NBP part II

The Cush · 26-04-2020 9:48pm

clohamon wrote: »

Technical support for NBP - Technical advisory services to support management of the National Broadband Plan contract

Overall Role: Supporting the Technical Governance Group TGG

...

Contract awarded to Analysys Mason

Contract award notice published 15 Apr - https://irl.eu-supply.com/ctm/Supplier/PublicTenders/ViewNotice/229351

Analysys Mason will be required to confirm that National Broadband Ireland (NBI), the winning bidder, meet the specification of the NBP contract and that they are meeting service levels agreed with the department.

https://www.businesspost.ie/communications/analysys-mason-wins-75-million-national-broadband-plan-contract-6ffdb275

Grab All Association · 27-04-2020 6:26am

Isn’t that the same crowd who oversaw Three’s rollout of the NBS?

Tommy Lagahan · 27-04-2020 9:09am

Grab All Association wrote: »

Isn’t that the same crowd who oversaw Three’s rollout of the NBS?

Well one could only hope nobody would be capable of screwing up fibre as bad as the NBS was implimented. 1Mbit down 56k up on the first modem I got on NBS, absolute trash.

Johnboy1951 · 27-04-2020 10:10am

Grab All Association wrote: »

Isn’t that the same crowd who oversaw Three’s rollout of the NBS?

Was there anything wrong with their performance?

I don't recall hearing anything negative about that.

clohamon · 28-04-2020 12:09pm

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Was there anything wrong with their performance?

I don't recall hearing anything negative about that.

They (AM) have been part of the furniture in DCMNR/DCENR/DCCAE since forever. Several attempts were made to get at the design, contract, and AM's delivery reports of the NBS - under FOI. All were rejected by the department and also the Information Commissioner.

IIRC, it was acknowledged that the NBS contract had provisions for remediation of contention issues by obliging the contractor, Three, to provide extra base stations, and that they never did. Not clear if AM had any role in enforcement or lack of it.

clohamon · 22-08-2021 2:09pm

@heavydawson posted a link to this paper on the the implementation thread

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117783888#Comment_117783888

It's interesting in a way. The lead author, Gary Healy, was Director of Regulatory and Public Affairs at Eircom until sometime in 2020. Full disclosure of that ought to have been required in his bio.

We'll have to take his word for it that Eircom's opening bid of €2.75Bn would (or could) have been reduced later, had they remained in the process.

it is at the negotiation stage of the competitive dialogue process where eir would have been expected to internalise some of this rental cost [regulated pole and duct access] by attaching a higher strategic value to winning the contract that other bidders, without the same infrastructure to leverage, would be unable to match.

The conclusion in favour of VDSL is novel. Given that Eircom engineers were unambiguously advocating 100% FTTH in rural areas since 2014 (see below) it's not even consistent with the thesis of the paper; 'path dependency'

FTTH is by far the most flexible and future-proofed of the FTTx technologies. It has the further advantage that there are no active nodes in the access network which makes it operationally attractive and very stable. Analysys Mason has published its view of the operational stability and superiority of FTTH versus VDSL3 for a rural copper network. eircom has carried out significant analysis and we have concluded that:

As the technology has matured and as operational experience and understanding of the deployment issues advances, lower equipment costs over recent years have made an FTTH solution increasingly more cost-effective to deploy. it has significant advantages in the ribbon development in rural Ireland it is the only technology that is sufficiently future-proofed. (Eircom submission to NBP Call-for-Input , Nov 2014)

clohamon · 14-11-2021 12:43pm

-- Warning -- Business Post reporting -

"Taxpayers foot broadband bill for homes already on high-speed Eir network | Business"

"Data obtained by this newspaper shows Eir has already passed more than 45,000 premises included in the government's €5.7 billion National Broadband Plan, which aims to deliver fast, reliable broadband to more than 550,000 premises currently without it."

