Enabling the last 1pc missing broadband

bealtine

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/20449-enabling-the-last-1pc-missi

An EU-supported project to bring broadband to the last 1pc of the country not served by broadband is caught in political limbo until after the elections.

Over the years, I have championed the need for universal broadband as an important social and economic equaliser for Ireland. The irony, however, was all that time - closer to home - my own sister Jacinta, married to farmer Eddie Mulligan, in Kiltale, Co Meath, with three daughters Aoife (8), Ciara (6) and Rachel (3), tried time and time again to get broadband but couldn't.

You see, she lives in one of those areas in the last 1-2pc of Ireland, which cannot be reached by conventional broadband like DSL or cable. Despite living on a main road 20 miles or so from Dublin, less than a mile down the road from an important EU agricultural R&D centre, which no doubt is connected to high-speed communications, she could not get any form of broadband to work.

"I tried all the mobile broadband products and none of them worked in my area. There was no signal," Jacinta explains.

Despite this - and ferrying her three little girls with her a lot of the time - Jacinta managed to complete a double Arts honours degree in Spanish and Geography at NUI Maynooth using broadband, where available, either at the university or at her parents' house. Against the odds she succeeded. But, in modern Ireland, in 2011, you have to wonder why she had to struggle to have broadband in her home.

Read more of 'Enabling the last 1pc missing broadband' at Digital 21.

For the past two years, Silicon Republic has run a campaign to highlight the imperative of creating the digital infrastructure and services upon which the success of our economy depends.

The website for Digital 21 provides a forum for all those interested in accelerating the development of Ireland’s Digital Economy.

John Kennedy

clohamon

http://digital21.ie/news/item/793

Rural Broadband Scheme rollout on hold
A spokesman at the Department of Communications confirms that the Rural Broadband Scheme is ready to go but, unfortunately, he says it is caught up in political limbo.
"This is probably due to policy and the small size of numbers of people," he says.
The spokesman says that when the scheme is up and running it will support applications from people in rural areas who can prove that they tried every available means to get broadband and failed.
"Members of the telecoms industry who believe they can provide a suitable service for that customer will have the first bite."
The spokesman adds that if the present Communications Minister, Pat Carey TD, signed the scheme off, it would be ready to go straight away. "Our thinking is it is mostly to happen after the elections, but we are ready to go."
Former communications minister Eamon Ryan TD says the scheme was about to kick off just before the Greens left Government. "We secured funding from Brussels and it was ready to go.
"Universal coverage is a very important; it is quite a benchmark for a country to get to 100pc coverage. Once that has been achieved, it is important that we continue improving speeds and do it across a range of different network types," Ryan adds.

The underlined bit needs some explanation.

watty

So all the NBS people should get it.

Keylem

My area is not part of the NBS, and we have little or no options! Airwire is a nightmare!

Airwire: Martin

Keylem wrote: »

My area is not part of the NBS, and we have little or no options! Airwire is a nightmare!

Have you contacted support with your issues (support@airwire.ie or 091-865 968).

We can't help you here on boards, as we have no reference to who your are and where you are, but our support team does their best to help you.

Kind regards,
Martin

PogMoThoin

Keylem wrote: »

My area is not part of the NBS, and we have little or no options! Airwire is a nightmare!

The NBS didn't bring anyone broadband

Keylem

Airwire: Martin wrote: »

Have you contacted support with your issues (support@airwire.ie or 091-865 968).

We can't help you here on boards, as we have no reference to who your are and where you are, but our support team does their best to help you.

Kind regards,
Martin

Oh believe me I have, numerous times!

Keylem

PogMoThoin wrote: »

The NBS didn't bring anyone broadband

Really??? I thought that was the whole point of NBS! :eek:

watty

it should have been. But the contract was structured such that anyone delivering Broadband would lose Money. Only someone having to roll out extra Phone masts to meet their 3G licence commitment could actually tender. Eircom was in same position as Three. Both Eircom's Meteor and Three needed to roll out more masts anyway. Eircom was mostly going to use Meteor 3G.

Three made a mistake on their satellite pricing (they specified prices based on a service which has still not yet gone live, though it should shortly). Three may have badly miscalculated as they are not getting the voice customers on those masts needed to subsidize the Data pricing either. Satellite latency is > 700ms, more than 10 times acceptable latency and 20x worse than typical broadband. Mobile Latency is 80ms to 2000ms, typically 150ms. Broadband is 5ms to 50ms, typically 20ms to 40ms. Anything more than 70ms is useless for interactive applications.

