Eircom Doubling Speeds?

neon_glows

What would the financial ramifications be to eircom to double the speeds of all ADSL lines in the country overnight, could there current infrastructure handle this? would it cost them extra money to do so or is there just some master system page that they can change from the below:

1mb - 2mb
2mb - 4mb
3mb - 6mb

If it would financially cost eircom money what sort of cost are we looking at and what exactely would they need to do with regards to infrastructure.

JNive

3 to 4mb is the maximum their lines handle in any stable way, ( for adsl that is ) unless you are attached to the closest multiplexer next to the exchange.

Also, with their recent bandwidth problems, and planned backbone upgrades its clear that with increased uptake over the past year their national bandiwdth is effectively approachine capacity. As a result increasing those speeds would just result in contention in the exchange really kicking in, and poor single-session download throughput. There is a very good reason that they are really pushing their 1mb and 2mb products with bundles etc, and recent price cuts, cause they dont really want people to go onto the 3mb service and they want to be able to compete on price to some reasonable extent with the likes of smart and magnet, but they would be unable to do so by trying to provide similar speeds ( 4mb-6mb ), because their bandwidth isnt there and the lines probably wont support it until they go adsl2+.

Only option for them currently is to milt the 1mb and 2mb services via themselves or resellers.

Creamy Goodness

i have to stop clicking these threads in such high hopes.

it's amazing what difference a question mark makes.

neon_glows

haha, sorry, i new id get a few people on that one, but that really cleared things up for me JNive, i recently got shown around my local exchange (pretty impressive) and from speaking to the engineer the impression he has from his boss is who in Ireland would really need anything faster than the 3mb, i dont think we will ever see 6mb on eircom/esate et all in the next 5 years :-( but thumbs up to esat/eircom i had run ins with IBB, NTL and smart and though eircom and esat offer less appealing packages they are so reliable and uch calmer when it comes to caps, so my caps of to you.

BlackWizard

Cremo wrote:

i have to stop clicking these threads in such high hopes.

it's amazing what difference a question mark makes.

:mad: Got me too. I was coming in to ask if this will apply to BT... bah!

Nody

neon_glows wrote:

What would the financial ramifications be to eircom to double the speeds of all ADSL lines in the country overnight, could there current infrastructure handle this? would it cost them extra money to do so

Yes, it would cost them money if nothing else then to double their internet pipes for traffic leaving their own network (or your double speed would internal Eircom only!).

There are also other problems:
1) Capacity - Capacity issues in routers and switches in the backbone network. They are usually only able to handle up to X traffic per second, if this pushes above it they have to be replaced (which cost an arm and a leg) all the way through.

2) Compability - The upgrade will usually mean compability issues as the networks don't run the latest protocols with the latest firmware and hence need downtime (at best) or complete replacement (at worst) to be compatibable with each other. As a third option buy a new piece of equipment or software to try to bridge it which will be headace from hell once you want to upgrade again (80s flashbacks with DBs in major companies at y2k).

3) Last mile problems - Those copper lines going out to the houses while durable are not exactly shiny and new anymore. There would be problems with upgrading speeds there and the complaints that would come from the people that don't get this free speed upgrade!

4) Exchanges - Lets say we double the speed and resolve point 1 to 3, now suddenly that broadband looks more tempting then before and more people would be interested in getting it. Problem arises in that there are only so many slots in the old exchanges to put in said equipment! What reaction do you expect if someone is told sorry, no space in the exchange?

5) Helpdesk - Eircom doubles the line speeds and a customer don't get the double speed due to dodgy lines pointed out in point 3. The customer will be calling to find out why causing a increase in call volume, calling back asking when it will be resolved and in general add a higher preassure on the customer support in general. This would also include all the people calling in asking to get dropped down to the old speed due to the new one being unstable due to point 3.

dub45

Nody wrote:

Yes, it would cost them money if nothing else then to double their internet pipes for traffic leaving their own network (or your double speed would internal Eircom only!).

There are also other problems:
1) Capacity - Capacity issues in routers and switches in the backbone network. They are usually only able to handle up to X traffic per second, if this pushes above it they have to be replaced (which cost an arm and a leg) all the way through.

2) Compability - The upgrade will usually mean compability issues as the networks don't run the latest protocols with the latest firmware and hence need downtime (at best) or complete replacement (at worst) to be compatibable with each other. As a third option buy a new piece of equipment or software to try to bridge it which will be headace from hell once you want to upgrade again (80s flashbacks with DBs in major companies at y2k).

