Eircom to roll out 1Gb/s FTTH to 66 towns

AlmightyCushion · 27-02-2015 3:06pm

bk wrote: »

WOW, more massive news today. Eircom Wholesale have released the specification details and wholesale pricing of their FTTH products:

http://www.eircomwholesale.ie/news/FTTH_Pricing/

Standalone FTTH Product (Mb/s) - Monthly rental
150/30 €20.50
300/50 €25.50
1000/100 €35.50

POTS based FTTH Product (Mb/s) - Monthly rental
150/30 €6.98
300/50 €11.98
1000/100 €21.98

Note these are the wholesale charges, excluding VAT, etc.

As a comparison VDSL is currently priced at €17.50 and currently increasing to €19.50 (thus the recent Vodafone/Eircom/Sky price increases).

The €19.50 charge leads to a retail price of between, €38 (vodafone VDSL only) to €55 (Eircom including calls etc.).

So 150/30 FTTH should only be about €2 more expensive then their VDSL counterparts, while 1000/100 will have at least a €20 premium.

Also note, that there is a €150 install charge for the ONT, so expect a big up front install fee.

Eircom have said they are already started working on rolling it out to the first 16 of 66 towns and that it should go live around August. More here:

http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/eircom-to-launch-new-pure-broadband-with-speeds-of-up-to-1000mbs-31027344.html

A €20 premium on top of what Vodafone charge for VDSL is about €60. That's a great price for 1000 down, 100 up. Obviously, end user pricing is still up in the air but hopefully it's close to that.

bk · 27-02-2015 3:15pm

Great to see FTTH finally being widely rolled out in Ireland. And surprisingly by Eircom! ESB/Vodafone better get their finger out or it will be too late for them!

Hopefully ESB/Vodafone were just waiting for Eircoms pricing and they will now announce their own.

I think Eircom should have tiered their products slightly different, to better compete with UPC:

- 300/30
- 500/50
- 1000/100

would be more competitive IMO. They might actually start winning some people back from UPC with products like that!

I think the upload speeds are a little disappointing for an almost symmetric, FTTH product, specially at the 1000.

Also I'm surprised they haven't announced a VoIP service over the FTTH only product and seem to also be pushing a copper line in parallel with the FTTH line! Seems unnecessary, though I assume it is for regulatory reasons. Would be handy for those stuck with fax machines, monitored alarms, etc.

UPC better be careful here, while UPC still looks more competitive at the moment for the vast majority of people. They won't want to get left behind on speeds. They will need either DOCSIS 3.1 or DOCSIS 3.0 modems with more bandwidth. Better wifi gear, better DVR/TV experience and they need to become a quad play provider by launching their own mobile service.

Very interesting times ahead

EDIT: ED E in before me there again about the POTS line, I totally agree.

bk · 27-02-2015 3:18pm

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

A €20 premium on top of what Vodafone charge for VDSL is about €60. That's a great price for 1000 down, 100 up. Obviously, end user pricing is still up in the air but hopefully it's close to that.

Maybe, though I'd expect closer to €70 to be more realistic. Still very good for so much speed. But I do wonder how many people actually need those speeds.

Also BTW while I mentioned the high ONT install charge, I don't see any information if that includes the cost of running the fiber to the home or not! Obviously that could make a big difference to install charges.

Either way, I certainly wouldn't be expecting any free installs.

ElNino · 27-02-2015 4:12pm

Very interesting news. Have eircom revealed what the first 16 towns are going to be? I am specifically wondering about Ennis.

PeadarB · 27-02-2015 5:53pm

ED E wrote: »

As the POTS option is cheaper and requires a double drop I think we can assume they're separate charges. That means its 2x the cost to maintain PSTN services, roll on VOIP!

31st August 2015 pricing date (TBC) would indicate availability from soon after that date.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QvVXFdKHY5Y

