Eircom trials 5Mbps broadband service

OfflerCrocGod

For all the people who don't read the IrelandOffline forums it appears that eircon are going to finally upgrade upload speeds. Taken from this thread from damien.m

damien.m wrote:

Old 1Mb Downstream / 128k Upstream
New 2Mb Downstream / 256k Upstream

Old 2Mb Downstream / 128k Upstream
New 3Mb Downstream / 384k Upstream

Old 3Mb Downstream / 256k Upstream
New 4Mb Downstream / 384k Upstream

Old 4Mb Downstream / 256k Upstream
New 5Mb Downstream / 512k Upstream

Not bad but this was needed a long time ago. They will occur during January.

SirLemonhead

Ta, nice to hear

exiztone

That's great news. How likely is it that the other companies will follow in style? I desperately want EsatBT to increase their upload speeds.

Willymuncher

But this still isn't official though right? I hope they were good sources that leaked this info, it'd be great to finally have a decent enough upload and that extra little oomph in download. I'm just wondering why its happening...

exiztone wrote:

That's great news. How likely is it that the other companies will follow in style? I desperately want EsatBT to increase their upload speeds.

Extremely likely, seeing as EsatBT and UTV are basically just reselling Eircoms product...err...or whatever, bottom line is, if Eircom make changes, the other companies are certain to follow suit.

OfflerCrocGod

exiztone wrote:

That's great news. How likely is it that the other companies will follow in style? I desperately want EsatBT to increase their upload speeds.

*sigh* BT are just reselling eircon's BB after all they are a monopoly! Don't ever forget that fact; it's the reason Irish internet and penetration figures are as good as Turkey or Mexico and other Higly developed countries </sarcasm> BT lines and UTV lines will increase at the same time as eircons because THEY ARE THE SAME. They all belong to our horrid monopoly

Creamy Goodness

exiztone wrote:

That's great news. How likely is it that the other companies will follow in style? I desperately want EsatBT to increase their upload speeds.

if eircom do it, BT and UTV will follow suit as they are selling the same package

damien

Willymuncher wrote:

But this still isn't official though right? I hope they were good sources that leaked this info

Check the news in the morning. My information is rock solid.

Cabaal

damien.m wrote:

Check the news in the morning. My information is rock solid.

nothing on the likes of enn.ie yet
I believe you though

[EDIT]
there we go http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single5715

zoro

I'm sitting pretty on a delightful 3meg download/512k upload thanks to digiweb metro...
It's hard to believe that I was once stuck on the terrible 512k download and 128k upload. Really is a load of crap that they (eircom) can still get away with their anal rape of irish customers.

256k should have been the basic upload for users when broadband was first "invented" in Ireland. Prehistoric isn't the word...

Willymuncher

damien.m wrote:

Check the news in the morning. My information is rock solid.

It sure was. Great news...can't wait for this.

Maskhadov

Eircom trials 5Mbps broadband service

Eircom trials 5Mbps broadband service

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single5715

23.11.2005 - From next January, Eircom and its various wholesale customers will be introducing new broadband packages with download speeds of up to 5Mbps and 512k upstream. So far no prices have been indicated for the new packages.
Siliconrepublic.com has learned that wholesale customers of Eircom’s bitstream broadband have received a letter from the company informing them of the impending upgrade.

It is understood that Eircom has told other licensed operators (OLOs) it will be testing the new speeds in four exchanges between 5 and 12 December and, if the trials are successful all OLO customers will be upgraded in January.

Already one wholesale customer of Eircom’s bitstream service has indicated its various product offerings for January based on the upgrade.

Netsource has revealed that its Office@Home product will increase from the existing 1Mb downstream and 128k upstream to 2Mb downstream and 256k upstream; its Origin product will increase from 1Mb and 128k to 2Mb downstream and 256k upstream; its Origin Plus 2Mb service will be boosted to 3Mb downstream and 384k upstream; its Enterprise product will increase from 3Mb downstream to 4Mb upstream; and its top level 4Mb Corporate service will increase from 4Mb downstream and 256k upstream to 5Mb downstream and 512k upstream.

Netsource sales and marketing director Louise McKeown commented: “With the introduction of new speeds, particularly with respect to upstream speeds, solutions such as voice over IP (VoIP) becomes a more realistic proposition. A number of clients have a requirement for higher broadband speeds and these upgrades will provide our current and future clients with a pure business class broadband service which will facilitate teleworking, private networking, video conferencing, online backup and of course VoIP.”

