ESB to create new fibre powered ISP

bk

It is already being discussed over on the Eircom Fibre thread, but I think this is huge news, the biggest news in the Irish Broadband market since UPC came to Ireland and thus deserves it's own thread.

It looks like the ESB are looking to create a new ISP in a joint venture where they will run their own fibre optic cable to the home using the ESB's overhead electrical poles and ducts:

http://www.etenders.gov.ie/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=SEP384475

This is massive news as it brings another very large and wealthy player to the market, but most importantly brings a third completely independent network to the market and it looks like they will be using the best and fastest technology available and have an advantage of using the ESB's existing infrastructure.

If done right, this could really shake up the Irish broadband market.

From the tender docs they say they plan on targeting urban and semi-urban areas outside Dublin. This sounds like they want to target non-rural areas not already serviced by UPC.

This makes a lot of sense, while Eircom might be targeting the same areas with their new VDSL2+ products, ESB's fibre to the building products would be able to offer speeds and prices that would easily blow Eircom away. However it would be much harder for them to compete with UPC, due to UPC's already high speeds.

Interestingly the ESB won't actually be selling broadband directly to customers, instead they will act as wholesalers and other ISP's can then buy capacity on the network to sell to customers.

I can certainly see BT (and thus Vodafone and Sky who use BT's network) signing up for this.

Interestingly UPC could also sign up to use it, to offer broadband and IPTV in areas they currently don't service.

Eircom would be the big losers with this news. However eventually they could also use this network, if they still exist!!

Very interesting times ahead

red dave

That's interestingly interesting.

Liamario

When could we anticipate movement on this. 2/3 years?

bk

Liamario wrote: »

When could we anticipate movement on this. 2/3 years?

Well if they do go ahead, I would expect quick movement on this over the next few months.

Now is their opportunity to do this, when Eircom are so weak and UPC haven't thought about expanding outside their core network yet.

Also it isn't actually particularly hard to do, the ESB already have a good fibre network and good experience of this.

Liamario

Interesting and exciting. The problem in my area with UPC is cables hanging everywhere and neighbours stopping cables hanging from their homes- therefore there are black spots.
UPC/eircom will either feel pressured to compete, or they will piggyback on Electric Ireland's network.

Solair

Either of them, but more likely UPC, could actually bid to be the joint venture partner as it would give them reach to non-cabled areas and much better duct access even in cabled areas where some housing estates / streets had patchy coverage due to lack of access for runs of coax.

AlmightyCushion

I imagine the ESB aren't the only national electricity company that has ducting going to a large number of premises. Has any other country rolled out wide scale FTTH this way?

Sponge Bob

You are entirely mistaken if you think they will duct most of this network. It will be strung overhead in the main.

http://www.prysmianusa.com/export/sites/prysmian-enNA/attach/pdf/Telecom/Technical_Literature_Methods_and_Procedures/MP_1012_Issue_3.pdf

Peregrine

So they're not going to compete with UPC in Dublin? Definitely another blow to eircom right now..
But it's very interesting and yeah it's massive and deserves it's own thread

Kristopherus

A most welcome development. The possibilities are endless. And ESB are in a very strong financial position too, so this proposal is well within their compass. Will be very interesting to see who the future partner(s) will be. For the ordinary punter, urban or rural, it brings the possibility of having bb via fibre within reach is a possibly short timeframe.

Praetorian

I am cautiously optimistic about this news. It could be wonderful for the country if the ESB are really serious about a rollout. They are the ideal company for such a task.

Have any other power company around done this before?

Who will get into bed with the ESB? Who would we want?

Riesen_Meal

Praetorian wrote: »

I am cautiously optimistic about this news. It could be wonderful for the country if the ESB are really serious about a rollout. They are the ideal company for such a task.

Have any other power company around done this before?

Who will get into bed with the ESB? Who would we want?

I live in rural north Dublin, and can get UPC TV service but not their broadband, but the town 3km up the road has it, does this mean technically if they got into bed with UPC, UPC just use ESB cables and are able to provide their full service?

Praetorian

Fieldog wrote: »

I live in rural north Dublin, and can get UPC TV service but not their broadband, but the town 3km up the road has it, does this mean technically if they got into bed with UPC, UPC just use ESB cables and are able to provide their full service?

Potentially Eircom could be your best bet for fast broadband as they will probably rollout to most areas in north Dublin eventually. UPC may also upgrade the area where you are so you can get their full services.

This ESB startup may never happen or we could be years away from actual products being rolled out.

