Price of broadband

Da Man

I'm not a frequent reader of this board. There's some interesting stuff but mostly endless complaints about pricing.

Has anyone tried to understand why telecoms is so expensive in Ireland? Sure Eircom aren't making much of an effort, but if it was so easy to make money delivering broadband services why aren't other companies doing it? It is more or less an open market. Perhaps there is something inherent about Ireland that makes this type of infrastructure expensive to provide. NTL gave up on the most promising avenue, cable internet. Partly because they ran out of money but presumably they couldn't justify the investment.

Even the wireless people have more or less the same pricing structure as Eircom and they have no excuses really. And then they cover roughly a sq mile of Dublin 4 and manage to call themselves "Irish Broadband". It's good to see they have a sense of humour at least.

From a personal perspective I would be happy to pay €100 a month if I could actually get ADSL. My exchange supports it but not my phone line. Bummer.

MDR

Read the Ireland Versus Norway document ... funny how with a more distributed population, more expensive labour, hasher climate and less government investment their broadband is half the price of ours ...

Even the wireless people have more or less the same pricing structure as Eircom and they have no excuses really. And then they cover roughly a sq mile of Dublin 4 and manage to call themselves "Irish Broadband". It's good to see they have a sense of humour at least.

There is also now IrishWisp and Chorus all charging reasonable money for their products also ... all be it in small areas of the country.

Da Man

I believe the American company behind Meteor compared Ireland to the ex-Soviet republic Georgia when it comes to installing telecoms infrastructure. Actually, I think they preferred Georgia.

NTL must have done som thinking in this area as they originally intended to upgrade the complete network so they could provide broadband services. It's possible they underestimed the state of the Cablelink network or the pain involved in getting business done or they just ran out of money. But in a market where the incumbant charges about twice the going rate you'd think there would be scope for some pretty impressive margins.

The same really goes for the wireless folks. With Eircom as the major competitor, how can you fail?

MDR

Me thinks at heart of Ireland problems are regulatory. The infrastucture is already there and has been provided at great expense to the tax payer. All of Ireland's problems have been related to delivering the service over the last mile and an uneven market place. Hopefully the new momentum at COMREG should sort this out ...

If you are really interested in the real cost of broadband in ireland download and read the following documents, they should explain all.

COMREG's Future Delivery of Broadband in Ireland

Ovum's "Broadband Network Rollout in Ireland"

zynaps

The wireless providers (all... 3, that I know of?) do not have the same pricing structure as eircom...
IBB is €60 a month, I think, for 1024/1024k with no cap, compared to eircom's entry level adsl at 512/128k with a 3gig cap, whereupon they can do things to you.
I think it's pretty similar for the others, although leap is a bit more expensive, and irishwisp has a silly 3 gig cap too.

I don't really know what the problem is either... we do have a lot of well developed infrastructure (hello unlit fibre??), but there isn't a lot happening with companies trying to connect it up and market last mile network to consumers, unless you want 100mbs connections off ESB or something, and live near one of their termination points... I'd say that's somewhat expensive though

IMO the most promising technology is wireless, which only seems limited by topography, competence and consumer interest really...

zynaps

spongebob

Originally posted by zynaps

IMO the most promising technology is wireless, which only seems limited by topography, competence and consumer interest really...

you forgot about Planners who recently killed wireless in Galway with a badly worded county development plan which tried to keep the WAP installs a minimum of 1.6Km from the customer, it was reduced to 800M in the end. This will make a real balls of 3G which should be as little as 300-500m from the target market in order to work optimally.

M

zynaps

You mean a minimum distance from anyone or just.. the customer? What made them pick that figure... or any minimum figure? :P

Ach, eircom dialup... *shakes fist*

zynaps

spongebob

Anybody

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Da Man
Has anyone tried to understand why telecoms is so expensive in Ireland? Sure Eircom aren't making much of an effort, but if it was so easy to make money delivering broadband services why aren't other companies doing it? It is more or less an open market. Perhaps there is something inherent about Ireland that makes this type of infrastructure expensive to provide. NTL gave up on the most promising avenue, cable internet. Partly because they ran out of money but presumably they couldn't justify the investment.

