Thirty million euro deal to boost 3's broadband service

bealtine

(not a lot of detail on this)

http://www.herald.ie/breaking-news/national-news/business/thirty-million-euro-deal-to-boost-3s-broadband-service-1504027.html

Monday October 20 2008

Mobile operator 3 has signed a €30 million deal with Nokia Siemens Networks to upgrade its network.

The deal will enable the company offer its Irish customers high speed broadband access operating on 7.2Mbps technology this year with the deployment of 14.4Mbps technology next year.

The agreement brings 3's investment in its network to date to €530 million.

zugvogel

bealtine wrote: »

(not a lot of detail on this)
Mobile operator 3 has signed a €30 million deal with Nokia Siemens Networks to upgrade its network.
The deal will enable the company offer its Irish customers high speed broadband access operating on 7.2Mbps technology this year with the deployment of 14.4Mbps technology next year.
The agreement brings 3's investment in its network to date to €530 million.

I wonder how much does €30m buy you in this business? Would it improve quality of service? Would an "up to" 7.2 or 14.4 Mbit product give you a good chance of getting a reliable 1Mbit DSL like service?? Probably not, although in all fairness i do see a lot of peole using 3G modems on the commuter trains these days.

watty

Just adds capacity.

Even with one user only, you can't get low latency.

PogMoThoin

watty wrote: »

Even with one user only, you can't get low latency.

Therefore You can't do VOIP, so its not really broadband and shouldn't be called that.

Exactly how many people are happy with 3G modems, they are included in all government statistics but I know of several people that are sorry they bought but tied to a 12 month contract

niallb

Here's "1" that's happy with 3G modems.

All I'll say about the
"Therefore You can't do VOIP, so its not really broadband and shouldn't be called that."
is that I don't agree with your logic. I do agree that the word broadband is overused.

I was very glad of my Vodafone 3G modem for a year and a half.
We got DSL in March (2008!), but the 3G signal was almost always a bit faster
for download, and more than twice as fast for upload.
I get about a 700k connection down on a 1Mb Eircom line, and about 90k up.
That's at about 8km from the exchange by wire.

Sure, I had problems with 3G. A search on boards will bring them up!
In general it was a huge improvement and saved me a fortune in dialup costs.
There's no flatrate dialup here. After 180 hours you pay by the minute.
Sounds like a lot, but f you're working from home, that means
30 euro for the first three weeks of the month,
and then 30 euro a DAY after that.

In rural areas 3G is a real alternative.
In cities where you're sharing a cell with larger numbers of people,
you're much more likely to hit someone who's fond of their torrents.
One torrent user ruins a 3G cell for everyone else and is probably also
the loudest complainer about the speeds.

If all 3G providers were to throttle torrent/p2p traffic there'd be
a lot less complaint about the service from most of their users.
The uncapped, fully open internet connection is still a dream.

If you want a broadband service and have other options, take one.
Oversubscription to any service will make it suffer, and there's not
a lot of companies out there who'll say "No, we've already got enough users thanks!"

3G gives you a mobile connection, and brings it to places with
no other alternatives. If you want low latency, it's not for you.

I have used Voip over both EDGE and 3G with reasonable results,
but you'd be under no illusion it's a normal phone call.
For Voip prices I dial into my blueface mobile account from my mobile phone.
I was on the phone to Melbourne for half an hour last week for 31c.
(Meteor billpay - free calls at night, so just charged for the blueface bit)

I switched to DSL when it arrived mainly because it's not affected by fog...
It's a little hard to explain to a client that you'll get their mail
when the sun rises a little higher :-)

cgarvey

niallb wrote: »

In rural areas 3G is a real alternative.

A reasonably common misconception. Sector/cell sizes tend to be much larger in rural areas, and reliable 3G only extends to a shorter reach within that cell, so there are very large pockets of 2/2.5G coverage without 3G.

