Exchange Campaign

dahamsta

Ok, Esat have said several times now that they're going to put a "register your interest" section on their website, but despite the fact that the BT Group already has the capability to do this, there's no sign of it, and no indication of when they're going to do it beyond "we're going to do it". Ho hum, big surprise. On top of that, many IrelandOffline members don't want to use Esat BT, many other don't want to use Eircom, and no doubt other won't want to use XYZ for other reasons. I think it's down to us to set the ball rolling. As usual. So let's do it.

To get started, we need to discuss how we're going to go about it. What are we going to put on the website? Who's going to design it? What are we going to call it? Where are we going to host it? Who's going to write the software? Do we need to tie the registration information into exchanges, and if so how are we going to do that? Who are we going to give the information to? How much information are we going to give them? How are we going to protect registered users privacy? How are we going to pay for costs? Will we have one central website, or lots of websites like broadband4BLAH in the UK? If you can start answering these question, more will come up and we should have a nice store of information and plans to get us started.

I'll start us off by committing to host the website(s) and register any domain names, to a maximum of ten for the moment. I'll also write the registration software and I'll help develop the HTML for the website, although not the design. And obviously I'll leverage the communications resources I have. Who else is gonna bite? No faffing about with this one, let's get it done. Make it so. Engage.

adam

Boston

well what Information do you want off people should be first.
Use should be up there to.

Personally I feel if this happens, and fair play if it does. You should give the isp's as little information as possible. You should stock pile information and at a certain time, say when there is 50 people within a certain exchange say esat/eircom/leap (because I think they work off the same principal)/Broadband.ie that there's 50 interested parties in that area. If you get a positive response off the ISP, then take it future.

Also you should set up a separate part where people who have broadband can fill out details about where they are, quality of service and the like. Maybe even an aspect to that where people can get broadband but chose not to, such as myself.

stormkeeper

my html skills are relatively basic, so i can't help with much codewise, but i'll help an any way i can...

but, i'm more than willing to help with the hosting, as in if you want a backup somewhere, since i have a site myself

that's about all i can offer at this time

De Rebel

Not sure I have a lot to bring to the table skill wise, but its a great idea.

In terms of design and data collected, I'd suggest keeping it as close as possible to the UK ones, that should eliminate any arguments about validity/comprehensivenss of the data collected. The big difficulty here will be aligning phone numbers/accounts to exchanges - now there's an interesting challenge.

Well done on suggesting this and if there is anything I can do I'll be happy to muck in.

SkepticOne

This is an interesting idea. I think one of the hardest things though will be getting the appropriate trigger levels. I believe the Broadband4Britain group are using BT's levels while at the same time campaigning to lower them. I don't think any of the Irish telcos are likely to publish any, so it will be necessary to get independent input on this. One source might be the Ovum report done for the ODTR a few months ago. Although the published report does not go into great deal, it may be possible to get access to the costing models used. I would contact comreg in the first instance for this info.

Without these trigger levels, there is still some value to this project, of course. It will show that there is actual demand out there and where the demand is located.

seamus

Following on from what SkepticOne said there, maybe if, after setting it up, you discussed with the telco's, what they would consider to be an appropriate trigger level for an area, or even try negotiate a deal - ie "We get interest from 50 people, you give each person 512 ADSL for €30/month", and try at least generate some friction/competition between telco's. A long shot, I know, but anything is worth a go in our climate. Then you can go between each telco and say "Well, telco X will give us product Y for €Z per month, which is X more customers switching to them. Fancy negotiating something better?".
IMO, while rollout is slow, it will say slow if we can't get some sort of decent pricing and therefore some decent demand.

Just my 2c. Great Idea tbh Adam.

yellum

Originally posted by dahamsta
What are we going to put on the website?

Form to fill in interest in an exchange having broadband services.
Someone puts in their phone number, it tells em what exchange they are. Asks them to input more details to register their interest in having broadband. Tells them x other people have expressed interest in that area ??

Maybe if theres a broadband option available they will be told this, if theres more than one option they have a list with links to the providers.

Who's going to design it?

A proper designer which ain't me. While it has a nice design, simplicity and usability are very important. Simple simple simple to use.

What are we going to call it?

broadbandinterest.ie, broadband.ie , signup.ie interest.ie

Where are we going to host it?

Well somewhere with good broadband connections. Not in Ireland !

Who's going to write the software?

Right, a ****hot DB will be needed I guess for the DB and then a PHP codemonkey.

Do we need to tie the registration information into exchanges, and if so how are we going to do that?

Phone number linked with exchange

Who are we going to give the information to?

General info to everyone. Specific details to nobody. They want to contact the people to make an offer, they can email the details to the website operators who will send it to the registered users. That way third party sales droids do not get customer info.

How much information are we going to give them?

Numbers, areas, amount they want to spend.

How are we going to protect registered users privacy?

Thats going to be a tough one. There are plenty of DB admins / designers on this website that could give great advice. Maybe a link in the other forums pointing to this for help and suggestions.

Guess theres rules that need to be followed such as:
Only a few ppl have access to the DB.
Details of the users are never disclosed to anyone.


How are we going to pay for costs?

I'll chip in 50-100 Euro towards costs or pay for the reg of domain names.

Will we have one central website, or lots of websites like broadband4BLAH in the UK?

One site would work best I think, unless someone else wants to copy the idea.

I have a question ? Would the code that runs this site be provided to anyone else that wants to do this kind of idea ?

Damien.

p.s. This thread should be made a sticky or a subforum created as this project is pretty big and will have many diff aspects that need to be discussed.

maxheadroom

If we're going after wireless providers too, then it needs to be geographical, not just exchange based (out in the countryside you could be 5 or more km from your exchange, right?)


Not that good with the HTML skillz :rolleyes: , but I'll help any way possible...

yellum

This is true, but the exchange comes with a geographical map. Course you could have it detailed by exchange or geo area or both.

dahamsta

Excellent replies, thanks folks. I'm going to respond to yellum's reply, because he's gone through it bit by bit which makes it a little easier (and because he's a fellow citizen of the People's Republic, and we've got to stick together). I'll come back to the more general stuff later. I'm only covering stuff I haven't covered already.

Form to fill in interest in an exchange having broadband services. Someone puts in their phone number, it tells em what exchange they are. Asks them to input more details to register their interest in having broadband. Tells them x other people have expressed interest in that area ??

I had actually projected it further than this, but I'll come back to that on the privacy / data provision comment in a minute. This issue here is the number to exchange mappings, in that we don't have access to that information; and I believe it's proprietry to Eircom so we're unlikely to get access without a licence. (Which, it's important to point out isn't beyond our capabilities, but does stretch the imagination a little.) I know timod - another valuable child of the revolution - has done a lot of work on this but obviously not enough to map numbers to exchanges. So can we tease this out a little more?

Maybe if theres a broadband option available they will be told this, if theres more than one option they have a list with links to the providers.

Again, this is currently impossible, but I would like to provide information on current offerings using the information from the sticky here, with the permission of the mods. It should be stored on a website anyway, although we're faced with the same problem CorkWAN has, in that we'll need a web administrator to keep it fresh.

A proper designer which ain't me. While it has a nice design, simplicity and usability are very important. Simple simple simple to use.

A proper designer can be arranged. I'd like to carry the CorkWAN procedures across to this again though, in that we'll keep the design completely separate from the administration.

broadbandinterest.ie, broadband.ie , signup.ie interest.ie

C'mon yellum, you're cleverer (and more revolutionary) than that.

General info to everyone. Specific details to nobody. They want to contact the people to make an offer, they can email the details to the website operators who will send it to the registered users. That way third party sales droids do not get customer info.

I was thinking more along the lines of a permissions system for data provision, whereby the user is /required/ to allow us to use the data for staistical use, but can check boxes for the amount of data that can be provided to operators. Boston's idea of only providing data for exchanges that hit their trigger levels was quite honestly something I hadn't thought of, and I think that's a great idea. Again, I'd like to see this hammered out a little more here.

Numbers, areas, amount they want to spend.

I'm not sure amounts they want to spend is something I want to get into. I have no problem doing market research at a level where we're demonstrating pure interest, but I'm not keen to provide assistance that will create an opportunity for them to extend the existing duopoly. It's a contencious issue though, and I'd like to hear more feedback on it. I'll quite definitely be going with consensus here.

Guess theres rules that need to be followed such as:
Only a few ppl have access to the DB.
Details of the users are never disclosed to anyone.

Excellent.

I'll chip in 50-100 Euro towards costs or pay for the reg of domain names.

Good stuff.

One site would work best I think, unless someone else wants to copy the idea. I have a question ? Would the code that runs this site be provided to anyone else that wants to do this kind of idea ?

This is another one I'm unsure of, although it's about "one site V many" as against provision of code. Originally, I was going to do this purely on my tod for Hettyfield exchange, and I was going to allow people to download the code for use for their own exchanges. When I thought about it a little more though, it struck me that: a) there's potential for abuse with disparate databases of personal information; and b) it's quite possible that this might be managed better centrally. Once again, I'd like to hear what other people have to say about this. No matter what happens though, any code /I/ write will be released under the GPL.

This thread should be made a sticky or a subforum created as this project is pretty big and will have many diff aspects that need to be discussed.

I don't think there's a need for a forum at this time, but a sticky would be nice, just to keep it in people's view for a week or so.

Thanks yellum, and everyone else who's commented so far. I'd love to hear more suggestions and comments.

adam

dahamsta

Oops, missed maxheadroom's comment...

Maxheadroom, although it may seem a little odd considering my involvement with CorkWAN, this is strictly about getting DSLAMs into exchanges, at least for the moment.

adam

maxheadroom

Originally posted by dahamsta
Oops, missed maxheadroom's comment...

Maxheadroom, although it may seem a little odd considering my involvement with CorkWAN, this is strictly about getting DSLAMs into exchanges, at least for the moment.

adam

I was just picking up on boston's comment anyway


But, it might be something useful, even in an indirect way, in that it would show companies who are actually interested in providing broadband (rather than being *ahem* co-erced into it) how much interest there is in any given geographic area.

yellum

Jebus Christyus Adam, could you whore that damned CorkWan crowd anymore ?

I'll do my best to come up with more rebelutiontary names.

stormkeeper

Originally posted by yellum
I'll do my best to come up with more rebelutiontary names.

how about giveusbroadband.ie wewantbroadband.ie and wedemandbroadband.ie?

don't mind me... i'm just a little hyper after seeng the new lotr film (not the place to discuss this tho, so i'll be keeping schtum about it )

DC

Great idea Adam.

I think we should forget about .ie domains. You would have to jump through hoops to get one without registering business names, etc. And they're closed over Christmas (as well as going out of business )

A .org might be better (and buy up the .com equivalent if possible).

I'll suggest irishdsl.org because the .org and .com are still available (though maybe not long once some rat from €ircon or €sat reads this thread).

I'm willing to help out in terms of coding and application design. I'm more of a ColdFusion expert than PHP (which I believe is your speciality), however I do have some PHP knowledge.

One of the things with petitions (and my bringbackroy.com is an example - and an example of my very limited php knowledge) is of course making sure that each person registers interest once and as a legitimate person. We are not privvy to people's telephone account numbers, etc so I don't know how best to ensure uniqueness. Cookies offer some protection, but not a lot. This would have to be tied down for the petitions to be taken seriously be telcos. I think people would have to supply names and telephone numbers for the telcos to double check.

zynaps

Sorry if this is irrelevant, I've never paid attention to a project like this before.

But as yis were talking about data sharing and so forth, could we not have a publically viewable demographics thing?

i.e. different views and interpretations of the data at a general level, throw in a few bar charts and some kinda engine to highlight a map with colours representing numbers and possibly currently available broadband in those areas?
You could have the map throw up views of current wireless, dsl, cable (ha, ha) coverage selectively.

Again, apologies if this is something you fundamentally intended and I'm stating the obvious :P

zynaps

yellum

Yes ! Once privacy is respected, I guess a lot of this data could be mined to provide certain demographics to anyone that wanted them.

