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

gerryk

Alsalmo wrote: »

I live in Naas and a "promoted" post from eircom appeared in my Twitter account yesterday inviting me to sign up for 1,000 Mbps broadband.

We have had up to 100 Mb for a while (I get about 57), and wonder if this is happening, or is promised, for many locations.

Really? Wow... and I'm still getting <3Mb

thund3rbird_

Portlawslim wrote: »

Saw a KN engineer at my local cab today and my colour has changed on the map to a nearer date. saw to lads pulling cable to the cab on Tuesday.
what I'm wondering is do they pull cable to the location of the cab before the put the new fibre cab in place?
I'm thinking it could be a new line for the newly built fire station around the corner from me but the cable looked fairly hefty....here's hoping

FYI - been a while since your post but fibre will allegedly be available 29th July

you prob already got post off eircom telling you you are in an efibre area

lawred2

how far into this rollout are we? 50%, 75% etc

ED E

lawred2 wrote: »

how far into this rollout are we? 50%, 75% etc

you can count the cabs on the map if you like...

lawred2

ED E wrote: »

you can count the cabs on the map if you like...

lol fu*k that

so no official stats then

Johnboy1951

lawred2 wrote: »

lol fu*k that

so no official stats then

My local village is at 0% .... none of the proposed cabs are built out yet

lawred2

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

My local village is at 0% .... none of the proposed cabs are built out yet

bk

lawred2 wrote: »

how far into this rollout are we? 50%, 75% etc

1.2 million premises as of June this year.

1.9 million by 2016

http://www.openeir.ie/news/NGA_rollout_extended_to_1_9M_premises/

lawred2

bk wrote: »

1.2 million premises as of June this year.

1.9 million by 2016

http://www.openeir.ie/news/NGA_rollout_extended_to_1_9M_premises/

63%

I hope we're somewhere in the outstanding 37%

Petroglyph

I'm in Naas, and a sales rep just called to the door. Offered TV, broadband and phone for 30euro for the first 4 months and then 60euro after (website says it goes up to 77). Not a bad deal - currently on UPC for 79 a month.

Tempting, but would like to hear some feedback on the service.

murphaph

lawred2 wrote: »

63%

I hope we're somewhere in the outstanding 37%

I think it's actually 1.6m FTTC planned by 2016 (it was 1.4 and they added another 200k to the plan last year). The other 300k would be via FTTH (the outlying ribbon development within a few km of towns usually). If you are in a built up area (not ribbon or one off) you've a fair shot of being covered by FTTC, unless you are direct fed from the exchange, in which case eVDSL might be of benefit, depending on distance to exchange.

bk

Actually it is a little confusing and Eircom say different numbers in different press releases.

Putting them all together, I believe 1.2 million is 50% of all Irish premises, that is where they were as of June.

They plan on hitting 1.6 million (70% of all) by 2016 and 1.9 million (80% of all) by 2020.

That leaves 20% (480,000) premises for the NBP.

bk

Petroglyph wrote: »

Tempting, but would like to hear some feedback on the service.

I assume that if VDSL/FTTC, not FTTH.

VDSL/FTTC only goes up to a maximum of 100Mb/s, but it depends on your distance form the exchange. It can be as low as 7Mb/s. UPC on the other hand offer a real 240Mb/s

Also their TV service operates over IPTV and isn't so great. As it operates over IPTV it actually takes as much as 20Mb/s of you broadband. UPC TV on the other hand doesn't effect their broadband.

To be honest, I wouldn't risk it for the sake of a few euros. What I would do is call UPC, tell them this offer Eircom has made you and that you are thinking of moving, usually UPC will give you a special deal for 6 months that at least matches what Eircom offered in order to keep you.

So you end up keeping the better service, pay less and don;t have the trouble of switching.

12 element

I know there's probably no definite answer for this but does anyone know how long it normally takes for the fibre cab to go live after it is installed beside the copper cab? My local cabinet had just been put in place!

jca

12 element wrote: »

I know there's probably no definite answer for this but does anyone know how long it normally takes for the fibre cab to go live after it is installed beside the copper cab? My local cabinet had just been put in place!

