Digiweb Expansion

Altreab

Hello All
Congratulations to Digiweb on their job creation announcement today. ......looks at Crawler.....*taps foot* now when do we get more meaty details of your new services?

crawler

Taps foot back at ya! New services were demo'd today

Urban Weigl

crawler wrote:

Taps foot back at ya! New services were demo'd today

It reads like you guys plan to launch Ireland's fifth mobile data/broadband and voice provider (yeah, I'm counting Meteor since they just got the fourth 3G license).

pjproby

not wishing to rain on their parade but they might just sort out three rock before they move on to new products.-current ping 158

Altreab

crawler wrote:

Taps foot back at ya! New services were demo'd today

Do you need testers for these demo products?

ballooba

Urban Weigl wrote:

It reads like you guys plan to launch Ireland's fifth mobile data/broadband and voice provider (yeah, I'm counting Meteor since they just got the fourth 3G license).

I'm assuming this is 4G.

Urban Weigl

ballooba wrote:

I'm assuming this is 4G.

4G is able to deliver speeds of 1000 Mbps (1 gigabit) while stationary, and 100 Mbps while moving at high speed.

Meteor will likely be deploying at least "3.5G" technology from day one. When I said 3G, I was simply referring to the license, rather than the technology. Though that's simplifying it, whatever Meteor will be deploying will need to be compatible with UMTS, it's part of the license. We've come a long way from initial 3G technology, where speeds were limited to 384 Kbps. But that's neither here nor there.

Urban Weigl

This part I find very interesting:
"Digiweb's spectrum allocation is at a lower frequency than 3G. It has purchased two blocks from ComReg: 872 MHz-876 MHz, and 917 MHz-921 MHz."

Makes it very viable, though that's not a lot of bandwidth, but it is at the right frequency. In brief, I don't believe this is vapourware at this point. It looks to me like DigiWeb are doing everything right, and making all the right decisions.

1huge1

Somehow I can't see meteor doing 3.5g from day one
They aren't known to be first for cutting edge technology by any standards
hpw many years ago did thry announce EDGE

Urban Weigl

crawler, perhaps you'd be able to shed some light on this. Will your 4G network by any chance be based in any way on Flarion's FLASH-OFDM, which got acquired by Qualcomm? I've been following Flarion for a number of years.

watty

Urban Weigl wrote:

This part I find very interesting:
"Digiweb's spectrum allocation is at a lower frequency than 3G. It has purchased two blocks from ComReg: 872 MHz-876 MHz, and 917 MHz-921 MHz."

Makes it very viable, though that's not a lot of bandwidth, but it is at the right frequency. In brief, I don't believe this is vapourware at this point. It looks to me like DigiWeb are doing everything right, and making all the right decisions.

I saw the pre-commercial preview demo. it was real and it worked. Not vapourware.

Lots of people saw it. bminish had several posts about the nature of the Digiweb 4G. Guildwars would appear to run fine on it and I don't think the 3G can do that as I have not seen 3G less than 170ms to heanet.

WiMax mobile *IS* vapourware, and initially only at 3.5GHz. You can get Fixed WiMax today. Ericsson has dropped out of Mobile WiMax.

dahamsta

1huge1 wrote:

Somehow I can't see meteor doing 3.5g from day one
They aren't known to be first for cutting edge technology by any standards
hpw many years ago did thry announce EDGE

Meteor's a different company now though. They're owned by Eircom, innovators extraordinaire.

(Actually that's unfair, Eircom is a very innovative company, they just don't roll the innovations out to their customers. So I guess Meteor'll fit right in then!)

adam

crawler

Urban Weigl wrote:

crawler, perhaps you'd be able to shed some light on this. Will your 4G network by any chance be based in any way on Flarion's FLASH-OFDM, which got acquired by Qualcomm? I've been following Flarion for a number of years.

It's now known as OFDMA and follows the roadmap for 3GPP2 (UMB) and 3GPP LTE but yes it was the Qualcomm system that was used in yesterday's demo.

