What Quality of Network do we think Eircom show have?

Altreab

Would this be a suitable Eircom network to deliver true highspeed BB for all?

1) All exchanges and Remote Subscriber Units (RSU)to be connected by lit fibre at OC192 speeds (OC-192 = 9.952 Gbps) or faster.

2) ALL Exchanges and RSUs to be ADSL2 enabled.

3) ZERO carrier lines.

4) Minimun Connection Speed to be 16 Megs

5) Max time for application to installation of home line to be 5 working days

That for starters anymore suggestions?

RangeR

Just not going to happen. Definately within the next 5 to 10 years.

Nice idea though.

damien

Altreab wrote:

3) ZERO carrier lines.

Price tag for that is 200 Million.

TimTim

1) Is very silly I think, thats throwing money at a non existant problem. I seriously doubt some backarse exchange deep in offaly with 300 lines needs an OC-192 connection. You estimate your bandwidth needs and connect as appropiate.

Urban Weigl

99% of lines capable of always-on xDSL at 128kbps minimum.

bk

Urban Weigl wrote:

99% of lines capable of always-on xDSL at 128kbps minimum.

Yes, or maybe 512k should be possible.

I think it is much more important that 100% of people have access to at least basic bb then some unrealistic uber fast bb.

Personally I've gone from 512k -> 2m -> 3m -> 6m and to be honest I haven't seen much difference between them all. Yes things download a little faster at 6m, but browsing, gaming, flat fee, always on are all the same for 512k as it is on 6m.

Sponge Bob

bk wrote:

Yes, or maybe 512k should be possible.

512k in urban areas and 256k in rural areas .

I think it is much more important that 100% of people have access to at least basic bb then some unrealistic uber fast bb.

I agree bk, nor should there be a one size fits all approach. Country areas do not have cable and never will, and thats all before distance kicks in .

256k is a BIG upgrade from 12k on a pairgain which is what country people have to put up with in reality .

Rather than spend €200m on removing pairgains I would spend it on a tax break to subsidise those who get BB installed no MATTER what the hurdle is. They can then spend that efficiently on a carrier that supplies them with their 256k minimum , even eircom could qualify .

Allegedly only 12% of lines fail so the number of lines affected would be around 200,000 lines nationwide and €200m tax credit is €1000 for each of those .

clohamon

Sponge Bob wrote:

Country areas do not have cable and never will,

Ouch

lucernarian

At this stage I *think* long lines are a bigger problem than pairgains. Sadly I can't remember where I read it but 4% of lines are affected by a pairgain and 7% are affected by excess line attenuation (long lines or thin copper).

But no matter what the statistics are, eircom have so far shown themselves incapable of installing a repeater for those with long lines. There are many lines around Ireland with 10 km lengths and higher. The effort to go into a manhole and connect a cheap repeater to a junction box is seemingly too much for eircom sadly.

Will Pierre bring change?

jwt

I have a green box less than 50 feet away I assume some sort of MUX. How does that affect bb reach?


John

Urban Weigl

Does anybody know what percentage of lines are 10km or less in length?

Solair

I think the major issue in Ireland and eircom's network's nothing to do with backhaul. Eircom seem to have plenty of fiber in place for quite a long time.

The major issue here is that the eircom network isn't coping well with the rapid growth of housing and also with the growth of far flung housing in what are / recently were rural areas. They need to get with it in terms of planning. There's been far too much of a haphasard approach to network development.

Long copper lines, under-estimating growth in areas and installing insufficient copper infrastructure etc etc.

Any new major developments should simply get an RSU with a DSLAM already installed and ready to roll. I'm very sure that eircom's equipment suppliers i.e. ericsson and alcatel are quite capable of doing that.

They have to stop treating DSL as an optional extra.

This kind of issue needs to be dealt with by Noel Ahern too though, it's not just eircom's fault. Provisions *MUST* be made to get this kind of infrastructure in. Allowing developers to keep eircom infrastructure out is going to cause chaos in the long term. I can see new estates having to get overhead lines and telephone poles!!!

As it stands, eircom's network is the *ONLY* way you can get access to a range of DSL and voice providers, thus an eircom line / possibility of an eircom line should be part of any planning ap for development.
Cable and the likes of magnet by fiber, are just giving you access to a single provider.

probe

bk wrote:

Yes, or maybe 512k should be possible.

I think it is much more important that 100% of people have access to at least basic bb then some unrealistic uber fast bb.

Personally I've gone from 512k -> 2m -> 3m -> 6m and to be honest I haven't seen much difference between them all. Yes things download a little faster at 6m, but browsing, gaming, flat fee, always on are all the same for 512k as it is on 6m.

Broadband penetrations rates will remain low and competition will be limited while speeds of 512k or 2 Mbits/sec or even 4 Mbits/sec if you look at the experience in other countries.


To make broadband universally appealing (for the consumer and to drive service provider investment in the service) it has to offer multi-media functionality in the package (eg cheaper / free landline calls, cable / satellite TV alternative, Video Kiosk, mobile/fixed line convergence etc) so the whole household – some members of which have only limited or no interest in touching a PC will see the logic in getting the service from their perspective. Otherwise it will remain the preserve of “nerds” (I’m using this as a simple phrase to cover non casual internet users).


In France if you just watch TV on satellite or cable and have a landline and have no requirement for internet use at this stage, it is still cheaper to get a free.fr or neuf.fr box for €29,99 per month and plug your TV and phones into it and dump your satellite or cable TV and France Telecom monthly line subscription (and phone call charges to fixed lines too). Down the line if someone in the house gets a computer for Christmas they just plug the Ethernet lead into the set top box and they have broadband at no extra cost. Meanwhile free or neuf will be making extra money when customers decide to subscribe to optional TV channels or movies or other services.


For this to be reality you need ADSL2+ speeds at a minimum. In France, Deutsche Telekom’s Club Internet is about to test VDSL2 later this year in tandem with their plans for a German roll out. Telecom Italia and France Telecom is moving to VDSL2 next year. Swisscom, Bredbandsbolaget in Sweden, KPN and Voljatel in Slovenia are also starting to use VDSL2. It has a top theoretical speed of 250 Mbits/sec at source and ranges from 50 to 100 Mbits/sec in the field when fed from street cabinets or directly to customers living close (within 1km) of the RSU or exchange.


These higher speeds will be required for video on demand services (eg a virtual video kiosk offering Blue Ray quality HD movies). [As people replace their TVs with HD sets – (In France 60% of non portable TVs sold by the largest retailer FNAC are HD today), they will be swapping their DVD players for Blue Ray (or HD-DVD) to watch the movies they rent and buy in high definition. The broadband provider who wants to compete with the video rental store will have to be ready. Renting DVDs on demand via broadband is so much more convenient than going to the rental store and you don’t have the second trip to return the product.


Another development is the MSAN (multi services access node) which is a critical component in enabling the loop unbundler to offer the full package of multi-media services [everything including voice calls] to the customer over a common IP infrastructure. MSAN is also compatible with fibre to the home. This makes the “telephone exchange” obsolete - ie the quaint idea of circuit switched calls which dates from the plug and cord manual switchboard days when the telephone service was invented in 18something. MSANs are being rolled out in many countries including remote locations on the broadband map such as Australia, New Zealand and Thailand.