Geoff Shakespeare seems to be indicating FTTDp as the preferred choice here - in essence this is my transcript of what he was saying from 4.30 on in the clip was - "When we built the original NGA what we were doing with the cabinet based stuff, actually we dropped 24 fibres at every cabinet, even though we only needed 4. The reason we did that was so we could, when the time was right, we could pick those fibres up and bring them out in a GPON configuration. And a GPON configuration basically lets us take one fibre strand and split it into 32 and bring it out to peoples homes. So effectively those 20 spare fibres in a cabinet, you know, let us connect a couple of hundred more homes with GPON. So what we are looking at doing, we'll use a technology called 10GPON, which means that those 32 fibres will be able to share dynamically 10 gig of capacity which moves things on dramatically. When we look at G.FAST, we've actually done a pilot on G.FAST, and effectively what we can see is that over a copper drop of between, you know, 30 and 100 metres we see about a Gb of capacity on a persons line, roughly speaking, the way we have the trial set up, 750 down 250 up. And, you know, and where we would like to go with G.FAST is that it would be reversed powered from the customers CP so we don't have the expense of trenching in ESB power. So effectively what we will do is we will take one of those strands of fibres, and if it's an area where we're not running G.PON in there we'll take that strand and run that strand into the G.FAST modem and serve 8 to 12 houses off of that G.FAST modem, bringing those kinds of speeds without having to interfere with the ingress point into the house, 'cause one of the issues when you run a fibre network is, if you've got to get into somebody's house and drill a brand new hole or dig a trench in a garden, which in urban areas, tends to be a bigger issue that in rural areas, then you're looking for a clever way of getting that bandwidth in, and taking the fibre to within 30 or 40 metres of the home, putting the electronics there at the top of a pole, and then driving that bandwidth into the home. That's a clever way of doing it, so that's the king of way we see ourselves using G.FAST. It's a very promising technology.

When you look at it, really, with the distances involved, the idea of, I mean, effectively copper based broadband technologies require the electronics to be closer to the home, so as I kind of described, you know, we put it out to the cabinet within a km of the home and we can serve the 200 customers connected to that cabinet. We put it to a pole within 30 meters of a home we can serve 8 customers off that pole but when you're in rural areas you're not going to get those aggregations of people easily. So really, when you look at it from a technology point of view, fibre is the solution to put it out there. and, what we're looking at is G.PON and we are being quite creative. Ireland is a reasonably unique location for how our build practices have been and we tend to do an awful lot of what we call ribbon and rural. In other words you have a crossroads with a pub and a church and a shop and then there's houses going out north south east and west, and it's a difficult environment to serve. So you have to be quite creative and it's reasonably unique, certainly in Europe as we look at the techniques, so we're spending a lot of time and money trying to understand what those build techniques would look like. We're building a pilot up in Belcarra up in County Mayo where we are testing a lot of these configurations out and thats all with a view to putting our best foot forward when the National Broadband Plan does come out".

They will be squeezing the bejayzus out of that last 20 to 30 meter pair but given that it's already in place the fibre blow to the new mini dslam on the pole should be relatively straight forward. As to a direct FTTH connection from the cab we'll soon see what the plan is, I hope.

godskitchen · 27-02-2015 7:37pm

If I have this correct in my head it will work as follows...

Eircom will run fibre from your building to your vdsl cabinet. Will there be a higher cost the father away you are and what will the limit be for fibre runs?

Does anyone know what the first 16 towns are?

EDIT:
Thought I would add that this is a great break through and it seems Eircom are serious about staying in the game. This will shoot Ireland up the league table for internet speed in just a few years.

bealtine · 27-02-2015 7:39pm

I suspect the vast bulk of these "fibre" installs will be G.Fast, that is fibre to the pole outside the house and the last few metres will be copper, but I could be wrong of course

ItHurtsWhenIP · 27-02-2015 8:10pm

bk wrote: »

Maybe, though I'd expect closer to €70 to be more realistic. Still very good for so much speed. But I do wonder how many people actually need those speeds.

Dude/Dudette - I'm paying €35 for 3/1 - I will very very happily pay €70 for 1000/100 ... funded by dropping Sky Sports of course

Gonzo · 27-02-2015 9:14pm

MMFITWGDV wrote: »

Dude/Dudette - I'm paying €35 for 3/1 - I will very very happily pay €70 for 1000/100 ... funded by dropping Sky Sports of course

I would love the extra speed seeing as im just into the 10meg mark but if i was given a choice of the 3 speed alternatives outlined by Eircom I would probably go for the 150/15... anything else is just to show off. I can do most things fine on 10meg, 4 or 5 people all using the internet together in the one home would probably work grand on 150meg... Unless everybody needs to be downloading 1080p movies 24/7 in every room in the house would 1000meg be needed! the only other reason would be for that 100meg upload if you were a business user and had to send large files fast every single day.

Mc Love · 28-02-2015 12:08am

This is going to be a good year, hoping my area gets the ftth

rob808 · 28-02-2015 12:50am

Gonzo wrote: »

I would love the extra speed seeing as im just into the 10meg mark but if i was given a choice of the 3 speed alternatives outlined by Eircom I would probably go for the 150/15... anything else is just to show off. I can do most things fine on 10meg, 4 or 5 people all using the internet together in the one home would probably work grand on 150meg... Unless everybody needs to be downloading 1080p movies 24/7 in every room in the house would 1000meg be needed! the only other reason would be for that 100meg upload if you were a business user and had to send large files fast every single day.