On the bandwidth issue - it's just a matter of how many cells you build to provide the required capacity or "downtilt and fill in" so that will not be a problem.

watty

http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-10015145.html

http://www.rte.ie/news/6news/
There might be video from Monday 6.1 news up till 6pm tuesday (today)
Digiweb to create 200 Dublin jobs

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0326/6news_av.html?2232424,null,230

John Kilraine, Dublin Correspondent, reports on the creation of 200 jobs in Dublin by broadband provider, Digiweb

Urban Weigl

Digita in Finland will also be launching a network based on Flash-OFDM. Press release in English here:
http://www.digita.fi/digita_dokumentti.asp?path=1841;3801;2089;9011

watty

Actually I thought they have a trial already. On 450MHz and about 1/3rd the bandwidth. Unlike our 9% BB penetration they have 60% already!

Urban Weigl

watty wrote:

Actually I thought they have a trial already. On 450MHz and about 1/3rd the bandwidth. Unlike our 9% BB penetration they have 60% already!

Yes, though I think there are only 25 people on the trial (at least according to the press release about the trial, they may have added more since). I was talking about the commercial launch next month. I don't consider it launched until it's commercially available.

I'm assuming at 450 MHz, they only have 1.25 Mhz chunks to work with, whereas Digiweb have at least 4 Mhz (multiply by two in both cases, for upstream and downstream). Like I said, after being initially sceptical when this was first talked about a few months ago, after looking into it more, I now believe Digiweb not only have a solid business case, but they're doing everything right in terms of the technology used. They're making the right decisions.

jwt

Summing up the ENN piece

The Dundalk-based internet service provider is currently recruiting 80 telecoms engineers and project management staff for its north Dublin operation ahead of rolling-out a national '4G' mobile broadband network.

Quinn would not give an exact figure for the cost of Digiweb's 18 month roll-out plan for a national 4G network due to non-disclosure agreements and existing commercial negotiations.

Digiweb's spectrum allocation is at a lower frequency than 3G. It has purchased two blocks from ComReg: 872 MHz-876 MHz, and 917 MHz-921 MHz.

The rest is filler. The questions that would be good to have answered are..

When does the rollout start?

Where does the rollout start (and don't say Dublin, Cork, Galway Limerick etc...:mad: )?

How and when will it impact rural areas (if ever)?

How much will it cost?

What caps?

How fast?

How long is the subscription?

Is Digiweb aiming at commercial, private or some mix of the two?

What backhaul is being used?


Basically "Where's the beef?"



John

SkepticOne

jwt wrote:

Where does the rollout start (and don't say Dublin, Cork, Galway Limerick etc...:mad: )?

I think the best thing would be for them to roll out in the main cities first where there is the money and the customer numbers.

jwt

As opposed to rural areas where there is no money or customers?

Ok I'm being facetious but this is going to end up being yet another BB service for people in major population centres.

All well and good (and I do mean that) but meanwhile the rest of Ireland is stuck living in Alexander Bell era telephony.

John

Urban Weigl

jwt wrote:

As opposed to rural areas where there is no money or customers?

Ok I'm being facetious but this is going to end up being yet another BB service for people in major population centres.

All well and good (and I do mean that) but meanwhile the rest of Ireland is stuck living in Alexander Bell era telephony.

John

Looking at the technology being utilised, the reality is certainly there to reach 100% coverage at a significantly lower cost than UMTS at 2100 MHz. The question is not if, but when. Part of that comes down to how well the rollout is planned.

I think there's reason to believe this won't be just another BB service that only covers major population centres. For one, it's a nation-wide license, unlike say the 3.5 GHz licenses. Secondly, the technology is sound, and rural base stations should be configurable to cover very large areas.

SkepticOne

jwt wrote:

As opposed to rural areas where there is no money or customers?

Ok I'm being facetious but this is going to end up being yet another BB service for people in major population centres.

All well and good (and I do mean that) but meanwhile the rest of Ireland is stuck living in Alexander Bell era telephony.

If it makes sense financially to roll out in rural areas then digiweb should certainly do so.

Urban Weigl

This appears to be the HSDPA version of the USB "modem" that was shown on RTE last night:
http://www.anydata.com/products/adu610w.html

dahamsta

You're right in what you're saying jwt, but it has to be said: at least it's not the usual shower of arseholes and muppets rolling it out. Let's just hope they have the brains to hang on to the likes of crawler and Regi and don't fall into exactly the same traps as everyone else, that's all I can say.

adam

watty

Those Anydata folk put all kinds of modems in the same box. EVDO, Edge, HSDPA, WCDMA, GPRS etc etc.
http://www.anydata.com/news/06122006.html

Altreab

dahamsta wrote:

You're right in what you're saying jwt, but it has to be said: at least it's not the usual shower of arseholes and muppets rolling it out. Let's just hope they have the brains to hang on to the likes of crawler and Regi and don't fall into exactly the same traps as everyone else, that's all I can say.

adam

I'll second that dahamsta ... to date Digiweb seem to have always delivered what they said they would, and dont seem to BS like so many other organisations!!!

Urban Weigl

If you read ENN, Digiweb seem pretty clear about wanting to roll this out nation-wide, not just to the big metropolitan areas.

crawler

The plan is a national rollout covering as close to, if not 100% of population.

that should clear it up

JWT - sorry, only spotted your post now - yes, valid questions. As it is an all IP system as opposed to a circuit switched system adapted for Data the rules are different. All I can say at this point is that it will compare well to standard broadband technology with the benefit of full mobility and low latency. Exact details will be provided in coming months once we test new versions of software etc - takes a lot of work to get these things right and no point in over promising and under delivering - much prefer the other way around!

jwt

dahamsta wrote:

You're right in what you're saying jwt, but it has to be said: at least it's not the usual shower of arseholes and muppets rolling it out. adam

Altreab wrote:

I'll second that dahamsta ... to date Digiweb seem to have always delivered what they said they would, and dont seem to BS like so many other organisations!!!

I've no axe to grind with Digiweb. They are one of the better operators, actually strike that, they are probably the best operator out there at the moment.

Mind you compared to the likes of IBB, Lastmile, BT etc it isn't hard to beat the competition in terms of customer service, services etc.

Nevertheless, I agree that if anyone of the current operators in Ireland is going to deliver on a promise Digiweb will. Their track record for doing what they say on the tin is very good.

crawler wrote:

The plan is a national rollout covering as close to, if not 100% of population.

that should clear it up

OK

Now that does make me happy, although Muck may have some comment to make on 100% population versus 100% geographic.

Are Digiweb going to update their site and press release more concrete information re. initial deployment, prices, leveraging existing base stations/masts etc over the coming weeks?


EDIT:

Exact details will be provided in coming months once we test new versions of software etc

So is there an approx time for the service going live say weeks, months or years?

crawler

Yer some man JWT - See PM

jwt

Yep got it and replied, Thanks

John

RangeR

I dunno. I just don't have much fun with ISP's out there, and I've used a lot of them. Really considering dumping Chorus for Digiweb but if there is a hint of a new product / technology on the horizon, I might just hold off. I always like to check out new technology stuff. Geeky me.

RangeR

Actually just to throw this onto the end of my last post, if there are trials going on, I'd be willing to trial it for ye. Not looking for a freebee, just something new to try after floutering through many ISP's

dahamsta

East Cork, East Cork!!!

adam /jumps up and down

OfflerCrocGod

dahamsta wrote:

East Cork, East Cork!!!

Well if they are rolling it out to civilization first and then to the backwaters it will take a while before it gets to Cork

dahamsta

Careful now!

clohamon

crawler wrote:

The plan is a national rollout covering as close to, if not 100% of population.

Will you be waiting for the tender of the National Broadband Scheme?

lucernarian

clohamon wrote:

Will you be waiting for the tender of the National Broadband Scheme?

This is the most interesting post of the whole lot! No offence to the rest of ye:p

Digiweb already have a fairly comprehensive mast system, though with limited spectrum, it will require ingenuity of the highest order to use large radio sites, whose mobile uses had comparatively minor spectrum issues.

Interesting times lie ahead.

Urban Weigl

I have an interesting question.

You advertise this as a mobile data and phone service. Are you going to be offering handsets? I understand that currently, device availability is very limited, but this will probably change in the future. Even once it does, though, it will still be very limited compared to GSM/UMTS, so there will definitely be no "sexy Nokia's" available!

You also won't be able to get mobile numbers allocated to you, because Vodafone would not be very happy about that. Or perhaps I'm being cynical.

Anyway, do you plan to offer voice handsets with landline numbers? They obviously won't completely replace mobile phones, but it could be a very lucrative service even so, and increase your ARPU, as I'd imagine many customers would get both the "modem" as well as switching their phone service from Eircom.

Blaster99

Is there any particular reason why this service will be any better than the usual wireless broadband gunk being offered right now?

Altreab

crawler wrote:

Yer some man JWT - See PM

Any chance you can send post or PM the details JMT wanted to us all?

s_wrenn

Is 4g broadband:
suitable for online pc/console gaming?
Is it expensive?
Will 4g BB be an adequate alternative to DSL for people who can’t access DSL?
Will there be a low traffic quota? (as with 3g BB)

Chaz

No details of packages / costs will be made available until near commercial launch dates.

Edited to add. In this case, Flash OFDM is very capable of online gaming. Pings are max 50 ms with recent testing showing this averaging closer to 30 ms.

Urban Weigl

According to the blurb from Qualcomm (at least that's where I think I read about it), pings are supposedly "as low as 10 ms". This doesn't take much into account, though, and is obviously the lowest you might achieve under absolutely perfect conditions.

watty

I haven't seen lower than 170ms on 02's 3G PCMCIA/PCcard. this was also 70Kbps upload and 184kbps download.

Altreab

Chaz wrote:

No details of packages / costs will be made available until near commercial launch dates.

Edited to add. In this case, Flash OFDM is very capable of online gaming. Pings are max 50 ms with recent testing showing this averaging closer to 30 ms.

Any Idea when the Commercial Launch dates will be? April/May June/July or November/December?

netwhizkid

If Digiweb were to move into Kerry I could provide them with a location for a new mast if they wanted. At this stage I would nearly do anything to get broadband, I have my fingers worn ringing politicians and ComReg etc. It really is a disgrace and the first big step we can all take in fixing it is by by voting Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats out of office.

jwt

Altreab wrote:

Any chance you can send post or PM the details JMT wanted to us all?

He didn't PM me details related to the questions I asked.

The content of the PM is confidential so I can't go further than that :cool:

John

crawler

Urban Weigl wrote:

According to the blurb from Qualcomm (at least that's where I think I read about it), pings are supposedly "as low as 10 ms". This doesn't take much into account, though, and is obviously the lowest you might achieve under absolutely perfect conditions.

10ms on air interface and 20ms for other bits and bobs - average REAL WORLD latency closer to 30-50ms as posted by Mr Chaz.

Urban Weigl wrote:

You also won't be able to get mobile numbers allocated to you, because Vodafone would not be very happy about that. Or perhaps I'm being cynical.

no comment - yet.


On all other commercial questions - we genuinely cant release details yet - not because we are mean and dont want to - we simply are working hard to test the capabilities of the system under full load etc and basically getting as much of it "right" as we possibly can - we WANT to launch the best product at the best price range and naturally make a few quid while we are at it. It will also take us a bit of time to build the thing with site acquisition, power etc. Once we have these details we will release them...sure, why wouldn't we?

Urban Weigl

crawler wrote:

no comment - yet.

Blaster99

It's always good to see the PR machine in action though, isn't it?