Riesen_Meal

Praetorian wrote: »

Fieldog wrote: »

I live in rural north Dublin, and can get UPC TV service but not their broadband, but the town 3km up the road has it, does this mean technically if they got into bed with UPC, UPC just use ESB cables and are able to provide their full service?

Potentially Eircom could be your best bet for fast broadband as they will probably rollout to most areas in north Dublin eventually. UPC may also upgrade the area where you are so you can get their full services.

This ESB startup may never happen or we could be years away from actual products being rolled out.

Eircom and repackaged Eircom (I.e Voda DSL) is all I get anyway, and Vodafone say they could not guarantee any improvement over my 4mb...

Even if this brought me up to 10mb I would be pretty happy, preferably without Eircom in the picture as its just so expensive with line rental etc ...

Oracle

Praetorian wrote: »

.... This ESB startup may never happen or we could be years away from actual products being rolled out.

Yeah ESB announced a similar deal with Smart Telecom years ago, promising wonderful things, nothing ever came of it as far as I know.

I notice these ESB good news stories frequently coincide with ESB price rises ..... :rolleyes:

Sponge Bob

Oracle wrote: »

Yeah ESB announced a similar deal with Smart Telecom years ago

Still in use. The major NATIONAL network apart from eircoms is the ESB Network. However this network goes nowhere near businesses or residential areas and only sells capacity to Telcos....or Heanet between Dublin Galway Cork etc. The announcement is about connecting NON Telco premises and reselling those connections wholesale.

Oracle

Sponge Bob wrote: »

..... The announcement is about connecting NON Telco premises and reselling those connections wholesale.

The joint venture promised increases in broadband speed, availability, capacity and services that where never delivered:

.... This new infrastructure, along with changes in the regulatory environment for LLU will potentially allow Smart Telecom to target up to 1.5 million consumers with high capacity broadband services, a threefold increase of its current target market.

Smart Telecom will use this capacity to provide for the rollout of high capacity business and residential services, including IPTV.

With the impending ‘Next Generation’ strategy due for publication by the Minister for Communications, Eamon Ryan, later this week, Smart Telecom’s enhanced capacity will also potentially enable a significant increase in Smart’s LLU (Local loop unbundling) coverage.

Sponge Bob

Eamon Ryan never delivered anything either, apart from wind. Smart were simply customers of the ESB Fibre network...probably still are as Digiweb.

MrO

Oracle wrote: »

The joint venture promised increases in broadband speed, availability, capacity and services that where never delivered:

As SB said, that was not a joint venture.

bk

Also UPC do use the ESB fibre network outside Dublin allowing UPC to deliver speeds up to 100mb. So the ESB did deliver on what they originally promised.

I believe BT may also be using the ESB fibre network.

Anyway this is a whole different premise, delivering fibre to individual buildings and homes.

swoofer

dont get too excited these are the words " ESB is considering the feasibility of establishing a joint venture company to deploy fibre to the building (“FTTB”). "

in other words a load of bs.....

Big Lar

bk wrote: »

Anyway this is a whole different premise, delivering fibre to individual buildings and homes.

I doubt that they will be dropping fiber into every home in the country, I am thinking that this could be a commercial version of the home plugs that are already in use to extend ones Ethernet through their current house wiring.

bk

GBCULLEN wrote: »

dont get too excited these are the words " ESB is considering the feasibility of establishing a joint venture company to deploy fibre to the building (“FTTB”). "

in other words a load of bs.....

While it may or may not work out, I certainly wouldn't call it bs. They certainly wouldn't go to all the trouble of putting out a tender for this unless they were very serious about it.

The ESB have a very good reputation. They are wry well regarded internationally an have helped many third world countries build their power stations an electrical networks.

They are also well regarded in the telecommunications industry, with their existing fibre network.

Putting all this together has massive potential. Yes it may not happen, but everyone in Ireland takes the ESB very serious. They don't have a reputation for bs, unlike Eircom.

bk

Big Lar wrote: »

I doubt that they will be dropping fiber into every home in the country, I am thinking that this could be a commercial version of the home plugs that are already in use to extend ones Ethernet through their current house wiring.

While they obviously won't drop fibre to every house in the country it definitely isn't homeplug. Read the tender document I linked to above, it specifically says they want to build a FTTB network in urban and semi urban areas outside of Dublin.

FTTB means fibre to the building/basement. So while it might not necessarily mean fibre to every individual home, it will at least mean fibre to the basement of an apartment building or groups of homes, which could then be feed by Ethernet or VDSL over the last few meters.

Sponge Bob

It isnt outdoor homeplug (powerline bb) the ESB trialled 2 variants of that in TUAM some years back and both were ****e.

