RTE masts the answer to rural wireless BB access?

Laguna

This is on the broadband forum as well, but I think the question is suited to this forum as well

I've been waiting for broadband to come to my area for five years (Borris, County Carlow) having made immeasurable amounts of emails and calls to Eircom. Broadband finally came to Borris town last November (in terms of the exchange being upgraded). Now, as I live beyond the mythical 4.5km DSL limit enforced by Eircom from my exchange (I live 8km by copper wire, 6km by road - work that one out), I despair as it was unlikely enough that broadband was to ever come to this area in the first place, let alone for another exchange to be put in/the line distance increased.

Eircom now, as this is a rural area, see their 'upgrades' as done and will invest no more money or time in Borris (so whoever can't get BB now, will never). The whole notion is ridiculous, about 1,000 people live within a 4.5km of Borris yet I'd estimate about 3,000 to be withing a 8km radius, why did they bother upgrading the exchange at all if the majority of people in the locality of Borris still won't be able to get it?!.

However, on top of Mt Leinster there's a RTE transmitter that serves the whole of the south east of Ireland for T.V and radio and from what I've heard, Digiweb/IBB use the RTE transmitters just outside/adjacent to Dublin to supply customers with Metro/Ripwave broadband services, now I'm wondering to myself, is there any likelihood of Digiweb/IBB/Clearwire using more of the RTE masts around the country to enable people like myself who're at the mercy of the joke of a copper network (i.e. will never get broadband through the phoneline because of 'distance') to get broadband?.

There's potential for thousands customers like myself for whatever company sets up on the Mt Leinster mast as the reach of the signal would be huge as it's on high ground and surrounded by the likes of Borris, Enniscorthy, Bagenalstown (i.e. many towns). Many people who live in these areas will never get broadband offered to them through their phoneline (including myself) and this is my only hope of ever being able to access the Internet at a speed reminiscent of living in the year 2006 (as opposed to my current 28.8k connection)..

So, does anyone know of any plans for a wireless service to be offered through RTE masts outside the major cities in Ireland?...

Blaster99

I'm sure you will get good local suggestions from people in the know, but a couple of general comments:

There's never a never in technology. I'm sure one day in the not so distant future you will be able to get ADSL on that line of yours. Probably not much above 256kbps mind you.

I wouldn't get too hung up on RTE masts. There are lots of masts around the place, I don't think that's the issue. It's usually not that useful to use a mast on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. Wireless broadband doesn't have the reach of TV or radio so requires a different type of network. It's more like mobile networks.

The economics of wireless broadband is such that it doesn't really pay to cover rural Ireland so you'll find that every form of broadband targets more or less the same geographical areas, with eircom having by far the best coverage of all. However, there are often small local wireless outfits that one can turn to.

watty

So, does anyone know of any plans for a wireless service to be offered through RTE masts outside the major cities in Ireland?...

It exists already. Roll out takes time.

Have you tried Digiweb?

Eircom actually have a national Wireless licence with a lot of base stations, but it is overpriced old technology and they don't seem to want to sign anyone up unless they can't get a phone line at all.

Some companies will be covering Rural Ireland. It is nearly as economic as Urban as the cells can be much bigger (lact of buildings to block signal and lower density of people.

RTE masts are only a partial solution and are already used. I get my 3M down/0.5 up BB via wireless from an RTE mast and I'm 9km away from Limerick City centre as crow flies (longer by road).

I'd expect much more rural wireless over the next 2 years, with 80% coverage maybe. The last 20% is all mountainus i.e. Donegal and harder to cover. But do-able eventually.

jmcc

Laguna wrote:

So, does anyone know of any plans for a wireless service to be offered through RTE masts outside the major cities in Ireland?...

Yeah. A long time ago:
http://www.hackwatch.com/rtedigital.html

Regards...jmcc

watty

jmcc wrote:

Yeah. A long time ago:
http://www.hackwatch.com/rtedigital.html

Regards...jmcc

Common misunderstanding. That was not and never meant to be BB, despite what "It's TV" claimed. Very low bandwidth back channel (maybe 30 to 300 bps) to carry keystrokes for Interactive instead of phone line used by Sky and previously for "ITV Digital / On Digital"

There would also have been possibly a per user download too (rather than just the for everyone broadcast download data in Sky), but likely around 100 to 1000 bps per user, when number of users on a mast / transponder taken into account.

Actually Sky Digital Satellite has a small per user download to alert of waiting messages.

For update to RTE / DTT see
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054906221

also
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=125569

And the ICDG generally
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=40

Also the ICDGopedia in my sig.

1huge1

well if that dosnt work maybe you should get isdn (either 64k or 128k) i know when it comes to downloading you only get about 10kb/s but pages load almost instantly
ive had it for 4 years as im waiting for eircom to upgrade my exchange (which is suprisingly one of the biggest in limerick and it dosnt make sense to me why the past us out)
so if broadband is totally out of the question isdn is a good alternative

jmcc

watty wrote:

Common misunderstanding.

