NBP: National Broadband Plan Announced

Jakey Rolling · 05-12-2014 11:18am

thierry14 wrote: »

Should be no subsidies for anything, survival of the fittest.

So you disagree with the principle of state aid to bring 30MB service to every property?

thierry14 wrote: »

Your wireless provider should be looking to upgrade his service and compete, not looking for handouts.

Would you fork out your own capital to compete with a state-aided project which is going to usurp your operation in the near future?

Even if my WISP decided to run fibre from their backhaul node to every one of their geographically diverse customers, they would have to bear the full cost of implementing this infrastructure unlike their state-aided competitors. Try making a business plan on that basis to your bank.

The "handouts" would amount to covering basic running costs until such time as all customers were transferred to the NBS fibre.

Nollog · 05-12-2014 11:41am

Jakey Rolling wrote: »

So you disagree with the principle of state aid to bring 30MB service to every property?

Would you fork out your own capital to compete with a state-aided project which is going to usurp your operation in the near future?

Even if my WISP decided to run fibre from their backhaul node to every one of their geographically diverse customers, they would have to bear the full cost of implementing this infrastructure unlike their state-aided competitors. Try making a business plan on that basis to your bank.

The "handouts" would amount to covering basic running costs until such time as all customers were transferred to the NBS fibre.

Can't they apply for the same hand outs as the other isps?

Jakey Rolling · 05-12-2014 2:55pm

/\/ollog wrote: »

Can't they apply for the same hand outs as the other isps?

I'd imagine this is going to be implemented by Eircom/ESB, with an obligation to unbundle the local loop. Can't see this being of interest to anything other than major players. In fact, when it goes to tender there will probably be a minimum turnover requirement for bidders such as with the €40m requirement for Eircode.

There will be plenty community broadband schemes that will be affected as users migrate away, potentially having to shut down and leaving users to go back to dial-up or 3G modems until they get hooked up to fibre.

KOR101 · 18-01-2015 10:49am

Just been reading about BTs British FTTH On Demand offer. Posting it here because it gives some idea about the costs of full FTTH in rural areas. I think people on here have got a bit carried away about FTTH being the focus of the |National Broadband Plan.

http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/loadProductPriceDetails.do?data=0WyIM7tTGGgucFf0dXUIWK4XSAplAmgrRZNg5Pk%2B5%2F%2BkRgB7BL4KNYn%2FlKx2YB4Qe6YShZ82RgLO%0AGLsH2e9%2Bmw%3D%3D

£6,125 (ex VAT) if you're between 1500m and 1999m. And, note the big jump from prices in 2013. Presumably they discovered it was a lot more expensive than they imagined. Eircom's approach seems to be a 'word for word' copy of BTs.

bk · 18-01-2015 11:45am

Yes, rolling out FTTH is expensive, no question of that. However there are a few things to consider here as compared to the BT Fiber On Demand

With the BT project they are rolling out individual homes who order it, it is a one off custom thing. The idea I believe under the NBP project is to roll it out to entire areas, which should allow for economies of scale.

Also BT are digging new trenches to do this, while the ESB or Eircom are more likely to run it along poles, making it cheaper to deploy.

Lets say it costs €10000 per rural home. Over 30 years that is €27.77 per month. Would it really be too much to ask people in rural Ireland to pay €30 per month extra (total €60 to €70 per month) for FTTH?

This makes it very doable.

They already pay extra for electricity, given the massive extra expense for FTTH, I don't see why they would not pay extra for this too.

Cuddlesworth · 18-01-2015 11:57am

Fibre to the home for a specific population density(towns), plus the ability to use that fibre backbone to populate rural wireless networks would be a far better alternative. The problem with most rural wireless schemes is getting a decent reliable backbone.

I can't see how FTTH would ever be feasable in rural Ireland, we are too dispersed with a long history of one off housing. And rewarding one off housing with heavily subsidised services simply compounds the problem.

KOR101 · 18-01-2015 12:02pm

Personally, I could see myself paying €5,000 to get it.