Which brings one back to the awful progress in making it a reality in Ireland. Japan has probably the most competitive broadband markets in the world – NTT (eircom equivalent) market share is now down to about 30%. If Dunnes Stores or Musgraves had even 30% of the Irish retail market, people would be rightly screaming monopoly talk. Eircom still holds over 90% of the Irish DSL broadband market if you adjust for the illusion of competition caused by wholesale bitstream.


The retail equivalent of wholesale bitstream might be Dunnes Stores owning every shop in the country and under pressure from government/EU for “competition” allowing people to set up market stalls within selected Dunnes Stores branches under the condition that they buy the goods they sell in the market stalls from Dunnes “Wholesale” – even if the stall traders import the goods from abroad they have to sell them to Dunnes Wholesale and buy them back again when the arrive in the Dunnes delivery truck at the branch! It would be a farcical situation. Why do we put up with it in telecommunications????


Two of the main reasons for the success of loop unbundling in Japan are a) shared access unbundling costs only about €1 per month and b) ISPs are able to unbundle dark fibre for connection to their plant installed in the “exchange” buildings. This makes it inexpensive for them to roll out loop unbundling nationwide.

What are we waiting?

probe


www.club-internet.fr
www.blu-ray.com
www.hddvd.org

Cryos

Altreab wrote:

Would this be a suitable Eircom network to deliver true highspeed BB for all?

1) All exchanges and Remote Subscriber Units (RSU)to be connected by lit fibre at OC192 speeds (OC-192 = 9.952 Gbps) or faster.

2) ALL Exchanges and RSUs to be ADSL2 enabled.

3) ZERO carrier lines.

4) Minimun Connection Speed to be 16 Megs

5) Max time for application to installation of home line to be 5 working days

That for starters anymore suggestions?

Altreab, while that would be a really nice situation,but the current way the Telecomunications infrastructure is you would be spending hundreds of millions (if not billions) on improving all your Exchanges and lines.

The way eircom are currently doing it is the way any large corporate entity would "Upgrade" their network which is the right way, the only problem was with eircom is that they started upgrading a bit late in the game and as such are playing catch up; by the time they have all their exchanges upgraded they will be outdated.

The ideal would be a more suitable cost effective alternative to dial up, ideally i think the Avarage Line speed in the country should be capable of 256 or better. I think that it is a workable solution that could probably be implemented in less that 3 to 4 years.

Pricing should be around 9.99 and prefrably could be bundled with some voice package, low cap wouldnt matter really; alot of us know family or friends that would only use the internet now and again so it would ideally be suited for them, 8gb cap would probably suit ?

while OC-192 is nice, it can be really expensive to maintain alot of US webhosts for example just use Bundled OC-48....

Thats just my two cents..

bk

probe wrote:

To make broadband universally appealing (for the consumer and to drive service provider investment in the service) it has to offer multi-media functionality in the package (eg cheaper / free landline calls, cable / satellite TV alternative, Video Kiosk, mobile/fixed line convergence etc) so the whole household – some members of which have only limited or no interest in touching a PC will see the logic in getting the service from their perspective. Otherwise it will remain the preserve of “nerds” (I’m using this as a simple phrase to cover non casual internet users).

Yes I know all about IPTV and I have to disagree with you. The rollout and quality of IPTV has been extremely limited and generally of a low quality. So far it has only been made available in a small number of locations in a few countries. Yet BB has become very successful throughout the western world, far more popular then in Ireland and in most cases IPTV isn't available on it.

In most cases IPTV tends to be of a lower quailty then exisiting TV delivery platforms such as cable and satellite, with lower picture quality and limited stream numbers. Meaning IPTV has had very little impact on the take up of BB.

Much more important to driving BB amongst so called non "nerds" is game consoles like the Xbox360, Nintendo DS, etc which all use online services and probably more importantly the new services such as youtube, bebo, myspace, etc.

Many would argue that TV is becoming increasingly less important for the younger generation, who increasingly spend their time on the web, but that is a conversation for a different day. For the most part TV is already delivered very well via existing mediums, so most people simply won't see the need to change, therefore it is unlikely to be a major driver for BB.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't have faster services and services like IPTV, all I'm saying is that it would likely cost billions to deliver high speeds to 100% of people and that Eircom simply won't do that. Instead it is far more reasonable to get them to deliver 512k to 100% of people and shouldn't cost that much and would be achievable in only a year or two.

However I do believe that 512k would wet peoples apetites for higher speeds and would be a good first step.

probe

bk wrote:

Yes I know all about IPTV and I have to disagree with you.

Given that most people are on dial-up still in Ireland, please forgive me for what I did to your posting.

Your experience differs from mine. I have watched some world cup stuff on HD via ADSL2+ (MPEG4 at 10 Mbits/sec) and it was excellent. The average Irish viewer of digital TV using Britain’s Sky platform gets about 4 Mbits/sec on most channels using much older technology – probably the equivalent of 2 Mbits/sec on MPEG4. OK France Telecom’s loop infrastructure is well maintained like an SNCF railway track. Why should Irish railway tracks (the “permanent way” in their quaint lingo) be allowed to degenerate into an unsafe condition as is currently the case on virtually all lines? Why should eircom loops be allowed to degenerate into a condition where they can’t carry ADSL2+ at speeds of at least 10 Mbits/sec over the relevant distance for that speed? The monthly fee for a phoneline from France Telecom is about €15. Eircom charge around €25. (If you unbundle of course it is free – ie included in the charge you pay the new supplier)

I’m proposing a broader vision of broadband:

1) Broadband that will have something for all age groups – even people who seldom if ever use a PC. Example: www.pandora.com

This is a web based personally customisable radio station over the net. If you like Enya, you can create an “Enya” radio station by entering the Enya keyword and all you’ll hear is music of the Enya style from various artists. Enter multiple keywords if you wish. It is based on the Music Genome Project where they got a large number of professional musicians to categories music “sub-sub-styles” down to artist name level. You want Glen Miller or something older it works too. You can buy client devices that plug into an internet RJ45 connection that are “internet radios” (they also work with FM radio). You need to use Internet Explorer to use it on your PC. I would have thought that it would be of interest to all age groups, including the 90 year old even if they are bed bound in a nursing home. The sound quality won’t be up to the standard that you might get on http://www.br-online.de/ Bayern 4 Klassik for a live concert on satellite in AC3 (Dolby Digital 5,1 channel) played through a good quality high fi system – but that’s a different market. But it could be as good if someone decided to up the bitrate over the net.

2) Yes TV is becoming less important because the broadcast TV model is on a slow road to the grave. You arrive home from work at 18h43 because you were stuck in traffic (in the absence of a working integrated public transport system where you live?) and you want to watch the 18h news on your flat screen 130cm at 1080p HD TV. Dozy RTE have slightly dipped their toes in the water of podcasting of late. When they wake up and smell the coffee all TV and radio progs will be available as podcasts. A “tv station” should be a website portal where you click on what you want to watch, when it suits you. Checkout www.twit.tv (it’s not for twits!). The guy behind it (Leo Laporte) is a bright guy and a good communicator and goes after people who know their stuff - be it bio technology, computer security, general tech news, etc. The website is full of sound only or video podcasts on various topics, professionally presented. Anyone still stuck with dialup – skip this one or pick the low resolution version of the files where available (taking a long weekend in Timbuktu while they download). Nothing HD – but it shows the possibilities for zillions of interest groups.