I have fttc since Dec 2013 I was one of the first to be connected to my cabinet according to the KN guy. The fibre cabinet was placed in the August, powered up in November and went live the first week in December. Four months of nail biting torture:pac:. Hard to believe I have fttc almost 2 years.

lawred2

Petroglyph wrote: »

I'm in Naas, and a sales rep just called to the door. Offered TV, broadband and phone for 30euro for the first 4 months and then 60euro after (website says it goes up to 77). Not a bad deal - currently on UPC for 79 a month.

Tempting, but would like to hear some feedback on the service.

You would be clinically insane to leave UPC for eircom

mikedoherty99

Why is the efibre rollout so slow?

Wouldn't it be better to hire a load more staff and get it done quickly.There seemed to be no problem when it was water meters to be installed

bk

mikedoherty99 wrote: »

Why is the efibre rollout so slow?

Wouldn't it be better to hire a load more staff and get it done quickly.There seemed to be no problem when it was water meters to be installed

Slow!! The FTTC rollout has been one of the quickest rollouts of a broadband network I've seen anywhere in Europe!

As for the reason you can't simply hire more staff like that, is because it is a fairly skilled job that requires a good bit of training. Not any old builder can just learn to splice fiber and the fiber splicing gear is really expensive so that limits the number of crews you can have.

Installing water meters is incredibly simple in comparison, just dig a hole and attach meter to a water pipe.

Installing FTTC involves, pushing fiber through ducts, slicing fiber, building a base for the FTTC cab, bringing electric power to the cab, installing the cab on the base, connecting the fiber and power to the cab, connecting the copper from the copper cab to the FTTC cab.

Way more complicated and skilled then installing water meters.

Also there is probably the issue of how quickly Huawei could build the FTTC cabs, which are rather complicated pieces of equipment.

mikedoherty99

bk wrote: »

Installing FTTC involves, pushing fiber through ducts, slicing fiber, building a base for the FTTC cab, bringing electric power to the cab, installing the cab on the base, connecting the fiber and power to the cab, connecting the copper from the copper cab to the FTTC cab.
.

Only a small.portion of the works you outlined appears to be highly skilled

bk

mikedoherty99 wrote: »

Only a small.portion of the works you outlined appears to be highly skilled

Really, you think all of the following looks easy and unskilled!













Note the pictures above are from BT in the UK, but the process is exactly the same for Eircom here.

I'll remind you the both the electrification of Ireland and building the phone network took decades. While obviously not as complicated, the fact that Eircom has rolled out FTTC to 1.2million homes in just 3 years is outstanding progress and long may it last.

marno21

bk wrote: »

Really, you think all of the following looks easy and unskilled!

Note the pictures above are from BT in the UK, but the process is exactly the same for Eircom here.

I'll remind you the both the electrification of Ireland and building the phone network took decades. While obviously not as complicated, the fact that Eircom has rolled out FTTC to 1.2million homes in just 3 years is outstanding progress and long may it last.

The eFibre rollout progressed very well at the start of the summer but appears to have ground to a halt, there are very few exchanges being turned on these days and a lot seem to have been long fingered

bk

marno21 wrote: »

The eFibre rollout progressed very well at the start of the summer but appears to have ground to a halt, there are very few exchanges being turned on these days and a lot seem to have been long fingered

From the outside it looks like they have turned their attention from installing the FTTC cabs to switching on Exchange launched VDSL, which is understandable as it is an easy way to get decent speeds to another 300,000 customers.

They have also seemingly turned their attention to FTTH.

It is questionable if this is good or bad thing, but understandable from a business perspective given the pressure they most be feeling from SIRO and wanting to win a large chunk of the NBP.

Basically in whatever areas they lose the NBP contract, they lose these customers for the next 50 years (at least at the wholesale level).

