Instructions to tender for the MSE released.

Dangger

The "Intructions to Tender" for the Managed Services Entity (MSE) that is to run the government's nationwide fibre "New Connections" network, (the one to give us all 10mbps over the next few years!) has been released and are available here.

It's a weighty tome, a right riveting read though!

Attention is called again to the fact that, having considered the matter carefully, the Minister has concluded that, in order to stimulate the market appropriately, existing (as of 15 August 2003) holders of Irish Telecommunications Licences or of a general authorisation (as applicable) and their parents, subsidiaries, persons having a significant or controlling interest in such entities and other associated companies should be excluded from selection as MSE.

Wow! Does this mean that he has decided that all existing holders have shown they are unable to "to stimulate the market appropriately"!

spongebob

Feck off Denis O'Brien in polite legalese.
Basic Licencees not deemed to be too 'connected' to the General Licencees could punt for this contract.

dahamsta

Does Dinny still have a licence? I thought he's shifted all his Irish telco holdings.

adam

Cuauhtemoc

So would Devore be in a position to put a consortium together...in relation to this thread..

Boards.ie ISP?

or am i off track altogether?

spongebob

Originally posted by Cuauhtemoc
So would Devore be in a position to put a consortium together...in relation to this thread..

Boards.ie ISP?

or am i off track altogether?

He made me sign the NDA (in duplicate, and got really thick with me about my solicitors expired personal email cert) before I could tell you lot about the plan which is to....................

Dangger

So would Devore be in a position to put a consortium together...in relation to this thread..

Nope, the MSE is not permitted to provide retail offerings. It's for wholesale provision only.

flav0rflav

This whole project is bollox.

opinions?

spongebob

no

If I lived in Dublin I would be entitled to think so.

As I don't live in Dublin I don't agree with you on this Flav

I may start to agree with you if the MSE (aka Telecom Éireann #2 ) cannot come up with a mechanism to sell fractional STM1 pipes from the off. Time will tell.

M

dahamsta

Indeed. It /is/ bollocks, but unfortunately we'll just have to work around it. Anyway, sure it it wasn't for the Bran Donuts, I'd have nowhere to hang me aerials.

adam

thegills

Rumour has it that;

1) The MSE may look to link all of the MAN's by buying dark fibre of ESB or a mixture of Aurora, Chorus, etc.
2) The MSE will light some fibre and offer managed bandwidth to telco's not wishing to light it themselves.
3) Hibernia Atlantic will be the Anchor Tenant for most of the Tenderers.

thegills

MDR

Indeed. It /is/ bollocks,

flav0rflav and Adam (less so Adam in fairness, who has made is position amply clear on muliple occasions).

I would be grateful if you could expand on your position,
its not sufficent to make comments like 'its all bollox' without qualification. Indeed it may be bollox, but if you are going to call it such, you need to tell us why.

spongebob

Originally posted by thegills
Rumour has it that;

1) The MSE may look to link all of the MAN's by buying dark fibre of ESB or a mixture of Aurora, Chorus, etc.
2) The MSE will light some fibre and offer managed bandwidth to telco's not wishing to light it themselves.
3) Hibernia Atlantic will be the Anchor Tenant for most of the Tenderers.

thegills

1. I should hope so.
2. There's me fractions, what fractions by any chance?
3. Who/What is Hibernia Atlantic beyond this stupendously elegant Flash enabled Website of Theirs

Thanks

M

dahamsta

Ok, bollocks is a little extreme, I take that back, but essentially the fibre rings project is duct tape lashed around a broken market. Moreover it's shoddy duct tape bought from a guy in a sheepskin jacket. It was badly developed, and it's being badly implemented. Badly developed because, as we've discussed many times, very little thought was given to how to get from the pipe to the gaff. Badly implemented because we still don't have pipes, and we're only now looking for someone to manage the project. Cart. Horse. Hello.

