Rural Broadband Scheme Information Megathread

Headshot · 24-05-2011 10:57am

Headshot wrote: »

I signed my brother up to this

The cruel thing the house right beside him can get Eircom broadband but he cant get it

This Scheme is a total sham

He's forced to use that 3 crap

William Powell · 26-05-2011 11:26am

LaVail wrote: »

Just got a call this morning from a lovely Dublin lady and she was looking for my house on google earth, took a while but she found it in the end. She said she was attaching a photo of our house to the info letter they are sending out in the post.

Hopefully we will meet the criteria and be included in the scheme.

I signed up online about a week ago and had a call from a very pleasant lady who wanted to confirm where I lived to check we were in an area covered by Rural Broadband Scheme.

The Department seems to be using a google based application and logging the EXACT location of every applicant, once the location is confirmed they are sending out letters confirming your details. As locating us is a bit tricky we exchanged a couple of emails and I confirmed the picture they were looking at was in fact our house (note to self: the house needs painting

)

LaVail · 26-05-2011 6:54pm

William Powell wrote: »

I signed up online about a week ago and had a call from a very pleasant lady who wanted to confirm where I lived to check we were in an area covered by Rural Broadband Scheme.

The Department seems to be using a google based application and logging the EXACT location of every applicant, once the location is confirmed they are sending out letters confirming your details. As locating us is a bit tricky we exchanged a couple of emails and I confirmed the picture they were looking at was in fact our house (note to self: the house needs painting )

Yeah I went through the same process where they were looking on google maps for my address, took a while to find it but she eventually did. I get a letter in the post yesterday from the department about the scheme but it doesnt really say anything other then tee fact that it is still in phase one and will take a few months to implement. They also talk about passing on my information to other providers in my area to see if they will offer broadband.

To be honest the hole scheme will be a disaster if they are stating satellite is "broadband" I dont know much about the speeds but I assume they will be poor enough (1Mbps?) and a high ping also I fear a low cap maybe 20GB?

Maybe somebody on here with better knowledge could fill us in a little?

roast · 27-05-2011 7:33am

LaVail wrote: »

Yeah I went through the same process where they were looking on google maps for my address, took a while to find it but she eventually did. I get a letter in the post yesterday from the department about the scheme but it doesnt really say anything other then tee fact that it is still in phase one and will take a few months to implement. They also talk about passing on my information to other providers in my area to see if they will offer broadband.

To be honest the hole scheme will be a disaster if they are stating satellite is "broadband" I dont know much about the speeds but I assume they will be poor enough (1Mbps?) and a high ping also I fear a low cap maybe 20GB?

Maybe somebody on here with better knowledge could fill us in a little?

I would assume that the specs for the Satellite plan would be the same as covered by the NBS.
In which case;

Download Speed - 1Mbps
Upload Speed - 128kbps
Contention - 48:1
Round-trip latency - 800ms

As for usage limits;

In the case of satellite product, an uncharged monthly data cap of 11GB (10GB download and 1GB upload) applies.

Miserable enough, and certainly not broadband, but at least its better than no connection at all.

Source

William Powell · 27-05-2011 10:11am

roast wrote: »

I would assume that the specs for the Satellite plan would be the same as covered by the NBS.
In which case;

Download Speed - 1Mbps
Upload Speed - 128kbps
Contention - 48:1
Round-trip latency - 800ms

As for usage limits;

Miserable enough, and certainly not broadband, but at least its better than no connection at all.

In the case of satellite product, an uncharged monthly data cap of 11GB (10GB download and 1GB upload) applies.

Source

If its subsidised and the same price as the NBS I'll take it. Then I can either drop the ISDN line or my 3 steps to hell connection.

LaVail · 27-05-2011 3:35pm

roast wrote: »

I would assume that the specs for the Satellite plan would be the same as covered by the NBS.
In which case;

As for usage limits;

Miserable enough, and certainly not broadband, but at least its better than no connection at all.

