Fibre and Telecommunications Infrastructure

dubhthach

Given the talk in the "Suggestions for improving the forum" thread I figured I get the ball rolling and setup a thread for all things to do with Fibre/Telecomunications infrastructure. Ideally the thread should be purely about what's been built etc anything else should really go into Nets & comms forum.

Here is a map of all the proposed ducting (thanks to SpongeBob for pointing this out in another thread).

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/NR/rdonlyres/1783EF91-0836-4C5F-BA94-E57F6FEB40DA/0/NRAnetworkmap.pdf

Sponge Bob

I would like to cover some jargon concepts in this post so that people can sort of speeka the lingo.

There are three levels of network .

The Access Network is what runs from your house to an exchange or switch of some sort . This requires ducting. Fibre cannot be hung off poles, too delicate ( well until recently it was)

The Aggregation Network is what connects these exchanges or switches within a City or County .

Finally the Backbone Network is the National Network that feeds into each City and County and back to Dublin where the heavy routers are ( and always will be .

All should be fibre and all should be ducted ( or hung off electricity lines)

Much of the Backbone network we need is installed and in the owndership of the state . Much of the Ducting for Aggregation is installed ( the expensive bit ) and can be fibred ( the cheap bit) .

The Access Network is a bloody awful mess

Dubhthach provided maps of the assets in state ownership in this link

A single fibre to your house may be of the same quality as a single fibre to Dublin but by using MORE EXPENSIVE equipment on the backbone or aggregation networks you squeeze more into it . The same fibre that carries 1.25Gbit into your estate today can carry 40gbits on the aggregation using Coarse DWDM or over 1000Gbits on Dense DWDM

Connectors nowadays are typically the SC type shown here



On the Access Network we should look at GE-PON or 10GEPON . This is a shared connection where everybody in an area of bwteen 200-500 homes shares either a single 1.25Gbit or 10Gbit fibre on a chain . These are called PASSIVE optical netoworks , wiki

On the Aggregation Network we may look at either 10GEPON or DWDM meaning Passive or Active Optical Networks

On The Backbone we look at Active Optical Networks , particularly DWDM . wiki

Importantly these all run on the same kind of single mode fibre fibre so a PON can be upgraded to WDM if required . Fibre Tutorial

IMPORTANTLY you Duct Once and Fibre Once and only upgrade the equipment connected to the fibre over time as and when required .

Lest anyone think this is a bottleneck do remember that a HIGH END copper line 20 years ago carried 64k or 128k ISDN but that the exact same copper can now carry 24000k ADSL .

Therefore what you do is run Single Mode Fibre to an SC Connector to as many points as possible within the state , even to the home .

The key problem in Ireland is ducting and policy and above everything else the utter short term stupidity and corruption of the state .

I will address that in a different post anon .

dubhthach

Thanks for the jargon post.

I see when I got home today that I got a letter in the post from UPC letting me know that they are going to be doing "Network Improvement" in the area in the next 12 weeks. I wasn't all together surprised as I've seen Sierra out digging and putting in ducting for UPC around Sandymount.

Here's a map of their infrastructure upgrades in Dublin:

Sponge Bob

Much of it was installed during the .com boom , 1999 - 2002 . Here is a sequence showin 1999 2004 2009

We have loads of it in Ireland and don't need much more for quite some time although we could try landing one on the west coast next time to better use the huge amount of fibre laid between Dublin and Galway .

That would knock 1ms off every transatlantic ping as well

dubhthach

Regarding the UPC just to clarify they are doing what's know as "Hybrid Fibre Coaxial" (HFC). Ye still get standard coaxial running into your house but it hits Fibre considerably quicker, in standard telecoms situation the equivalent is "Fibre to the Node/Cabinet" (FTTN/FTTC)

Diagram from wikipedia:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HFC_Network_Diagram.png

Sponge Bob

dubhthach wrote: »

Regarding the UPC just to clarify they are doing what's know as "Hybrid Fibre Coaxial" (HFC).

You are causing a diversion here, I will do last mile ( actually last kilometre) copper so .

Copper exists in almost every premises in the state and there are 2 copper services in the cities ( phone and cable) . Cable can carry a lot more than phone wire as it is much thicker .

Irish cable is often very old and very crap becuase we got it back in the 1970s and 1980s and much of it has been replaced in the last 6 years but with much more to do as you can see from the white blocks on the NTL map of Dublin ...and as for Athlone etc they have not even started .

Irrespective of whether the Access Network is Cable or Phone one rule applies in the modern world.

That cable should be as short as possible, certainly no more than 1000m.

All super duper fast technologies are short distance EXCEPT fibre ones .

Here is what you get with DSL Technology over phone line .

Loop Length Metres VDSL2 (Mbits) VDSL2 (Mbits) Bonded ADSL2+ (Mbits) ADSL2+ (Mbits) Bonded
300m 48 67 20 34
600m 41 57 19 32
900m 35 49 18 31
1200m 26 36 17 29
1500m 22 31 16 27
1800m 17 24 14 24
2100m 13 18 13 22



HFC Cable , I understand , requires shorter Copper Lengths to do anything majorly useful . I believe 1000m max .

