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

bk · 28-10-2014 10:56pm

First of all you are all going off topic talking about rural broadband.

timmydel1 wrote: »

"Eircom to roll out FTTH to 66 towns" " ESB/Vodafone to roll out FTTH to 55 towns"----Blaa Blaa Blaa... same old places connected over and over again ! Many towns/areas bypassed once again ! Most if not all on these lists of towns already have fibre available.How about giving fibre to some new areas !:mad:

You mean like places like Cavan and Mayo!!!

Plenty of places on those list with terrible broadband and no fibre.

If your town isn't on the list, then you should be looking for it to be included in the National Broadband Plan where the government will subsidise the roll out of very high speed broadband in non economic areas.

galait wrote: »

The Eircom guy on the radio this evening did not give me much hope as a rural dweller ,
He said this is not Singapore or South Korea where people live in high rise apartments making 100% penetration easy , He simply said Ireland is the most rural economy in Europe and reaching everyone in Rural Ireland was impossible due to cost...

And everything he said is 100% correct.

Ireland has one of the hishest rural populations in Europe. 40% of the Irish population lives in rural Ireland. To compare that only 10% of people live in rural France.

FTTH to low density areas will be shockingly expensive (think north of €10,000 per home!) and it will only happen if subsidised by the government or paid for by people in rural Ireland themselves.

georgiecasey wrote: »

no consumer needs 1Gb for the foreseeable future. 70Megabit is more than enough. 4k streaming would be about 15Megabits so eFibre should handle it easy. and there's no new medium that needs that bandwidth unlike when we got 1Megbit whichwas great for music but looking forward to 5Megabit for video.

eircom should concentrate on building out rural broadband and getting everywhere up to 5Megabits at least.

inb4 abuse from people salivating at the thought of 1Gb like a petrolhead yearns for a car that does 0-60 in 3 seconds.

The thing is it isn't really about speed.

Almost all existing broadband technologies with the exception of FTTH are limited by distance, making them unsuitable for rural bb. Only FTTH doesn't suffer from these issues.

The high speeds of FTTH is a happy side effect of using FTTH. Unfortunately there isn't really any cheaper middle ground. It pretty much comes down to FTTH or shockingly bad BB (1 - 2mb/s)

PeadarB · 28-10-2014 11:39pm

From Silicon Republic 21/02/2013 - http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/31582-eircom-next-gen-network-is

“We’ve architected our network to actually go FTTH. Where we’ve built the cabinets we’ve got enough fibre to serve not only the cabinet but push it out further to premises.”Hribar said that at present the economics don’t add up.
Installing fibre to every home in Ireland would be an investment that could amount to billions of euros.
“I’m sure that Ireland will one day enjoy FTTH across a large part of the country, but it could take a long time to get there but we’re building our network in anticipation of evolving it to that point.
“This is not a single fibre but multiple fibres and the splice points are in the cabinet that we can pick up and push fibre all the way out to the distribution points and we then have the capability of bringing fibre to the home,” Hribar said.

How things have changed since then.

lmimmfn · 28-10-2014 11:43pm

bk wrote: »

The high speeds of FTTH is a happy side effect of using FTTH. Unfortunately there isn't really any cheaper middle ground. It pretty much comes down to FTTH or shockingly bad BB (1 - 2mb/s)

Its not just that though, its the potential that it provides for futureproofing( if that can be a thing ).
In 2005 i had 3Mb broadband, i was happy with it, played loads of BF2 online, listened to podcasts and surfed the web. Roll on 2013 and i was still on 3-4Mb broadband and it was shockingly bad. Waste of time watching youtube, had to ad block all web sites due to the delays in loading them, and i really could have only 1 device in the house connected to the internet at any 1 time.

Then VDSL came along and its utterly fantastic, have 2 PC's, laptop, tablet and 2 phones connected all the time without issue. Thats fine for now but in 7 or 8 years 100Mbit wont be enough. The web changes so quickly and becomes more and more demanding. FTTH means it will be good for the next 10-15 years at least until something better comes along( i doubt it will for a long time though ).