3) Last mile problems - Those copper lines going out to the houses while durable are not exactly shiny and new anymore. There would be problems with upgrading speeds there and the complaints that would come from the people that don't get this free speed upgrade!

4) Exchanges - Lets say we double the speed and resolve point 1 to 3, now suddenly that broadband looks more tempting then before and more people would be interested in getting it. Problem arises in that there are only so many slots in the old exchanges to put in said equipment! What reaction do you expect if someone is told sorry, no space in the exchange?

5) Helpdesk - Eircom doubles the line speeds and a customer don't get the double speed due to dodgy lines pointed out in point 3. The customer will be calling to find out why causing a increase in call volume, calling back asking when it will be resolved and in general add a higher preassure on the customer support in general. This would also include all the people calling in asking to get dropped down to the old speed due to the new one being unstable due to point 3.

As a Smart user I can confirm that irrespective of the speed that the ISP offers the line stats are crucial. I am on Crown Alley but a fair distance from the exchange and my line is quite dodgy indeed. Never had a problem at all on 1Mb but lots of problems with disconnects on the increased speeds. In fairness to Smart they are very helpful but for anyone who doubts the contribution of the line have a look in the Smart forums at the number of people requesting speed downgrades as per point 5 above

Also these links make interesting reading for anyone who has not read up on line stats etc.

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/linestats.htm


http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/lowSNR.htm

sdanseo

neon_glows...i hate you.

*cries*...

dub45

#Elites wrote:

There was me thinking i would be getting 4mb internet!!!!!:(

Eircom needs to bring out ADSL2..

ADSL2 is not a panacea either see my points above re line quality and distance from the exchange.

OfflerCrocGod

Have to say the title of the thread is ridiculous and purposely set up to get peoples hopes up - I find that kind of behavior annoying. ADSL2+ would help a bit in terms of speed and reach for broadband but it wouldn't be a panache to our broadband problems in Ireland as we do need some sort of infrastructure work. My attenuation is a joke and there are many people out there with the same crappy line quality.

mukki

512k to 1mb
1mb to 2mb
2mb to 4mb

christ lads stop blaiming eircom, when are you ever goting to realise that....



boards.ie is always going to be slow

neon_glows

haha, maybe ill try rename the thread or at least put in the wee ?.

so adsl2+ doesnt seem to be a runner or increasing current speeds due to old copper wires.

NTL have proven in probably the biggest thread in this forum that its not worth a ****e (and is only available in a select few places)

Smart/Metro et all are not available widespread as of yet.

So what is the next step in widespread increase of broadband/cap/speed. Could the mobile networks (vodafone etc) handle decent speeds?

Would ADSL2+ cost as much or be as time consuming as to merely upgrading the current ADSL?

Nody

Your best bet for speed upgrades (imo) is council owned MANs of fibre. Make them 100% neutral and let in say 3 to 5 operators for each service (TV, IP phone, Internet) that meet criteras regarding price/support/roll out times etc. and have them use the network at cost only basis. With this the operators get access to multiple customers easily with easy way to connect them out. Then hook them up against a state based fibre network to the major cities and voila.

You now have a backbone to work with for speed increases and possability for areas to put in own fibre and hook up against said MANs. I know a friend who did it back in Sweden, put in 90 households on a 4km fibre along the main road, cost around 3k per household including digging up the road. They had to dig up the couple of meters from the road to the house themselves but the company put in the pipes, the fibres to the wall and jackets etc.

They could then choose their own operators from the MAN network depending on what they wanted and had the fibre network (all going to a central router in a community building to hook up against the MAN) support outsourced to the same company who put it in (at €50 a year or so for the first 5 years).

The beauty of this network is that it also bypasses Eircom (can't slow down the roll out process etc.!) and allows external companies to setup as virtual operators quite easily and it is very expandable in capacity (I know four years ago our company was offered to buy 256x40GB multiplexers, that is 256 channels a 40GB on a single fibre!) while being resonable safe (if set up properly for dual rings etc.).

neon_glows

wow that would be really good but at 3k a house seems very expensive and unlikely to happen in Ireland. and say theoretically we had 90 houses in a really good area for instance if an entire IT company with there staff relocated to cork, dublin or waterford suberb and built 90 houses for staff and wanted a speedy internet connection, ran a ring around and then any operator (big operator like the people eircom buy from) can connect you to broadband?

Solair

ADSL2+ is the only way you can squeeze decent speed out of copper pairs. "Classic ADSL" doesn't really get up to enormous speeds anywhere.

Magnet are already doing 8mbit/s using ADSL2+ on eircom copper lines.
Smart use it too.

thefinalstage

Oh ****!

I hate the OP! My hopes....dashed again!

god's toy

Oh come on, putting a ? on the title does not help things...

Darn and here was I hopeing....:(

netwhizkid

What is needed is FTTH or FTTK however I am completely opposed to such investment by Eircom or anyone else when the fact of the matter is the majority of rural dwellers like myself are still dependent on Dial-up or satellite like myself.

What seems to be happening now is duplication of existing networks and making things better for those who already are lucky enough to have broadband rather than spending the money on giving rural people a service.

Eircom rolling out Wimax to the cites because they are too cheap to spend money to remove pair gains or "carriers" This Wimax would go along ways in breaching the gap out the country. Once again the Urban Rural Digital divide grows worse.

thefinalstage

netwhizkid wrote:

What is needed is FTTH or FTTK however I am completely opposed to such investment by Eircom or anyone else when the fact of the matter is the majority of rural dwellers like myself are still dependent on Dial-up or satellite like myself.

What seems to be happening now is duplication of existing networks and making things better for those who already are lucky enough to have broadband rather than spending the money on giving rural people a service.

Eircom rolling out Wimax to the cites because they are too cheap to spend money to remove pair gains or "carriers" This Wimax would go along ways in breaching the gap out the country. Once again the Urban Rural Digital divide grows worse.

Move to a city than if you feel so strongly!

netwhizkid

thelastangryman wrote:

Move to a city than if you feel so strongly!

I know people who have had to as they were unable to work from home due to lack of broadband, this country really is a basket case in terms of broadband.

JNive

or perhaps since FTTH is a huge investment it would be better in the long term for them to deploy this in the cities, make their profit off this first, and then reinvest in rural areas to supplement existing offerings there. That way, the large concentration of populations and business get increased bandwidth that is needed, and pay an appropriate amount, and then when its paying its way, the door is open for another big investment, such as rural ireland.

CuLT

Rural Ireland is a charity case, there's no money to be made hauling new cabling down the road to Joe Customer who wants to avail of 1Mbit home broadband.

Population centres are population centres for a reason. It makes things like the above not only economically feasible, but lucrative.

skywalker

Change the thread title plz,neon_glows your just pissing people off. This thread has nothing to do with Eircom intending to double speeds, and every second poster is complaining about it.

"What would eircom need to do to double speed" would be more appropriate.

legend99

How come other incumbent operators in lots of other countries can offer such higher speeds ??

thefinalstage

legend99 wrote:

How come other incumbent operators in lots of other countries can offer such higher speeds ??

Sweet,Sweet competition.

probe

There is nothing stopping eircom from increasing broadband speeds in the morning over their existing line plant. In a competitive market, such as France, everyone who shops around gets the full speed that their phoneline can handle. There is no artificial cap of 3 Mbits/sec for price X€ or 4 Mbits/sec for Y€.

The typical market price is €29.99 per month for uncapped ADSL2+ performance which currently is up to 28 Mbits/sec. Depending on where you live relative to the MDF (“exchange in Comreg/Department of Posts & Telegraphs lingo”) your speed will vary. You may have to put up with 15 or 10 Mbits/sec, or less. That is the price you pay for living where you live.

It is a hell of a lot better situation to be in, compared with moronic Ireland where your speed is artificially capped at 1, 2 or 3 Mbits/sec, because the “Old Department of Posts & Telegraphs” (AKA eircom) is still allowed to retain a grip of over 95% of the DSL market. They achieve this market manipulation by various loop unbundling prevention measures with the help of their cousins in the “New Dept of Posts & Telegraphs” (re-branded as ComReg) and the Dept of Fish [ www.dcmnr.gov.ie ].

.probe

OfflerCrocGod

thelastangryman wrote:

Sweet,Sweet competition.

Competent regulators actually.

thefinalstage

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Competent regulators actually.

^ that too.

optiplexgx270

Worst thread title so far this YEAR!! :mad: