Broadband for Rural Areas?

OHP

Ok this might sound like old hack and a bit far fetched, but what the hell. I want Broadband and I really don’t see why I or anyone else living in a Rural area will never even see Broadband available to us within the next millennium. Surely there must be a way that every poor sod that has to pay Eircon the same Line Rental fee can get some sort of Broadband? Its really great to see that Broadband is available even though only in, or near Cities. So how about doing some sort of Campaign for us Culchies? I mean we want it too?


OHP

Paddy20

OHP,

How about a not for profit ISP Co-operative?, or maybe that idea has been hammered to death already! or is a bit far fetched, but as you state "What the hell".

Just my 2cs worth.

Paddy20.

spongebob

A co-op is a perfect idea Paddy20

Remember that the sme areas had to co-operatively supply their own water through the Group Water Scheme mechanism ...within the past 30 years or so.

OHP is thinking of the Group Data Scheme, a new variant of the same theme.

M

John2002

The ESB are expecting to make broadband available to pretty much all over the the country.

Anyone have any info on this as I can't see anything apart from a few press releases on their website.

spongebob

Originally posted by John2002
The ESB are expecting to make broadband available to pretty much all over the the country.

Anyone have any info on this as I can't see anything apart from a few press releases on their website.

Not quite John. The ESB will make Broadband widely available as long as you take 155Mbit slabs of it at a time.

Co-Ops will then be required to break that down into digestible 512k and 1Mbit chunks at the local loop.

M

Fallschirmjager

155mbit slabs...what a great word 'slab' particularly when with data.


i mean 'look at the slabs on that!'
or
'how about that for a slab'

personally i could use a 155mbit slab -- whats the cost!!! LOL


on a more negative note a guy i work with here said some european elec firms are giving up the idea..he did not elaborate...admitingly tho, they ave broadband anyway...but maybe someone has heard something official on this?

ednwireland

I've looked at setting up a company to provide wireless access to small towns and guess what the cost of providing a backhaul network (ie paying eircom for your internet access) is your only real cost and unless your customers are willing to pay that you are going nowhere.
sorry to be negative but that is the real problem you cannot get small pipes at reasonable cost, and if you could you wouldn't be talking about diy broadband here.

look at the cost of providing a 2mb leased line in deepest donegal in the other thread here and providing 10 512k connections to users (AT COST !) becomes pretty expensive

spongebob

There IS hope.

Your very own local TD Pat "The Cope" Gallagher said that negotiations were ongoing with

Digifone and O2

and also with

Ocean

to bring Broadband to rural Donegal....on National Radio (RnaG) on Monday morning the 190503 at around 8:50 AM

Could you....as a constituent of his ....give Pat a ring and find out how his negotiations with Ocean and Digifone on the provisioning of Broadband in rural Donegal are progressing, Do post the results in here.

M

Paddy20

Yes! I agree with Muck,

ednwireland,

Why not give [Pat the Cope] a ring about this whole issue!, and if you need any support tell him that *Paddy McLean in Ballybofey, is not very happy about Eircom or the Internet access fiasco/scandal here in the Republic.

If you were to refer him too this forum. It would be no bad thing either.

Why, am I getting the feeling that the Donegal contingent is dominating this forum at the moment!!..

Paddy20;)

Originally posted by Muck
Could you....as a constituent of his ....give Pat a ring and find out how his negotiations with Ocean and Digifone on the provisioning of Broadband in rural Donegal are progressing, Do post the results in here.

M

ah yes, he's still using Telecom internet as his isp;)
And gets his phone bills from the department of posts and telegraphs, while communicating with the Dáil by telex from his constituency office:D

By the way, I'm in the country, 40 miles from the nearest city and about 2.5 miles from the exchange and I have Broadband
It's I stream starter,and have been told, the line qualifies for solo, might try that, for a month for the crack, but what I'm on at the moment is fine for what I want.

mm

GoneShootin

when the eircom tech guy was setting up my isdn i asked him about broadband. he looked me sqaure in the eye and said

"until this place gets over 2000 people living here, you wont get broadband"

it would seem that for eircom to even consider it, theres is a population threashold

gota love big business

dahamsta

There's over 4500 active lines in my area. Where's my broadband?

adam

GoneShootin

how did you get the number of lines adam ?

ednwireland

paddy20, don't worry i know a number of people who talk about these issues regularly to him (for what its worth)

ednwireland

actually as an aside does anyone which counties have no DSL ???
which probably links to why so many donegal people are on this forum ?

Dun

According to this - these counties have no DSL enabled exchanges:

• Cavan
• Donegal
• Kilkenny
• Leitrim
• Longford
• Meath
• Monaghan
• Offaly
• Roscommon
• Tipperary

Mind you that's Eircom's list. Whatever about Donegal South West, I don't think our TDs in Donegal North East have a clue about this. Outside of Letterkenny, and perhaps Buncrana, there's not a chance of anything coming as far as I can see.

Tom Dunne

Originally posted by OHP
I want Broadband and I really don’t see why I or anyone else living in a Rural area will never even see Broadband available to us within the next millennium.

I'm in the same boat, OHP. I live in Enfield, Co. Meath, and apparentley, Navan isn't even DSL enabled, so there is a snowballs in hell chance of me getting DSL in the next 2-3 years.

Don't know if you have heard about Irish WAN - it's a sort of community based wireless network, set up by individuals like you and me. If enough people get themselves connected, you might be able to connect (wirelessly) to somebody who has DSL/cable and share the costs. Links of up to 10km with line of sight are possible. I'm trying to get one set up here and I believe there is one in Westmeath.

ednwireland

the trouble is my nearest dsl enabled exchange is derry or sligo (1 hours drive each way) unless i buy a mountain inbetween high enough to see me and one or the other its not much of a plan

OHP

Having listened to what ye all said. I am still of the opinion that if I Joe Soap pays 40E pm for his line rental that guaranties nothing more than to be able to talk over it. But some people are allowed to have BB / ISDN over the same line. Really £(*£&%£+ me off. Its totally sub standard even though your / OUR monthly line rental remains the same for everyone??? I want / need BB the same as everyone else in Ireland. I pay the same price as everyone else for a line so why can’t I have the same service?. It’s totally unfair in my opinion.

OHP

:mad:

bk

Originally posted by OHP
Having listened to what ye all said. I am still of the opinion that if I Joe Soap pays 40E pm for his line rental that guaranties nothing more than to be able to talk over it. But some people are allowed to have BB / ISDN over the same line. Really £(*£&%£+ me off. Its totally sub standard even though your / OUR monthly line rental remains the same for everyone??? I want / need BB the same as everyone else in Ireland. I pay the same price as everyone else for a line so why can’t I have the same service?. It’s totally unfair in my opinion.

OHP

:mad:

I totally agree, hopefully when the new USO comes out (well overdue now) this will change.

thecivvie

have a look at http://mmm.eircom.ie/maps/ and vote for your area. I am giving this URL to anyone around my area who has a PC, and in fact I am thinking about getting a few people outside the 4.5km area to come to my house and vote anyway

Stonemason

Im right royaly scuttered i live right on the boarder of Tipperary and offaly.Does this mean i get double points for being in the absolute arse end of nowhere.

thecivvie

Im am in west connemara, in a tiny village. Admittadly I live with 3/4 of a mile from the exchange as there are only 200 numbers of it, I doubr if we will ever get it

Im right royaly scuttered i live right on the boarder of Tipperary and offaly.Does this mean i get double points for being in the absolute arse end of nowhere.

vibe666

the bottom line, is that even with the new RADSL (adaptive Rate, meaning it has a higher tolerance for poorer quality of the lines and distance from the exchance) you'll still have to be within 5.5 miles ofr the exchange or you might as well wait for 3G and just hook up a mobile to your PC 24/7.

sidenote:
I heard of a guy on the isle of wight who is using a 3G mobile to deal with the entire internet needs of a whole school network. guess it's not a big network, and it's probably not using heavy bandwidth, but it's quite clever all the same!

Alternatively you can just try Digiweb for a satellite connection, if you want broadband speeds. bear in mind tho it's crap for online gaming because your data is being bounced into orbit and back again so your ping times will be very high, but apart from that it should be fine.

depends on how much you want it though.

rhino247365

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2932806.stm

Broadband balloons take to the skies
SkyLinc's air balloon
The air balloon can provide fast net access
The answer to providing broadband for all could lie in the skies with
balloons offering a new way to deliver fast internet services.

It has long been assumed that affordable, high-speed broadband to every
area of the UK was only possible via road-disrupting cable laying or
expensive satellite connections.

But a company called SkyLinc has found a happy medium in base stations,
floating 1.5km above the surface of the Earth on balloons, or tethered
aerostats as they are more technically known.

The York-based firm has tested the technology and found that it works well.