Eircom eFibre VDSL/FTTC rollout – plans to reach 1.6m premises by mid 2016

Gonzo

the technology is also perfect for small towns and rural locations with the cabinets delivering decent broadband well beyond the local village/town. Large pockets of rural Meath, Kildare, Louth, Wicklow, Cork, Galway and a few other counties have house's dotted alongside all the countryside roads for miles on end, there would be a great uptake of these services with less people relying on mobile so called broadband etc. But Eircom seem only interested in the largest of towns where most people already get good speeds.

Mickalus

iMuse wrote: »

Checked a phone number in my estate (can't check my own number as im not with Eircom) and it says the 25/50 mb packages are available when they weren't a few weeks ago so hopefully it won't be too long before its available.

I'm not with Eircom either but my phone number works on their line checker.....

iMuse

Mickalus wrote: »

I'm not with Eircom either but my phone number works on their line checker.....

That's strange what ISP do you have? I'm on Smart, maybe because they use their own equipment my number isn't showing up.

smellslikeshoes

Gonzo wrote: »

Eircom are totally going about this the wrong way, they would gain far more customers to their new products if they launched them in rural locations and small towns across Ireland. I would take their new product up in a heartbeat but unfortunately there is no plans for anything greater than ADSL where I live and most of us in rural locations will be left struggling on 1-6meg connections for years to come. Eircom will not gain many new customers by installing this technology in mainly upc towns and streets trying to compete with a far cheaper and more powerfull competitor.

Sorry but what you are saying doesn't make any sense from a business point of view. Eircom have a virtual monopoly in small towns and rural areas. It's in the cities and urban areas where UPC are crucifying them and it's also the place where there is the most profit to be had. Why would they bother upgrading rural areas first where they have little to no competition.

Make no mistake, this whole rollout process is a reaction to UPC hammering them in the cities. Here is a link to an article showing just how quickly UPC are taking customers in urban areas. There have been similar numbers coming out every quarter for the last few years.

And before you think this is a "them mucksavages don't need the internet rant" I'm in the same position as yourself, would love it to come to my area but I know it's going to be many years before it happens.

Mickalus

iMuse wrote: »

That's strange what ISP do you have? I'm on Smart, maybe because they use their own equipment my number isn't showing up.

Could indeed be the reason. I'm currently with Digiweb. used to be with Eircom, then switched over. Pretty sure it's over eircom's equipment.

Praetorian

smelllikesshoes is totally right, that is why I think Eircom should concentrate on big Towns with no upc after they get a foothold in the cities.

Maybe we should compile a list of towns with little or no UPC where Eircom should go to next with phase 3

I will do North Co Dublin

1st, Balbriggan, Co Dublin, 11,000 lines or so and practically 0 UPC competition

2nd, Skerries, Co Dublin, 5000 lines and no upc competition

3rd, Rush & Lusk (i think it is one exchange), Co Dublin, 7000 lines and no upc.

Portmarnock, Donabate, Naul.

Oceans12

Praetorian wrote: »

smelllikesshoes is totally right, that is why I think Eircom should concentrate on big Towns with no upc after they get a foothold in the cities.

Maybe we should compile a list of towns with little or no UPC where Eircom should go to next with phase 3

I will do North Co Dublin

1st, Balbriggan, Co Dublin, 11,000 lines or so and practically 0 UPC competition

2nd, Skerries, Co Dublin, 5000 lines and no upc competition

3rd, Rush & Lusk (i think it is one exchange), Co Dublin, 7000 lines and no upc.

Portmarnock, Donabate, Naul.

Drogheda is on phase II, which is down to be completed end 2012, Drogheda , has no UPC and no real alternative to DSL for many parts of the town.

I seriously doubt that eircom will have FTTC / FTTH in Drogheda by end 2012.

lmimmfn

Praetorian wrote: »

smelllikesshoes is totally right, that is why I think Eircom should concentrate on big Towns with no upc after they get a foothold in the cities.

Maybe we should compile a list of towns with little or no UPC where Eircom should go to next with phase 3

I will do North Co Dublin

1st, Balbriggan, Co Dublin, 11,000 lines or so and practically 0 UPC competition

2nd, Skerries, Co Dublin, 5000 lines and no upc competition

3rd, Rush & Lusk (i think it is one exchange), Co Dublin, 7000 lines and no upc.