Furthermore Cable will be increasingly stressed by HDTV . A Single HDTV channel will run at 14-20 Mbits where a Single SDTV ( Normal) channel now runs at 1.5-3mbits .

Crudely a HDTV channel takes up as much space as 8 normal channels .

Sky/Beeb/ITV etc compete heavily with cable by beaming roughly 100 x 35mHz transponders from Astra @ 28e = 10,000mbits ( 10 Gbits ) of data at a dish ..( that's if bk agrees with that crude number as I suspect he will .

Therefore a cable operator could lose 10gbits of copper segment capacity just trying to keep up with Sky and the lads .

But you will get the same performance out of Telephone Line and Cable depending on how close the Fibre comes to you . If it had to come within 300m to get you up to 200mbits speed then you might as well chuck out the copper and move to fibre altogether .

Amtmann

dubhthach wrote: »

Given the talk in the "Suggestions for improving the forum" thread I figured I get the ball rolling and setup a thread for all things to do with Fibre/Telecomunications infrastructure. Ideally the thread should be purely about what's been built etc anything else should really go into Nets & comms forum.

Here is a map of all the proposed ducting (thanks to SpongeBob for pointing this out in another thread).

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/NR/rdonlyres/1783EF91-0836-4C5F-BA94-E57F6FEB40DA/0/NRAnetworkmap.pdf

I'm unclear about what that map actually shows. Anyone care to explain?

Sponge Bob

That map shows Ducts installed along national roads. It is part of a series of maps showing state owned ducting installed along

1. National Roads
2. Railways
3. The Dublin-Galway-Bellinaboy Gas Pipeline
4. The ESB High Voltage Network ( these are not ducts , they are fibres wrapped around the power lines)

Many ducts contain no fibre at all but as much/most of the cost of installing fibre is the ducting portion then you may take it that half the work is done already .

You will find ALL of these maps here . Gaining access to the ducts is a complete pain in the hole because the state does not have a One Stop Shop for access to all of these assets.

In the particular case of the Dublin-Galway services corridor we have

1. BT ducts under the old N6 ( partly state funded)
2. Motorway ducts nearing completion .
3. IE ducts ALONG THE RAILWAY LINE
4. Bord Gais ducts ALONG the gas pipeline from Galway-Craughwell-Dublin
5. Eircom ducts along the old N6

There is no need to EVER dig a Galway - Dublin duct EVER EVER again !!!

Just because a town is shown on a map does not indicate it is in any way served by that duct , if you look closely at the ESB map you will see what looks like a round bracket next to certain towns indicating there are served by this key fibre , see .

Sponge Bob

Ireland is not a knowledge economy . Our broadband infrastructure is crap by international standards and is getting crappier by the day .

Proper broadband like DSL ( where available) is being abandoned ( page 25) . In far too many cases those who abandon DSL are going to 3g mobile which is complete rubbish in peak periods , you will get dial up speeds if you are lucky . Broadband connection in Ireland by International comparison measure ( mobile is not considered broadband) is DROPPING right now . DSL and Fixed Wirlesss since early this year but were compensated by growth in Cable Broadband .

I described the '3 levels' of a full National Fibre network in the second post in this thread. On a national level we need to complete the first two levels before we address the complexities of the third level .

These 2 levels are Backbone and Aggregation . The final mile is called the Access Network .

The National backbone network should be Ethernet end to end. It should be made up of DWDM fibre . It should feed back to Dublin where our hosting facilities are ( giant sheds full of websites) and where various networks connect to each other in the INEX and where International Fibres make their landfalls.

The National objective MUST be to push this backbone to within 50km of each citizen by end 2011 and to within 30km by end 2012 . At this point we have a national backbone network that any communications company may use . The cost of using it should be flat rated as it is a national asset .

Much of this network exists or exists in the form of ducts at least , it is simply a matter of completing it instead of talking shyte as our politicians do .

At the endpoints a "Co-Lo" is required . This is a building with stable power and racks, that is all. A Co_Lo exists in Cork but in most cities it need only be a building the size of a corner shop and in more rural areas it would be the size of a portacabin, no more.

Once this fibre is completed along with the Co_Los we have a Backbone Network !!! Job Done.

Now to the Aggregation Network . This is largely complete with 5 exceptions and a qualification . In many rural areas there is no need for Aggregation , you basically drop from Backbone to Access in one go. For larger towns where there may be a more sophisticated demand for services you will need an Aggregation network which will also be DWDM . These aggregation networks are called MANs and already exist in most significant towns in Ireland.

The notable exceptions are :

1. Dublin
2. Castlebar
3. Ennis
4. Shannon
5. Tuam

In the case of Dublin there is an extensive fibre network supporting traffic lights and cameras. These can be upscaled very simply to provide aggregation with Street Cabinets like these eircom ones from Tyrone Fabrications .





The other 4 cases are the only 'Gateway' towns or cities with no MAN .

Castlebar was diddled rotten by Chorus in the early part of this decade and Ennis was given an Information Age scheme in the late 1990s which was turned off by eircom 6 years ago . They went from VDSL back to dialup overnight in some cases.

Tuam was given some ridiculous limited broadband over electricity trial . Shannon was plain ignored !

Put a MAN into all four of these towns .