Secondly because the sector reach is so vast, covering rural areas where very little broadband options are available. That means there's a good take up on 3G data services, which A) reduces the 3G cell even more so and means contention is pretty horrific on many rural 3G sectors.

Is it better than dialup? Not always, no, and that's rural dialup (which rarely goes in to the 40Kbps range). Sometimes yes, but it's down to the network and site which is why I encourage the use of trials to see, because it's a very different experience, in many cases, between 2 neighbours a mile apart.

watty

3G is urban technology due to the frequency (2.1GHz). EDGE is on 900/1800 and on a cell sector with more than 10 users can give the same speed!

A 3G/HSDPA sector only really supports about 25 simultaneous connections.

Latency is too poor for many things.

It's fast dialup, not an always on connection. You may not actually connect as user base increases. Proper Fixed Wireless gtees a connection!

lucernarian

cgarvey wrote: »

A reasonably common misconception. Sector/cell sizes tend to be much larger in rural areas, and reliable 3G only extends to a shorter reach within that cell, so there are very large pockets of 2/2.5G coverage without 3G.

Secondly because the sector reach is so vast, covering rural areas where very little broadband options are available. That means there's a good take up on 3G data services, which A) reduces the 3G cell even more so and means contention is pretty horrific on many rural 3G sectors.

Is it better than dialup? Not always, no, and that's rural dialup (which rarely goes in to the 40Kbps range). Sometimes yes, but it's down to the network and site which is why I encourage the use of trials to see, because it's a very different experience, in many cases, between 2 neighbours a mile apart.

I'm going to question the accuracy on some of that.

Firstly, 3G coverage does tend to cover areas that has DSL services already, i.e. towns and cities. It's main market from what I've seen are people who are renting and therefore can't have a fixed line installed (wireless, cable or DSL) and/or else will not stay long enough for a 12 month contract. And rental accommodation tends to be an urban thing, so all those students with their torrents will normally show up in city or town centres.

The contention issue arises at the sector transmitter I think, and as each sector is limited in area to e.g. a third of the overall mast coverage area, it would mean the sector would need to cover a village to get contention issues. Every larger village I can think of has had its exchange enabled anyway.
Indeed, as you pointed out, cell sizes for 3G are smaller than their equivalent GSM cell. That would mean that fewer rural users would get sufficient coverage to use a HSDPA modem with any sort of comfort.

I think that the original point being made was that in areas of good 3G signal strength, the internet service would be better than in a town with the same strength. I firmly believe this is true, from experience of seeing it being used in different places.

My line is 6.5km long but dialup would work at 44kbps. The noise on a line is equally important as its distance, and I notice rural lines have fewer issues with noise based on what I've found DSL to be like.

croo

I'm in a fairly rural location and while I would love a quality DSL or even a good wireless connection I am very grateful that I can, at least, get a 3G signal. 3G has been a huge improvement over dialup which cost the same (or more often)... and I am typically assured of >100KB download speeds (compared to 3-5KB with dialup). I can get faster connections here too but for reasons of my own choice on how I wish to use it I am limited to a 1.8Mb connection so downloads then to max out at the 150Kb mark.

Now, I no longer have to depend on magazine cover disks for my latest linux distro or drive to family & friends to plug into their broadband to download important updates.

And Skype can work but you wouldn't want to be depending on it ... but I do use it and have had many very long discussions in conference calls without issue with people from all around the world via skype and my 3G connection... but equally I've had days when I could barely stay connected for 30 seconds.

And yes it's technically correct to say it's not broadband and the flaws you point to do/can exist... it was after all not intended as an always-on fixed location broadband solution, but the bottom line is, given the choice between the dialup offers we had (have?) and 3G I think, for me anyway, choosing 3G was a no brainer. Not to argue with the science but in this rural location the reality is it works great!

I think 3 did 3G no favours either their service seems to be atrocious. I've used both vodafone & o2 and found both to be good services... but perhaps I was just lucky.

