Faster!!!!! More Bandwidth, she can't take no more capt`

OfflerCrocGod

I'm wondering when VDSL is going to be rolled out in Dublin because 512Kb is really chafing me I'd want 1-2Mb ideally, I'm asking because there are usually a few ppl here on the boards who hear things and could know what's up. Someone two roads away from me who's dad works for Eircon was testing this out - all I know is that he was getting really high speeds (VDSL is in the range of 13 - 45 Mb right???) and from what I hear the testing has stopped. So I've come to the conclusion that the tests went fine and sometime next year we can expect these services to come out, does anyone know if this is just my fevered imagination or reality:D?. Please dont reply with a complaint about how 512kb is fine for you and in *your* day 2400 baud was the BOMB, cause I do want this extra speed, 4 hours + for big downloads is annoying. So are we getting VDSL next year in march:D please someone say yes.

tribble

It is possible that Eircom are simply doing what the did this time four years ago.
Namely "testing" high bandwidth products prior to the companies sale in order to boost pre-float value.
Runour has it eircom are floating again soon.

I personally saw multiplexed digital video delivered via DSL being sucessfully tested in Crown Alley (city centre) 5 years ago.

tribble

spongebob

Originally posted by OfflerCrocGod
I'm wondering when VDSL is going to be rolled out in Dublin. So I've come to the conclusion that the tests went fine and sometime next year we can expect these services to come out, does anyone know if this is just my fevered imagination or reality:D?.

Oh God , the exuberence of those who don't remember the good ole days of the one pound pint and the 2.4k modem (half duplex as well xon-xoff) . VDSL is an old standard now, some 4 years old I think. It has been spotted working in Dublin and Ennis 2-4 years back but it has been turned off since 2002 ISTR.

VDSL as a technology is routinely deployed in advanced technological countries like Sweden or Japan or Korea where the Eircom equivalent comes under pressure from FTTH and Metro Ethernet and other alternative last mile systems.

Last time I looked we were not an advanced technological country so we will not be getting VDSL next year or the year after or indeed anytime in this decade.

We wont see FTTH or Metro Ethernet either which could deliver 100Mbps and upwards to the home. In fact we will see feck all except the sight of those countries shooting away ahead of us into the distance .

M

clearz

VDSL next year LOL you got to be joking. Sure they are still slowly rolling out RADSL accross the country. Even if the technology is there eircom wont start using it for another 5-7 years. We are only getting RADSL now when it is a mature technology in most other countries.

This is how I see the future. Around 2007 VDSL will be standard in most countries the monthly charge will be around EUR25 and we will be wobbling along behind with our ridicously slow 512K ADSL connections and paying EUR40 per month after eircom knocks 15 quid of their monthly charge around 2005. There will be mass emigration around this time just like a few decades ago because all the Hi-Tec Graduates that are finnishing college wont want to hang around a country that is stuck in the 20th century because of one telecoms monopoly and a government that closes its ear to its people. Seriously but VDSL is out of the question for a very long time in this country.

milltown

In addition, given the line test failure rate for vanilla DSL @ 512, for multiples of Mbps I reckon you would need to take up residence in your local exchange.

Rabies

is this what we are missing ?

vibe666

you have about ooh, let me see.0% chance of VDSL being introduced in Ireland (to the consumer) in the next 4 or 5 years. this is why.

VDSL is possible only by having a very high speed fibre optic connection right into your neighbourhood, or directly to the junction box on your street. for it to be able to deliver the high speeds it can, you need to be within 4000 feet (1200m) of where the fibre terminates. the rest of the signal is then transmitted over existing copper phone line.

I know people in the centre of dublin who can't get dsl because their phone lines are not of sufficient quality (and one of them works for eircom dsl support ironically) to pass the line tests for radsl, never mind something like vdsl. eircom need to get their fingers out and completely upgrade their whole infrastructure from your front door, right back to crown alley before vdsl will ever be a reality for anything other than a couple of people testing it.

i say a minimum of 4 to 5 years before a mainstream product is rolled out, and that's optimistic.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Muck
countries like Sweden or Japan or Korea where the Eircom equivalent comes under pressure from FTTH and Metro Ethernet and other alternative last mile systems.

Am I missing something, or is there some obvious reason why eircom should be the company delivering FTTH?

Surely FTTH would be of far greater value to Ireland if it was being delivered as a comptetitor to eircoms existing copper network?

And if there's nobody in the telecoms business that thinks that such a strategy makes sense, is it because of regulatory failings by the Government, or because they (whoever might do this) doesn't think enough Irish people would pay for it to make it worthwhile?

Of course, the same could be said of cable-TV networks. There are 50,000 new homes built in Ireland every year. Is there any particular reason that new estates and apartment blocks aren't built with up to date broadband infrastructure in place? Looking at the greed of developers in every other aspect of this market, it's hard to believe they wouldn't be doing this if they thought they could make a few extra euros out of builing "broadband ready" housing. (The cost of doing this for an estate of 50 houses, or 100 apartments can't be that great).

silent

the best we consumers will get in 04 is an upgrade of all adsl to 768kbit with a second offering of 1.5Mbps for the speed hungry. I really can't see anything beyond that being done next year, hopefully I'm wrong. And I'll do as much as I can to leave this technologically doomed country asap next year.

ando

[sarcastic] yes, Eircom are in the advance stages of launching Vdsl to Dublin city centre and surrounding surburb area's. They hope to be launching a package early May 2004, price to be around 35euro for a 5Mbps [/end sarcasm]

OfflerCrocGod

Yet again i am forced to say this: "God, I hate this fuc5ing backward country", ohh well if we get 1.5Mb next year it will do, thats *if* we get that. Surely we can hope!, I suppose the actual physical network is in such a state that for VDSL to be available everywhere in Dublin it would necessitate the entire network to be upgraded - that will probably never happen:(. I was just wondering thats all.

rymus

26Mbps for £20 a month eh? That sounds *holding back the rage* quite interesting...


It's fairly clear what needs to be done. Fire all the top level management of Eircom and bring a load of Japanese people from NTT over to take their places. While were at it, replace Comreg with a load of Japanese people. Might as well go the whole hog; get rid of the entire government and replace them with little efficient Japanese people. I personally wouldnt complain too much if I was getting 26Mbps for less than what I'm paying for 512k. (The three months free is just a tease)

ando

Originally posted by rymus
While were at it, replace Comreg with a load of Japanese people. Might as well go the whole hog; get rid of the entire government and replace them with little efficient Japanese people

That honestly is the best idea I've heard in a long time :eek:

vibe666

of course japan has embraced ultra high speed broadband. what do you expect from a country who have pioneered some of the weirdest sexual practices on the planet. they're all after the pr0n!

you can shout all day about how things would be better with more than 512kbps but the bottom line is, it's not going to be of even the slightest use until that stuid cap is removed from ALL broadband connections.

'great i just got my new 2mbps dsl and i can download 14gb of stuff a day. woohoo!'

'hang on a minute, i just went over my 6gb cap in 12 hours!'

oh well, i can't wait till next month when i can start downloading stuff again, it'll be great!' :mad:

OfflerCrocGod

Umm well I was kinda expecting that cap to disappear after the speeds increased if you know what I mean, I suppose they would afto decrease the contention ratio for that to happen to about 1:24 and that will never happen - I dont care I just want an improvement somewhere! somehow! :mad: why do we always afto be behind the rest of the world.

MrPinK

Given the state of the phone lines, and the chances of eircom doing anything about them, I doubt this country will ever see VDSL. All our fast broadband hopes rest on wireless solutions.

Ripwave

Originally posted by rymus
It's fairly clear what needs to be done. Fire all the top level management of Eircom and bring a load of Japanese people from NTT over to take their places. While were at it, replace Comreg with a load of Japanese people. Might as well go the whole hog; get rid of the entire government and replace them with little efficient Japanese people. I personally wouldnt complain too much if I was getting 26Mbps for less than what I'm paying for 512k. (The three months free is just a tease)

Better bring over a couple of million Japanese taxpayers, and a multi-billionaire tycoon willing to subsidise the infrastructure costs while you're at it.

rymus

Originally posted by Ripwave
Better bring over a couple of million Japanese taxpayers, and a multi-billionaire tycoon willing to subsidise the infrastructure costs while you're at it.

Why not? The more the merrier!

Ripwave

Originally posted by MrPinK
Given the state of the phone lines, and the chances of eircom doing anything about them, I doubt this country will ever see VDSL. All our fast broadband hopes rest on wireless solutions.

And judging by comments in the Ireland Offline forum, it sounds like you won't be able to get wireless unless you are prepared to put an antennae on the roof - therefore you won't see "free install, first month free" deals that might actually represent competition for eircom. It'll be engineer install only, and it won't be a quick 20 minute, one man operation either.

(Reading between the lines - someone posted that IBB were told that they can't use Navini technology, which uses a wireless "modem" the size of a paperback book. I can only assume that this has been ruled out because it's not "fixed", and therefore isn't allowed under a "fixed wireless access" scheme. If anyone has any further information or insight, please let us know).

Ripwave

Originally posted by rymus
Why not? The more the merrier!

