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

Villain

jca wrote: »

I have 4 family members living abroad, 2 in the Netherlands, one who lives in central Amsterdam on a kpn landline connection, my Eircom fttc is far superior to hers in both speed and reliability. The other sister is in Zwolle and she's also on a kpn supplied landline for BB and TV her reliability is good but dl speeds are less than half of mine. The other sister is in Washington DC, her supplier is a cable company, reliability is very good with dl speeds slightly below mine and her ul speed less than a quarter of mine. This rubbish that Ireland is way behind everyone else just isn't true. I don't know anyone with a greater than 20meg upload speed, do you?

I have more than 20mbps upload but its a custom PTP wireless connection from a private ISP that I work for

I know people in Hong Kong who have 1Gbps to their home and I know people in Latvia you have real fibre to the home that starts at 100mbps symmetrical.

For every person you know that has slower than Irish connections I can find two that have faster!

bk wrote:

I totally understand your relation, I do think there is a sweet point around 15mb/s for the vast majority of people at the moment.

I experienced it myself. I went from 16mb/s ADSL2+ to 120mb/s UPC and to be honest I experience almost no real world difference in download speed.

Most webpages (boards, facebook, etc.) loaded at exactly the same speed on both services and Netflix and Youtube HD worked perfectly fine on 16mb/s with no noticeable difference on UPC.

The odd big operating system download did come down a bit faster, but as that is something that you usually just kick off and come back to later, it didn't really make much of a difference. Mostly it seems I'm limited by the bandwidth of the server.

To be honest I would go as far as saying the extra download speed isn't worth the extra €14 a month I pay for UPC!

What has made a big difference and made it worth paying for is the increase in upload speed from 500kb/s to 10mb/s with UPC. This has been a revolution, it makes working from home so much easier and it also makes cloud services, uploading photos, video, etc. so much easier.

But I do think we are currently hitting the law of diminishing returns where the internet technologies that require more then 100mb/s just haven't materialised and there doesn't seem to be any technology on the horizon that will require speeds greater then 100mb/s

Don't get me wrong I'll be delighted if my ISP wants to give me 1gb/s, but despite being a techie, I just can't think of what I'd do with it. I think most people will be very happy with about 50mb/s and most won't be willing to pay a lot more for speeds faster then that.

I think we maybe hitting a "good enough" point in broadband speeds, similar to what we have seen in other tech industries (PC's, MP3's, Video Streaming Quality, even Smartphones).

15mbps may be ok for one or two light users but put 4 people in a house with two watching HD streams from Netflix one gaming and another streaming spottily etc and it will soon choke.

The upload speed restrictions are the real killer, I have two IP security cameras that constantly use 2mbps so once I want to upload anything a standard eFibre connection would choke and latency would suffer.

The move to streaming services is driving huge increases in traffic, just look at the growth at INEX to see that.

The next generation will using more and more services online and 4k streams etc will become the norm.

We need to be rolling out FTTH not something that just has fibre in the name as a marketing scam.

jca

Villain wrote: »

I have more than 20mbps upload but its a custom PTP wireless connection from a private ISP that I work for

I know people in Hong Kong who have 1Gbps to their home and I know people in Latvia you have real fibre to the home that starts at 100mbps symmetrical.

For every person you know that has slower than Irish connections I can find two that have faster!



15mbps may be ok for one or two light users but put 4 people in a house with two watching HD streams from Netflix one gaming and another streaming spottily etc and it will soon choke.

The upload speed restrictions are the real killer, I have two IP security cameras that constantly use 2mbps so once I want to upload anything a standard eFibre connection would choke and latency would suffer.

The move to streaming services is driving huge increases in traffic, just look at the growth at INEX to see that.

The next generation will using more and more services online and 4k streams etc will become the norm.

We need to be rolling out FTTH not something that just has fibre in the name as a marketing scam.

It has fibre in the name because, in my case anyway, more than 80% of the copper has been removed from my line and replaced by fibre. It isn't a marketing scam much of the copper has been replaced by fibre.

yuloni

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jca

yuloni wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Ridiculous post and not very helpful.

yuloni

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bk

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

Does anyone know if UPC offer the same speeds they do in the other countries they operate in as they do here?

