Broadband across the ESB grid?

civildefence

I was out by Dublin Airport the other day and I came across a cable contractor up an ESB pylon using a device to weave cables around the high tension cables on the grid! Out of curiosity I asked what the lads were doing, his colleague said it was for broadband (didn't ask whom for), I was amazed by this! What could it be? fibre optic?

novarock

The ESB own a massive amount of high speed fibre optic cable. They lease the bandwidth to ISP's like imagine and magnet particularly for areas outside of dublin. Basically the backbone of a lot of ISP's is ESB owned.

http://www.esb.ie/main/news_events/press_release186.jsp

civildefence

Unregistered: it wasn't weaving so much as spiralling the cable around the existing HT's, really interesting to see how it was done

Marlow

ESB's fiber network is one of the core infrastructure networks for a lot of national carriers.

It's used by Smart, Magnet, Imagine/IBB, Digiweb, e-Net and many many more.

Here's a video from the ESB Telecoms website, how they get the fiber twisted around the high voltage cables: http://www.esbtelecoms.ie/about_us/fibre_wrap.avi

They even do that on live wires these days.

If the ESB fiber network was in place, a lot of the MAN's would have no connection to the rest of the world at all.

/M

civildefence

Marlow wrote: »

ESB's fiber network is one of the core infrastructure networks for a lot of national carriers.

It's used by Smart, Magnet, Imagine/IBB, Digiweb, e-Net and many many more.

Here's a video from the ESB Telecoms website, how they get the fiber twisted around the high voltage cables: http://www.esbtelecoms.ie/about_us/fibre_wrap.avi

They even do that on live wires these days.

If the ESB fiber network was in place, a lot of the MAN's would have no connection to the rest of the world at all.

/M

Brilliant stuff mate, thanks for the link

Johnboy1951

I had not realised this had been done years ago.

It makes one wonder about using similar technology to distribute a FO connection to a locality, if not to each household.

Heck if something like this could be done to a locality and then go wireless distribution from there it would be so much better than anything presently being rolled out.

I suppose there are technical reasons for not doing so ..... anyone know what they are or where one might get information about it?

Marlow

The ESB backbone only goes along their high voltage lines and the smaller cables probably would not be able to carry the fiber.

It's still an expensive process, because they have to splice every couple of pylons.

Yes, it would be much much cheaper to use the ESB backbone, roll it out to every house than re-nationalizing Eircom, but you know, what the government will do, if forced to do so ? Sure you do !!

For indepedant ISPs outside Dublin, there are only 3 choices to get fiber connectivity today: a) Eircom ... (can't pay for that), b) CIE (controlled by BT, ok pricing though nowadays) and c) ESB.

The majority uses the ESB and if they have redundancy in place BT as a secondary choice.

From there each individual independant ISP puts their own infrastructure in place, be it cable-tv (like Casey) or wireless.

Without the ESB fiber you'd only have Eircom and BT around, that's it.

/M

bk

Marlow wrote: »

The ESB backbone only goes along their high voltage lines and the smaller cables probably would not be able to carry the fiber.

However they could string fibre along the ESB poles and through ESB ducks, like Verizon do in the US along their telephone poles.

If ESB Networks wanted too they could rollout a FTTH network relatively quickly and affordably. They certainly have all the infrastructure and experience they need to do it.

They are better placed to do this then any company in Ireland, including Eircom.

Marlow

bk wrote: »

They are better placed to do this then any company in Ireland, including Eircom.

That's why I said, bringing the ESB network to homes and endusers would be a better and cheaper approach than re-nationalizing eircom, if it had to come that far.

/M

watty

bk wrote: »

However they could string fibre along the ESB poles and through ESB ducks, like Verizon do in the US along their telephone poles.

If ESB Networks wanted too they could rollout a FTTH network relatively quickly and affordably. They certainly have all the infrastructure and experience they need to do it.

They are better placed to do this then any company in Ireland, including Eircom.

Your phone line goes to a cabinet in your street. If ESB put a box beside it and government made that last 10m to 200m "Open Access", then you could do FTTC at 1/4 the price of FTTH.

25Mbps (200m) to 200Mbps (20m) per house.

Johnboy1951

watty wrote: »

Your phone line goes to a cabinet in your street. If ESB put a box beside it and government made that last 10m to 200m "Open Access", then you could do FTTC at 1/4 the price of FTTH.

25Mbps (200m) to 200Mbps (20m) per house.

Makes one wonder why it has not been put forward as a viable option instead of all the mucking about with midband wireless.

Of course some of us don't have kerbs or streets but a cabinet to a cluster of houses would do just fine for most. Even a tap off of a cabinet for a proper wireless local supply would soon have everyone supplied with reasonable if not highest speed BB.

It all just seems so logical .... what's the catch? ESB not interested?

Marlow

It's not been put forward, because our minister for comms and whatnot doesn't even know, why providers have to use the ESB fiber to get to Dublin, when they already have access to the MANs.

Should I spell it out even more ?

/M

Marlow

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

It all just seems so logical .... what's the catch? ESB not interested?

The ESB is a government organisation, that is very policy driven. Nothing is going to happen without somebody telling them to.