I think your forgetting about 4k Tv they be the norm in a few years and most pc gamer have 4k monitors and wouldn't go back to 1080p.I think 100meg grand for now but your gonna need 1gb be happy if you can get it.Im in rural Ireland on DSL 4mb that a far cry from 100meg never mind 1gb.

Gonzo · 28-02-2015 12:57am

rob808 wrote: »

I think your forgetting about 4k Tv they be the norm in a few years and most pc gamer have 4k monitors and wouldn't go back to 1080p.I think 100meg grand for now but your gonna need 1gb be happy if you can get it.Im in rural Ireland on DSL 4mb that a far cry from 100meg never mind 1gb.

dunno about 4K tv, it's years away from getting anywhere. normal HD is only starting to get going now after a few very slow years and the less said about 3DTV the better! Im sure 4K will be great but it's gonna be years before it's widespread and we won't see it in gaming consoles for at least 5 more years. Sure were still waiting for TV3 to go HD!

rob808 · 28-02-2015 1:16am

Gonzo wrote: »

dunno about 4K tv, it's years away from getting anywhere. normal HD is only starting to get going now after a few very slow years and the less said about 3DTV the better! Im sure 4K will be great but it's gonna be years before it's widespread and we won't see it in gaming consoles for at least 5 more years. Sure were still waiting for TV3 to go HD!

yea I know what you mean but I bet yea eircom and vodafone will launch a 4k tv channels through FTTH.It good the trail in mayo was a success it give me some hope of getting decent broadband if Eircom win the contract for NBP took me 20+ hours to download assassin creed unity on Xbox 41gp it probably take 1 min or less on 1gb.

Nolars · 28-02-2015 3:08am

Gonzo wrote: »

dunno about 4K tv, it's years away from getting anywhere. normal HD is only starting to get going now after a few very slow years and the less said about 3DTV the better! Im sure 4K will be great but it's gonna be years before it's widespread and we won't see it in gaming consoles for at least 5 more years. Sure were still waiting for TV3 to go HD!

Nearly every high end device if be smartphones or cameras can shoot 4k now or even for the past year. Youtube supports 4k for a good while. Netflix is doing 4k. With more and more content being watched online and less on TV, TV isnt the norm anymore.

DoYouEvenLift · 28-02-2015 3:23am

What's the point of this if they just send out warnings to their customers who download movies illegally? Let's be honest, the people who actually make use of speeds like this are torrenters.

rob808 wrote: »

yea I know what you mean but I bet yea eircom and vodafone will launch a 4k tv channels through FTTH.It good the trail in mayo was a success it give me some hope of getting decent broadband if Eircom win the contract for NBP took me 20+ hours to download assassin creed unity on Xbox 41gp it probably take 1 min or less on 1gb.

Not that it's a huge difference but it would take ~5 minutes, at least if you were getting the full 1Gb/125MB per second download speed.

Calibos · 28-02-2015 3:37am

Gonzo wrote: »

I would love the extra speed seeing as im just into the 10meg mark but if i was given a choice of the 3 speed alternatives outlined by Eircom I would probably go for the 150/15... anything else is just to show off. I can do most things fine on 10meg, 4 or 5 people all using the internet together in the one home would probably work grand on 150meg... Unless everybody needs to be downloading 1080p movies 24/7 in every room in the house would 1000meg be needed! the only other reason would be for that 100meg upload if you were a business user and had to send large files fast every single day.

You're not wrong.

7 Adults in our household, all browsing, streaming, torrenting, youtubing, gaming and quite often all at the same time. 4 Desktops, 2 laptops, 2 tablets, 7 Smartphones and 6 XBMC HTPC's.

Our 120/12mb UPC connection never broke a sweat.

Just upgraded to the 245/25mb package the other day doubling our bandwidth even though the 120mb was plenty.

For the simple reason that this new package was the same price as what we were paying for the 120mb and it also came with free calls to mobiles which were costing us €5-€30 on our bill.

One of my brothers explained how its a trip down memory lane for him when he and his GF stay at her family home where they can only get 7/0.7mb. Just like my gamer brother 10 years ago, his GF's teenage gaming brother often pops his head in the door and frustratingly exclaims, "Is anyone downloading anything!?!?!" when his connection/ping goes to sh!t

Ah, I remember those days!

mass_debater · 28-02-2015 7:52am

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

What's the point of this if they just send out warnings to their customers who download movies illegally? Let's be honest, the people who actually make use of speeds like this are torrenters.