Yes, the fundamental difference between Ireland and other countries is the lack of cable internet.

If you are looking for an inherent difference between Ireland and other countries (at least as far as provisioning large urban centres) it is the poor quality of the cable infrastructure.

In order to upgrade a typical area of irish cable to full two-way standard, as well as provisioning fibre to the nodes, the entire metal cable that runs between the houses needs to be ripped out and replaced with higher grade cable. In Europe, only the extra fibre + equipment needs to be provided. It the upgrading of the metal cable running between houses that is hugely expensive. Therefore, NTL prefers to spend it's money where it will get most return - outside Ireland.

The reason low grade cable abounds in Ireland is because in the 60s and 70s people were willing to pay just to recieve a few UK terrestrial channels in order to avoid being forced to watch the single RTE channel.

Without this competition, Eircom can afford not to make DSL available (either through making it expensive or not rolling it out beyond a few exchanges in larger urban areas). They also have one of the most expensive bistream prices which prevents ISPs from offering competitive services (again, this is in Eircom's interest).

This means that the only substantial competition comes from Esat operating under LLU. Like in other European countries, LLU has been a disapointment and Esat is only head to head with Eircom in a few exchanges - not enough to be called "competition". I believe that Esat, like Eircom, have priced DSL very high in order to protect lucrative leased line revenue.

Even the wireless people have more or less the same pricing structure as Eircom and they have no excuses really. And then they cover roughly a sq mile of Dublin 4 and manage to call themselves "Irish Broadband". It's good to see they have a sense of humour at least.

Facts seem to be wrong here. Irish Broadband charges 40 euros per month and have a much larger area than a square mile, though I agree are hardly a national organisation. There's another company IrishWisp charging 50 euros with a similar coverage area.

The only company charging 100 euros + is Leap. This may be the company you are thinking of.

From a personal perspective I would be happy to pay €100 a month if I could actually get ADSL. My exchange supports it but not my phone line. Bummer.

How much are you giving them right now?

LFCFan

Originally posted by Da Man
From a personal perspective I would be happy to pay €100 a month if I could actually get ADSL. My exchange supports it but not my phone line. Bummer.

You see, THIS is the reason the Irish are walked all over when it comes to services etc. You would be HAPPY to pay way over the odds for a less then adequate(because of the cap) ADSL service. It's no wonder €ircon are in the position they are.

MDR

Me and LFCFan are in agreement for a change ...

LFCFan

there's always a first for everything

Matfinn

Eircom

We're going to make you our bitch !

Matt

pork99

Originally posted by Matfinn
Eircom

We're going to make you our bitch !

Matt

role reversal - oh yes!

Da Man

Sorry, I generalised a little when it came to the wireless suppliers. Because they only cover a miniscule part of the country that I'm not in, I lost interest in them. My point was, though, that if everyone is dying for broadband, why not cover a greater area? I don't know what's involved with wireless broadband, but surely something like the greater Dublin region could be covered without too much expense? And given Eircom's fantasy pricing, there's significant scope to make a killing.

The thing Eircom and seemingly some of you fail to get is that if the price is right people will sign up to a service even if you don't use it to it's full potential. So it's irrelevent what my current phone bill is because I'm not getting broadband internet for that money. Presently I consider €100 a month for 512kps to be fair value, particularly in comparison to what I'm getting for my existing phone bill. But I can't get the sodden' service so it's academic. I would imagine many people would sign up for €50 a month, not just internet nerds like us, so Eircom would make money without really having to provide more bandwidth.

I would imagine that UTV IP don't make money on 150 hours a month for €30, but it sounds like a good deal so many sign up without using the hours. So UTV makes money. And UTV probably bets on the fact that you will be making some amount of non-local calls as well, that they probably make a fair bit of money on.

The price of leased lines is scandalous too. That's gotta be easily something like four times the price of other countries. It's a little difficult to understand how Eircom can get away with it, but then nobody else seems to be particularly interested in providing an alternative service.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Da Man

Originally posted by Da Man
The thing Eircom and seemingly some of you fail to get is that if the price is right people will sign up to a service even if you don't use it to it's full potential. So it's irrelevent what my current phone bill is because I'm not getting broadband internet for that money. Presently I consider �100 a month for 512kps to be fair value, particularly in comparison to what I'm getting for my existing phone bill. But I can't get the sodden' service so it's academic.

