Eir urban FTTH

Here's the long version of that exchange with ComReg Commissioner Helen Dixon. I doubt that government policy on fibre connections in blue (commercial) areas is as open-ended as ComReg's 'wait and see' strategy.

Ms Helen Dixon: There is no contract there. Obviously, NBI is under contract from the
Minister and the Department in terms of its roll-out to the intervention area. It is under specific
obligations and must install regardless of the difficulties and cost in that intervention area. For
the commercial wholesale providers such as SIRO, Virgin Media and Eir, there is no contract.
They simply contract with individual retail providers but there is no contract with an area, loca-
tion or estate that obligates them to install fibre lines.
Deputy Martin Kenny: That means we do not know the situation for the people who are
left behind. They are technically in an area which is covered by the commercial provider but
they are actually not covered. We will have to wait years before somebody comes back to deal
with them, which is very inappropriate for the individuals who are left behind.
Ms Helen Dixon: The Deputy is right. I think it is only going to emerge over time. For
our part, what we are trying to do is ensure there is competition in the wholesale market. We
now have three providers that are seeking to roll out as far as they can in the commercial space.
They have no desire to bypass any households in the commercial space; they only end up doing
so where they discover it is unviable. From a broad base picture, yes, we are not going to know
for several years which of those areas are definitively bypassed. As the Deputy said, some of
the operators are saying they will skip that area for now but may come back and see if they have
a solution later on.
Deputy Martin Kenny: It is very unsatisfactory, is it not? Certainly for the people who
live in those areas, it is very unsatisfactory.
Ms Helen Dixon: It is, but if one was to say those areas should now be placed in an inter-
vention zone, one is precluding the possibility that a commercial provider may yet pick them up
on a second sweep. In terms of timing, there is a period that has to be waited before the picture
becomes clearer.

The copper switch off applies to Eircom (Eir). It relates to their old copper voice, ADSL and FTTC networks and may proceed exchange by exchange depending on the 100% availability of either FTTH or alternative 'Modern Infrastructure'. The Modern Infrastructure may be supplied by anyone. Virgin are not caught by the directive and separately have claimed that they'll have their network upgraded to fibre by 2025.

The ComReg decision is here.

https://www.comreg.ie/publication/framework-for-the-migration-from-legacy-infrastructure-to-modern-infrastructure-2

Minister making hopeful noises before the Oireachtas committee on Wednesday

https://www.kildarestreet.com/committees/?gid=2024-06-26a.15

Some of the most significant connectivity issues are in cities. Many estates in south Dublin that might have been built in the 1980s do not have the ducting. It can be difficult to roll out high-speed gigabit broadband in these estates. The Department and ComReg are looking at working with local authorities to facilitate support for that specific problem and, in doing so, make it commercially viable to roll out high-speed broadband everywhere. ……. we believe that overcoming that immediate access issue in those estates will close those gaps. With that done, pretty much the entire country will have access to very high speed broadband. This is a vital project that is probably next up to be delivered by the State.

guys, sorry if it’s covered already in the thread but is it possible to get eir tv working when using a 3rd party router to replace the eir router. Want to swap out my parents router as they have frequent dropouts and buffering on eir tv.

I’m comfortable enough setting up vlan etc but from what I read eir tv won’t work in pppoe mode. Is there a way to get eir tv working on a 3rd party router?

Oh great. Thanks. Will give it a try soon so.