The NBS is really a lie as 3G technology inherently can't meet the specs.

• Not always on.
• Can't Guarantee it will connect due to limited capacity per sector of mast and no way to control where Mobile users are (poor contention control).
• Can't ensure minimum speed of 1.2Mbps
• 3G is CDMA. Cell coverage shrinks as more users or phone calls connect, disconnecting people nearer edge or in poorer reception areas.
• Far too high packet loss and Jitter for VOIP applications.
• Too high latency for Interactive applications.
• The Cap is too low for Video watching or downloads, and it's too high a Cap to control Contention.

All users should have been provided with 3G routers at least with external aerial, not a single user 3G dongle. (no WiFi or ethernet).

The NBS is not properly audited and users are fobbed off with excuses and don't know their rights.

It's a Mobile Internet service piggy back on a Mobile phone system that's supposed to be subsidized by voice traffic.

It hasn't given a single person Broadband. Internet access is not the same as Broadband. It has not even been good at providing Internet Access.

Keylem

watty wrote: »

it should have been. But the contract was structured such that anyone delivering Broadband would lose Money. Only someone having to roll out extra Phone masts to meet their 3G licence commitment could actually tender. Eircom was in same position as Three. Both Eircom's Meteor and Three needed to roll out more masts anyway. Eircom was mostly going to use Meteor 3G.

Three made a mistake on their satellite pricing (they specified prices based on a service which has still not yet gone live, though it should shortly). Three may have badly miscalculated as they are not getting the voice customers on those masts needed to subsidize the Data pricing either. Satellite latency is > 700ms, more than 10 times acceptable latency and 20x worse than typical broadband. Mobile Latency is 80ms to 2000ms, typically 150ms. Broadband is 5ms to 50ms, typically 20ms to 40ms. Anything more than 70ms is useless for interactive applications.

The NBS is really a lie as 3G technology inherently can't meet the specs.

• Not always on.
• Can't Guarantee it will connect due to limited capacity per sector of mast and no way to control where Mobile users are (poor contention control).
• Can't ensure minimum speed of 1.2Mbps
• 3G is CDMA. Cell coverage shrinks as more users or phone calls connect, disconnecting people nearer edge or in poorer reception areas.
• Far too high packet loss and Jitter for VOIP applications.
• Too high latency for Interactive applications.
• The Cap is too low for Video watching or downloads, and it's too high a Cap to control Contention.

All users should have been provided with 3G routers at least with external aerial, not a single user 3G dongle. (no WiFi or ethernet).

The NBS is not properly audited and users are fobbed off with excuses and don't know their rights.

It's a Mobile Internet service piggy back on a Mobile phone system that's supposed to be subsidized by voice traffic.

It hasn't given a single person Broadband. Internet access is not the same as Broadband. It has not even been good at providing Internet Access.

So basically we're F*cked!!

lucernarian

I think the figures themselves are being willfully skewed by the "policy" makers in DCENR and Comreg.

Even ignoring that they skew broadband penetration figures by arbitrarily including 3G mobile internet subscriptions (and does someone with a data subscription on a mobile phone count...):

... the number of people who "can't" be served by DSL and Fixed Wireless is being exaggerated. The experience with BT in Northern Ireland shows this to be the case. Only 600 people ended up with satellite connections out of I think 160,000 households in that entire region. Eircom has time and again refused to use the spectrum and fixed line assets at its disposal and the effort it took for them to increase the range of DSL services on longer phone lines is one example of this. Their disgraceful use of a national wireless license is another example. Most importantly, the funding required to bring this about was not massive. Something of the order of £20 million I think? Fibre will obviously cost more but clever usage would allow for good quality Fixed Wireless to be provided to a lot of locations in combination with more spectrum freed up for this purpose.

The Dept. has never really given an honest and clear argument for why the Group Broadband Scheme approach should have been scrapped or why it could not have been more forceful in lobbying Govt. to provide the truly needed measures to fix market failures in this country.

watty

The GBS was frozen and then lack of activity due to the Department not progressing any applications was used as a reason to kill it and not have that approach and to have a single national tender for NBS. Even though only eircom and Mobile operators have National Wireless licences.

If there was universal FTTC/FTTH there is need for maybe only 50 VSAT (satellite) or less, the rest can be done by MINIMUM 20Mbps, max 30ms Latency Fixed Wireless at up to 50km, terrain allowing.

I've had reliable 22Mbps @ 14km