Well, currently according to Eircom, 500,000 lines are capable of DSL yet only 2,000 have signed up for it. This is less DSL than Luxemburg. Currently they are only selling about 40 or 50 a week. Compare this with 20,000 a week in Britain.

I agree that more people would sign up for DSL if the price was right, but 100 euros is considered extreme by most people for any sort of Internet access. This pushes it into the realm of very heavy users who are probably paying more to Eircom for crap anyway.

What I question here is the assumption that Eircom are trying to create a successful DSL service. I don't believe that is Eircom's aim at all.

I believe Eircom could make far more money by selling to more people, but their fear is that (certainly in the short term) revenue would be cannibalised from other areas. Plus, they don't have the competition needed to give them the kick start.

LFCFan

Originally posted by SkepticOne
Plus, they don't have the competition needed to give them the kick start.

Kick up the arse more like it.

€ircon are making way too much money from Dial up and especially from ISDN so there is no way they are going to want xDSL to take off. It is also the reason why there will be a huge delay in getting a decent priced wholesale FRIACO product from them. Shower of you know whats!

Da Man

I bet those 500,000 lines include my line, i.e. the exchange can handle it but clearly the phone line quality to my house isn't up to scratch. Or so they say, but that's another discussion that I'm sure has been covered to death in other threads.

The point of this thread is simply that if it is so easy to make money on broadband at let's say €50 a month, why isn't somebody else doing it (beyond Dublin 4)?

In addition, my point is that Eircom is probably in the best position to make money from broadband at €50 a month because they have so much of the infrastructure in place already. But if they don't want to, it's their tough.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Da Man
In addition, my point is that Eircom is probably in the best position to make money from broadband at �50 a month because they have so much of the infrastructure in place already. But if they don't want to, it's their tough.

Yes, but Eircom's goal, like any company is to make money, not make money from DSL. They appear to have decided that they can make more money by not maximising profit on DSL and only selling a couple of thousand. Seems like it is your tough rather than theirs.

Da Man

Well, it's definitely their tough if they don't want to make money. It is my tough that there is no alternative. Promoting the establishment of alternatives is a more worthwhile doing than complaining about what Eircom does or doesn't do. I'd rather have a situation where I wouldn't have to worry about Eircom's archaic business model.

BigEejit

Promoting the establishment of alternatives is a more worthwhile doing than complaining about what Eircom does or doesn't do. I'd rather have a situation where I wouldn't have to worry about Eircom's archaic business model.

Hit the nail on the head .... Unfortunately most people (me included) are prepared to sit around and complain instead of doing something a little proactive like setting up a website to ascertain demand for broadband in a geographic area, which may be of interest to IBB et al.

PiE

Originally posted by Da Man
Well, it's definitely their tough if they don't want to make money. It is my tough that there is no alternative. Promoting the establishment of alternatives is a more worthwhile doing than complaining about what Eircom does or doesn't do. I'd rather have a situation where I wouldn't have to worry about Eircom's archaic business model.

It's not their 'tough' at all, they're making an absolute killing by NOT offering DSL. Their 56k/ISDN dialup system is hugely more profitable than DSL ever will be.

There are alternatives, Wireless being the obvious one. The fact is, not many people have the money or the expertise to set up a nationwide (or city-wide for that matter) network.

And theres no way a company is going to come in and build another phone network alongside Eircons now is there? Theres the problem, in other countries ISP's and phone companies all use the same network as it's cost effective to do so. If Eircom made it cost effective to do so here, we'd be seeing a lot more competition in the area.

Bottom line, I shouldn't be expected to have to set up my own damn ISP to get decent net access. It's Eircoms fault that we're all stuck in the telecom-darkages.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by BigEejit
Hit the nail on the head .... Unfortunately most people (me included) are prepared to sit around and complain instead of doing something a little proactive like setting up a website to ascertain demand for broadband in a geographic area, which may be of interest to IBB et al.