Its Only Ray Parlour · 29-10-2014 12:02am

lmimmfn wrote: »

Thats fine for now but in 7 or 8 years 100Mbit wont be enough. The web changes so quickly and becomes more and more demanding. FTTH means it will be good for the next 10-15 years at least until something better comes along( i doubt it will for a long time though ).

15Mb is about enough to stream 4K. FTTH can do around 1000Mb. There's fibre optic cables out there that can do 99.7% of the speed of light, which could circumnavigate the earth at least 7 times in one second. Nothing is faster than the speed of light.

Johnboy1951 · 29-10-2014 12:23am

Its Only Ray Parlour wrote: »

15Mb is about enough to stream 4K. FTTH can do around 1000Mb. There's fibre optic cables out there that can do 99.7% of the speed of light, which could circumnavigate the earth at least 7 times in one second. Nothing is faster than the speed of light.

I'll wait for that so

Bog Standard User · 29-10-2014 12:46am

its not as complicated for eircom to roll out ftth. the main barrier is cost of optical cable. but at least eircom have the option of selling the old copper cables for recycling to offset some of the cost of optic cables

the current fttc cabs can easily be converted to ftth. all it involves is swapping out the copper based cards for optical based cards.

bk · 29-10-2014 1:03am

Bog Standard User wrote: »

its not as complicated for eircom to roll out ftth. the main barrier is cost of optical cable. but at least eircom have the option of selling the old copper cables for recycling to offset some of the cost of optic cables

I'm afraid you are mistaken on both points.

The main cost of rolling out fiber is labour/civils. It represents 70 to 80% of the cost of rolling out FTTH. The cost of fiber is relatively irrelevant.

Also Eircom can't just pull up the copper cable, they are required to maintain it for the foreseeable future to enable other companies deliver LLU, etc.

I'm sure they will eventually be allowed to decommission the copper, but that is many years if not decades in the future!

Doddy · 29-10-2014 1:10am

Eircom is company in a strong market position looking to leverage more control over its weakening dominant position. It is essentially a late intuitive step by the company, I would like to know how much aid all these companies are reviving in grants from the TAX payers.

In the end the companies and government will screw us all with extra charges and taxes...

Doddy · 29-10-2014 1:13am

Eircom is a company in a strong market position looking to leverage more control over its weakening dominant position. It is essentially a late intuitive step by the company, I would like to know how much aid all these companies are reviving in grants from the TAX payers.

In the end the companies and government will screw us all with extra charges and taxes...

Bog Standard User · 29-10-2014 1:27am

bk wrote: »

I'm afraid you are mistaken on both points.

The main cost of rolling out fiber is labour/civils. It represents 70 to 80% of the cost of rolling out FTTH. The cost of fiber is relatively irrelevant.

Also Eircom can't just pull up the copper cable, they are required to maintain it for the foreseeable future to enable other companies deliver LLU, etc.

I'm sure they will eventually be allowed to decommission the copper, but that is many years if not decades in the future!

actually thats what i meant. (cost of optical cable) it cost alot money to buy and lay that cable. and yes they can replace the copper for optical. they simply do it on an order basis.

customer A wants ftth instead of fttc so they go pull out customer A's copper line and replace it with an optical line.

the cabs will have both copper based card (for pstn only / llu customers) and optical cards in them for a while for ftth customers

the beauty about optical is it is all or nothing. so if u pay for 200mb you get 200mb not 30mb or upto 200mb you get 200mb because distance is no longer a factor with optical so long as the distribution point along the ducting has an optical repeater on it.

another factor for eircom delaying ftth is due to irish water. they have damaged an unbelievable amount of lines through careless digging. not checking before digging

lucernarian · 29-10-2014 9:04am

I wonder what will be the impact upon existing infrastructure needs for the pstn network. In particular, running fibre up small tubes designed for ten or thirty pair cables to the DP. What will be the exact topology of the fibre network? Fit e.g. an 8-port "tap" beside an existing DP like China Telecom or KT corp (Korea).

I know that huawei have future proofed the cab rollout but that has little bearing on exchange fed lines.