They are roughly in line with what UPC offer in other countries.

However in Poland they currently offer 250/20mb/s and are currently trialling 500mb/s in 4 cities! So hopefully an indication of what might be coming to Ireland soon. In particular the upload speeds.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Haggle harder

I only get Broadband from UPC. I don't believe they haggle on broadband only packages.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

IIRC they aren't planning to go head to head with UPC they'll target other suburban areas first.

Yes, but if Eircom starts to do FTTH to compete with the ESB, then they might also bring it to UPC areas.

Also as you point out ESB think long term about infrastructure investment. While they might not be competing with UPC in the first two phases, once the technology matures, they might decide to start into UPC areas.

I certainly wouldn't be getting complacent if I was UPC!

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

If they buy into a mobile operator it'll be really interesting

At present UPC also offer about 3mb wifi if you are near someone else's home and you can use internet on your mobile to make international calls at your home rates which usually means 400 minutes free for most places. All of the efibre providers require extra charges or plans for anything off the island.

of course faster upload would be nice but UPC means free phone , free calls and lots of wifi hotspots

Well UPC has signed an agreement with Three to use Three/o2's network as a new MVNO mobile operator:

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/37097-upc-signs-mvno-deal-with-th

UPC seems to be planning to launch mobile networks across Europe. As you say UPC seems to have a plan to use their extensive, European wide wifi network to offload as much data as possible. With EU roaming charges going away next year, it could all lead to a powerful new operator in the market.

bk

Just came across this super interest animation of various FTTx technologies from Alcatel Lucent:

http://www2.alcatel-lucent.com/micro-nodes/animation/

Particularly interesting is their 16 and 48 port Micro VDSL2 ISAMS that can be mounted on walls, poles and in manholes.

This sort of technology could be very useful to help bring high speed Broadband to more rural, dispersed areas with smaller numbers of homes.

Now I'm not saying Eircom will use this, just that the technology does exist.

DoYouEvenLift

bk wrote: »

They are roughly in line with what UPC offer in other countries.

However in Poland they currently offer 250/20mb/s and are currently trialling 500mb/s in 4 cities! So hopefully an indication of what might be coming to Ireland soon. In particular the upload speeds.

And you say they may be working on launching a mobile phone network now also? That could be huge if they managed to have the cheapest rates for international calls/texts in the European countries they operate in at least, or else if there was no extra cost for calling and texting other people on their network who live in the other countries. Oh lawd, I welcome our new UPC overlords, glad to see eircom be put under pressure like they have been.

lucernarian

bk wrote: »

Just came across this super interest animation of various FTTx technologies from Alcatel Lucent:

http://www2.alcatel-lucent.com/micro-nodes/animation/

Particularly interesting is their 16 and 48 port Micro VDSL2 ISAMS that can be mounted on walls, poles and in manholes.

This sort of technology could be very useful to help bring high speed Broadband to more rural, dispersed areas with smaller numbers of homes.

Now I'm not saying Eircom will use this, just that the technology does exist.

This was talked about way back in 2005 and earlier, with pole mounted dslams that could be fed with bonded pairs and hdsl or cabinetized dslams which have been around for a decade too. And reducing prequal conditions for ADSL? BT had offered possible service to lines up to 10km long while eircom were automatically disqualifying lines that measured higher than 54dB attenuation.

The use of vectoring has been a real innovation but that doesn't really translate into an extension of reach, and that takes extra work. If eircom plans to reach 1.6 million premises, how much of that will include business in urban or semi-urban areas like business parks, where the existing phone network is already generally cabinetised?

What proportion of people's homes will not be "reached" by the end of 2016?

This tech is very useful for provision in rural areas. But not once have eircom shown an intent to use innovations to provide broadband in rural ireland more expansively, unless huawei plonking one of their units beside a rural cabinet would count...

bk

lucernarian wrote: »

What proportion of people's homes will not be "reached" by the end of 2016?

