Fibre broadband,the future in Ireland?

Cantona's Collars

Just heard on news that company in Longford that manufactures fibre optic and copper cables is in liquidation and will probably shut the gates.For a country that claims to be "THE SILICON VALLEY OF EUROPE" this is a disgrace.The country is crying out for decent broadband so fibre is pretty much essential yet we have a company that makes it closing with the loss of 106 jobs.Backward Ireland again,Eircom monopoly with outdated network has country pretty much in a stranglehold,at least UPC is pushing the boat out providing broadband but it's not available everywhere-pity.:mad:

watty

The factory closing makes mostly copper I thought.

Cantona's Collars

Just going on what was on Today fm news,they mentioned in the report theat the company made copper and fibre cables,even so its a kick in the nuts for a country thats touting itself as a digital hub if we can't even keep the factory that makes the cables open.The government backed 3 in the NBS and thats a disaster.I posted elsewhere that fibre across our vast network of telegraph poles should be trialled as it is in UK,no digging and less cost.I have a neighbour from a village in arse end of Romania and they get 20 mb back home.Lucky to get 2mb here.IMO the govt. took the cheap and easy route again with signing up 3 as provider,typical of this country.Broadband for the masses my arse,I'd love fibre uncongested broadband but I'd also like a Bugatti-better chance getting the car than the broadband.

Dublin_Gunner

Their future is not decided just yet:
http://www.longfordleader.ie/news/B3-Cable-Solutions-future-to.6409057.jp

Here it states they manufacture copper & fibre optic cables in Longford.
http://www.longfordleader.ie/news/100-jobs-under-threat-at.6394000.jp

Although here it only mentions copper:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0701/breaking25.html

watty

I suspect the company makes fibre at other locations and that location is mostly copper cable.

phill106

zerks wrote: »

Just heard on news that company in Longford that manufactures fibre optic and copper cables is in liquidation and will probably shut the gates.For a country that claims to be "THE SILICON VALLEY OF EUROPE" this is a disgrace.The country is crying out for decent broadband so fibre is pretty much essential yet we have a company that makes it closing with the loss of 106 jobs.Backward Ireland again,Eircom monopoly with outdated network has country pretty much in a stranglehold,at least UPC is pushing the boat out providing broadband but it's not available everywhere-pity.:mad:

Wasnt there order levels down 80% since last year?
Thats a big loss for any company to try and ride out. Or should the government buy all the copper and fibre in case we need it in the future for some nationwide rollout of fibre?
Job loss is terrible, but I dont think this is a broadband issue

zeris

phill106 wrote: »

Or should the government buy all the copper and fibre in case we need it in the future for some nationwide rollout of fibre?

The cost of fibre is only going to get cheaper so buying 10 years worth now would be a waste of money.

phill106

zeris wrote: »

The cost of fibre is only going to get cheaper so buying 10 years worth now would be a waste of money.

Sorry, I didnt make it clear enough, I dont see the government buying it up as a viable option either!

Mountjoy Mugger

The company's Spanish plant makes the fibre optic cable. The one in Longford is limited to copper, per Morning Ireland on the radio today.

D'Peoples Voice

phill106 wrote: »

Wasnt there order levels down 80% since last year?
Or should the government buy all the copper and fibre in case we need it in the future for some nationwide rollout of fibre?

its very possible that we might be reaching a saturation point in terms of broadband infrastructure installation. I would assume that almost every bit of Ireland's 6 or 7 cities now have broadband widely available.

watty

We should have been installing fibre not copper for past 8 years, so this should have happened 8 years ago.

Mountjoy Mugger

Agreed.


We had a telecom company who didn't believe in it - remember the denials from eircom that there was even a demand for broadband initially.

We also had a Government who didn't care. In fact, we still have.

