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Is Mobile in Ireland Destroying Infrastructure?

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  • 13-07-2009 9:15am
    #1
    watty
    Registered Users Posts: 32,417 ✭✭✭✭


    OK the Headline is a bit over the top but consider the following:
    1. A Basic Mobile Internet package with "free" Modem is under 20 Euro a month (cost perhaps €150?).
    2. All four Mobile Operators have Mobile Phone Licences, they are not primarily ISPs.
    3. Mobile Phone Voice revenue for the same amount of data transfer as Internet access is 150 times to 500 times higher. If incoming calls to the network and outgoing calls are equal, then termination charges cancel. For Data (150 times to 500 times more traffic for same revenue) they pay transit in and out of their network. Some proportion of voice calls stay on their network, virtually all internet traffic is outside their Network. Voice & SMS is the main product of Mobile Operators.
    4. Three of Mobile Operators are large International companies, the fourth owned by incumbent. Many of the the Fixed Wireless Operators are small local companies. Only four Mobile operators. Many ISPs.
    5. The Mobile Operators have National Licences. Only eircom has a National Wireless Licence. The W.ISPs only have licensed circles.
    6. For the Mobile Operators Voice is the reason for their rollouts. They do not have very much in the way of performance commitments in their licences for Data & Contention compared to Wireless ISPs.
    7. 50 Minutes + 50 text on Mobile is > 20% cheaper than Line Rental before you even make a fixed call.
    8. The Mobile operators are allowed to call their data product "Broadband" even though it isn't.
    9. The Mobile operators and especially 3 Ireland also can "cash" in on the fact that 3G/HSPA "won" the NBS.
    10. Mobile quotes the peak mast speed shared among everyone, real ISPs quote the package speed. On Real Broadband the average throughput can close to system peak speed and 10x to 50x the package speed. On Mobile the average throughput of all users added together is 1/5th to 1/20th of the peak speed.
    11. Mobile makes great play of how good LTE may be (even though it needs a new licence, new modem and new spectrum). The Peak Speed of LTE is always quoted (100Mbps+) rather than the average per user speed (1Mbps for 5 simulataneous users might be typical). Real Broadband quotes today's speed. Fibre can do 10Gbps and probably 60Gbps by the time LTE is widespread. Fixed Wireless in SAME spectrum is always 10x to 20x more speed or capacity than ANY Mobile system.
    12. There is no enforcement or monitoring of Coverage or Speed claims

    The Mobile Operators obviously can't sustain the current pricing. Even at that, the highest Cap basic Mobile is about 1/2 a typical Broadband Cap.

    If the Mobile operators can sustain their obviously cross subsidised pricing they will continue to cannibalise the Fixed Line (Dialup and DSL) markets. By the time people realize how bad it is they are on a 12 month or 18 month Contract.

    Maybe 20% or so of users only need the performance of Mobile anyway. Others will not cancel at end of contract as it's too much bother. Churn may be be high, but to bad for the Mobile Operator.

    Potential Fixed Wireless Investors will not invest in limited coverage and twice as expensive to customer and high per user install cost when Mobile is cheap and marketed Nationwide with zero install cost and "free" Modems.

    DSL (LLU and resellers) can't compete with Mobile Pricing. Because of Debts of almost 5 Billion (inc Pension etc) eircom can't reduce their line rental to 1/4 or 1/3rd to compete. Instead eircom is reselling their Meteor subsidiaries packages as if it is Broadband, accelerating the reduction of fixed lines (from 82% at privatisation to 66% now, 1/3rd of those are welfare subsidised).

    Only UPC can compete against the Mobile's Strategy of Misleading advertising and artificially low price.

    In the end, if Mobile Operators can sustain the current misleading marketing and prices long enough the only competition left of any size will be UPC. All the larger DSL ISPs will be gone (BT, Magnet, Smart etc.)