3) It won’t cost billions and it has very little to do with eircom (unless they want to participate in the market – rather than remaining “in liquidation mode” as they have been for some time. Have a look at my posting again. Eircom shouldn’t have more than 30% of the market. People wouldn’t accept this in any other commercial business. Why in telecom? UNBUNDLE. UNBUNDLE. UNBUNDLE.

The Irish gov should do what France and Japan gov did. Make unbundling the way to go. Until the powers that be recognise that eircom is in a slow mode liquidation job and accelerate the process of eircom’s liquidation as fast as they can, the cause will get nowhere. The French government created a situation where (a company in which they are still the largest shareholder) was losing 20,000 customers a week to unbundling before the bastards woke up and smelt the coffee of the great future business they were letting out the door. FT is now offering Orange integrated converged everything. If your Orange mobile phone is at home, the set top box recognises the fact and your calls are charged at landline rates as they should be because your mobile is performing the same function as a DECT phone in this scenario. Yes you can have HDTV and say goodbye to your cable subscription. Most phone calls are free, because if FT won’t give it to you, it takes two seconds to get it from the competition. 10% of households in France are now on VoIP – the highest penetration level in the world. Many/most French DSL broadband users now have download speeds in the 15 to 25 Mbits/sec range.

Why miss the boat?

probe

Foxwood

probe wrote:

2) Yes TV is becoming less important because the broadcast TV model is on a slow road to the grave. You arrive home from work at 18h43 because you were stuck in traffic (in the absence of a working integrated public transport system where you live?) and you want to watch the 18h news on your flat screen 130cm at 1080p HD TV. Dozy RTE have slightly dipped their toes in the water of podcasting of late. When they wake up and smell the coffee all TV and radio progs will be available as podcasts. A “tv station” should be a website portal where you click on what you want to watch, when it suits you.

While RTE has frittered away the early lead that they had in internet Radio (yes, RTE radio news was available on the Internet as early as 1994, when a 9600 baud dialup connection was as good as it got, and some years before the BBC was available), it is only fair to point out that you can watch the 18h news on your computer. It's not HD, (and some gob****e keeps screwing with the formatting) but all RTE News output, both radio and television, is available to watch or listen to shorty after it is broadcast. And they even break the news into clips so that you don't have to watch the whole show to find the piece that is of interest.

Here's last night Six One News, for example:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0911/6news.html

(They're probably the only internet broadcaster that is exclusively relying on RealMedia, unfortunately).

probe

Foxwood wrote:

Here's last night Six One News, for example:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0911/6news.html

Listening to RTE Radio or watching RTE TV “over the internet” is a completely separate product.

When you use broadband to distribute TV content, the content stream doesn’t touch the internet. It simply uses the copper (or fibre) running between the customer’s premises and the MSAN (multi-service access node) to feed the programme material to the set top box which incorporates an ADSL2+ or VDSL2 modem.

The MSAN is located at the telephone exchange, RSU or in a street cabinet situated where it can tap into a few dozen or hundred subscribers’ lines.

A typical MSAN can offer a choice of about 250 TV channels to the subscriber, and when they change channels on their set top box remote control, the channel change only takes about 30 or 40 ms at the MSAN – far faster than a digital cable or satellite STB. The MSAN can also feed DVD content from several thousand titles in VoD mode. (As well as delivering VoIP and internet access and other services).

What I was suggesting in the posting above in relation to RTE TV on demand is that broadcast content providers need to catch up and move into the Programme on Demand mode rather than exclusively showing content serially at scheduled times.

TV content from the MSAN is at broadcast TV standard, plugs into your regular TV, (up to and including best HD), does not require a PC and has very little in common with watching the news or Prime Time at 100 kbits/sec on your PC - other than the fact that IP is used to transport the stream.

To expand on the cable/satellite TV remote control analogy further, at present the lowest level you can “drill down” is the channel number (eg RTE 1, Net 2 etc). With the broadband MSAN/Set top box infrastructure in place, once you go into RTE 1 on your TV screen, you could scroll down through the programme names, click on a programme, and you might have further choices such as the date of first “broadcast”. The news programme would no longer need to be the 18h or 21h – it would be the latest news continuously updated with chunks of content cut and pasted all the time.

Similar changes have taken place in the newspaper industry. While the Irish newspapers on the web are updated just once a day and look like the printed product (breaking news aside), the Wall St Journal online edition is a totally fluid newspaper with the order of stories and headlines changing continuously throughout the day and night. The traditional media will have to catch up with the timeliness and selectivity offered by the internet – otherwise they will lose audience share as is happening with broadcast TV at present. Broadband over DSL/fibre using an MSAN infrastructure offers far more flexible options to “broadcasters” than traditional cable or satellite. Rupert Murdoch has been shaking the trees all over the continent trying to find ISPs and telcos to sign up for his trash content – because he can presumably see his direct to consumer satellite TV operation in Britain unwinding.

(They're probably the only internet broadcaster that is exclusively relying on RealMedia, unfortunately).

They have been testing Windows Media for some time - I have yet to see a URL for content using this format on their website however!

probe

Sponge Bob

I feel that Universal IPTV to the household requires than no copper loop be over 3km long.....meaning fibre to with 3km of every house in Ireland fed into an RSU with DSLAM and broken onto copper for no more than 3km .

Given the state of eircom this will of course happen , naturally, after about 2025 or 2035 .

In the interim we should seek a deliverable that would progress us incrementally in that direction which I feel to be universal urban 512k to the home and universal rural 256k to the home (longer loops but 7km of copper can sustain 256k with ADSL2 requiring far fewer RSUs ) and that would be a bloody good start in this techno cave of ours believe me. One loop of this grade per household .

This will not happen until the EU investigates the USO /eircom /Comreg con job (with special emphasis on the 'U') and takes its enforcement inhouse to the proposed super regulator.

probe

Sponge Bob wrote:

I feel that Universal IPTV to the household requires than no copper loop be over 3km long.....meaning fibre to with 3km of every house in Ireland fed into an RSU with DSLAM and broken onto copper for no more than 3km .

Given the state of eircom this will of course happen , naturally, after about 2025 or 2035 .

In the interim we should seek a deliverable that would progress us incrementally in that direction which I feel to be universal urban 512k to the home and universal rural 256k to the home (longer loops but 7km of copper can sustain 256k with ADSL2 requiring far fewer RSUs ) and that would be a bloody good start in this techno cave of ours believe me. One loop of this grade per household .

This will not happen until the EU investigates the USO /eircom /Comreg con job (with special emphasis on the 'U') and takes its enforcement inhouse to the proposed super regulator.

VDSL2 will force even shorter loop lengths on the infrastructure with the result I suspect that the MSAN (DSLAMS are dead in this true multi media world!) will be increasingly be located in street cabinets except perhaps for subscribers near an RSU or exchange. This will have a number of side benefits, not least eliminating the excuse for eircom to charge http://www.burj-al-arab.com/ type hotel charges to OLOs who set up kit in their buildings!