At least one other OLO has confirmed with siliconrepublic.com that it has received the letter revealing the impending trials.

Eircom’s move to higher speeds has been long anticipated as well as an impending move into ADSL2+ services.

An Eircom spokesman told siliconrepublic.com that while the company could not comment on the trials or proposed speed increases: “Any product that’s available on Eircom’s network and offered by another operator will also be available to Eircom customers. We will make an announcement in due course.”

The news of a potential speed increase was welcomed by broadband lobby group IrelandOffline. Spokesman Damien Mulley commented: “Increases in speed, especially in upload speed are always to be welcomed. Twice now Eircom reacted to competition in the market by giving people speed increases, a very obvious example of why competition is important and shouldn't be stiffled.

“Even in the past week competition has shown that consumers can get up to 24Mmbps on their lines when this time last year, with a lot less competition, consumers were offered 1mbps. When ComReg and the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources eventually sort out the local loop unbundling (LLU) mess I think we can expect to see these speed jumps become a very regular occurrence,” Mulley said.

By John Kennedy

ricey

So what we are looking at is another DSL upgrade, is it?

kaizersoze

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054853408
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054853117

Gonzo

looks like my old upload limit of 128k will be 384k, thats 3 times the amount, I am a gamer and this is bound to have a good effect on counter-strike source and xbox live? It should lower my ping slightly as our current connections are slightly bottled with the current tiny upload?

whosedaddy?

Great news, but what is the smarter move.. (pun intended - I don't get smart on my line)

I have 1MB/128 with BT... and was thinking about getting the 2MB offer with BT line rental anyway... but that there will be a 3MB/384KB - I want that!!

Upgrade to 2MB service now and get the respective upgrade later in Jan or wait until the new offers are out and hope the prices will be lower...

Any thoughts, ideas, insights?

kaizersoze

whosedaddy? wrote:

Great news, but what is the smarter move.. (pun intended - I don't get smart on my line)

I have 1MB/128 with BT... and was thinking about getting the 2MB offer with BT line rental anyway... but that there will be a 3MB/384KB - I want that!!

Upgrade to 2MB service now and get the respective upgrade later in Jan or wait until the new offers are out and hope the prices will be lower...

Any thoughts, ideas, insights?

My advice would be to get the 2mb upgrade with line rental now and get that out of the way. When the new speeds kick in you'll automatically get them.
When the new upgrades are happenning (if the last upgrade is anything to go by) things will get a little hectic with the various providers so ringing them at that time to upgrade will probably involve long delays.
As for the price, in the past BT have passed lower prices onto existing customers (unlike others). In any case, any new prices/offers will probably be limited to new connections.
I can't really see any price reductions tbh except for new connections maybe.

Maskhadov

merge threads ??

its only a minor upgrade but the increase in upload speeds is a god send for those who are using by €ircon

paulm17781

Smart and NTL will have to up the ante now. Maybe things are funally starting to get interesting!

Maskhadov

nothing of note will happen until the sort out the LLU

bk

Maskhadov wrote:

nothing of note will happen until the sort out the LLU

Well NTL has nothing to do with Eircom, their network is completely independent of Eircom. Same for Digiweb Metro and Clearwire.

Even the LLU players can easily upgrade to ADSL2+ in areas where they have already unbundled.

Steffano2002

I wish we all catch up with everybody else soon! All my mates in France have 24MB connections with free TV, free Phone, no download limit... So jealous!

Kristok

ah who needs 24 mb lines theres nothing to use on it, 3 mb is just enough the upload speed increase will help sort out the gaming and voip probs. Hopefully esat will up the cap to at least 30 this time aswell.

kaizersoze

bk wrote:

Well NTL has nothing to do with Eircom, their network is completely independent of Eircom. Same for Digiweb Metro and Clearwire.

Even the LLU players can easily upgrade to ADSL2+ in areas where they have already unbundled.

True. BT have about 40 exchanges unbundled (incl. my local exchange) and they've done nothing except offering business packages on it.

Steffano2002

Kristok wrote:

ah who needs 24 mb lines

Me?

Kristok

if you give me one reason ill admit defeat but i cant imagine what it could be well apart from super fast bt downloads but even then ive tried them on faster connections and they never go past 3 or 4 mb for me.

Rattlehead_ie

only thing ud need that connection for 24mb would be if u wanted to do some hosting etc from home and even at that ud b more interested in the upload rather than dload.

skywalker

Kristok wrote:

if you give me one reason ill admit defeat but i cant imagine what it could be well apart from super fast bt downloads but even then ive tried them on faster connections and they never go past 3 or 4 mb for me.