    Conclusion
    Unless there is a "level playing" field with enforced honest advertising on speed and performance, removal of the Claim Broadband on all Mobile Products, independent monitoring of real speeds, Indoor coverage and contention and a limit to the artificial pricing we are going to see:
    • Drop in Fixed line usage to 20% or less.
    • No significant new FWA rollouts.
    • Very little ISP investment outside of UPC & Mobile.
    • Drop number of real Broadband customers.
    • Increasing digital divide with UK and rest of Europe.
    • Majority of Internet users on much less than 1Mbps down, 100kbps up and more than 150ms typical with under 5GByte Cap.

    Things we should do for a level playing field:
    1. National & Regional FWA licences, not circles
    2. Joined up thinking on Fibre and MANs.
    3. Scrap NBS, or seriously change its misleading advertising at least. It's not bringing Broadband anywhere. 3 Ireland is rolling out a Mobile Phone Network. Two to Four years overdue!
    4. Mandate a maximum retail line rental of 7 Euro. This will accelerate eircom's collapse and then it can be restructured without parasites. Line rental should not be servicing debt created by leveraged buyouts.
    5. EU / Irish legislation to stop "leveraged" type buyouts. They are not investments and ramp up the Debt so that future Infrastructure investment stops.
    6. Clear defined Cap/Excess advertising. No vague T&C or FUPs. Most people don't realise excess on Real Broadband is cheap or involves throttling. On Mobile excess is €50 to €490 a Gigabyte.


«1

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    #2
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,491 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    It seems to me all of these problems stem from Eircom.

    Mobile would never have become such a competitive challenge had Eircom charged a reasonable price for line rental or allowed for BB without line rental.

    It is ironic, but those of us in IOFFL had been telling Eircom this for years, that their policy of under investment and high prices would hurt them badly in the long term. I take no pleasure in being right.

    I completely agree that advertising for mobile and caps/fups for all ISP's needs to be seriously cleaned up, starting with the government and comreg not counting mobile internet as broadband in their reports.

    I would also like to see Meteor being split from Eircom, this would force Eircom to compete with what they have.

    Very good post watty.


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    #3
    steveon
    Registered Users Posts: 3,905 ✭✭✭steveon


    I totally agree with you Watty. I for one seldom if ever use my landline for Broadband and have for years asked Eircom to drop Linerental or reduce it as they could see that I never used it. It was only when Smart Telecom came onto the scene that I found I could get a decent service at a price I was willing to pay.

    Even today Eircom still charge way over the top and seem to never listen, but I for one would blame the failures of the communication body of the government whom Left Eircom slip into the hands of investors..whom have no care of what services Eircom provide and simply want profit.

    I feel if they actually listened to their customers they would make more profit as they dont even attempt to offer any similar packages to any of the other Landline based operators such as bt, utv smart etc and with the huge amount of Mobile based broadband operators coming onto the scene it still hasnt made any impact...

    Working on the road I regulary come across people who cannot avail of broadband and as you have no rightly stated the Broadband 3 mobile offer is not worthy a mention as its service is not available as stated and again I feel it's about time these companies were prosecuted for lying to people as its unjust.


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    #4
    thebman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,012 ✭✭✭✭thebman


    eirom are relying on the older generation who won't switch or younger people who don't have the time or didn't care enough to shop around to make savings.

    Now the ecnonomic climate has changed, everyone wants to save money so I think some of these people will go.

    Among everyone else, eircom has such a poor public image, they may never be able to get their customers back without substantially undercutting the competition at this stage.

    Nobody wants to be with them, nobody wants to do business with them so the sooner they go the better for everyone.


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    #5
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    thebman wrote: »
    eirom are relying on the older generation who won't switch or younger people who don't have the time or didn't care enough to shop around to make savings.

    Now the ecnonomic climate has changed, everyone wants to save money so I think some of these people will go.

    Approx 1 in every 4 ( 400k) households has free line rental . 300k are pensioners and 100k receive carers allowance .

    These are captive ...largely .


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    #6
    BarryM
    Registered Users Posts: 837 ✭✭✭BarryM


    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    Approx 1 in every 4 ( 400k) households has free line rental . 300k are pensioners and 100k receive carers allowance .

    These are captive ...largely .

    They won't move off a landline, no need to, it costs them nuthin....They can move the social welfare freebie from supplier to supplier, so they can get lower tariffs.