Its not going to happen everywhere overnight. Nether was the mobile phone a mass consumer product overnight. The logic of the transition is inescapable however.

probe

bk

probe wrote:

Its not going to happen everywhere overnight. Nether was the mobile phone a mass consumer product overnight. The logic of the transition is inescapable however.

Oh, we are not arguing that the transition won't happen or shouldn't happen. It will happen and should happen.

What we are arguing is if IOFFL should campaign for minimum 512k BB for 100% of people in Ireland, by lets say this time next year.

Or alternatively in your scenario very high speed BB.

The 512k is likely achievable in one to two years for a relatively small cost. Your vision will take many years and costs billions and in the meantime it will leave many people without BB.

My position is that we should get the government to mandate and potentially finance 100% BB availability at a minimum standard, a bit like a USO that actually works.

We should also campaign for a working LLU system which through competition will lead to the high speed BB services you are looking for develop in urban areas. This is exactly how the high speed services are developing in Paris, through a working LLU system.

To be honest the whole IPTV unimportant to the conversation, it isn't the killer app of BB, BB itself is the killer app.

probe

bk wrote:

What we are arguing is if IOFFL should campaign for minimum 512k BB for 100% of people in Ireland, by lets say this time next year.

The first line of the opening posting to this thread was:

Would this be a suitable Eircom network to deliver true highspeed BB for all?

I’m simply saying why should it all revolve around Eircom? Why give them a state sponsored gold plated super-enhanced 80-90% monopoly?

I have tried to flesh out the competitive DSL alternative (which is working well in France for example) which will allow independent operators to provide a range of services that will have a wider appeal than pure internet access only – which will use much of the same infrastructure. Making it more viable for “OLOs” to invest in each area. I see little point in throwing more money at eircom because it will be wasted, and the country will end up with continuing high prices and therefore only the more enthusiastic will take it up – and most of these have been connected already.

I see lots of advantage in investing some government money in “early mover” support. By this I mean come up with a minimum spec for a next generation network (no point in building a network structure known to be obsolete within a few years). And give the support money to the first guys prepared to offer the service on a regional basis. The financial support might only apply to rural localities where their RSU has a non-viable number of customer lines to justify installing a DSLAM – and if you install a DSLAM why not future proof it by putting an MSAN instead? Time is of the essence and late arrivals on the scene need not apply for support, etc.

There is no “killer app”. It’s the combination of services coming from one box that will save money for the customer (e.g. cutting out satellite/cable subscriptions, separate phoneline subscriptions, etc) and at the same time enable the operator to make extra money by offering new services (eg optional TV channels, DVD movie on demand kiosks etc). This is what is driving the rollout in France and the government hasn’t given a centime to France Telecom in support. It’s all being done by the OLOs and FT have to do it too if they wish to compete – which is happening too.

It is only a few years ago that certain parties were arguing for FRIACO ("flat rate" dialup) and when it was argued from some quarters that FRIACO was a waste of investment in infrastructure and they should be campaigning for broadband, I seem to recall that the response from these parties was a mirror image of what I am reading here!

probe

bk

But in that case, who is going to build this super network and who is going to pay for it?

Eircom aren't going to do it as it isn't in there interest.

So either the government builds a whole new network themselves, which will cost billions and take many years.

Or they give billions (but a few less then above) to Eircom and they take years to do it (but a few less then above).

All so a few people can get cheaper TV, LOL.

Or am I wrong, how do you purpose it it happens and is financed?

probe wrote:

It is only a few years ago that certain parties were arguing for FRIACO ("flat rate" dialup) and when it was argued from some quarters that FRIACO was a waste of investment in infrastructure and they should be campaigning for broadband, I seem to recall that the response from these parties was a mirror image of what I am reading here!

Funny you should mention that because it was the introduction of FRIACO that kicked Eircom into starting to introduce affordable broadband. FRIACO was an outstanding success for IOFFL and it pretty much ensured the introduction of affordable BB, just as most of us argued it would when we fought for it.

This pretty much proves my argument. We felt that pushing for complete BB was unrealistic, too difficult and would take years to introduce, instead by focusing on FRIACO we knew it would force Eircom to start introducing BB.

This is a similar situation, we want Eircom to introduce a basic product for all people now, but it will likely lead to faster speed products later as people get into youtube, xbox360 or apple movie downloads (30 minutes at 5mb/s according to Steve).

lucernarian

probe wrote:

The first line of this opening posting to this thread was:

Would this be a suitable Eircom network to deliver true highspeed BB for all?

I’m simply saying why should it all revolve around Eircom? Why give them a state sponsored gold plated super-enhanced 80-90% monopoly?

I have tried to flesh out the competitive DSL alternative (which is working well in France for example) which will allow independent operators to provide a range of services that will have a wider appeal than pure internet access only – which will use much of the same infrastructure. Making it more viable for “OLOs” to invest in each area. I see little point in throwing more money at eircom because it will be wasted, and the country will end up with continuing high prices and therefore only the more enthusiastic will take it up – and most of these have been connected already.

I see lots of advantage in investing some government money in “early mover” support. By this I mean come up with a minimum spec for a next generation network (no point in building a network structure known to be obsolete within a few years). And give the support money to the first guys prepared to offer the service on a regional basis. The financial support might only apply to rural localities where their RSU has a non-viable number of customer lines to justify installing a DSLAM – and if you install a DSLAM why not future proof it by putting an MSAN instead? Time is of the essence and late arrivals on the scene need not apply for support, etc.

There is no “killer app”. It’s the combination of services coming from one box that will save money for the customer (e.g. cutting out satellite/cable subscriptions, separate phoneline subscriptions, etc) and at the same time enable the operator to make extra money by offering new services (eg optional TV channels, DVD movie on demand kiosks etc). This is what is driving the rollout in France and the government hasn’t given a centime to France Telecom in support. It’s all being done by the OLOs and FT have to do it too if they wish to compete – which is happening too.

It is only a few years ago that certain parties were arguing for FRIACO ("flat rate" dialup) and when it was argued from some quarters that FRIACO was a waste of investment in infrastructure and they should be campaigning for broadband, I seem to recall that the response from these parties was a mirror image of what I am reading here!

probe

Unless I am totally mistaken, free 50 hours per month dialup on lines which failed the line check would not need added infrastructure spending in virtually all cases.

probe

bk wrote:

But in that case, who is going to build this super network and who is going to pay for it?

What additional costs are involved?

http://adsl.free.fr/ can provide TV and phone on top of up to 28 Mbits/sec internet for €29,99, per month.

This is the main business of http://www.iliad.fr/en/

You’ll find the latest financial results for the company here:
http://www.iliad.fr/en/finances/2006/CP20060907_Eng.pdf

They get no government subsidy. They made an operating profit of €90 million in the first half of 2006 on revenues of €448 million.

You can get almost identical offerings from Deutsche Telekom in France, Neuf Telecom, and lots of others.