Cantona's Collars

It's great that the cities have broadband and fibre being rolled out (fair play to UPC) But the towns and rural areas are sorely lacking,what do they get? Saturate the market with plug in dongles that are over subscribed and call it broadband.I know for a fact that fibre was laid from Dublin to Wexford during the upgrade of the railway and simply left there,lack of money and dodgy contracts were to blame! Seems to be a recurring theme in this country.The NBS is a joke,it could've been done properly as a joint venture between the isp's and everyone would benefit.Just look at other parts of the world-We think of Asia as hot,sticky and covered in jungle but they leave us in the ha'penny place when it comes to high speed broadband.So much for Silicon Valley Ireland.

AlmightyCushion

Can't you do DOCSIS over MMDS? If so UPC could probably deliver decent broadband to most rural areas seeing as they have pretty good MMDS coverage. I don't know much about it though so I could be miles off.

watty

You need additional spectrum for uplink. Which Comreg won't give them.

There is good DOCSIS wireless in Ireland. But not via UPC and not on Irish MMDS band. Indeed some of it is better than average DSL.

Cantona's Collars

That would be great but not at the minute-anyone on MMDS for their tv service who rang UPC after seeing the ads were told they couldn't get broadband and was cable areas only.Pity cos the infrastructure is already there to provide digital tv via mmds,Remember,this is Ireland so don't expect too much.

watty

MMDS infrastucture unlike cable can only do TV. You need additional radio spectrum which UPC can't obtain and new feeds to all MMDS masts (current feeds only carry TV one-way) and new equipment at all MMDS masts.

I don't think there will ever be Broadband on MMDS now or we would have seen a pilot about a year or two ago.

Cantona's Collars

Had a fair idea that was the case with upc mmds,thanks for clearing it up.Still think the idea of fibre along poles is a decent solution,theres enough of em around the place.

Johnboy1951

zerks wrote: »

Had a fair idea that was the case with upc mmds,thanks for clearing it up.Still think the idea of fibre along poles is a decent solution,theres enough of em around the place.

That comment makes me wonder what the heck kind of cable Eircom have coming underground to my location - out in the sticks!
Probably copper of some form I guess as it is down about 15 years or more .......

watty

Of course it's copper. Cat3

They only run fibre on backhaul, though they have just started two FTTC trials.

Fibre can be run underground, on poles or coiled on ESB High Voltage Grid distribution (which ESB does do and re-sells to ISPs and Mobiles for backhaul)

AlmightyCushion

watty wrote: »

MMDS infrastucture unlike cable can only do TV. You need additional radio spectrum which UPC can't obtain and new feeds to all MMDS masts (current feeds only carry TV one-way) and new equipment at all MMDS masts.

I don't think there will ever be Broadband on MMDS now or we would have seen a pilot about a year or two ago.

Hypothetically speaking, if comreg gave UPC the necessary spectrum and UPC managed to get everything up and running to supply broadband overnight what sort of speeds would you be looking at?

watty

It depends on how much spectrum

Probably they would have much lower Cap than cable to reduce contention and let people have closer to package speed at peak times.

Probably (down/up)
3Mbps/0.5Mbps
8Mbps/1Mbps (x2 price of basic)
12Mbps/1Mbps (maybe x6 price of basic)

Cap would need to be about 1/4 or less of Cable caps unless they got a lot of spectrum!
DOCSIS 2.0, No DOCSIS 3.0 as the point of DOCSIS 3.0 is to bond multiple channels per person to give 25, 50, 75, 100, 125Mbps. On Wireless the multiple channels (if even available) are needed for more people.

The fibre fed cable only supplies a smaller number of people than traditional Cable only, thus DOCSIS3.0 is viable. Cable also has almost 100 x 8MHz channels for any mix of TV and broadband. MMDS has only about 21 x 8MHz channels here. Any channels used for Modem is a channel not available for TV. So they need extra downlink spectrum too, not just uplink, unless they very expensively changed all TV boxes to MPEG4 (which would release 1/2 the existing channels for downlink).