Next, will they provide solutions for those on dialup modem based monitored alarms? Will the gpon equipment have a backup battery or use the existing pair to power some facilities? NBN in Australia uses a battery or none at all in different circumstances.

Another thing I'd like to see an answer to is what will happen to the rural hinterlands of the selected towns and will this tie in with the govts ideas of some subsidies? Will they only provide to within a certain distance of the nearest cab or exchange?

Will they diligently respect exchange boundaries like is the case with RSUs in Drogheda where some will enjoy VDSL and places nearby will get nothing?

How will gpon fit into the world of LLU or will it be treated as a different market by comreg with therefore no bearing on rollout?

Furp · 29-10-2014 9:50am

it is indeed interested particularly in housing estates and depending on when the existing copper was laid, is it possible to just push fibre through the existing ducts, I wouldn't have thought so does fiber still have to have larger radius bends compared to copper?

ED E · 29-10-2014 11:07am

Bog Standard User wrote: »

actually thats what i meant. (cost of optical cable) it cost alot money to buy and lay that cable. and yes they can replace the copper for optical. they simply do it on an order basis.

customer A wants ftth instead of fttc so they go pull out customer A's copper line and replace it with an optical line.

That only works for drop wires, that's a very small percentage of the copper network. The rest is bundled in 50,100,200,500,800 pair bundles that will have to be left insitue. So the cost recovery would be tiny.

SpaceTime · 29-10-2014 1:32pm

Furp wrote: »

it is indeed interested particularly in housing estates and depending on when the existing copper was laid, is it possible to just push fibre through the existing ducts, I wouldn't have thought so does fiber still have to have larger radius bends compared to copper?

Not really, it seems to be able to handle pretty serious bends these days, probably as good / better than copper (particularly as you can probably reduce the use of huge bundles of wires required for phone service by using multiplexing of multiple customers together onto a single fibre)

The biggest issue would be where wires are direct-buried without ducts at all. This was common at one stage where they used armoured cables rather than ducts. That's also a possible issue for ESB's FTTC rollout in a minority of areas and developments of a particular age.

The Irish utilities have been quite fond of ducts though which is a good thing! They're very fond of direct-burried cables in some countries which is a huge issue now for retrofitting fibre.

Praetorian · 29-10-2014 6:31pm

I don't expect an impressive roll out from Eircom on FTTH like we have seen with FTTC. The majority of customers are happy enough with up to 100m/bit offered via FTTC.

This is just an exercise in keeping up with the neighbors (UPC & Voda/ESB). Has there been any talk of money? How much they are going to invest for example?

Some people will pay a premium for FTTH. I would. Most of us on this forum probably would, so bring it on!

What would I pay? €300-400 towards the installation, and an extra €10-15 per month? Probably. It may not be marketable at those prices however.

What would ye pay?

bk · 29-10-2014 7:14pm

SpaceTime wrote: »

The biggest issue would be where wires are direct-buried without ducts at all. This was common at one stage where they used armoured cables rather than ducts. That's also a possible issue for ESB's FTTC rollout in a minority of areas and developments of a particular age.

In these cases I believe they will use G.Fast/FTTDp along the existing copper cable over the last 100 meters into the building.

This is what Eircom have to say on the matter in their NBP Submission:

FTTDP refers to the deployment of optical fibre as far as the copper distribution point (DP) and connection from the DP to the customer’s premises via existing copper infrastructure. The DP could be located in a manhole, an enclosure on a pole or in the basement of a building. This architecture
could support VDSL or G.fast technology for a short copper drop connection, normally less than 250m. G.fast is particularly appealing for drops of less than 50m but the disadvantage is that it requires a very significant number of active elements in the network (e.g. an element per 48, 32 or 16 users) which is operationally challenging. G.fast will be commercially available in late 2016,
although pre-commercial and pre-standardised versions are currently available. eircom will be conducting a prototype trial of G.fast over the coming months to gain more experience. eircom would consider G.fast to have advantages in cases where the connection to the house is under ground and has been obstructed preventing installation of a replacement connection to the house.
However, as many rural homes are connected via overhead, eircom considers that it should be possible, in the majority of cases, to deploy fibre all the way into the home. Nonetheless, G.fast offers an additional technical option that will prove useful in an FTTH deployment.

