BOARDS Consensus On National Broadband Network Or Not ?

tak

Interested to know what sort of system members would envisage as proper for a national broadband network ?
By "national" I mean available to each household and enterprise in RoI.

Sponge Bob

The Dept of Comunications cannot configure their own webserver never mind anything more complicated.

FTTH would be nice

PixelTrawler

Sponge Bob wrote:

The Dept of Comunications cannot configure their own webserver never mind anything more complicated.

Ah now u see what happens when Noel leaves...:)

Sponge Bob

LOL! They fixed it since that post it was broken for weeks .

watty

Broken here
http://www.dcmnr.ie/ gives
Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)

bealtine

Sponge Bob wrote:

LOL! They fixed it since that post it was broken for weeks .

Ehh no they didn't...

Still gives : Bad Request (Invalid Hostname) (as of 27/8/2007).

rc28

watty wrote:

Broken here
http://www.dcmnr.ie/ gives
Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)

Works for me...

mickzer

Not for me
mickzer.

tak

http://www.dcmnr.gov.ie/

Try that.

And maybe try giving an answer to the base question, not talking trash.

rc28

mickzer wrote:

Not for me
mickzer.

Ok it was defo working for me a while ago but isn't anymore.

bealtine

tak wrote:

[url

And maybe try giving an answer to the base question, not talking trash.

The question was answered: FTTH or at a minimum FTTC.

Now lets get the dcmnr to fix their website before they try to pretend
they are actually in charge of communications policy in the state.

mickzer

rc28 wrote:

Ok it was defo working for me a while ago but isn't anymore.

That's OK.
They're both working now..

mickzer

bk

In order of preference:

1) FTTH
2) FTTC
3) Truly open and competitive LLU with at least ADSL2+.

In a truly competitive market you would have all three, with LLU everywhere (including rural exchanges) and getting replaced by FTTH and FTTC in urban areas.

Basically just look at Japan, Hong Kong or France closer to home.

PixelTrawler

I suppose a question to lead from this is who do people believe should pay for and how should it be paid for.

I know at the end of the day, we, the consumer will pay in the end but how would a FTTH or FTTC rollout be funded up front, who should roll it out... After all it would cost a fortune to do, and the ROI could be a long time

I'm guessing most people here have as much faith in eircom as they do in the government so its hard to see who in this country could even deliver a proper national broadband network.

Im guessing it would have to stem from the government though with proper will and also a proper regulator, something along the lines of OFCOM with decent teeth.

The government should simply look at this as national infrastructure in the interest of the country along the lines of the motorway projects or other capital projects.

But seeing as they seem incapable of protecting important international airline routes I can't see this happening anytime soon.

Sponge Bob

The MAN strategy has worked for some . Businesses in many towns can access quality affordable broadband. Serious progress can be made on comms issues, note this recent article.

http://www.enn.ie/article/90825.html

I would , apart from the NBP , encourage the government as follows

ESB fibre/Bord Gais fibre/ CIE fibre / Man connectivity should be pushed out to within 30km of every man woman and child in the state and the market can then be left alone to do its thing as it will in those circumstances .

New entrants only have to work on links up to 30km in length at most in that case. There is no barrier to entry, unlike now.

Even an interim strategy of pushing the state owned assets, universally, to within 60km by end 2008 would make a huge difference.

bk

Joebloggs4817 wrote:

I suppose a question to lead from this is who do people believe should pay for and how should it be paid for.

I know at the end of the day, we, the consumer will pay in the end but how would a FTTH or FTTC rollout be funded up front, who should roll it out... After all it would cost a fortune to do, and the ROI could be a long time.

First you make LLU works. Then when it works, Eircom themselves and others will want to rollout FTTH and FTTC in order to make sure their lunch doesn't get eaten by LLU.

This is exactly what is happening in France at the moment and what has happened over in Asia.

For those of you who were around in the early days of IOFFL, LLU is to FTTH/FTTC as FRIACO was to Bitstream DSL.

Also as Sponge Bob has said, I think the MAN and other government owned fibre has worked out quiet well and should be pushed closer to the user. In conjunction with LLU, this would be a very powerful combination.

PixelTrawler

This comes back to regulation of course.
LLU will never be rolled out properly with Comreg

Seems step one is a political decision then which comes back to the government, which is the problem...

