Broadband Ireland vs. Uganda

jochenstacker

This is an article about Eamon Ryan's silly and embarrassing interview on The Last Word regarding broadband in Ireland on Tuesday.
This man is so deluded it's not even funny anymore.
Why would anyone make such wild and baseless claims about 10000 jobs being created because of our fantastic (or 3rd world for those of us who live in the real world) broadband structure?
The only explanation would be that the man is a moron and a liar.
Quite who he thinks he's fooling with this is not clear, but I’d say it's no one but himself.
Broadband in Ireland is at best pathetic and the few players who carve up the market between them have no interest to invest anything, not if they can just continue to bilk their existing customers.
Ennis being a top example.
Many years ago being THE information age town, the only legacy of that being a few faded stickers in the windows of shops that are now long gone and a few dead pc's rusting in the recycling centers around the county.
Broadband is available to a select few in the town center and everyone else can go f*ck themselves, not even getting the chance to get f*cked by the many chancers and cowboys operating Irelands alleged broadband network.
If a 6 year old child was made minister of communications, it would say "the broadband structure in Ireland is severely lacking and dominated by operators who provide substandard service at vastly inflated prices, while providing inadequate coverage coupled with an unwillingness to invest".
Instead we get a pratt telling us that "Ireland is on par or ahead of the US and the UK when it comes to broadband coverage"
Since this quite obviously is not the case I can only conclude that the minister lacks the basic intelligence to see the situation for what it is and call a spade a spade and therefore can only be called a moron,
or,
the minister knows bloody well that broadband provision in Ireland is by far inferior to such technologically advanced countries as, say Uganda, but chooses to fabricate his own reality, ram it down our throats and expects us to swallow it and therefore can only reasonably be called a liar.

Epeen

Broadband in Ireland is at best pathetic and the few players who carve up the market between them have no interest to invest anything, not if they can just continue to bilk their existing customers.

QFT

CutzEr

If in Uganda they seem to win the lottery alot, and as such - Email people about it. I appear to get ALOT of these emails, so thus - Uganda broadband is better then irish broadband..

right?

jochenstacker

CutzEr wrote: »

If in Uganda they seem to win the lottery alot, and as such - Email people about it. I appear to get ALOT of these emails, so thus - Uganda broadband is better then irish broadband..

right?

I cannot possibly argue with that logic

watty

Well Kenyan BB *really* is better. A lot of fibre.

watty

Kenya again (where you can order FTTH in the cities already)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8163900.stm

We refused a transatlantic cable recently, so it's landing at Portrush instead.

In preparation for the launch of Seacom, major internet service providers in Kenya have already rolled out cables along the country's highways, which will link inland stations to the coastline cables.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7987812.stm

We have the undersea cables and MANs yet no plan to connect them. If it wasn't for ESB farsighted-ness in wrapping fibre on the main KV distribution and the CIE-ESAT fibre deal (cables now managed by BT Ireland) we would be in a very bad situation indeed. In fact apparently no Government plan to connect the MANs to anything.

tbaymusicman

Minister?bull****?:eek::eek: broadband:eek: its witchcraft god dam it

On a serious note!we live in Ireland surely your used to been bent over and
getting it in the wallet everyday lord knows i am

tbaymusicman

tbaymusicman wrote: »

Minister?bull****?:eek::eek: broadband:eek: its witchcraft god dam it

On a serious note!we live in Ireland surely your used to been bent over and
getting it in the wallet everyday lord knows i am

Used to it, but growing more tired of it everyday. Im following the majority of my friends and leaving.

Watty can you link to some details about our gov refusing the undersea cable please.

watty

My source was a friend who does consultancy on Broadband projects for World Bank. He claims the landing was originally to have been West Coast but the Irish Government wasn't interested so it landed in less logical Portrush (UK support). Sorry no independent confirmation.

The project
http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com/HA_NIreland_Routes.htm

Article
http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/we-need-to-connect-ireland-with-highspeed-fibre-and-we-need-to-do-it-fast-1801996.html

Thursday July 02 2009
Magnet CEO Mark Kellett believes deploying fibre networks across Ireland is a national imperative

LAST week, the nation was greeted with images of a ship bringing fibre cabling belonging to Hibernia Atlantic ashore at Portrush [N.I.] as part of the €30m EU-sponsored 'Project Kelvin' that will connect Ireland to a 24,000km transatlantic cable.
...
As an investor in local loop unbundling, he makes no secret of his frustration that despite Magnet investing up to €80m in unbundling local exchanges, along with similar investments by companies like Smart Telecom and BT, 96pc of the DSL broadband lines sold in Ireland originate still with the incumbent.

Putting his feelings aside, Kellett believes Ireland's future economically and socially will depend on next-generation fibre networks. "A lot of the groundwork has been laid in terms of the metropolitan area networks [MANs], but will we ever address the smaller towns and villages? The fact of the matter is Ireland is still playing catch up.
...

Same article

Last week Communications Minister Eamon Ryan TD unveiled his framework document Next Generation Broadband: Gateway to a Knowledge Ireland, which outlined plans to link up the State's abundance of stranded fibre assets. Ryan also unveiled a €16m investment in a pilot project to put 100Mbps broadband into 78 post-primary schools around Ireland.

A 2002 plan watered down with no commitments.
Comments here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055600057

aidanodr

== An EYE on Uganda ==

Breaking News:

Telecom Costs to Drop As Fibre Optic Cable Lands in Kampala
http://allafrica.com/stories/200907060523.html


Uganda links to Kenya via fibre-optic cable
http://www.africagoodnews.com/ict/uganda-links-to-kenya-via-fibre-optic-cable.html

"Infocom, Uganda, and Kenya Data Networks (KDN) have launched a 1500 kilometre fibre-optic cable that will link Kampala to Mombasa and Nairobi. The two companies have spent $750 000 on the cable, which carries a capacity of 10 000 MGPS."


10,000 Jobs to be created in Uganda maybe ...

Aidan

christophicus

aidanodr wrote: »

"Infocom, Uganda, and Kenya Data Networks (KDN) have launched a 1500 kilometre fibre-optic cable that will link Kampala to Mombasa and Nairobi. The two companies have spent $750 000 on the cable, which carries a capacity of 10 000 MGPS."


10,000 Jobs to be created in Uganda maybe ...

Aidan

WTF Is a MGPS ?

watty

Typo for Mbps?
G is beside B

10 000 MGPS ? They mean 10,000 Mbps = 10Gbps

aidanodr

christophicus wrote: »

WTF Is a MGPS ?

1 Gbps (giga bits per second) = 1,000 mega bits per second.

Ah you see thats why UGANDA are going to get the 10000 jobs faster than us.

The secret is out - MGPS = MegaGiga Bit Per Second ...

So their now!
Aidan

aidanodr

100 Gigabit-per-second: Ultra-high transmission bitrate for next generation optical transport networks

jochenstacker

And here they're still selling 2Mb/s as "Broadband", when it's barely faster than dial-up.
If there is gigabit broadband in Ireland within the next 5 years I will eat my hair!

vibe666

jochenstacker wrote: »

And here they're still selling 2Mb/s as "Broadband", when it's barely faster than dial-up.
If there is gigabit broadband in Ireland within the next 5 years I will eat my hair!

i think you might be getting a bit ahead of yourself there.

i'm pretty sure in those earlier posts they're talking about the speed of the communications backbone, o don't think anyone is getting gigabit into their house.

and just for reference 2mbps is something like 30 times faster than dialup (without bothering to actually do the maths), assuming you were actually getting 2mbps, obviously.

oh, and according to upc, we'll have 120mbps broadband here by the middle of next year at the latest, maybe even in time for xmas if we're lucky and ask santy nicely.

PogMoThoin

vibe666 wrote: »

oh, and according to upc, we'll have 120mbps broadband here by the middle of next year at the latest, maybe even in time for xmas if we're lucky and ask santy nicely.

Yes, in cherry picked areas of the main cities while the rest of the country gets NBS

miralize

so all of our internet goes through portrush? What an arseways system

Nanaki

jochenstacker: that's 60 times faster than the dial up I am currently using to access these boards.
We've been promised to have the exchange upgraded to broadband in october.
Not holding out any hopes.

HEAnet offers 100Mbps ethernet to the universities, not sure what the secondary schools, but it's a waste of money imo to put 100Mbps into them. It's unneccessary.

Forget about widespread 100Mbps for now, national access to >5 Mbps would be realistic. And more called for

vibe666

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Yes, in cherry picked areas of the main cities while the rest of the country gets NBS

upc/ntl is the 3rd largest ISP in ireland right now behind eircom and BT and they serve a whole lot of people.

i live in johnstown on the outskirts of navan and thanks to (what i recently found out was) the fruits of the recent MAN project i currently have 20mbps with ntl/upc and that will be going up to 60mbps my mid-next year (or 120mbps if i had the money for it).

navan is a big town, but it's not a city and it's still got decent broadband. you can't expect to get the same speeds right out in rural areas as you do in the big schmoke, it's just not practical.

yes the NBS scheme is a bunch of crap and definitely the short straw for people living in the country, but sacrifices have to be made if you want to live out in the fresh air.

we DO very much need fixed broadband coverage across the whole country and the governments failure to provide that is a very poor show, but speed wise it's no different anywhere else in the world. if you go to a big city in japan you can get 1gbps ftth, but that's not going to every house in japan, it's just in the bigger cities. if you were living out in the country somewhere in japan you'd be screwed (by comparison) just like everyone here is.

its the same as any other facilities or anything else that's better or more convenient in big cities. i'm not saying it's right, but that's just the way it is and always has been.

120mbp from upc is a good thing for everyone. it'll force the other isps to push up their speeds to try and compete (not that they can, but they'll at least try and close the gap) and everything gets better for everyone in the long run.

watty

If you count all LLU, bitstream and resold eircom phone accounts as eircom, then UPC are 2nd largest and growing faster than any other fixed line ISP as they upgrade their cable. Since only 66%now have phone lines and a proportion of those fail DSL oe can only do < 3Mbps, then when UPC are finished upgrading they will be able to supply more premises than DSL. DSL was near saturation about 2 years ago.

1/3rd of those 66% of premises is Welfare paid for line rental. In a year or so more UPC will be biggest ISP for fixed Broadband.

PogMoThoin

watty wrote: »

1/3rd of those 66% of premises is Welfare paid for line rental. In a year or so more UPC will be biggest ISP for fixed Broadband.

Why can't the Government give out a tenners mobile fone credit instead to all the welfare and pensioners, nobody needs free line rental and its costing €22 per month?

watty

There IS a free or subsidized Mobile Phone scheme. Sponge Bob maybe knows the details.

[edit]
Found this. http://www.cardi.ie/news/taxpayerspickup%E2%82%AC33mmobilephonebillforpensioners

The telephone allowance for pensioners was extended in April 2007 to include mobile phones. Almost 15,000 applications have been received in the 12-month period. In that time they've run up a bill of €3.3m on calls.

The telephone allowance scheme was modified to allow pensioners to claim mobile bill payments, if they chose, rather than a landline allowance.

The eircom phone line subsidy must be costing the Tax payer over €6M a month or nearly €80M a year?

eircom has virtually a monopoly on fixed lines (LLU, GLUMP, talktalk, perlico etc is all still eircom really) with highest line rental in the world. There are four competing Mobile Operators. My 50 minutes talk + 50 SMS is about €15 a month inc VAT, no €26 line rental. I haven't had a phone line for years.

jochenstacker

Nanaki wrote: »

jochenstacker: that's 60 times faster than the dial up I am currently using to access these boards.
We've been promised to have the exchange upgraded to broadband in october.
Not holding out any hopes.

HEAnet offers 100Mbps ethernet to the universities, not sure what the secondary schools, but it's a waste of money imo to put 100Mbps into them. It's unneccessary.

Forget about widespread 100Mbps for now, national access to >5 Mbps would be realistic. And more called for

True, 2Mbps is better than nothing, but don't even have that option where I live.
I'm a bit in the wilderness here and I will never, ever get broadband here, not gonna happen in a million years.
When I first moved here, I plugged in my 56k modem, dialed up and got
17 kbps.
Rang Eircom, their reply: Wedonotguaranteethespeedofyourdialupgoodbuy, click.
Then a neighbour showed up who built his own wireless network, literally out of old PC's, bits of wire and (not kidding) coffee cans as aerials in some places and connects into a few gateways around the place.
Now I get actual download speeds of up to 600 kbps when downloading files from the internet and a few megs within the network.
So I rang Eircon and told them to stick their line where the sun don't shine.
Have a mobile and use Skype for long distance and no longer pay stupid money to connect me to the glorified telegraph system Eircon pretends is a phone network. And since not going on the net via Eircon, virus attacks on my computer have virtually seized, thanks to Eircon's undermined and hacked servers.
The future is sharing connections, building your own networks where the broadband "providers" in Ireland don't wanna know.
One gateway, several people, you own the equipment, pay only for one line and divide the cost.
If you get a really decent gateway you can have serious broadband in the sticks for beans and stuff the gougers!

PaddyTheNth

jochenstacker wrote: »

Broadband in Ireland is at best pathetic and the few players who carve up the market between them have no interest to invest anything, not if they can just continue to bilk their existing customers.

Ah now, some of them do sponsor golf competitions don't they? Surely that's investing in the community?

Not that it had anything to do with them getting exclusive access to provide an under-standard product to an effectively closed market or anything :rolleyes:

Johnboy1951

Since we have rural electrification (since 1959?) we have the means to distribute fibre "to the sticks".

What we lack is the will to do it.

Yes there would be some difficulties, mostly physical, to be overcome, but it sure would sort out the mess that is the Irish version of broadband for those living outside of the large population centres.

ynotdu

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=61304628#post61304628

jochenstacker

In fairness Magnet isn't the worst.
And anyone who is in danger of delivering a service (remember Smart) gets shot down by Eircon.
I'm sure Eircon at it's heart is run by Luddites who want to make sure Ireland remains in the 19th century.

watty

Smart was charging less than what they delivered did cost and was in arrears. So they got cut off. I have plenty of beefs with eircom. But this was simple normal commercial practice, not anything sinister.

They knew eircom's charges before they opened. That story isn't over yet.

roamer171

Would have to say when I arrived in Cork I nearly cried seeing Copper lines over head like something out of a Clint Eastwood movie. I guess Fibre to Cabinet is a few years Off.