No cap

GavinS

I had an interesting chat with a (shall remain nameless) Eircom engineer the other night. the engineer informed me that the 'cap' of 3GB is not actually....real.

This wasnt on the phone or anything, it was over a pint. When i complained about the cap 'the engineer' just laughed and said that there was actually no way of measuring data downloaded by individual users... so no one will ever be charged extra....and that the cap was really there to 'discourage' bandwidth hogs..

A date of late Feb/early March has also been given to Esat for access to Eircom exchanges.

Interesting

Dustaz

yeh, i was told the exact same thing in a similar situation by an engineer too

Good news if its true about opening exachanges. The competition is good news for the price of DSL

dahamsta

A date of late Feb/early March has also been given to Esat for access to Eircom exchanges.

Work has already begun on the exchange in Limerick, which would suggest that Esat has already been in there. Also, there are indications that further orders have been placed for co-location space in exchanges. The date Gavin gives would hint towards a rollout date for unbundled services, possibly in Limerick?

adam

GavinS

This wasnt a detailed chat i had, but my understanding is that it wont be just Limerick, that access will be given to all exchanges from those dates, or later dates, onwards.

It seems Limerick was just the model for impending nationwide rollout.

Furthermore, contractors i knew who were working on the crappy Set top Box ADSL idea that Eircom was testing, and subsequently cancelled in January, and other consultants were a large part of the costs of the £127 million Eircom apparently invested in ADSL.
Some were on the industry standard of £80 an hour.

In order to recoop this costs it seems that Eircom may consider writing off 50 million of this, rolling out ADSL quickly, and charging alot less than the 99 quid - more like 40 quid per month. This will mean a relataively large take up of ADSL, and Eircom hopes, a return on investment.

I can speculate, and somewhat reliably, that major towns nationwide will be DSL ready by early summer.

viking

Originally posted by Gavin
... the 'cap' of 3GB is not actually....real.
...there was actually no way of measuring data downloaded by individual users... so no one will ever be charged extra....and that the cap was really there to 'discourage' bandwidth hogs..

Just as well really, I got my ADSL Connexion 7 days ago and already I'm at 2.51GB and I'm just doing my normal work stuff, i.e. 3 Linux ISO's, VNC Viewer, Web Browsing, FTP, remote Oracle access, some Internet Radio etc.

Hope thats true 'cos I really wouldn't fancy paying extra per MB after the 3GB ceiling.

Funny though how quickly the DL Meter adds up with the always-on connexion:)

V

irishguy

i would say that the 3gig limit isnt going 2 be used.chorus have a 3gig limit too which doesnt work. when i was measuring how much i was downloading it worked out at about 6gigs a month on to a 20gig hardrive i never had any spare room.i dont measure it anymore and now i have a 20gig and 2 40gig drives and they are filling up fast so i must be pulling down between 6 and 10gigs a month and i never paid extra for it

astrofool

addding the monitoring system for bandwidth is very very easy, just a small software upgrade on their part

dahamsta

Hi Gavin,

This wasnt a detailed chat i had, but my understanding is that it wont be just Limerick, that access will be given to all exchanges from those dates, or later dates, onwards. It seems Limerick was just the model for impending nationwide rollout.

You're right that Limerick is a model, at least to a degree, but it's not as simple as that I'm afraid. Other Licenced Operators interested in Local Loop Unbundling (at the moment, Esat appears to be the only party actually taking part in the process) have to request co-location space in exchanges; then go into the exchanges and install their equipment; then request local loops to be unbundled; and then rollout services on those loops. So it's not simply a case of "all the exchanges are unbundled", it's an ongoing process of negotiation and contract development.

It's been suggested that Esat are interested in a total of ~100 exchanges at this time, however it's doubtful that it will be a nationwide process - it's far more likely that Esat will concentrate on urban centres. All that being said, it appears that - or at least it is hoped that - the next batch of requests will be used as a model for all future requests, and that would be very beneficial to all involved. We still have a ways to go though, because the actual loop requests have yet to be filed.

Furthermore, contractors i knew who were working on the crappy Set top Box ADSL idea that Eircom was testing, and subsequently cancelled in January, and other consultants were a large part of the costs of the £127 million Eircom apparently invested in ADSL. Some were on the industry standard of £80 an hour. In order to recoop this costs it seems that Eircom may consider writing off 50 million of this, rolling out ADSL quickly, and charging alot less than the 99 quid - more like 40 quid per month. This will mean a relataively large take up of ADSL, and Eircom hopes, a return on investment.

I would hope that you're right, but my by now somewhat tedious caution of "don't hold your breath" has to be stated. I see it as very unlikely that either Eircom or Esat, with their bitstream and LLU programs respectively, will roll out services at that pricing level. I personally think that the base level Eircom bitstream product will be priced somewhere close to the middle of "cool pricing" (what we would like) and "ludicrous pricing" (what Eircom would like). Having thought about it a little more recently (I've been busy, ok?), I believe this is the reason for the recent rise of Eircom's proposed i-Stream pricing - to push the price they will finally have to agree with the ODTR a little higher.

As to Esat's unbundled products, I believe that these will be targeted at businesses, will have better Quality of Service and Service Level Agreements, and will be (relatively) quite expensive. I don't believe that Esat will target the home market through the LLU program, however there remains the possibility that they will do this through the bitstream program. Personally speaking, and I hope this will encourage Esat just a wee bit, I would take an Esat bitstream product over an Eircom product in a shot, even given the SNL debacle.

I can speculate, and somewhat reliably, that major towns nationwide will be DSL ready by early summer.

I tend to agree. This is pure speculation, but I believe that the current impasse between Eircom and the ODTR on bitstream pricing will be resolved very shortly, possibly even before the new year, and that Eircom will begin to roll out i-Stream services in Dublin in the middle of the first quarter next year. During and following this process, I think there will be a reasonably rapid upgrading of exchanges outside of Dublin, and rollouts to match.

I think Esat will work to roll out their services fairly rapidly too, unless there are any serious problems with colocation in the next batch of exchanges, and if the ODTR is correct in their assertion that the LLU regulation is solid, this shouldn't be a problem. However, I believe that Eircom will do everything in their power to make this as difficult as possible, and I believe they will not settle the LLU court case any time soon. I hope they'll prove me wrong.

adam

Delphi91

Originally posted by dahamsta
...Work has already begun on the exchange in Limerick, which would suggest that Esat has already been in there...

Anyone from Limerick happen to know what exchange ESAT appear to have access to? There is an exchange about 0.5 miles from the Esat facility in Castletroy. It has one seriously large satellite dish attached to it (this thing could almost be a radio telescope!!)

I'm just curious, 'cos it would be my nearest excahnge!

Mike

jd

Originally posted by astrofool
addding the monitoring system for bandwidth is very very easy, just a small software upgrade on their part

Sure, but to do it robustly and hook it back up to provisioning/csr/crm/billing systems would hardly be trivial
jd

dahamsta

Anyone from Limerick happen to know what exchange ESAT appear to have access to?

There's an easy way to find out - look for builders. Exchanges don't have builders in very often; if there's builders outside, it's pretty much a given it's the exchange.

adam

Matfinn

Originally posted by viking


Just as well really, I got my ADSL Connexion 7 days ago and already I'm at 2.51GB and I'm just doing my normal work stuff, i
V

If you can measure how many gigs you have downloaded what makes you think that Eircom cant do the same?? Also you must be careful, once they see this topic they may be 'extra' vigilant in trying to implement a download metering setup. Just a thought

Matt

Boston

Matfinn because your measuring how much your pc recieves

im sure eircom can measure how much the one modem they have for every 25 people sends out, but not what each person downloads, and the fact you dont have a static ip makes it even harder.

the simple fact is, nowhere in the world does this work for residencial users.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by «Bo§ton»
the simple fact is, nowhere in the world does this work for residencial users.

Australia?

Boston

no actually, they havent quiet worked it out yet.
they have imposed a 3gig cap, but arnt confident enough to impose a sur charge for over that.

viking

Originally posted by Matfinn


If you can measure how many gigs you have downloaded what makes you think that Eircom cant do the same?? Also you must be careful, once they see this topic they may be 'extra' vigilant in trying to implement a download metering setup. Just a thought

Matt

There are a number of viewpoints that can be taken on whether eircon have their act together for download monitoring.

First, of all, I'm on a trial, therefore if they even try to charge me for going over the 3 GB limit, they can go piss up a rope...

Anyway...

Sure, but to do it robustly and hook it back up to provisioning/csr/crm/billing systems would hardly be trivial

1.) This would be a major cost for Eircom. The cost and hassle of doing it would far outway the benefits of charge for the extra MB's downloaded.

im sure eircom can measure how much the one modem they have for every 25 people sends out, but not what each person downloads, and the fact you dont have a static ip makes it even harder.

2.)True, but one thing which always remains static is the username/password combination you use to log into the i-stream service. And monitoring the downloads via this might not be too difficult...

3.)Also, I remember in my last job were getting overcharged for the ISDN line we were using, and I was delegated to go through the eircon and Esat(our ISP at the time) bills to see why it was costing so much. The eircon bills were fine, rent & phone calls etc, but the Esat bills had charges on them relating to standard access per month plus costs for bandwidth. They were monitoring the bandwith, the amount downloaded per month was stated on the bill. Now if Esat can manage to do that then I think Eircon can too.

4.)Also why would they bring out 4 flavours of ADSL products and slap a DL limit on three of them if they couldn't manage to monitor downloads.

Hopefully they wont have figured it out by the time it launches. Or maybe they'll drop the caps.

BTW, I'm moving to Kinnegad soon, does anyone know where the nearest exchange is. I know it'll be forever before ADSL is rolled out outside the pale but I just want to see what my distance from the exchange is, to see if I'd even have a chance. My guess is the nearest exchange is in Mullingar, anyone know for sure, thanks.

V

Boston

again, that's business users, im sure it would be a small investment, for the about of return. but the simple fact is the way they share bandwidth would have to be changed in order to monitor it for residential users. They can monitor bandwidth on 56k without any problem, for some reason. I don't know why, but ive yet to see one clear cut case were they have for non residential

Kristok

Ladies and Gents im sorry to say that the eircom engineer in question here did not know what he was on about. Monitoring bandwidth is such a simple thing to do and I know for certain that it is currently being done with the trials although not being enforced in almost all cases.

Now if it will be enforced or not after the trials is another question but from what has happeded all over europe with broadband it would be unlikely if it was not enforced here. I have relations in Holland and their cable connection was capped after two years and then charged for any bandwidth used over that ammount allowed (50gb)

Anyway seeing as adsl is not aimed at home users yet and only for sme's this wont be a problem until it finally gets released as a home solution which by that time should have a more reasonable cap.

Dustaz

Kristok, the solo package is aimed at home users.


Also, i know for a fact of a few places where caps are enforced (portugals cable company for one).

But as i said, last time i heard they were scrambling to implement this system in eircom.

jd

Originally posted by Dustaz
Kristok, the solo package is aimed at home users.


Also, i know for a fact of a few places where caps are enforced (portugals cable company for one).

But as i said, last time i heard they were scrambling to implement this system in eircom.

I wouldn't quite say that..
data collection eg the number of bytes transferred through a port is one thing-but as I said before what you do with it is another.
If you start surcharging or cutting off people for going over a cap, then you have to be dead sure that the information is accurate, and that the information is fed back accurately to billing as well as csr systems etc..(real time too). As an aside, telco's (besides the banks) are one of the few sectors that come close to the elusive 5 9s for system uptime (abt 5.5 mins down a year afair)
jd

billy the squid

Hold up here if they are planning to monitor how much your downloading would they be able to tell WHAT your downloading.

and would this not contravene any privacy laws

cmkrnl

Originally posted by «Bo§ton»
Matfinn because your measuring how much your pc recieves

im sure eircom can measure how much the one modem they have for every 25 people sends out, but not what each person downloads, and the fact you dont have a static ip makes it even harder.

the simple fact is, nowhere in the world does this work for residencial users.

Oh yes it does, Its trivial for any ISP to monitor bandwidth of a DHCP'd connection, becacuse the very act of sucessfully authenticating against Radius will tie a circuit on the DSLAM against a particular user. There is no need for Eircom to monitor traffic at the customer end. This all comes for free on the DSLAM and can be interrogated by HPOV, Netview or dumped into a billing system/whatever. Standard SNMP counters.


greg

El_MUERkO

I had hope for uncapped fairly priced internat half way thru this post but it was strangled by technobabble and buryed in an unmarked grave

Boston

Originally posted by cmkrnl


Oh yes it does, Its trivial for any ISP to monitor bandwidth of a DHCP'd connection, becacuse the very act of sucessfully authenticating against Radius will tie a circuit on the DSLAM against a particular user. There is no need for Eircom to monitor traffic at the customer end. This all comes for free on the DSLAM and can be interrogated by HPOV, Netview or dumped into a billing system/whatever. Standard SNMP counters.


greg

then please expalin why so many have so much trouble in doing so. Chorus for example

cmkrnl

Originally posted by «Bo§ton»

then please expalin why so many have so much trouble in doing so. Chorus for example

Cos' they couldn't find their arse with both hands perchance :-). Retrieving the raw data is easy, writing a robust scalable billing system to make use of it, is a different kettle of fish entirely.

I have had a first hand hand account w.r.t the shenanigans of a certain Irish mobile telco & their billing system, so I would say its the most likely explanation. Other ISP's globally seem to manage volume based billing just fine for both home and commercial users on all types of connections.


greg

jd

Originally posted by cmkrnl


Cos' they couldn't find their arse with both hands perchance :-). Retrieving the raw data is easy, writing a robust scalable billing system to make use of it, is a different kettle of fish entirely.

You eouldn't write one from scratch-ip based billing with rating is done by amdocs- http://www.amdocs.com and portal http://www.portal.com amongs others-though how well they actually work and are implemented is another thing
jd

cmkrnl

Originally posted by jd

You eouldn't write one from scratch-ip based billing with rating is done by amdocs- http://www.amdocs.com and portal http://www.portal.com amongs others-though how well they actually work and are implemented is another thing
jd

Ah but see, something like that would be too obvious for the mentality of your average make work, ex civil service type. It would be better to get in a team of consultants from the usual suspects & waste millions over say 3-4 years whilst delivering precisely nothing. In the meantime, the individual who made the decision in question has been promoted beyond his wildest expectations.

Cynical of London

greg

PiE

Yea well stop giving them ideas

jd

Originally posted by cmkrnl


Ah but see, something like that would be too obvious for the mentality of your average make work, ex civil service type.

It would be better to get in a team of consultants from the usual suspects & waste millions over say 3-4 years whilst delivering precisely nothing.

oh you get them in anyway......:-)

In the meantime, the individual who made the decision in question has been promoted beyond his wildest expectations.

Cynical of London

greg

lol
to be honest it all seems familiar...
if you check through the threads you'll figure out where I work
jd

Medion

I have looked @ alot of threads today and previous posts too. I couldn't figure it out but I'll keep trying