All that being said, as I suggested above, it's the best thing we've got available to us at the moment and we have to work with what we've got, because downing tools and whinging about it isn't going to change anything. The problem is that the project is almost entirely reliant on innovation and new entrants, but: a) Ireland isn't exacly famous for innovation in the comms market; and b) getting money for a rollout is proving more difficult that it should be.

adam

BigEejit

Originally posted by Muck

3. Who/What is Hibernia Atlantic beyond this stupendously elegant Flash enabled Website of Theirs

The amount of information I got from that website is incredible....

PiE

http://news.corporate.findlaw.com/prnewswire/20030404/04apr2003205535.html
VANCOUVER, Wash. and DUBLIN, Ireland, April 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Columbia Ventures Corporation (CVC) announced today that its subsidiaries have completed the purchase of a state-of-the-art 12,200 kilometer fiber optic submarine cable system connecting North America with Europe. Formerly known as 360atlantic, the assets were sold pursuant to Canadian court approval as part of a reorganization plan involving 360networks. CVC has renamed the system Hibernia Atlantic.

More Intl. Bandwidth. Huzzah.

flav0rflav

Because I can't see the point of it at the current time.

The problem is that ordinary people are not able to get broadband because of the cost of the last mile, not the backhaul. There is lots of fibre already all around the country. The last mile is the bottleneck. Putting down more fibre is not solving the current problem. OK, it'll probably be usefull at some point in the future, but not right now. Of course it won't solve anything till it's finished - next year? year after?

I fell it is purely a political move giving the political benefits of appearing to be taking action and putting lots of money in the pockets of builders, business men and no doubt, via envelops, county councillors. (is that libelous?)

The government spent money building all of this before - eircom. Now it's doing the same again, and not solving a problem.

I wanted to see what other people's considered opinions were before voicing my own.

dahamsta

Don't you thnk there's a bit of a difference between the existing dark fibre and this though flav? We haven't a hope in hell of getting Esat to light that fibre up (although we effing well paid for it), but won't this stuff be different?

I agree with you on timescales by the way. I'm rarely surprised by the slowness of public projects, but when it comes to urgency...

adam

thegills

Hibernia Atlantic bought the old 360Networks facility. They are very active on the market at the moment with a view to selling unlimited bandwidth and international connectivity to anybody who wants it. If they can broker a deal with the MSE then they will be able to affer these services to all companies serviced by the MAN's.

The problem is that ordinary people are not able to get broadband because of the cost of the last mile, not the backhaul.

It is the cost of the backhaul that is preventing the IBB's of this world setting up shop outside of Dublin which isn't run by the duopoly.

Putting down more fibre is not solving the current problem

Putting down 'Carrier-Neutral' fibre we hope will solve the problem

Of course it won't solve anything till it's finished - next year

The MSE should be in place by October. Once they sign a deal with the DCMNR they will be anxious to make a return on their investement and will be looking to market any fibre on any MAN that is complete.

the fibre rings project is duct tape lashed around a broken market. Moreover it's shoddy duct tape bought from a guy in a sheepskin jacket. It was badly developed, and it's being badly implemented

Can you back up these claims with some hard facts?? How can you tell they are being badly implemented and how the hell can you tell that the materials are shoddy??

Badly implemented because we still don't have pipes

Have you any idea what it costs to get FTTH. In Sweden e9Bn was spent on this, where do you think we are going to get that sort of cash in Ireland. These rings are aimed at SOHO / SME / LE not the gamers of this world. This has always been that case.

thegills

flav0rflav

Originally posted by thegills
These rings are aimed at SOHO / SME / LE not the gamers of this world. This has always been that case.

Well then, it's not solving the big problem, of Ireland being miles behind in general take up of broadband. And, as I suggested, is the government putting money in the pockets of business men, who are not providing a national solution.

Don't you get it? It's not just for business. It's a whole new media! (medium?)

Who are all these business going to have as clients? Other businesses sure, but that's not using broadband fully, and not what is ahppening in other countries, where it is ordinary home users (and gamers) that are driving it.

dahamsta

How can you tell they are being badly implemented

By opening my eyes? We have Dermot Ahern wandering around the country launching non-existent fibre. We have him doing this /before/ an MSE is in place, a classic O'Rourke tactic of milking it for all it's worth. Stop pissing about with PR, get to work.

how the hell can you tell that the materials are shoddy??