I think it's unrealistic to think they will go the whole way in this plan. For one thing, they will surely look to tie this in with EU plans (hence the min 30mbit) and with EU support for developing underdeveloped regions. EU funding support is stated as part of their thinking, but would the EU fund something way more ambitious than elsewhere?

What is encouraging is the open endedness of what they have said so far. Saying that perhaps something like community schemes may be used. If the plan was philosophically underpinned by FTTH, and they left it open for people or communities to pay for the last bit from the local school or Garda station then I would settle for that.

bk · 18-01-2015 12:09pm

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Fibre to the home for a specific population density(towns), plus the ability to use that fibre backbone to populate rural wireless networks would be a far better alternative. The problem with most rural wireless schemes is getting a decent reliable backbone.

Except according to Eircoms very detailed report on the matter, wireless is not suitable for rural FTTH.

Eircom make it very clear in their report that in order to meet 30mb/s minimum at peak times for all users that you would require a massive number of very dense wireless bases and thus the cost, in particular power and maintenance costs would cost more then just doing FTTH from the start.

jd · 18-01-2015 8:17pm

Niall Quinn, ex footballer, and now director of QSAT came out with this ion the Indo today

Then the economic crash happened and the consortium wanted to sell the club. Quinn returned home again and became involved with QSat, a satellite broadband company, ploughing his own money into it.

The company's biggest problem has been "that the Government continually announced that everyone was going to get fibre. If that happened it would cost more than the bank bailout - it's not going to happen. We support people who are right out in the sticks.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ive-been-able-to-get-the-most-out-of-myself-in-football-and-in-business-30915634.html

ardmacha · 18-01-2015 9:19pm

Ireland did a good job of rural electrification and if this fibre can be carried on the same network there is no reason why it could not be brought into every part of the country.

But it needs to be done as a common carrier and not as a service monopoly.

Tommy Lagahan · 18-01-2015 9:48pm

KOR101 wrote: »

http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/loadProductPriceDetails.do?data=0WyIM7tTGGgucFf0dXUIWK4XSAplAmgrRZNg5Pk%2B5%2F%2BkRgB7BL4KNYn%2FlKx2YB4Qe6YShZ82RgLO%0AGLsH2e9%2Bmw%3D%3D

£6,125 (ex VAT) if you're between 1500m and 1999m. And, note the big jump from prices in 2013. Presumably they discovered it was a lot more expensive than they imagined. Eircom's approach seems to be a 'word for word' copy of BTs.

Jaysus that's not bad at all, would pay it in a heartbeat myself to not deal with midband wireless contention and paying upwards of 100 quid a month for 3 connections just to stay online with about 1Mbit guaranteed. Pitty I'm 8KM out from the exchange lol!
I always figured it would be more like 30 grand or something for an individual house.

bk · 19-01-2015 4:21am

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Pitty I'm 8KM out from the exchange lol!
I always figured it would be more like 30 grand or something for an individual house.

Yes, at 8KM you would be looking at about 30 grand, with BT in the UK. They charge per meter!

Tommy Lagahan · 19-01-2015 11:29am

bk wrote: »

Yes, at 8KM you would be looking at about 30 grand, with BT in the UK. They charge per meter!

Hah damn, pitty they couldn't take it off the main Eircom fiber lines connecting Donegal and Ballybofey ¬900M away under the main road, or the fiber running along ESB's high tension power lines ¬1100M away. So close yet so far

Cuddlesworth · 20-01-2015 7:51pm

bk wrote: »

Except according to Eircoms very detailed report on the matter, wireless is not suitable for rural FTTH.

Eircom make it very clear in their report that in order to meet 30mb/s minimum at peak times for all users that you would require a massive number of very dense wireless bases and thus the cost, in particular power and maintenance costs would cost more then just doing FTTH from the start.

http://fibrerollout.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Call-for-Input.pdf

This one? Initially, at the point in which most people would stop reading they completely ignore fixed position wireless mesh networks operating at 5ghz with modern technology. Instead only refer to LTE and its characteristics. About 50 pages in they briefly mention that 5ghz could be used for Islands and mountain regions.

There are plenty of wireless rural schemes across the world that show they are commercially viable. The issue is always the lack of a decent backhaul connection.