Who? Wait, what?

murphaph · 28-02-2015 8:04am

Fair play Eircom. Credit where it's due in apparently being quicker to market with FTTH despite "playing catch up" (if some of the posters here are to be believed) with ESB.

It isn't actually surprising of course. The FTTH is an extension of the existing VDSL network. For once a big Irish company future proofed something and it's paying off for them.

DoYouEvenLift · 28-02-2015 8:16am

murphaph wrote: »

Fair play Eircom. Credit where it's due in apparently being quicker to market with FTTH despite "playing catch up" (if some of the posters here are to be believed) with ESB.

It isn't actually surprising of course. The FTTH is an extension of the existing VDSL network. For once a big Irish company future proofed something and it's paying off for them.

I'll still never be able to look past how little of an effort they made with improving their broadband standards before UPC came along with fibre. I'd love if there was a way to know how long it would've actually taken them to make such efforts if they hadn't competitors pressuring them, it's probably safe to assume we'd be nowhere near the standard we are at today without UPC so if any ISP deserves praise it's them. Hopefully if this all goes ahead soon and there's more investment in Ireland from large tech companies we'll be able to have better international recognition for the speed that our internet infrastructure has improved.

Praetorian · 28-02-2015 9:30am

I would also love to know which towns are first. Personally I'd prefer gpon over gfast. Although I would also like to know what ping times are expected on eircoms gfast implementation.

It''s certainly all happening now. Direct fed vdsl, gfast, gpon, upc upgrades, and ftth.

rob808 · 28-02-2015 9:38am

Praetorian wrote: »

I would also love to know which towns are first. Personally I'd prefer gpon over gfast. Although I would also like to know what ping times are expected on eircoms gfast implementation.

It''s certainly all happening now. Direct fed vdsl, gfast, gpon, upc upgrades, and ftth.

They use G.fast in places were the lines are underground and are to hard to reach you can still get up to 1Gb with G.fast.

stefanovich · 28-02-2015 9:43am

Calibos wrote: »

One of my brothers explained how its a trip down memory lane for him when he and his GF stay at her family home where they can only get 7/0.7mb. Just like my gamer brother 10 years ago, his GF's teenage gaming brother often pops his head in the door and frustratingly exclaims, "Is anyone downloading anything!?!?!" when his connection/ping goes to sh!t Ah, I remember those days!

10 years ago I was suffering with dial up getting 3kB/s max. Eircom line couldn't handle ASDL. Only other option was ISDN which was pricey.

Downloading something overnight or over the space of a few days. Some joker makes a phone call! Download managers were a godsend.

Finally I moved and got internet with Smart telecom. The difference was unbelievable. I think it was around 20Mb.

Rocking a 240/24 UPC connection now. I think my choice is always going to be the fastest available. Driven somewhat by earlier dialup related feelings of inadequacy.

bk · 28-02-2015 10:10am

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

I'll still never be able to look past how little of an effort they made with improving their broadband standards before UPC came along with fibre. I'd love if there was a way to know how long it would've actually taken them to make such efforts if they hadn't competitors pressuring them, it's probably safe to assume we'd be nowhere near the standard we are at today without UPC so if any ISP deserves praise it's them. Hopefully if this all goes ahead soon and there's more investment in Ireland from large tech companies we'll be able to have better international recognition for the speed that our internet infrastructure has improved.

Here, here, given Eircoms track record, had it not been for UPC, the rollout of VDSL would have been much slower (as in years slower) and I'm sure a lot more expensive, they would have charged it as a premium product.

This is why real competition is so important.

BTW yes, Ireland has already leapt up various international speed indexs, such at speednet, netflix, steam, etc. and it is definitely been noticed by the likes of Google who like to have the employees have the ability to work from home.

stefanovich wrote: »

Rocking a 240/24 UPC connection now. I think my choice is always going to be the fastest available. Driven somewhat by earlier dialup related feelings of inadequacy.

Haha, yes! I know exactly what you mean!! Eircom should be paying for therapy for us all

Having said that, if Eircom continues the way they have over the last two years, with the VDSL rollout, then I'll give them a big shout out and a pat on the back and say yes, they do seem to have changed their colours.

After all, the truth is there are many fantastic people working at Eircom, network planners, engineers of various types, middle managers at Eircom who are great people, who I'm sure where dying to give the people of Ireland fantastic broadband, but where for years held back and frustrated from doing so by upper management who were only interested in using Eircom as their own personal piggy bank and lining their own pockets. Now those upper management seem to be gone and that is better for all of us

murphaph · 28-02-2015 11:45am

I think refusing to buy an Eircom product today would be akin to refusing to buy a VW because they did some very bad things under previous management! The old guard seem to be gone. I wish it were so here in Germany but Telekom seems to want to sweat every last drop out of their copper last mile and unfortunately Kabel Deutschland hasn't been as proactive as UPC in Ireland. Enjoy it! Great time to be Irish and interested in these things. I'd expect Ireland to top the list of (real) European countries (so excluding the likes of Monaco etc.) within 5 years if all these plans come to fruition. Only select Asian countries will be ahead of us at that stage too, if even them.

ED E · 28-02-2015 11:47am

Gonzo wrote: »

dunno about 4K tv, it's years away from getting anywhere. normal HD is only starting to get going now after a few very slow years and the less said about 3DTV the better! Im sure 4K will be great but it's gonna be years before it's widespread and we won't see it in gaming consoles for at least 5 more years. Sure were still waiting for TV3 to go HD!

Conventional broadcast maybe, but youtube already do 4k, my phone is 2560x1440 and my new monitor will be same. When IPTV becomes the big player resolutions will scale much quicker as it won't depend on hardware decoders in STBs. A lot of stuff is already shot above 1080 but the current tv networks are primarily 720p (stoneage now tbh).

DoYouEvenLift · 28-02-2015 11:50am

Can someone comment on my earlier post ITT as well? I left eircom because I received a warning, or two, about downloading copyright material. Haven't had any issues like that with Vodafone. Are eircom still doing that and other bullsh!t?

murphaph · 28-02-2015 11:53am

ED E wrote: »

Conventional broadcast maybe, but youtube already do 4k, my phone is 2560x1440 and my new monitor will be same. When IPTV becomes the big player resolutions will scale much quicker as it won't depend on hardware decoders in STBs. A lot of stuff is already shot above 1080 but the current tv networks are primarily 720p (stoneage now tbh).

Broadcasting as we know it will seem very strange to our children's children. They'll wonder why we blasted random transmissions out to people who may or may not (mostly not) be interested in the content at all, when the obvious thing to do is allow people to watch what they want, when they want it.

For this to really work for multiple users in a property and in the new resolutions, it must be fibre. Copper was fine for voice, but it isn't fine for the future bandwidth needs we will all have.

hfallada · 28-02-2015 11:59am

Its great to see that in Ireland, even though we so small. That cities will probably have choice of high speed broadband from either Eircom, UPC and possibly vodafone. In the US, cities generally have 1 internet provider who is super expensive and quite slow. Due to US cable companies agreeing not to compete in each others markets.

Hopefully there will be competition between internet providers and it puts an end to the constant price increases of UPC

MajesticDonkey · 28-02-2015 11:59am

rob808 wrote: »

I think your forgetting about 4k Tv they be the norm in a few years and most pc gamer have 4k monitors and wouldn't go back to 1080p.I think 100meg grand for now but your gonna need 1gb be happy if you can get it.Im in rural Ireland on DSL 4mb that a far cry from 100meg never mind 1gb.

How many PC gamers do you know with 4k monitors!? I have a very high end gaming PC with two 1080p monitors. 4k monitors are still upwards of €500-600, don't forget. Very few people have one.

dxhound2005 · 28-02-2015 12:00pm

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

I'll still never be able to look past how little of an effort they made with improving their broadband standards before UPC came along with fibre. I'd love if there was a way to know how long it would've actually taken them to make such efforts if they hadn't competitors pressuring them, it's probably safe to assume we'd be nowhere near the standard we are at today without UPC so if any ISP deserves praise it's them. Hopefully if this all goes ahead soon and there's more investment in Ireland from large tech companies we'll be able to have better international recognition for the speed that our internet infrastructure has improved.

No sign of UPC in Dundalk or anywhere in counties Monaghan or Cavan. Nor probably in the majority of the 26 counties. Why are Eircom bringing fibre to every county if they are only reacting to UPC?

After dial up I had 512/128 k which has gradually gone up to 50/15 m and the price has come down substantially. All in the absence of any UPC option. It's just the progression of technology and if Eircom are going to be in the market why would they not use the latest and best systems?

If UPC are serious about competeing in the market they have to offer a nationwide product.

DoYouEvenLift · 28-02-2015 12:02pm

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

How many PC gamers do you know with 4k monitors!? I have a very high end gaming PC with two 1080p monitors. 4k monitors are still upwards of €500-600, don't forget. Very few people have one.

This. If he said 1440p it'd probably hold true though.

dxhound2005 wrote: »

No sign of UPC in Dundalk or anywhere in counties Monaghan or Cavan. Nor probably in the majority of the 26 counties. Why are Eircom bringing fibre to every county if they are only reacting to UPC?

