eircom Announces fibre roll out

TechnoKid

Trevor451 wrote: »

Even if Eircom is cheaper/faster than UPC I will never give them another cent because they block a certain website

Censorship is in this day and age is unacceptable :rolleyes:

But stealing is perfectly okay?

I'm a small bit confused here, What do you guys mean by "connecting to the exchange"?

EDIT: http://www.slashgear.com/wifi-802-22-technology-promises-wireless-data-over-60-miles-say-goodbye-to-data-plans-29168407/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+slashgear+%28SlashGear%29

OMG Its EoinD

so this should be done by the end of the year ???? If all goes to plan I mean

rob808

If eircom do FTTC they should do it in towns not serve by upc to get profit out of it.

Gonzo

rob808 wrote: »

If eircom do FTTC they should do it in towns not serve by upc to get profit out of it.

I totally agree, there's many areas who dont have upc and never will, and quite a few of these areas are large towns and even the odd street in Dublin, not just small villages and countryside townlands. UPC will always beat Eircom no matter what in the area's where it's available so I think it would be wiser for them to concentrate in non upc areas which is pretty much most of Ireland.

watty

Eircom will do UPC areas 1st though.

Praetorian

watty wrote: »

Eircom will do UPC areas 1st though.

Does that make sense though? There are plenty of economically viable dense areas with no UPC that Eircom could target.

bealtine

Praetorian wrote: »

Does that make sense though? There are plenty of economically viable dense areas with no UPC that Eircom could target.

No it does/doesn't make sense...depends on your perspective.
eircom want to compete with UPC so will try to take them on
in the urban areas as they have lost huge volumes of customers in
those areas and will be trying to win them back.

Sponge Bob

eircom don't have any real competition in smaller towns and there is the juicy line rental revenue to protect.

32yg

Kev. wrote: »

So Eircom are going to put 100 million Euro into a new project that's available from UPC already....

Unless they target areas that UPC don't already cover they are destined for failure.....

I cant see anybody changing from UPC fiber to Eircom

If you had completely fiber optic cable, it'd be tough to find something on the internet that wouldn't download in a second!

jmcc

bealtine wrote: »

eircom simply cannot compete with UPC, no matter how hard they try, as the "line rental" charge alone is higher than what UPC charge for 20Mbs, so it's pointless trying to compete, unless it's FTTH. So unless they target areas not covered by UPC it's all a waste of time and effort.

I was looking at getting a second broadband connection here (Waterford) in January. (Basically the upload bandwidth was too low for regular database backup/update work.) Contacted Eircom and they claimed that they had no plans to upgrade the lines. It was 3Mb/s. UPC is also active in Waterford. So I've 25Mb/s broadband for less than the cost of the existing main BB (bitstream). UPC is killing Eircom in the areas where it is active.

Now Eircom can issue all the press releases to the "technology" journalists and they'll rerun them without question but the reality is that Eircom is facing an immediate threat to its viability in the major city markets in Ireland. Its line rental has been a major earner and UPC is killing that too.

The much vaunted triple play where Eircom would deliver television programming down fibre is just recycled Rondomondo stuff. If Eircom wants to do this then it has to have the network and the programming deals in place. It all sounds great for the happy-clappies who masquerade as technology journalists in the Irish media and it guarantees Eircom column inches but Eircom has to get the network in place for content delivery.

And as for Eircom's internal tests - I remember the original Telecom Eireann ADSL tests. It seems that little has changed though perhaps the people on the latest tests might actually be familiar with broadband.

Regards...jmcc

lucernarian

Basic microeconomic theory suggests monopolies generate higher marginal revenues compared to more competitive markets. It also means there is less reason for monopolies to innovate or improve the service it provides to customers.

But that can be applied in two different directions. One is that eircom should find those areas where UPC still haven't invested in their network (or have no network at all) so as to establish a monopoly there. The other is that the fibre to the home and UPC broadband market is part of a larger "broadband" market which includes regular DSL and fixed wireless tech. Therefore eircom need to compete with UPC first to prevent losing more customers while their existing monopoly in other areas (providing an inferior service) can carry on extracting lots of revenue on an old network.