    Bye, Barry

    OTOH, An Board Snip......!!!


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    #7
    watty
    Registered Users Posts: 32,417 ✭✭✭✭watty


    So the State would save about €6M a year giving these people free Mobile phones.

    I infact have two "fixed lines" (no line rental as it's SIP/VOIP based on Metro) but I'm very happy with my €15 a month Mobile phone (50min talk and 50 texts included). Mobile is very good for phone calls as 120% of people have decided.

    You can even get a GSM box with a socket for a regular phone and/or DECT.

    (Solves the "turning it off" and "flat battery" issues, allows big button and other disabled aids.)


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    #8
    Blaster99
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,630 ✭✭✭Blaster99


    Unless I worked in an ISP that is suffering from the competition, what's the problem? Mobile broadband (which is not loss making if that's what you're implying) and mobile in general is an excellent competitor to eircom and will eventually force them to bankruptcy or having to do something to remain competitive.

    There are lots of downsides with Mobile Broadband and it only really suits a certain proportion of the market. You get it on a 30 day trial normally so let's not claim that people are being cheated into 12 month contracts without knowing what they're letting themselves into.

    I incidentally thought that the WISP's are by and large using unlicensed frequencies (Digiweb Metro for instance?) and the only thing that's really preventing rollout is customer demand or access to financing?

    If anything, I would have thought mobile broadband and fixed line have a future, the rest is just there because eircom are muppets.


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    #9
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,792 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Blaster99 wrote: »
    I incidentally thought that the WISP's are by and large using unlicensed frequencies (Digiweb Metro for instance?) ...
    Metro uses 10.5GHz, definitely licensed. Other WISPs use licensed (10.5, 3.5) or licence-exempt (2.4, 5) or a mixture, depending on circumstances.

    Access to financing is an issue, and the perceived competitive threat from mobile isn't helping. Mobile shouldn't be a competitive threat, but is perceived as such because (a) the government keeps pushing it as if it were real broadband, (b) it makes promises it can't realistically deliver, and nobody seems willing or able to do anything about that, and (c) it's heavily subsidised by over-priced voice and SMS.


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    #10
    watty
    Registered Users Posts: 32,417 ✭✭✭✭watty


    The stupid Comreg Licence circles rather than co-ordinated inter-operator non-interference basis and lack of any regional or nation licences absolutely is an issue too.

    I did work for an Wireless ISP for 3 years at the highest level of involvement of new technology and rollout concepts.


    Investors glaze over on a PPT presentation as to why FWA is x16 to x20 better than Mobile inherently, forever and why Mobile isn't Broadband (probably not even with LTE). The Government's awarding of the NBS was final straw. Investors are interested in Pubblic perception, not technical details. They are right. Because if Mobile is nationally advertise continuously as simply Broadband, not even Mobile as 3 is doing and package is 1/2th the price of realistic decent FWA real Broadband, the technical aspects don't matter. In the Short term the Mobile operator will get the customers and the investment in a new FWA rollout will lose money and the WISP will go bust when investor demands money, if they were mad enough to invest in the first place. Look at Smart with Bond holders demanding repayment of €38M, and they owe over €50 altogether. Comreg's 10 year fiasco of LLU regulation is part of why Smart is in this situation.

    Apart from the reduction in fixed line usage. Smart is too expensive compared with Mobile, yet even at that isn't profitable. Fantastic product and service though.

    The dishonest LTE hype from certain Mobile Operators doesn't help either. No-one has an LTE licence. No firm data for a Spectrum auction for LTE, without a very costly high density rollout it can't do BB speeds. No assurance any current operator would get LTE or the x4 amount of spectrum to really offer DSL entry level speed. Also what price will LTE packages be for ROI in 5 years at x4 HSDPA performance, given it can't be subsidized by voice calls really. €100 to €200 a month? Or will they do it only in cities / large towns only as an alternative to metropolitan WiFi (likey) with typical speeds per user at peak times of 500kbps to 1Mbps? Even then it would need to be over €50 per month per user. In reality LTE is at least twice the cost and x10 less performance than FWA. But does any FWA operator have the money to counter the Vendor and operator hype.