This was a wireless service that would be available from RTE's transmission network - just as Laguna asked about. This was based on talking to the RTE guys for about an hour or so at one of the internet shows rather than merely rrerunning press releases as ENN does. It showed a bit more promise than dialup (Even ISDN was rare back then and most modems were operating between 14K4 and 28K8 with 56k only phasing in) and they seemed to want to provide a higher bandwidth for the up channel than dialup at the time. The big problem was that both RTE and Telecom Eireann were state owned. Having a nationwide DTT system with internet access capability would have screwed any launch potential for TE on the stockmarket. Guess what happened.

Regards...jmcc

Blaster99

Is that the excuse RTE uses for not getting DTT off the ground in any shape or form?

jmcc

Blaster99 wrote:

Is that the excuse RTE uses for not getting DTT off the ground in any shape or form?

No. But Ireland is a midget market for DTT and DTT was slow in taking off because of satellite providing a simpler delivery path and more channels. Don't forget that Cablelink was also owned by the government at this time and had not been sold to NTL. Cablelink had great plans to introduce cable based broadband then as well - it would have totall f*cked TE and its non-existent ADSL. Unfortunately Cablelink didn't have the money to do anything. The market for Digital TV is different now in Ireland and RTE would be going up against satellite delivery and cable delivery. Commercially, would it really make sense?

Regards...jmcc

watty

jmcc wrote:

..... and most modems were operating between 14K4 and 28K8 with 56k only phasing in) and they seemed to want to provide a higher bandwidth for the up channel than dialup at the time. .....

Regards...jmcc

yes. but it was shared among ALL viewers of the transmitter, i.e. 200K up channel not much good for Internet in Limerick area (WoodCock Hill) if 50k users sharing it.

It really was just for interactive, not Internet. I can't remember the actual figures, put per user typically it could NEVER equal poor dialup.

The whole Eircom/ Cable / State issue is not the reason it faltered. The Government was worried (a) about cost, they didn't want to fund it and realised RTE was adament about needing extra funding. (b) EU competition rules. UK had already forced BBC to sell off the network. It was beleived the best way was to sell the RTE network to who-ever would get licence to build the DTT network. But the idea of DTT as Pay TV faltered, the government was slow and ITV Digital and other pay DTT systems did not work out.

So in the end only It's TV put in for the licence. There was several problems. It was not clear they really had the finance. Also their buisness model was based on selling broadband. but (1) They were not getting a Wireless BB licence but a TV Distribution/Network licence and (2) You can't magic bandwidth from nowhere. the system technically could only do broadband spectrum wise for a few hundred people and the DTT boxes not designed for it at all.

So EVEN had Comreg been willing to give a Wireless BB licence, it would not have worked.

NO-ONE is using a DTT system for Wireless Broadband. (Yet. Actually there may be a way to do it, but it involves not actually transmitting any TV!).

In the end "It's TV"'s application was chucked out. The Government in current trials is attacking the problem by a different route, but as to how the two year trial will result in a National service seems to be unclear even to people in RTE never mind us.

It turns out that only the recently released DVB-h standard can do two way internet (but only if there is no TV), a little bit like a TDM cell phone network. but trust my math, it was never possible with DVB-t.

watty

Blaster99 wrote:

Is that the excuse RTE uses for not getting DTT off the ground in any shape or form?

It hasn't been up to RTE for about 5 years, It was to be tendered. RTE are quite keen on DTT, but have neither the Government permission nor the huge amount of cash needed.

watty

1huge1 wrote:

well if that dosnt work maybe you should get isdn (either 64k or 128k) i know when it comes to downloading you only get about 10kb/s but pages load almost instantly
ive had it for 4 years as im waiting for eircom to upgrade my exchange (which is suprisingly one of the biggest in limerick and it dosnt make sense to me why the past us out)
so if broadband is totally out of the question isdn is a good alternative

The only problem with ISDN is that it is so expensive. 64K is equivalent to 80k analog roughly in performance. If there was true flat rate internet or one ch dedicated to internet for fixed charge (ironically costs Eircom LESS than adsl).

In Limerick at least there is now a choice of two wireless operators, one at least can supply BB as good or better than adsl and a phone connection too, I'm looking forward to saving 25 euro a month approx on my Eircom line rental when geographic number port is done. The POTS port on the "modem" has its own 061 number already and works with ordinary phones. Though there has been some teething bugs on outgoing audio quality.

Sponge Bob

Looks like someone is doing Carlow soon and from the RTE masts too.

see

http://www.permanet.ie/map1.asp

Laguna

Sponge Bob wrote:

Looks like someone is doing Carlow soon and from the RTE masts too.

see

http://www.permanet.ie/map1.asp

Yeah, I saw that thanks Sponge Bob, good news seemingly. What's better in the big picture is they seem to plan to spring up their services all over rural parts of the country that can't and won't receive phoneline DSL, maybe 100% coverage of broadband isn't the impossible dream in the near future after all?..