The big question for businesses is whether true NGB offers increased revenue, that is if customers are willing to regard broadband over 20 mbps as a different, better service and how much extra they are willing to pay for this. There's also the prospect of IPTV on this service from eircom. I think that consumers do regard the latest offers from UPC and also any FTTH providers as offering better value and worth more to them but I also think the extra revenue per user could well be small. E.g. UPC's next generation broadband products are priced competitively with eircom's main DSL offering.

I think that eircom will end up targeting UPC-served or UPC-soon-to-be-served areas first barring other particular factors.
-Densely populated areas
-Which are a number of km from the nearest exchange
-Would need high investment to lay new copper cables and cabinets to any new property developments in the area
-The nearby exchanges already have high-capacity backhaul
-Existing competitive fixed wireless providers in the area and LLU operators.

On top of the UPC-served areas, eircom may provide this FTTH service first in places like some suburbs of Limerick and Galway and perhaps Cork, and much of the urban areas of places like Tullamore, Trim, Drogheda, Dundalk, Letterkenny and Tralee.

I don't know much about the TV proposals eircom mentioned but we can figure they want to be somehow competitive in the TV market and given that Sky is everywhere, that may mean overall they will equally target UPC broadband areas and non-UPC areas where Sky is widespread. Factors like available ducting and cooperative local authorities may become more important.

Sponge Bob

jmcc wrote: »

I was looking at getting a second broadband connection here (Waterford) in January. (Basically the upload bandwidth was too low for regular database backup/update work.) Contacted Eircom and they claimed that they had no plans to upgrade the lines. It was 3Mb/s.

This upload speed issue is another clear threat to eircom. I know of a business park where eircom are sweating their plant in suburban Dublin, the individual units are now getting broadband from UPC over the back wall from an estate which has residential cable installed. It is a sort of residential product with enhanced SLA deal for now.

eircom don't even understand where all their BB customers have suddenly gone and UPC have given a written undertaking to the businesses to get a fibre optic into them by the end of the year...again across the back wall.

By the time eircom realise what has happened they will be minus 15 units for multiple isdn voice and and for analogue fax and data. And there is no way back until they run fibre in there. On line rental alone they will be down €10k a year.

jmcc

Sponge Bob wrote: »

This upload speed issue is another clear threat to eircom. I know of a business park where eircom are sweating their plant in suburban Dublin, the individual units are now getting broadband from UPC over the back wall from an estate which has residential cable installed. It is a sort of residential product with enhanced SLA deal for now.

Well when you've an upload channel measured in Mb/s as opposed to 512Kb/s, it really is no contest. Even SDSL might have been good but what UPC offers even as residential products destroys Eircom's offering. It also has business broadband offerings. The main advantage that Eircom has at the moment is on IP addressing. I'm not sure if UPC can supply multiple IPs yet.

That reminds me - I have to downgrade an ISDN line.

Regards...jmcc

rob808

I won't worry about upload since FTTC you can get 8mb to 15mb and in England download speeds will double from 40mb to 80mb .The biggest problem for Eircom will be price and return from it investment and making take up of it fast broadband. Im more disappointing in the other ISP not willing to co invest like vodaphone,magnet ect.They cry about Eircom not investing dont see them doing anything at all.

D'Peoples Voice

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

I think that eircom will end up targeting UPC-served or UPC-soon-to-be-served areas first barring some other particular factors.
-Densely populated areas
-Which are a number of km from the nearest exchange

not knowing much about the broadband set-up but in densely populated areas, would you not need more exchanges at more frequent intervals given the sheer number of telephone lines, in which case the probability of you being far from the exchange is relatively low. No?

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

I don't know much about the IPTV proposals of eircom.....

I was thinking that they will be offering something along the lines of http://www.magnetwebtv.ie
otherwise as jmcc says, they would need to start looking at tv programing deals, unless Eircom plan this approach. But if thats the case, surely they would need more staff, and why are they reducing their staff numbers if they plan to increase their services so substantially.

jmcc

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

But that can be applied in two different directions. One is that eircom should find those areas where UPC still haven't invested in their network (or have no network at all) so as to establish a monopoly in those areas.

Well in case you missed it, Eircom had a near monopoly in those areas. The problem for Eircom is that it is unable to compete in the key urban markets where UPC is active. It is as if UPC is selling high speed cars and Eircom is still selling horse drawn wagons without the horse.