Source

Thanks for the info..The whole package seems pretty brutal tbh, hoping they pass on my info to some other company that will provide in this area now. If a couple of people in the one household use the internet then thats a cap of 5GB per month each, pretty sad for this day in age.

roast · 28-05-2011 2:12am

LaVail wrote: »

Thanks for the info..The whole package seems pretty brutal tbh, hoping they pass on my info to some other company that will provide in this area now. If a couple of people in the one household use the internet then thats a cap of 5GB per month each, pretty sad for this day in age.

Indeed it is. A shame, but unfortunately for anything faster, we'll have to wait until Eircom get out of bankruptcy (yeah right!) to upgrade exchanges, and possibly deploy more, or wait for UPC to start expanding. neither of which are going to happen soon - some will have to make do with fixed wireless, mobile midband, and satellite in the meantime.

Sponge Bob · 28-05-2011 11:14am

roast wrote: »

Indeed it is. A shame, but unfortunately for anything faster, we'll have to wait until Eircom get out of bankruptcy (yeah right!) to upgrade exchanges, and possibly deploy more, or wait for UPC to start expanding. neither of which are going to happen soon - some will have to make do with fixed wireless, mobile midband, and satellite in the meantime.

Exactly. eircom have the best part of 300 exchanges as yet not upgraded and that alone would cost €30m at least....never mind all the long lines and decrepitude on the network itself.

UPC are not growing their network at all, it even appears to be shrinking marginally as they find stranded network segments/wayleave issues during their upgrade program and abandon them.

donaru · 28-05-2011 12:09pm

William Powell wrote: »

I signed up online about a week ago and had a call from a very pleasant lady who wanted to confirm where I lived to check we were in an area covered by Rural Broadband Scheme.

The Department seems to be using a google based application and logging the EXACT location of every applicant, once the location is confirmed they are sending out letters confirming your details. As locating us is a bit tricky we exchanged a couple of emails and I confirmed the picture they were looking at was in fact our house (note to self: the house needs painting )

If either of ye are lucky then you wont get the RBS. The state of internet in this country is a joke. I've worked the last 21 years with telecoms in Asia and Central America since I graduated from the NUI and I can't believe the ineptitude that facilitates the underhand offering of contracts to companies like 3 and others here. People you are been pushed into a plank of timber by a 24Volt battery drill. Wake up, you've got teachers in the government making contract decisions or hiring consultants to do it for them.
Give me a number of some head in the department, I want to know who decided on who gets the RBS contract. In 2003 I ran high speed wifi to a rural town (850pop) in South of Chile. The Argies were doing it 2 years before me. What's the problem here in this country??? No one on the council getting their site levy for the antennas???

donaru · 28-05-2011 12:20pm

William Powell wrote: »

I signed up online about a week ago and had a call from a very pleasant lady who wanted to confirm where I lived to check we were in an area covered by Rural Broadband Scheme.

The Department seems to be using a google based application and logging the EXACT location of every applicant, once the location is confirmed they are sending out letters confirming your details. As locating us is a bit tricky we exchanged a couple of emails and I confirmed the picture they were looking at was in fact our house (note to self: the house needs painting )

If either of ye are lucky then you wont get the RBS. The state of internet in this country is a joke. I've worked the last 21 years with telecoms in Asia and Central America since I graduated from the NUI and I can't believe the ineptitude that facilitates the underhand offering of contracts to companies like 3 and others here. People you are been pushed into a plank of timber by a 24Volt battery drill. Wake up, you've got teachers in the government making contract decisions or hiring consultants to do it for them.
Give me a number of some head in the department, I want to know who decided on who gets the RBS contract. In 2003 I ran high speed wifi to a rural town (850pop) in South of Chile. The Argies were doing it 2 years before me. What's the problem here in this country??? No one on the council getting their site levy for the antennas???

Sponge Bob · 28-05-2011 12:36pm

donaru wrote: »

What's the problem here in this country???

The problem in this country is that the department of communications is full of civil servants whose who see their job as NOT to provide modern communications technology. It needs a root and branch clearout.