    Remember before 3G, how good the GSM operators said it would be (The pre-HSDPA 3G at that). Excess cap on PAYG HSPA @ €490 per Gigabyte tells us something. The Government is complicit in the destruction of Broadband Infrastructure and halting of BB rollout.


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    #11
    Blaster99
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,630 ✭✭✭Blaster99


    So the mobile operators are doing a good job selling their product. I guess you just gotta suck it up and do a better job competing with them. If the solutions you guys are pitching are so good, then somebody with deep pockets is likely to come along and buy you and provide the financing.

    I suspect that the reason that this isn't happening is that WI probably doesn't work from a business perspective. I don't know why it doesn't work but I can't recall ever having heard of a fixed wireless network provider in a developed country. The talk is mostly about 4G and WiMax now, listening to what customers are talking about.

    So I would describe the market as being mobile broadband for a certain sector of the market and cable/xDSL/fibre for the rest.


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    #12
    watty
    Registered Users Posts: 32,417 ✭✭✭✭watty


    Because the other countries:
    * Are rolling out fibre.
    * Have better DSL rollouts.
    * Lower Line rental

    There is not much of a market for FWA in other countries. Ireland is practically the world leader (per household) due the highest Line Rental, failure of LLU and slow rollout of DSL.

    The 4G talk is for MOBILE. The main use of 3G/HSPA in other coutries is for Mobile use. Not as a fixed line replacement.

    We have one of the highest ARPU and one of the highest Mobile Phone penetrations too (120%).

    I'm all for Mobile. But the rollout of Mobile Products as a replacement for Fixed Broadband not only hurts Broadband, but makes performance for "real" Mobile users 3 to 5 times worse.

    So in one sense the FWA is a red herring. There is good reason why the only other major Metro deployments are in Deserts. Decently run European Countries don't need it.

    The Mobile Operators are aided and abetted by an abysmal Consumer Protection Quango, as it easier to over sell Mobile by misleading advertising than Fixed Broadband and by Government which ignored their own 2004 report.

    In the 2004 report they said
    The Joint Committee has concluded, for the Irish market, that speeds of anything less than 512kbs is not broadband but is in fact in a class known as ‘mid-band'. This would include such services as ISDN connections and 124 and 256kbs DSL connections. In this respect the Joint Committee's definition of broadband differs from that in use by other groups and significantly differs from the definition currently to be found in Section 8 of the Finance Bill 2004. The Joint Committee believes that all connections at speeds of less than 124kbs, currently the majority in the Irish economy, have to be regarded as narrowband connections.
    By then DSL rollouts and even FTTC/FTTH was well underway elsewhere.
    http://broadband.oireachtas.ie/Chapter02.htm

    The FCC regarded 200kbps as minimum for Broadband then, nowadays the FCC regards 768k as a minimum.


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    #13
    croo
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 1,334 Mod ✭✭✭✭croo


    Mobile was my last option. I wouldn't use Eircom if they paid me and they own all the lines so that left wireless, satellite, or mobile. Satellite was expensive & slow, the only wireless operator in my area never bothered calling around after numerous calls... then I read some (only) unfavorable comments on their service so never pushed more. So mobile was my only real option. It's cheap-ish, my contract is unlimited (though I don't push that) and works better than dialup! VoIP is fine, though skype is unreliable, and you definitely cannot depend on any throughput - but by and large I get a 150KBytes download speed so it allows me to keep my linux machines in sync and download new ISOs when needed. I can sync with remote SVNs and don't flinch at downloading something because it is any amount of MBs ... if it GBs I think twice!
    Would I have loved a nice 3-4MB two-way FWA connection? You bet! (from anybody but Eircom at least). But what option did I have? What option do all those people who still live in areas without even mobile have? Bottom line is, I for one am very happy the mobile operators where there to offer me the option! I am amazed that people who have other options actually choose it - but the obviously they have their reasons; many people need to be mobile (or ready to be at least) these days to find work, if you rent you have few rights in this country so need to be able to move quick if need be... especially if you want to negotiate hard on your rent! Off the top of my head there is two reasons!