There are roughly 2 million premises in Ireland. That figure includes both homes and business. Eircom are already up to 1 million premises or about 50% of all premises. At 1.6 million premises that will be about 80% of all premises in Ireland.

Given that Ireland is about 60% urban, that means that 20% represents about half of all rural homes.

Yes that will leave about half of rural homes without high speed broadband and that will be the hard remaining 20% to do. These premises will likely need to be covered by the National Broadband Scheme, with subsidies from the government and perhaps technology like fibre feed fixed wireless access.

lucernarian wrote: »

This tech is very useful for provision in rural areas. But not once have eircom shown an intent to use innovations to provide broadband in rural ireland more expansively, unless huawei plonking one of their units beside a rural cabinet would count...

Well in fairness, until 3 years ago, Eircom never showed any interest in offering high speed broadband to anyone! Yet there seems to have been a titanic shift at Eircom and the rollout of VDSL is one of the fastest and most impressive network rollouts we have ever seen.

Hopefully this shows us a new Eircom and that when they finish bringing VDSL to the low hanging fruit, that they will continue into rural areas and start using more interesting technology like these micro ISAMS and FTTdp to bring high speed broadband to more rural areas.

There are already clear signs of them taking rural areas more seriously now with them already installing VDSL cabs in many rural areas and there current plan to hit half of rural homes with VDSL. Times are definitely changing.

Johnboy1951

bk wrote:

There are roughly 2 million premises in Ireland. That figure includes both homes and business. Eircom are already up to 1 million premises or about 50% of all premises. At 1.6 million premises that will be about 80% of all premises in Ireland.

Given that Ireland is about 60% urban, that means that 20% represents about half of all rural homes.

Are there any figures available around the existing customer base of Eircom? What percentage of them can actually get real high speed broadband, and what percentage of those actually signed up for it?

bk

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Are there any figures available around the existing customer base of Eircom? What percentage of them can actually get real high speed broadband, and what percentage of those actually signed up for it?

Well the published official figures at the start of September are as so:

- 1 Million premises can receive VDSL:

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/38241-eircom-passes-1-millionth-f/

- 133,000 (about 13% uptake rate) have taken up eFibre:

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/business/item/38126-eircom-slows-revenue-declin/

Now I've no official confirmation of this, but from what I've heard 70% of homes connected to VDSL can receive 70mb/s or faster.

This is an excellent figure, but I would expect it to drop in time. The initial rollout of VDSL was to high density urban areas and thus relatively short runs. As they continue to expand into more rural areas with longer lines, then I would expect the average to drop.

Villain

bk wrote: »

Well the published official figures at the start of September are as so:

- 1 Million premises can receive VDSL:

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/38241-eircom-passes-1-millionth-f/

- 133,000 (about 13% uptake rate) have taken up eFibre:

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/business/item/38126-eircom-slows-revenue-declin/

Now I've no official confirmation of this, but from what I've heard 70% of homes connected to VDSL can receive 70mb/s or faster.

This is an excellent figure, but I would expect it to drop in time. The initial rollout of VDSL was to high density urban areas and thus relatively short runs. As they continue to expand into more rural areas with longer lines, then I would expect the average to drop.

My parents signed up for eFibre yesterday, a stunning 7mb is what the line test showed i.e. VDSL does not mean high speed in many cases.

I doubt that 70% figure is accurate but as you say even if it is close to that it will drop once the rural exchanges are enabled.

jca

Villain wrote: »

My parents signed up for eFibre yesterday, a stunning 7mb is what the line test showed i.e. VDSL does not mean high speed in many cases.

I doubt that 70% figure is accurate but as you say even if it is close to that it will drop once the rural exchanges are enabled.

What was their speed before vdsl?

Villain

jca wrote: »

What was their speed before vdsl?

