BT secures Welsh broadband deal

madboggar

Even Wales is better then Us:

Millions of pounds are to be spent converting the last 35 BT exchanges in Wales to broadband in a move to deliver blanket broadband coverage throughout the Principality.

The Welsh Assembly has just inked a deal with BT to convert the last exchanges in Wales are to be wired for broadband - so a further 10,000 homes and business can hook up to high speed net access. These exchanges, not already converted to DSL because they were deemed not to be commercially viable, are due to come online in the summer.

Link

Sponge Bob

at that rate (Govt pays £225k for each exchange , BT pays balance ) it would pan out at €340k here and there are 700 exchanges to be done, minimum.

Thats €230m to bring BB to every exchange, not every person , at that rate of going. Eircom has done some exchanges for €100k a pop in the past.

I consider €230m a **** deal for the Irish taxpayer but if they did the lot for €70m to €100m and guaranteed 90% line pass availability within 5km of each exchange on day one after the upgrade I would consider it acceptable.

Laguna

For the risk of sounding repetitive, why can't we all get broadband in Ireland?, be it through wireless/DSL etc.. It's just not acceptable, it really does go to show you the immense differences in thinking between the UK Government and this tin pot regime that runs the show here, the UK being a dynamic, progressive and forward thinking Gov. who are prepared to invest in areas like rural Wales so high BB availability is made possible..

I live in near Borris, Carlow, a rural town which is situated directly under the RTE transmitter on top of Mt. Leinster, now, Borris the town has DSL (I believe), but because I live beyond the fabled (and quite frankly, pathetic) Eircom DSL limits of 4.5km (I'm 8km) from my exchange, due to the rural nature of my house, I've been told categorically that I will NEVER get broadband at my house... #

Why the **** doesn't a company like Digiweb or Clearwire have the foresight to start selling their services from the RTE mast on MT Leinster, so people like me can actually get BB... If they activated the MT Leinster mast for BB (like they already have for Digiweb Metro in Dublin), the area they would serve (not to mention the customers they would gain) from offering wireless BB would be massive.

Why does this Government sit on its arse with every major issue, hoping for foreign private investors to come in and do all the work for them?, we're not just talking BB here, you can stream off the trains, roads, buses; all things the Government know are in disarray/not up to standard but continue to do nothing about.. Hmm, how shall we tackle our nationwide problems says the Government.. Lets concentrate on Dublin and **** the rest of them!, lets build a Metro!, lets build track to the Airport!..

I strayed from the original topic I know, but I truly give up in the belief things will ever pick up here, be it BB or other major issues.. I.T capital of the world?.. HAHA, blow that out of your arse when most of us (outside Dublin and the other major cities) in Ireland can't even get a basic 512k connection to the Internet IN 2006...

watty

Sponge Bob wrote:

at that rate (Govt pays £225k for each exchange , BT pays balance ) it would pan out at €340k here and there are 700 exchanges to be done, minimum.

Thats €230m to bring BB to every exchange, not every person , at that rate of going. Eircom has done some exchanges for €100k a pop in the past.

I consider €230m a **** deal for the Irish taxpayer but if they did the lot for €70m to €100m and guaranteed 90% line pass availability within 5km of each exchange on day one after the upgrade I would consider it acceptable.

Meanwhile we spend another 170M on MANs of dubious usefulness...

How many MANs in UK?

Sponge Bob

watty wrote:

Meanwhile we spend another 170M on MANs of dubious usefulness...

I'm not sure I agree with you Watty . €170m is about what Eircom pay out in dividends to their oppressed shareholders every year...for doing nothing .

€170m is the profit eircom used to make every year and on which they paid tax to the government but which amount is now paid out to Investment Bankers as interest on Bonds they hold . Needless to say the bankers now collect the tax and keep it and the government gets nothing.

Solair

Considering that I'm sitting in Dublin 4 right now and have been waiting well over a month for a Smart telecom connection to be hooked up, I really think if I were in a truely rural spot I'd be utterly screwed to put it mildly.

Something has to be done about this situation fast as it's rapidly becoming an issue that has gone from potentially damaging the economy to actually damaging the economy.

Either we get our act together or we're all going to suffer badly. Eircom needs to be tackled for the sake of the greater good. The Government has not only the right to, but a constitutional obligation to act to regulate in the interest of the population. The Irish Government's attitude to telecommunications is worryingly laissez faire.

The market's not functioning correctly and is extremely unlikley to fix itself.

Laguna

Solair wrote:

The Irish Government's attitude to telecommunications is worryingly laissez faire.

