SBP Confirms UPC to introduce 100Mbps

irishguy

Chorus NTL to launch premium broadband
08 November 2009 By Adrian Weckler

The country’s largest cable operator is to launch Europe’s fastest broadband service to 600,000 homes.

UPC, which trades as Chorus NTL, will invest €90 million next year to launch a home broadband service of 100 mega bits per second (Mbs) by August 2010, according to Mark Coan, director of sales and marketing.

The service, which will be 50 times faster than broadband speeds in Ireland today, will place Ireland in the top tier of EU countries for broadband speeds.

‘‘We believe that there is a definite market need for this," said Coan.

‘‘There is a myth that Irish consumers are not interested in fast broadband speeds, but almost two-thirds of all our new broadband connections are at the highest level possible, ten to 20 megabits."

The service will put new pressure on operators such as Eircom and mobile operators to invest in new infrastructure for so-called ‘next-generation’ broadband networks.

A recent Oxford University survey placed Ireland last among EU countries for the speed and quality of its broadband.

However, the survey said that availability of basic broadband services had improved, with Ireland now mid-table among EU countries for broadband availability.

UPC is currently upgrading its network, replacing older cabling with fibre, which is required to deliver next-generation broadband speeds.

http://www.thepost.ie/news/ireland/chorus-ntl-to-launch-premium-broadband-45531.html

CutzEr

cmpunk

Pity a am 10km away from geting UPC ****y 7mb eircom

thebman

This will really force some of the other operators to up their game.

Some are probably limited by technologies used and others will always be cowboys but UPC will become pretty dominant if they do this.

coldfire1x

May be for €100 per month :eek:

Sponge Bob

It was April 2010 not so long ago, any explanation for the delay other than lack of pressure from eircom ????

thebman

Maybe they are just behind schedule. Who knows.

jor el

The service, which will be 50 times faster than broadband speeds in Ireland today

Why must they always use bullsh*t numbers like this when talking about broadband. eircom offer 7Mbps across most of the country, and UPC offer 20Mbps to about a quarter of the country, so since when does 100 divided by 50 equal 20 or 7?

One of Ireland's biggest problems in getting proper services put in place is idiot tech journalists like this. Same crap was spouted after the Imagine Wimax "launch", which still hasn't actually launched. Don't just regurgitate a press release you lazy sods.

thebman

jor el wrote: »

Why must they always use bullsh*t numbers like this when talking about broadband. eircom offer 7Mbps across most of the country, and UPC offer 20Mbps to about a quarter of the country, so since when does 100 divided by 50 equal 20 or 7?

One of Ireland's biggest problems in getting proper services put in place is idiot tech journalists like this. Same crap was spouted after the Imagine Wimax "launch", which still hasn't actually launched. Don't just regurgitate a press release you lazy sods.

I'm guessing its the average speed Irish broadband subscribers have.

BaconZombie

Is it just me or is the maths in the press release flawed?

By their logic 50 x 20 megabits = 100 megabits?????

UPC, <SNIP> home broadband service of 100 mega bits per second (Mbs) <SNIP>

The service, which will be 50 times faster than broadband speeds in Ireland today,<SNIP>

<SNIP> two-thirds of all our new broadband connections are at the highest level possible, ten to 20 megabits."

Sponge Bob

Bull**** Detector.

1. UPC only share about 45 Megabits per cable segment . Therefore a road is maxed out when 3 people get 20 megabits or 5 people get 10 megabots in a neighbourhood . After that it slows right down.

2. As Jor El said only about 1/4 of households can get a 20 megabit service from UPC today and they are not exactly expanding like mad .

About 50% of households can get 3 megabits or higher from eircom . The 'average' of 2mbits is quite plausible seeing as over half of eircoms DSL customers had 1mbit packages as late as 2008. Only about 20-25% of households can get 'up to' 24megabit packages from eircom ..ie over 10 megabits .

About ( fuzzily as it is difficult to be precise) 80% of households can get 1megabit from EITHER eircom OR UPC

lucernarian

Considering only the very smallest exchanges are not enabled, and the pass rate often (not sure how often) includes pairgains now, the number would have to be over 80%. The latest time I heard anything about coverage which was 2 years ago, something like 88% of lines were on an enabled exchange with a pass rate of 89%. As 94% of lines (varies from exchange to exchange I know) can get 28.8k or above, the pass rate then ruled out very long/poor lines and pairgains.

With the figures 2 years ago, availability was 78% or so. Though even with the change in pairgain evaluation and more exchanges enabled since then, I can't see the rate for eircom-only being much more than 85%.

bk

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Bull**** Detector.

1. UPC only share about 45 Megabits per cable segment . Therefore a road is maxed out when 3 people get 20 megabits or 5 people get 10 megabots in a neighbourhood . After that it slows right down.

First of all, They use EuroDOCSIS, rather then DOCSIS so it is 55.62 Mb/s per channel.

The point is that they are moving to EuroDOCSIS 3 which uses 4 channels so 222.48 Mb/s shared.

Yes, it is shared, welcome to the internet, where contention is a fact of life.
Do you want to tell people what their Eircom 1Mb/s DSL connection really is with it's 48:1 contention?

I'd much prefer to have 120Mb/s at 24:1 contention then 1Mb/s at 48:1.

Why the snarkyness SB, UPC seem to be the only people in Ireland who are actually investing in their network and pushing competition here, surely a good thing.

bk

I'm surprised the article mentions 100Mb/s again, I would have assumed they will roll out 120Mb/s like UPC have in all their other countries.

Also while 100/120 Mb/s will be their headline product, the really scary thing for the other ISP's wil be if they increase the speed of their entry level products.

20 to 25 Mb/s BB for €20 to €25 per month

In the Netherlands they do 25Mb/s for €20 per month!!

This would be the product that would really set the market on fire. Decent speed for low prices.

Much better value for money then the crappy 3G products for €20 and there is no way Eircom can charge less then €45 including line rental and at best can do "up to" 24mb/s.

It will be interesting to see how the market responds to this, I'm guessing that Smart, Magnet and Eircom in urban areas with ADSL2+ will be forced into having just one product, an "up to" 24Mb/s product and at entry level price.

jor el

thebman wrote: »

I'm guessing its the average speed Irish broadband subscribers have.

Probably, but they should have qualified the statement by saying average then. Saying it's 50 times faster than broadband speeds available, when 24Mbps is available (even if it's not to many), is a con.

It should have stated that the new speed would be 5 times faster than UPC's current top speed, and 7 times faster than eircom's. That would have at least been accurate.

weisses

The service, which will be 50 times faster than broadband speeds in Ireland today, will place Ireland in the top tier of EU countries for broadband speeds.



So when you get 100 mbit for 1000 people your in the top tier in europe


Riggghhhhttt

GigaByte

weisses wrote: »

So when you get 100 mbit for 1000 people your in the top tier in europe Riggghhhhttt

Do you live under a large stone? UPC have a lot of broadband subcribers, I for one will be looking forward to my 100mb connection

MagicMarker

Jaysus Sponge Bob you're some skeptic!

Sponge Bob

I was not being snarky at all ( save about marketing muppetry) and the 45mbit segment speed is what the UPC Cisco Modems report if you telnet into them .

I also said "80% of households" TBC and deliberately not 80% of lines and I will stand over that .

It is also well known that most households that can get ADSL2+ can ALSO get UPC .

CutzEr

GigaByte wrote: »

Do you live under a large stone? UPC have a lot of broadband subcribers, I for one will be looking forward to my 100mb connection

100mb eh?

Your a bit a way from 1gb anyways..

Steffano2002

Sponge Bob wrote: »

It is also well known that most households that can get ADSL2+ can ALSO get UPC .

I wish that were true...

No NTL in Ashbourne yet we all have ADSL2+. NTL could make a killing in Ashbourne if they offered broadband! A KILLING!

weisses

GigaByte wrote: »

Do you live under a large stone? UPC have a lot of broadband subcribers, I for one will be looking forward to my 100mb connection

how many people in Ireland would have access to this service ???

IMO claiming you are in the top of European broadband you need to be covering at least 90%of the population

I'm happy you can avail of this service but it isn't representing the Irish situation in broadband ... is it?

time to descent from the cloud ur living on :P

dogpile

They should concentrate on giving everyone the option of getting it first before they introduce super dooper BB....someone in 1 street can get it while the next person around the corner can't with the promise of it being available on the never never....how many years have they been "upgrading" ??

Sponge Bob

dogpile wrote: »

...how many years have they been "upgrading" ??

They started 11 years ago and took a break for 3 years so they have been "upgrading" for 8 years .

UPC , at any rate, only pass a bit over 1/3 of Irish homes with their cable , certainly not as many as 40% and that is whether it has been upgraded or not .

dogpile

Sponge Bob wrote: »

They started 11 years ago and took a break for 3 years so they have been "upgrading" for 8 years .

UPC , at any rate, only pass a bit over 1/3 of Irish homes with their cable , certainly not as many as 40% and that is whether it has been upgraded or not .

Yeah well 7 years ago I had their digital tv which was rubbish and no end of problems, was soon ditched....and here I am 7 years on, Digital service I can still get(would hope it's improved by now) but BB still not available

bk

Come on lads, what is with all the whining.

UPC offering new products will benefit everyone, even those who can't get UPC as it will force Eircom, Vodafone, Smart, Magnet, etc. to improve their products and drop their prices, etc.

UPC doing this is a really good thing, they are the only ISP actually investing in their network. Yes I know it is frustrating if your not in an enabled area, but at least we might see some movement in the Irish BB market and it will likely force Eircoms hand to kick off their Next Generation Network.

BTW SB sorry for saying you were being snarky. I'm just surprised at all the negativity from posters here. This is a good thing.

Sponge Bob

I am trying to put this in some perspective .

Q for you BK. Can 50% of all UPC Cable customers get their broadband .....any UPC broadband yet ??

I reckon they just might and that is after 8 years of upgrading . Now I want you to look at two links

1. http://www.lgi.com/europe_ireland.html

UPC Ireland’s customers are located in five regional clusters, including the capital city of Dublin and Cork. Its cable network is 59% upgraded to two-way capacity, with 57% of its cable homes served by a network with a bandwidth of at least 550 Mhz. UPC Ireland makes its digital video, broadband internet, and wire line voice services available to 94%, 59%, and 46%, respectively, of its homes passed.

In addition, UPC Ireland offers to business customers a complete range of telecommunications solutions from standard voice and internet services to more advanced services such as Ethernet LAN extensions, corporate voice services, and high-speed internet. These services are offered to large corporations, public organizations, and small to medium size businesses in Ireland, primarily in Cork, Dublin, Galway, Limerick, and Waterford.

and most importantly

2. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20428169-Re-Lets-keep-all-DOCSIS-30-Discussion-in-this-thread-please

particularly the comments on the grade of cable

AlmightyCushion

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Bull**** Detector.

1. UPC only share about 45 Megabits per cable segment . Therefore a road is maxed out when 3 people get 20 megabits or 5 people get 10 megabots in a neighbourhood . After that it slows right down.

Which beats my eircom connection. I have 3Mb and while I used to get that most of the time now it's rare. Right now my connection is at about 1-1.5Mbps. It goes as low as 512kB at times. After about midnight I'll start getting about 3Mbs. At least upc are investing and trying to give people better speeds.

bk

Sponge Bob wrote: »

I am trying to put this in some perspective .

Yes, fair enough.

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Q for you BK. Can 50% of all UPC Cable customers get their broadband .....any UPC broadband yet ??

First of all let me point out I don't work for UPC, never have and I don't have any insider information on UPC.

From what I've heard I believe their BB enabled network is now well over 50%, also I believe a UPC employee has previously commented here on boards that the majority of their upgraded network is 750MHz.

Even the areas with only 550Mhz quality cable, I don't think it is the cable quality that would be the issue, after all 550Mhz should still have space for 3 extra channels for DOCSIS 3, no I think the issue is that older areas haven't been upgraded with Fibre optic nodes feeding the coax.

BTW that is some thread you've pointed me at, lots of reading there

Ah, found the post I think you are looking for:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=62326581&postcount=16

The upgraded network to this point has been built to 862Mhz with next years build looking to be spec'd to 1GHz.Most of the networks built since 94 have been a 750Mhz design, albeit with 450Mhz amps in some cases, but its just a case of changing the insert to get them up to the higher frequencies.

the_syco

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

At least upc are investing and trying to give people better speeds.

At least UPC are not held back by the government or getting raped by it's owners.

Eircom have to sell it's products to it's competitors at a cheaper rate, and at an earlier date than they can sell to it's own customers... in the name of "competition". They have also not gotten much upgrading done as the Oz owners have done f**k all upgrading :mad:

AlmightyCushion

the_syco wrote: »

At least UPC are not held back by the government or getting raped by it's owners.

Eircom have to sell it's products to it's competitors at a cheaper rate, and at an earlier date than they can sell to it's own customers... in the name of "competition". They have also not gotten much upgrading done as the Oz owners have done f**k all upgrading :mad:

Believe me, I know some of the bull**** eircom have to put up with. I just wish they'd give me a 3Mb connection that doesn't drop to 512kb to 1Mb for more than half the day.