I can't help but feel that any private entity like Eircom would release a report without a high level of bias. Its dying and will do what it needs to again have another overtly large state subsidised network laid down in its name.

To me, specifying a minimum population density required for FFTH would have a number of benefits for us as a country.

It would provide an incentive for people to move back to the towns, stopping once off rural housing.
It would reduce the cost of the scheme.
It will speed up the rollout.

Then we can use that state sponsored backhaul to provide decent wireless services across the country. They can be run by rural schemes or enterprising individuals. Or companies like Eircom if they so desire.

Tommy Lagahan · 20-01-2015 8:15pm

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

http://fibrerollout.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Call-for-Input.pdf

This one? Initially, at the point in which most people would stop reading they completely ignore fixed position wireless mesh networks operating at 5ghz with modern technology. Instead only refer to LTE and its characteristics. About 50 pages in they briefly mention that 5ghz could be used for Islands and mountain regions.

There are plenty of wireless rural schemes across the world that show they are commercially viable. The issue is always the lack of a decent backhaul connection.

How well does 5GHz handle non-line-of-sight connections though? My area is loads of small hills that give HSPA a run for its money trying to cope with signal. My fixed wireless provider runs 5GHz but won't connect anyone without line of sight.

There's a good 240+ one off households with no fixed line connections within 5 square KM that are currently either vying for Three bandwidth (not a hope) or a fixed wireless provider (NWE) in the area which is also also pretty much dead at peak times, I expect mine to either reduce to 0.4Mbit or dead within the hour til around 10pm. Off peak (1am - 4pm) its a good 10Mbit.

Is there a fixed wireless tech that can handle that many people, non-line of sight, with relatively decent handling of contention, even if there's fiber piped straight to the mast?
I'd very happily settle for wireless with a relatively low contention rate.
Hell if I knew it would work I'd sink me damn savings into it and do it myself.

bk · 20-01-2015 8:44pm

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Initially, at the point in which most people would stop reading they completely ignore fixed position wireless mesh networks operating at 5ghz with modern technology. Instead only refer to LTE and its characteristics. About 50 pages in they briefly mention that 5ghz could be used for Islands and mountain regions.

The thing is, fixed position 5GHz largely needs point to point line of site. So you quickly run into the same issues or even worse then LTE. You need to put lots of large antennas on the top of lots of hills, feed by lots of fiber running up the side of otherwise empty hills, new electrical wires run up hills, all with lots of expensive gear exposed to the elements and potential vandalism!

In order to reach everyone, with a minimum of 30mb/s, this would get VERY expensive very quickly, potentially just as expensive if not more then just running FTTH to everyone!

And it would definitely have higher running (electric) and maintenance costs (storms blowing antennas down).

And of course, it has no longterm upgradability. Sure it might just get you 30mb/s today, but what about when that becomes too slow and people start demanding 100mb/s, or 500mb/s or 1Gb/s ?

FTTH is future proof, once in place, it will be relatively easy to upgrade its already massive capacity by just replacing the lasers to use more of the fiber and give you multi gig speeds!!!!

Also FTTH is far more reliable and has vastly reduced operating and maintenance costs.

I'm often very suspicious of Eircom, but for once they actually seem to be looking at the long term and FTTH is absolutely the best and probably cheapest long term solution.

heyjude · 20-01-2015 9:02pm

I wouldn't have a great deal of confidence in the success of this plan for several reasons, firstly and most obviously, the minister is making promises for a plan that will be completed by 2020, when the current Dail term ends next year, meaning that the plan will essentially be implemented by the next government not this one, and he cannot guarantee the priorities/plans of a future government or that the necessary funding will be available over a 5 year period. Secondly, the plan is based on the assumption that if high speed broadband is available in all rural areas, that there is sufficient demand from customers in these areas willing to pay the going rate for such services, so that a continued state subsidy is not required to maintain these services, but is this the case ?

I'm also a bit puzzled :rolleyes: as at the height of the discussion on the water tax, there was considerable comment from those living in rural areas about how unfair it was that their taxes were subsidising water supplies in urban areas while they had to pay for their own water supplies. Yet now we have a state funded(taxpayer) scheme to pay for state subsidised broadband in rural areas. Yet those living in rural areas seem to have no problem with services being subsidised if they are benefitting.

