SIRO - ESB/Vodafone Fibre To The Home

bk

Before you sprout so much rubbish about Norway, I recommend you actually go educate yourself about it first!

Here you go, an excellent thesis paper on FTTH in Norway:

http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:360263/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Some choice quotes from this:

In Norway the building of FTTH has been a part of district politics.
FTTH technology was seen as part of the solution to an increasing problem
in Norway’s countryside; it could help lessen the migration of people from
the countryside to the Norwegian cities.

.....


According to Norsk Teleinfo more than 70 actors now operate in the Norwe-
gian FTTH market [4]. However, the building has not been cheap. It has
been estimated at an average cost of 30.000NOK [5] per connected house-
hold. There have even been reports on local builds with a cost per connected
household of up to 70.000NOK [6]. The main cost lies with the installation
of the fibre itself. So the question is; is this profitable?

1) 30,000 to 70,000 NOK, that is €3,500 to €8,500 per home!
2) There has been mass migration of people from rural areas to cities in Norway, which I pointed out earlier. While Norway is a vast country, the vast majority of people live in cities. There has been a mass migration out of the countryside in Norway, there is very little Irish style one off houses. *
3) FTTH is being used and subsidised by the Norwegian government to help reduce the migration of people from rural areas to cities.
4) In the report he finds FTTH hasn't in fact been profitable for most companies doing it in Norway, that is despite them have access to the cheapest financing and loans thanks to their AAA credit rating (which is a result of the oil money).

Really interesting thesis, well worth a read with some very interesting information about the differences and benefits of different types of FTTH technologies (PON P2M vs AON P2P, etc.)

* Aside to the discussion about broadband, when I was hiking in Norway, I was shocked to pass groups of 4 or 5 houses boarded up and abandoned just 30km outside Bergen on a main road! And I don't mean ancient houses, I mean houses about 30 or 40 years old. Such houses which would be snapped up here in Ireland. There has been definitely been a mass migration from rural areas to cities and towns in Norway. Remember 30km outside Norways second largest city might not sound far, but in the dark, cold, Norwegian winters, many roads become deadly with snow and ice. So commuting 30km into a city like Irish people would do simply isn't an option there in winter, not if you value your life. Thus the mass migration.

hallo dare

Maybe the farmer has a family, maybe the family like online gaming, streaming videos, downloading music, etc. All this along with his own needs for calving cameras, security cameras for his sheds. Why are you discriminating against farmers claiming they don't need ftth? Why would they not need it as much as some single person in a fibre enabled route?

Liamario

hallo dare wrote: »

Maybe the farmer has a family, maybe the family like online gaming, streaming videos, downloading music, etc. All this along with his own needs for calving cameras, security cameras for his sheds. Why are you discriminating against farmers claiming they don't need ftth? Why would they not need it as much as some single person in a fibre enabled route?

You're twisting what he said.

bk

hallo dare wrote: »

Maybe the farmer has a family, maybe the family like online gaming, streaming videos, downloading music, etc. All this along with his own needs for calving cameras, security cameras for his sheds. Why are you discriminating against farmers claiming they don't need ftth? Why would they not need it as much as some single person in a fibre enabled route?

Well they don't need it for calving cameras, security cameras, etc. They can be done much better over a local network (either wireless or ethernet) between the shed/fields and the farmers home.

In fact, even if the farmers home had FTTH, he would still need his own local network to achieve this. So really no excuse here.

To be honest with you I agree with you on your other point, why shouldn't a farmer and his family not have access to high quality broadband, streaming, etc.

However that isn't the issue, the issue are:

- who is going to pay to get high quality broadband to these people?
- how long will it take?
- Can we put in place a cheaper, quicker, stop gap solution in place for these people until they eventually get FTTH?

To be honest the talk about farmers isn't really the issue, that is only people trying to deflect the conversation from the real issue. The real issue is that the majority of people in rural Ireland aren't farmers. Instead they are people who commute to work in towns and cities, but who have decided to build/buy large one off houses in the country because it was cheaper then the city.

Who is going to pay to get FTTH to these people? And should the majority of us living in the cities being subsidising the life style choices of these people?

Cork981

Very good points BK, not sure how this debate is continuing so long it's quite obvious why they are targeting urban areas. I understand why rural people would be annoyed but it is quiet clear why they are targeting urban areas.

Anyway this threads needs to get back on track it should be as interesting and insightful as the thread "Eircom fibre rollout – plans to reach 1.4m premises in three years" was when eircom first announced fibre plans.

Maybe another thread could be started for rural vs urban discussions.

football_lover

bk wrote: »

I don't think duplicating fibre is a bad thing if it can be done on a profitable, economic basis without government subsidy.