This could become a very very useful party neutral database.

yellum

Originally posted by dahamsta
This issue here is the number to exchange mappings, in that we don't have access to that information; and I believe it's proprietry to Eircom so we're unlikely to get access without a licence. (Which, it's important to point out isn't beyond our capabilities, but does stretch the imagination a little.) .... So can we tease this out a little more?

General / Basic Telco licence ? Can another Telco get this information and provide it to this project, or can only a Telco use this information. Can Eircoms DSL line test be harvested for information ? What about ComReg , can they be of any help ?

but I would like to provide information on current offerings using the information from the sticky here, with the permission of the mods.

Yes good idea, maybe there should be a way for the various telcos to pimp their wares. A form they have to fill in where ALL questions need to be answered. We would set the criteria as to what is a broadband offering or not. Eircon Highspeed wouldn't be listed for example.

in that we'll keep the design completely separate from the administration.

Best way forward I think.

C'mon yellum, you're cleverer (and more revolutionary) than that.

5mbToMyDoorBy2005MyArse.ie
facilitate.ie (dig at Etain )
neutral.ie


I was thinking more along the lines of a permissions system for data provision, whereby the user is /required/ to allow us to use the data for staistical use, but can check boxes for the amount of data that can be provided to operators.

Yeah, I still think phone number and users name and address should never be given to the Telco. They can send data to the users through the sute such as a link to a form they fill in.

If for example a new wireless company asked for demographics for the Tallaght area on the numbers that are interested, they could query the db and get numbers. Would this be allowed. These telco companies would need to pass some verification first before getting access to the querying tools and all queries they carry out would be logged.

Boston's idea of only providing data for exchanges that hit their trigger levels was quite honestly something I hadn't thought of, and I think that's a great idea. Again, I'd like to see this hammered out a little more here.

Who defines the Trigger levels though ? This would really need to be independently defined since the current Telcos will set them way high. Or could we depend on the information from the ComReg ?


I'm not sure amounts they want to spend is something I want to get into. ....but I'm not keen to provide assistance that will create an opportunity for them to extend the existing duopoly. ...I'll quite definitely be going with consensus here.

Good point actually. Once numbers are logged they can then talk to these people about prices. Maybe the group can negotiate as one on a price. Bulk discount ! The group can agree on a set price with each other and then talk to the company. I'm sure the thought alone of the consumer dictating a local price will make someone in management spit coffee over their screen when they read this.


No matter what happens though, any code /I/ write will be released under the GPL.

Nice one.

zynaps

You could always set up some kind of anonymous proxy for each user, with which telcos could communicate if they wanted to offer them a service or otherwise talk.
Be it like a pm system or an email forwarding thing, which would shield the users' identities, but provide the telcos with a way of marketing (for want of a better word... maybe this isn't at all where it should be going!) specific groups of users (by location and interest, etc?).

You could theoretically set up a board system I guess, but that'd become unmanageably spammed after a few days most likely...

We need the objectives and boundaries for this thing to be very clear

zynaps

yellum

Originally posted by zynaps
You could always set up some kind of anonymous proxy for each user, with which telcos could communicate if they wanted to offer them a service or otherwise talk.

Yes, but they could still Spam people, so they'd need to meet criteria first, then the mailshot would need moderator approval to go out. Maybe again they are given a template with how to send out an offer.

STaN

ive a map of all the exchanges around dublin city and cork too. Might be useful *shurg*

Realistically i cant see any telco offering 30/month for broadband unless it was 256kbps. Costs are high in the irish market

theking

need4speed.org
changeyourexchange.org
DSLfrenzy.org

More later

David C

broadband4ireland.com would be my personal choice..

Gets the message across straight away...