Who said anything about materials? (Duct tape is a metaphor.)

Have you any idea what it costs to get FTTH.

Who said anything about FTTH? I was talking about the actual pipes, the ones that Dermie's wandering around pretending he can see. But while we're on the topic of the last-mile, can you point us in the direction of the documents that discuss this element of the fibre-rings proposals? I'm sure Muck would have pointed this critical aspect out if it was out there, but perhaps Muck missed something! Ye gods!

These rings are aimed at SOHO / SME / LE not the gamers of this world.

They're "aimed at SOHO / SME"? I hope you're not telling us that the MSE is going to dictate the market of the LE's? I fear we'd have to kick up a nasty fuss if that were the case.

adam /poised over his domreg cp

spongebob

ISTR that each ring has 144 pairs of Multimode fibre ...even Kiltimagh.

FTTH is not included in any of the proposals.

M

flav0rflav

Can someone point me to the government docs/statements justifying/rationalising these rings?

Of course it's allready under way.

[edit]
this is the 'brochure' http://www.dcmnr.gov.ie/files/NDP%20Man%20Brochure%20Version%2034.doc

spongebob

1. The government did a call for proposals.

2. The government went with a proposal to bring carrier neutral fibre to all 123 towns with apopulation of over 1500 persons.

3. The announcement is Here with the list of towns and some background to assist in the research.

Google is your friend. Search for mary o'rourke for starters.

M

flav0rflav

Commenting on the programme, Minister O’ Rourke stated: "The first two phases will expand broadband to one million people. Effectively what we are doing is providing initially key regional towns with quality and cheap access to the information superhighway. This initiative will provide a boost to industry, business and, more importantly, allow the consumers and educational institutes high speed, quality access."

"We have been working on this project since last year and Government provided the final go-ahead yesterday. This initiative will push Ireland into the top ten of OECD countries for broadband connectivity."

"We have the international links, we have in place significant backbone or inter-county links but what we have been lacking is the final last kilometers of fibre in towns itself. This rectifies that."

ps. sorry for arriving late.

spongebob

ahh yes.

you are confusing the issue of Mary O'Rourke saying , word for word.

"We have been lacking is the final last kilometers of fibre in towns itself. This rectifies that."

with Mary O'Rourke understanding what she was saying or thought she was saying. Mary is a known afflictee of Foot in Mouth disease. The rings were always rings, not a radial structure to the home and business. There are to be 'drop points' at various stages where one could gain access.

There WAS another report which proposed FTTH remedies going forward. This report was from the Department of the Taoiseach and was compiled by Civil Servants and published around the time O'Rourke announced her fibre rings. It did indeed suggest FTTH strategies but Martin Cullen has sat on his arse and done nothing about Local Authority Guidelines and Building Regulations to make it happen.

The Report is Here (27 pages) and the page you should look at is 22/23

M

SkepticOne

Original reaction on this thread when that O'Rourke press release came out.

dahamsta

From one of my posts in that thread a year-and-a-quarter ago:

And since the Irish government seems to be telling us we're underway, we're up-and-running, we're ready to go, where's this "public/private partnership company"? Shouldn't that have been formed last week, had several meetings, and be negotiating with contractors as we speak?

Repating myself, repeating myself, repeating myself...

adam

iwb

How about trying just for a minute to be positive about this. There is potential here to make the situation better in at least the nineteen towns where these rings are being provisioned.
Why not hope that there is a least a good possibility that the winner of the MSE contract will do as asked in the bid document?
Please don't come back with 'what about the other 100 odd towns in phases two and three' or 'what about everyone else'.
Right now, unless some benevolent billionaire buys Eircom and makes the network available to everyone, this is the best chance for the country to take a real step forward.

spongebob

Fibre in the hood will be available by early next year rather than fibre to the home....if you live in one of those 19 towns (+ Kiltimagh ) . IWB has accentuated the positive in reminding us of that.

The next stage , IMO, is to ensure that County and City Development plans mandate carrier neutral ducting to new homes and offices and that the UK building regulations on ducting in apartment blocks makes its way into our building regulations....pronto.