It means a greater degree of competition and thus lower prices, greater innovation and better customer care.

It makes sense in a high density country like Switzerland, specially given the high average wage there.

I'd like to see the same happen here in the more densely populated areas of Ireland and I expect it will happen.

However for rural Ireland it doesn't make economic sense to have more then one fiber network and to be honest, even that is a stretch.

I am sorry but if there is no fiber optics for rural then there is going to be no broadband for rural it does not get any simpler than this.

Copper cannot offer broadband for rural communities and neither can wireless (barring a fiber optics and wifi combined systems).

same ol sh1te

football_lover wrote: »

I am sorry but if there is no fiber optics for rural then there is going to be no broadband for rural it does not get any simpler than this.

Copper cannot offer broadband for rural communities and neither can wireless (barring a fiber optics and wifi combined systems).

Now I know you are talking rubbish. Fixed wireless can offer a great stop gap fix until FTTH, 30mbit each way is easily possible. Mentioning wifi proves you know nothing about it and are spoofing

Gosub

Under the constitution, all citizens are equal and, under article 45-2, speaks of directing policy to achieve this.

Rural dwellers are not second class citizens and should have access to the same business tools as the rest of the country. The current set-up is directed to generation of competition in urban areas. The government should be directing it towards equal access to broadband for all of it's citizens.

I know, how naive am I?

All of the above said, I would be delighted to get the 10m my copper overhead line can handle, uncontended of course.

hallo dare

Liamario wrote: »

You're twisting what he said.

Im twisting nothing, i was only asking why a farmer should not be entitled to it more than anyone else. Farmers have families too that require a service. So relax yourself

football_lover

bk wrote: »

As for the need of high speed broadband for farmers, that is also a load of BS.

Most sensors, humidity, motion, etc. use mere kilobytes of data, you don't need broaband for these, hell GPRS is enough for most of these sensors. Just look at smart meters or the Dublin Bus RTPI, they all do this over GPRS.

The only sensor that needs high bandwidth data would be video. But even then you can just do that over a local network from the barn/field to the farmers home.

All the talk about live genetic monitoring is laughable!!!

Most farmers don't use such services at all and those that do (e.g. rich stud farms) do so by having an expert come to the farm, draw samples from the animals, bring it to a lab where highly specialised equipment and computers are used to analyse it and sequence here.

This is certainly not something a farmer does themselves. The bottleneck is not high speed broadband, rather it is the highly specialised and incredibly expensive lab equipment that requires highly trained technicians to use!

Also this isn't something you do live and frequently. It is typically done just once in an animals lifetime, after all it isn't like their genome just changes over time!

So no need for FTTH for rural farmers here. You still haven't given a real world application that rural farms need gigabit broadband yet.

What makes you think agriculture will just be made up of humidity and motion sensors.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3472853/


In regards to required bandwidth for human genomics would be very high and GPRS simply does not but. But this does not just apply to human genomics but also the modeling of disease based genetics.

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/2014/02/genomics-requires-good-network.html?page=all

http://mikethemadbiologist.com/2014/03/11/there-is-a-microbial-genomics-market-and-it-is-not-a-niche/


Obviously some of this will be able to be done with low bandwidth systems like GPRS but there are simply areas where only high bandwidth will do.

Real time disease monitoring and embedded systems networks are going to need high bandwidth.

This is not just for the simple farmer with ten cattle even though he or she will be able to use it. It will be for distribution and processing centers.

Unless you proposing that these are built in the areas that the ESB and Vodafone deal will be covering.

Gonzo

There is genuine need for faster broadband outside of towns and cities, in about 3 years the current speeds which won't improve will be almost worthless as the internet gets more demanding as time goes on. 8 meg broadband will be the equivalent of 56k dial-up in a few years, so things will continue to get worse for those of us not served by some sort of a fibre connection, god help anyone who is trying to run a business.

At the same time, speeds of 12-24meg should be fine for most users for a few more years but the fact that most of us who will continue on existing adsl connections don't even come close to 12meg+ will really find the internet a struggle over the next 5 years and beyond is really worrying.

I find it kinda shocking that many people here expect those of us outside of fibre areas don't deserve anything faster and couldnt give a damn about the rest of us, once they are sitting on their fibre connections downloading more movies that it's possible to watch, that's all they care about and figure that Ireland is done and upgraded.

As for the farmers tho, I don't buy the argument that they need fibre, most of em that I know don't even use the internet apart from checking their gmail or facebook. It's stuff like steaming, youtube and downloading windows updates and patches for various pieces of software that will be become very frustrating indeed.

