eircom Announces fibre roll out

TheMilkyPirate

Any news on this?

Onikage

Locations of Phase 1 announced yesterday (spoiler: select areas of galway, cork, limerick, dublin, meath, DONEGAL!)

http://pressroom.eircom.net/press_releases/article/eircom_announces_locations_for_phase_1_fibre_rollout/

lucernarian

I'm really interested to see just how much of a rollout they'll carry out in those areas. E.g. what about apartment blocks with only copper cables installed directly in the walls, housing estates on the edges of towns like Letterkenny, the remaining copper line plant beyond the town boundaries etc.

BT haven't had to make those sorts of calls in NI as they simply brought fibre to a cabinet in an outlying village for example and that dealt with most lines except for the smaller number of houses that lie by themselves between two towns or villages.

And I wonder to what extent eircom will use overhead fibre cabling like what Verizon do with FiOS. Eircom's general network plan for the FTTH element will be similar to FiOS in the states I think. E.g. using GPON etc.

Sponge Bob

Phase 'One' is 95% FTTC, ie fibre backhauled VDSL cab rollouts and delivered over copper as usual. No residential customers are in line for fibre at home as I understand it.

4 business parks in Galway, 3 in Letterkenny, 2 in Dooradoyle and 2 in Palmerstown (1 is actually Fonthill) and unknown numbers elsewhere are to be FTTP'd to stop UPC literallly 'coming in over the back wall' from surrounding residential areas and nicking eircoms business customers off them or so I was told by someone who is sniffiing around civils contracts.

Seems like certain contractors who might normally go for UPC business are being leaned on by eircom and threatened with what may happen if they are not 'compliant' .

lucernarian

Don't know about Sierra doing much for eircom but I know KN networks are heavily involved in contracting work with eircom, as well as for UPC...

bk

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Phase 'One' is 95% FTTC, ie fibre backhauled VDSL cab rollouts and delivered over copper as usual. No residential customers are in line for fibre at home as I understand it.

I don't know why they are even bothering if UPC are already in these areas.

How is VDSL 40 to 50Mb/s supposed to compete with UPC 100 Mb/s ?

Specially as UPC will still be cheaper due to line rental and UPC has the ability to up speeds in future (the DOCSIS 3 modems are currently only using 4 of the 8 streams, so they are ready for 200 Mb/s).

Add to all that the much weaker TV/triple play story from Eircom.

Praetorian

bk wrote: »

I don't know why they are even bothering if UPC are already in these areas.

How is VDSL 40 to 50Mb/s supposed to compete with UPC 100 Mb/s ?

Specially as UPC will still be cheaper due to line rental and UPC has the ability to up speeds in future (the DOCSIS 3 modems are currently only using 4 of the 8 streams, so they are ready for 200 Mb/s).

Add to all that the much weaker TV/triple play story from Eircom.

Is it vdsl2 they are rolling out?

"VDSL2 deteriorates quickly from a theoretical maximum of 250 Mbit/s at source to 100 Mbit/s at 0.5 km (1,600 ft) and 50 Mbit/s at 1 km (3,300 ft), but degrades at a much slower rate from there, and still outperforms VDSL. Starting from 1.6 km (1 mi) its performance is equal to ADSL2+."

above on the wiki page =

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_high_speed_digital_subscriber_line_2

bk

Praetorian wrote: »

Is it vdsl2 they are rolling out?

Yes, with Eircom saying the max speed offered will be 50/20 Mb/s or 35/16 Mb/s for IPTV.

yuloni

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TheMilkyPirate

Was talking to an engineer on the road today, Told me they will begin advertising next month (september) And the lines will go live late september early october.

(Wexford town)

Praetorian

bk wrote: »

Yes, with Eircom saying the max speed offered will be 50/20 Mb/s or 35/16 Mb/s for IPTV.

Could be they are just leaving room for future upgrades. Would follow eircom's prvious track record like they did with adsl1 tech and adsl2+ tech.

Sponge Bob

Future upgrades will rely to an extent on eircom losing even more customers, thereby freeing up pairs. You will need 2 lines bonded together to your premises once they go beyond 100mbits. Most homes only have 1 pair, I have 4 meself

bk

Condi wrote: »

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Actually I think it is worse then that. I can't find a definitive answer in the docs, but they call the 35Mb/s product a stable profile.

Which I think actually means that the missing 15Mb/s isn't used for IPTV, that it is actually only allowing for a total of 35Mb/s for both broadband AND IPTV.

So in other words with a SD channel coming in about 2 - 3 Mb/s and a HD channel at 8Mb/s, you would only get about 27Mb/s of broadband if watching one HD channel!!

Smart did the same in my apartment building, even though my line could handle 20Mb/s on ADSL2+ without any issues, they capped it at 13Mb/s so it would be more stable for IPTV services.

