Eircom enables 103 broadband exchanges

Galen

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single9930

21.12.2007 - Nineteen more telephone exchanges have been enabled for broadband this week, Eircom has announced. In 2007 a total of 103 exchanges, representing 65,000 working lines, were enabled, bringing to 1.4 million the number of working lines that can support broadband in Ireland today.

Some 18.4pc of the population can now avail of broadband, up from 16.2pc in August 2007. In October, Eircom achieved 500,000 DSL broadband connections on its network.

“We have reached a huge milestone today with the enablement of 19 new exchanges, bringing our total to 103 upgraded exchanges in 2007,” said Rex Comb, CEO, Eircom. “We intend to build on these achievements and continue the momentum behind broadband rollout into 2008.

“Everyone is aware we have set ourselves ambitious targets and we have an aggressive broadband plan in place. We anticipate that 96pc of the working telephone lines in Ireland will be connected to a broadband exchange by the end of 2009.”

By Niall Byrne

Promises promises.

Hell will freeze over before they get to my exchange (Bohola, Co. Mayo), at least I have wireless broadband thanks to oscarBravo and Westnet.

rahtkennades

Galen wrote: »

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single9930
.....We anticipate that 96pc of the working telephone lines in Ireland will be connected to a broadband exchange by the end of 2009....

Does this mean that they're super-confident of getting the national broadband contract, or does it mean that in their eyes there's no need for the nbs, as they are going to upgrade the exchanges in a similar timeframe anyway?

qwertplaywert

But there is a need for the nbs, as eircom are commiting to upgrade 98 percent of the exchanges, and say they will not do the others. Some of these 2 percent areas[such as mine until last week] could not get any other type of broadband. Without a nbs those area's will be left stranded.

Sponge Bob

qwertplaywert wrote: »

But there is a need for the nbs, as eircom are commiting to upgrade 98 percent of the exchanges, and say they will not do the others.

Math 101

Eircom have enabled some 570 exchanges and are committed to another 330 or so by 2009 they now say .....an improvement on 2012 as I calculated based on activity in the first half of the year.

570+330 is 900

There are about 1200 exchanges in the state by the most mutable of definitions ...meaning some exchanges are the size of a big biscuit tin on a pole . By any reasonable definition of 'exchange' there are at least 1150 exchanges excluding biscuit tins and WLL eruptions in national parks ....being on the ground and in a structure .

900 out of 1200 is 75% of Exchanges and 900 out of 1150 is 78%

eircom have not committed to any upgrade any of the 25% or 22% of remaining exchanges , they have in fact committed to NOT upgrading them.

qwertplaywert

My mistake, I read in a news report in the Indo that they were committing to 98 percent, guess its not the first time they posted inaccurate information.

rahtkennades

Sponge Bob wrote: »

....

eircom have not committed to any upgrade any of the 25% or 22% of remaining exchanges , they have in fact committed to NOT upgrading them.

I'm confused. Galen's original post quotes Rex Comb as saying that "We anticipate that 96pc of the working telephone lines in Ireland will be connected to a broadband exchange by the end of 2009".
Does this mean he's reckoning that BT/Smart/etc are going to upgrade exchanges that Eircom consider not economically viable? Or that he feels super-confident that NBS will be DSL based and his company will have allowed access to all their exchanges to whoever gets the contract?

Boston

98% of lines could well be connected to exchanges totaling less then 75%. That or sub exchanges aren't included.

gerryo

What's the point of upgrading an exchange for BB when most of the lines are poor quality or pair-gain?

I guess it makes good press for Eircom, but really, it's just more weasel-words. An upgraded exchange that can't provided broadband to 80% of it's customers is a white elephant.

A real world statistic would be to show the percentage of customer lines per exchange that are BB capable, that would make far more interesting reading.

thebman

Is there a list of these exchanges somewhere?

Its really annoying that its so hard to find out if your exchange is enabled or not. Either that or I'm missing a link or something.