Gonzo · 29-10-2014 8:04pm

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

So it's just a case of giving even faster BB to people who have fast broadband while ignoring people who have slow BB.

This is the way I see it

Once upon a time, we were all equal on our 2 lane roads in our countryside and cities.
Eircom stepped in and finally offered us dual carriageways in parts of cities and some towns.

Eventually these dual carriageways started to become wider in cities and larger towns, they became motorways. The people in the countryside still had their 2 lane roads but potholes were starting to emerge.

Over the past 2 years all large towns and cities are now bypassed by large motorways and in some cases double and triple motorway rings. Now Eircom want to bypass these areas again with a 4th motorway ring offering 8 lanes of traffic in each direction, while the other motorways in these areas are still more than adequate for the next 10 years.

The 2 lane roads in the countryside are now beginning to crumble and turn into dirt tracks with grass growing along the middle of the roads.

Enjoy the mud tracks while we can because eventually they will become over grown by tree's with bit's of a pathway emerging through the nettles and submerged surfaces!

On a serious note tho we were all thinking Eircom are looking after the low hanging fruit first before moving on up the tree to higher and further places, but now that they are going to revisit the low hanging fruit yet again after 2016 when will they ever have the time or money to go any further up?

mobil 222 · 29-10-2014 9:16pm

Don't forget that Eircoms fibre network now comprises of enough capacity in the types of subduct they rolled out.
It was only in difficult duct situations that a single tube was used ,but in a lot of cases these orange duct they were using
comprised of a lot of tubes
In other words one tube coming from the Exchange could feed up to 4 cabinets leaving a few tubes for future development.

PeadarB · 10-11-2014 12:30pm

The latest addition to the fibre coverage map from eircom - http://fibrerollout.ie/where-and-when/ - now shows Letterkenny as -

"Letterkenny (Donegal)

11070 premises in this exchange can now access up to 100Mb/s fibre broadband. This is a planned FTTH exchange with speeds up to 1000Mb/s when complete".

Hope this happens soon. It will be interesting to see how this will be implemented. No doubt the backhaul from Letterkenny will have to be increased, though if you consider that each fibre cabinet is already linked back to the exchange via fibre, the core civils must be in place already.

Now now do they plan to get that little fibre all those 190 meters from the cab to my house? Or will it be a new connection back to the new "planned fibre exchange"?

ED E · 10-11-2014 2:52pm

PeadarB wrote: »

The latest addition to the fibre coverage map from eircom - http://fibrerollout.ie/where-and-when/ - now shows Letterkenny as -

"Letterkenny (Donegal)

11070 premises in this exchange can now access up to 100Mb/s fibre broadband. This is a planned FTTH exchange with speeds up to 1000Mb/s when complete".

Hope this happens soon. It will be interesting to see how this will be implemented. No doubt the backhaul from Letterkenny will have to be increased, though if you consider that each fibre cabinet is already linked back to the exchange via fibre, the core civils must be in place already.

Now now do they plan to get that little fibre all those 190 meters from the cab to my house? Or will it be a new connection back to the new "planned fibre exchange"?

Wrong thread buddy, this one is for ESB/Voda not Eircom.

bk · 10-11-2014 3:10pm

MOD: Thanks, lets try and keep things in their correct threads where possible.

fabo1thecross · 10-11-2014 7:57pm

Can someone explain to me how this will work. Say my case I'm connected to the ballinlee exchange in longford. I'm 4.2 km from the exchange and I always have what I'd call good enough broadband. After coming from 3g my nice stable ping and consistent 2.5 download speed is great. But direct Fed from the exchange I think it's called. I really would like to know what type of work will need to be done.

bk · 10-11-2014 8:37pm

fabo1thecross wrote: »

Can someone explain to me how this will work. Say my case I'm connected to the ballinlee exchange in longford. I'm 4.2 km from the exchange and I always have what I'd call good enough broadband. After coming from 3g my nice stable ping and consistent 2.5 download speed is great. But direct Fed from the exchange I think it's called. I really would like to know what type of work will need to be done.