The MSAN at present costs say 20% more than the DSLAM, and the price differential will drop to zero within a period of time. Even slow to move companies like BT have ordered truck loads of MSANs (not for Ireland). Let’s say you want start off offering 30 TV channels with your package – you need about 4 Mbits/sec of backhaul per standard channel and 10 Mbits/sec per HD channel to deliver it to your MSAN. You’ll need lots of backhaul anyway to provide the internet access service and the TV backhaul can be “copied” (ie a single feed running across your entire network) – internet backhaul has to go all the way back to your source of bandwidth.

The set-top box is nothing more than a DSL modem with the additional functionality to plug into the TV set and the telephone instruments. When you engineer the system with future proof in mind – you can extend the number of TV channels (up to about 250), add video on demand, bla, bla, bla as your market develops and people demand more.

Moving to long loop rural “basket case” areas. Imagine if you will a lonely peninsula somewhere on the west coast where the phone lines run to the end of the peninsula from the local village – with a max loop length of say 10 km for illustration. House A and house B are near the end of the peninsula and both have phone service using a shared copper pair. House A has ordered broadband and failed the “line test” because of the presence of the shared line box of tricks and the loop length exceeding ADSL2+ limits. It would cost a fortune to hang another copper pair all along the poles back to the local village 10km distant to give these troublesome customers BB.

Solution:

Put both houses on IP – (even though only one wants broadband at this stage). Both get set-top boxes. House B’s box has all services switched off except the phone line. Run a single SHDSL connection over the single copper pair back to the exchange using one or more SHDSL repeaters. One can use multiple repeaters where necessary to regenerate the DSL signal in the case of very long distances. This will deliver about a 2 Mbits/sec connection to both houses which they share. If someone builds a house C nearby, they can share the same DSL solution. They are fed with a lower contention internet feed to compensate for the fact that sharing is taking place at the customer end of the line. This extreme solution obviously won’t support TV service at the current stage of SHDSL technology – but it will support virtually all other services (home security, voice phone – several lines per household if required, as well as internet access).

Details of a DSL repeater can be found below.
http://www.rad.com/RADCnt/MediaServer/19206_S-RPT.pdf

If you had a lot of houses at the end of a line and had two copper pairs available, you could use two SHDSL links (one in the reverse direction) to provide 2Mbits/sec in the up and down directions (symmetric) to support a larger number of simultaneous VoIP connections.

This technique could be used to deal with population growth in remote locations without having to add to the copper loop plant for the entire journey back to the distant RSU.

probe

Sponge Bob

Never mind the MSANs , what about the (as yet non existent) fibre to backhaul them. A universal 256/512 rural/urban solution would at least be a start. It would essentially require that each citizen of the state is within 6km of a fibre node wherever they were. Sure we can't even give all of them ISDN yet and thats years old.

In phase 2 or 3 by all means increase the fibre node pushouts and reduce the copper lengths to say 2 or 3 km, Then we may possibly have universal IP TV and fast xDSL tech .

Ireland cannot even roll out Digital BROADCAST TV or DTT as we all know. The best we can manage is a recent limited trial of a 10 year old technology.

IRELAND NEVER ORGANISED UNIVERSAL ANALOGUE TV ACCESS and we have had 45 years to do that , many people had to 'organise' their own deflectors in order to get it .

Rolling out IPTV is very previous in this technologically primitive and utterly ambitionless country where jobsworths like Dempsey would rather pretend that all is well at every opportunity and where government policy is to hide the ongoing collective failure of market , regulation and government vision to deliver anything of worth to the citizens .

Probe, I like your idea in a visceral sense but Please Please Please come up with a strategy whereby we can all crawl in a straight line first

RangeR

probe wrote:

What additional costs are involved?

http://adsl.free.fr/ can provide TV and phone on top of up to 28 Mbits/sec internet for €29,99, per month.

This is the main business of http://www.iliad.fr/en/

Man you are living in the clouds. I've had a quick look at free's website and saw this and this. They are only rolling out to Paris at the moment, not the whole of France. Correct me if I'm wrong [cite links]. When I say correct me, have they rolled out to all of France or not? I don't care if they are planning to as this may or may not happen.

You also have economies of scale. Ireland is soo much smaller than France. It's just not economical to roll out FTTH through Ireland, or whatever technology you mentioned above. You cannot compare Ireland and France in the rollout of broadband.

probe

IrishTLR wrote:

Man you are living in the clouds. I've had a quick look at free's website and saw this and this. They are only rolling out to Paris at the moment, not the whole of France. Correct me if I'm wrong [cite links]. When I say correct me, have they rolled out to all of France or not? I don't care if they are planning to as this may or may not happen.

You also have economies of scale. Ireland is soo much smaller than France. It's just not economical to roll out FTTH through Ireland, or whatever technology you mentioned above. You cannot compare Ireland and France in the rollout of broadband.

Where did I mention fibre to the home in this context? Free.fr have only used DSL over copper unbundled from France Telecom so far. FTTH is a completely new development for them. Please don't confuse the issue!

I brought them into the discussion to indicate that TV and other services can be profitably be run over a regular copper phone line. At 30 June 06, they had 1.9 million broadband subscribers using DSL, of which 1.65 million used VoIP, 1.26 million used it for TV and of those 1.26 million TV users, 273,000 paid for premium channels. The DSL subscribers are all over France. The FTTH operation is Paris based for the moment and only starting.

By way of background to developments in France:

1) France Telecom launches expensive, slow DSL (a la eircom).
2) Free move in (as well as others), unbundle left right and centre, provide internet connections in the 20s of Mbits/sec, as well as TV and phone with free calls (only using copper).
3) France Telecom start losing 20,000 customers a week. Their blood supply was being cut off. They had to take action or face extinction within a matter of years.
4) They came out with 18 Mbits/sec internet + VoIP, free phone calls, TV and converged mobile all under the Orange brand name.
5) While this has slowed their loss of market share, they are testing a move to fibre to the home to up the ante on their competitors.
6) Free says OK, anything you can do, we can do better and on 11 Sep 2006 they announced FTTH.
http://www.iliad.fr/en/presse/2006/CP_11092006_cp1_eng.pdf

FREE IS THE RYANAIR OF THE FRENCH BROADBAND BUSINESS!

It is called competition and unlike Ireland the market is working!

probe

probe

Sponge Bob wrote:

Never mind the MSANs , what about the (as yet non existent) fibre to backhaul them.

A problem has been defined. One assumes that in most urban and sub-urban areas that there is enough fibre in place – either owned by the incumbent or by others to handle the payload required? What about unbundling the fibre in these cases where it is in eircom’s hands, as happens in Japan with NTT? What about the MANs and ESB fibre? How many urban type areas have no available to be unbundled eircom owned capacity that are unreachable via a MAN or the ESB (or another) network?

http://www.esbtelecoms.ie/infrastructure/city_maps.htm
http://www.enet.ie/Shared/Business/MAN.aspx


This leaves the remote eircom RSUs and their catchments, which one guesses are served by E1s running over dry copper pairs (no bridge taps, load coils, switches or signalling). Why not unbundle some of the copper going to these RSUs to create additional E1 backhaul capacity? At locations where no copper capacity is available, a procedure can be put in place where the installation of new copper or fibre capacity is installed and shared between the incumbent and other users. In addition recourse could be made to the http://www.esbtelecoms.ie/infrastructure/mast_sites_and_national_trunk_fibre_optic_network.htm network of mast sites and use wireless backhaul to the nearest fibre point.