Frankly this product is very poor in comparison to what UPC already have available today to hundreds of thousands of homes. I can't see how it can compete with UPC, I don't know why they are bothering. I assume they will try marketing tricks to fool and confuse people.

Praetorian

bk wrote: »

Actually I think it is worse then that. I can't find a definitive answer in the docs, but they call the 35Mb/s product a stable profile.

Which I think actually means that the missing 15Mb/s isn't used for IPTV, that it is actually only allowing for a total of 35Mb/s for both broadband AND IPTV.

So in other words with a SD channel coming in about 2 - 3 Mb/s and a HD channel at 8Mb/s, you would only get about 27Mb/s of broadband if watching one HD channel!!

Smart did the same in my apartment building, even though my line could handle 20Mb/s on ADSL2+ without any issues, they capped it at 13Mb/s so it would be more stable for IPTV services.

Frankly this product is very poor in comparison to what UPC already have available today to hundreds of thousands of homes. I can't see how it can compete with UPC, I don't know why they are bothering. I assume they will try marketing tricks to fool and confuse people.

Unfortunately telephone lines are very thin, unlike the cable tv cables and can't hold the same amount of data. FTTH to every single house would be prohibitively expensive! What else could Eircom / Smart do in the long run?

Richard Dower

FFS! :mad: - they decided on Dooradoyle instead of the city centre? [ie. Roaches St. exchange] ....shower of muppets running Eircom! :mad:

yuloni

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Sponge Bob

Condi wrote: »

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Nahhhhh, they got Crystal Swing into HQ for the launch party instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8bJeZxQlKE

p.oconnor

Can someone tell me what is actually involved when Eircom enable an exchange, does the entire surrounding couple of km's of cables have to be changed or can it be run on the original wires used for decades.

Sponge Bob

Save in the very few cases where the premises is fibred it is all designed to allow the existing cables to be reused.

In the UK around half of of lines will be cabinetised meaning a nearby cabinet ( not a far away exchange) will deliver the service. 1/6th or lines will be changed to fibre 1/3 will continue on long lines with slower broadband with some on no broadband as now.

In Ireland perhaps 1/20 of lines will be replaced by fibre. 1/4-1/3 may get cabinetisation and the rest can feck off as usual.

noelcosgrave

Sponge Bob wrote: »

In Ireland perhaps 1/20 of lines will be replaced by fibre. 1/4-1/3 may get cabinetisation and the rest can feck off as usual.

You are optimistic! I'd put it closer to % FTTH and <20% FTTC. The rest can, as you say, feck off, just as we have been doing for the past decade.

bk

Praetorian wrote: »

FTTH to every single house would be prohibitively expensive! What else could Eircom / Smart do in the long run?

Well if Eircom hadn't been privatised in the way it was or was originally bought by a telco rather then investment companies, then we could all have FTTH today.

I've previously estimated that running Fibre to every home in Ireland would cost about 2 billion. Eircoms debt now stands at 4 billion, but was zero when it was privatised.

They could have built a national FTTH network twice over instead of investors using it as their private piggy bank. Another great success of the Celtic Tiger era.

What they can do today?

I honestly don't know. I don't see how this investment is going to help them compete against UPC. 40mb BB only versus 100 to 200mb from UPC, and a very crappy triple play product versus UPC, I just don't see how any of this helps Eircom.

lucernarian

I wouldn't say their triple play offering will be quite so crappy, the point is that we simply don't know what exactly eircom/magnet are going to offer to their customers and also many people I know have a very strong aversion to UPC from the NTL, Chorus and even Cablelink / Irish Multichannel days. The eircom brand itself may be worth an extra €5 or €10 to those people. There are also opportunities for e-mobile packages, the so-called quadruple play option.

Besides, rolling FTTH and I suppose FTTC is exactly what eircom need to do. FTTC will still leave the issue of people getting 10 mbps where the neighbour across the road can get 15 and so on. So in that respect, eircom's efforts are of marginal use as FTTC can only do so much in comparison to FTTH and hybrid fibre-coax networks.

Solair

Eircom don't really have much option here - they can either compete or die and they seem to be going for the slow death option.

A half-assed product simply will not cut it in the medium term, or even possibly the short term. They are already a decade behind the times.

Either they rollout fibre-to-home, or they just get out of the way and let someone else use their telecommunications licence as they will fold and bleed customers to UPC cable and possibly other companies as wireless technologies become faster, cheaper and more viable.

Other telephone operators in Europe and North America are pushing fibre down ducts to homes, clipping it onto overhead cables etc. It's not rocket science or some mysterious dark art, it's just fibre optic cable. It's basically bloody wiring!