After dial up I had 512/128 k which has gradually gone up to 50/15 m and the price has come down substantially. All in the absence of any UPC option. It's just the progression of technology and if Eircom are going to be in the market why would they not use the latest and best systems?

If UPC are serious about competeing in the market they have to offer a nationwide product.

Clearly missing my point. Eircom basically had a monopoly on broadband in a large part of the country for a time here and were laid back when it came to improving and innovating since, like any business, why upgrade and cut into your profits when you can hold off for as long as possible until you absolutely have to upgrade. This is understandable from a business point of view but from a customer point of view it's very bad. When UPC came along you do realise they couldn't just start work on such a network, right? Because eircom had most of the regions and that's basically why we saw UPC upgrading area by area over time, as they grew and paid for more expanding into more regions. Eircom seeing how successful UPC were getting and growing and basically the shameful comparisons in speeds obviously finally registered with them and they decided to get back in the game, and now are trying to get ahead of the game with genuine innovations such as this Gigabit network.

Even if UPC had decided to upgrade those areas you mentioned at first rather than the ones they actually happened to do the result would've eventually been the same.

Do you think UPC have stopped expanding upon their regions or something? You seem to think that they're not aiming to be able to offer a nationwide service lol, why would they not want more customers?

PeadarB · 28-02-2015 12:27pm

Praetorian wrote: »

I would also love to know which towns are first. Personally I'd prefer gpon over gfast. Although I would also like to know what ping times are expected on eircoms gfast implementation.

It''s certainly all happening now. Direct fed vdsl, gfast, gpon, upc upgrades, and ftth.

http://www.eircomwholesale.ie/news/eircom_Wholesale_to_Offer_Gigabit_Broadband_Speeds/

Looks like Cavan Town, Kilkenny City and Letterkenny are in the first row for this. Past experience tells us that once eircom throw the ball in it could go anywhere between the 66 locations. The efibre rollout was phenominal and went very quickly with few glitches.

http://www.huawei.com/en/solutions/broader-smarter/hw-364940.htm

Huawei are at the forefront of G.Fast development and with the now experienced eircom and KN personnel, could provide these products on demand once the upgraded civils are in place.

mass_debater · 28-02-2015 12:58pm

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

Can someone comment on my earlier post ITT as well? I left eircom because I received a warning, or two, about downloading copyright material. Haven't had any issues like that with Vodafone. Are eircom still doing that and other bullsh!t?

It was only music, and only for people clueless enough to leave their public ip visible for all to see. Anyway they have stated that they never actually disconnected anyone. It was a money saving deal to avoid further court cases fighting a mafia with deep pockets

ThisRegard · 28-02-2015 8:06pm

murphaph wrote: »

Broadcasting as we know it will seem very strange to our children's children.

Actually to our children, never mind their children. I only had a similar discussion earlier with my wife while we were making dinner and I had the rugby playing on the laptop, and the kids had HD movies on demand in the living room via Chromecast and Netflix.

We were saying they don't know how lucky they have it. When we were their age a movie was to be anticipated weeks in advance and a whole family evening was based around it such was y he rarity of it.

Manc Red · 28-02-2015 8:11pm

When they say it's going to be rolled out in those towns, what do they mean? Do they mean to every house and business or only a select few? I cant imagine it taking less than a year to finish putting fibre into everyone's homes.

rob808 · 28-02-2015 9:53pm

Manc Red wrote: »

When they say it's going to be rolled out in those towns, what do they mean? Do they mean to every house and business or only a select few? I cant imagine it taking less than a year to finish putting fibre into everyone's homes.

It take 6 months to complete first six towns,I think it done by demand you have to order it then they hook you up not sure on this doh.

stefanovich · 28-02-2015 9:56pm

Manc Red wrote: »

When they say it's going to be rolled out in those towns, what do they mean? Do they mean to every house and business or only a select few? I cant imagine it taking less than a year to finish putting fibre into everyone's homes.

"Customer connections will be provided as demand for this connectivity emerges."

Looks like they are just talking about putting the infrastructure in place. How do they gauge when there is demand? There is demand now I reckon!

rob808 · 28-02-2015 10:02pm

stefanovich wrote: »

"Customer connections will be provided as demand for this connectivity emerges."

Looks like they are just talking about putting the infrastructure in place. How do they gauge when there is demand? There is demand now I reckon!

If it done that way then the other efibre location not on 66 town could get FFTH in the future which isn't bad if there enough demand of course.

DoYouEvenLift · 28-02-2015 10:52pm

Should they not do it like Google's Gigabit internet and make it available everywhere in the area and customers who want it from the start will get it and over time the rest can sign up and then it's just as simple as running the fibre from the nearby boxes into the new customers homes. A lot of people wouldn't sign up at the start but once they see it in use at their neighbours and friends places they'll want it. This way the entire areas are all future proofed and other ISPs will be playing catch up.

If they also did a similar package to Google and gave a one time charge package for a 10Mb connection it'd be good.

grbear · 01-03-2015 1:11am

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

Should they not do it like Google's Gigabit internet and make it available everywhere in the area and customers who want it from the start will get it and over time the rest can sign up and then it's just as simple as running the fibre from the nearby boxes into the new customers homes. A lot of people wouldn't sign up at the start but once they see it in use at their neighbours and friends places they'll want it. This way the entire areas are all future proofed and other ISPs will be playing catch up.

If they also did a similar package to Google and gave a one time charge package for a 10Mb connection it'd be good.

Eircom don't really have the ability to make money off selling ads so I can't see them offering a free package like that.

As someone who isn't in one of the 66 towns listed to get this and almost certainly won't be in whatever expanded list of towns comes next I'm still excited to see Eircom start offering connections like this to customers and I hope it does well for them.

That being said I'd still prefer to see the ESB get the contract to roll out the NBP and bring FTTH to everyone as I really don't want to give Eircom any of my money due to bad experiences with their idea of customer care in the past.

tv221 · 01-03-2015 11:04am

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

This. If he said 1440p it'd probably hold true though.

Clearly missing my point. Eircom basically had a monopoly on broadband in a large part of the country for a time here and were laid back when it came to improving and innovating since, like any business, why upgrade and cut into your profits when you can hold off for as long as possible until you absolutely have to upgrade. This is understandable from a business point of view but from a customer point of view it's very bad. When UPC came along you do realise they couldn't just start work on such a network, right? Because eircom had most of the regions and that's basically why we saw UPC upgrading area by area over time, as they grew and paid for more expanding into more regions. Eircom seeing how successful UPC were getting and growing and basically the shameful comparisons in speeds obviously finally registered with them and they decided to get back in the game, and now are trying to get ahead of the game with genuine innovations such as this Gigabit network.

Even if UPC had decided to upgrade those areas you mentioned at first rather than the ones they actually happened to do the result would've eventually been the same.

Do you think UPC have stopped expanding upon their regions or something? You seem to think that they're not aiming to be able to offer a nationwide service lol, why would they not want more customers?

Yes UPC have stopped expanding. I can think of numerous area's with hundreds of houses within a few meters of existing network that don't cross busy roads or other such hindrances that have not be cabled as they can't be bothered. Didn't their CEO say they wouldn't look outside current footprint.

KOR101 · 01-03-2015 1:16pm

tv221 wrote: »

Yes UPC have stopped expanding. I can think of numerous area's with hundreds of houses within a few meters of existing network that don't cross busy roads or other such hindrances that have not be cabled as they can't be bothered. Didn't their CEO say they wouldn't look outside current footprint.

That's my experience too. They are in the estate but only serve the apartment blocks in the estate. Terraced houses too, so would be easy to cable.

murphaph · 01-03-2015 1:36pm

tv221 wrote: »

Yes UPC have stopped expanding. I can think of numerous area's with hundreds of houses within a few meters of existing network that don't cross busy roads or other such hindrances that have not be cabled as they can't be bothered. Didn't their CEO say they wouldn't look outside current footprint.

Long term that's potentially a dangerous business model of course (expand or die etc.). It allows Eircom/ESB to just walk in to non-UPC estates and hook customers up to FTTH. Nobody will move backwards from FTTH to coax cable, so these customers will be extremely difficult to win over to UPC (and only then with FTTH as no matter how fast UPC can sweat their coax, the ESB or Eircom can just push their FTTH up to 11 and it will always be able to go to 11)

Eircom and the ESB will gradually go around rolling out FTTH avoiding UPC but in a few years they will run out of "alternative areas" and will start targeting UPC areas with FTTH (if UPC haven't already upgraded to FTTH themselves, but of course they have the best copper network that has far more bandwidth than a phone line so they are naturally going to be the least inclined to push FTTH the last bit. Maybe the'll look at a coax equivalent of G.Fast, which would allow them to replace the coax running along the fascia board or outside in the duct to be replaced with fibre and the last 10 feet with (what is a very high bandwidth) coax cable.

Hugely interesting times ahead.

ED E · 01-03-2015 3:04pm

If UPC stick with a DOCSIS3.1 layout their outgoings will be very low in comparison to the other players paying hundreds of thousands of man hours, they could easily undercut FTTH for several years and be the best value option for those who only need 600 or 800Mbps.