A final observation would be that the state does not have a great track record where technology projects are concerned, so I'd be very interested to see how we can be assured that the targets in the plan are fully realised, on time, on budget and to the specifications detailed.

ED E · 20-01-2015 9:03pm

bk wrote: »

I'm often very suspicious of Eircom, but for once they actually seem to be looking at the long term and FTTH is absolutely the best and probably cheapest long term solution.

Eircom currently operate a large fixed wireless network in feeding their own remote exchanges as well as eMobile/Meteor kit and TETRA stuff for the emergency services. I'm sure theyre all too familiar with the reliability and scaling issues with those systems.

The new aggressive eircom is doing VDSL right and seem to take the NBP seriously (even if the politicians will forget it after the next election). Its all looking up assuming the cash appears for it.

SMJSF · 20-01-2015 9:08pm

am I missing something? nearly the whole of Dublin city area is blue; commercial.
there is residential in that area, a lot of it. so houses in Dublin aren't qualified for it??

ED E · 20-01-2015 9:15pm

SMJSF wrote: »

am I missing something? nearly the whole of Dublin city area is blue; commercial.
there is residential in that area, a lot of it. so houses in Dublin aren't qualified for it??

Commercial means that the incumbents have it sorted, or mostly sorted. Dublin has a high UPC coverage, and lots of VDSL from eircom. It doesnt need government subsidies.

Tommy Lagahan · 20-01-2015 9:37pm

heyjude wrote: »

I'm also a bit puzzled :rolleyes: as at the height of the discussion on the water tax, there was considerable comment from those living in rural areas about how unfair it was that their taxes were subsidising water supplies in urban areas while they had to pay for their own water supplies. Yet now we have a state funded(taxpayer) scheme to pay for state subsidised broadband in rural areas. Yet those living in rural areas seem to have no problem with services being subsidised if they are benefitting.

Which is why a system by which a community can apply to an existing ISP to set up a FTTC cabinet for instance would be suitable IMO. Maybe the ISP can get tax incentives or something.
For an example there's a very high number of houses in my area, around 160 in 2sq KM, which I'm sure is enough to justify a VDSL cabinet. Even at 2KM range the connection quality would be a tenfold increase on what we get currently with our shambles contended wireless connections. Of course Eircom will listen to none of it despite numerous attempts to get them to do something about it.

For areas well out with very low population density, wireless contention would hardly be an issue and an LTE mast would do rightly.

Don't assume we're all commies out in the styx and think everyone should pay for our stuff.
I'd far rather front the cash along with my community and get something done than rely on shady, shaky infrastructure plans by a government heavily detached from the realities of the infrastructure problem.

There's an awful lot of dismissal and down-talking rather than healthy discussion about this scheme and anything else that could potentially serve rural areas, its getting on my tits.

Cuddlesworth · 20-01-2015 9:38pm

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

How well does 5GHz handle non-line-of-sight connections though? My area is loads of small hills that give HSPA a run for its money trying to cope with signal. My fixed wireless provider runs 5GHz but won't connect anyone without line of sight.

There's a good 240+ one off households with no fixed line connections within 5 square KM that are currently either vying for Three bandwidth (not a hope) or a fixed wireless provider (NWE) in the area which is also also pretty much dead at peak times, I expect mine to either reduce to 0.4Mbit or dead within the hour til around 10pm. Off peak (1am - 4pm) its a good 10Mbit.

Is there a fixed wireless tech that can handle that many people, non-line of sight, with relatively decent handling of contention, even if there's fiber piped straight to the mast?
I'd very happily settle for wireless with a relatively low contention rate.
Hell if I knew it would work I'd sink me damn savings into it and do it myself.

There will of course be areas and houses in which fixed wireless won't work but for the most part we live in a very flat country. But fixed wireless, even with contention, can provide meaningful bandwidth. In your case I wouldn't be surprised if your local providers backhaul link was close to the average Eircom DSL connection in terms of speed and the best they could get/afford and their network speed and equipment is simply a mirror of that slow link since it isn't required.

