Good news for Donegal

BuncranaMan

How's it going folks, a glimmer of hope for anyone who lives in the forgotten county. Found this site today, it seems they provide wireless access to Inishowen. I think I'll give them a call.

http://home.btconnect.com/nwewireless/

Raskolnikov

Originally posted by BuncranaMan
How's it going folks, a glimmer of hope for anyone who lives in the forgotten county. Found this site today, it seems they provide wireless access to Inishowen. I think I'll give them a call.

http://home.btconnect.com/nwewireless/

I don't see why ComReg and the government are placing a priority on rolling out broadband in some arsehole of a town in the middle of nowhere.

DonegalMan

Originally posted by BuncranaMan
it seems they provide wireless access to Inishowen. I think I'll give them a call.

http://home.btconnect.com/nwewireless/

Sorry to be bearer of bad news, but they don't unless things have changed in last few weeks - they hope to provide service to Inishowen and Letterkenny at some stage in future if they get enough interest.

Have a look at this thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=101454


I and a few others registered interest for Letterkenny but no reply from them so it doesn't look too promising.

Martin Harran

DonegalMan

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
I don't see why ComReg and the government are placing a priority ...

Raskolnikov, if you want to troll or flame, you would be much more effective if you checked basic facts - this has SFA to do with Comreg or the Government.

Martin Harran

(Childish remarks about Buncrana/Donegal ignored with the contempt they deserve)

kevinmcc

Raskolnikov, also the reason why they are rolling out in inishowen is because it's cross border. They relay through donegal from their backhaul in Derry so they can provide it for cheaper.

I don't see why ComReg and the government are placing a priority on rolling out broadband in some arsehole of a town in the middle of nowhere.

Well there hardly going to be able to provide it to the likes of Dublin when their based in Derry. It would be slightly more expensive I somehow think to bring backhaul from Derry to Dublin than it would from Derry to Donegal.

Paddy20

Raskolnikov,

Come on. I can not believe that your statement was meant to be taken seriously. Please clarify?. If it was, you certainly owe the people of Buncrana Town an apology as well as the good and very tolerant citizens of Donegal.

Oh, and I welcome this development which I am now checking out and can I just state that as far as I can see - No proper border now exists as all customs huts have been removed. It is now very easy to find yourself driving in another part of Ireland until you realise they are using a different currency. The border only seems to be some sort of mindset.

Commercial trade/business and shopping between the Republic and another part of this fair isle has dramatically increased since the removal of all traces of the old border custom huts and manned barriers. A bit off topic I know but I believe relevant on this occassion.

Paddy20.;)

ihatepaddy20

[mod edit: can't allow personal abuse]

Dustaz

Ive gone one step further and banned you from this board.

Your name indicates that you are purely here to antagonise a single user.

Raskolnikov

Originally posted by DonegalMan
Raskolnikov, if you want to troll or flame, you would be much more effective if you checked basic facts - this has SFA to do with Comreg or the Government.

Martin Harran

(Childish remarks about Buncrana/Donegal ignored with the contempt they deserve)

Well for all I know it could be Mossad who are supposed to be promoting broadband in this country.

No disrespect to Buncranna, I just don't see why a town with 4,000 inhabitants should get priority over a town with 16,000 inhabitants. Every week we see the prat Dermot Ahern announce some new measure to deliver broadband to the rural areas. Fuk that ****, the deluded coot still hasn't brought broadband to 95% (Ballpark figure here) of towns over the size of 10,000.

Let me sharpen up that ribbon snipping scissors Mr. Ahern, before I stick it into your fat gut.

Dun

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
No disrespect to Buncranna, I just don't see why a town with 4,000 inhabitants should get priority over a town with 16,000 inhabitants.

Nobody's getting priority - as was already said, a Derry company *might* be providing a wireless service to North East Donegal, only because of the proximity. Letterkenny has almost 13,000 people, Buncrana has just over 5,000 and the Inishowen peninsula as a whole adds up to quite a bit more. This has nothing to do with anything Dermot Ahern may (or more likely) may not have done.

BuncranaMan

[mod edit: personal abuse not allowed (read the rules). Yeah, I know, he may have insulted your town. You don't get to insult him back in a personal manner (and you don't get to use the word "moron" at all). If you want to try making the post again, keep all the abuse out of it]

BuncranaMan

Anyhoo, thanks to all the other guys for answering. It's occurred to me that this country must be on a par with Afghanistan in terms of internet access.
I'll have to phone up NWE and find out the latest, and register my interest.

Actually, does anyone know if line of sight is a major issue? I've got a large hill between my house and the Derry direction, so I might have to head out with the spade and wheelbarrow if it's a problem.

BuncranaMan

Originally posted by BuncranaMan
[mod edit: personal abuse not allowed (read the rules). Yeah, I know, he may have insulted your town. You don't get to insult him back in a personal manner (and you don't get to use the word "moron" at all). If you want to try making the post again, keep all the abuse out of it]

Nope, I'm not going to waste any time on the likes of him. I came on here to tell people about an issue, not to cross swords with anyone. He's off my christmas card list, anyway. :-)

sceptre

Originally posted by BuncranaMan
Nope, I'm not going to waste any time on the likes of him.

Ah, well you did you see, otherwise I wouldn't have had to edit anything. Any new info or participants are always appreciated; however I have to maintain an element of civility between posters or we can all shut up the shop. Report it or ignore it is a reasonable philosophy if people feel they've been wronged.

Moving on to the actual subject of the thread, it's obviously good that the offer to express interest is there. Short of people signing up though (& hopefully people will), NE Donegal will unfortunately still be waiting a while for alternatives to copper.

BuncranaMan

Yep, only today did I have to send an Email to a mate via carrier pigeon. ;-)

Paddy20

Since when have the Donegal/Ulster people not had to be practically self reliant in just about everything.

Personally, I lost faith in the Dublin based bureaucrats when I was a boy, and that was a very long time ago.

Now, I have to use the Ulster based UTV Internet, in order to get a reasonably fair Internet access deal. As I was ripped off by the Dublin based Rat. Or should that now be the London* based UK owned Eircom Rat?, and now it may well turn out that for a Broadband Internet package I could end up having too use a Derry based private Company who are showing some real commercial savvy and pro-active initiative. I can only wish them well.

Paddy20.;)

ednwireland

just to add my 2c worth i think this crowd are well worth investigating if you can get 6-8 business customers (more home users don't know how many) interested enough to sign up they will seriously look at getting to your town with broadband 20:1 contention ratio
i have been talking seriously to them and hope to deal with them soon, they are a private commercial company they have no grant aid from the irish gov and they are putting in serious amounts of backhaul in derry. and before you get too impatient remeber they only launched a few weeks ago.
i echo paddys sentiments and good luck to them my guess is its the only way in the forseeable future will some towns here get any sniff of broadband
mind you i was driving through the gap (barnesmore) today and it looked like the ESB were fibre wrapping the power lines !!!!

BuncranaMan

"...... looked like the ESB were fibre wrapping the power lines !!!!"


Yeah, probably to keep 'em warm in winter! :-)

Dun

Originally posted by BuncranaMan
Actually, does anyone know if line of sight is a major issue? I've got a large hill between my house and the Derry direction, so I might have to head out with the spade and wheelbarrow if it's a problem.

It is a major issue afaik - and I don't suppose there's much chance of them sticking an aerial up on top of Sliabh Sneacht. I'm in Clonmany, so there's no chance of it coming that far North. I'd say people in East Inishowen would probably have more of a chance. Mind you if they're targetting Letterkenny too, then they must have a different aerial - I don't think even Sheriff's mountain would cover that

BuncranaMan

Originally posted by dun_do_bheal
It is a major issue afaik - and I don't suppose there's much chance of them sticking an aerial up on top of Sliabh Sneacht. I'm in Clonmany, so there's no chance of it coming that far North. I'd say people in East Inishowen would probably have more of a chance. Mind you if they're targetting Letterkenny too, then they must have a different aerial - I don't think even Sheriff's mountain would cover that

How's it going down there, we're practically neighbours!

I heard some interesting news today from an ESB technician. He told me about a company (he wasn't sure of their name) who have hung fibre optic cables from the 38kV powerline from Letterkenny into Buncrana. This is a line that termiinates in a substation at the Fruit of the Loom factory, literally 2 minutes walk away, and presumably goes on to supply the town The power lines even cut across our fields. The fibre itself ends about a mile out of town at a smaller substation (at a place called Trillick), and apparently it's been there a couple of years.

What does this mean in terms of possible internet access? I've heard about the fibre networks that go all round the country, so this is probably part of it.
Can anyone shed any light on this?

kevinmcc

Does anyone remember anything about a article that was on the front page of the Derry Journal a couple of years ago about certain towns in Inishowen to get broadband access, I think it was Carndonagh, Clonmany and Culdaff? Anyway it was supposed to be in conjunction with three companies - ESB, Eircom and Chorus. I remember a few months later reading that one of the companies had pulled out of it - can't remeber which though. But it went on to say that the other two were still going ahead with it. I'd find it hard to believe that it would ever happen though. I just hope NWE Wireless don't turn out to be another Beam Solutions. I'm from inishowen too!

spongebob

1. Eircom pulled out in 2001
2. Chorus did nothing, they are totally inept.
3. The ESB is about to complete its end of the deal, fibre to Buncrana, by the end of the year .

Why don't ye (independent republic of) Inishowen people consider the 3.5Ghz auction next month. Do it yourselves like a group water scheme. If you have theoption of licenced and unlicenced frequencies, licenced for backhaul only maybe....then you will not be at the mercy of cowboy operations like Beam. ....those who help themselves and all that!

You will have the option of the ESB or someone in Derry for the Backhaul.

M

Paddy20

Re: NWE customer service?..

Well, I e-mailed NWE and asked about the possibility of their service being made available in the Twin-Towns i.e. Ballybofey & Stranorlar and could they clarify some points on charges, as I find their website a little unclear on this important issue.

A few days have now gone by, and I have not even received so much as a confirmation of them having received my e-mail.

Not exactly promising IMHO ?..

Paddy20.

Goodshape

I've had a couple of emails back-and-forth with NWE, re: broadband in buncrana.

Just to clarify things, this is how they went..

Aparently, yes - wireless broadband is curently available, from these guys, in Buncrana.

The prices on the website have since been revised (the new ones are quite a bit better).. eur50 / month will get you 512 downloads and 256 uploads (thats one of their 'home' packages).

Regarding what Muck was saying about 'doing it for ourselves', we were toying with that very idea as part of 'Local Initiative', a new non-profit comunity fundraising group based in Buncrana (see: www.localinitiative.org).

...if we were ever to persue such a thing, we would need some help: so if there's anyone interested in helping or just throwing forth ideas, you can email localint@online.ie .

BuncranaMan

Originally posted by Goodshape
Aparently, yes - wireless broadband is curently available, from these guys, in Buncrana.
The prices on the website have since been revised (the new ones are quite a bit better).. eur50 / month will get you 512 downloads and 256 uploads (thats one of their 'home' packages).

Ahh, life is good. I'm going to contact them in the near future for sure.
I'm living in Ballymacarry, up past FOTL, so hopefully Fahan hill won't be blocking the signals.

Got an email from a mate in Derry tonight, with an attached screenshot of him downloading at an almighty 114k/sec. That's with NTL .

(one more thing - is NWE's service capped at all?)

Goodshape

I asked them about a cap, and they said:

'the service is not capped as such, we will only have an issue if your use of the service breaches the terms and conditions or excessive unreasonable use is affecting other subscribers.'

...don't know what the terms are though.

Dun

Originally posted by BuncranaMan
I heard some interesting news today from an ESB technician. He told me about a company (he wasn't sure of their name) who have hung fibre optic cables from the 38kV powerline from Letterkenny into Buncrana. This is a line that termiinates in a substation at the Fruit of the Loom factory, literally 2 minutes walk away, and presumably goes on to supply the town

I presume you mean Ballymagan, not the Shorefront one. I can't say I've heard anything about it, but it sounds interesting.

Originally posted by Muck
Why don't ye (independent republic of) Inishowen people consider the 3.5Ghz auction next month. Do it yourselves like a group water scheme. If you have theoption of licenced and unlicenced frequencies, licenced for backhaul only maybe....then you will not be at the mercy of cowboy operations like Beam. ....those who help themselves and all that!

You will have the option of the ESB or someone in Derry for the Backhaul.
I'm not really clued up about wireless - I'm presuming that LOS is necessary. If anyone's ever been up here, they'll know how hilly it is. I can't imagine how many antennae or whatever would be needed (or am I talking crap?) to cover most of the peninsula. Maybe a west Inishowen / Fanad / Rathmullan kind of co-op over the Swilly would work How far can you be from a transmitter/receiver or whatever you'd call it?