Can someone mail this thread to Eamon Ryan... can't do any harm!
Some good solid ideas there

bealtine

Joebloggs4817 wrote:

This comes back to regulation of course.
LLU will never be rolled out properly with Comreg

Seems step one is a political decision then which comes back to the government, which is the problem...

"The government cannot interfere in a fully liberalized market".
(I wrote to get a copy of this letter so I could frame it and fall about laughing every time I read it)
That was the mantra of the last government when referring to the telecommunications market (amongst others).
This is patent nonsense obviously but thats what they seem to think and it's a handy excuse for doing absolutely nothing.

Sponge Bob

eamonn is welcome to PM bk , or me

Nody

tak wrote:

Interested to know what sort of system members would envisage as proper for a national broadband network ?

If you want something that can actually be done and not end up with a 50k tax bill per person I would suggest MANs owned by the counties. Give heavy tax discounts to set them up with requirement that they all have at least 3 suppliers per product (i.e. broadband, phone, tv) and give the option for people further away to hook up to them as well (at their own cost). Even better would be county owned MAN and then let the different areas hook up individually that way you don't have to pay the cost of pulling in fibre everywhere, especially houses that would not use it. Cost is very acceptable this way; 2k euro per household is the price I recall when it was done before for a community of around 60 houses including the digging, new asphalt etc.

Throw in a couple of decent backbone links (say 4 east-west and 4 north - south running through the country) owned by the government and run on a non profit basis hooking up the different MANs and offer redundancy in general.

By "national" I mean available to each household and enterprise in RoI.

Never going to happen, if you're living in the middle of no where accept it and move on already. This dream that everyone will have broadband simply will not happen nor is it something I would consider arguing for. It is not only going to skyrocket the prices to obscene levels compared to doing say 80 or 90% coverage it will also cause a huge delay for implementation due to how to do it and maintain speeds.

If someone lives in the middle of no where rather go for the 80/90% option with fibre and once there argue that the state should pay Eircom to upgrade the exchanges to cover the rest or something like that. At least that will have some feasibility to it compared to screaming "Full broadband coverege for all" and get nothing for everyone.

Sponge Bob

It would not cost €20bn ( €50k per person),

It would cost in the Low €100s of m to bring state owned Fibre to within 60km of all
It would cost max €300m to bring it to within 30km of all.
It cost €50m to bypass Cavan .

March 2006

http://www.chambers.ie/bulletin/indexneo.php?eid=21

Chambers Call on Government to Invest in National Broadband Fibre Optic Network Solution
Chambers Ireland has called on the Government to invest in a fibre optic broadband network that will deliver extremely high quality broadband to every business and household in the state that would be a minimum of 50 times the current capability.

In a submission to Forfás, Chambers Ireland argues that this strategic investment would underpin Ireland’s future growth as a knowledge driven economy and would complement the ongoing strategic investments already flagged in 4th level education and advanced scientific research.

The design, construction and rollout of such a network reaching every home in the state would, according to Chambers, cost in the region of €2bn and could be undertaken as part of the next national development plan.

Chambers Ireland Director of Policy Seán Murphy said, “the current debate on broadband is focussed on how Ireland lags behind its international competition for its telecommunications capabilities. Not only does this ignore the fact that we use higher standards to define broadband than our European counterparts, it also misses the real argument which is that we are not being ambitious enough in our broadband plans. In order to build Ireland’s economy for the future, we require a quantum leap in both the bandwidth capacity and availability of broadband throughout the state.”

“Ireland is currently aiming for a 1mbit network but the needs of Irish business have already surpassed that offered by 1mbit broadband and within ten years, 10-100mbps access speeds by both consumers and small and medium sized enterprises will probably be essential. There is no point in investing in a network now to match the needs of today – we need to plan for the needs of ten years from now. A ubiquitous broadband offering of very high quality, such as that which we are proposing, would enable access to and the deployment of key new technologies such as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, that are vital for the future growth of our economy.”

He also noted that such a significant investment by the Government would not be the first of its kind in the history of the state. “We estimate the cost to the Government of delivering fibre optic cabling to all homes and businesses in Irish towns and cities to be around €2bn. This should be viewed in the context of the multi-billion euro multi-annual investment current ly being undertaken by ESB to upgrade its network.”

“It is also worth bearing in mind that previous Irish Governments operating in much more fiscally constrained times backed similar radical and forward-thinking infrastructural investment programmes such as the commissioning of the Ardnacrusha hydro-electric power station, the Rural Electrification Scheme and the creation of one of the first national electricity grids in the World.”

bk

Nody wrote:

If you want something that can actually be done and not end up with a 50k tax bill per person I would suggest MANs owned by the counties.