A strategy of moving large clusters of houses all over to an IP based service in an area – even if many of them only wanted a phone line at that time, could be used in some situations to free up copper which could be re-deployed as part of a backhaul solution.

Sponge Bob wrote:

Ireland cannot even roll out Digital BROADCAST TV or DTT as we all know. The best we can manage is a recent limited trial of a 10 year old technology.

IRELAND NEVER ORGANISED UNIVERSAL ANALOGUE TV ACCESS and we have had 45 years to do that , many people had to 'organise' their own deflectors in order to get it .

One can totally sympathise with one’s frustrations about the lack of direction from successive political and permanent governments over the decades when it comes to strategy and delivery. The alarmingly modest progress on DTT is particularly appalling, because it has the capability of providing great picture quality over the air to householders who have so far enjoyed mediocre reception over the past 45 years or who have had to resort to cable or satellite to receive Irish “terrestrial TV”.

Forget comreg, and get a <.cg snip> regulator who understands the issue to push matters along in a coherent way with a defined objective in mind and give him or her the powers to do so!


probe

Foxwood

probe wrote:

The alarmingly modest progress on DTT is particularly appalling, because it has the capability of providing great picture quality over the air to householders who have so far enjoyed mediocre reception over the past 45 years or who have had to resort to cable or satellite to receive Irish “terrestrial TV”.

Forget comreg, and get a <.cg snip> regulator who understands the issue to push matters along in a coherent way with a defined objective in mind and give him or her the powers to do so!

Actually, we had <.cg snip> one in place that did understand the issue - a state run organization that was allowed to develop DTT when it first tried to would leave no room for private operators (who make contributions to political parties) to compete in this area, therefore RTE had to be stopped from experimenting with this technology back in the late 90s (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16221883.000-twoway-television.html).

probe

Foxwood wrote:

Actually, we had one in place that did understand the issue - a state run organization that was allowed to develop DTT when it first tried to would leave no room for private operators (who make contributions to political parties) to compete in this area, therefore RTE had to be stopped from experimenting with this technology back in the late 90s

Unfortunately they weren't <.cg snip> given the necessary powers for one. I also would question their full understanding of the issues - though they undoubtedly tried hard, surrounded by TE mafiosi.

DTT was mistakenly treated like a satellite bouquet in Ireland for some time, instead of treating it as an urgently required update to the analog TV distribution system. Britain made the same mistake and Ireland just copied them, as usual! DTT is free to air in most other countries.

probe

probe

In management parlance the term replace by <.cg snip> means a person who is often held to be mean or disagreeable but gets the job done and I see nothing wrong with it appearing in this thread uncensored.

probe

bk

History of DSL in Ireland:

1) Eircom introduce slow, expensive BB.
2) Smart and Magnet introduce innovative new ADSL2+ products using LLU.
3) Eircom makes life hell for Smart/Magnet, dragging their heels on every element of LLU.
4) Comreg rolls over and lets Eircom scratch their stomach and does nothing to solve the problems with LLU.
5) Smart starts to go out of business.
6) Eircom continues with their slow, expensive BB and happily increases line rental costs.

The only really difference between Ireland and France, is that we have a completely ineffective regulator.

Frankly Comreg should be dumped and the Department of Communications put in charge of regulation and have LLU sorted ASAP, then we can all enjoy the same services as they have in France.

However at the same time I do believe that the government should fund a project to deliver 100% 256/512k BB to everyone via DSL/Cable/Wireless. Even if LLU was sorted in the morning, it would only end up benefiting those who live in urban centres like Dublin and Cork.

Sponge Bob

bk and I agrees totally.

the only two things I would add are.

1. A friend got Smart installed on friday, there was STILL no number portability one moth after the useless Comreg said there was. Abolish them and replace with Daffy Duck if necessary because Daffy would do a better job than Comreg (

2. The government should tender out on a universal basis by geographic area, say by DED or a cluster of 5 DEDs.

a) depending on whether this is a rural or urban DED (let the government decide what is defined as which for the purposes of the scheme) the tender is for

i) Universal 256k access or
ii) Universal 512k access.

and

iii) a consortium of 2 isps (such as 1 wireless and 1 wired) may apply for each tendered 'unit' ...be it 1 or 5 DEDs

b) The tenders wil be issued and reissued and reissued every 3 months until all are being done

c) The first 2 tranches (the first 6 months of the scheme) will NOT include any of the Urban/512k designated DEDs .

In esence its GBS but with Universality built in.

Hop to it Dempsey you prevaricator !

probe

bk wrote:

The only really difference between Ireland and France, is that we have a completely ineffective regulator.

While in principle I would agree with the sentiments expressed about the relative competence of the Irish and French regulators, the situation is more complicated in my view.

Sure Comreg is doing a poor job at the moment (and far be it from me to make excuses for them) but one has to recognise that they are hemmed in by the legal framework within which they are permitted to operate. One has to look higher up to identify where some of the problems lie!

In France, the top students aspiring to senior civil service positions and key jobs in industry do not go to university – they attend the one of the Grandes Écoles Scientifiques, (after 2 years attending one of the 50 Lycées to prepare for the entrance exam)! Of the 10,000 who take the entrance exam each year for these institutions only about 400 get in to the system.

They are exposed to the best lecturers in Europe for teaching and research and a tradition going back to 1794. In addition to filling top posts in the French civil service, many alumni end up being government ministers or have been behind the setting up of key projects/industries including Airbus, Ariane (French Space Agency), the French civil nuclear energy programme and the TGV project.

In other words people are properly trained for their job at every level. This shows up in everyday life experiences where the attention to detail and planning is very evident.

The first time I took an apartment I went along with my RIB and other pieces of essential bureaucracy and the “conseiller” for the telco went through in laborious detail all the paperwork (mainly on screen) – the apartment number, postcode, what floor it was on, the PIN to get past the security system at the gate, which building, which elevator numbers stopped at the apartment etc etc. Nothing left to chance. At the end she asked me if 08h30 tomorrow would be convenient for the agent to call do the installation work. The door bell rang at 08h29:45 – 15 secs early, and the guy was finished and gone by 9.

I had a similar experience the day broadband became available – I went over to sign up and grab the modem. As I was about to depart, I asked when would the service be working? In 30 minutes was the response. And it was.

Regrettably this level of attention to detail and management professionalism is missing in many Irish companies. France is not perfect and can be very bureaucratic, but the system works as it says on the can. Unfortunately Ireland is getting very bureaucratic too but showing few benefits from the trend!

probe

Sponge Bob

dsl is not exactly uibquitous in la France profonde despite that alleged attention to detail and the types who run the regulators there are ENA type from a different Grand École entirely (like the ENA) and a more cosseted arrogant bunch of ****s I never came across .

Our lot of regulators are stupid but educated on the cheap to be stupid.

probe

Sponge Bob wrote:

dsl is not exactly uibquitous in la France profonde

France’s Minitel (the 1970s French phone book online which incorporated lots of other online services) was the precursor to the WWW. Tim Berners-Lee who was working at CERN (based along the Swiss-French frontier) could see the benefits of Minitel and had access to the internet at CERN (which back then only had limited functionality (eg FTP type services) and he put the concepts two together giving us the internet of today. Which could probably be traced back in turn to an alumni of the aforementioned G. Ecoles who was running the then French PTT who was looking for a solution to make people use their phonelines more for data traffic and save staff costs associated with providing a directory information service over the phone.