Unfortunately I don't even feel they have a laissez faire attitude towards the issue, I just feel they don't appreciate the magnitude of the problem, because if they actually understood the current and future adverse effects not having close to 100% DSL availability in Ireland will have on the economy, they'd do something about it.. then again, I'm applying logic to an illogical entity..

swoofer

use your vote, if we dont teach these people a lesson at the next election then we only have ourselves to blame.

gb--

Laguna

Use my vote for who?, Fine Gael?, their manifesto seems to be based on saying how crap Fianna Fail are without offering how they'd do things different.. If I felt there was someone worth voting for I'd do so, as it stands you get to choose from a list of clowns at the polls in Ireland. (the bad scary clowns, like the one in the League Of Gentlemen )

Duiske

€340k per exchange does sound way OTT. And given the ops estimate of 10,000 (potential ?) customers on 35 exchanges, that would work out at roughly €1200 per potential customer. Any idea why BT's exchange upgrade costs are close to 3 times that of Eircom ?

lugana wrote:

Why the **** doesn't a company like Digiweb or Clearwire have the foresight to start selling their services from the RTE mast on MT Leinster, so people like me can actually get BB

I can already here the knives being sharpened by the Borris/Graignamanagh Anti-mast committees.

watty

Mobile phone is 100s of times the power into your brain of a mast. And no evidence they cause a problem. Because of aerial design to improve gain and not waste power there is LESS signal at base of a mast than 200m away.

Laguna

Duiske_Lad wrote:

I can already here the knives being sharpened by the Borris/Graignamanagh Anti-mast committees.

No, I don't mean put up another/more masts, I'm suggesting they use the existing RTE mast for their services, like they do in Dublin..

Duiske

watty wrote:

Mobile phone is 100s of times the power into your brain of a mast. And no evidence they cause a problem. Because of aerial design to improve gain and not waste power there is LESS signal at base of a mast than 200m away.

Yeah....I understand that. But you can't tell that to these people on the committees. "Any mast will give you cancer, end of story". There are only problems if you get with-in 3m of the antenna, not the mast.

Laguna

Duiske_Lad wrote:

Yeah....I understand that. But you can't tell that to these people on the committees. "Any mast will give you cancer, end of story". There are only problems if you get with-in 3m of the antenna, not the mast.

I suppose you're right, I guess in effect that means I'll never get BB in any form at this house, NEVER.

Altreab

Laguna wrote:

Why the **** doesn't a company like Digiweb or Clearwire have the foresight to start selling their services from the RTE mast on MT Leinster, so people like me can actually get BB... If they activated the MT Leinster mast for BB (like they already have for Digiweb Metro in Dublin), the area they would serve (not to mention the customers they would gain) from offering wireless BB would be massive.

Why cant all the RTE masts be used to provide Wireless BB to everyone in the country? Afterall 99.9999999999% of people can get a TV signal.
How much would it cost to install antenna's on all of them? Anyone done any figures on this??

watty

The annual rent more than 10 times the install cost.

Nothing like 99.9999999999% get a TV signal and the number that get a quality non-fringe signal less. Maybe 98% to 99% and 75% repectively. No system can give 99.9999999999%. Even Sky don't claim that, and it gives better coverage than terrestrial (leaving side issue of those not allowed a dish).

Capt'n Midnight

watty wrote:

Mobile phone is 100s of times the power into your brain of a mast. And no evidence they cause a problem. Because of aerial design to improve gain and not waste power there is LESS signal at base of a mast than 200m away.

And lots of people don't complain about the antenna's that are on the side of pubs and other public buildings

As for BB from Mount Leinster you can use expensive kit that handles the timings for the distance or you can use 802.11b which is limited to 11Mbs spread between 30 clients, on a good day, easily falls back to lower speeds if any of the clients have bad reception. Also large dishes all around since no one is close,

BB from mobile phone masts would be a better option as they tend to be in / near populated areas and you have the data path already. The main problem is that the mobile phone companies tend to charge money.

Anyway in addition to sticking a 2 watt transmitter up to their ears , most people have 1,000 Watt microwave ovens in their kitchens. They use DECT phones and video senders.

Also people spend hours daily staring at a device that sets up a 36,000 Volt electric field and bombards them with X-rays. And they've been doing this for over half a century now.

Then again verdigris is toxic http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/c5808.htm

Duiske

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Anyway in addition to sticking a 2 watt transmitter up to their ears , most people have 1,000 Watt microwave ovens in their kitchens. They use DECT phones and video senders.

I'm sure any of you who have worked for mobile telcos or cellular solutions companies will have come across the issue of males keeping their mobile phones in their front trouser pockets. NOT a good idea !.