I expect that the planners have spent the last few months scrambling to plan the FTTH rollout and the installers are being trained up on FTTH tech. So while it might seem relatively quiet on the ground, I expect an awful lot of work is happening behind the scenes.

mikedoherty99

marno21 wrote: »

The eFibre rollout progressed very well at the start of the summer but appears to have ground to a halt, there are very few exchanges being turned on these days and a lot seem to have been long fingered

There doesn't appear to be enough manpower for the final technical end of the work leading to long delays

Pulling cables ,setting cabinets in concrete etc. ,electrical supplies isn't too complicated

murphaph

Some people are never happy. The fttc roll out in Ireland has been done at a blistering pace.

mass_debater

murphaph wrote: »

Some people are never happy. The fttc roll out in Ireland has been done at a blistering pace.

Exactly this, Eircom deserve lots of credit for the way they sorted their debts and got this ruled out while completely broke.

Manc Red

I can "get" efibre. The only problem is the fastest speed I can get on efibre is 5Mb. I can get 12Mb with regular broadband. I don't doubt that this is one of the fastest fibre rollouts but I would be very suspicious of the numbers. There's five other houses within 200 meters around me that are in a similar situation to myself. If these lines are included in the figures of homes that can receive efibre then those figures are unjustly inflated to me.

eircom is also one of worst companies I've had to deal with in terms of getting reliable information. I was constantly told over two years ago that we could receive fibre broadband. Only to be two years down the line with 12Mb broadband. Now I'm fine with not getting FTTC. I realise that our cabinet is too far away for it however we now can't receive FTTH.

We are in a built up area, well within the zone and the blue fibre line on the maps on the website runs on the main road in front of us. The only problem I can think of is that we are 50-60 meters from the main road. Is this why we can't get it? Possibly but I would like to find out if there is a way I can rectify it if it is the issue. As of right now, I can't get an answer as to if we will ever be able to receive broadband over 12Mb.

It's not looking good at the minute as I would assume the reason eircom won't supply us with FTTH is that we are too far away from the main road. They would need to supply us more fibre which probably isn't cost effective. I can understand that but they should at least have a policy explaining that to the customers in these and other similar situations.

bk

Manc Red, if the blue line is passing along the road in front of your house, then that is very good news and you will likely to be able to get FTTH in future.

The reason you can't order it at the moment, is because they haven't actually started building it out yet and they are likely to only release areas for order when they have worked on the area, similar to how FTTC was rolled out.

The blue line seems to be basically the areas they plan on FTTH enabling over the next 3 years. So I'm afriad you are just going to have to be patient.

MajesticDonkey

bk wrote: »

So I'm afriad you are just going to have to be patient.

But it will be worth waiting for

Manc Red

bk wrote: »

Manc Red, if the blue line is passing along the road in front of your house, then that is very good news and you will likely to be able to get FTTH in future.

The reason you can't order it at the moment, is because they haven't actually started building it out yet and they are likely to only release areas for order when they have worked on the area, similar to how FTTC was rolled out.

The blue line seems to be basically the areas they plan on FTTH enabling over the next 3 years. So I'm afriad you are just going to have to be patient.

Well that's good to hear.

We are in one of the first towns for it to go live and the line checker said we could only get regular efibre (FTTC). We are a good distance off the main road so I was assuming they won't supply us with it. There are three other houses along the same lane as ours so hopefully they will.

Side note:
I just noticed that the blue line runs and ends at someone's house. It goes up their lane way and directly to their home and ends there. This is unusual as I don't see the blue line running through any estates in the same area, just main roads.

padraig.od

Manc Red wrote: »

Well that's good to hear.

We are in one of the first towns for it to go live and the line checker said we could only get regular efibre (FTTC). We are a good distance off the main road so I was assuming they won't supply us with it. There are three other houses along the same lane as ours so hopefully they will.

Side note:
I just noticed that the blue line runs and ends at someone's house. It goes up their lane way and directly to their home and ends there. This is unusual as I don't see the blue line running through any estates in the same area, just main roads.

what map are you getting this information from?