If you order it and Eircom accepts the order, then they would run a new fibre cable from the closest FTTC cabinet to your home.

What we don't know yet, is what criteria Eircom will have to allow people to order this.

fabo1thecross · 10-11-2014 8:45pm

Thanks for the reply bk but I don't think there is a cab. I think it goes to the exchange. Am I wrong.

bk · 10-11-2014 9:07pm

fabo1thecross wrote: »

Thanks for the reply bk but I don't think there is a cab. I think it goes to the exchange. Am I wrong.

I would expect that they would run it from either the closest cab or exchange. The route your current line takes would be largely irrelevant.

Bog Standard User · 18-11-2014 12:22am

bk wrote: »

I would expect that they would run it from either the closest cab or exchange. The route your current line takes would be largely irrelevant.

the route is relevant... due to cost.

its likely gonna be run house to nearest cab rather than to exchange unless the exchange is closer than the nearest cab

bk · 18-11-2014 10:30am

Bog Standard User wrote: »

the route is relevant... due to cost.

its likely gonna be run house to nearest cab rather than to exchange unless the exchange is closer than the nearest cab

Which is exactly what I said. The route of your existing copper phone line is irrelevant as they will be running a new fiber line which as you say will most likely be run from the nearest exchange or cab.

Tommy Lagahan · 10-12-2014 10:29am

Gigabit, in Ireland? Ah jaysus I must still be asleep, better get up for college.
In all seriousness, it would fit them better to put a few cabinets in rural areas and feed us some ADSL2 or long range VDSL2. This 28.8k dial up line that I have is beyond a joke and fixed wireless is great until everyone hops on it and crushes it with contention. I'd settle for 5Mbit if I could get a steady ping.

murphaph · 10-12-2014 12:40pm

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Gigabit, in Ireland? Ah jaysus I must still be asleep, better get up for college.
In all seriousness, it would fit them better to put a few cabinets in rural areas and feed us some ADSL2 or long range VDSL2. This 28.8k dial up line that I have is beyond a joke and fixed wireless is great until everyone hops on it and crushes it with contention. I'd settle for 5Mbit if I could get a steady ping.

Actually the best hope for rural Ireland is FTTH. Copper technologies like xDSL fall off a cliff once you go past a km or so from the cabinet. At 2km you can forget it. And that's assuming your line is actually in good shape.

Instead of bemoaning FTTH rollouts, users in rural Ireland should be thankful for every metre of fibre that is pushed deeper into the countryside through these rollouts. They are your only hope for genuine quality BB in the future because no other technology is more or less impervious to problems caused by line distance.

You might settle for 5Mb today, but that's already useless for many modern applications and you would be back on here in 2 years talking about your 5Mb like you are talking about your dial up now. Aiming for 5Mb is absolutely pointless.

Tommy Lagahan · 10-12-2014 12:59pm

murphaph wrote: »

Actually the best hope for rural Ireland is FTTH. Copper technologies like xDSL fall off a cliff once you go past a km or so from the cabinet. At 2km you can forget it. And that's assuming your line is actually in good shape.

Instead of bemoaning FTTH rollouts, users in rural Ireland should be thankful for every metre of fibre that is pushed deeper into the countryside through these rollouts. They are your only hope for genuine quality BB in the future because no other technology is more or less impervious to problems caused by line distance.

You might settle for 5Mb today, but that's already useless for many modern applications and you would be back on here in 2 years talking about your 5Mb like you are talking about your dial up now. Aiming for 5Mb is absolutely pointless.

Speak for yourself, as someone whos been dealing with this for 8 years and probably will be for another 3 or 4, 5mbit now would be welcome.