I don't think its worth investing our countrys income in wiring every house in this country for fibre. I also don't think its worth saying that "every" house should have 30mb as a minimum. I do think that any town in this country should have it, and outlying houses should have the chance of a wireless solution. It would be far more worthwhile to wire towns and dense community with state subsidised fibre, proving a carrot on a stick for rural Ireland to start moving back into towns.

If Eircoms report was so meaningful, they wouldn't have completely sidestepped the 5ghz equipment/argument in the very beginning when outlying all the options.

bk · 20-01-2015 9:46pm

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I also don't think its worth saying that "every" house should have 30mb as a minimum.

That is non negotiable, it is an EU requirement for the whole of Europe and frankly rightfully so.

And as such the EU is happy to throw a great deal of money at us to get it done.

So if we are spending all this EU money, then it makes sense to do it right from the start.

Cuddlesworth · 20-01-2015 9:54pm

bk wrote: »

That is non negotiable, it is an EU requirement for the whole of Europe and frankly rightfully so.

And as such the EU is happy to throw a great deal of money at us to get it done.

So if we are spending all this EU money, then it makes sense to do it right from the start.

I wasn't aware the money was EU funded. In that case, FTTH it is.

Do we own the fibre after installation, simply paying for install and maintenance of the service? Or do they belong to the company that installed them?

bk · 20-01-2015 10:23pm

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I wasn't aware the money was EU funded. In that case, FTTH it is.

At least partly, it will likely be a combination of Government money, EU money and private investment.

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Do we own the fibre after installation, simply paying for install and maintenance of the service? Or do they belong to the company that installed them?

We don't know the details yet, but it will likely be owned either by a company (likely Eircom or ESB) or a government semi state company.

BeerWolf · 22-01-2015 4:28pm

bk wrote: »

That is non negotiable, it is an EU requirement for the whole of Europe and frankly rightfully so.

And as such the EU is happy to throw a great deal of money at us to get it done.

So if we are spending all this EU money, then it makes sense to do it right from the start.

Would that be for FIXED broadband, or would lame mobile broadband be covered under that too?

MajesticDonkey · 22-01-2015 4:33pm

BeerWolf wrote: »

Would that be for FIXED broadband, or would lame mobile broadband be covered under that too?

Mobile broadband won't really be an issue, because it's generally fairly hard to get over 30 Mb/s with 4G, and even more unlikely at peak times - something which is a requirement by the EU. And 5G is years off, though it has a theoretical speed of something like 10 Gb/s.

KOR101 · 22-01-2015 6:40pm

bk wrote: »

That is non negotiable, it is an EU requirement for the whole of Europe and frankly rightfully so.

And as such the EU is happy to throw a great deal of money at us to get it done.

So if we are spending all this EU money, then it makes sense to do it right from the start.

Do you have any figures for the sums the EU has provided to countries under this objective?

I'm quite prepared to accept that the 'penny has dropped' with both companies and the government that FTTH is the inevitable future and also the most cost efficient in the long run. My doubts are about the size of the bill for doing that in the entire country. To meet the objective of a minimum speed of 30mbits, you would have to run the fibre as far as within about 750m of every house in the country.

This will ONLY happen if the bill is not huge, regardless of whether it is the cheapest in the long run IMHO.

Johnboy1951 · 23-01-2015 5:37pm

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Mobile broadband won't really be an issue, because it's generally fairly hard to get over 30 Mb/s with 4G, and even more unlikely at peak times - something which is a requirement by the EU. And 5G is years off, though it has a theoretical speed of something like 10 Gb/s.

They must be doing something very right in some Nordic countries so as a mate of mine gets approx 90Mb/s and more on 4G.

MajesticDonkey · 23-01-2015 5:44pm

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

They must be doing something very right in some Nordic countries so as a mate of mine gets approx 90Mb/s and more on 4G.

Yep, I have seen over 60 Mb/s on 4G in Clonmel, but generally it's under 30 Mb/s in my experience, probably because of an insufficient amount of masts - exactly why the previous NBP with Three was a disaster.

NBP: National Broadband Plan Announced

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