France doesn’t have the advantages of a wet or snowy climate to keep a large part of its population sitting in front of computer screens because they have nothing better to do. Le soleil et (the cultural emphasis on) la joie de vivre are major distractions. Having said that France doesn’t rank poorly in broadband availability compared with its neighbours –

Total BB connections end Q1/06, penetration %:

France 10,819,310 18,1%
Big Germany 11,666,202 14,1%
Joie de vivre-less GB 11,269,348 18,9
Joie de vivre full Italia 7,381,612 12,8%

And French BB is a lot cheaper and a lot faster than that available anywhere else in Europe, and the customer service is great because competition works better in France than anywhere else in Europe in most industries.

probe

Sponge Bob

probe wrote:

France’s Minitel (the 1970s French phone book online which incorporated lots of other online services) was the precursor to the WWW.

d 'accord but this was not built on in France who led nothing 1988-1998. It never realy became interactive , was text based and max at 9.6k

and the customer service is great because competition works better in France than anywhere else in Europe in most industries.

:eek: you surely cannot be serious :eek:

I'm outta this thread

probe

Sponge Bob wrote:

:eek: you surely cannot be serious :eek:

I'm outta this thread

Au revoir. One last comparison before you hit the sack!

Compare Virgin Trains in GB where everything is "privatized" with SNCF which has a <.cg snip> state controlled monopoly run by your arrogant pompous Grande Ecoliers friends:

London > Manchester 1st class one way
320 km journey fare GBP 155.50 which is €229 in real money

Nice > Montpellier 1st class one way
327 km journey fare €70.70

Check out the beige leather electric reclining seats a la Mercedes Benz S500, not to mention the civilised bike racks on the Nice Montpellier train at
http://www.corailteoz.com/
"click on Visite de Corail Teoz" and click on the images for a close-up Apple Quicktime view on the various pictures. That’s how public transport should be. Everywhere.

The last time I was on a Virgin train on this route, it was a re-conditioned ex British rail train. There was no place to put one's PC or newspaper because the table in front of one was laden with badly manufactured crockery (that couldn't sit still with the vibrations caused by the neglected rails on which it was running) presumably in the hope that they might sell you a meal at the table. C'est la difference. The Anglo-Saxon world (of which Ireland is increasingly aligning) is solely focused on making a quick buck. France is focused on quality of life and competition in business and a customer oriented attitude in state enterprises are a big component in the delivery of value for money high quality services. As I said earlier France isn't perfect - nor is anywhere else. And the country is not short of labour strikes (euphemistically known as "actions sociale"). The French telecoms industry gives a far better deal to its customers (from government level to service provider) than anywhere else in Europe.


Sorry if I am pissing you off, because I know your heart is in the right place and you are doing more than your share to point out the deficiencies and mess in the Irish system (among other things), and I hope you keep up the good work!

Bon nuit et je vous souhaite une excellent soirée.


probe

cgarvey

probe wrote:

In management parlance the term replace by <.cg snip> means a person who is often held to be mean or disagreeable but gets the job done and I see nothing wrong with it appearing in this thread uncensored.

probe

It's an offensive word, by definition. Referring to a person, or a group of people in that context, too, is offensive. You don't have to agree, I'm just asking you to stop.

cgarvey

Sponge Bob wrote:

dsl is not exactly uibquitous in la France profonde despite that alleged attention to detail and the types who run the regulators there are ENA type from a different Grand École entirely (like the ENA) and a more cosseted arrogant bunch of ****s I never came across .

Our lot of regulators are stupid but educated on the cheap to be stupid.

If you can't make a point without calling everybody names, then don't make it at all:
1. It makes you look weaker
2. It makes IoffL appear to be petty
3. It is against the charter.

Please refrain from insulting people, especially blanketly like that.

damien

probe wrote:

Sure Comreg is doing a poor job at the moment (and far be it from me to make excuses for them) but one has to recognise that they are hemmed in by the legal framework within which they are permitted to operate. One has to look higher up to identify where some of the problems lie!

Bollox. Hemmed in, my ass. When they awarded and then took back the Smart £G licence after eircom ordered it, was this a legal hemming in?

When they lied to the EU about LLU was that a legal hemming in?

When Isolde Goggin told the Oireachtas line failure in Ireland was the same as Northern Ireland, was that lie due to some legal reason?

When they gave eircom a national wireless broadband licence and then didn't enforce it, was that a legal hemming in?

When the invented the dumb wireless exclusion zones, was that for some legal hemming in?

When they LIE AND LIE AND LIE in their quarterly reports, is it because of some legal issue?

They may not have the best powers in the world buy why give them more when the ones they have never got used? Afterall they admitted to the Oireachtas they never used them and they have yet to fine a telco for acting the gom.

Why increase the budget of a Department when they don't use the one they're given?

ComReg are one major reason forthe multiple telecoms issues in this country and are a convenient shield for the DCMNR who are losing staff left right and centre and falling apart at the seams.

Foxwood

cgarvey wrote:

It's an offensive word, by definition. Referring to a person, or a group of people in that context, too, is offensive. You don't have to agree, I'm just asking you to stop.

You obviously don't spend much time with tech-heads. Being considerd a BOFH is something of an honour!

cgarvey

probe wrote:

Compare Virgin Trains in GB where everything is "privatized" with SNCF which has a <.cg snip> state controlled monopoly run by your arrogant pompous Grande Ecoliers friends:

I see your points, especially about the specifically trained people. Whether the phone network is privatised here or not, I still think we'd have a crap network. Privatised: it'll be at the mercy of a completely ineffective regulator, and shareholders come first. State owned: it'll be plagued by the "County Council worker syndrome". It's a catch 22, the way I see it.

Sponge Bob

cgarvey wrote:

I see your points, especially about the specifically trained people.

You never met this GÉ subspecies I can tell . They may, however, have been a good idea in 1794 for all I know ! They are civil servants guaranteed a well paid job for life in fast track promotion at 25. They also produce a political caste which has been essentially fossilised and out of touch since De Gaulle died.

The ODTR was the first industry regulator in Ireland and provided the basic template for the total failure of any form of citizen or societal focused regulation in this country. It has also failed on market regulation or diversity.

Its energy regulating sibling set a Gas price c.84% higher than the UK yesterday and gives not two ****s about that either . These regulator things we create in Ireland are utterly unaccountable and useless. They can lie and procrastinate with impunity .We should stop pretending they are any use , abolish the lot of them , and start again from scratch with a citizen centered template before they ruin the country although I fear its too late.

As for France, all probes examples of what is good are STATE MONOPOLIES and not subject to competition...eg the excellent SNCF or the unmentioned EDF .

bk

Sponge Bob wrote:

Its energy regulating sibling set a Gas price c.84% higher than the UK yesterday and gives not two ****s about that either . These regulator things we create in Ireland are utterly unaccountable and useless. They can lie and procrastinate with impunity .We should stop pretending they are any use , abolish the lot of them , and start again from scratch with a citizen centered template before they ruin the country although I fear its too late.