I don't think the drop off for ADSL2 is too bad tbh: http://i.imgur.com/yFdt2.png
Provided the cabinets can do ADSL2, 8Mbit at 2.5KM (ofc lines will be worse so lets say 5) is still decent BASIC internet access which is something we don't even have. Don't even start me on the 3G joke.
Anyway the cabinets would facilitate rural FTTH (like thats gonna happen) later given how they're setting them up in urban areas to do such.
Ill be thankful for nothing until I get a cable into my house that gives me stable internet.

murphaph · 10-12-2014 1:25pm

You can't have rural FTTH without first driving fibre backhaul to a nearby town and from there to a nearby village and from there to a nearby cabinet and from there to your house. There's no "short cut" that FTTH can take straight to your house. It has to be a structured network or it would be total chaos to maintain. They can't start at your house and work backwards for obvious reasons.

Eircom, as far as I can tell, are simply driving fibre to every cabinet on their network. Given the pace of the rollout I expect every cabinet and exchange will be VDSL enabled within 3 years. If you live beyond the reach of a VDSL enabled cabinet or exchange then you will have to either wait for FTTH, or for your line to be moved to a new cabinet (Eircom are doing this as well at present) which is VDSL enabled and is within range. though the fibre rollout may as a by product provide you with quality fixed wireless as an interim solution for a few years. Quality fixed wireless needs quality (fibre) backhaul.

You know it's the same for people most of the world over who choose to live in very remote locations that they have sh!te broadband? It's one of the reasons property in such locations is much cheaper than in cities.

MajesticDonkey · 10-12-2014 1:38pm

murphaph wrote: »

You know it's the same for people most of the world over who choose to live in very remote locations that they have sh!te broadband? It's one of the reasons property in such locations is much cheaper than in cities.

I agreed with you up to here. Living in the countryside is not this luxury choice for everybody, as people seem to think it is. Some people have no choice.

Its Only Ray Parlour · 10-12-2014 1:49pm

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

I agreed with you up to here. Living in the countryside is not this luxury choice for everybody, as people seem to think it is. Some people have no choice.

Only animal farmers do. Only 3% of Belgium's population live in rural areas. Ireland's is over 30%. Instead of taking out a bigger mortgage and buying a house in a town/village or living in apartment, they chose the cheaper option of building outside of a town/village where land is much cheaper.

Now they are suffering the consequences by having poor broadband access.

frozenfrozen · 10-12-2014 1:58pm

Good internet in cities is a by-product of high population density, not the other way around.

For some reason I don't think every rural house is going to move to a city anytime soon so as it stands there needs to be a fix to this broadband problem, not the suggestion of everyone saving up more money to move closer to a town.

animaal · 10-12-2014 4:08pm

frozenfrozen wrote: »

For some reason I don't think every rural house is going to move to a city anytime soon so as it stands there needs to be a fix to this broadband problem, not the suggestion of everyone saving up more money to move closer to a town.

The point is that people in urban areas put up with smaller, overlooked properties, higher home tax, and a larger number of neighbours in close proximity. This is a compromise they accept, in order to have other benefits - perhaps to live closer to work or better internet services.

Likewise, there are advantages and disadvantages to living in rural areas.

If "there needs to be a fix", perhaps it can be arranged/funded by those who stand to benefit?

Edit: Just to add, I believe everybody should have access to a basic internet. But I don't believe the taxpayer should be on the hook for the costs of laying miles of fibre to one-off houses, so the occupants can get Netflix.

Its Only Ray Parlour · 10-12-2014 4:38pm

frozenfrozen wrote: »

Good internet in cities is a by-product of high population density, not the other way around.

For some reason I don't think every rural house is going to move to a city anytime soon so as it stands there needs to be a fix to this broadband problem, not the suggestion of everyone saving up more money to move closer to a town.

I don't think the rural dwellers of Ireland comprehend how lucky they are because they are getting a 100% rollout eventually. I'm not happy with that because it will cost a serious amount of money and our taxes won't be spent elsewhere where it will benefit the majority.

As it stands, there doesn't need to be a fix. Slow broadband isn't going to kill them and they put themsevles in this predicament, now they want the urban tax-payer to bail them out and if they don't, they'll logon to Boards.ie and present poorly-thought-out arguments about how they are entitled the high speed internet despite them being subsidized by both urban customers and urban tax-payers.