In Galway you have an ongoing project to lay gas main and fibre in the same holes. The planners in the City have not required developers to either

1. Incorporate Gas pipes from each accomodation unit to the kerb or

2. Incorporate CATV or similar cable to the kerb either

In order to connect the home to the main system.

That makes 19 separate arguments with 19 local authorities in 19 towns over the next few years.

Frankly, I have very little hope for the planners in Galway who strike me as a bunch of muppets . The only city in Ireland that seems to have developed a systemic view of this issue is Limerick so we should find out what they propose to do and get it into our local plans by expeditiously copying and pasting (if we get the nod of course).

M

iwb

If we were to assume that by sometime early next year the MSE will be in place and will need to make a return on its investment, it will be looking to sell as much bandwidth as possible. In all nineteen towns, people should be looking into ways to maximise this.
Inexpensive backhaul should attract wireless operators, existing or new to the area which will help to solve the problem. As the rings are quite well placed around the towns, no one is too far from the fiber so the radios can be quite local. All of us can help this to happen.
One of the wireless providers once told me the two things preventing them from moving outside Dublin are backhaul and customers. If the backhaul is fixed, local groups can get together and provide the customers.
So, if we were to think positively and decide that the backhaul will be available, the providers will appear and in a year from now, there will be at least one wireless provider in all of these towns, offering a high speed (or maybe even broadband) service to most homes and businesses in the area.

dahamsta

There's going to be a lot of network jiggery-pokery when these fibre rings come on-stream. Now's the time to be rolling out wireless networks, next year's too late, so I reckon we'll be seeing all those networks go down round about the same time while they drop the leased lines and get hooked up to the rings. And of course the droids in Eircom (spit), Esat (fart) and MCI (puke) will be working overtime trying to hold onto them. Interesting times ahead.

By the way iwb, the only person in this thread who's expressed explicit malice about the fibre rings in flav (I did too, but I wasn't being entirely serious). If you read the thread fully you'll see that for the most part we're happy that /something's/ being done. I reserve the right to bitch about it though, because it's not just imperfect, it's fúcked up, and has been from the start.

adam

flav0rflav

.. and I started shouting because I came to the party late.

I'm inclined to remove my bollox from the mashed potato, as it is certainly good to have fibre rings around rural towns enabling massive bandwidth to all areas of the country at some point in the future.

I see the UK have 6 meg available now.

Bulldog have upped the speed stakes for ADSL on their LLU exchanges by now offering a 6Mbps downstream, 400kbps upstream service for £99.99+VAT, called PrimeTime 6000.

Whilst this is currently only available on 35 exchanges in the central London area.

from adslguide.org.uk

SkepticOne

Originally posted by dahamsta
If you read the thread fully you'll see that for the most part we're happy that /something's/ being done. We reserve the right to bitch about it though, because it's not just imperfect, it's fúcked up, and has been from the start.

I don't think there's any established consensus on that. I think there's recognition that the project is limited in scope and that it's been hyped beyond what it will deliver, but I don't think it is fundamentally fúcked up.

Your suggestion that the MSE should have been established in Q1 2002 when these rings were at the planning phases is a little mad if you don't mind me saying so. Few companies would be willing to commit to something while the rings are being planned and laid by the local authorities and those that might be would expect to be compensated accordingly. It makes far more sense to do it now, when there will be some fibre rings to administrate.

There seems to be a general tendency to knock everything without giving it any thought. A lot of things were knocked that have proved significant later.

flav0rflav

You're just not living up to your name.

iwb

Thanks for your clarification. I know it wasn't all negative but my reading of the thread led me to comment that way as that is the way the thread feels.
Anyway, my main point is that we all can do something, especially if we live in those towns. Even if we don't, we can try to support any initiatives in the towns.

spongebob

Would you agree Adam ?

SkepticOne

Originally posted by flav0rflav
You're just not living up to your name.

There's a difference between knocking everything that comes along and scepticism.

thegills

Folks, it all boils down to money. The Local Authorities (LA) in Limerick are making provisions for ducting on new developments. But the issue of cost always comes to the fore. In Limerick, SBL has argued that through the MSE, the LA can generate revenue from their ducting by 'attaching' them to the MAN network. The LA's are coming around to this, but they are on the whole cash-starved.

When we talk to large wireless operators they ask us to show the demand. When we talk to the Leap's and IBB's of this world they are more concerned with the backhaul. We are convinced that once the MAN infrastructure is in place then these companies will build base stations in Limerick. Adittedly it's not a fat pipe to the home but it will get the demand side rolling.

Another thing to remember is that building these MAN's will extend the fibre reach into the community hence offering opportunities like PON's and higher DSL products.

thegills

iwb

SBL?

dahamsta

I don't think there's any established consensus on that.

Once again, my mistake. I realised that "we" was stretching things a little when I was typing it but forgot to go back and fix it. Broadband has me ruined for Boards, I've spent the past week going round in circles looking for things to post about. Must learn control.

Your suggestion that the MSE should have been established in Q1 2002 when these rings were at the planning phases is a little mad if you don't mind me saying so. Few companies would be willing to commit to something while the rings are being planned and laid by the local authorities and those that might be would expect to be compensated accordingly. It makes far more sense to do it now, when there will be some fibre rings to administrate.

Well, considering the amount of money we're talking about, actually setting the company up would be a pittance, so:

- What about planning? Couldn't the year have been hugely productive?
- Isn't it possible that a little more pressure might speed things up a bit?

There seems to be a general tendency to knock everything without giving it any thought.

I think we've had plenty of time to think about it SkepticOne.

adam

oscarBravo

Originally posted by SkepticOne
I don't think there's any established consensus on that.

Damn straight. This is the first real ray of hope I for one have seen for quite some time. As long as it was an abstract concept, I was fairly skeptical myself, but now that you can't move in Ballina without falling into a MAN trench, it's starting to feel real.

spongebob

and tell me OscarB

what about the Mayo County Development Plan, how real is that ?

does Mayo County Council know what to do with the fibre now its in?

M

oscarBravo

Originally posted by Muck
what about the Mayo County Development Plan, how real is that ?

The draft document is 50 meg, I'm not downloading thon!

does Mayo County Council know what to do with the fibre now its in?

Not by the looks of things. From the Ballina Draft Development Plan for 2003:

All major routes into Ballina currently have fibre optic trunk lines. Details for the provision of
a broadband communications network within the town are currently being finalised and it is
envisaged that work on laying this cable network will commence during 2002.
Telecommunications infrastructure providers are confident that they can meet the needs of
the town in terms of its future population and industrial growth, should the need arise for
additional telecommunications infrastructure over the plan period.

Not exactly timely, is it?

Time to ring the local councillor, methinks. Sigh. As if I hadn't enough to do...!

spongebob

That is a great help, I assume the planners rang Biddy down the Eircom office for that. I would first ask the planners in Ballina (or is that Castlebar ) which telecoms suppliers they mean in that statement and whether I could see the original text of the ássurances given? I strongly suspect that no such written assurances exist.....anywhere. Nor is there fibre out the Dunmore West road to Sligo ISTR so the statement is somewhat suspect.

A committment to assisting local efforts (fasttracking masts for antennae for community owned networks fo example) or regulations on ducting on new estates, that would be a help too.

Otherwise the fibre will repose elegantly in the ground, unused.

M

thegills

fasttracking masts for antennae for community owned networks fo example

Does the new communications Bill not help there. There are loads of planning exemptions for certain types of structures. The problem is with the site owners who have this concern over the H&S isues. On the one hand everyone wants broadband but on the otherhand they don't want masts and roads being dug up.

does Mayo County Council know what to do with the fibre now its in?

They don't have to. the MSE will manage the fibre. All MAN's have been designed to link into the surrounding infrastructure (In Limerick; Esat BT, eircom, WDC, Chorus, ESBT, Aurora).
If the n/w design is good then the route should be designed to pick up the main base stations / masts in the town, as well as high buildings. This will offer fibre backhaul for 3G services as well as any WLAN / FWA offerings.

thegills

SBL = Shannon Broadband Limited