Finally there is my qualification . Ensure that every large or 'gateway town' has a good Co-Lo ( not always BIG but good) and that 2 carriers are hooked into the Man through the Backbone at the Co Lo . Much of this is done already but not all Co-Los are state assets but private ones . A straightforward access protocol is needed at the very least .

There are smaller towns with Mans but frankly they should be downgraded to Access networks not Aggregation networks and co-los are not necessary in these cases because any co-lo needed can be done in a street cabinet .

That then completes the Backbone and Aggregation networks in Ireland . I estimate it can all be done by end 2011 without much ado or by end 2012 even with the stupid Greens in charge

Not doing this quickly will doom Ireland even more certainly than NAMA will because the 'knowledge economy' will move to where the bandwidth is . This is already happening in Ireland . In 2004 24% of IDA job announcements were in towns with a MAN and with Backbone Fibre connected and by 2007 that had increased to 89% of job announcements .

I shall address the Access Network anon . It will not necessarily be DWDM which may be flexibly used for a mixture of protocols and services but it will be PON instead .

D'Peoples Voice

dubhthach wrote: »

Thanks for the jargon post.

I see when I got home today that I got a letter in the post from UPC letting me know that they are going to be doing "Network Improvement" in the area in the next 12 weeks. I wasn't all together surprised as I've seen Sierra out digging and putting in ducting for UPC around Sandymount.

Here's a map of their infrastructure upgrades in Dublin:

It would help by the way if they had a legend on the side, trying to work-out if Chapelizod is covered in that map is no easy task!
Yeah, I thought that map contained a lot of holes until I saw this map!
See: http://www.upc.ie/media/2009/6/30/map_ireland.jpg

[mod] image replaced by link [/mod]

Sponge Bob

Current telecommunications networks worldwide carry voice/fax and dialup and broadband over many different pipes within their networks. They wish to simplify these pipes.

BT have kindly shown how they intend to collapse all of these services onto one flat network .

Eircom started this process in 2006 / 2007 because they had to . See notes on Diagrams .

This is what telecoms networks looked like mid decade . PSTN is a bog standard phone line. BT have 5500 exchanges and we have 1200 .




This is what the new simplified Next Generation Network ( NGN or NGA ) that we keep hearing about looks like after the upgrade. Much simpler . Eircom have not done most of this , only the bit on the right .

They are about to ask the taxpayer for €2bn to do what BT are doing themselves in the UK with no subsidies . Like tomorrow

dubhthach

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The notable exceptions are :

1. Dublin
2. Castlebar
3. Ennis
4. Shannon
5. Tuam

In the case of Dublin there is an extensive fibre network supporting traffic lights and cameras. These can be upscaled very simply to provide aggregation with Street Cabinets like these eircom ones from Tyrone Fabrications .

Supposedly Aurora Telecom which is a division of Bord Gáis owns a fibre network in Dublin city centre. from what Bord Gáis report from 2002 says this started out as 35Km in length and was to be extended to 42km by end of 2002.

Ideally if all the states owned ducting/fibre was put under the "One stop shop" this could be added to the traffic network fibre system.

http://www.bordgais.ie/corporate/index.jsp?1nID=93&2nID=95&3nID=180&nID=276&aID=368

Sponge Bob

dubhthach wrote: »

Supposedly Aurora Telecom which is a division of Bord Gáis owns a fibre network in Dublin city centre.

It runs basically Ballycoolin>Citywest>Tallaght>Leeson St>IFSC>Ballyccoolin , (SW City to Centre and Back out)

Aurora/Bord Gáis have not troubled us with their website for 4 years now and it was complete crap before then .

Ideally if all the states owned ducting/fibre was put under the "One stop shop" this could be added to the traffic network fibre system.

That one stop approach will be vital in Dublin , read up on the Corpos traffic light /camera system as it serves 1000 locations around the city ...not all fibred I know.

A third significant state owned system in Dublin belongs to the RPA and runs along the Luas lines, see .

The last and most significant state owned fibre network in Dublin belongs to the ESB . I say most significant as the ESB are by far the easiest and most professional state owned outfit to deal with .

dubhthach

Sponge Bob wrote: »

They are about to ask the taxpayer for €2bn to do what BT are doing themselves in the UK with no subsidies . Like tomorrow

Que report on SiliconRepublic saying Next Generation Access network will cost 2.5billion euro
http://tinyurl.com/lxwgec

jamesblonde

Sponge Bob wrote: »

I would like to cover some jargon concepts in this post so that people can sort of speeka the lingo.

Lest anyone think this is a bottleneck do remember that a HIGH END copper line 20 years ago carried 64k or 128k ISDN but that the exact same copper can now carry 24000k ADSL .

This is incorrect. I live in Sweden and have 60 MB/s download and 20 MB/s upload on a copper line. The restriction is that it only works for people within 500m of an exchange - which is quite a lot here, particularly as we have planned housing stock.
I recently had fibre to my appartment installed - but it's only an upgrade to 100 MB/s symmetric. It costs an extra 20 euro/month, so I'm not going to bother upgrading.