IPTV, Video on Demand. Theres 2.

CyberGhost

great news!

I like the sound of 3x upload speed, 3 meg upgrade isn't too bad either, at least we move forward, slowly but still progress.

Gonzo

yeah shud be able to send those emails alot faster now and make online gaming better, will this new upload limit see us with lower pings?

CyberGhost

I don't think it'll lower pings for a single player, but if there are couple of players playing, like you play PC MP, and your friend Xbox live, I think it'll help keep the pings steady and low as usual

Kristok

skywalker wrote:

IPTV, Video on Demand. Theres 2.

indeed but you would need the services and at the moment i dont see any sites that require more than 512 usually let alone 3 or even 24mb. Only place thats taken off is in asia afaik. I think 3mb would do me and most other heavy downloaders just fine. Not saying 24 wouldnt be nice but theres just nothing worth using it on.

Z

*sigh*
I know people on smart who were getting 8mbit until recently.
5megs is fvck all

jor el

bk wrote:

Well NTL has nothing to do with Eircom, their network is completely independent of Eircom. Same for Digiweb Metro and Clearwire.

But if Eircom, being the largest (if not one of the largest) broadband providor in the country, ups their connection speeds, then all the other players will have to follow suit or risk losing business to Eircom.

Also, Eircom won't increase their speeds by any significant amount until LLU operators can start eating into their profits. When the LLU mess is sorted then Eircom will be forced into doing something about their own network. And if Eircom start to make changes then everyone else will follow suit for fear of being left behind.

So even if you're not with Eircom, or not even connected to them in any way (Metro, NTL, IBB, etc), your broadband speed is still being dictated in some way by them :mad:

OfflerCrocGod

Kristok wrote:

indeed but you would need the services and at the moment i dont see any sites that require more than 512 usually let alone 3 or even 24mb. Only place thats taken off is in asia afaik. I think 3mb would do me and most other heavy downloaders just fine. Not saying 24 wouldnt be nice but theres just nothing worth using it on.

Wrong. Very wrong. In France IPTV is popular with their proper high speed lines; usually the triple-play package is offered i.e. TV + BB + VOIP. These services only came into being after the LLU market was opened you can't offer HDTV - IPTV unless the infrastructure is available. Magnet and Digiweb with their Metro offerings are doing this or are begining to do it the only reason they are capable of doing this is because they are using their own lines/network. We are being left behind by the rest of the world because €ircon is allowed control and dictate the market to their own terms. The reason why others are leaving us behind is because they have strong regulators who force the market open and help fight the incumbent, we have the useless Comwreck.

PiE

I really don't understand people who say "ah shore who needs that". YOU don't need it, but there are people who do and it's those people who have pushed for faster speeds all along and they're the bloody reason you're sitting on a 1mb/2mb connection right now.

Turner

Threads merged, ones that i could anyway.

Chief.

Steffano2002

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Wrong. Very wrong. In France IPTV is popular with their proper high speed lines; usually the triple-play package is offered i.e. TV + BB + VOIP. These services only came into being after the LLU market was opened you can't offer HDTV - IPTV unless the infrastructure is available. Magnet and Digiweb with their Metro offerings are doing this or are begining to do it the only reason they are capable of doing this is because they are using their own lines/network. We are being left behind by the rest of the world because €ircon is allowed control and dictate the market to their own terms. The reason why others are leaving us behind is because they have strong regulators who force the market open and help fight the incumbent, we have the useless Comwreck.

So what you're saying here is that we all have slow connections because of €ircom? Now why am I not surprised!?

By the way OfflerCrocGod, love your sig! Awesome quotes

layke

There upload and caps are still sh** though. Meaning they are still one of the worst ISP's go use.

Kristok

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Wrong. Very wrong. In France IPTV is popular with their proper high speed lines; usually the triple-play package is offered i.e. TV + BB + VOIP. These services only came into being after the LLU market was opened you can't offer HDTV - IPTV unless the infrastructure is available. Magnet and Digiweb with their Metro offerings are doing this or are begining to do it the only reason they are capable of doing this is because they are using their own lines/network. We are being left behind by the rest of the world because €ircon is allowed control and dictate the market to their own terms. The reason why others are leaving us behind is because they have strong regulators who force the market open and help fight the incumbent, we have the useless Comwreck.

