Govt starts upgrade of schools' broadband

bealtine

"
The first seventy-eight schools taking part in the 100mpbs Post Primary Schools Project were chosen today.

Communications Minister Eamon Ryan said: "Providing our schools with high-speed wireless connectivity opens up a whole new world of learning for our children."

100mpbs broadband by wireless? What platform is this?

Sponge Bob

Airspeed and Digiweb can do 100mbit Fixed Wireless over licenced links . I suspect that one or both will be the carrier.

80 out of 4000 schools nationwide is insignificant save where you are a desperate green facing electoral oblivion like Ryan is .

Sponge Bob

Here is the tender. Only Airwire have this sort of geographic spread from what I know .

http://www.e-tenders.gov.ie/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=JUN120797

But others will be involved.

"HEAnet proposes to establish a multi-operator Framework Agreement "
I also fail to see why some of these schools are selected for Wireless 100mbits when they are close to a MAN or to ESB fibre .

Ryan told the Dáil that 47% of schools has satellite in 2008 and that is now down to around 40% . I would think that if 40% of 4000 odd schools ( 1600) have satellite then the priority is to get 1600 sorted not 80.

oscarBravo

bealtine wrote: »

100mpbs broadband by wireless? What platform is this?

Point-to-point microwave - same tech a lot of carriers have built much of their backbone networks on.

Airwire: Martin

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Airwire and Digiweb can do 100mbit Fixed Wireless over licenced links . I suspect that one or both will be the carrier.

It'll be too much hassle and man-hours to even tender for this. Smart, Digiweb, Airspeed and a few others have dedicated tendering teams and certainly will tender for these.

Smart does microwave, too, in certain areas.

The technology is readily available in 100/155/310 mbit/s in licensed spectrum and a lot of the carriers use it, as Paul said.

/Martin

bealtine

oscarBravo wrote: »

Point-to-point microwave - same tech a lot of carriers have built much of their backbone networks on.

I thought as much, so essentially it will do nothing to further general availability of high speed links around the country. Not many people can afford private PTP microwave links:)

If it were fibre links to the schools then maybe it would benefit the country.

Still for what it is, while flawed and blinkered, it is I suppose to be welcomed.

Airwire: Martin

bealtine wrote: »

I thought as much, so essentially it will do nothing to further general availability of high speed links around the country. Not many people can afford private PTP microwave links:)

If it were fibre links to the schools then maybe it would benefit the country.

Still for what it is, while flawed and blinkered, it is I suppose to be welcomed.

This is no different than the primary schools tender. People believed, that areas where the primary schools are would be dsl-enabled to accomodate this and then all that happened was, that all schools not covered by dsl got satelite.

The difference will be in this case, that the secondary schools will effectively get 100 mbit/s connections with latency that is pretty much like fiber, but yes, it'll only accomodate more coverage, if somebody with a fixed wireless residential network takes the tender on and the schools can most likely not be used as basestations to broaden the coverage.

So, this helps the secondary schools, it doesn't change a thing for broadband coverage.

/Martin

SeaSide

bealtine wrote: »

"
The first seventy-eight schools taking part in the 100mpbs Post Primary Schools Project were chosen today.

Communications Minister Eamon Ryan said: "Providing our schools with high-speed wireless connectivity opens up a whole new world of learning for our children."

100mpbs broadband by wireless? What platform is this?

I think that there is confusion between putting in wi-fi routers in the schools in order to avoid cabling into the class rooms and the provision of the 100Mb access into the school which is what the tender is for. The tender is technology neutral.

Sponge Bob

Airwire (Martin) wrote: »

It'll be too much hassle and man-hours to even tender for this. Smart, Digiweb, Airspeed and a few others have dedicated tendering teams and certainly will tender for these.

Bugger, I meant Airspeed NOT Airwire ( sorry Martin :P )

Airspeed have Heanet contracts for remote campus locations in Dingle and Letterfrack and Gweedore already .

Note that the initial list includes 2 Aran islands and Tory Island , it is quite a geographic spread . Also Falcarragh and Carndonagh .

If any operator can do that lot they can do the whole country .

oscarBravo

It's a framework tender - they seem to expect to have at least three and maybe more suppliers. I'm pretty sure any school on or near a MAN will get service in that way.

watty

The priority should be the 1600 schools on Satellite.

Who decided which 80 schools?

Sponge Bob

Heanet / NCTE Schools Broadband team and DoE I suspect , can't blame Ryan for it .

cargo

oscarBravo wrote: »

It's a framework tender - they seem to expect to have at least three and maybe more suppliers. I'm pretty sure any school on or near a MAN will get service in that way.

No it's more likely that those schools in MAN town's would be connected back to the MAN with a licensed microwave link as mentioned above. Approx 10k to fire a 100MB link back to a MAN beats diggin across a town to meet it. (unless the dug the MAN by the school when it was been laid) Those links could easily be upgraded to 200MB and even 400MB if they choose the right platforms without any further hardware cost increases.

I think a hybrid fibre wireless network is more achievable and cost effective for large rollouts such as this in towns and cities.

oscarBravo

cargo wrote: »

No it's more likely that those schools in MAN town's would be connected back to the MAN with a licensed microwave link as mentioned above. Approx 10k to fire a 100MB link back to a MAN beats diggin across a town to meet it. (unless the dug the MAN by the school when it was been laid) Those links could easily be upgraded to 200MB and even 400MB if they choose the right platforms without any further hardware cost increases.

I think a hybrid fibre wireless network is more achievable and cost effective for large rollouts such as this in towns and cities.

If the school is a long way from the MAN, sure. But the suggestion of a licensed radio link to the MAN begs the question: to where on the MAN? They don't come with radio towers included, and the co-los tend not to be on high ground.

Sponge Bob

The newer ones come with a mast ( in smaller towns) but not with backhaul .

cargo

oscarBravo wrote: »

If the school is a long way from the MAN, sure. But the suggestion of a licensed radio link to the MAN begs the question: to where on the MAN? They don't come with radio towers included, and the co-los tend not to be on high ground.

My reply was more of a suggestion that it'd be easier to bring the school to the MAN over wireless rather than dig to the school. (your op mentioned the MAN's)

However some of the MAN's are backhauled to Dublin through ESBT and BT, not sure of any other operators so it may be an option for ISP's who have conections with E-Net. (Didn't Vodafone sign a big contract lately).

Anyway it'll have to be wireless of fibre to manage 100MB connectivity.