Tommy Lagahan · 10-12-2014 5:02pm

animaal wrote: »

Edit: Just to add, I believe everybody should have access to a basic internet. But I don't believe the taxpayer should be on the hook for the costs of laying miles of fibre to one-off houses, so the occupants can get Netflix.

This is what I'm getting at, ADSL2+ using existing lines just backed up with a closer cabinet would be plenty.
If I need 1000Mbit I'll lay my own damn cable or move.

SpaceTime · 10-12-2014 5:07pm

Every exchange needs to be on the NGN network at this stage though. The major ongoing issues in rural areas are caused by lack of backha to very small exchanges.

murphaph · 10-12-2014 8:39pm

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

I agreed with you up to here. Living in the countryside is not this luxury choice for everybody, as people seem to think it is. Some people have no choice.

Let's be honest with ourselves here. The problem is not living in rural Ireland, it's living in one off and/or ribbon development. Broadband can't be cost effectively deployed to such properties. It can be cost effectively deployed to rural towns and villages. Are you really going to suggest to me that all the people in all the houses in this map need to live 100 metres or more from their next door neighbours? If all those people lived (even in the same size properties with the same amount of land) in a cluster around the center of that map, they'd all have 100Mbps broadband by the end of next year at the latest. FACT! As it is, perhaps 10% of those premises will get anything near that and the rest will be on a sliding scale down to dial up. Are you going to defend the indefensible and tell me that all those people NEED to have built those modern properties there and couldn't have built them in a cluster around the existing "village" centre?

It's a lifestyle choice for the vast majority, with a very few minor exceptions such as farmers who have livestock. Even cereal farmers don't NEED to live on their farms. They can just as easily live in a nearby village, as can the vet, the forge, the pharmacist etc. Take a look at our neighbours in Great Britain on google maps and tell me why they don't seem to have the same development patterns if so many people NEED to live in these types of properties.

Its Only Ray Parlour wrote: »

I don't think the rural dwellers of Ireland comprehend how lucky they are because they are getting a 100% rollout eventually. I'm not happy with that because it will cost a serious amount of money and our taxes won't be spent elsewhere where it will benefit the majority.

As it stands, there doesn't need to be a fix. Slow broadband isn't going to kill them and they put themsevles in this predicament, now they want the urban tax-payer to bail them out and if they don't, they'll logon to Boards.ie and present poorly-thought-out arguments about how they are entitled the high speed internet despite them being subsidized by both urban customers and urban tax-payers.

I agree to an extent. Personally I believe that every town, village and hamlet should have FTTC, even if that requires a taxpayer subsidy. I believe those living further out in one off and ribbon developments should be allowed to pay for FTTH connections back to the nearest cabinet at their own expense, as is possible in the UK with openReach, or to be able to club together to sponsor additional FTTC cabinets closer to a group of properties. I have less of a problem with some sort of direct subsidy for initial installation of quality fixed wireless, with towers fed from the fibre backhaul that has been subsidised by general taxation, but the cost of running should be borne entirely by the users at the full economic cost.

MajesticDonkey · 10-12-2014 9:38pm

Its Only Ray Parlour wrote: »

Slow broadband isn't going to kill them and they put themsevles in this predicament, now they want the urban tax-payer to bail them out and if they don't, they'll logon to Boards.ie and present poorly-thought-out arguments about how they are entitled the high speed internet despite them being subsidized by both urban customers and urban tax-payers.

As you are with other things, thanks to rural people. Off the high horse please.

murphaph · 10-12-2014 10:22pm

There are a load of new videos on the Eircom Wholesale site, some about the Belcarra FTTH trials. Most are about their VDSL rollout.

Nollog · 11-12-2014 12:09pm

Its Only Ray Parlour wrote: »

As it stands, there doesn't need to be a fix. Slow broadband isn't going to kill them and they put themsevles in this predicament, now they want the urban tax-payer to bail them out and if they don't, they'll logon to Boards.ie and present poorly-thought-out arguments about how they are entitled the high speed internet despite them being subsidized by both urban customers and urban tax-payers.

