ESB's Fibre Loop - Any details of connections yet?

The Clown Man

Just curious,

I believe my ISP is connecting to the fibre loop in the next few weeks upgrading from thier current 2Mb leased line to a 100Mb fibre optic pipe. (Yay!)

Has anyone experienced a line on the loop yet? Are there any operaters connected to it yet?

I'm taking it that I'll have a stable connection, little or no latency, constant download rates and pure internet bliss.

Can someone ruin this image for me now so that I'm not let down when I acually get it... Or might I actually be close?

Mutant_Fruit

what isp? And yes, i presume you will be able to look forward to full speeds 24x7, until they get another few hundred customers.

thegills

SMART Telecom have taken a fibre from Cork to Dublin. There are 2 others whom I can't name. Which city are you in? AFAIK it's mostly the MAN's that are connected to the ESBT network.

thegills

The Clown Man

I'm in Dundalk.

On the soon to be glorious Digiweb.

ozt9vdujny3srf

Ahh how is this working exactly, are Broadband isp's buying bandwith from the esb and using it as their backbone? If so towuld be sweet alright. Might see huge rises in d/l caps.

tomk

Originally posted by The Clown Man
I'm taking it that I'll have a stable connection, little or no latency, constant download rates and pure internet bliss.

This may be an overly bleak view, but why are you so optimistic? Your supplier is changing their supplier - that doesn't necessarily affect your current relationship with them. You're paying them for a certain level of service at the moment, so that's most likely what you will continue to receive.

And from a network perspective, the fact that they're getting a mega-pipe for backhaul has little to do with the fact that most of the bottlenecks are in the last mile.

dlofnep

"Monday 2nd February 2004: The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Dermot Ahern TD today switched on the Northern Loop of the ESB Telecoms Fibre Optic Network. Today's switch on completes the ESB National Fibre Optic Network, providing broadband infrastructure across Ireland. "

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The Clown Man

Yea, but afaik so far the problem with the bandwidth on suppliers like Digiweb and IBB so far have been the fact that they've been restricted to using leased lines as their backhaul. Up till now.

There are going to be problems when you try to connect 100 odd customers via a 2Mb line.

AFAIK On a 2Mb line 4 simultaneous connections will affect the line. On a 100Mb line you'd need at around 100. That should mean that there will need to be thousands of subscribers before these issues rear their ugly heads again. And by then there will be enough money coming in to invest in more bandwidth.

I hope to god I'm right about this but I think the ESB has seen off the last of the bandwidth issues with Wireless suppliers.


Please someone correct me about this if they know that I'm mistaken.

Mutant_Fruit

so have IBB and Digiweb bought bandwidth of ESB or not?

I;m still wondering who has actually aquired some, and who hasn't.

Turner

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
so have IBB and Digiweb bought bandwidth of ESB or not?

I;m still wondering who has actually aquired some, and who hasn't.

Thats a very good question... Alot of people would like to know.

iwb

First of all, backbone/backhaul bandwidth isn't bought contended. It is a dedicated link so that part of the network is dedicated to the customer. That is all that ESB Telecom is supplying. The potential bottlenecks are at the first/last mile and the internet 'gateway'.
Digiweb will have to separately provision both. It is in control of its own wireless local delivery and can buy as much or as little internet gateway as it likes or can afford. All of the elements can be upgraded for more bandwidth but cost is the issue as always.
Will you see better service? It's depends on whether the existing backhaul was saturated or not mainly. The heaviest contention might be on the local wireless network.
The ESB Telecom network should be rock solid as it is built in a ring configuration but it depends also on how they manage it of course.
I would be shocked if IBB and Leap aren't among the other customers gills alluded to as they need to get out there to fulfill the 3.5GHz requirements and nothing else that I am aware of is cheaper than ESB Telecom today for this. 100Mb ethernet costs €45k/year. That is less than four grand a month! A two meg leased line still costs most of that to many parts of the country.

The Clown Man

FYI Digiweb have ordered a 100Mb line from ESB Telecom. ESB are in the process of installing a fibre line directly into Digiweb's offices in Dundalk. They hope to have it connected before the end of the month if there are no set-backs.

AFAIK they signed up for the 100Mb line at the opening of the north fibre loop in the Ballymascanlon Hotel a couple of weeks ago. I think this says a lot for their enthusiasm but then again to me they are local so they just have to get it right!

I don't know what other providers have signed up but I'd expect them to follow suit shortly if they are not already on their way.



By the way I got this info from the support on the Digiweb phone lines. They are refreshingly straight to the point with very little dancing about the subject and even less bullsh!t.

Just has me thinking back to eircom .... Biddies! Hah!

po0k

This is what Telecom Eireann should have (and could ahve in conjunction with ESB) laid down 10-15 years ago.
Then we'd be more like Norway/Sweden.

Bloody great news though, wasn't expecting the loops to be active and complete this early.
I have always had a bit of respect for ESB as a semi-state body which is run to serve the people within it's abilities.

Fair play


/me just hopes this doesn't cock up down the road

Ripwave

Originally posted by SyxPak
I have always had a bit of respect for ESB as a semi-state body which is run to serve the people within it's abilities.

I wonder what will happen to them when the Government finally get their way and float them on the stock market? (The government has actually been blocking some ESB operations that would be good for the ESB, but bad for a planned flotation).

po0k

If they sell off the national grid for pennies I'll fire-bomb the Dáil.

Afaik the ESB is the only Semi-state that actually turns a profit?
Why would they want to float it anyways?
Why are they allowed throw away such a valuable civiv property without some sort of national poll or even discussion/debate?
Feckers trying to balance the books while buying the Air Corps fighter jets....

Ripwave

Originally posted by SyxPak
Afaik the ESB is the only Semi-state that actually turns a profit?

To the best of my knowledge, Aer Rianta makes a profit - and Seamus Brennan is busily trying to destroy it too.

Moriarty

A number of semi-state companys turn rather large profits and not just the obvious ones.

The government have seemingly learnt something from the eircom sell off by the by, as the plan is to keep the power distribution network under state ownership as Eirgrid whenever the ESB is sold off.