Therefore eircom need to compete with UPC first to prevent the loss of further market share while their existing monopoly in other areas (providing an inferior service) can carry on extracting lots of revenue without further investment.

They are not going to prevent the loss of further market share. The reality is that UPC has their network in place and Eircom has not. It cannot compete because there is nothing they can use to compete with UPC short of giving broadband away. And even then people will go for UPC because it offers what they want.

The big question for businesses is whether Next Generation Networks offer increased ARPU, that is if customers are willing to regard broadband over 20 mbps as a different, better service and how much extra they are willing to pay for this.

The big question for businesses is whether they want more bandwidth for less money.

There's also the prospect of IPTV on this service from eircom.

Yep. They've been pushing that since 1999 or so. The problem is that Eircom just hadn't a clue about Pay TV programming and delivery then and it certainly does not have a clue now. The main competition for TV delivery (Pay TV) in Ireland is Sky and UPC.

I think that eircom will end up targeting UPC-served or UPC-soon-to-be-served areas first barring some other particular factors.

And I think that this is Eircom's same sh!te in a different century. It sat on its corporate ass with Fixed Wireless licences from what I remember. It provided a 1970s solution (ISDN) when everyone was crying out for ADSL. It has the highest line rental fees in the world (perhaps). Telecom Eireann and RTE left Cablelink's networks decay so they would not be a threat to TE/Eircom. But when UPC appeared on the scene the game changed. And Eircom might be facing getting removed from the game.

Regards...jmcc

Sponge Bob

jmcc wrote: »

They are not going to prevent the loss of further market share. The reality is that UPC has their network in place and Eircom has not. It cannot compete because there is nothing they can use to compete with UPC short of giving broadband away. And even then people will go for UPC because it offers what they want.

EVEN if eircom execute to plan we can work out the implications already.

Column 2 is (eircom) projected year end coverage of eircom NGB, column 3 is (MY) estimated UPC NGB coverage by premises ( mainly homes) . Remember that eircom are now losing c.5k a month lines to UPC. On service alone they have three more years of shrinkage ahead of them at 60-70k skullz a year.

eircom ....if they execute on target......will only match UPC coverage in mid 2015. By then they will have 200,000 fewer lines and UPC will have 200,000 more customers, minimum.

2012 100,000 630,000
2013 400,000 700,000
2014 700,000 770,000
2015 1,000,000 830,000

The big question for businesses is whether they want more bandwidth for less money.

They are sensitive around the €99 a month mark. They may take more calls or more bandwidth ( or both) but the really sweet spot is the bundle at around €99 a month.

Yep. They've been pushing that since 1999 or so. The problem is that Eircom just hadn't a clue about Pay TV programming and delivery then and it certainly does not have a clue now.

I ran into their last IPTV Guru a few years back, bloke named Richard. He had a room full of gear from some eircom IPTV FTTB trial in Rathmines and no real idea what to do next/soon. This was 2008. He left them 2 years later. Still no IPTV.

It has the highest line rental fees in the world (perhaps).

It has LONG HAD the highest line rental fees in the world.(perhaps)

And the very best lines and service in the world as well, don't forget :cool:

lucernarian

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

not knowing much about the broadband set-up but in densely populated areas, would you not need more exchanges at more frequent intervals given the sheer number of telephone lines, in which case the probability of you being far from the exchange is relatively low. No?

Even a cursory search on these forums show many examples of people struggling with unreliable 4 or 5 mbit connections in many urban places across the country, since the days of eircom's highest package changing to 7.6 mbps. I already linked to one lengthy example in this thread. I'm not speculating on the matter of eircom's existing local loop length, it's a definite problem for them.

You're also leaving out the planning considerations of when most of the current exchange locations were decided on, in the 60s and 70s. A few extra were added in mainly rural locations and larger villages over the 80s and 90s. The number of houses has increased massively since then and mainly on the outer edges of towns and cities. These places could still have reasonable voice service at 3 or 4km but broadband speeds of 3 or 4 mbps compared to UPC's recently upgraded network in a housing estate say in Ongar in Dublin 15 just won't appeal to many consumers.