On top of that layer of corruption and ineptitude ...that hires consultants to 'deliver' their dysfunctional 'plans' and hold the mess at arms length....we have had two of the worst ministers in recent years presiding over the mess between 2004 and 2011, namely Messrs Ryan and Dempsey.

When the €40m Eurofraud that was the National Broadband Scheme is properly documented none of these overpaid chancers will get their comeuppance.

You could apply for the tender to supervise the delivery of the RBS which will issue late 2011 or early 2012 but if you are not prepared to lipstick the pig that is the Civil Service you will not get it...no matter how competent you are.

lukin · 30-05-2011 10:06am

I am living in an area (well only at weekends actually) where NBS is teh only option open to me. I rang three about signing up for the NBS scheme and was told that it's only open under billpay.
The thing is I have a pay-as-you-go three dongle that I use occasionally and the coverage is poor. The coverage under billpay will obviously be the same as under pay as you go so I don't want to sign up for billpay on a 12 month contract without a guarantee they will improve the service.
I said this to the sales guy on the phone and he said once you sign up for it you can ring tech support and tehy wil talk you through solutions. I know this is no good nad what really needs to happen is they send out an engineer to install a booster box. However I don't think this is going to happen (I think these cost about €150; can't see three installing one of them to keep one customer happy).
Teechnically three are in breach of their contract if they refuse to give 100% coverage thoughout the country am I right?
Has anyone else had a booster box installed for them?

Edit:
I put my address into the "check your coverage" facility on the three website and it came back with:
"Congratulations! You can avail of 3 NBS broadband via one of our modem products along with the use of a device called a CPE repeater which will help to boost your signal. Once your modem order has been placed we will then contact you to arrange the installation of your repeater. Please select the button below if you wish to place an order"
I have my doubts as to whether this repeater is any good (it only costs €19) so I am thinking I would be better off staying on pay as you go and buying a more expensive repeater.

Sponge Bob · 30-05-2011 10:14am

lukin wrote: »

Teechnically three are in breach of their contract if they refuse to give 100% coverage thoughout the country am I right?
Has anyone else had a booster box installed for them?

Wrong, they don't even have to cover 100% of the NBS area ( around 50% of the country by area) ...they being allowed to use satellite for 5% of NBS customers.

Plenty have had boosters installed but that just moves the problem around to those without boosters

lukin · 30-05-2011 10:29am

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Wrong, they don't even have to cover 100% of the NBS area ( around 50% of the country by area) ...they being allowed to use satellite for 5% of NBS customers.

Plenty have had boosters installed but that just moves the problem around to those without boosters

Satellite is way too expensive for me. There are a load of different kinds of boosters out there, I read the sticky about them, it's very confusing. I don't want to go shelling out money for something that makes no difference to my d'load speed.

roast · 30-05-2011 10:36am

lukin wrote: »

Satellite is way too expensive for me. There are a load of different kinds of boosters out there, I read the sticky about them, it's very confusing. I don't want to go shelling out money for something that makes no difference to my d'load speed.

Satellite under the NBS is the same price.

lukin · 30-05-2011 10:51am

roast wrote: »

Satellite under the NBS is the same price.

There seems to be very little information on the satellite option; seems to be a 1MB line at 20 euros a month which is crap. I had skyDSL before and it was way more expensive but I had 3MB.

roast · 30-05-2011 10:58am

lukin wrote: »

There seems to be very little information on the satellite option; seems to be a 1MB line at 20 euros a month which is crap. I had skyDSL before and it was way more expensive but I had 3MB.

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Communications/Communications+Development/National+Broadband+Scheme/NBS+FAQs.htm#Product

bealtine · 30-05-2011 3:27pm

roast wrote: »

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Communications/Communications+Development/National+Broadband+Scheme/NBS+FAQs.htm#Product

Except nobody polices those "specifications" and you're on your own if the service doesn't meet the specs

roast · 30-05-2011 3:35pm

bealtine wrote: »

Except nobody polices those "specifications" and you're on your own if the service doesn't meet the specs

Very true bealtine!
Just providing info for lukin though.

johnners2981 · 01-06-2011 11:23pm

Received a letter a couple of days ago, at least they're not using satellite for the rural broadband scheme, well not in phase 2 anyway

bob11 · 02-06-2011 10:45am

I see that Digiweb are now offering 10 Mb over satellite from the new Ka-sat service from Tooway : http://www.digiweb.ie/home/tooway/

bealtine · 02-06-2011 12:59pm

johnners2981 wrote: »

Received a letter a couple of days ago, at least they're not using satellite for the rural broadband scheme, well not in phase 2 anyway

How do you know they won't use sat?