From what I have seen all the regulators are is a shield to protect the government departments and their ministers from making unpopular and bad decisions.

If the departments were responsible for the regulation, then they would come under democratic pressure to do the right thing for the customer/voter. But by having the regulator they can throw up their hands and say, it isn't our fault, it is the independent regulators fault.

It is a superb act of misdirection. In fact from a political point of view, it is masterful.

cgarvey

Sponge Bob wrote:

You never met this GÉ subspecies I can tell

Correct

Sponge Bob wrote:

The ODTR was the first industry regulator in Ireland and provided the basic template for the total failure of any form of citizen or societal focused regulation in this country. It has also failed on market regulation or diversity.

Agreed, but I think Probe's point has something to do with this. It's failed because it employed a lot of people who were too involved in, and attached to, the industry they were meant to regulate. What it needed was specifically educated people, with some level of industry expertise. Working in Telecom Eireann for your working life doesn't cut it for me.

I agree it's time to abolish them, but replace them with what? FF have a long tradition of jobs for boys, and all the non-FF supporters will make a big deal out of that, yet all governments have been the same. So we've to break 2 well established lines of thinking, before we get effective regulation. 1 is the jobs-for-boys has to go, as anything else is not independent. The 2nd is BK's point about the political master stroke idea of using the regulator as a shield. We need to break the public acceptance that we have independent regulators (rather than the inefficient, poorly staffed/powered regulators that they are). I can't see how that's going to happen.

Sponge Bob wrote:

As for France, all probes examples of what is good are STATE MONOPOLIES and not subject to competition...eg the excellent SNCF or the unmentioned EDF .

Right, but is that a bad thing? I mean if it's a state monopoly that is reliable, value for money and well run, do you think that the general public care? In France they some well run state bodies. We don't have any. In England they have failed privitisations, so too do we. So we need either to change the mindset of public/civil service jobs (that they are guaranteed, and that you don't have to work hard), or change the regulation and perception of independence in regulation. Neither is a small task.

bealtine

[QUOTE=Sponge Bob

The ODTR was the first industry regulator in Ireland and provided the basic template for the total failure of any form of citizen or societal focused regulation in this country. It has also failed on market regulation or diversity.

Its energy regulating sibling set a Gas price c.84% higher than the UK yesterday and gives not two ****s about that either . These regulator things we create in Ireland are utterly unaccountable and useless. They can lie and procrastinate with impunity .We should stop pretending they are any use , abolish the lot of them , and start again from scratch with a citizen centered template before they ruin the country although I fear its too late.
.[/QUOTE]

Well I have said this before and will say it again
Regulators in Ireland are there to regulate *for* the industry, to ensure the regulees are profitable, nothing more.
This attitude can clearly be seen in the way Comreg or the CER behave.

They have some nonsense in their charters about consumers but these onerous sections are utterly ignored and swept under the carpet.

If you think the regulator is there to protect you, the consumer, then you are sadly mistaken.

Sponge Bob

cgarvey wrote:

Correct


Agreed, but I think Probe's point has something to do with this. It's failed because it employed a lot of people who were too involved in, and attached to, the industry they were meant to regulate. What it needed was specifically educated people, with some level of industry expertise. Working in Telecom Eireann for your working life doesn't cut it for me.

Ehhhm not quite. It acquired a load of DCMNR people from the start and there was 'continuity' of regulation from the DCMNR days.

It was set up in order that eircom could be sold, not because there was any vision of what a regulator could and should be ....despite there being one next door for years before that.

In the absence of any clarity of thought at the legislative and constitutional levels we got the mess we deserved. By 2001 this regulator was tied up in knots by eircom and failed. No matter what legislative sticky tape you apply to its suppurating sores it is and always will be a failure with an ingrained culture of failure and of public deceit and disingenousness to hide that failure as Damien pointed out.

You could pick three of the finest techncratic brains in France, make them commissioners in the morning in place of the 3 stooges and be sure they will have gone native within a year .

I agree it's time to abolish them, but replace them with what?

a constitutional charter for all regulators for starters, a PRIME directive .

from that flows the legislative framework, intertwined with EU law.

FF have a long tradition of jobs for boys, and all the non-FF supporters will make a big deal out of that, yet all governments have been the same.

They all do except that other parties seem to have a slightly wider gene pool.

So we've to break 2 well established lines of thinking, before we get effective regulation. 1 is the jobs-for-boys has to go, as anything else is not independent. The 2nd is BK's point about the political master stroke idea of using the regulator as a shield. We need to break the public acceptance that we have independent regulators (rather than the inefficient, poorly staffed/powered regulators that they are). I can't see how that's going to happen.

King Henry the 8th called it "Surrender and Regrant"

Create the constitutional framework for this 4th pillar of administration (in addition to dail/executive and civil service/judiciary) . A regulator is none of the above and is unprovided for in basic law. This means all regulators.

Then abolish them all and start to reassemble them within that framework.

Right, but is that a bad thing? I mean if it's a state monopoly that is reliable, value for money and well run, do you think that the general public care? In France they some well run state bodies.

I am bored with France and more bored with VDSL and MSANs . A state monopoly is ALWAYS better than a private monopoly and thats that, no matter where.

We don't have any.

VHI ??

In England they have failed privitisations, so too do we. So we need either to change the mindset of public/civil service jobs (that they are guaranteed, and that you don't have to work hard), or change the regulation and perception of independence in regulation. Neither is a small task.

Forget England as a template .....save for telecommunications regulation. They have no constitution anyway .....not in a real sense...and can legislate themselves out of any impasse

We can not.

cgarvey

Is ComReg not staffed by a lot of ex-eircom/TE employees? Your point about the cronies being brought in from DCMNR reinforces my point, not negates it. Bealtine sums it up nicely, they are not interested in consumers, at all. Me; I think that's because they are not independant but cloesly coupled with the vote-seeking department that controls them.

VHI is not well run, in my experience. We have to compare ourselves to france and england and other countries, we can't just pick and choose who we compare ourselves to. Those 2 were just 2 examples. England, in fact, is probably the best to choose from!

You'd want a lot of balls and public support to go about constitutional change for that framework. I don't see either happening until the situtation degrades a whole lot more. We can live the dream, but the general public (and rightly so) are more concerned about pensions, education and health.

There is nothing wrong with the legislative framework for now anyway. Regulators can improve alot more by bringing in some expertise, and using existing powers (fines anyone?). That could certainly be achieved while we wait for the constitutional changes you want

probe

Sponge Bob wrote:

the unmentioned EDF .

EdF do a good job and are no longer a 100% monopoly. 90% of their electricity is carbon free. And they keep much of the rest of Europe supplied with electricity on cold winter nights.

I've had one electricity disconnection in over five years. It was notified in advance in writing about a week before the event. From memory it read something like from 09h30:00 to 09h30:30 you will have no electricity supply next Wednesday (ie a break of about 30 seconds in supply).

EdF charge 10,74c per kW inc VAT to householders on the basic tariff - which is a bargain compared with the ESB which is now around 15c and rising when you add VAT in. British electricity tariffs are also about 30+% higher than France. If it ain't broke....

probe