 88pc of these are of a sufficient quality to get it - leaving 360,000 people out of the loop.

EXPANSION

And less than a quarter of Eircom's 1,100 telephone exchanges have been hooked up to broadband, although Commercial Director David McRedmond said this includes all the large ones, and the network is being rapidly expanded.

Eircom says another 200 small towns will have broadband by March 2006, giving 90pc coverage of the population, although technical restrictions mean people who live more than three miles away from an enabled exchange are still not able to get broadband.

"Basically if you live in Dublin or other major urban areas you shouldn't have a problem but for people in rural areas it's a different story," said John Timmons of Ireland Offline, a consumer group lobbying for better communications.

A staggering 70pc of people they surveyed out of 400 who had regular internet access, but no broadband, said the reason was simply that it was not available to them, according to John Timmons of Ireland Offline a consumer group lobbying for better communications.

He also called for an end to Eircom's virtual monopoly on telephone lines.

He added that while wireless broadband access sounds like the solution, individual rural users have to band together into groups of 20 or 30 to make it worth a company's while to install a transmitter, while obstacles such as trees and mountains can make it impossible to get reliable access.

The Department of Communications said broadband access was available throughout the entire country on satellite, but Mr Timmons said this option was very expensive.

The Department said provision of broadband was essentially a matter for private business regulated by Comreg, but they had a scheme to help areas with less than 1,500 residents attract service providers, and were also rolling broadband out to all schools.

Aideen Sheehan


http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1481668&issue_id=13091

damien

One of the IrelandOffline Committee will be on Newstalk at lunchtime to talk about this. Someone from eircom will probably be on too.

eircomtribunal

molinaalexis wrote:

The problem arises because only 1.36 million of the country's 1.6 million telephone lines have the high-speed DSL copper lines which can transmit broadband in the first place, and just 88pc of these are of a sufficient quality to get it - leaving 360,000 people out of the loop.

Where does the 1.36 million figure come from? In the March 2005 SEC filing of Eircom it was 1.17 million. And it is not out of 1.6 million lines, but out of 1.9 million.

Eircom says another 200 small towns will have broadband by March 2006, giving 90pc coverage of the population, although technical restrictions mean people who live more than three miles away from an enabled exchange are still not able to get broadband.

The real question which has to be asked from Eircom is: What percentage of its customers could get dsl broadband if they ordered it? That is the meaning of coverage. McRedmond's permanent repeating of an outright bogus 90% coverage claim should be challenged.

The Department of Communications said broadband access was available throughout the entire country on satellite, but Mr Timmons said this option was very expensive.

McRedmond will try to repeat this bull****. Satellite broadband is available everywhere in the world and should be left out of the discussion about broadband roll-out.

P.

damien

Newstalk 106fm at 13.15

Beat102 at 15.30

BlueShaun

leaving 360,000 people out of the loop.

Where did this figure come from?

cgarvey

damien.m wrote:

One of the IrelandOffline Committee will be on Newstalk at lunchtime to talk about this. Someone from eircom will probably be on too.

MP3 of interview here

Mr_Man

Just listened to the newstalk interview, and if as McRedmond claims, Eircom have increased the % of lines on enabled exchanges capable of carrying DSL from 78% to 88% in the space of six months this would mean over 100k lines have been upgraded. Quite some feat for the 7,000 or so employees currently working for Eircom.

It will be interesting to see if the next SEC document reflects these changes

M.

bk

Mr_Man wrote:

Just listened to the newstalk interview, and if as McRedmond claims, Eircom have increased the % of lines on enabled exchanges capable of carrying DSL from 78% to 88% in the space of six months this would mean over 100k lines have been upgraded. Quite some feat for the 7,000 or so employees currently working for Eircom.

Well it maybe possible, we have always known that Eircoms test is unnecessarily strict, it is likely with the introduction of the amber program they can now pass more lines.

Cryos

bk wrote:

Well it maybe possible, we have always known that Eircoms test is unnecessarily strict, it is likely with the introduction of the amber program they can now pass more lines.

Which was to be in effect about two months ago ?

I think what eircom should do is have it on a physical testing basis, push the limits if you will. Activate a line outside the limits throw a dsl router on it and see what happens who knows it might work, that process should be tried for lines that are boarder line; with the eircom system it seems to be YES/NO at the moment very thin line between the two.

Ultimatly your never gona know if a line is going to support dsl untill you physically activate it and see what happens.

eircomtribunal

From the citigroup report about and for eircom about the lacklustre broadband development (page 21):

eircom’s attempt to balance growth in broadband with the managed cannibalisation of its own dial-up internet base goes a long way to explaining this lacklustre development – this is a different and potentially dangerous balancing act.

Eircom does not want to give the highest possible dsl availability. Just look at their income from dial-up ("free", fake flat-rate and outright thieving "net subscription").
You can only make sense of Eircom's general action concerning dsl or this specific "technical" progress, if you keep their underlying principle in mind.
When public criticism gets too strong ("potentially dangerous balancing act"), dsl availability on lines from enabled exchanges is suddenly increased from 77% to 88%.

P.

dahamsta

You gotta love the way McReprobate can throw out "commercially sensitive" information when it suits him. Will he now make records available that will allow IrelandOffline to verify his claims? My great-aunt he will.

He got off way too easy today. Sorry Damien, I doubt I'd've done much better, but it was a drive-by.

Blaster99

What can you do? McRedmond sits on a lot of unverifiable figures. He holds the cards. I think maybe a failing of the interview was that IOFFL's finding that 70% of people without broadband can't get it, got lost in McRedmond's [made-up] statistics. I'm sure the school broadband thing could have been used as well to give some real-world statistics. I would maybe also have pointed out that it's impossible to get verifiable numbers on broadband availability because ComReg is not allowed to publish the info thanks to Eircom. It would seem that if you can't get important metrics like those in the public domain, how can the country come up with a decent strategy for broadband roll-out? It's like fumbling in the dark. The people with access to the data like Minister Dial-up wouldn't know what a broadband strategy was if it arrived in a brown envelope and ComReg seems content to spin Ireland's diabolical situation instead of doing anything.

I think McRedmond's claim that Eircom is rolling out exchanges like mad is incorrect. When we updated the enabled-exchanges list recently, it was clear that only a handful of exchanges have been upgraded in recent months.

It would be great if his numbers were correct, but I just don't get the impression they are.

dahamsta

Blaster99 wrote:

It would be great if his numbers were correct, but I just don't get the impression they are.

You wouldn't be calling McReprobate a liar now Blaster99, would you?

What can you do? Well, tackle McRedmond on the numbers, ask him if he'll provide that information to IrelandOffline. When he refuses, ask him if he'll provide them to ComReg to verify and confirm to IrelandOffline. If he refuses that, ask how we're supposed to believe him. If he accepts, maybe it's a step in the right direction.

I'm not blaming Damien though, McRedmond's a smoothie and a tough nut to crack and it's very easy to get sidelined by him. And I don't know about Damien, but live interviews make my palms sweat, they're a /lot/ of pressure.

cgarvey

Yup, I don't think Damien could have done any better TBH. McRedmond had the trump card. The interview was over once he released the 88% figure. We've had no indication of any improvement in the line failure rate. The survey and the Schools BB research both point to a failure rate that is nowhere near 88%, but these are only samples. However what we need to do now, is follow that claim up. I'd suggest an official request to ComReg to ask if they can verify that figure. If they say it's commercially sensitive, eircom just put that one to bed. Information in the public domain can't be considered commercially sensitive, surely?

.cg

damien

I have to admit I got destroyed on that one, I was caught on two points, first backtracking when Newstalk claimed on our behalf that 70% of people couldn't get broadband, I hadn't a clue they were going to claim that and then of course were the figures that Mr. McRedmond pulled out of his...

I'd agree with CGarvey though. If they are claiming line failure rate is now 12%, then that really is not commercially sensitive anymore or this pair gain percentage. We'll formally ask eircom first about these details, (I still have D's email address somewhere here since last time we chatted) and then try and verify them with someone else. ComReg can comment on public information.

Blaster99

Mind you, if these numbers are McRedmond's official story, and I don't think he can actually outright lie as a director of a PLC, then that's what ComReg will say. It's not as if they know, they use Eircom's numbers too.

eircomtribunal

Blaster99 wrote:

Mind you, if these numbers are McRedmond's official story, and I don't think he can actually outright lie as a director of a PLC, then that's what ComReg will say. It's not as if they know, they use Eircom's numbers too.

In July 2004 McRedmond made this claim: (From Comwreck here)
“Right now we have a big supply/demand imbalance, in that more than 70 pc of the market has access to ADSL but demand or penetration is still between 3-4pc”

That is a publicly stated claim that over 70% of customers could get ADSL by mid 2004.

Yesterday McRedmond claimed that by now 88% of the 85% of lines that originate from bb enabled exchanges can get ADSL, which makes it 75% of lines as of October 2005, which makes it surely less than 70% of customers.

So much about lying.

And of course 75% of lines broadband capable is not "en par" with Europe.

P.