At this point though I am so mad with the whole BB situation in Ireland, if eircom offered me a 100mb DSL line tomorrow I would tell them to stick it (I might hesitate for just a moment though ) ... just because it's eircom. I pray these days the credit crunch will come to call on eircom with their €4b debt mountain and that it disappears completely. Hopefully to be replaced by firms that will invest & staff that understand the meaning of customers and service.

watty

A high percentage of DSL area people may fail line test. Or with Line Rental so high they may not want a phone line.

On 3G you are not assured of a connection never mind > 100K. However it is usually much better than Dial Up. But that is not G'teed!

Sponge Bob

This is part of a deal announced in May for a total of €44m . The €30m is for cell architecture while the remaining €14m is for backhaul and even a badly needed mail server See :

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/bt-gets-836444m-mobile-3-deal-to-increase-broadband-speed-1390680.html

€30 million will in reality create about 300 new cells ( Node B deployments) on the hypercongested 3 network. 700 cells my hole , technically speaking that is

3 only have 100 cells right now which explains the reason why they are notoriously crap even by notoriously low Irish standards.

In May they only had 70 cells and 280 sectors for at least 20000 data customers .

Each sector runs at 3.6 mbits meaning gross sector capacity nationwide was 1000mbits and therefore each 3 customer is ' guaranteed' 50k .

This is not broadband . Even Ripwave is better than 3.

The investment will lead to speeds increasing from an ( crude) average 50kbits to an average 250kbits but not in all cases . They will acquire more customers too.

300 cells is 1200 sectors, shall we say. This deployment will support ( being optimistic) 12000 BB customers getting a constant 1mbit each or 25000 BB customers getting 500k each . Still nowhere near Broadband .

Given 3s customer acquistion rate this relatively vast new capacity will likely be saturated in 6 months and hypersaturated to the point of uselessness in 9 months.

Fortunately for 3 they have a one great supporter in this fraudulent ripoff , Green Party minister Eamonn Ryan TD .

mike76

if they get the nbs given that they can barely provide a decent service in dublin, then ryan should so us a favour and quit

Sponge Bob

mike76 wrote: »

if they get the nbs given that they can barely provide a decent service in dublin, then ryan should so us a favour and quit

Ryan is basically far too arrogant to do the honourable thing under any circumstances.

Anyway he will only have failed rural people and Ryan appears to me have a visceral dislike of rural people .

That he keeps counting the poor beknighted 3 Ireland ' sh1tband ' customer in all his public utterances on BB penetration is proof enough.

cgarvey

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

I'm going to question the accuracy on some of that.

I don't see what accuracy you're questioning? Is it the 40Kbps figure? Is it the assertion that rural 3G is not always better than dialup?

Either way, I think your post is complimenting the points I've made, except for every larger village having DSL claim. Looking at the list of DSL-enabled exchanges, I don't see many villages at all, but maybe that's down to our different interpretation of village?

watty

300 masts is more like 900 physical sectors, assuming the normal 3 sectors per mast (120 degree aerial panels). Of course they could maybe have 4 sector masts using 90deg or 65 degree aerials.

if you have extra 3G frequencies you can run more than one channel on a hysical sector. How many 5Mhz + 5MHz W-CDMA channels have 3 got?

Sponge Bob

watty wrote: »

300 masts is more like 900 physical sectors, assuming the normal 3 sectors per mast (120 degree aerial panels).

You are generally right watty and some are even 1 sector on a monopole but in fairness I thought I should assume 4 becuase you have some with 9 or 12 .

With only three sectors the situation is 25% WORSE than I described.

3 have slightly less spectrum than anyone else at present if I am not wholly mistaken

http://www.odtr.ie/radio_spectrum/3G_and_GSM_licensing_information.541.515.html

I thought they had more but seemingly have 2 x 15mhz where the others have 2x 15mhz and 1 x 5mhz

Anyway , Ireland has far too many punters on 3g Data packages with too little spectrum and spread across too few cells .