For example, maybe 2 or 3 years ago eircom moved a decent chunk of the southern half of Drogheda on to a new exchange in an existing engineering depot. In all likelihood to allow for easier expansion in an urban area rapidly expanding outwards and also allow for faster broadband speeds to many places which previously could only hope for 1 to 4 mbps. Particularly the business and industrial units in the area who had relatively poor DSL speeds but access to a nearby MAN with its fibre.

Exchanges also have a habit of being located in the centre of a town or village and where the gap between two towns is an awkward 11 or 12km for example, it leads to longer lines for the whole area. Similarly, with a town that's got a healthy population and is just about small enough to allow for a network built on a central exchange in the late 70s then it can lead to problems later on. That's what happened in the likes of places such as Drogheda, Navan and to a lesser extent Dundalk.

jmcc

Sponge Bob wrote: »

EVEN if eircom execute to plan we can work out the implications already.

Column 2 is (eircom) projected year end coverage of eircom NGB, column 3 is (MY) estimated UPC NGB coverage by premises ( mainly homes) . Remember that eircom are now losing c.5k a month lines to UPC. On service alone they have three more years of shrinkage ahead of them at 60-70k skullz a year.

eircom ....if they execute on target......will only match UPC coverage in mid 2015. By then they will have 200,000 fewer lines and UPC will have 200,000 more customers, minimum.

2012 100,000 630,000
2013 400,000 700,000
2014 700,000 770,000
2015 1,000,000 830,000

Those are terrifying numbers for Eircom. Even if they manage to stick to their target, they run into the problem of UPC users being reluctant to change. While this reluctance worked in Eircom's favour prior to UPC really getting into the broadband market, once the users are on UPC's network, then UPC can always offer the prospect of more bandwidth now rather than Eircom's promises later - or would those be ESOP's fables?

They are sensitive around the €99 a month mark. They may take more calls or more bandwidth ( or both) but the really sweet spot is the bundle at around €99 a month.

Interesting. The only way that Eircom could really hit back is with an integrated mobile phone service. There's been a gradual shift towards mobile over the last ten years and people are far more likely to hang onto their cable than fixed phoneline.

I ran into their last IPTV Guru a few years back, bloke named Richard. He had a room full of gear from some eircom IPTV FTTB trial in Rathmines and no real idea what to do next/soon. This was 2008. He left them 2 years later. Still no IPTV.

Not surprised. about seven years ago Eircom and Esat had a lock on the Irish webhosting market. Through a failure to adapt to the market, both of them just gave it away. Perhaps Eircom management had some TIVO vision of content delivery but no clue about how to implement it.

It has LONG HAD the highest line rental fees in the world.(perhaps)

And the very best lines and service in the world as well, don't forget :cool:

Well their service has been good. But the costs are high.

Regards...jmcc

Praetorian

Interesting that in the coming weeks Eircom have said they will be announcing more details on this rollout, which will give UPC plenty of time to counter any aggressive moves into non UPC commercially viable territory.

lucernarian

jmcc wrote: »

Well in case you missed it, Eircom had a near monopoly in those areas. The problem for Eircom is that it is unable to compete in the key urban markets where UPC is active. It is as if UPC is selling high speed cars and Eircom is still selling horse drawn wagons without the horse.

The very next point I made in the post was that the alternative view was basically that UPC and eircom are competing in the same market except that UPC has the upper hand and eircom has a monopoly in other remaining urban areas. So no, I didn't miss it:)

The big question for businesses is whether they want more bandwidth for less money.

I think you got the wrong end of the stick there, when I said "businesses" I was talking about UPC, eircom and other OLOs and ISPs. Not business customers looking to see what their communications needs were. Many business customers are crying out for better speeds and capacity but interestingly UPC have given comparatively little attention to marketing its services to businesses. Their strategy seems heavily oriented towards residential custom. What that implies is not clear-cut.


Of course, eircom might end up getting removed from the game but the reality is that the presence of UPC means they now have a clear incentive to provide innovative services where they never had that pressure to do so before. Competition does have a good effect on eircom. I remember that eircom sat on their hands with ADSL speeds until Smart Telecom launched a service which had an entry-level that exceeded eircom's residential packages at the time! And smart telecom were using the same local loop and didn't have a massive geographical spread either. Eircom so far have always done enough to survive the weak regulatory and commercial pressures on it. Perhaps I can't see eircom failing when a large soverign wealth fund owns it along with the guaranteed revenue from the telephone rental allowance etc.