3mb

jca

Villain wrote: »

3mb

More than double, not bad.

murphaph

Ultimately we can probably all agree that FTTH is the ultimate goal but you have to have some sort of structured network so even if they were to skip VDSL and go to FTTH they'd still need to install cabinets at local level to provide that structure to mux the individual fibres to premises onto the "trunk" fibre. The VDSL cabinets are FTTH ready, so they are a (very important) step towards FTTH. In the meantime the speeds offered to most VDSL customers are more than enough, but yes, in the medium term they won't be when broadcasting as we know it ceases and almost everything goes "on demand" (this will happen, except for things that are more interesting live, like sport).

I find it sad that people can see such negativity in the Irish BB market. It's incredible what's happening there.

jca

murphaph wrote: »

Ultimately we can probably all agree that FTTH is the ultimate goal but you have to have some sort of structured network so even if they were to skip VDSL and go to FTTH they'd still need to install cabinets at local level to provide that structure to mux the individual fibres to premises onto the "trunk" fibre. The VDSL cabinets are FTTH ready, so they are a (very important) step towards FTTH. In the meantime the speeds offered to most VDSL customers are more than enough, but yes, in the medium term they won't be when broadcasting as we know it ceases and almost everything goes "on demand" (this will happen, except for things that are more interesting live, like sport).

I find it sad that people can see such negativity in the Irish BB market. It's incredible what's happening there.

I'm with you on this one. I think it's an amazing leap when you consider that 9 years ago I had 0.5 meg and now enjoy 70 meg. As it is my children watch everything online, either via streaming sites or sky on demand.

Villain

jca wrote: »

More than double, not bad.

Not bad? Have to agree to disagree, as 7mbps with the latest so called fibre product is a complete joke imo.

Mayo Yid

Villain wrote: »

Not bad? Have to agree to disagree, as 7mbps with the latest so called fibre product is a complete joke imo.

You do realise that without Government funding you will not see ftth, no private company can afford to do it.

ED E

Villain wrote: »

Not bad? Have to agree to disagree, as 7mbps with the latest so called fibre product is a complete joke imo.

Most likely the home is reasonably remote. Ill have 500Mbps long before you have 50. Thats how it goes.

Villain

Mayo Yid wrote: »

You do realise that without Government funding you will not see ftth, no private company can afford to do it.

Of course it requires state funding, I just wish they would do something concrete rather promising speeds then rolling back like Pat Rabbite did.

Hackery

Villain wrote: »

My parents signed up for eFibre yesterday, a stunning 7mb is what the line test showed i.e. VDSL does not mean high speed in many cases.

I doubt that 70% figure is accurate but as you say even if it is close to that it will drop once the rural exchanges are enabled.

70% seems right, it may even be higher. If your home is within 600m of a cabinet you can expect 70Mbps. Based on the eircom Wholesale cabinet map the huge majority of people served by a cabinet would be in this range. The amount of premises 2kms from a cab and therefore receiving 7Mbps would be negligible, around 1% i would guess.

Villain

Hackery wrote: »

70% seems right, it may even be higher. If your home is within 600m of a cabinet you can expect 70Mbps. Based on the eircom Wholesale cabinet map the huge majority of people served by a cabinet would be in this range. The amount of premises 2kms from a cab and therefore receiving 7Mbps would be negligible, around 1% i would guess.

All of the above is correct for Urban areas sadly not for rural areas.

bk

Villain wrote: »

All of the above is correct for Urban areas sadly not for rural areas.

True, but as the majority of people live in urban areas 60% and so far VDSL has mostly been rolled out in urban areas first, you can see why the figure of 70% of people getting 70mb/s or more looks accurate.

Of course as VDSL is rolled out into more rural areas that figure will drop.

But you have to admit, that the majority of people in urban areas getting 70mb/s or more is fantastic news for the health of the Irish BB market.

Cabinitised VDSL isn't as good news for rural areas, but it is still much better then what was there before and as murphaph points us it builds a dense network infrastructure that will be the foundation of FTTH and FTTdp in future.

ED E

Villain wrote: »

All of the above is correct for Urban areas sadly not for rural areas.

You're missing the point. For everyone 1 rural cab there will be 15 urban/suburban ones. So statistically most will obtain 70+.