Portmarnock, Donabate, Naul.

Mullingar has a huge area not covered by UPC. UPC has bits and pieces of estates but there are huge estates in between with no UPC. I would easily say around 1500 houses within 1 mile of the town cant get UPC( possibly more, i didnt count lol ).

lucernarian

I would say it makes more sense for eircom to compete with UPC directly first, but for the fact that eircom's product is inferior anyway. Even their new FTTC equipment can no longer (strictly speaking) be used for phoneline alarms. This is one of the few technical advantages eircom had over UPC.

If they can get people to spend more on eircom products by using FTTC (i.e. revenue growth) and if they are unable to compete using FTTC in UPC areas then it would make more sense for UPC to focus on non-UPC urban areas. But I doubt that eircom's mediocre next generation offering is going to entice people to spend much more on them!

Sponge Bob

eircoms biggest problem is simple customer retention. they lost 1 in 6 residential customers in Bray in less than a year after UPC launched there last year.

In small towns where UPC and Wireless is not pressurising them they are not losing customers (net) although they are under pressure in the likes of Letterkenny from 3G.

eircom are losing more customers off NON DSL exchanges in rural areas than they are from enabled exchanges.

Here are the top 100 exchanges where eircom are losing retail customers in numeric terms right now. I think that 'fibre' customers are erroneously included in this data as they are no longer connected to the main exchange.

The top 100 exchanges account for around 1.4m of the 2.5m copper pairs on the network and most likely for almost all the 1m customers they intend to upgrade.

Blanchardstown
Bray
Tallaght
Dolphins Barn
Palmerstown
Priory Park
Belcamp
Mullingar
Crown Alley
Dunlaoghaire
Beggars Bush
Ballyboden
Rathmines
Walkinstown
Nutley
Cabra
Terenure
Swords
Finglas
Dundrum
Carlow
North Main
Churchfield
Waterford Central
Castlebar
Navan
Crumlin
Portlaoise
Clonmel
Dundalk
Wexford
Kilkenny
Roches Street
Nangor Road
Drogheda
Whitehall
Lucan Ballydowd
Naas
Coolock
Mervue
Rochestown
Shankill
Tralee
Merrion
Santry
Wellington Road
Quaker Road
Tycor
Lucan
Galway
Clontarf
Letterkenny
Killarney
Leixlip
Phibsboro
Shantalla
Cork Central
Sutton
Ship Street
Summerhill
Sandyford
Wexford Anne Street
Sandyford Aeh
Dooradoyle
Ashbourne
Tullamore
Portmarnock
Enniscorthy
Droichead Nua
Trim
Ennis
Customs Hs Docks
Malahide
Athy
Newlands Cross
Dunboyne
Rathcoole
Caherdavin
Balbriggan
Douglas
Maynooth
Ratoath
Celbridge
Sligo
Longford
Cavan
Clonee
Thurles
Loughrea
Ballincollig
Edenderry
Portarlington
Clonakilty
Nenagh
Clane
Ballina
Rathedmond
Arklow
Gorey
Dungarvan
Midleton
Dennehys Cross

SeaSide

Praetorian wrote: »

3rd, Rush & Lusk (i think it is one exchange), Co Dublin, 7000 lines and no upc.

UPC are offering service off the MAN in Lusk. Certain estates have UPC while others and parts of others don't.

Praetorian

SeaSide wrote: »

UPC are offering service off the MAN in Lusk. Certain estates have UPC while others and parts of others don't.

Strange UPC don't advertise Lusk on their own coverage map. It must be very few houses.

ct5amr2ig1nfhp

To my knowledge, most of Portmarnock has UPC - it was recabled about 2 years ago?

(not so sure about Old Portmarnock, although it's a pretty small area)

Praetorian wrote: »

smelllikesshoes is totally right, that is why I think Eircom should concentrate on big Towns with no upc after they get a foothold in the cities.

Maybe we should compile a list of towns with little or no UPC where Eircom should go to next with phase 3

I will do North Co Dublin

...