Btw, 60/20 MBps costs 35 euro/month. Not a cent of state subsidy here - just hard rules and some previous capital investment in a metropolitan area network around Stockholm where any company can put fibre in. Same with local loop - any company can handle your local loop. You're not stuck with Eircom owning and managing it. Proper competition.

bk

jamesblonde wrote: »

This is incorrect. I live in Sweden and have 60 MB/s download and 20 MB/s upload on a copper line. The restriction is that it only works for people within 500m of an exchange - which is quite a lot here, particularly as we have planned housing stock.

Unfortunately the same can't be said about Ireland. Majority of homes over 1.6km from the exchange on old rotting copper. The VDSL2+ sppeds you mention above wouldn't be available to more then 5 to 10% of the population here. Thus the need for serious upgrades and you may as well jump straight to FTTH then.

jamesblonde wrote: »

I recently had fibre to my appartment installed - but it's only an upgrade to 100 MB/s symmetric. It costs an extra 20 euro/month, so I'm not going to bother upgrading.

Understandable given the price difference, but far more future potential in fibre then in the copper. Your copper is close to it's max, the fibre is just at the low end of it's capabilities.

jamesblonde wrote: »

Btw, 60/20 MBps costs 35 euro/month.

Please don't make me cry, 1mb/s for about the same here. :mad:

jamesblonde wrote: »

Not a cent of state subsidy here - just hard rules and some previous capital investment in a metropolitan area network around Stockholm where any company can put fibre in. Same with local loop - any company can handle your local loop. You're not stuck with Eircom owning and managing it. Proper competition.

Yes it is interesting that a country with such a strong social system, has one of the strongest and most competitive private telecoms sectors.

dubhthach

jamesblonde wrote: »

This is incorrect. I live in Sweden and have 60 MB/s download and 20 MB/s upload on a copper line. The restriction is that it only works for people within 500m of an exchange - which is quite a lot here, particularly as we have planned housing stock.

Indeed of course the important part of your statement is that most people only have 500m of copper between them and the exchange. It's in general a whole different story in this country. I think SpongeBob was talking about the current max limits here in Ireland, in general given the amount of sprawl and one off housing in this country I doubt anywhere near the same percentage of the population lives so close to their exchanges in Ireland as compared to in Sweden.

Heck Copenhagen has similar population as Dublin but occupies half the area.

Sponge Bob

I stated that lines should not be longer than 1000m in FUTURE , as a planning objective . I do not believe that universal FTTH will happen in my lifetime and that copper shall be with us for quite some time yet . It is amazing what they can do with copper nowadays

Current lines lengths in Ireland ( cumulative totals)

18% 1km or less
41% 2km or less
70% 3km or less

The balance,

30% are over 3km .
20% are over 4km
10% are over 5km

There are no 'speed bumps' to be had over 3km . Every VDSL3++MegaTurbo+ or whatever standard that comes out from now on will deliver a speed bumb inside 3km or not at all . Work continues , in particular, on improving copper performance inside 1km and you could double those Swedish figures by bonding copper ( using 2 lines or more in parallel)

As the population continues to abandon fixed lines in Ireland (because the line rental is the highest in the world) and you will find that spare pairs are easier to come across and that bonded solutions are eminently deployable.

It is reasonable ( to my mind) to assume that 100mbits over copper is frequently feasible for those who want it providing the line lengths are brought down by getting fibre nearer to homes ...if not actually INTO homes .

jamesblonde

Sponge Bob wrote: »

I stated that lines should not be longer than 1000m in FUTURE , as a planning objective . I do not believe that universal FTTH will happen in my lifetime and that copper shall be with us for quite some time yet . It is amazing what they can do with copper nowadays

You'd be surprised how quick this will move. FTTH was exotic here in Sweden 4 years ago, but it's being rolled out big time now. If the rural bandwidth scheme ever finishes where they put fibre in all major towns around Ireland, pretty soon the demand will catch up.
Your 30% or so of people who choose to live in one-offs will, naturally, be screwed. Everybody else will probably have it within 10-20 years.

On a side note, bandwidth in Sweden is so good now that one ever downloads a film on bitorrent, one looks for the "SWE" versions (subtitles in swedish) as most seeders for these films have very high bandwidth. For me, films can often come down in 10-15 mins. Nice. Also, watching tv on the Net is very big now. That will definitely come and spur adoption of fixed-line broadband.

dubhthach

I see e-net have updated some of their MAN maps, for example they have a couple of the Phase II MAN's showing up namely:
* Navan
* Ballyshannon
* Listowel
* Tralee
* Killarney
* Blarney (Part of Cork MAN but built in Phase II)
* Carriagline/Passage West/Ringaskiddy (Ditto as Blarney)

I'm assuming that these have been light thence their maps showing up:

http://www.e-net.ie/MAN-maps.php

Sponge Bob

Correct .

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2009/0828/1224253397550.html

The company plans to commission nine different networks each month. A process of due diligence is carried out on each network before E-net begins to offer services. Since last month, Mans in Tralee, Killarney, Castleisland, Listowel, Navan, Bundoran, Ballyshannon, Blarney and the combined Carrigaline/Ringaskiddy /Passage West network have been activated.

A Complete List of these Networks, most yet to be activated is here . Most have a map.

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Communications/Communications+Development/Metropolitan+Area+Networks/Phase+II+Towns.htm

Incidentally the phase 2 towns should all have a CO-LO. Next time I mosey through Ballinasloe I must try to find it ...behind Lidl I suspect .

dubhthach

Just looking through that further I see they've also lit Longford.
SpongeBob I assume that Cliftden is going to have rely on radio for backhaul correct? It'll probably end up like the Gaoth Dobhair MAN with no customers on it.

