What does it take to get UPC to consider a Fibre roll out in your area ?

pistolpetes11

Was thinking about this last night ,


I live in Newbridge , Co Kildare,

Currently Newbridge is nearly split into two sections with the older side of the town on the UPC cable /Fibre Network and all the newer housing estates (last 7-8 years or a lot younger) on the MMDS network, and no access to there BB offering

Annoys the life out of me , Id reckon there is easily a couple of thousand of house's that could be brought into the cable /fibre network if they were to expand there service another 4-5 KM into where all the newer estates are.

In terms of broadband , they would make there money back in no time, The only options are dsl which is brutal and WiMax which can sometimes can be ok, but the service is sporadic at best.

Is there a department in UPC which take on recommendations ?

They have a fibre backhaul in the area so it should not be too hard to expand it out .

http://www.upc.ie/media/2009/6/30/map_ireland.jpg

coylemj

I'm not sure that's there's any business logic to how UPC plan their rollouts. If you look at the network map of Dublin there is a huge area comprising Carysfort, Stillorgan, Cabinteely, Foxrock & Cornelscourt which by any standards represents a prosperous part of town where you would imagine there would be a big take-up of advanced services yet we have no HD and no voice service available from UPC and according to the map no upgrade is planned for 2011 because the area is still coloured white on the map.

http://www.upc.ie/customer_support/network_improvements/

lucernarian

Both very good examples of strange logic on the part of UPC, it's not as if the foothpaths in Kildare or more appropriately other parts of Dun-Laoghaire/Rathdown (they already dug up Dun Laoghaire itself in the last year or so for their rollout) are any harder to dig or resurface...

They have even replaced trunk cables and added extra fibre-fed cabinets in areas which already had broadband from UPC! I think parts of Ballyfermot/Palmerstown and parts of the south Dublin city quays area are examples of this.

Though there is the possibility that they rolled out broadband through coax that wasn't fully up to the job and that it was better to prevent faults with existing customers before looking for new customers.

Given that they are broadband-enabling former MMDS-fed networks in parts of North Dublin like in Donabate and new housing estates in Balbriggan and have also enabled a couple of housing estates on the outskirts of Limerick with proper cable instead of MMDS, I wouldn't give up hope for Newbridge. The lack of a MAN in Newbridge might mean UPC target other areas first unfortunately.

But there are examples of this sort of "inequality" worldwide. Christchurch in New Zealand has cable broadband throughout the city while a larger city, Auckland, has to make do with ADSL. Though much of Auckland is being dug up as we speak to remedy this. Hopefully UPC will continue their rollout over the next few years.

pistolpetes11

Its strange alrite , might send them off an email to see if I can get any info .

I remember when I moved here 3 yrs ago from Knocklyon , where I had the 20Meg broadband and getting onto UPC and the sales guy said the area was due to upgraded, but could not confirm any dates.

Just spinning me a yarn to get me to take there MMDS offering at the time I think , it was so bad I had to get rid of it in a week.

Puts me in bad form to go over to the other side of town which is 2.5KM by road or about 1KM as the crow flys to see them all with there fancy cable !

Sponge Bob

pistolpetes11 wrote: »

Was thinking about this last night ,

Annoys the life out of me , Id reckon there is easily a couple of thousand of house's that could be brought into the cable /fibre network if they were to expand there service another 4-5 KM into where all the newer estates are.

First thing I would do is find out whether the newer houses have ducting or not.

Then I would go door to door and get them to sign on the line.

If you have ducts and scads of potential customers UPC can be negotiated with, if they have to d all the legwork they macy choose somewher easier.

It is possible that MMDS will be turned off by 2014 but I'd wager most MMDS are gone to SKY now.

Nollog

Petition your neighbours.
Look at what they can get TV-wise form the cable and present them with that, along with the broadband sell.
I've heard many a cases where that got their attention.

Sponge Bob

Go around a cluster of large estates door to door with a questionaire

1. Do You want UPC BB?
2. Do you want UPC digital on cable instead of MMDS ( show differences in channel chocies/prices)
3. Will you give UPC a wayleave to install cable on your house?
4. Will you give UPC a wayleave to dig on your premises?

and note house number and owners name as you go along.

then map the completed questionaires showing where they are.

Finally organise formal meet with UPC in Dublin and present them with all this paperwork/maps and set up second meeting to discuss scheduling or formal wayleaves ( within 2 weeks)

There is nothing to stop residents doing most wayleaves in advance for UPC ( with UPC wayleave forms) and you can try dealing with tricky customers together instead of leaving UPC on their own with some ( often clinically deranged) gobsh1te who is blocking the whole estate.

eircom cannot NGN Newbridge properly, only one exchange and too many crosstalk issues.

D'Peoples Voice

pistolpetes11 wrote: »

I live in Newbridge , Co Kildare,
Annoys the life out of me , Id reckon there is easily a couple of thousand of house's that could be brought into the cable /fibre network if they were to expand there service another 4-5 KM into where all the newer estates are.

Some new housing estates have management companies,
if you have such a company,
simply ask them to put in a request on behalf of the residents.
UPC would prefer to deal with a residents association!

pistolpetes11

Sponge Bob wrote: »

First thing I would do is find out whether the newer houses have ducting or not.

Then I would go door to door and get them to sign on the line.

If you have ducts and scads of potential customers UPC can be negotiated with, if they have to d all the legwork they macy choose somewher easier.

It is possible that MMDS will be turned off by 2014 but I'd wager most MMDS are gone to SKY now.

When you say ducting what do you mean ?

Sorry in the delay getting back to this !

lucernarian

Ducting being the "pipework" that allows cables to be carried inside. They often look like 4 inch wastepipes. Eircom's ducts are usually black for example. Others can use black also or sometimes green.

The ESB have used red ducting for at least 6 years.

Sponge Bob

don't go NEAR Red ( lekky) or Yellow ( Gas) , lift a few hatches to see if there are empty pipes down there, also remember that ducting in an estate with a management company belongs to the management company if the estate is less than 12 years old.

pistolpetes11

Cheers folks ,

Going to see if I can get some traction going on this ,

Stranger things have happened.

lucernarian

I'd also add blue to SB's list, as they're often the colour of polyethlyene pipes used for mains water.

Of course, there's nothing stopping people using pipes designed to carry water for ducting anyway. I've seen a developer use blue MDPE water pipe for the ducting into a house for the phone line.