Big Lar

Whatever it will be, Do you think that they are in coohoots with Pat Rabbit to get the minimum 30mbs to all Ireland for the end of 2015.
NO SNIGGERING.

Bill Shock

Big Lar wrote: »

Whatever it will be, Do you think that they are in coohoots with Pat Rabbit to get the minimum 30mbs to all Ireland for the end of 2015.
NO SNIGGERING.

And do you seriously think ESB would be embarking on this without DCENR knowing about it (from both a telecoms policy perspective and as shareholder)?

charlie_says

I too am cautiously optimistic about this announcement. If it works by stringing fiber up on polls, it would be brilliant to get to people who can't get a decent service.

More competition is a good thing no?

Shane732

Sweet I was looking forward to 100mb broadband.

I hear the ESB will have this done by Christmas!!

:D:D

Heisenberg1

Would it be possible for a company to piggy back on Irish Rail's fibre network which is country wide from what I understand?

bk

luzon wrote: »

Would it be possible for a company to piggy back on Irish Rail's fibre network which is country wide from what I understand?

BT already make use of it and other companies could of course rent capacity on it too.

National fibre really isn't a problem, there is an awful lot of fibre in Ireland already, it is fibre to the last mile (to the home) that is the issue.

Shane732

bk wrote: »

BT already make use of it and other companies could of course rent capacity on it too.

National fibre really isn't a problem, there is an awful lot of fibre in Ireland already, it is fibre to the last mile (to the home) that is the issue.

How much does fibre to the last mile cost?

Sponge Bob

As this will be suspended overhead and not always dug in or wrapped I'd say the €300m they intend to spend should do around 400k premises.

They intend to do urban and semi urban areas only.

bk

SB where did you hear the €300 million figure?

This seems like a really sensible and solid plan by the ESB. UPC already dominate the 1/3 most densely populated (and thus valuable) part of the country, no point in trying to get into a difficult turf battle with them.

Instead target the next 2/3rd's of the country, yes less densely populated, but hopefully by using their own pre-existing infrastructure, they can keep the deployment costs down and make it commercially work.

I can see both BT, Sky and UPC jumping at the opportunity to use this network. It would allow them to quickly expand their network without high costs.

Eircom will be seriously stuffed by this, their current VDSL2+ investment will look pretty poor compared to this new network. Eircom could well be pushed out into the last 1/3rd and thus least valuable part of the country. To be honest if this actually happens, I can't really see Eircom surviving.

Headshot

rural areas getting ****ed over again. sigh

bk

Headshot wrote: »

rural areas getting ****ed over again. sigh

This is good news for rural areas.

What did you expect, that rural areas would get high speed broadband before urban and semi-urban areas. Was never going to happen.

The quicker the second 1/3 rd of the country gets done, the quicker rural areas may follow.

The only reason rural areas in Northern Ireland got done, is because commercial operators had already done the urban and semi-urban areas and the government then gave them extra money to help finance them extending their networks into the rural areas.

An extensive fibre network that covers 2/3rds of the country will be the back bone off which future improvements in rural areas can be made.

Eircom could use this fibre to power exchanges and VDSL cabs in rural areas. Mobile companies using LTE and fixed wireless companies can use this fibre network to deliver high speed wireless to rural areas.

Eventually in the long term rural areas could even get fibre to the home, by extending off this network. Even the ESB say they maybe interested in tapping the €175 million government grant for rural areas.

Headshot

tbf most of the urban areas have good broadband compared to rural areas. Hell rural areas are lucky they can get any kind of broadband at all

PogMoThoin

Rural broadband could benefit hugely from this. Most of the fixed wireless providers are surviving on radio links for their core network, lots of them using unlicensed spectrum. Having access to fibre could vastly improve their situation and enable them to offer more.

Sponge Bob

bk wrote: »

SB where did you hear the €300 million figure?

Sent you and Solair a PM. Can you confirm that my €300m figure is correct when you read that.

Sponge Bob

Sourced FROM HERE with only Pop Density in Small Areas ( average of 6 SA to 1 ED nationwide) switched on.

Question is, How Green will the ESB Go???.

Also see this other funky Visualiser/Data Picker HERE

You can pull BB and Comp and even Dialup Penetration stats off that first link too but BROADBAND AVAILABILITY determines computer penetration not the other way round. Bit of an allowance for age must be made too.

In 2006 we had 1.4m HOUSEHOLDS in 1.7m HOUSES. Aggregates HERE and in 2011 we had around 1.7m HOUSEHOLDS in 2.0m HOUSES.

So precisely which 20-25% of the State will they do guys!??

wheresmybeaver

Places like Midleton and Youghal would seem like obvious choices for this kind of broadband - they don't have UPC (correct me if I'm wrong) and Eircom are pretty much the only source of connectivity. There are about 4000 people directly in the town of Midleton and 6000 in the immediate surrounding area. Not sure about households.

bk

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Sent you and Solair a PM. Can you confirm that my €300m figure is correct when you read that.

Yup the €300m figure is correct. Never doubted it, just interested to see where it came from.

They actually say at least €300m, could be more.

They also interestingly say phase 1 will cover urban and semi-urban areas outside Dublin and that it will be a multi-year project. They also go onto say that there maybe future phases to cover Dublin and rural areas, but no guarantee.

All very interesting.

Sponge Bob

Ah. But there is an important fact.

Cable and VDSL will cover around 40-50% of the population in time...that is assuming eircom COMPLETE their VDSL rollout unlike the ADSL rollout that eircom abandoned .....incomplete.

Lets say they reach 50% between them at best. Neither UPC nor eircom give a ****e about the other 50% of the population.

The new MOBILE licences require 70% population coverage.

My guesstimate is that the ESB will do the RURAL FRINGES of large towns to get the 20% of the population in densely populated RURAL (ish) areas and NOT IN UPC/eircom VDSL TOWNS.

This would be a doughnut around 10 miles out around Galway and 15-20 miles around Cork and as much as 40 miles outside Dublin.

So I can see Midleton qualifying but not Youghal. eg Glanmire Midleton and all points in between them and Cork. It is instructive that Computer Penetration is very high within that Doughnut!

PC Ownership Penetration by Household and by Small Area (not by ED) 2011. (SOURCE)

IE2012

how will the eircom FTTC rollout affect, LLU exchanges?


will it make other LLU operators equipment in exchanges redundant, as the DSL component is being moved to the cab?

Sponge Bob

Yes it will make the LLU equipment redundant. That is a thorny issue may I add. Unbundling Fibre is another mess, eg the ESB proposes to use PONs in rural areas which are supersize fibre festoons up to 20km long where all the customers are chained one to the other and back to base on a ring. In towns and villages they will offer exclusive fibres to the premises. Easy to unbundle them.

WEIRDLY This means that rural customers on fibre will be like cable customers in towns today and urban customers on fibre will be like rural adsl customers today.

IE2012

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Yes it will make the LLU equipment redundant. That is a thorny issue may I add. Unbundling Fibre is another mess, eg the ESB proposes to use PONs in rural areas which are supersize fibre festoons up to 20km long where all the customers are chained one to the other and back to base on a ring. In towns and villages they will offer exclusive fibres to the premises. Easy to unbundle them.

WEIRDLY This means that rural customers on fibre will be like cable customers in towns today and urban customers on fibre will be like rural adsl customers today.

just thinking of how this will affect vodafone, as BT provide wholesale access to vodafone don't they?

will the FTTC rollout, force vodafone to become an eircom bitstream reseller for the FTTC?

bk

IE2012 wrote: »

just thinking of how this will affect vodafone, as BT provide wholesale access to vodafone don't they?

will the FTTC rollout, force vodafone to become an eircom bitstream reseller for the FTTC?

Vodafone already are an Eircom bitstream user. Or rather BT are, who then sell it to Vodafone. Vodafone use BT LLU where available, while they use Eircom Bitstream -> BT -> Vodafone for the rest of the country.

This will likely to continue in the future, with Vodafone/BT using BT's proposed LLU VDSL service where available. Then use Eircom bitstream and ESB fibre outside those areas.

Actually I wonder if this ESB proposal will kill BT's trial of their own VDSL2+ service?

Sponge Bob

Hard to say. I'd say BT are looking at the same areas as eircom but BT have 96 port cabs and can make a business case for smaller areas than eircom...who only have 192 port cabs.

I suspect BT have better GIS than eircom too.

Solair

From the perspective of any citizen or business in Ireland, I think this is actually a very positive move as it will mean that there might be some hope of bypassing the telecommunications bottleneck that eircom's access networks have become over the last decade or so.

I hope the Government sees it as a major opportunity to get some serious fibre to premises rollout!

I've researched this over the years and just have a good bit of general knowledge of the area but the history of telecommunications in Ireland has been far from a rosy one from a public policy point of view. It's actually been a history of the network crumbling, then a crisis causing state investment, followed by the network returning to a crumbling situation again.

1920s - Ireland's telecommunications infrastructure splits off from the UK GPO and the Irish Post Office (GPO) / Department of Posts and Telegraphs (P&T) takes over. Things are run pretty much as was and the network, while not wonderful, was reasonable for that era.