Yea and i dont speak french so what use it that. Rte are hardly going to start offering web casts or shows and bbc are years off offering it to the general public and I doubt we will get access to it in ireland seeing as we dont pay for their tv licenses. We still have analog telly and your looking for hdtv/iptv and acusing eircom of being the reason we dont have it. Noone needs 24mb internet in ireland unless your operating a big network and if you are there are other options for companys to get but making out like there would be telly there to watch over it is even less realistic than getting 24mb in the first place. Eircom will as they should as a company trying to make a profit stagnate the release of full speed on the line is and release adsl 2 at an inflated price when they decide the market is willing to pay the price for them to set it up or when someone else gets off their ass and builds up a network that can deliver the speed. But go ahead blame eircom its all the boogie mans fault but all your doing is letting the other operators off the hook.

Mutant_Fruit

Kristok wrote:

bbc are years off offering it to the general public

They have already done largescale trials of this. I think i read somewhere that they've already released some shows to the general public via the net, or at least are going to do so very soon.

bk

Kristok wrote:

Yea and i dont speak french so what use it that. Rte are hardly going to start offering web casts or shows and bbc are years off offering it to the general public and I doubt we will get access to it in ireland seeing as we dont pay for their tv licenses.

Actually the BBC are probably the most progressive TV company in the world and already offer most of their shows for 1 week on the internet after they are shown.

RTE, BBC and all the other channles are already been showen on IPTV right here in Ireland by Magnet over ADSL2+ and Fibre.

I expect Smart, Digiweb and maybe even Eircom/BT will be offering similiar services within 12 months.

IPTV doesn't require any special work by RTE or any other channels. The ISP just takes the channel transmission from satellite and encodes it with their servers to push to their customers. The channels don't have to do any streaming over the internet, it doesn't work that way.

High speed last mile technologies is required by the ISPs to allow them deliver the TV service over BB. Using MPEG2 a standard definition TV transmission will require about 4mb/s. So technology like ADSL2+ and high speeds like 24mb/s are required.

BTW in the US, Verizon, the largest telecoms company in the US has actually decided that ADSL2+ and VDSL actually aren't fast enough for them and instead they are rolling out fibre to the home to allow their customers, they are currently connecting 3 miilion people a year.

This Fibre network will allow speeds greater then 200mb/s to each customer and they are already delivering a full TV service over this network (though technically they are not using IPTV, they are using more traditional technology used in cable).

Steffano2002

And I'm not one bit jealous! We'll all have the same in 2012! :v:

Laguna

Steffano2002 wrote:

And I'm not one bit jealous! We'll all have the same in 2012! :v:

Pff, Good luck.. Not if Eircom have anything to do with it. Look at us in the year 2005 in comparison to other countries (e.g France, Britain, Canada, U.S, Australia, Germany; need I go on). There needs to be a radical shake up in this country to get everything up to speeds to rival other countries and the only way this looks achievable is if Eircom are shut down or bought out by a foreign company. I've said it before and I'll say it again, why are a private company like €ircon going to bust their arse with cutting edge technology (e.g FTTH) when they can't even be bothered to supply basic DSL to the whole country.

Kristok

Ok so what you guys are saying is you want 24mb adsl2 so you can watch bbc and rte on the net, yea i can really see how that is worth it thanks for opening my eyes to this new technology id never be able to do that without 24mb or maby a tv card :rolleyes:

Why do you guys complaining about irelands broadband always compare us with other countries, there is no country like ireland we are a small country on what is apart from dublin a fairly spread out bit of land. Dsl is available in dublin and allot of the country but not all. Britian still has people who cant get dsl and their population is like 10 times ours on land not a hell of alot bigger than ireland and 8mb bb is only getting pushed out there now and they where years ahead of us. France, holland, germany, america are even more years ahead of us we have to grow the technology you cant just go from 56k to 24mb overnight otherwise people wont know what to do with it and it becomes a waste of money no company can afford to squander. As it is im sure 99% of the population wouldnt know what to do with 5mb and the only reason eircom are even bothering pushing it out is so they can get that number thats bigger than the next companies out so the average consumer will go oh 5mb is bigger than 2mb ill get that so.

Laguna

British people can already enjoy the luxury of 24mb broadband from a company called be, with BT looking to upgrade the network of the U.K even further with a view to be able to provide 100mb broadband in London by 2007.