/M

termcg

The main problems with using this for local access is that the high voltage powerlines are built to much higher structural standards than the smaller lines. It may sound silly but these lines are designed to allow for particular windspeeds and levels of ice. The height difference between each tower is also taken into account as the weight is distributed across all towers. The smaller lines are not as rigourly designed so a fibre which may only weight a gram per cm could cause problems over a few km's in high wind or cold weather. Again consider the more power flows through these lines in the coldest weather so you have a cable which is warm in the centre due to the high power flow which reduces it strength and is also covered in ice that increases its weight.

Long story short its not that simple of an idea but I do agree it should be looked at. There is also technology around that provides broadband access using the actual power cable i.e. plug your router into an electrical socket. There are noise problems with this technology but I would say if it got funding these could be over come.

Final note on this, many people out there dont like the ESB and really dont like powerlines. Power lines in Ireland and just about everything ever attached to them including the fibre cables are used for shot gun target practice!

Marlow

termcg wrote: »

Long story short its not that simple of an idea but I do agree it should be looked at. There is also technology around that provides broadband access using the actual power cable i.e. plug your router into an electrical socket. There are noise problems with this technology but I would say if it got funding these could be over come.

This has been tried unsuccessfully in Germany years ago. The outcome of those tests though is what we see as residential powerline adapters today. As for distribution within the ESB, it's not gonna happen.

termcg wrote: »

Final note on this, many people out there dont like the ESB and really dont like powerlines. Power lines in Ireland and just about everything ever attached to them including the fibre cables are used for shot gun target practice!

Correct. Also, because a lot of wayleave's are only given for the purpose of power, the same problem Aurora has using Bord Gais gaspipeline dig's. And they either aren't interested in extending the wayleave or are asking huge money, so it becomes unfeasable.

The usual story.

/M

bealtine

Marlow wrote: »

It's not been put forward, because our minister for comms and whatnot doesn't even know, why providers have to use the ESB fiber to get to Dublin, when they already have access to the MANs.

Should I spell it out even more ?

/M

Yes please do...
/msg me if you want:)

watty

The MANs are basically fibre around a town. On their own they connect to nowhere.

No joined up thinking. People don't want to send 200Mbps to other side of town. They want internet connectivity. A tiny fraction of Limerick end user traffic is for Limerick.

Marlow

watty wrote: »

The MANs are basically fibre around a town. On their own they connect to nowhere.

No joined up thinking. People don't want to send 200Mbps to other side of town. They want internet connectivity. A tiny fraction of Limerick end user traffic is for Limerick.

Oh, businesses and ISPs want to bring traffic from place to place within the town, but that was exactly one of my points. You get nowhere far within the MAN's And our dear minister hasn't understood that fact yet.

/M

watty

I agree, the MANs as MANs are useful to some businesses and most WISPs.

But overall a waste without an integrated strategy of "Last Mile" and "Backhaul"

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/idle-broadband-costs-8364172m-1782400.html

One in nine of the proposed broadband networks set up by the Government to boost broadband coverage across the country is either lying idle or not yet built -- despite the €172m bill clocked up.

At least many are useful unlike the useless €79m subsidy to 3 Ireland's Mobile Phone Network which does absolutely nothing for Broadband (NBS).

bk

termcg, we understand that the same technique of fibre weaving couldn't be used on the smaller local power lines. What we are suggesting instead is that fibre cables simply be strung from pole to pole, separate to the power line not hanging off the power line or in any way attached to the power lines.

This is exactly what Verizon does in the US, they string the fibre cable from telephone pole to telephone pole, alongside the existing telephone cable but not attached to it.

Basically the ESB could make use of all it's existing poles and ducts to distribute fibre around a city, much cheaper then anyone else could.

Marlow wrote:

Correct. Also, because a lot of wayleave's are only given for the purpose of power, the same problem Aurora has using Bord Gais gaspipeline dig's. And they either aren't interested in extending the wayleave or are asking huge money, so it becomes unfeasable.

Couldn't legislation be changed to allow for it?

I've long argued that all new roads and apartments/housing estates should be required to have carrier neutral ducting. Legislation to extend wayleaves for all infrastructure companies (ESB, Eircom, Bord Gais, Water Supply) to allow them to use their physical infrastructure is exactly the sort of thing the government should be doing to promote BB.

Marlow

bk wrote: »

I've long argued that all new roads and apartments/housing estates should be required to have carrier neutral ducting. Legislation to extend wayleaves for all infrastructure companies (ESB, Eircom, Bord Gais, Water Supply) to allow them to use their physical infrastructure is exactly the sort of thing the government should be doing to promote BB.

That happens in every other country, just not here. Most likely, because one department pushes the responsibility to another in the planning phase and that department pushes it back again. Nobody takes responsibility or action.

In the end, they have no ducting or they have ducting, that they can't use because of wayleave issues.

/M

watty

Or they use the wrong kind, such that the cables weld to them and can't be pulled out (eircom).
Or they put km of lovely ducts with no pull cords but too small for robots (NRA).

If we could only train rats

holidayhere

civildefence wrote: »

I was out by Dublin Airport the other day and I came across a cable contractor up an ESB pylon using a device to weave cables around the high tension cables on the grid! Out of curiosity I asked what the lads were doing, his colleague said it was for broadband (didn't ask whom for), I was amazed by this! What could it be? fibre optic?

This was proposed for a number of towns on a pilot basis.
Anyone know is this exercise is going ahead.

Marlow

watty wrote: »

If we could only train rats

Nano-bots is all i can say. Nanobots

/M