Why not? €12 for a pint of Guiness seems like a good reason why we don't want "Tokyo on the Liffey". (€10, maybe :cool: )

vibe666

man that sucks. i had my hopes inned on ripwave being 'the next big thing' and bring bb to the masses affordably.

yet more of the government fixing things to keep eircom on top. fvckers, they'll always think of something to screw us ver with.

WizZard

I've just read that BBC article about broadband in Japan. Now I feel very sick...
Anybody know of any good Japanese language courses???

I think that idea of replacing ComReg and Eircom's management with "little efficient Japanese people" is spot on though.:D

But I can't see anything like whats in Japan happening here. Currrently if you want faster than 1.5-2mb you have to get a leased line from Eircom or EsatBT, this is the greatest money spinner that these companies have ever thought of, so an affordable xDSL product with speeds to rival leased lines will never be brought in I'm afraid :mad:

rymus

Originally posted by Ripwave
Why not? €12 for a pint of Guiness seems like a good reason why we don't want "Tokyo on the Liffey". (€10, maybe :cool: )

Some people just don't know when to give up...

carrotcake

Originally posted by Ripwave
Of course, the same could be said of cable-TV networks. There are 50,000 new homes built in Ireland every year. Is there any particular reason that new estates and apartment blocks aren't built with up to date broadband infrastructure in place? Looking at the greed of developers in every other aspect of this market, it's hard to believe they wouldn't be doing this if they thought they could make a few extra euros out of builing "broadband ready" housing. (The cost of doing this for an estate of 50 houses, or 100 apartments can't be that great).

i'm told that it's the cost of decent two-way cable that's putting ntl off of laying it down in new housing areas

The Bouncer

Send all complaints to the Dept. of Commuications it won't so much good but at least we get to vent :mad:

Ripwave

Originally posted by carrotcake
i'm told that it's the cost of decent two-way cable that's putting ntl off of laying it down in new housing areas

That's a load of crap - the manpower cost of installing the stuff costs more than the cable itself.

Even if the stuff cost €5/metre the cost per house in an estate would be less than €100 per house. And it doesn't cost anything like €5/metre. (You can buy fibre optic cable for less than that).

Mutant_Fruit

Then why bother with expensive labour and cabling, wouldn't wireless be 10x cheaper to set up?

I believe that for the short-medium term, wireless internet will be fastest and cheapest. Especially with those tasty new 3.5ghz contracts hot off the press. We just have to wait a month or 4 for the services to be enabled, and it'l;l beat the pants off ADSL.

A friend of mine (currently in norway), has access to a 2mb/2mb wireless line, and he can ping boards in under 10ms. Wireless can technically be better than adsl etc.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
Then why bother with expensive labour and cabling, wouldn't wireless be 10x cheaper to set up?

It seems to me that we all got our TV via "wireless" before the cable companies came on the scene?

I wonder why everyone switched over to cable? Maybe it had something to do with all those aerials you had to have up on your chimney?

Mutant_Fruit

Well, with the new higher frequency wireless services, would they not be able to use indoor equipment, as i believe that los is not necessary with the new stuff.

I believe that for the short-medium term...

And yes, i would think that in the long-term cable and fibre will win out, at least, until something better comes along.

EDIT: something better just came out: http://www.navini.com/pages/press/2003/pr07.07.03.htm

Ripwave

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
Well, with the new higher frequency wireless services, would they not be able to use indoor equipment, as i believe that los is not necessary with the new stuff.

And yes, i would think that in the long-term cable and fibre will win out, at least, until something better comes along.

EDIT: something better just came out: http://www.navini.com/pages/press/2003/pr07.07.03.htm

You might have noticed my username, Mutant_Fruit? I'm well familiar with the Navini kit.

Unfortunately, I've also seen it reported here that Comreg won't allow IBB to use Navini kit in the 3.5GHz spectrum. (What - you intend to provide real competition for eircom? We can't allow that, application refused!).

Mutant_Fruit

thats nasty! First i heard of that.

What was the reason for denying the use of that kit? Sounds to me like its a load of b**ax.

EDIT: i read some older threads.. how'd i miss that one.... still, i'm baffled as to how they can promote "fair" trade on one hand, and then take away IBB's ripwave with the other.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
thats nasty! First i heard of that.

What was the reason for denying the use of that kit? Sounds to me like its a load of b**ax.

I don't know, and I haven't contacted IBB or ComReg about this, but I can only imagine that it's because the Navini kit isn't "fixed", so ComReg wouldn't allow them to use it for a "Fixed Wireless Access" service?

That's the sort of thinking that got the Civil Service a bad name.

But it's just speculation on my part (and sour grapes - I was hoping they'd upgrade my Ripwave kit to 3.5GHz first!).