"https://www.businesspost.ie/infrastructure/taxpayers-foot-broadband-bill-for-homes-already-on-high-speed-eir-network-044db149"

I'm assuming that Peter O'Dwyer is referring to the extra premises in the Eircom '300K' (c.340K) that everyone has known about for two years. Maybe someone with a Business Post account could confirm.

heavydawson · 15-11-2021 1:24pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118164211#Comment_118164211

I've posted the contents of Peter's two articles from the BP over the progress and implementation thread. In short, I believe it's not part of the 340k.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118168964#Comment_118168964

NBAiii · 15-11-2021 3:04pm

The extra premises passed by eir as part of its rural build were removed from the intervention area as part of the mapping consultation with the Department so the article was unlikely referring to them.

clohamon · 06-04-2022 5:35pm

Lighnet's proceedings against DECC re the NBP were postponed again yesterday in the High Court until 10th May.

Some idea of their proposed arguments might be included in their submission to the European Commission's consultation on the proposed update to the State Aid Guidelines. All the submission are bundled in a big .zip.

(Off Topic - Spacex also submitted to this consultation. No surprise that they thought Starlink was worthy of State Aid too.)

clohamon · 08-02-2023 9:57am

Lightnet finally get their day in Court. (Breaking News.ie) These proceeding were initiated on 17th Feb 2020.

https://www.csol.ie/ccms/web/high-court-search/case-details/2020/133/JR

Lighthouse Networks, trading as Lightnet, brought the action against a decision of the Minister for Communications that Lightnet's network does not meet next generation standards under the National Broadband Plan.

Lightnet says its functional area will not be excluded from the national plan which means it will then have to compete with the State-subsidised service.

Lightnet provides broadband to more than 6,000 premises in Galway, east Offaly, Clare and Roscommon. It claims its technology is 30 per cent more spectrally efficient than the current best licensed wireless access services. It has, it says, spent €5 million building up that technology over a 14-year period.

.

Lightnet claims the Minister's decision is invalid because it does not comply with the criteria set down in a report prepared for the Government by PwC. It is also claimed the decision infringes its legitimate expectation.

Alternatively, it says, there is an underlying bias by the Minister against the technology Lightnet uses.

Alan662 · 09-03-2023 10:39pm

Does anyone know is there any compensation for trenching fibre Broad band cable through private land. NBI are planning of trenching approx 100m of cable through some farm land I own. It's for the main line rather than a line just to a single premises. I'm against it happening because it will interfere with how I use the land but would consider if some compensation was offered. Would the Telecommunications Services (Ducting and Cables) Act 2018 apply.

And has anyone seen the cable being installed in the ground. Can it be done with a mole plough or would an excavator be used to dig a trench.

dollylama · 09-03-2023 11:04pm

I can't understand why, in cases like the above, contractors don't just mole plough straight under the field from one side

clohamon · 10-03-2023 2:22pm

IIRC the Telecommunications Services (Ducting and Cables) Act 2018 relates solely to the Galway Mayo duct.

Presumably NBI can inform you what legislation they are using. They have certain rights under S.I. No. 391/2016 - Regulation 9

Hopefully NBI would install an open access duct or lots of spare dark fibre that could be used by others if necessary. Exclusive private wayleaves are a curse on network roll-outs.

Reports from the NBP implementation thread are quite complimentary about NBI's contractors.

clohamon · 17-07-2023 4:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120214279#Comment_120214279

Lightnet judgement is in.

Bottom line; they lost and costs are indicatively awarded against them.

clohamon · 19-07-2023 8:07am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120863545#Comment_120863545

...and some reporting on the judgement from the Independent.

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/galway-broadband-provider-fails-in-court-challenge-to-reverse-ministers-decision/a704341094.html

clohamon · 04-11-2023 1:07pm

The Information Commissioner (OIC) has issued a decision on four FOI requests made to DECC on 11th October 2021* by a 'Business/ Interest Group'

The requests concerned the 2019 mapping consultation for the NBP, and DECC’s analysis of a map created by Wireless Coverage Ltd; also including DECC’s communications with its advisers and ComReg on the same topics.

Assuming the Department doesn’t appeal the decision to the High Court within four weeks (from 12th October), the disputed records should be available from the Department.

*FOI2021158, FOI2021159, FOI2021160, FOI2021161