IPTV will be a non-starter as Sky and UPC's product is vastly superior to any IPTV offering and this is a very heavily cable/sat penetrated market. If I were eircom, I'm not entirely sure I'd even bother with it as whatever they launch, unless it's over fibre, will be totally unable to compete if it's delivered over DSL.

IPTV tends to be more popular on the continent and perhaps in the UK as consumers have lower standards when it comes to television lineups. Bear in mind that many TV viewers in the UK, France etc watched TV straight off air with an antenna and only had about 6 channels until quite recently. That was relatively unusual in Ireland as most people seem to have had cable or satellite.

Quite honestly, I think if eircom don't go the full way to fibre-to-home, they might as well just forget it. It won't be a competitive offering.

Meanwhile, UPC will steam ahead with DOCSIS, DVB-C and a hybrid fibre-coax network that is already in place in most urban areas.

I think eircom would be better off doing something like teaming up with Sky and offering fibre/VDSL+Sky or, VDSL+Freesat with premium stuff delivered over IPTV.

They don't have the bandwidth on the local network to do a proper cable alternative.

lucernarian

Eircom's broadband availability is still far more extensive and so they virtually have a monopoly on proper broadband on maybe 25 to 30% of the country. Dozens of smaller towns and villages and properly rural areas. Areas that already have a phone network and won't need a massive amount of investment to maintain it. Especially since when Rex Comb took over eircom, a lot of the shoddy maintenance of the previous 5-10 years was remedied. They can continue milking a sizeable chunk of the market.

UPC have yet to cover over 50% of houses with DOCSIS broadband. I think it was towards the end of last year where they said 41% availability and that is increasing month on month. Eircom's availability is maybe at the mid 80%s but proper wireless operators complicate this so I estimate eircom will have a monopoly (or else are the cheapest option) for 25% or so of homes.

It's time all parties involved realise that there simply isn't enough return to pay back €3 to €4 billion in debt on the mediocre profits from more rural and outlying areas. They'd be better off on properly competing with UPC in fewer areas or else areas where UPC will cover in a year's time. Of course beyond Dublin UPC have remained tight-lipped on rollouts. But I doubt UPC will cover Letterkenny and yet that's where eircom want to bring FTTC to in their first phase! Maybe the staff are resistant to changing over to new technology, copper and fibre being utterly different to troubleshoot and maintain. The ESOT are supposedly investing in this if rumours I've read around boards are to believed.

I also completely agree on the sky partnership, there's massive potential for both companies if they coordinated some investment and made a proper triple-play bundle.

Basically at this rate it will be a slow death, but a very slow one all the same. STT's pockets are too big to ignore, much like UPC's are too big and we must remember that Chorus didn't change into a better company overnight when Liberty Global took over them.

jimmycrackcorm

I've wondered for some time why fibre cable could not be wrapped along the existing electricity network which already is in place connecting very premises in the country? I.e. what is the major cost factor - is it the actual cable? The labour? The support infrastructure?

It seems to me that this task is not as enormous to undertake in comparison with the rural electrification scheme decades ago, so why is it that, we cannot take the same approach given a head-start with the existing electricity backbone...

lucernarian

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I've wondered for some time why fibre cable could not be wrapped along the existing electricity network which already is in place connecting very premises in the country? I.e. what is the major cost factor - is it the actual cable? The labour? The support infrastructure?

It seems to me that this task is not as enormous to undertake in comparison with the rural electrification scheme decades ago, so why is it that, we cannot take the same approach given a head-start with the existing electricity backbone...

Possibly labour cost issues with ESB staff, the fact that much of the electricity network is overhead precisely because it's in rural areas and unlike phone line ducting which runs alongs the roads where houses are located too and the medium voltage network takes an ad-hoc route through fields to serve the maximum number of houses cheaply. As bungalow blitz progressed, extra spurs and branches existed to supply new one-off housing. So a rollout would have to be economic for the 10kV/20kV spurs and the houses served by them as well as the main 3-wire stretch that was put down during original rural electrification.

But if there was a commitment (i.e. some subsidy or capital investment by state) in the first place to try to bring fibre to every home, the ESB could do it if they wanted to. And possibly more cheaply than eircom in most rural areas! In conjunction with eircom using their underground ducting for the purpose. But it would take something akin to what the Australians are doing and that would take lots of money. Supplying 70% of houses with FTTH shouldn't cost much more than €1.5 billion.

funnyname

Re the ESB would some sort of nationwide "homeplug" technology be possible?

Sponge Bob

Nope. Only indoors.

zt-OctaviaN

funnyname wrote: »

Re the ESB would some sort of nationwide "homeplug" technology be possible?

Wasn't it trialed in Tuam co.Galway?

TheMilkyPirate

Got a letter in the post the other day about it, FTTH is all their offering in wexford town as far as i can make out so that's what i'll be getting

Their laying cables all around my street today so i'm happy camper.