Xian

Here's a suggestion with a couple of variables, adam, but they are variables that will be encountered in any broadband4Ballybeg campaign so it'd be worth the effort. If you were to concentrate on your original intention, namely to get the Hettyfield exchange enabled, a lot of obstacles could be overcome at once, once and for all: the software, the strategy, the pitch. No doubt the software will have a few glitches to be worked out when it is first released which would be better contained if it isn't on general release, so to speak. Second, working out how to spread the word about the site. Is it possible, for example, to obtain from somewhere a mailing list of houses on the exchange. How much would a mailshot to them cost? What does an ad in the local paper cost, or is there a staff journo sympathetic to the cause that'd run an article or so? All these are minutiae that go towards a successful campaign. Lastly, the look and feel of the site should be designed with re-use in mind. This is where the bigger picture comes into view. When a successful campaign for Hettyfield is worked out, you draw up a readme including how to set up the software, how to go about campaigning, spreading the word etc., bundle it with the software (suitably GPL'd) and distribute it as a do-it-yourself out-of-the-box campaign kit for anyone who wants their exchange enabled. All they have to do is register broadband4Tinahely.org, substitute Hettyfield for Tinahely in the html and off they go, assuming, of course, that it connected to the same back end. This takes a lot of the effort off you so that it is the least burdensome to run and support.

zynaps

A less burdensome approach aye, but would it not become more confusing and decentralised for telcos and people in general trying to get the big picture?

IE, if I want to look at areas where a lot of demand has been registered and see what broadband is currently available I'd have to find a link to each little village/town/place/etc (maybe as each site came online they would be added to a list on another site, so people could have easy access to all the exchanges), go to their site, assuming it's working and has been well publicised, take their info into account, then move onto the next...

Unless somehow they were tied into a central database so you could have regional detail and overall detail together, but that would be easily as much effort as the first approach.

No offence intended, it's a nice idea but IMO it would make it too much of an effort for telcos who would probably like to look at managery summarisations and the big picture (fat lot of that they've done of late), and if there was a central, all-encompassing site that'd do the trick.

zynaps

yellum

Xian, I like the idea that regional groups campaign in their own area and set something going, but I think managing this through one site would work out better. Less time consuming and would not be doing the same job over and over again.

Its going to be more work to start with getting all the exchange details into one db but it would then mean that a group can take over the campaigning of an exhange at the click of a button. No downloading of software, registering a domain or subdomain.

You could have it working like DMOZ.org - "This Exchange does not have a Campaign Moderator - Click here to Apply for this position "

You could even have it so the the campaign moderator does not have the contact details of the other locals if they specify it.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by yellum
Its going to be more work to start with getting all the exchange details into one db but it would then mean that a group can take over the campaigning of an exhange at the click of a button. No downloading of software, registering a domain or subdomain.

I think this may be missing the point he was making slightly.

yellum

Originally posted by SkepticOne
I think this may be missing the point he was making slightly.

Which was ?

Originally posted by Xian All they have to do is register broadband4Tinahely.org, substitute Hettyfield for Tinahely in the html and off they go, assuming, of course, that it connected to the same back end.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by yellum
Which was ?

What I mean is that I don't think the method of website replication is central to the suggestion.

yellum

Ahhhhhhhhh right. Its all Xians fault anyway. LEARN TO USE PARAGRAPHS

Richard Barry

Originally posted by STaN
ive a map of all the exchanges around dublin city and cork too. Might be useful *shurg*

Realistically i cant see any telco offering 30/month for broadband unless it was 256kbps. Costs are high in the irish market

Who do you work for please?

Which costs are higher in Ireland than elsewhere in this context?

1) Ireland has the cheapest international leased line costs in Europe - putting the cost of transporting the internet feed at the bottom of the expense league table.

2) A DSL modem and DSLAM will cost the same whether they are running at 256k or 512k or even higher.

3) The eircom loop costs the same irrespective of speed. Unless you move to really high speeds when it gets cheaper because the DSLAM will be located in street cabinets near the end user. One could even perhaps ignore eircom completely and run fresh copper pairs from street cabinets to individual homes etc! (much easier than co-ax cabling an area for TV).

4) Installed fibre is now almost infinitely scalable (just add another colour down the fibre). One doesn't have to dig up the street again if the entire neighbourhood decides to upgrade from 256k to 512k to 1Mbits/sec...

Cost inflation in Ireland is labour cost and service industry lack of competition, lack of regulation, corruption etc. related. Little or nothing to do with speed. If anything the contrary ...

With all the state financed Global Crossing infrastructure, Irish Rail subsidized ESAT BT capacity and state sponsored fibre in the ground generally, Ireland should have the cheapest DSL internet access on the planet.

It is surely amazing that the contrary is the case. Why?

R.