Like when they were pumping a lot of rural water up to dublin?

murphaph · 11-12-2014 12:33pm

/\/ollog wrote: »

Like when they were pumping a lot of rural water up to dublin?

SpaceTime · 11-12-2014 3:36pm

/\/ollog wrote: »

Like when they were pumping a lot of rural water up to dublin?

Yup, all Dublin water should come from directly under O'Connell Bridge. (mind boggles)
Irish people really need to get over the GAA shirt and Dublin vs Down the Country mentality.
It applies to far too many issues here and often screws up planning and infrastructure provision.

Nollog · 11-12-2014 4:04pm

SpaceTime wrote: »

Yup, all Dublin water should come from directly under O'Connell Bridge. (mind boggles)
Irish people really need to get over the GAA shirt and Dublin vs Down the Country mentality.
It applies to far too many issues here and often screws up planning and infrastructure provision.

You guize has all the best water treatment plants and all the investment, since you has all the population.

broadband is becoming an important part of life for everyone in our country, just like water and electricity, we should work on a network to provide it, even if we're not the ones using it.

KOR101 · 12-12-2014 5:13pm

murphaph wrote: »

Let's be honest with ourselves here. The problem is not living in rural Ireland, it's living in one off and/or ribbon development. Broadband can't be cost effectively deployed to such properties. It can be cost effectively deployed to rural towns and villages. Are you really going to suggest to me that all the people in all the houses in this map need to live 100 metres or more from their next door neighbours? If all those people lived (even in the same size properties with the same amount of land) in a cluster around the center of that map, they'd all have 100Mbps broadband by the end of next year at the latest. FACT! As it is, perhaps 10% of those premises will get anything near that and the rest will be on a sliding scale down to dial up. Are you going to defend the indefensible and tell me that all those people NEED to have built those modern properties there and couldn't have built them in a cluster around the existing "village" centre?

But, planners have taken this on board, whatever about the implementation. You are still left with the existing stock of one-off properties. You can make an argument that these communities, through lack of development, ultimately impose a greater burden on 'urban' communities. The question is whether there is a good return on investing on good internet for that type of housing. If it's not a good investment, then you can talk of it as subsidy.

Manc Red · 16-01-2015 12:15am

October 2014 - http://www.eircomwholesale.ie/news/eircom_Wholesale_to_Offer_Gigabit_Broadband_Speeds/
eircom announces plans to introduce speeds of up to 1Gbps (1,000Mbps). FTTH rollout to commence in November in Letterkenny, Kilkenny City and Cavan Town. Also announces construction of rural FTTH technical trial in Belcarra, Mayo. Now estimates 1.6 million premises will be reached six months early by mid-2016.

I haven't heard anything about the mentioned towns receiving FTTH yet. So when will it begin rolling out?

Hackery · 16-01-2015 9:05am

Manc Red wrote: »

I haven't heard anything about the mentioned towns receiving FTTH yet. So when will it begin rolling out?

August 2015

MBSnr · 16-01-2015 11:24am

murphaph wrote: »

Take a look at our neighbours in Great Britain on google maps and tell me why they don't seem to have the same development patterns if so many people NEED to live in these types of properties

I will tell you ;-)

You're overlooking the way small holdings (West of the Shannon) differed in Ireland compared to Britain. Historically there are more small farms in Ireland and therein lies the answer. People ended up living where they do in rural areas as they owned a number of fields leading to clusters of farm houses near their land. They couldn't afford to move to a town to manage it remotely back then - both from a time factor (Donkey/cart travelling and monetary). They aren't going to do that now.

In England farmers tended to have larger fields and had more money. They hired hands (from towns) to do the work and those hands lived on the farmland when there was work. There was not the 'farm family' as here. Years ago those farmers also bought other farmers land and expanded, therefore owning more land and as such there are less properties per sq mile as people did not have land to tend - no ribbon development.

This all happened in England many years ago, whereas in Ireland it was in the last 20-30 yrs leading to ribbon development as family of farmers settled and farmers sold land to builders in the boom time....

Manc Red · 17-01-2015 1:16am

Hackery wrote: »

August 2015

where did you hear this?

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

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