LTE (theoretically much faster 3g ) is highly problematic here because MMDS is using half of its supposed spectrum until 2014 . Other countries can go ahead ( or have) right now.

http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=135425&print=true

and UK latest situation

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/14/2ghz_delayed_again/

clohamon

mike76 wrote: »

if they get the nbs given that they can barely provide a decent service in dublin, then ryan should so us a favour and quit

I wouldn't want to be the civil servant who had to tell the Minister that the NBS had been given to Eircom and that his competition strategy was finished.

in giving it to 3, there would be the brief satisfaction of telling Eircom that they had lost, but that pleasure would only last until the news arrived that their army of senior counsel had broken camp and were within sight of the Four Courts.

Sponge Bob

If they give it to 3 I will set the EU COMMISSION on the *****

Blaster99

So 3 is investing in Ireland and you guys are just whinging about it. Interesting. Some of you obviously have a vested interest in this, but the rest of you I don't really get.

I've used 3's mobile broadband service in a lot of different places and it works fine for what it is. I'm in fact using it in a rural area right now and it's not really any different from an urban area. I haven't really experienced many or indeed any connection issues. Is it fast? No, not particularly. Is it as good as ADSL? Not at all. Does it do a reasonable job providing basic internet connectivity? Yes.

lucernarian

cgarvey wrote: »

I don't see what accuracy you're questioning? Is it the 40Kbps figure? Is it the assertion that rural 3G is not always better than dialup?

Either way, I think your post is complimenting the points I've made, except for every larger village having DSL claim. Looking at the list of DSL-enabled exchanges, I don't see many villages at all, but maybe that's down to our different interpretation of village?

Ah, fair enough. Most rural lines in Ireland will meet or exceed 40kbps if not pairgained. Pairgain penetration in the worst rural exchange area I've seen would be roughly 20%. It's normally 10%. If 80% of those 80% of remaining lines had no problems with water ingress, cattle fencing etc., then you'd be left with 64%.

The other part was where you seemed to contradict yourself on 3G sector size. You say it's smaller than 2G, but the next paragraph says it's vast. It's only vast if it's covering a very sparsely populated and flat area. 3G cells are virtually never vast anyway as the frequencies are worse and there's power restrictions on top of that. It might also have to do with the fact it's CDMA based but I'm not sure.

Anyway, I've seen it being used in rural parts of ireland (e.g. Louth, Donegal, Tipp, north Co. Dublin) and it's always worked at a somewhat better speed than dialup, once it had 1 bar of signal.

watty

Yes, 3G/HSDPA is usually better than Dialup and better than GPRS. However it should not be seen as a substitute for Broadband, nor called Broadband. It's Dialup speed (ISDN can do over 150k with compression on a copper pair)at worst, Analogue & ISDN is "Narrowband". 3G/HSDPA is at best a high latency "Midband" solution.

What we worry about is the increasing trend of certain agencies to promote it as a real solution to Ireland's poor Broadband Availability.

Sponge Bob

It is simply not Broadband . Nor is any other 3g technology currently deployed. It is a dialup substitute .

Official Ireland, Comreg and Ryan, see and market it as a panacea for their total failure.

This is simply intolerable. As long as they are unchallenged they will continue to peddle that at best 780k BB connections are actually 1050k BB connections .

The reasons why 3 should not get this contract are manyfold . They have a very long and disturbing thread of their very own in the BB forum .

BTW I have no interest in any BB player nor do I work for any of them .

cgarvey

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Pairgain penetration in the worst rural exchange area I've seen would be roughly 20%

Call me the next time you're in Clare, and I'll bring you for a drive

Agreed on your earlier point about line noise, but that's the very problem in many rural areas.

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

The other part was where you seemed to contradict yourself on 3G sector size

3G cell sizes are smaller than 2G, agreed. My use of "vast" was to explain why rural sectors are often heavily contended (as in urban areas) to explain why that original assertion was wrong.