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    #14
    croo
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 1,334 Mod ✭✭✭✭croo


    well there is no arguments from me on that last post watty. The state on comms in this country is a disgrace. I don't know that you can lay all that at the foot of mobile though. The place was screwed for broadband long before mobile came on the scene.


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    #15
    watty
    Registered Users Posts: 32,417 ✭✭✭✭watty


    Absolutely. But the NBS and lack of regulation and lack of control of misleading advertising is like throwing away the shovel we have been digging a hole with and using a JCB instead.


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    #16
    Blaster99
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,630 ✭✭✭Blaster99


    watty wrote: »
    Ireland is practically the world leader (per household) due the highest Line Rental, failure of LLU and slow rollout of DSL.

    Great, so what's all the whinging about? The scene is set for alternatives, go do it. You can hardly complain about the unfairness of the market when the main competitor sets a €25 (or whatever the line rental is) price floor. That's like a dream come true surely? Eircom also can't deliver any decent speeds to most of its customer base, so there's another significant competitive edge. Neither can the mobile operators, of course.

    While everyone's having this largely pointless debate, UPC is busily rolling out unmatched speeds at unmatched prices. They're even approaching my neck of the woods, which is in itself a small miracle.


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    #17
    watty
    Registered Users Posts: 32,417 ✭✭✭✭watty


    It was until the Mobile started calling their woeful product "Broadband" and selling it less than 1/2 or possibly 1/4 of real cost and then got backing from Comreg (calling it BB) and then E.Ryan with NBS.

    As I explained earlier that is why FWA sector was so successful in Ireland compared to anywhere else.

    Only UPC can roll out BB now. That's only possible for major towns and cities.
    1st post on this thread
    Only UPC can compete against the Mobile's Strategy of Misleading advertising and artificially low price.


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    #18
    cgarvey
    Registered Users Posts: 3,886 ✭✭✭cgarvey


    Blaster99 wrote: »
    Great, so what's all the whinging about?

    The greater good.

    Incidentally, I know free trials pop up from time to time, but I don't see any mention of any trial on any of the 4 mobile internet operators' websites at the moment.

    Given the caveats built in to the T&C of any mobile "broadband" offering I've seen, unless you can't connect at all, it can be very difficult to get out of the 12 month contract.


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    #19
    watty
    Registered Users Posts: 32,417 ✭✭✭✭watty


    Actually,

    My 1st post was a Question, with some points listed.

    It's not whinging, but useful debate. Many of the other posts have valid questions that have helped me think further about the subject.


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    #20
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,792 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Blaster99 wrote: »
    So the mobile operators are doing a good job selling their product. I guess you just gotta suck it up and do a better job competing with them.
    Excellent idea. My next marketing campaign will be "better than fibre", and I'll claim that I can offer 200Mbit symmetrical speeds on FWA.

    Blatant bare-faced lies, of course, but it seems that's considered "better marketing" now.

    I wonder if I'd be allowed get away with it for as long as the mobile operators have?


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    #21
    Blaster99
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,630 ✭✭✭Blaster99


    cgarvey wrote: »
    The greater good.

    Incidentally, I know free trials pop up from time to time, but I don't see any mention of any trial on any of the 4 mobile internet operators' websites at the moment.

    Given the caveats built in to the T&C of any mobile "broadband" offering I've seen, unless you can't connect at all, it can be very difficult to get out of the 12 month contract.

    I wasn't referring to free trials. I just looked at the O2 T&C's, and you have the right to cancel and get a full refund within 7 days. It used to be 30 days I'm pretty sure, but 7 days is fine too I would think.

    Mobile broadband has done significantly more for the greater good than Digiweb or Westnet ever have, just in case we're all getting confused around here. Not only in terms of functionality but also in terms of real competition to eircom. The government or Comreg shouldn't include it in their broadband statistics for sure, but that's something about 100 people care about in the grand scheme of things.


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    #22
    clohamon
    Registered Users Posts: 1,766 ✭✭✭clohamon


    Cost of Data
    I don't know what actually influences pricing strategy but if a mobile network is working well below capacity then it will probably be selling closer to marginal cost than average cost.
    If increases to capacity are in large steps while increases in sales are in a smooth line then there will be a continuing overcapacity problem.

    Data traffic for mobile providers may be more asymmetric than normal ISPs, so the external transport costs may be lower than expected. Having said that, I have no idea how ISPs charge each other for their services.

    There will be other factors too.

    How big a proportion of overall mobile traffic is made up by data?
    The relative size of operating costs to total costs? (ie has all the financing of the initial build-out been washed out of the accounts yet)

    All of which may lead to a fairly relaxed attitude to income from mobile data for the moment, but as data costs become a larger proportion of overall costs then its price will tend more towards the average cost.

    Infrastructure Investment

    The MANS is an investment in the network but, by reducing backhaul costs generally, it also means lower mobile data costs. Again I have no idea by how much, but you could assume that Eircom would extract a monopolist premium from the mobile companies and others if the MANs weren't there. It is unlikely that that monopolist premium, if they could get it, would be used wholly for network investment.

    Advertising
    A lost cause I reckon. The penalties only apply after the event. The best hope is for FWAs to get their own message out. RTE must be gasping for any advertising at the moment.
    The mobile data market is still quite young here, so maybe there is no general instinct for the relative quality offered, and so sales could be more sensitive to advertising now than they will be in the future.


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    #23
    watty
    Registered Users Posts: 32,417 ✭✭✭✭watty


    MANs are circles, loops around towns/cities. No backhaul aspect to their planning. Most of the backhaul is CIE/BT-ESAT or ESB.

    The clue is in the name.


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    #24
    clohamon
    Registered Users Posts: 1,766 ✭✭✭clohamon


    watty wrote: »
    MANs are circles, loops around towns/cities. No backhaul aspect to their planning. Most of the backhaul is CIE/BT-ESAT or ESB.

    The clue is in the name.

    That looks like a very tight definition of "backhaul"
    The main goal of the Metropolitan Area Networks programme is to provide a communications infrastructure (ducts, fibre) and wholesale services to operators in towns outside Dublin to reduce the high fixed cost of building own infrastructure for telecommunications operators, which represents the most important barrier to entry in this market. The MANs tackle a major bottleneck, the so-called “middle mile” between local loop and regional networks and serve as a backhaul network collecting and transporting traffic in these towns to the regional networks between the cities concerned.

    http://ec.europa.eu/community_law/state_aids/comp-2005/n284-05.pdf


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    #25
    watty
    Registered Users Posts: 32,417 ✭✭✭✭watty


    There was no provision for connection to end users or for backhaul. Some still may be unconnected.

    Metropolitan     Area Network = Ring of fibre around the town, period, in Ireland. No last Mile or Backhaul planning involved. Some Wireless ISPs and Mobile operators do find them useful to connect masts. They still have to find backhaul somewhere else.

    No Fibre to the Kerb is involved either.


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    #26
    clohamon
    Registered Users Posts: 1,766 ✭✭✭clohamon


    watty wrote: »
    There was no provision for connection to end users...

    No Fibre to the Kerb is involved either.

    I don't think I said any of that. (And I'm ok on "Metropolitan")

    This is what Vodafone said.
    The telecom companies have responded positively to the announcement with Gerry Fahy, Strategy Director of Vodafone Ireland commenting: "Vodafone recently announced a E17m multi-year deal to access the MANs network. The rollout of Phase 2 will enable Vodafone to extend and deepen mobile broadband coverage outside Dublin in a cost efficient and effective manner. Vodafone welcomes commencement of Phase 2, as access to fibre in the additional 66 towns will enable us to further improve our regional and rural mobile broadband capability".

    http://www.businessworld.ie/livenews.htm?a=2444496


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    #27
    BarryM
    Registered Users Posts: 837 ✭✭✭BarryM


    clohamon wrote: »
    I don't think I said any of that. (And I'm ok on "Metropolitan")

    This is what Vodafone said.



    http://www.businessworld.ie/livenews.htm?a=2444496

    So, if I understand this (and I heard Kennedy of Silicon Republic and Coveney and others argue on Kenny the other day) the operators provide the 'backhaul' from/to MANs for their own clients? OK technically, but doesn't it mean that the MAN will not be connected to the wider world until an operator decides? The Kenny show argument was that they should be interconnected via the ESB/eircom/CIE or whoever fibres.....