As Sponge Bob has pointed out, bringing fibre within a reasonable distance to most and frankly very near to most people, really wouldn't cost that much. About the cost of one of the new interurban motorways and would have equal to or greater payback in social and economic (and potentially environmental) terms then one of these interurbans.

Nody wrote:

Throw in a couple of decent backbone links (say 4 east-west and 4 north - south running through the country) owned by the government and run on a non profit basis hooking up the different MANs and offer redundancy in general.

Well we already have an excellent fibre backbone in place in the shape of the ESB fibre network which is strung up along most of their high power transmission network through out the country. The backbone has never been the problem, it has always been the last mile in urban areas and the last few miles in rural areas.

The MAN project was designed to tackle the last few miles in rural towns problem, but we can't rest on our laurels, the last mile problem still exists and of course fibre rings should over time get closer and closer to people, eventually giving them FTTH.

Nody wrote:

Never going to happen, if you're living in the middle of no where accept it and move on already. This dream that everyone will have broadband simply will not happen nor is it something I would consider arguing for. It is not only going to skyrocket the prices to obscene levels compared to doing say 80 or 90% coverage it will also cause a huge delay for implementation due to how to do it and maintain speeds.

I disagree totally, there isn't any reason why at least 1mb DSL BB shouldn't be available to everyone as part of Eircoms universal obligation. They have already achieved 100% coverage up in Northern Ireland, so there is absolutely no excuse for not doing the same down here.

As for FTTH for everyone seems like a long way off right now, there isn't any reason why high speed wireless and LLU can't be gotten to everyone from nearby fibre MANS.

smellslikeshoes

Nody wrote:

Never going to happen, if you're living in the middle of no where accept it and move on already. This dream that everyone will have broadband simply will not happen nor is it something I would consider arguing for. It is not only going to skyrocket the prices to obscene levels compared to doing say 80 or 90% coverage it will also cause a huge delay for implementation due to how to do it and maintain speeds.

Only in Ireland could anyone have a view like this, when all the countries around us have 100% or very close to it. As Mr bk has already stated N Ireland have already 100% coverage, its been like that for about 2 years now. Ireland is the laughing stock of Europe and its not going to change until there is a strong political will to change it.


Interesting little article that was in the Irish times and reported on by Enn.ie that proves how bad we really are.

Separately, the paper quotes eBay Ireland MD John McElligott as saying that slow connection speeds and lagging availability of broadband mean that the Government will have difficulty in achieving stated goals such as supporting small businesses, encouraging the use of communications technologies and promoting regional development. "We've had developing world levels of connectivity in Ireland and businesses like us are very unhappy about that," he said. "Japan has 20 megabit [per second] connections to the home while we have operators boasting about one or two megabit broadband. That's 'fraudband' as far as we're concerned."

bealtine

bk wrote:

I disagree totally, there isn't any reason why at least 1mb DSL BB shouldn't be available to everyone as part of Eircoms universal obligation. They have already achieved 100% coverage up in Northern Ireland, so there is absolutely no excuse for not doing the same down here.

As for FTTH for everyone seems like a long way off right now, there isn't any reason why high speed wireless and LLU can't be gotten to everyone from nearby fibre MANS.

Other countries (Switzerland for instance) have mandated dsl as part of their universal service so why can't we?

Anyway other countries do not have so many problems with the copper rotting in the ground so the issue is moot there.

As has been pointed out already, we have the MANs an these can easily (and cheaply) be conduits for decent broadband across the state, to within 60km is relatively easy. However one of the biggest issue is the cost of rolling out "the last mile". This was addressed in some planning legislation but then promptly ignored. If this issue was addressed we could have fibre to the curb rolled out very quickly and at the cost of those who make vast profits from building "houses" by making them pay for infrastructure and NOT just visible infrastructure.

Sponge Bob

By showing that there is a plan to push the fibre to 60km by end 2008 and to 30km by end 2009 you will suddenly find that fingers are pulled out all over eircom and DSL is magically made available, poof just like that . The current fanny arsing by the government is just that, fanny arsing.

You will dramatically speed up the DSL rollout to the 400 exchanges announced in two tranches over the winter and where maybe only 10 are actually done in 10 months .

You will present a clear and present danger to the monopoly in small towns and rural areas. The monopoly will defend itself the only way it can, it will fix copper and roll out DSL rapidly.

You will also make it much easier for Sponge Bob to roll out his planned FTTH GPON network in his own rural area because he then can

bealtine

Sponge Bob wrote:

By showing that there is a plan to push the fibre to 60km by end 2008 and to 30km by end 2009 you will suddenly find that fingers are pulled out all over eircom and DSL is magically made available, poof just like that .

Which is the main reason that eircom want to buy the MANs. This would effectively bury any form of competition for the foreseeable future and cement the position of the current monopoly by stifling any competition and killing off any innovation in this area (telecommunications). One cannot blame eircom for adopting that position, I would do exactly the same in the situation.

The main issue, in my opinion, is the government hiding behind platitudes like the "fully liberalized market" excuse. If they grasp the nettle hard now the issues can be resolved quickly and in a cost effective manner. They just need to see the issues and stop ignoring them, after 10 years can they possibly even acknowledge that there is a problem which they themselves created?

Sponge Bob

bealtine wrote:

The main issue, in my opinion, is the government hiding behind platitudes like the "fully liberalized market" excuse. If they grasp the nettle hard now the issues can be resolved quickly and in a cost effective manner. They just need to see the issues and stop ignoring them, after 10 years can they possibly even acknowledge that there is a problem which they themselves created?

Only Dempsey ever bothered with that BS, Ahern before him did admit there was a problem. Dempsey is saying the exact same thing about Aer Lingus now when it comes to Shannon. I do not want to discuss Shannon either or Dempsey

Has anyone got a "fully liberalized market" BS excuse from the department, in writing, since Ryan took over ....out of interest ?

If you talk to Tony Killeen, his junior, he says no such thing. Tony gets his home BB from a GBS too .

paulm17781

Would splitting Eircom not go some way to improving our infrastructure?

When the company is only there to sell network services to other operators, surely it would be in their interest to provide decent quality copper etc. This would probably be far cheaper than a National Broadband Network. I wouldn't even see a problem with the government investing in that. It is the investment in a retail company that I would have issues with.

Sponge Bob

Eircom WILL be split anyway within 2-3 years but by the New EU super regulator known as the ETMA and the Commission, not by the dept of comms and Comreg...unless they splity themselves first .

AFTER it has been split it can possibly tender to run the MANs if the management contract comes up.

tak

Is DSL adequate for TV channel calibre broadband ?
Is 15 Mbps enough for this ?

If so wouldn't this level of transfer be adequate for the majority of home users - even those that work from home or rural areas, e.g. architects, graphic/media people, etc ?

bk

tak wrote:

Is DSL adequate for TV channel calibre broadband ?

No

tak wrote:

Is 15 Mbps enough for this ?

Not really, standard definition MPEG2 uses about 4-5mbps (3-4mps using MPEG4) of bandwidth per stream. The problem is that most people want more then just one stream, they usually want 2 or 3 (so they can record one channel while watching another and have another TV in the kitchen/bedroom). This easily eats up 15mbps of bandwidth.

And HD using MPEG4 uses about 10mbps per stream.

tak wrote:

If so wouldn't this level of transfer be adequate for the majority of home users - even those that work from home or rural areas, e.g. architects, graphic/media people, etc ?

The problem is, even using ADSL2+, the vast majority of people won't get 15m. About 13m seems to be about the average, for people in Urban areas, close to an exchange on a very good quality line.

In rural areas and on bad lines in urban areas, you would be lucky to get 2m.

IMO there should be a universal obligation that everyone in the country can at least get 1m/256k. This would be a good minimum and would at least allow people to escape from dial-up and allow them a good quality of basic internet services (surfing, emailing, a little gaming, working from home, etc. but obviously not video). But we should be aiming much higher (>20m) for most people.

bealtine

tak wrote:

Is 15 Mbps enough for this ?

No

tak wrote:

If so wouldn't this level of transfer be adequate for the majority of home users

Only if your aim is for mediocrity and even then aiming pretty low, we should be aiming as high as other countries, this would include the likes of Sweden, Korea and Japan amongst others.

15Mbps is the norm around Paris and even there it is not enough and the telcos there are rolling out fiber to most places.

zonEEE

All i would like is to be able to get dsl. Eircom wont update my exchange Im on wirless atm and its ****.

tak

There lies the heart of the problem so.
Anything short of fibre will not provide a long-term national network of adequate speed. The cost (or at least the pundits' estimated cost) of this is daunting.
A part network of fibre will be socially divisive.
And, from the wings, a plethora of small DSL and wireless broadband providers are telling the DoC that that is grand enough for people - or that poor "PC penetration" is the real issue . . .

Sponge Bob

PC penetration is now around 60% and not an issue, we have average EU penetration but way below average BB supply.

It never has been an issue except for morons who were put off by eircom spin under the last regime in eircom .

rahtkennades

bk wrote:

.....IMO there should be a universal obligation that everyone in the country can at least get 1m/256k. This would be a good minimum and would at least allow people to escape from dial-up and allow them a good quality of basic internet services (surfing, emailing, a little gaming, working from home, etc. but obviously not video). But we should be aiming much higher (>20m) for most people.

Isn't that what the proposal was from the 'last' government? To introduce a national broadband scheme 'guaranteeing' everybody 1m/256k (oh sorry, at 48:1 contention of course!):rolleyes:

The reality is that 1mbps, contended at that kind of level, is hopelessly inadequate. Sure it's better than 33kbps contended at maybe 20:1, but then so is carrier pigeon.

bk, this isn't your intention perhaps, but saying "oh well everybody should get 1m/256k to do 'a little gaming and working from home etc', is these days no better than the current USO of (correct me if I'm wrong) voice + 14.4kbps data. Sure can't people call their mammys with that? What more would they want?

We're starting from a small base. This is the time for policy decisions that will mean that when they are implemented, over perhaps 4 years, will leave an infrastructure that is at least current to the level that will apply at that time. Not something that should have been standard 3-5 years ago.

Of course all we'll hear is vague statements of intent, perhaps the commissioning of an independent (kaching!) study, and the odd bit of hand-wringing from the opposition. BAU.

Sponge Bob

rahtkennades wrote:

We're starting from a small base. This is the time for policy decisions that will mean that when they are implemented, over perhaps 4 years, will leave an infrastructure that is at least current to the level that will apply at that time. Not something that should have been standard 3-5 years ago.

Well my proposal brings up to 2.5gbit backhaul ( or multiples of 2.5gbit ) to within 60km or 30km of every citizen. Its a start , surely

There has to be a point at which the government hands over to the market but not at the expense of leaving its citizens and sizeable towns stranded well over 100km from decent backhaul .

bk

rahtkennades wrote:

bk, this isn't your intention perhaps, but saying "oh well everybody should get 1m/256k to do 'a little gaming and working from home etc', is these days no better than the current USO of (correct me if I'm wrong) voice + 14.4kbps data. Sure can't people call their mammys with that? What more would they want?

Well 1m USO would be far better then the 0k USO we currently have. I'm saying that 1m should be the bare minimum and that it should be done with the government over time pushing the fibre rings closer and closer to peoples homes and in conjunction with a fully open and fair LLU market.

That should mean that the vast majority of people would have far faster ADSL2+ speeds, with urban areas even starting to get FTTH and FTTC/B. I'd envisage only the extreme rural areas having 1m BB and with them even getting faster ADSL2+ speeds eventually.

Here is the interesting thing that I have found over the years, I've gone from dialup to 512k BB to 1m BB to 1.5m BB to 6m BB to 26m BB at the moment
Despite these massive jumps, the most revolutionary change came from going from dialup to 512k, always on, high download, low latency, fixed price, it was incredible. The changes I've had since are nice, but they are more evolutionary then revolutionary.

To be perfectly honest most things I do on the net feel exactly the same on 26m as they did on 1m. The only real difference is very large file downloads and the fact the I'm getting an IPTV service over the 26m from smart vision and to be honest, I'd much prefer Sky or NTL to what I'm currently getting over IPTV (far more channels and better picture quality).

PixelTrawler

So true BK - theres many thousands in the country that would be ever grateful for 1m/256kb - its a good decent USO standard to aim for

rahtkennades

bk wrote:

Well 1m USO would be far better then the 0k USO we currently have. I'm saying that 1m should be the bare minimum ....
That should mean that the vast majority of people would have far faster ADSL2+ speeds
....
...I've gone from dialup to 512k BB to 1m BB .... to 26m BB at the moment
... the most revolutionary change came from going from dialup to 512k, always on, high download, low latency, fixed price, it was incredible. ...

To be perfectly honest most things I do on the net feel exactly the same on 26m as they did on 1m. .....

That's fair enough bk, your point about the jump from dialup to any level of always on service is well made. All I was trying to suggest is that since we are starting from a very patchy situation, in policy terms we should be thinking 5 years from now, not 5 years ago. If the national policy is that all users are entitled to minimum......say 10mbps down..... then your infrastructure must be built to allow for this.

Sponge Bob

You forget that the USO is a Comreg issue and that Comreg do not enforce the USO , thats any USO ....and they have had 2 or 3 and variants thereupon and EU USO directives etc .

The national thingy plan yoke is Government Policy and is implemented by the Government, not Comreg thank ***k .

They have parallel uses but are mutually exclusive.

I agree totally with bks point that the leap from often rubbish dialup to reasonable speed always on is a revelation , 1024 / 256 is indeed a good base target .

tak

The experience of bk and more with basic b/band is (at this stage) aside from the question of a national network surely.
As it stands there are many enterprises and homes that could apply the speeds of fibre to their work or recreations.
There are also (as is usual with a new technology) bound to be wholly new types of business that would be enabled by the availability of high-speed internet.
It is not just dumb infrastructure like a road, a perpetual maintenance expense for little economic gain.
It's an intensively used utility that would create lasting jobs all over its extent.
More importantly, it would redistribute people throughout the regions in a way that deliberate industrial targeting or public service decentralisation ever could.
Unlike other utilities it needs relatively low energy input. So that many areas whose attractiveness for traditional industrial projects has long been limited by the lack of electrical power generation there could compete fairly for ICT industry placements.
The lead for this to be done in Ireland today can only come from Govt like SpongeBob says. BB providers are irrelevant till there is a proper network from which they can make serious applications to market. Eircom hasn't the boldness to go where there are no state guaranteed income streams.
Only when the state makes its committment to such a fibre roll-out plain to all the banks will the ground be broke.
€50,000 per man is not that much for a scheme which will certainly bring in as much per year for the tens of thousands who would eventually make a living directly from this utility.

Sponge Bob

Its slightly different to my mind tak

The presence of serious non eircom fibre in the large towns forces eircom to upgrade them nto VDSL ( announced Novermber last ) at a time when MOST EXCHANGES are not broadband enabled...although the majority will be by the time VDSL rolls out .

The absence of serious fibre in many parts of the state means that eircom do not compete because they simply do not have to, they therefore invest to protect their markets where there is danger , eg Dublin Cork Galway etc . OTOH there leased line biz is being eaten alive by fibre operators in the big towns where you can get 10mbits symmetrical at around €1k a month, uncontended . Half the price of a 2mbit leased line ....and there are scads of DSL operators including Magnet and Smart too....never mind cable.

10 miles out there could be nothing at all bar ****ty old satellite.

Fibre to within 60km of everyone is a danger to eircom

Fibre to within 30km of everyone is a clear and present danger to the monopoly everywhere.

If we can get as far as there then we can look at fibre to 15km etc .

It keeps the pressure on you see

qwertplaywert

Eircom claim 98 percent of all households will be able to get broadband by the time they finish upgrading all the exhanges they announced,they also said they will not will ugrade the rest for the remaining 2percent, that is what the government should be doing, implimenting exhange upgrades for that 2 percent who will never be given it by eircom.

tak

by the time they finish upgrading all the exhanges

They have not even put a year on when that's going to be done, man.
Anyway it's just a delaying tactic. Conditioning the public for what they choose to give them.
Say it was finished tomorrow. The demand and benefits of fibre would be even more stark to us all.
So why not fibre for all now ?
It won't be getting cheaper . . .

Sponge Bob

qwertplaywert wrote:

Eircom claim 98 percent of all households will be able to get broadband by the time they finish upgrading all the exhanges they announced

Standard eircom BS, even if 98% of houses were CONNECTED to upgraded exchanges at least 10% of those would have lines that fail for various reasons.

They have increased distances , they have doubled the line length they service in the past year and a half or so.

Given that the pi x r squared calculation is crude and that lines are never straight the effect is that

1. they now provide 1mbit at 8km . It was 4km less than 2 years back

2. 4 x 4 x 3.14 means an exchange covers 50 square km if all lines are straight

3. 8 x 8 x 3.14 means an exchange covers 200 sq km.

4. Their geographic coverage for dsl from a given exchange has therefore increased four fold in nominal terms . This is probably similar in the wild

5. in practice , and with crooked lines and boreens , the figures are more like 3km and 6km radius , still 4 x increase though.

This has had a hugely positive effect in rural areas .

Its not enough for me though