NBS: The end

watty wrote: »

Number of real Broadband connections delivered by the scheme = 0

Mobile can't be Broadband at all.

Satellite latency is too high and capacity too low to qualify as Broadband. Many satellite packages never met the NBS requirements (in capacity and speed) unless the customers complained.

Most Mobile connections never met the requirements and NONE met the the original tender requirements.

Someone(s) still needs to end up being fined and/or imprisoned for the dishonest NBS fiasco. It was at best a nearly National Internet promotion scheme and likely not much more than helping finance Three's 3G Mobile voice Mast rollout out. They had been in contravention of their licence due to tardy roll out.

Is Eamon Ryan responsible for the National Broadband Sham?

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/communications/communications+development/national+broadband+scheme.htm

Following the conclusion of a competitive tendering process, the contract to implement and operate the National Broadband Scheme (NBS) was entered into with "3" (a Hutchison Whampoa company trading as 3) on 23 December 2008.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eamon_Ryan#In_government

He was re-elected at the 2007 general election. Following the Green Party's special convention vote in favour of entering into a coalition government with Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats on 13 June 2007, Ryan was appointed to the cabinet as Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources when the 30th Dáil sat the following day.

He became the Minister for Communications in 2007 and the sham was introduced in 2008.

I believe it was just straightforward incompetence from civil servants that destined the NBS scheme to failure. They didn't have a fundamental understanding of the technologies involved. I don't think corruption was involved, although I am sure a lot of pressure was put on the decision makers from their paid consultants.
Not understanding the difference between Mobile Broadband and Fixed Wireless broadband was a major flaw. More money should have gone to Fixed Wireless Broadband companies.
A large chunk of the money should have been paid to Eircom to enable aDSL exchanges in small villages and other rural trunk locations, villages and communities that have been ignored by Eircom. A reliable 2Mb aDSL connection is a lot more useful to a rural small business owner or farmer than a 3Mobile 8Meg 3G connection that is unreliable and will often disappear or go no faster than 0.5Mbps.

Very interesting Watty. I believe the civil servants had their hearts in the right place, but unless they were experienced network, radio and communication engineers they were bound to be mislead. I deal with semi-states on a weekly basis and most do their absolute best, but you have to remember that realistically they are just administrators in a closed, walled-off closeted environment, which makes it even harder to make a decision. Also having to reach a consensus between a group of civil servants is a very long, tedious and infuriating task to watch from the point of view of an outside private company. I always think of them as being wrapped up in cotton wool with no contact with the real world. There have been big changes in the past few years in the way they operate and some have been very proactive in dealing directly with contract suppliers, but the amount of politics involved is phenomenal and can slow the process down by years!

I didn't know that 3Mobile may or may not have used 3G repeaters in residential estates, I presume they may or may not have forgotten to apply for planning and testing, naughty 3Mobile!

Yes got a letter today stating that the NBS ends at midnight on 25th August.

Techspert wrote: »

but unless they were experienced network, radio and communication engineers they were bound to be mislead.

I beg to differ.

I very quickly picked up enough from these forums in a couple of days to know the story with mobile midband.

It was their JOB to investigate the options and come to the best decision for the people.

jonseyblub wrote: »

I upgraded there yesterday not knowing any of this. It said it was for the 40GB NBS. I never received my letter. Will they have to honor my contract?

Yep

Very often for the 1st year Three wasn't supplying NBS spec satellite.
I'd love to know what proportion of Three NBS Satellite and Mobile customers ever got the NBS spec.

€40 a month is about what Satellite Internet costs. Cheaper packages are usually rubbish. It's not Broadband, but is more reliable than 3G.

Because no-one ever got Broadband from the scheme and the minimum speed was a lie.

75 Million Euro
Partially subsidised Sat subscriptions, but Three often supplied Sat packages below spec to save money. Or Stupid "repeaters" as they had used up allocation of Sat packages.
Subsidised adding extra base stations. But Three was massively in breach of 3G licence for not installing enough basestations and coverage.

They used ZERO fixed wireless.
The extra basesations are not dedicated to Data or NBS, but ordinary 3G basestations.

The Mobile tariff to NBS customers only had increased Cap (which reduces speed on Mobile) vs the same non-NBS package.

So only the Satellite users got any benefit. But many had to fight to be on correct package.

No broadband at all was supplied.

The Mobile package never met NBS spec, as mobile can't ever meet a minimum download speed or level of service. Because it's mobile!

Three didn't apply any funds received to Capital Expense of any extra base stations (presumably so they can do what ever they like with them) but to Operating costs. The Sat costs were higher than Three planned, so they lost money on every valid sat install. If the Dept. had done due diligence they would have seen that Three's tender on the Sat side was fantasy.

Both short listed companies never intended to supply Broadband, but rely on Mobile (Eircom via Meteor). Eircom sensibly priced the Satellite option so lost.

Both Meteor and Three needed to roll out more basestations anyway, so could afford to meet the NBS constraints.

It was impossible for any Fixed Wireless solution to meet the NBS constraints:
1) Subsidy only enough for a Mobile operator who needed to add more base stations anyway to comply with Licence
2) No regional operators allowed. Only National single supplier. But apart from an already dedicated Eircom allocation there is no National Spectrum for Fixed Wireless
3) Pathetic amount of additional Fixed wireless spectrum offered

No-one could compete with Three's fantasy price for Satellite, which incredibly was accepted even though it was based on a service that didn't exist (Hylas) and would not have enough Irish Capacity nor would realistically be as cheap as claimed.

The NBS was doomed from the beginning. It was purely a political sop to make out that something was being done. The Dept privately admitted it would never deliver broadband but the Minister Ryan said it was too late to do a new process, it had to go ahead.

There wasn't enough sat capacity for 10% to be via satellite, nor in the end was Three able to supply a proper Mobile service to the 90%.

There was no public publishing of any penalty for not meeting spec.
There was no publicly transparent audit of performance by Analysys Mason, who have Mobile operators as customers, so you have to ask was there a conflict of interest giving them rather than Comreg the job of compliance testing?

Was there ever proper physical audit of signal levels and speed in NBS areas or just analysis of Three's data?

Why were the "repeaters" allowed at all? They are a totally inappropriate solution for a weak signal area or a house? The proper solution is an outdoor aerial, 3G modem on a Router (with ethernet & WiFi) indoors. But that would allow more than one computer and would not enable profitable voice calls. A repeater requires EACH device to have 3G dongle and allows phone calls.

In practice to meet NBS the usb 3G dongle should not have been allowed at all! Only Routers with ethernet and Wifi (alllowing thus Internet to ANYTHING).

But Three makes no money from 3G data at all, anywhere in Ireland. Only from Voice calls and SMS. Three has not yet made a profit.

As a company only able to sell Mobile Contracts, no Broadband service and all engineering outsourced they should never have had a Tender even accepted!

Also the only consideration given to O2 take over in Ireland by Three was "Competition". No consideration given to ability to run a network, honest Adverts, make profit, do engineering, comply with licence or make sensible infrastructure decisions.

If Comreg had been on the ball, Three should have lost their 3G licence even before the NBS was announced.

But Comreg is only interested much in licence revenue.

Absolutely scandalous! It smacks of brown envelopes changing hands once again.