    In the wider sense the whole question of fibre dark/light is a mess; there appear to be a number of 'national' fibre backbones, owned by the incumbent and other infrsatructure people. In addition, do people like BT have their own fibres, or do they rent it?

    In the supposed 'market oriented' telecomm world this is fine, but in reality in a low population density country like Ireland it means islands of connectivity. The only rational solution is that an incentive is provided (the MANs were conceived as part of this) to provide a common carrier environment between the islands. Unfortunately, as this discussion shows, the lack of a MANs interconnect policy means a delay of indeterminate length in achieving it.

    Bye, Barry


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    #28
    watty
    Registered Users Posts: 32,417 ✭✭✭✭watty


    Via takeover of ESAT, BT own or control the CIE-ESat fibre down main railway routes. Pretty good backhaul. It and the ESB fibre is pretty much the only way to connect the MANs anywhere. eircom backhaul is too expensive and also much is ATM designed for ISDN etc rather than IP.

    The Vodafone deal is purely to feed Vodafone mast sites. Originally mast sites (esp. Vodafone as it was originally eircell) used 128k to 2Mbit ISDN eircom backhaul. This is expensive and not suited to the approximately 40Mbps peak, 7Mbps average needed per mast for full performance.

    The Vodafone deal is nothing to do with anyone getting broadband, but about Vodafone saving money and having peak speeds available on three sector HSPA masts.

    Digiweb, Vodafone, Magnet, Smart, UPC etc use of MANs only connects their own routers near the MAN back to their own switches/data centers/core etc in Dublin or wherever, i.e. for their own customers. Some do Wholesale capacity created. (Digiweb, BT etc). This massive inefficiency is because there is really no plan connected with the MANs I can see other than sticking a fibre ring in ground around a Town.

    What is needed is a Master all Island Ring or Star to connect all the Mans to each other and to the International Fibres. The ESat fibre, ESB fibre and any Bord Gais fibre (mostly empty ducts and empty promises) should be part of that. Also eircom is irrelevant to this as they are too loaded with debt and legacy ATM.


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    #29
    BarryM
    Registered Users Posts: 837 ✭✭✭BarryM


    watty wrote: »
    What is needed is a Master all Island Ring or Star to connect all the Mans to each other and to the International Fibres. The ESat fibre, ESB fibre and any Bord Gais fibre (mostly empty ducts and empty promises) should be part of that. Also eircom is irrelevant to this as they are too loaded with debt and legacy ATM.

    Yep, right on. If the likes of us can see this why not ComReg?? WTF is holding it up??

    IOffL already told Ryan this was the solution.

    The conspiracy theorist in me says ComReg is required to ensure that eircom's jobs are protected.

    Bye, Barry


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    #30
    Firetrap
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,442 ✭✭✭Firetrap


    bk wrote: »
    It seems to me all of these problems stem from Eircom.

    Mobile would never have become such a competitive challenge had Eircom charged a reasonable price for line rental or allowed for BB without line rental.

    I think this is a pretty serious problem. Anecdotally, I know of a lot of people who've bought or built houses that don't have landlines in them. The vast majority aren't bothering to get landlines in because they've all got mobile phones and there are all sorts of deals on them where they can ring each other for next to nothing. So what do you do for the internet? On the one hand you can walk into a phone shop and walk out with a little modem and go online for twenty quid a month. Or, you get in a landline and end up paying at least twice that for your internet.

    Worse still, I know a couple of people who wouldn't be serious internet junkies (the types who check their email/do some surfing but that's it) who are seriously thinking of jacking in their landlines because they believe they're being ripped off. The logic being that it would be be better to throw some more credit on their mobiles, get rid of the landline and get a mobile internet dongle.


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    #31
    SkepticOne
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,718 ✭✭✭SkepticOne


    I too would put the blame on Eircom for this. With Eircom having the highest line rental in the world they don't really need mobile below cost selling in order to lose market share. They good thing is that they themselves get to suffer financially as people leave them.


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