Sponge Bob · 02-06-2011 8:17pm

bob11 wrote: »

I see that Digiweb are now offering 10 Mb over satellite from the new Ka-sat service from Tooway : http://www.digiweb.ie/home/tooway/

While the Irish Ka Sat spot beam is the largest dollop of sat bandwith ever pointed at Ireland the total Tooway thruput on Ka Sat , around 6-700mbits or so is only the same as a small exchange with fibre backhaul....of which there are quite a few even in rural Ireland.

That is allowing for the RTE saorsat bandwidth, some kept back for more lucrative business such as large sport events and the fact that the 82 Ka Sat Beams are capable of max 850mbits each (of which Ireland gets one beam for now and is unlikely to more than a smidge of 2 others ...ever.....)

Hylas has Two beams over Ireland/UK but only has a throughput of 3 Gigahertz across its 8 spot beams and the main pan european beam.

Meh, 400mbits for us maybe, so the two largest data sats in Europe can only deliver 1 Gbit between them in Ireland.

Completely uncontended that is 100 x 10mbit customers hammering away....60 on Ka Sat and 40 on Hylas perhaps. Bit more if they jiggy with the UK beams. They simply must contend. There are already something like 2000 NBS users on the old Hotbird Tooway which meant the poor cnuts were only sharing 100mbits between them or so (3 transponders on HB6 I think)

yuloni · 02-06-2011 11:40pm

This post has been deleted.

LaVail · 10-06-2011 3:03pm

Condi wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Was just chatting with their sales team and to avail of their 150+ TV channels you already have to be an existing broadband customer. The installation fee for broadband is ~€249.00 and if you want the TV channels its a once off fee of €370.00 but you wont have to pay monthly after that.

Their lowest BB package is 6Mb down & 1Mb up with a monthly cap of 4GB costing €22.49pm for the first 3 months I think and then €44.99 every month after

roast · 10-06-2011 3:08pm

LaVail wrote: »

Was just chatting with their sales team and to avail of their 150+ TV channels you already have to be an existing broadband customer. The installation fee for broadband is ~€249.00 and if you want the TV channels its a once off fee of €370.00 but you wont have to pay monthly after that.

Their lowest BB package is 6Mb down & 1Mb up with a monthly cap of 4GB costing €22.49pm for the first 3 months I think and then €44.99 every month after

Holy shhhhhhhiiii.....

LaVail · 10-06-2011 3:12pm

roast wrote: »

Holy shhhhhhhiiii.....

Better start saving now if we want to have it by this time next year

And sure the 4GB allowance will be handy for checking our email's

johnners2981 · 11-08-2011 7:24pm

So........ when is this phase 2 thing happening?

bealtine · 11-08-2011 7:41pm

johnners2981 wrote: »

So........ when is this phase 2 thing happening?

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Communications/Communications+Development/Rural+Broadband+Scheme

darrenheaphy · 07-09-2011 10:27am

Unfortunately I live in Templeorum, Co. Kilkenny and am 8KM away form Eircom exchange in Mullinavat. I can't therefore avail of DSL

I'm looking into Satellite broadband, seems to me to be the only alternative (3G or midband being unsuitable for streaming or occasional, but not essential, gaming).

As far as I can tell there are two providers of this:

Onwave
Digiweb

Both use tooway so I presume the service is more or less the same albeit with different rate limits and download usage restrictions.

Anyway, my question is this - Since Templeorum appears to be within the rural broadband scheme (pdf map) am I better off waiting to be contacted or will they invariably point me towards the above in any event?

Rural Broadband Scheme Information Megathread

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