Kristok wrote:

Why do you complaining about ireland always compare us with other countries, we are a small country on what is apart from dublin a fairly spread out bit of land

Don't I only know it, everything in this country is done for Dublin, every time Fianna Fail want to get re-elected all they talk about is what they're going to do for Dublin, a metro, more LUAS, better roads, trams to the airport, **** the rest of the country. Your point about Ireland only being a small country, well then, shouldn't that also mean it'd be easier to implement and cost far, far less to install a more modern telecommunications network?. Look at Liechtenstein, you couldn't fit both your feet into the country, yet they have a state of the art telecoms network. Look at Australia, they only have a population of 18 million, they have a state of the art telecoms network, they didn't adopt the "Ah sure **** it" attitude people in power in this country take, look at Australia's land mass in contrast to its population and then think of the infrastructure that would have been implemented to upgrade their network to its standard now. Ireland trumpets itself as an I.T capital of the world, will they be able to call themselves that in 2012 when a good majority of us will still be stuck on dial-up?

Steffano2002

Well now, if I had to choose between Laguna and Kristok here, I'd definitely go with Laguna!
Kristok your post is "typically Irish". By that I mean you really believe Ireland is a small country that cannot "compete" with other countries such as the UK or France... You think we shouldn't expect good internet connections because they are difficult and costly to install. You think €ircom is doing what they can and fair play to them for trying...
To me this is all bullsh!t!!!! You have to adopt Laguna's attitude! You have to expect the Irish government to pull their finger out and say to €ircom "get moving you bunch of muppets or else we're getting another company to do it". You should expect to get 24MB connections in 6 months! Why can other countries do it and not Ireland? Is there a lack of money? A lack of technological knowledge? I don't think so... I think they just couldn't be arsed because people like yourself don't expect them to do it! It's that whole "Ah sure **** it" attitude Laguna was talking about!

bk

Kristok wrote:

Ok so what you guys are saying is you want 24mb adsl2 so you can watch bbc and rte on the net, yea i can really see how that is worth it thanks for opening my eyes to this new technology id never be able to do that without 24mb or maby a tv card :rolleyes:

No, that is just the start, with IPTV you can deliver Video On Demand services over this network. This will be an incredible revolution in TV, people won't watch channels anymore, they will watch content, when they want, not when the TV channel wants.

I got to try this a few weeks ago in Boston, watching 3 episodes of Rome (that had been shown weeks earlier) on Comcast cable was incredible. It was extremelly easy to use, with brilliant picture quality.

Also with this technology they will be able to deliver interactive TV services, much more advanced then Sky digital.

Sky themselves have realised the importantance of this technology and are currently busy buying LLU DSL companies in the UK in order to deliver this technology. I hope you don't own shares in xtra vision (Blockbuster actually) as they are going to be screwed by this tech.

Plus there are plenty of other things you can do with this tech, high quality video conferencing, full game downloads, backup your PC's contents to the net, etc.

kaizersoze

bk wrote:

Sky themselves have realised the importantance of this technology and are currently busy buying LLU DSL companies in the UK in order to deliver this technology.

Sky have already signed a deal with Magnet for this. "Sky by Wire" it's called.
http://www.magnet.ie/news/24-10-05.shtml
Magnet also have a TV package:
http://www.magnet.ie/packages/value.shtml

Blaster99

Countries like Norway, Sweden, and Finland have similar-ish population density and distribution. Ireland is not unique, it's just excuses.

I'm a little sceptical when it comes to TV over ADSL. As things stand, I don't think ADSL has the speed capability over longer distances that makes IPTV a universally viable service. Nothing really to do with Ireland as such.

OfflerCrocGod

Kristok wrote:

Ok so what you guys are saying is you want 24mb adsl2 so you can watch bbc and rte on the net, yea i can really see how that is worth it thanks for opening my eyes to this new technology id never be able to do that without 24mb or maby a tv card :rolleyes:

You don't understand what IPTV is. We are not talking about computers we are talking about set top boxes like Sky plugged into the TV feeding high quality content to the viewers possibly *on demand*! It's not a little crappy quality video feed on your PC.

Snaga

Laguna wrote:

British people can already enjoy the luxury of 24mb broadband from a company called be, with BT looking to upgrade the network of the U.K even further with a view to be able to provide 100mb broadband in London by 2007.

24Mb broadband is not available to all "British people".

Its available to a large number of people yes, but they all live in some parts of london.

And now 24Mb broadband is available in some parts of Dublin! I imagine that we will have it available in more parts of Ireland before it starts gaining serious ground over there.