Also, ISDN was only standardised in 1988 and was not widely deployed in either Europe or Japan until the early 90s. The nonsense with eircom hi-speed instead of ADSL from 2000 to 2004 was a direct result of the Valencia carpet baggers consortium and the method of using eircom to buy itself. It's been 2 or 3 years behind wider european broadband trends ever since. Still, eircom were absurd in their approach to broadband back then and they're reaping the rewards of it now.

jmcc

Praetorian wrote: »

Interesting that in the coming weeks Eircom have said they will be announcing more details on this rollout, which will give UPC plenty of time to counter any aggressive moves into non UPC commercially viable territory.

Makes you wonder what other new concerning Eircom is on the way. Eircom has always been very effective at getting the tame technology journalists to run its press releases. Perhaps this is Eircom's last gasp effort at finally doing something about broadband before the market initiative is completely taken away from it.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

The very next point I made in the post was that the alternative view was basically that UPC and eircom are competing in the same market except that UPC has the upper hand and eircom has a monopoly in other remaining urban areas. So no, I didn't miss it:)

And I think that you are ignoring how the market has changed. UPC is now dominating the key urban markets (cities) where Eircom once was invincible. If UPC chops out a critical mass of fixed lines then this with the numbers of people drifting to mobile phones might really upset the Eircom bond holders.

The market has changed in that Eircom is facing an immediate threat in those markets. Eircom had a near monopoly in the rural areas and it has screwed them over too. It could afford to because there was no serious competition. With the key urban markets, there is now a serious threat in the shape of UPC and regulations have forced Eircom to open up to some extent. The real killer for Eircom is that UPC is not 100% dependent on Eircom's network.

The proposition is this: why waste money on Eircom when you can have three times the bandwidth from UPC at a lower cost. You can also get your TV and your phone service. That's a killer proposition and even Eircom's NGB finds it hard to compete with it. Eircom's Next Generation Broadband is broadband for tomorrow. UPC is here today.

I think you got the wrong end of the stick there, when I said "businesses" I was talking about UPC, eircom and other OLOs and ISPs. Not business customers looking to see what their communications needs were. Many business customers are crying out for better speeds and capacity but interestingly UPC have given comparatively little attention to marketing its services to businesses. Their strategy seems heavily oriented towards residential custom. What that implies is not clear-cut.

Perhaps. UPC's strategy is simple - get maximum market share in key markets. When it has achieved that, it can go about picking off business customers.

However business customers often need more help to change. I've seen businesses who maintain their domain and hosting with Eircom or BT simply because they have broadband with those ISPs. For businesses, the cost of switching may not be insignificant. It is easier to get a residential customer to switch especially when you can offer them TV/Phone/Broadband. The business would have to have their numbers migrated and perhaps find alternative hosting. This could mean a potential interruption to critical services like e-mail. This, I think, is why UPC is reluctant to widely market its business broadband.

Of course, eircom might end up getting removed from the game but the reality is that the presence of UPC means they now have a clear incentive to provide innovative services where they never had that pressure to do so before.

The only thing that forces Eircom to innovate is the prospect of its demise.

Eircom so far have always done enough to survive the weak regulatory and commercial pressures on it. Perhaps I can't see eircom failing when a large soverign wealth fund owns it along with the guaranteed revenue from the telephone rental allowance etc.

Bigger companies than Eircom have failed.

Regards...jmcc

Sponge Bob

jmcc wrote: »

Bigger companies than Eircom have failed.

The biggest company in the world less than 12 years ago failed, that was Nortel.

eircom and UPC are in a room talking nowadays, this announcement ( and others re eircom wholesale in recent weeks) is the PR end of that. eircom can still do PR ...we know that

This latest talking shop is the "CEO Taskforce" .

It was one of Clohomon or BK or TBC who correctly observed there is nothing much in this for UPC and everything for eircom.

lucernarian

jmcc wrote: »

Perhaps. UPC's strategy is simple - get maximum market share in key markets. When it has achieved that, it can go about picking off business customers.

I'm more than a little perplexed at the "perhaps" there. I mean, it's self-evident that their promotions of their broadband service have been aimed at residential consumers with the business custom a secondary consideration. I'm also pretty sure my clarification regarding "business" and who that was directed at was correct, as I was the one who made the point in the first place! A quick look around the forums on boards.ie also shows that businesspeople are interested in faster broadband speeds with better usage limits.

In any case, UPC's strategy can only be inferred by their actions since they took ownership of NTL's Irish assets. Given the half-complete mess they took over, it's a little more complex than "get maximum market share". Isn't that the objective of eircom too in this announcement and also practically every other free-market business in history? In other words, isn't that a statement of the obvious?!


I also see no basis in theory or observation to see why eircom would only innovate if they were about to go under. And I'm talking about "innovate" strictly in a technological sense. From what I've seen of other companies in serious trouble, the first thing they look to do is to cut costs, not increase capex (which would be a practically guaranteed requirement to bring new tech or innovations to market). If the bailiff was knocking on the door of St. John's Road the last thing they would be doing is launching extensive FTTH rollouts in Wexford/Sandyford. It would be too late by then. I've already given an example of Smart Telecom's introduction and the effect it had. Over the past 7 years the service and availability has moved on a reasonably long way despite the extraordinary debt burden and multiple owners who were venture capitalists in the main. With STT in ownership of eircom I think they can rise to the challenge much like UPC did with NTL's joke of a network. To what extent they will do so is up to the owners, bondholders and management to decide. I assume they will make the right choice:D

Perhaps the bigger challenge facing eircom is not so much UPC and how to counteract them but the existing debt burden of a whopping €3.6 billion. And STT do have the stick of a technical default if the bondholders call in their bets and deep pockets to invest with afterwards.

jmcc

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

A quick look around the forums on boards.ie also shows that businesspeople are interested in faster broadband speeds with better usage limits.

And those of us in the business community have been more than aware of that problem for over a decade. Some of us were around when Telecom Eireann tried to strangle the internet at birth in Ireland. Luckily for us, and for you, they failed.

In any case, UPC's strategy can only be inferred by their actions since they took ownership of NTL's Irish assets.

Or you could do something revolutionary like asking them what they planned to do.

Given the half-complete mess they took over, it's a little more complex than "get maximum market share".

Maximum market share in key markets. The last words are important. They are concentrating on their targets whereas Eircom is running the risk of spreading itself too thinly in that it has to deal with rural and urban markets.

Isn't that the objective of eircom too in this announcement and also practically every other free-market business in history? In other words, isn't that a statement of the obvious?!

Taking press releases at face value, especially when they come from Eircom, is not a good approach. Press releases are intended to present the company in the best possible light. Eircom's immediate objective is survival.

I also see no basis in theory or observation to see why eircom would only innovate if they were about to go under.

It has to innovate to survive. Or at least it has to appear to be innovative to maintain the confidence of its investors.

And I'm talking about "innovate" strictly in a technological sense. From what I've seen of other companies in serious trouble, the first thing they look to do is to cut costs, not increase capex (which would be a practically guaranteed requirement to bring new tech or innovations to market).

Innovation by press release is a well known technology company strategy. It runs like this: Press Release goes out to gullible technology journalists who will run it without questioning it or understanding it. Most will just put their by-line on the press release and submit it as news. The roll-out of this new technology takes place on a test basis in a few markets where only the locals will notice. It gets rave reviews from the few people selected to test it. Some unforseen circumstances delay it from being rolled out nationally. And so the expectations for this new technology/innovation are carefully managed. Perhaps I am too cynical and this is a great innovation that will quickly be rolled out all over the country.

Eircom had the Irish "technology journalists" all singing from the same hymnsheet over ADSL during the early '00s. It was a brilliant exercise in press management by professionals. Admittedly most of the Irish technology journalists were completely ignorant of technology and this made it easier.

If the bailiff was knocking on the door of St. John's Road the last thing they would be doing is launching extensive FTTH rollouts in Wexford/Sandyford.

So how many customers to they expect to get in these extensive rollouts? How many potential customers are there in those areas? What impact will these rollouts have on the overall losses to UPC?

With STT in ownership of eircom I think they can rise to the challenge much like UPC did with NTL's joke of a network. To what extent they will do so is up to the owners, bondholders and management to decide. I assume they will make the right choice:D

So were the bond holders the real audience for this announcement?

Regards...jmcc

lucernarian

You are answering questions and points I haven't raised or inferred at this stage, on top of stating the obvious.