Portmarnock, Donabate, Naul.

brijay

speeds im getting with them http://www.speedtest.net/result/1952587301.png

bealtine

brijay wrote: »

speeds im getting with them http://www.speedtest.net/result/1952587301.png

That's nice...and how much does it cost?
The biggest bump on the FTTC/FTTH road is cost. If they(eircom) want to compete with UPC they need to be on a par price wise

Hogzy

bealtine wrote: »

That's nice...and how much does it cost?
The biggest bump on the FTTC/FTTH road is cost. If they(eircom) want to compete with UPC they need to be on a par price wise

Id be shocked if they matched UPC. I have an inkling Eircom will do a deal where the first few months will be cheaper than UPC but they remaining months will be more expensive than UPC's packages. That would be typical Eircom behaviour.

brijay

bealtine wrote: »

That's nice...and how much does it cost?
The biggest bump on the FTTC/FTTH road is cost. If they(eircom) want to compete with UPC they need to be on a par price wise

€65

Alun

No 'inklings' required, here's the pricing ...

http://www.eircom.net/broadband/fibre/

More expensive than UPC, but upload speeds are much higher, handy for these 'cloud' oriented times.

chops018

What areas is this available? Those are some stats the other guy posted, 143 mb per second!!!!

Praetorian

brijay wrote: »

speeds im getting with them http://www.speedtest.net/result/1952587301.png

FTTH is the holy grail of broadband. Superior to what UPC are offering. But Eircom / Magnet wont rollout much FTTH. So you are lucky to have it!

I wonder will UPC match or beat the 150 max product speed of Eircoms FTTH for the headlines? Of course Eircom /Magnet could ramp the speed upto probably a gigabit if they wanted to, but then it may make their FTTC products look slow in comparison.

Doylers

Praetorian wrote: »

FTTH is the holy grail of broadband. Superior to what UPC are offering. But Eircom / Magnet wont rollout much FTTH. So you are lucky to have it!

I wonder will UPC match or beat the 150 max product speed of Eircoms FTTH for the headlines? Of course Eircom /Magnet could ramp the speed upto probably a gigabit if they wanted to, but then it may make their FTTC products look slow in comparison.

What would the max speeds UPC would offer with current setup?

AdamD

AdamD wrote: »

I've checked 3 numbers that are all inside the green bits on their map and none of them come up with fibre power being offered?

This is regarding the dundrum area, if im in the green area and not eligible now does that mean I never will be?

bk

Praetorian wrote: »

I wonder will UPC match or beat the 150 max product speed of Eircoms FTTH for the headlines? Of course Eircom /Magnet could ramp the speed upto probably a gigabit if they wanted to, but then it may make their FTTC products look slow in comparison.

UPC could match and probably surpass the 150mb FTTH product with their existing DOCSIS 3 modems. They are currently using only 4 of the 8 channels that this modem supports, so higher speeds definitely possible.

They could also potentially increase the upload speed to at least match the FTTC product by using more channels if they wanted too.

That isn't to say they will, obviously they would need to make space for extra channels, but they certainly have the technical ability.

Also gigabit speeds are being sold on cable in other countries. Modern cable is theoretically capable of about 5 gigabit total bandwidth.

chops018

Imagine 1TB per second broadband.....will that day ever come?

AlmightyCushion

chops018 wrote: »

Imagine 1TB per second broadband.....will that day ever come?

Probably, it'll be a while though. Even if we had that now it would be pretty pointless. Your local network and computer would bottleneck it. No point having 1Tbps internet connection if your router only has 1Gb ethernet ports and your computers storage maxes out at 500MBps write speed.

PseudoFamous

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

your computers storage maxes out at 500MBps write speed.

Assuming you have a brand spanking new SSD, and even at that, it'd probably be full in about a minute.

Doylers

If I could just get that kinda speed to my external drive or NAS id be a happy camper

bealtine

Alun wrote: »

No 'inklings' required, here's the pricing ...

http://www.eircom.net/broadband/fibre/

More expensive than UPC, but upload speeds are much higher, handy for these 'cloud' oriented times.

Not too bad but still more expensive than UPC, better upload but much worse data allowance on the lowest product

Mickalus

So when Eircom launch Phase 1 , can other companies (such as Digiweb) piggy back off of it like they do with the copper infrastructure? or can eircom hog these Fibre lines and keep it all for themselves?

MrO

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Probably, it'll be a while though. Even if we had that now it would be pretty pointless. Your local network and computer would bottleneck it. No point having 1Tbps internet connection if your router only has 1Gb ethernet ports and your computers storage maxes out at 500MBps write speed.

It would make a nice change though...the local network bottlenecking the connection :-)