Sponge Bob

dubhthach wrote: »

SpongeBob I assume that Cliftden is going to have rely on radio for backhaul correct? It'll probably end up like the Gaoth Dobhair MAN with no customers on it.

I take it you appreciate the utter futility of installing fibre and then relying on a wireless link to backhaul it ???

Of the original MANs Gweedore / Kiltimagh / Carrickmacross / Monaghan / Kingscourt were all unlit 3-4 years after construction . (source p42)

dubhthach

Sponge Bob wrote: »

I take it you appreciate the utter futility of installing fibre and then relying on a wireless link to backhaul it ???

Of the original MANs Gweedore / Kiltimagh / Carrickmacross / Monaghan / Kingscourt were all unlit 3-4 years after construction . (source p42)

Indeed thence the dig about Gaoth Dobhair, wireless is handy for a emergency redudant link but as you mention it's futility to spend the money installing fibre and then having no viable backhaul.

I recall from when I was working in Galway County Council for 6 months (back in 2003) that they were planning on linking all their water towers together with licensed wireless pff.

I know from reading through Cork County council site that they plan on connecting Midelton to Cork Man using Radio (on water tower) tbh they would have been better just laying the 14 KM's of ducting that seperate the two MAN's instead of building a MAN in Dunmanway or somewhere else down the middle of west cork.

Though I assume there is probably either BT or ESB fibre fairly close to midleton that it won't be completley reliant on the wireless link.

dubhthach

I see E-Net has added a 7km extension onto the Cork Man to service Little Island, as they funded it I assume they own it unlike the rest of Cork Man which is owned by local authorities (correct?). Probably fairly equivalent to any private fibre/ducting been done by likes of UPC around the country that uses the local lite MAN as a skeleton.

http://www.e-net.ie/news.php?newsid=78

dubhthach

Looks like E-Net have turned on the following Fibre Networks (MAN's) in County Galway:
Athenry
Ballinasloe:
Clifden: - The next Carrickmacross with no proper backhaul?
Gort:
Loughrea:

All of the above apart from Clifden could possibly be connected together and back to Galway by using the Ducting that has been put in the M6 Ballinasloe-Galway road. Gort of course could use the Ducting that's part of the N18/M18. It also helps that BT have fibre along the train track which should enable backhaul for Athenry and Ballinasloe.

Sponge Bob

dubhthach wrote: »

Ballinasloe:
Gort:

Gort of course could use the Ducting that's part of the N18/M18. It also helps that BT have fibre along the train track which should enable backhaul for Athenry and Ballinasloe.

Once they pump them out and jack the co los permanantly up on stilts of course

The Gort Co Lo is down near Finns Furniture in the lowest part of Gort , see here and the Ballinasloe co lo is only 50m from the river Suck .

Altreab

dubhthach wrote: »

Looks like E-Net have turned on the following Fibre Networks (MAN's) in County Galway:
Athenry
Ballinasloe:
Clifden: - The next Carrickmacross with no proper backhaul?
Gort:
Loughrea:

All of the above apart from Clifden could possibly be connected together and back to Galway by using the Ducting that has been put in the M6 Ballinasloe-Galway road.

Isnt there dark fibre out as far as Maam Cross That then turns south towards Screeb and then to Casla? Can anyone confirm this? I vaguely remember Fibre ducting been laid about 8-10 years ago on the road from oughterard to clifden.
Lots of road improvements happening on the N59 just outside clifden at the moment. Is there ducting going down there?
Am i right or did i just imagine it?

dubhthach

I see there are calls to build MAN's in the "Spatial Strategy towns" that didn't get any.
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/14975/comms/call-for-more-mans-to-be-built-in-spatial-strategy-towns

The towns are: Ennis, Shannon, Tuam, Castlebar and Mallow. You would think the whole point of having a "Spatial Strategy" would be to have some joint-up thinking regarding infrastructure provision etc. Sadly of course that doesn't win votes in the minds of our TD's.

Here's the report mentioned: http://www.forfas.ie/media/forfas100122-Broadband-Benchmarking-Ireland.pdf

dubhthach

Looks like the currently empty ducting along the motorways will start been used now for Fibre backhaul. I wonder which multi-national threatened to pull the plugon that 600 job project. I wouldn't be surprised if that was connected with e-net announcing that they expanded the Cork MAN onto Little Island

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/15125/comms/motorways-to-drive-fibre-broadband-breakthrough

Motorways to drive fibre broadband breakthrough

04.02.2010
One of the major obstacles preventing widespread distribution of fibre broadband across Ireland has been removed. New legislation will mean the National Roads Authority will open up ducts for fibre backhaul.

Legislation clarifying how telecoms operators can access special ducting that runs beneath Ireland’s major motorways has just been approved in the Seanad.

Attempting civil engineering projects to dig up national roads or motorways to deploy fibre cabling until now meant getting permission from every single local authority, including town and county councils, in the country.

As a result, according to various telecom operators, the National Roads Authority (NRA) was reluctant to engage in these projects and a bottleneck ensued whereby ducting that already existed wasn’t being used.