I also don't see how doing something "revolutionary" (by the way, cheers for the sarcasm!) like asking UPC what they planned to do would be a rational way to find out their plans and agenda. Surely a press release emailed to my inbox from UPC is of little more use than a press release on the eircom website? Or are UPC's staff and management somehow less likely to be dishonest than the eircom management I've dealt with?

I will expand on one point I made. You asked questions about the current limited FTTH in two places in Ireland. Firstly, I don't think it's just a PR stunt. There is fibre being blown through the streets of Wexford and Sandyford starting this month. I think the number of properties targeted by this is in the region of 10,000 or a bit more. I call it extensive as it reaches far beyond what eircom trialled before and in the case of Wexford, does not appear to be a particularly easy place to carry out this sort of trial if they were only looking to make a technology "fashion statement" and take advantage of existing ducting and backhaul, like what Dublin would have. The cost of the trial (€20 million) is not to be sniffed at in the context of people looking for eircom to pay what they owe.

If eircom are to convince them that eircom ltd is viable, they have no real choice but to start investing immediately or else drastically shrink the company's size and prolong the inevitable end in a few years time. So while this PR announcement could be a convenient means to an end and a confidence trick to bondholders, they also actually need to live up to their words this time.

jmcc

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

I also don't see how doing something "revolutionary" (by the way, cheers for the sarcasm!) like asking UPC what they planned to do would be a rational way to find out their plans and agenda.

Surprisingly it can work. Executives like to talk about their plans to take over the market. The trick is to know the right ones and to be able to listen properly.

Surely a press release emailed to my inbox from UPC is of little more use than a press release on the eircom website?

The mistake is in relying on press releases.

Or are UPC's staff and management somehow less likely to be dishonest than the eircom management I've dealt with?

You've got to develop contacts and be able to qualify the information. However this is basic research and goes beyond the usual reliance on press releases. Sometimes people will not be able to give specifics but they may be able to clarify facts or provide the broad brushstrokes. This is moving into the area of real tech journalism rather than the press release recycling, gadget geeking and product pimping that passes for Irish technology journalism.

I will expand on one point I made. You asked questions about the current limited FTTH in two places in Ireland. Firstly, I don't think it's just a PR stunt. There is fibre being blown through the streets of Wexford and Sandyford starting this month. I think the number of properties targeted by this is in the region of 10,000 or a bit more. I call it extensive as it reaches far beyond what eircom trialled before and in the case of Wexford, does not appear to be a particularly easy place to carry out this sort of trial if they were only looking to make a technology "fashion statement" and take advantage of existing ducting and backhaul, like what Dublin would have. The cost of the trial (€20 million) is not to be sniffed at in the context of people looking for eircom to pay what they owe.

And can these test sites be folded quietly if they don't work out? Is there any significant competition from other operators in those areas? Eircom has form when it comes to this kind of thing:

http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/places/infoage/examinr.htm

As you can see, most people in the industry tend to be quite cynical when such things are announced.

If eircom are to convince them that eircom ltd is viable, they have no real choice but to start investing immediately or else drastically shrink the company's size and prolong the inevitable end in a few years time.

So it is a move born out of desperation than a one based on a long standing strategy?

So while this PR announcement could be a convenient means to an end and a confidence trick to bondholders, they also actually need to live up to their words this time.

It remains to be seen if they will. It would be nice if it did work out.

Regards...jmcc

Sponge Bob

jmcc wrote: »

So it is a move born out of desperation than a one based on a long standing strategy?

Yes.

eircom have announced ( from memory)

1. VDSL trial in Ennis c 1999 ( shut down by 2002)
2. VDSL in Achill c 2002
3. VDSL trials in south dublin c 2004 in c.Ballyboden shut down 2006
4. VDSL deployment in Dublin and 'cities' in 2006/7 (by Pierre Danon) VDSL cabs actually installed in Dundrum and Priory Park in 2007, never activated. Still There , rusting.
5. VDSL trial (again) Sandyford exchange 2010, cabs installed, go live in September 2011.

They are getting reallllllly boring at this stage.

Can we have some VDSL2 lads, it is a 5 year old telecommunications standard not some f**king rocket science! :mad:

Solair

If there's one thing eircom really excels at it's vapourwear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware