3.5Ghz - and the winners are....

crawler

http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/PR061103.pdf

spongebob

Chorus got 25% of them !

Digiweb got more than IBB

Net 2 Cell came second, never even heard of them.

about 35% Geographic coverage once the overlaps are factored in

M

crawler

Still sitting here laughing at the fact Chorus got one in an NTL area , i.e. Dublin

spongebob

The circles (approximating to licence areas) at the scale drawn on the maps appear to have a radius of 25km, I thought the licence areas were of 15Km radius so we should halve those circles really should we not ? Halve the coverage as well.

I'm stunned at Chorus getting 25% of the licences, BTW they had ALL this spectrum in Dublin until June this year, now they have a quarter of it back despite losing it ALL for incompetence and worse.

Who are Net2Cell and Budget....name names please do .

M

crawler

Net2Cell are a bunch of people with money basically who knew there was a few bob to be made from this.....I did have names but cant for the life of me find them...

Mr_Man

What is the likelyhood that Chorus will once again sit on the licenses which they have been granted? This is in light of their past performance and the fact that the Gubmt is suing their ass for millions of Euros.

I'm particularly interested because they have one for an area where I live and want to know if this is really a step forward or just another Irish solution to an Irish problem ?

Thanks

M

Moriarty

Intresting.

Chorus seem to have lost their licence in limerick (ive been told that their current powernet product works on 2.5ghz, so isnt affected by this..) and been awarded a glut of spectrum around dublin, kerry and the midlands.

Irish Broadband have got spectrum in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford now.

LEAP have spectrum in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford.

Net2Cell(?) have spectrum in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Kerry, Mayo, Kildare and the south east.

Digiweb have most of their spectrum in the northern half of the country, with 3 stations around the kildare/waterford region.

Budget Wireless(?) have Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway.

Last Mile have 2 in the midlands.

Real Broadband(?) have parts of west Kerry, Limerick and Clare.

The wesht and norf seem to have been neglected rather serverly, excluding one or two provisions.

<edit: Its also worth noting that we have at _least_ four competing companys in each of the five major citys now. Intresting to see what comes of that>

<edit2: new info, chorus stuff changed a bit:)>

crawler

Mr_Man my guess would be that Chorus know what they are doing - Cable Co's learned a lot from mistakes in the past...I know you cant undo the past but now that the licences are granted lets just hope that people accept the offers and get on with the business of providing broadband to the punters!

dahamsta

Haven't there been strings attached to prevent Chorus from doing the same thing this time? Or is that too much to ask of Comreg?

adam

spongebob

Chorus will lose the licences again. double quick, if they squat on them.

M

iwb

This could be very hopeful.
BTW, who is 'Real Broadband'?

crawler

And the Bond.....

Remember - these are only offers - they have not yet been accepted.

LFCFan

only in Ireland could a company that lost a license be awarded it again straight away. I hope comreg have made it very clear to them that if they have a repeat performance they will lose them a lot quicker this time. Wonder how long it will take for these companies to accept, enter their bond and start rolling out services?

crawler

LFCfan is there not some song that goes "Dont know what you got , 'till it's gone"

I am going to remain wonderfully optimistic and blissfully unaware of ANY problems - I am also going to assume that they will all accept their allotment and begin rolling out services in 8-10 weeks.

I will hear nothing of the baddness!!

LFCFan

Originally posted by crawler
LFCfan is there not some song that goes "Dont know what you got , 'till it's gone"

I am going to remain wonderfully optimistic and blissfully unaware of ANY problems - I am also going to assume that they will all accept their allotment and begin rolling out services in 8-10 weeks.

I will hear nothing of the baddness!!

mmm, optimism and broadband in Ireland. Haven't heard those words together before. I suppose though, if Shirly Temple Bar can manage to get on TV anything is possible

Urban Weigl

Originally posted by Muck
Chorus will lose the licences again. double quick, if they squat on them.

In theory. Eircom are squatting on a huge chunk of the 3.5ghz spectrum, and they do not appear to be losing their license.

bk

Originally posted by Urban Weigl
In theory. Eircom are squatting on a huge chunk of the 3.5ghz spectrum, and they do not appear to be losing their license.

Strictly speaking Eircom have meet their license requirements. They actually have put put 3.5GHz gear in place, however they just don't advertise it's existence.

I believe an IOFFL member managed to get telephone and ISDN services over 3.5GHz from Eircom after months of complaints to Eircom, ComReg etc.

LFCFan

Originally posted by Urban Weigl
In theory. Eircom are squatting on a huge chunk of the 3.5ghz spectrum, and they do not appear to be losing their license.

Well we all know that €ircon have the equivalent of blackmail material held over Comreg so Comreg won't rock the boat.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by LFCFan
Well we all know that €ircon have the equivalent of blackmail material held over Comreg so Comreg won't rock the boat.

That is due to their current hugely dominant position particularly over the last mile. When people are in a position to completely switch to other operators (not just resellers) this will change.

spongebob

Originally posted by Urban Weigl
In theory. Eircom are squatting on a huge chunk of the 3.5ghz spectrum, and they do not appear to be losing their license.

Eircom have 2 x 10 = 20Mhz , Comreg refuse to say where Eircom have deployed it (ssshhhhhh) "allegedly" in 20-25% of the state if you believe Comreg...who refuse to prove it or discuss ity or publish a map or require Eircom to publish a map because it is not available.

Comreg are scaredy cats when it comes to taking licences off Eircom.

In This Round

The D Licencees (Budget) will get 50Mhz
The B licencees (Chorus/Net2Cell) will get 35Mhz
The C Licencees (Leap) will get 50Mhz
The A licencees (IBB) will get 50Mhz

I refer to the licencee who generally got the 5 Big Cities in each Band , there are others of course and not all got the 5 or applied for them. Some may now sulk and not accept their licences but we will find out shortly .............

M

Urban Weigl

Does anyone know what services/products these companies are proposing to offer? I know ComReg must have this information, as it was part of the application.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by LFCFan
mmm, optimism and broadband in Ireland. Haven't heard those words together before. I suppose though, if Shirly Temple Bar can manage to get on TV anything is possible

A number of companies won't accept the licences. A number will take them but won't do anything with them. It will always be in certain companies interests to squat licences as this delays competition.

MadKevo

must go out and buy some shares in balloon/airship manufacturers - it's about the only way coverage would even come close to those lovely circles!

bk

Originally posted by SkepticOne
A number of companies won't accept the licences. A number will take them but won't do anything with them. It will always be in certain companies interests to squat licences as this delays competition.

They can't do that, the license is a use it or lose it type.

AFAIK, each company had to submit the prices and specifications of a residential product and a business product as part of the license application. If the company doesn't roll out the products as describe above, the license can be taken off them after one year.

I'd say some of these companies may not take up all these licenses, when they see how many other competitors they will have in each area.

I'd say IBB, Digiweb and Leap will more then likely take up these licenses. The others are less certain.

wexfordman

Either my eyesight is going or I'm in denial.

Can anyone tell me if any of these licences cover the Youghal/Middelton areas, or am I clean out of luck ?

Also, in order for each operator to apply for a license, they must have had a specific mast/building location in mind am I right ?

If so, will we be able to get details of these ?

Please God let me be covered by someone, even Chorus!!!!!

Whats the rollout criterea ?#

wexfordman

BigEejit

I'd love to see those maps with line of sight instead of nice circles, particularly in Kerry, those circles would be 95% smaller ..:(

wexfordman

Methinks this is likely to cover urban areas only, and not too much rural areas. Somebody correct me but it looks like lots of companies in Cork city, and little else outside the city.

What happened to Amocom ? Not sure if its worrying the fact that they did'nt apply or not seeing as they got a grant for a trial and now dont seem interested in this ? Been checking there website for the last couple of months also and not that impressed "The FAQ page will be updated shortly" from day dot

I know its great to see a start, but it needs to be done on an even keel, incentivise these companies to go outside urban areas.

In addition to the questions on my previous post, what is the actual range of these sites ?

wexfordman

crawler

at 3.5Ghz

OFDM will do about 4km NLOS and about 15KM LOS
NLOS depends on a zillion different things

Urban Weigl

Originally posted by wexfordman
In addition to the questions on my previous post, what is the actual range of these sites ?

Originally ComReg said the licenses were for up to 15km, however in the map they are drawn in as 25km.

From a technical prespective, subscriber equipment that operates at 3.5ghz typically has a range of up to 30km (some equipment such as Redline will get you up to 100km at 3.5ghz, but it is too expensive to use for residential subscribers). Note that this can decrease substantially once you factor in obstacles such as buildings, trees and other terrain.

oscarBravo

Originally posted by bk
I believe an IOFFL member managed to get telephone and ISDN services over 3.5GHz from Eircom after months of complaints to Eircom, ComReg etc.

*ahem* An IOffl committee member at that, Brian!

Several people around here have PSTN services over the same type of equipment. They are extremely reluctant to roll out any more ISDN connections, for reasons that are not entirely clear.

Speaking of which, maybe it's time I started hassling Eircom about that 384kb asymmetrical service their licence obliges them to provide...

spongebob

Originally posted by oscarBravo
Speaking of which, maybe it's time I started hassling Eircom about that 384kb asymmetrical service their licence obliges them to provide...

And now you know why i was pointed about McRedmonds use of the phrase "Places"

Eircom allegedly already cover over 20% and possibly as much as 25% of the country with 3.5Ghz and they offer 384k ADSL wireless on that spectrum. They can not refuse to do so as you know perfectly well yourself . That might lose them the entire spectrum which is allegedly very useful for backhaul (which they are not licenced to do in that spectrum <cough><cough> ahem!)

Their Landline based DSL will cover 14% of the country by September 2004.

M

Mountjoy Mugger

So, shag all coverage for Mayo. Nothing new there.

Fallschirmjager

where did comreg get the maps! jeeze it like something from the 1600 handdrawn ones.


can anyone point out the blessington lakes....!!!!

bealtine

quote:

---

Eircom about that 384kb asymmetrical service their licence obliges them to provide...

---

Eircom allegedly already cover over 20% and possibly as much as 25% of the country with 3.5Ghz and they offer 384k ADSL wireless on that spectrum. They can not refuse to do so as you know perfectly well yourself . That might lose them the entire spectrum

---

Where can I find out more about this "mythical" 25% coverage?
And how can I too start hassling them about it?

Any public info available on this or is it all hush-hush?

thnx

STaN

Originally posted by Muck
And now you know why i was pointed about McRedmonds use of the phrase "Places"

Eircom allegedly already cover over 20% and possibly as much as 25% of the country with 3.5Ghz and they offer 384k ADSL wireless on that spectrum. They can not refuse to do so as you know perfectly well yourself . That might lose them the entire spectrum which is allegedly very useful for backhaul (which they are not licenced to do in that spectrum <cough><cough> ahem!)

Their Landline based DSL will cover 14% of the country by September 2004.

M

This available in dublin?

spongebob

Originally posted by wexfordman
What happened to Amocom ?

Amocom use Motorola Canopy Kit in the 5Ghz band which is unlicenced or where you register the base station only, I came across the price list for this kit Here recently and that does not include either Antennae or Installation.

He used to answer his PM's around here but stopped months ago, its probably all my fault or else

Lets All Play Blame Adam©™ﺝﺦ®™ , fheckin toy ads !

M

oscarBravo

Originally posted by bealtine
Where can I find out more about this "mythical" 25% coverage?

Search for "ISDN" and my handle on this board.

And how can I too start hassling them about it?

I'll let you know how I get on for a start.

spongebob

Originally posted by bealtine
Where can I find out more about this "mythical" 25% coverage?
And how can I too start hassling them about it?

Any public info available on this or is it all hush-hush?

Oscarbravo and I discussed this licence at length in the spring, I sugges you read the thread in detail and refer to the link below when so doing.

The commencement date of the licence was June 2000 , the coverage requirements from Comreg depend on the YEAR to June after June 2000 meaning we will reach the end of Year 4 in June 2004

Currently Eircom ar between the years 1 and 5 targets in their licence. That mentions 11 Counties and 19% of the Land Area of the state at least as of June 2001. They have rolled out more since, albeit slowly, which is where the 20-25% figure comes from . I found the list of counties somewhere but cannot remember them. Each covered county must have 400 Km2 of coverage so if Dublin has any it will cover a goodly area.

Comreg will tell you the counties in which Eircom currently supplies 3.5Ghz services if you mail info@comreg.ie

This requirement on page 11 of their licence itself which is here

http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0319R.pdf

Read On.

M

sceptre

Originally posted by crawler
LFCfan is there not some song that goes "Dont know what you got , 'till it's gone"

Big Yellow Taxi

What's my prize? Can I pave paradise and put up a parking lot (cos that would be so cool)

Gibs

Got a reply from comreg following my request for info re which counties are currently being serviced by eircon's 3.5ghz service. Interesting way of avoiding answering the question....



Dear ,
To date we have not made such information available on our website.
However we do have plans to place this information on our siteviewer
database in the future.

In the meantime if this is not satisfactory, you can submit a request
for this information under the Freedom of Information Act.

See our page on FOI for details of how to submit a formal FOI request.

I hope this helps,

Patricia Dowling
Information Officer



Commission for Communications Regulation

Abbey Court, Irish Life Centre, Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1, Ireland

Telephone +353 1 804 9722
Fax +353 1 804 9680
Email patricia.dowling@comreg.ie

Mr_Man

Nice to see that Comreg are getting into the spirit of Benchmarking and delivering the reforms promised in order to get the raises.

In the past they would have told you that this kind of information is not for the plebs. Now they tell you we have it, we might make it easily available in the future but for now, beg for it.

Typifies the whole approach they seem to have to serving the public,

M.

spongebob

Originally posted by Gibs
,
To date we have not made such information available on our website.

Neither do Eircom

However we do have plans to place this information on our siteviewer
database in the future.
2007 is in the future, these Counties were covered in June 2001 (mainly) so how long does a plan last ?
In the meantime if this is not satisfactory, you can submit a request for this information under the Freedom of Information Act.

Tell Comreg to provide a simple yes/no answer about YOUR county and the name of the Eircom person/department department that deals with 3.5Ghz circuits and if they don't then take it to the Ombudsmans office, http://www.ombudsman./ie

M




M

Eurorunner

in the meantime if this is not satisfactory, you can submit a requestfor this information under the Freedom of Information Act.

How do they get away with such a statement! Why is it not in their interests simply just to give an answer...or is it that the relevant infos gathering dust somewhere in Abbey Street and its too much trouble to dig it out?

:mad:

I hope you can find the time to take this further (and not be fobbed off) giblet..cos there may be an angle here for me too ..just want to see how you & oscar bravo get on first.

pete

Suggesting that an FOI request be made in this case is actually good advice - it means that the release of this information will more than likeley be fast tracked, as the FOI request will have to be responded to within a certain time frame.

Eurorunner

huh? I've obviously picked this up wrong then pete...i thought they actually have the info themselves..i mean they must have right?

In which case they're with-holding it..

spongebob

Originally posted by Eurorunner
huh? I've obviously picked this up wrong then pete...i thought they actually have the info themselves..i mean they must have right?

In which case they're with-holding it..

In which case the issue of a reasonable request arises.

A request to Comreg regarding their enforcement of Eircoms 3.5Ghz licence is a reasonable request.

Comreg have refused to respond to this request, namely a question as to the availibiility of the basket of mandatory services in a given area. The licence indicates that Eircom offer 3.5Ghz services in a 400 Km 2 area in each of 11 counties .....as a minimum. These 11 counties have ISDN Leased Lines and ADSL type services .

If you ask whether the service is available IN YOUR county and if Comreg refuse to comply with that request then Comreg are being unreasonable .

Comreg then suggested you FoI, yet they did not tell you if they would answer your query under this mechanism. If there is to be an FoI it should be an extremely wide ranging FoI , I do not think an FoI is the way to go.

You have exhausted normal escalation procedures with Comreg and as Comreg have refused to comply then you have a case with the Ombudsman.

M

pete

Originally posted by Eurorunner
huh? I've obviously picked this up wrong then pete...i thought they actually have the info themselves..i mean they must have right?

In which case they're with-holding it..

What i meant is that if Comreg have the information but just haven't yet gotten around to releasing it to the great unwashed, then the lodging of an an FOI request may move things along a bit quicker. In any event Eircom aren't covered by the FOI act.

That's my reading of their reply anyway.

With regard to "Comreg then suggested you FoI, yet they did not tell you if they would answer your query under this mechanism.", quite often in Civil Service Land information isn't released to the public simply because nobody at a senior enough level has explicitly stated that it can or can't be released... this isn't a deliberate cover up mechanism or anything sinister like that - it's just the age old public service problem of finding someone prepared to actually make a decision.

But part of the wonder of the FOI process is that it can force this decision making step quite easily due to the time constraints imposed. Each body covered by the FOI act has a number of their officers trained as FOI Decision Makers for this very purpose.

As it happens, in many cases bodies covered by the FOI act will be more than happy to deal with these queries outside of the FOI process, as this reduces their profile in the annual FOI stats. But they'll still have to deal with them.

Gibs

Well, I wrote back to comreg asking them for specific info re my county and the current availability of 3.5GHz services. I informed them that I would be contacting the ombudsman if I couldn't get the info from comreg. Below is the response I got.

(P.S. what's the difference between avoidance and evasion??....)



Dear ,
Thank you for your email.
My response was intended to open up another avenue for you to get the
information you need as it is likely that the information you seek will
not be available on our web site for some time.
By using FOI, your request is subject to strict deadlines on our part
and ensures that you receve a speedy reply to your request.

In any case, I have asked the FWA team involved to look at your request
again and they are currently examining eircom's FWA obligations to try
to ensure that you get the information you need including an appropriate
contact in eircom. I will contact you as soon as I hear back from them.

Patricia Dowling
Information Officer

pete

Did i mention my name is really "patricia"?

:ninja:

bminish

I spoke to my local 'Mole' in Eircom in Castlebar today. My 'Mole' is an engineering person not a marketing person.
We had an interesting 'discussion' concerning FWA from eircom in this part of Mayo. Here is what I now Know concerting 3.5 ghz FWA availability from Eircom in Mayo.

1/ Sites confirmed to me in this area are Castlebar (Mast in town ) Westport (Farnaught Hill ) Achill Island , Somewhere near Bellmullet. There are other areas covered in Mayo including presumably Ballina

2/ Officially they only do POTS on it in this area but it but the POTS service works very well for dialup access, I said I Knew of someone who had ISDN over it and he said Eircom don't normally provide ISDN over it since it uses up a full timeslot.
I asked about 384k Wireless and he said that He wasn't aware of anyone on this around here. This would use up 3 full slots and would present them with capacity problems if they actually were to deliver this service to more than a couple of users. Apparently Eircom is trialling FWA ADSL service somewhere in Cork but He had no further details.

Regarding ADSL line failures in towns (which was the original reason I placed a call to my 'mole' )

Mole felt that lines that were within the required line distance from an exchange but failed should simply be treated as faulty lines and fixed, He also said that this view was not a view held by his employer

.Brendan

Fallschirmjager

i have started to email some of the winners of the licenses from the bieginning of this week.

i have as of this morning had no replies


and indeed (now maybe its my search on google) but i can t find web addresses for some of the lesser known ones...

anyone else try and have any better luck?