The seriousness of the matter can be illustrated by the fact that a major multinational in Cork threatened to pull the plug on a major 600-job project last year because it was unable to deploy fibre to its nearby duct to access a nearby Metropolitan Area Network (MAN).

The situation would have seriously undermined Ireland’s attempts to become a major player in the digital economy.

Sponge Bob

Sponge Bob wrote: »

You will find ALL of these maps here . Gaining access to the ducts is a complete pain in the hole because the state does not have a One Stop Shop for access to all of these assets.

I addressed this on page one. The NRA is not what was promised, namely a ONE STOP shop state owned ducts.

The NRA is only a one stop shop for National roads/motorways (and possibly) for Regional Roads too). This is good because you get all the consents from one source and the NRA have lots of staff doing feck all now the roads design and build budget has largely disappeared.

HOWEVER it does not get anybody access to other state owned ducts and it leaves L Roads ( most of the network by far) with councils....possibly.

The other big problem is the lack of ducts near the Motorway network in Dublin and the Pale, this does nothing to address that either. See the map linked above.

dubhthach

Sponge Bob wrote: »

I addressed this on page one. The NRA is not what was promised, namely a ONE STOP shop state owned ducts.

The NRA is only a one stop shop for National roads/motorways (and possibly) for Regional Roads too). This is good because you get all the consents from one source and the NRA have lots of staff doing feck all now the roads design and build budget has largely disappeared.

HOWEVER it does not get anybody access to other state owned ducts and it leaves L Roads ( most of the network by far) with councils....possibly.

The other big problem is the lack of ducts near the Motorway network in Dublin and the Pale, this does nothing to address that either. See the map linked above.

Sponge Bob I didn't say that this news was about a one-stop-shop. However it's an important step in the right direction for the reason as you state that at least ye only have to get all the consents from one source.

Sponge Bob

Sponge Bob wrote: »

vital in Dublin , read up on the Corpos traffic light /camera system as it serves 1000 locations around the city ...not all fibred I know.

A third significant state owned system in Dublin belongs to the RPA and runs along the Luas lines, see .

The last and most significant state owned fibre network in Dublin belongs to the ESB . I say most significant as the ESB are by far the easiest and most professional state owned outfit to deal with .

Astoundingly and (after 4 years without one) Aurora ( Bord Gáis) have a website now and their Dublin Duct map is on it. They also have ducts outside Dublin but they are empty. One runs Dublin - Craughwell - Ennis and with a branch to Bellinaboy in Mayo.

Here is their Dublin Network map.

The ESB and Bord Gáis and Traffic light networks are the nearest thing Dublin has to a MAN. Absent such a MAN teh One Stop Shop is vital and needless to say the NRA have no ducts anywhere in County Dublin.

Sponge Bob

As a follow on from the last pair of maps it appears that ESB and Aurora all have a fibre wandering around the M50 connecting data centres. In actual fact it belongs to neither of them

It is called the T50 fibre and probably belongs to Digiweb since they bought Smart ( as far as I know anyway) . EU Networks who also offer Dark Fibre gave us a nice map of it ...that looks suspiciuosly like both the ESB and Aurora fibre maps owing to cross selling

spacetweek

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The ESB and Bord Gáis and Traffic light networks are the nearest thing Dublin has to a MAN. Absent such a MAN teh One Stop Shop is vital and needless to say the NRA have no ducts anywhere in County Dublin.

Surely ducting is being installed as part of the M50 upgrade? Presumably so, since it seems to be standard practice on all the other motorways.

Sponge Bob

Not that I know of. No. you could email them about it.

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/NR/rdonlyres/1783EF91-0836-4C5F-BA94-E57F6FEB40DA/0/NRAnetworkmap.pdf

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

D'Peoples Voice

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Gaining access to the ducts is a complete pain in the hole because the state does not have a One Stop Shop for access to all of these assets.

Actually when you think of it,
for electricity we have ESB Networks looking after maintenance of power lines in the country, and then residents can choose which of the three electricity companies Airtricity, Bord Gais and ESB Customer Supply they wish to receive power from.

for natural gas, we have Bord Gais Networks looking after maintenance of natural gas pipelines in the country, and then residents can choose which of the two natural gas companies, Bord Gais Energy and Flogas that they wish to receive Natural Gas from (probably should include Airtricity as I believe they are now marketing themselves as an alternative)

for Digital Terrestrial Television, I'm led to believe that RTÉNL are responsible for the infrastructure, and then residents can rent set-top boxes from the various providers.

for Leinster's main airport in Collinstown, the Government requested the DAA to maintain the infrastructure, and let residents/travellers choose which airline they wished to fly with.

We can say the same about Dublin Port, the Dublin Port Company maintains the infrastructure, and importers/exporters can choose which ferry company they wish to transport their goods.

I'm sure the list goes on and on

So yes Sponge Bob, the question we should ask ourselves is why don't CNet run the whole broadband infrastructure system, and let all the providers lease it off them and sell to residents. Now I know people will use the example of how the Bank Clearing System is not run by an independent company but by AIB, Ulster Bank and BOI the main cheque clearing companies on behalf of the whole banking industry in Ireland. But this is far from ideal and should not be used as a perfect example of the private sector running a service.

dubhthach

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

Actually when you think of it,
for electricity we have ESB Networks looking after maintenance of power lines in the country, and then residents can choose which of the three electricity companies Airtricity, Bord Gais and ESB Customer Supply they wish to receive power from.

for natural gas, we have Bord Gais Networks looking after maintenance of natural gas pipelines in the country, and then residents can choose which of the two natural gas companies, Bord Gais Energy and Flogas that they wish to receive Natural Gas from (probably should include Airtricity as I believe they are now marketing themselves as an alternative)

for Digital Terrestrial Television, I'm led to believe that RTÉNL are responsible for the infrastructure, and then residents can rent set-top boxes from the various providers.

for Leinster's main airport in Collinstown, the Government requested the DAA to maintain the infrastructure, and let residents/travellers choose which airline they wished to fly with.

We can say the same about Dublin Port, the Dublin Port Company maintains the infrastructure, and importers/exporters can choose which ferry company they wish to transport their goods.

I'm sure the list goes on and on

So yes Sponge Bob, the question we should ask ourselves is why don't CNet run the whole broadband infrastructure system, and let all the providers lease it off them and sell to residents. Now I know people will use the example of how the Bank Clearing System is not run by an independent company but by AIB, Ulster Bank and BOI the main cheque clearing companies on behalf of the whole banking industry in Ireland. But this is far from ideal and should not be used as a perfect example of the private sector running a service.

TBH when Telecom Éireann was been privatised they should have split it into two companies, a infrastructure/network company say lets call it Eirnet (which government would have maintain control of) and Eircom which would then consist of all the phone accounts existing at the time etc.

But by privatising the whole lot the government basically gave a private company all the telecoms infrastructure it has built over previous 20years for free without any guarantees that they would spend to improve it etc. Heck how long was ADSL been trialled here by Eircom before they launched it? I think it was like 2years after it was introduced in UK that Eircom introduced it here.

The main reason for delay? Quite simple they weren't prepared to sacrifice the cash cow that was dial-up internet where customers were charged per minute connected.

Regarding E-Net running the whole state owned ducting etc, I would think this would be a good idea of course the reason why it hasn't happened let is that each semi-state is keen to maintain it's own little empire.

Sponge Bob

Communications Delivery On The Access Network In Ireland.

A Very Short Primer. ( I may revisit aspects of this over time)

Ireland has very roughly

4000 Mobile Cells ( serving up to 5m devices)
1200 Telephone Exchanges ( serving up to 1.7m lines)
1000 Cable Broadband Nodes or CMTS ( serving up to 150,000 BB customers)
1000 Misc Wireless Base Stations other than mobile ones ( serving up to 50000 premises)

Most premises in ireland are served by at least two of these, eg you have a Mobile phone and an ADSL connection for example. The most significant expansion is underway in Cable and the mobile sector is also expanding albeit relatively more slowly. Telephone based nodes are expanding at a glacial pace as is Fibre to The Home

Every telephone , dialup modem, ADSL modem, cable modem , Mobile phone or 3g service is DELIVERED from one of these to the customer.

Each of those service points has a big pipe out the back towards HQ in Dublin , it may be wireless or fibre or even copper (leased line) and only the cable nodes are all fibre today along with most telephone exchanges and some masts.

The biggest factors that affect service are

1. Distance from the node that serves you.
2. Congestion/Contention how many other users share the cell/cable node or the backhaul from the exchange/cell/cable node.
3. Overselling. Many operators have deliverately overloaded part or all of their networks and do not admit this to their customers.
4. Interconnects to other both operators here and abroad.

Only 6000-7000 homes in Ireland have a fibre service, this is negligble and undeserving of its own section.

dubhthach

I see there is a very short article about the Celtixconnect cable from Dublin to Wales. It lands in East-Point business park (near my new office).

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/commercialproperty/2010/0210/1224264098969.html

http://www.celtixconnect.com/

Here's some maps taken from their site:





I recall hearing something about a possible second cross irish sea fibre cable been built, have you heard anything about this Sponge-Bob?

Of course we really need a cable that bypasses London/UK completely for traffic to Europe, awh well.

dubhthach

I might as well add in this map as well as it happens to show some of the other cables in the Irish Sea.

Sponge Bob

The Definitive maps is maintained by Kisca/Kingfisher, see below.

It is a resource for Fishermen seeing as they are responsible for about 2/3 of all subsea fibre outages. That looks like the exact same map so no, there is no other working fibre there right now.

They are basically following a BT Fibre installed in the late 1980s ( marked in blue in the PDF below) seeing as it is already charted on the map below.

This was the OLDEST fibre still in service out of the UK, every other 1980s fibre has been retired. Trust eircom to sweat an asset

But Kisca show it as retired ( blue) so it looks like CelticConnect are following it like a limpet.

Note the following comment by CelticConnect. This is blatantly untrue

Diane Hodnett, Commercial Director, CeltixConnect, said ‘’No new Irish sub-sea cable system has been built since 2000 and currently most of the existing sub-sea cable systems face near technical obsolescence and natural end of life. As such, until now Ireland risked facing the possibility of becoming a marooned digital island. CeltixConnect’s pioneering sub-sea dark fibre business model, where each fibre is capable of carrying up to 960 Gigabits per second (Gbps), the equivalent of 480 hours of video per second, will offer customers increased reliability, security, scalability and technical longevity at a competitive price.”

UK-Ireland 1 (Updated 8 August 2000)
In-Service: 1988
Holyhead, UK - Portmarnock, Ireland - 126 km at 6 x 140 Mb/s
Maintenance Authorities: British Telecom, Eircom


http://www.kisca.org.uk/charts.htm
http://www.kisca.org.uk/Charts/Web_IrishSea.pdf

also see our half arsed version

http://www.safetyonthewater.ie/upload/general/9540-0.PDF

Showing UK Ireland 1 as a live cable in 2007 , GAHH!! and also showing PTAT into Cork which has been defunct for years when that map was published. PTAT 1 was shut down in 2004

dubhthach

Just watching the INEX videos from their meeting back in December. It would seem that Eirgrid are actually gonna lay a fibre cable along with the Interconnector (won't be live until 2012 though), also seems to be another cable going from Portmarnock to Anglesey promised for delivery this year.

Sponge Bob

There is a large missing link in the ducting network along the Motorways near Dublin .....older Motorways had no ducting installed but Dubhthach found that a company has closed much of it by following the canals.

I resized their map to the correct size for Boards. The company is called Inland Fibre. They close much or all of the gap to the M4/M6 ducts from the T50 and also close the Dublin - Naas gap

Original

http://www.inlandfibre.ie/company.htm

Phase ll plans included for extension of the network from Naas back to the T-50 along the Grand Canal.

dubhthach

I had recalled hearing about this project 18months ago. I believe that the fibre connection that Carton House (100mbit/s) got put in for Real Madrid was off this network. However I completely forgot about it until eoinm1 made a post about canal maintenance.

When you think about it shows a nice way that Waterways Ireland could turn a buck, after all the Grand Canal and the Royal Canal both terminate in the docklands -- Royal in Spencer Dock and GC in the Grand Canal Dock.

KevR

Meanwhile, across the Irish Sea:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100225/tuk-virgin-media-plans-100mb-broadband-6323e80.html

Press Association wrote:

Virgin Media plans 100Mb broadband


Britons will have access to ultrafast broadband speeds by the end of 2011 after cable giant Virgin Media announced the launch of the UK's first 100Mb service.
Virgin will roll out the new service nationwide at the end of 2010 and throughout next year, while it also said it was expanding its 200Mb pilot as part of the push to become a "broadband nation".
News of the launch comes as Virgin Media said it connected 28,600 households on a net basis - those joining the group, less those leaving - in the fourth quarter of 2009 as its superfast connections attracted new business.
The group, which is 4% owned by Sir Richard Branson, now has a total of 4.77 million cable customers.
Its operating cash flow - or underlying earnings - rose 15.3% to £366 million in the quarter, with the group putting the rise down to its high-speed offering. It said more than 55% of its customers have 20Mb speeds and above, which is 45% up on a year earlier.
The new 100Mb service will help the UK catch up with other markets that are pushing ahead with broadband, such as Japan and Korea, which are rolling out 1Gb broadband.
It is able to take advantage of its fibre optic cable network to offer the speeds that other ADSL providers struggle with.
Neil Berkett, chief executive of Virgin Media, said: "The launch of Virgin Media's 100Mb service will be a historic moment and will mean the UK will be comparable to other leading broadband nations."
Virgin Media claimed the service will allow web surfers to download a music album in as little as five seconds, an hour long TV show in 31 seconds and an high definition movie in less than eight minutes.
Its 200Mb pilot, which began in Kent last May, is also set to be extended to Coventry.

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

dubhthach

KevR wrote: »

Meanwhile, across the Irish Sea:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100225/tuk-virgin-media-plans-100mb-broadband-6323e80.html

Reminds me of back in 2006 when I got the fibre connection in the office in Galway. I was able to benchmark about 90mbit/s by doing simultaneous downloads of Linux ISO files from Heanet. Of course the company was only paying for 10Mbit/s symmetrical, but you could burst above that for 5-10% of time and not get charged.

I believe fastest home speed you see in Ireland at the moment is 50mbits/s from Magnet but you need to be living in one of those 10k houses built near the end of boom that had FTTH (Fibre to the home) installed in them.

dubhthach

I see the government has past the legislation to allow the NRA open up access to the Ducts it has put in all the new motorways to multiple Telco's etc.

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/15618/comms/govt-passes-legislation-to-open-motorway-ducts-for-broadband

Here's a good article on Ars Technica about the Open Access fibre Network that's been built in Amsterdam, Fibre to the Barge anyone?

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/how-amsterdam-was-wired-for-open-access-fiber.ars

dubhthach

I hear on the radio this morning (Morning Ireland) that Eircom are going to be trialling FTTH (Fibre to the Home) in Sandyford and in Wexford town.


The location isn't really that surprising there's a fair bit of Fibre in both locations already, in case of Sandyford to service the estate. Wexford has it's own MAN (see pic below) so it's considerably cheaper to use that then to build completely from scratch in a smaller town.



The original map from when the MAN was constructed, it has since been extended somewhat which can be seen in the maps page on e-net site: http://www.e-net.ie/man-maps.html