So in urban areas you have contended sectors covering reasonably small, but densely populated areas. In many rural areas, you have sectors covering sparsely populated areas, but much larger geographic areas. I can't explain that point any better any more, sorry!

In those rural sectors, there is likely to be a higher percentage (per head) of those who are relying on 3G as their sole "broadband" access than their urban counterparts.

I was using "vast" as a relative term, and in context.

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

it's always worked at a somewhat better speed than dialup, once it had 1 bar of signal.

I've used it in many rural areas too, and many of the ones you mention. However not without problems. It's fine when it works and it seems to a lot of the time (bar areas that are plagued with contention because backhaul is expensive). I'm not disputing that.

damien

To_be_confirmed wrote:

Pairgain penetration in the worst rural exchange area I've seen would be roughly 20%

And how many rural exchanges have you data from? Care to link to this data and the names of the exchanges? I didn't realise this was publicly available nowadays. eircom showed me their own data on failure rates for their exchanges and while I'll honour the commercially sensitive restriction I can tell you it's much much much worse than your 20%.

Sponge Bob

Make a stab willya, I feel 20% is about right , nationally , 15% urban and 25% rural .

So How many lines will fail a DSL test nationally ( % ) to the nearest 10%

How many lines will fail a DSL test in Urban areas ( % ) to the nearest 10% ( thats towns over 1500 = 60% of the population and most businesses )

How many lines will fail a DSL test in Rural areas ( % ) to the nearest 10% ( thats villages under 1500 persons = 40% of the population )

lucernarian

I can't exactly link to my eyes. I made the comment as is and as a matter of opinion, as someone who lives in and visits various parts of Ireland. In one case, Tipperary seems to have few pairgains on poles, while the problem appeared to be far worse in Mayo. My original point was that I've seen enough in rural Ireland to claim that dialup speeds often (IMO usually) do exceed the pairgain-limited speed of 28.8 or 33.6k (not sure which is the limit) and this is not a rare occurence.

The last data I saw on overall failures on the enabled exchanges was 11% IIRC. It was a silicon republic article, basically a rehashed eircom press release. Rural exchanges would obviously push the average up, so I speculate that 60% would be the bottom of the barrel, 30% would be normal and 20% the best I've seen. But you're right if you point out it's speculation. You have the facts at hand.

Btw, there are some exchanges not enabled that would have a terrible failure rate, but I suspect eircom won't enable them for that reason and also because they're quite small.

Do eircom even have data just for lines that are outside of town or village boundaries? Like I'd be connected to one of the largest exchanges in Ireland but i'm in a rural area.

watty

DSL is basically "at saturation". Any further increase in *REAL* Broadband penetration will be mainly from UPC upgrading the last 30% of their cable and high Quality Fixed Wireless.

While it's great to see 3, Vodaphone and O2 upgrade their networks it isn't and can't be Broadband. BTW presumably eircom's Meteor has to start 3G rollout soon. Like O2 but unlike Vodaphone and 3, they have EDGE, which while up to about 1/10th of the "up to" speed of HSDPA can in theory deliver slightly more reliable connection and similar speeds with 12+ Users in a sector. In practice they limit the number of EDGE timeslots.

Blaster99

It doesn't really matter what it is because if mobile broadband becomes popular then it (a) works fine in the eyes of the market, and (b) puts pressure on traditional broadband providers to up the game. Competition is what ultimately sorts out the problem, not more statements from various government agencies.

dubhthach

Ye think they put some money into joining the INEX, it would help somewhat regarding latency to other ISP's in Ireland that's for sure.

Then again Vodafone needs to do the same. I'm fairly sick and tired of having users complain that connecting to our VPN is slow when they use their Vodafone dongle. Not my fault they route all their traffic to London before redirecting it back to Dublin.

At least O2 joined the INEX earlier in the year.

leoc

Sponge Bob wrote: »

MMDS

The gift that keeps on giving.