1930s - Some automation had been rolled out by then with dial service in Dublin, Cork etc. However, progress was very slow and a trade war with the UK (1932-1938) made it difficult for the Irish P&T to buy British equipment. That, and the general lack of investment / lack of funds sees the network stagnate and become quite poor.

WWII - Reasonable excuse for slippage. Not much could be done there.

1950s - 1980:
P&T Ran the worst excuse for a telephone network in Western Europe / developed world.
Minimal investment, ancient switches (other than a few Ericsson crossbars in selected urban areas), bad national connectivity (crackly, inaudible lines), bad / non existent international connectivity (still dependent on the UK GPO for most of it).
There had been a complete failure to rollout anything even approaching adequate automatic voice services and there were disastrously bad / non-existent data services.
By the early 1980s there were still Step-by-Step voice switches from the 1930s in service and operators plugging in cables into boards to connect calls. Something most countries had seen disappear in the 50's!

Customers were being expected to wait 2 years to get a line installed.

Many companies had to go without telephone service in many areas etc etc.

This can be partially explained because P&T was a Government Department, not a semi-state company, it also had endless political interference, and lacked proper corporate structures. It couldn't really do any of the things that a normal company would need to do e.g. manage its own finances and its employees were actual civil servants. TDs regularly got involved with really petty stuff like asking about constituents individual telephone line installations in the Dail!

Late 1970s - Early 1980s :

A national crisis situation developed (not dissimilar to the broadband situation now in some respects) where the state had to put telecommunications right or it was going to lose business / investment. Big pressure came on from Irish companies, IDA, and foreign companies who found the infrastructure ridiculously bad etc. The situation was just embarrassing and we were languishing at the bottom of all the international league tables.

1984: Restructure (Telecom Eireann was split from Post Office) and Government and European cash was lashed into new switching systems, microwave links, fibre etc.
There was a partnership with Alcatel (probably backed by French export loans and serious knowledge transfer with the French PTT) & an existing partnership with Ericsson was enhanced resulting in both companies deploying leading-edge tech in Ireland's network like some of earliest rollouts of digital switches anywhere in Europe. Ericsson and Alcatel also ended up spinning out quite a lot of IT jobs at the time in Ireland as part of the deal i.e. Alcatel in Bandon (Cork) (now gone) and Ericsson's sites at Athlone & Dun Laoghaire turned into R&D/Training facilities.

Mid-1980s - Starts to drastically improve into the 1990s ... Briefly leading edge. Results in a lot of companies locating customer contact, back office data processing for finance companies and other centres in Ireland.

Deal with struck with Motorola to setup Eircell TACS network (more knowledge transfer & spin off jobs via Motorola in Cork)

1990s - Internet age kicks off and EU opens up telecoms market, but Ireland, Greece and another few weirdly gets derogation on this. I'm not sure why as it made little sense in Ireland's case.

Telecoms market eventually opens in Ireland just before privatisation.

1999 - Privatised ... Briefly goes according to plan and ticks away as a PLC.

2000s - Vulture capitalists buy it out and take it fully private - Almost no investment and asset stripping ... Innovation stops almost entirely and the company rapidly becomes technological laggard again, this time with vast debt burden run up by leveraged take-over deals.

2010s - Failure to invest and innovate begins to see serious loss of market share as their main competitors (UPC in particular) are now 10+ years ahead of them, debts become unsustainable & the company goes into receivership.

Is this really the kind of organisation that we'd want to be dependent upon for our core telecommunication networks ?!?

To me they look like they've been a disaster for decades. I'm pretty sure the Government's probably looking at every way of bypassing them entirely!

We're back at a similar crossroads to the mess in late 1970s when P&T was a drag on the economy. Only this time it's a private company.

This ESB project might FINALLY lead to a proper neutral fibre access network that could see real broadband products being rolled out that actually put us back at the cutting edge again!

Sponge Bob

You are right eircom have been a disaster for 80 years now...bar a few years in the late 1980s early 1990s.

I forgot to mention earlier that ESB MAY HAVE applied for a 4G licence .....we don't know anything about that particular licencing process which is dragging on interminably up in the Comreg bunker.

SeaSide

Is this not really about ducting? ESB into houses for the last number of years has been by duct not direct buried or overhead line (in the cities / suburbs). Reasonable easy and cheapish to pull a fibre into a house through an existing duct. Fibre plus equipment should be less than 500 at a guess and at current 30/month that should be recovered pretty easily.

Now what am i missing?