Avada · 01-03-2015 3:38pm

ED E wrote: »

If UPC stick with a DOCSIS3.1 layout their outgoings will be very low in comparison to the other players paying hundreds of thousands of man hours, they could easily undercut FTTH for several years and be the best value option for those who only need 600 or 800Mbps.

They'll need to seriously improve their routers! I'm using the ubee one at the moment. Things are bad when the Sky Hub 1.0 was better. A discussion for another thread though probably

dxhound2005 · 01-03-2015 4:10pm

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

Clearly missing my point. Eircom basically had a monopoly on broadband in a large part of the country for a time here and were laid back when it came to improving and innovating since, like any business, why upgrade and cut into your profits when you can hold off for as long as possible until you absolutely have to upgrade. This is understandable from a business point of view but from a customer point of view it's very bad. When UPC came along you do realise they couldn't just start work on such a network, right? Because eircom had most of the regions and that's basically why we saw UPC upgrading area by area over time, as they grew and paid for more expanding into more regions. Eircom seeing how successful UPC were getting and growing and basically the shameful comparisons in speeds obviously finally registered with them and they decided to get back in the game, and now are trying to get ahead of the game with genuine innovations such as this Gigabit network.

Even if UPC had decided to upgrade those areas you mentioned at first rather than the ones they actually happened to do the result would've eventually been the same.

Do you think UPC have stopped expanding upon their regions or something? You seem to think that they're not aiming to be able to offer a nationwide service lol, why would they not want more customers?

I'm sorry if you think I missed the point and that it is amusing for you. My question was what was the motivation for Eircom to continue upgrading the service available to me and hundreds of thousands of others who never got any offer from UPC. UPC didn't just happen to go into certain areas and ignore others. They did that deliberately.

Judging on their record to date there does not seem to be any evidence that UPC want to expand much further geographically. And unlike Eircom which has published detailed plans for the whole country, there is nothing like that from UPC. Unless you know different. When are they going into Co Donegal for instance?

ED E · 01-03-2015 8:35pm

UPC are in it to make money. Rural BB != profit. They're sitting pretty on a nice setup and raking in the cash.

Eircom is the USO. It has to provide phonelines(and dialup). It may as well sell BB on top of that while its there as its still got to maintain exchanges and service crews.

PixelTrawler · 01-03-2015 8:48pm

Bad idea for UPC to sit still though. The ds-lite nonsense may push some customers away. Sitting still trying to hold onto market share doesnt sound great.

Moving customer support out of Ireland may not be wise (could be a disaster and have to be brought back at huge cost - has happened other companies).

If eircom rolled out FTTH to suburban parts of dublin (I'm in D15) I'd move in a heartbeat.

The indo reported 2 weeks ago, UPC lost 14000 customers.

By the the way is it a case that its Dublin that will now be left behind in speeds?
http://pressroom.eircom.net/images/uploads/eircom%20FTTH%20Map.pdf
When you look at the maps here and the plans of ESB/Vodafone, it would appear so - I presume we'll be looking to UPC to turn up the dial

murphaph · 01-03-2015 9:31pm

Initially Dublin seems set to be left behind but (speaking as a Dub) I don't think that's a bad thing for the country. Speeds in Dublin are already generally very good and compare extremely favourably with our neighbours in Europe, largely thanks to UPC but Eircom have really filled a lot of the gaps and VDSL is very effective in urban and suburban areas.

Of course Dublin long term will get FTTH as well...the market is too big to ignore and as speeds move up and up I would expect the non-UPC areas in Dublin to be targeted by either Eircom or the ESB or both for FTTH, with a gradual targeting of UPC areas if UPC haven't themselves moved on from the current state of the art. The reality is that right now even several parallel 4k streams would be nothing to a UPC customer on a 240Mb connection (9 simultaneous 4k streams would be possible on 240Mb, so Dublin is mostly fine for several more years before it will "need" FTTH, so why not get FTTH rolled out to other parts now as they actually need something better than they currently have and once FTTH is done, it's pretty much infinitely up-gradable...the fibre simply has almost no attenuation to worry about and critically causes nor is subject to electromagnetic interference, so speeds can probably be pushed way way higher than 1Gb by upgrading the terminal equipment as new technologies become available.

KeRbDoG · 01-03-2015 10:55pm

Did Eircom release any details on how they play to run FTTH? I would throw a guess that they will only be running FTTH in estates/built-up-areas and rural folks will miss out but would like to see details if they exist

Eircom to roll out 1Gb/s FTTH to 66 towns

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