National Broadband Ireland : implementation and progress

I did manage to jump ahead of the vodafone queue a few days early by going in webchat with them rather than via the normal more order route

Got my pre order in with Eir , girl that took the order said should be 2 /3 weeks , must take a note of the date 😁

I contacted about 9 companies today only Sky had me as pre-order available, probably because as @wexfordman2 said pre order status in the NBI website is not reflected in the providers own databases for a few weeks, so I'm hopeful it should be available with others soon.

Will it make a difference 😏

Ordered yesterday with Eir , got an install date for 29th July so finally the end is in sight .

Current uptake of 1 in 5 households, even with fibre passing their door. Sounds low. Clearly many people are struggling in rural area’s with bad connectivity, but evidently, many are okay with what they’ve currently got.

That point was made in the RTE interview, but it doesn’t stand up when you consider most resellers are now offering transition to FTTH without penalty - as stated by NBI CEO. Imagine perhaps being the main outlier.

40% is an excellent figure to be fair

"Any new investor has to make a long term commitment to Ireland."

Like the ones exiting, I guess.

Not that it makes a difference.

Can't give you much practical advice as I'm years away for our connection but here are some installs posted previously, also lots of speedtest pics posted back along the thread but not many install pics

ECO_Mental is on his second FTTH install IIRC - National Broadband Ireland : implementation and progress - Page 139 — boards.ie - Now Ye're Talkin'

and another here - National Broadband Ireland : implementation and progress - Page 159 — boards.ie - Now Ye're Talkin'

The ONT that KN install is pretty big and not very attractive to be honest. I just measured it and in mm it's 240H x 135W x 50D.

The frustrating thing is that it's far larger than it actually needs to be - there's lots of empty space behind the plastic casing.

Anyway, I would recommend finding a place out-of-sight for it if you can. Ours is stuck on a visible wall at waist height (no other option in our case) and it's not great looking. I mean, it's a small price to pay for quality internet but still, if you have the option, stick it somewhere out of the way. Don't forget it needs a dedicated power socket, and you'll need another one for the router as it will need to plug directly into the ONT. Plus you may have mesh system or smarthome hubs etc that you want to plug in there - now or in future - so just something to think about/

KN engineers are fairly accommodating in terms of locations etc in my experience. We didn't have ducting, so they dropped ours to our gable via overhead cabling (same as how the existing copper phone line was run). They then ran it from the gable down the roofline and along the underside of the soffit to the point where it enters the house. It's a fairly neat job and they had to drill through 3ft walls in our house so it took a while and stretched their drillbits to the limit but they never complained!

However I am fairly certain they cannot/will not go into an attic, no matter how good the boards are etc. I'd imagine it's for insurance reasons and is a non-negotiable for them. I have heard that some will assist homeowners in running cable through an attic provided KN don't need to go into the attic space (ie the homeowner is prepared to go up there themselves). I'd guess that would probably depend on how accommodating the installer is!

I don't know much about BCPs but I'm not that surprised to hear that. I assume that in most cases they are a wireless solution, rather than fibre (cos if there was fibre in the area, they wouldn't need a BCP?) so speeds might be unreliable as a result? And in some cases you have to access from a car park (eg Covid, out of hours etc) so you'll lose connection strength as a result of it passing through walls.

They seem like a PR exercise rather than an actual amenity worth having. If you have to get into your car to drive somewhere to get decent connection, then a lot of people can normally drive somewhere as close/closer than their local BCP where they can get decent speeds over 4G or even 5G using their phone as a mobile hotspot. But that's just my take on it - and if you need to use one then you should be able to expect that they work as intended. Have you asked the Community Centre if they have a contact in NBI? The alternative is to contact NBI yourself but not sure how much joy you'd get from them.

I would be surprised if BCP's are over radio broadband. If they are there is no excuse. Eir have telephone exchanges in every town and village in the country. The reason may be that they are not fed direct with fiber but with fiber to the kerb.

I think in Cappamore the Eir exchange is at one end of town ( Limerick side) a d the Community center is on the Doon side. Its a good half mile distance at least. If that is served by copper speed would not be great.

A direct fiber back to the exchange would solve a lot of speed issue's if there is similar problems elsewhere in the country.

It's definitely radio, there's a new big point-to-point antenna on the roof of one of community centre buildings and open-eir fibre passes underground outside the community centre.