Villain

ED E wrote: »

You're missing the point. For everyone 1 rural cab there will be 15 urban/suburban ones. So statistically most will obtain 70+.

You are missing my point, statistically most Urban areas will obtain 70+, rural areas will not

bk wrote:

True, but as the majority of people live in urban areas 60% and so far VDSL has mostly been rolled out in urban areas first, you can see why the figure of 70% of people getting 70mb/s or more looks accurate.

Of course as VDSL is rolled out into more rural areas that figure will drop.

But you have to admit, that the majority of people in urban areas getting 70mb/s or more is fantastic news for the health of the Irish BB market.

Cabinitised VDSL isn't as good news for rural areas, but it is still much better then what was there before and as murphaph points us it builds a dense network infrastructure that will be the foundation of FTTH and FTTdp in future.

It fantastic news for Urban areas compared to what the previous options are but that's a bit like giving a fella with a bicycle a Honda 50 and telling him how fantastic his new speed is, I'd rather see him having a 250cc if you get my point.

VDSL is an improvement for those in urban areas and close to urban areas but its still a long way off being where I think we should be. However I am probably sounding like a broken record now so no point going around in circles

gerryk

True, but these days I'd settle for the Honda 50... I'd even take the feckin' bicycle instead of the kiddie's trike I have to deal with.

Villain wrote: »

You are missing my point, statistically most Urban areas will obtain 70+, rural areas will not




It fantastic news for Urban areas compared to what the previous options are but that's a bit like giving a fella with a bicycle a Honda 50 and telling him how fantastic his new speed is, I'd rather see him having a 250cc if you get my point.

VDSL is an improvement for those in urban areas and close to urban areas but its still a long way off being where I think we should be. However I am probably sounding like a broken record now so no point going around in circles

bk

The point this VDSL rollout is fantastic news for the majority of people and is in fact highly benefiting the majority of people.

It even benefits people in rural areas. Those close to a VDSL cab will see speeds comparable to urban areas. Every one living or working in a village will now potentially see speeds of 70mb/s or greater, where previously the local exchange might only have had ADSL and no fibre backhaul, thus a massive improvement.

Also where previously there might have only been one exchange in a village, there often is 3 or 4 or more cabs. This brings a lot more people closer to the connection point and thus high speeds.

Hell even for those far out it can be an improvement. For instance your parents doubling their speed from 3mb/s to 7mb/s is a nice improvement. It gives them a much more stable connection and allows them to do HD video streaming where they couldn't previously.

So while it won't immediately benefit everyone in rural in Ireland, it is in fact already benefiting a lot of people in rural Ireland.

But you continue to miss the most important point. The very extensive VDSL network builds a fantastic foundation for other technologies to reach more distant rural customers.

The VDSL network will be the basis from which FTTH, FTTdp will be rolled out from in future and it can also bring fibre backhaul to 4G and fixed wireless access.

4G and Fixed wireless access (in particular) powered by fibre will be the short term solution to bringing decent speeds to distant (for a village) rural customers. Acting as a stop gap until FTTH, FTTdp is eventually brought to them.

But don't kid yourself, non of that would be possible without the FTTC network being in place in the first place. Really you just have to be patient.

Villain

bk wrote: »

But you continue to miss the most important point. The very extensive VDSL network builds a fantastic foundation for other technologies to reach more distant rural customers.

The VDSL network will be the basis from which FTTH, FTTdp will be rolled out from in future and it can also bring fibre backhaul to 4G and fixed wireless access.

4G and Fixed wireless access (in particular) powered by fibre will be the short term solution to bringing decent speeds to distant (for a village) rural customers. Acting as a stop gap until FTTH, FTTdp is eventually brought to them.

But don't kid yourself, non of that would be possible without the FTTC network being in place in the first place. Really you just have to be patient.

FTTC has not and will not help fixed wireless.

It may be a basis for Eircom to deliver something close to real fibre connectivity in the future to populated areas but my main issue, which you don't share, is that I believe we should be there already.

Hopefully a rising economy and some proper research will result in the Government funding the ESB to deliver FTTH everywhere and then Eircom can leave the pitch