You could help Adam Beecher (dahamsta) with his project. I believe he is doing some sort of database.

iwb

This thread definately started off well and then...........

My 2 cent worth;
In the past, if you weren't Eircom or Esat, you had no opportunity to set anything up cost effectively as they have the country covered with regard to backhaul/backbone. If I wanted to be a wireless operator in Waterford, I would have to pay through the nose to get the network linked to the rest of the world.
As of right about now, ESB telecom is available in many towns and cities in the South of the country. They will sell large bandwidth pipes for a lot less than the duopoly. It is still a very large pipe by Irish standards (and still very expensive by European standards), I think 34Mbps is the lowest they sell. However, if someone wants to set up a wireless ISP in Waterford now, they just need to make sure they can get a few big users to help cover the cost and perhaps a few wireless shots to smaller towns around and bingo, you have a network not operated by the goons.
Initially the business probably wouldn't make any money but if the service offered is cost effective, reliable, and customer service is good, it would eventually gain lots of customers.
Perhaps someone will go ahead and do this now that less expensive backhaul is available in the country.
Alternatively, one can purchase dark fiber pairs from the ESB too. This may encourage Eircom or Esat to start to sell some of the thousands of kilometers of fiber strands in the ground as they will never be able to use them, especially if they continue to behave the way they are today with respect to broadband.

Canadian

I have less than 50 days left in this tortured country, but over the past two years I've come to the conclusion that the 'state endorsed' monopoly hasn't been forced to change, and even if they were forced, they lack the ability to provide a first world level of service. (too bad because widely available cheap internet is an investment in the long term welfare of the state - too bad Bertie is too retarded or corrupt to understand that)

Everything costs more in Ireland because of lack of infrastructure and heaps of burocracy. Nothing is made easy for the outside (ie. Non Irish) competition, and the Irish are not therefore good at competing at a world level.

This is not that suprising given the lack of natural resources and the agricultural economic base, but its frustrating for those kept here by the 'new economy' drawn by low corporate taxation.

Problem is that this new economy is not 'plant and equipment' based and will tear off to Eastern Europe in a few years. (Yes, ADSL is available cheap cheap in Estonia and they have low taxes too - and soon an EU legal system!)

Ireland is destined to shrink back to its agricultural roots in short order. Too bad the 'Golden Age' of this country (the last five years) was not used to invest in infrastructure. The finest export will once again become the brightest stars.

Eircom's fault?? No. You can't blame thieves for stealing this country's future if it's made legal by the policy makers.

I really hope I'm wrong.


================================
48 Days and Tokyo Bound.
(8 MB/s ADSL widely available there)

pork99

Originally posted by Canadian
I have less than 50 days left in this tortured country, but over the past two years I've come to the conclusion that the 'state endorsed' monopoly hasn't been forced to change, and even if they were forced, they lack the ability to provide a first world level of service. (too bad because widely available cheap internet is an investment in the long term welfare of the state - too bad Bertie is too retarded or corrupt to understand that)

Everything costs more in Ireland because of lack of infrastructure and heaps of burocracy. Nothing is made easy for the outside (ie. Non Irish) competition, and the Irish are not therefore good at competing at a world level.

This is not that suprising given the lack of natural resources and the agricultural economic base, but its frustrating for those kept here by the 'new economy' drawn by low corporate taxation.

Problem is that this new economy is not 'plant and equipment' based and will tear off to Eastern Europe in a few years. (Yes, ADSL is available cheap cheap in Estonia and they have low taxes too - and soon an EU legal system!)

Ireland is destined to shrink back to its agricultural roots in short order. Too bad the 'Golden Age' of this country (the last five years) was not used to invest in infrastructure. The finest export will once again become the brightest stars.

Eircom's fault?? No. You can't blame thieves for stealing this country's future if it's made legal by the policy makers.

I really hope I'm wrong.


================================
48 Days and Tokyo Bound.
(8 MB/s ADSL widely available there)

Amen Brother!

too bad Bertie is too retarded or corrupt to understand that

My money is on retarded I mean just look at him! with the big fat sweaty ignorant bogger neck on him