Sending fibre speeds wirelessly around town and village hinterlands of up to 30meg sounds great and is a great solution to solve everyone who is not connected to a cabinet but who is going to do this? I can't see Eircom of ESB launch a wireless service anytime soon. A few local authorities may eventually set this up but I feel many communities will just be left waiting an waiting for nothing to happen.

football_lover

same ol sh1te wrote: »

Now I know you are talking rubbish. Fixed wireless can offer a great stop gap fix until FTTH, 30mbit each way is easily possible. Mentioning wifi proves you know nothing about it and are spoofing

Wireless of that nature in rural would cost a lot of money and be in the realm of the price of fiber optics.

Wireless has it place but it is not a solution for agricultural communications systems.

And by the time this type of network would be built it would be out of date for the types of usage that rural would need.

We are not just talking about streaming video here even though that is important for educational purposes. The school my children go to they some times have a connection that they can all watch a video on but there are times it just freezes.

There are also learning tools that these schools sometimes can use and sometimes not.

I have a farm I live on but I also have a farm that is 20 miles away from where I live and it would be great for me to have video streaming to that farm but it is not something I can do with my current wireless.

Some embedded systems use low bandwidth and mobile based technology is suitable but there are others where it is not suitable.

In the next 15 year agriculture as an global industry will be high tech and those that do not adapt will perish simple as that.

same ol sh1te

football_lover wrote: »

Wireless of that nature in rural would cost a lot of money and be in the realm of the price of fiber optics.

Wireless has it place but it is not a solution for agricultural communications systems.

And by the time this type of network would be built it would be out of date for the types of usage that rural would need.

We are not just talking about streaming video here even though that is important for educational purposes. The school my children go to they some times have a connection that they can all watch a video on but there are times it just freezes.

There are also learning tools that these schools sometimes can use and sometimes not.

I have a farm I live on but I also have a farm that is 20 miles away from where I live and it would be great for me to have video streaming to that farm but it is not something I can do with my current wireless.

Some embedded systems use low bandwidth and mobile based technology is suitable but there are others where it is not suitable.

In the next 15 year agriculture as an global industry will be high tech and those that do not adapt will perish simple as that.

There you go spoofing about the costs of wireless technologies you know absolutely nothing about.

The school you mention is most likely at present supplied by a fixed wireless provider starved for funding using unlicensed gear for various reasons. It's not expensive to do right, a few hundred per customer, not much more than it's already costing to do wireless. It's the red tape and licence fees that are causing problems

football_lover

Gonzo wrote: »

There is genuine need for faster broadband outside of towns and cities, in about 3 years the current speeds which won't improve will be almost worthless as the internet gets more demanding as time goes on. 8 meg broadband will be the equivalent of 56k dial-up in a few years, so things will continue to get worse for those of us not served by some sort of a fibre connection, god help anyone who is trying to run a business.

At the same time, speeds of 12-24meg should be fine for most users for a few more years but the fact that most of us who will continue on existing adsl connections don't even come close to 12meg+ will really find the internet a struggle over the next 5 years and beyond is really worrying.

I find it kinda shocking that many people here expect those of us outside of fibre areas don't deserve anything faster and couldnt give a damn about the rest of us, once they are sitting on their fibre connections downloading more movies that it's possible to watch, that's all they care about and figure that Ireland is done and upgraded.

As for the farmers tho, I don't buy the argument that they need fibre, most of em that I know don't even use the internet apart from checking their gmail or facebook. It's stuff like steaming, youtube and downloading windows updates and patches for various pieces of software that will be become very frustrating indeed.

Sending fibre speeds wirelessly around town and village hinterlands of up to 30meg sounds great and is a great solution to solve everyone who is not connected to a cabinet but who is going to do this? I can't see Eircom of ESB launch a wireless serve anytime soon. A few local authorities may eventually set this up but I feel many communities will just be left waiting an waiting for nothing to happen.

"As for the farmers tho, I don't buy the argument that they need fibre, most of em that I know don't even use the internet apart from checking their gmail or facebook"

Would you say the same about people from Africa or Eastern Europe just curious by how you would qualify that statement.

On my farm I have all manner of equipment that is expensive to run own and buy. Many people in urban areas would not have a clue how to work this equipment but if shown they would be able to use it.

Farms and the businesses around them such as Co-ops and Dairy infrastructure needs this bandwidth just as much as a person who lives in a city.

Small rural food businesses that use high tech equipment need high tech communications.

The biggest issue with most of this is that people on these boards simply are not looking ahead as to what is coming down the line. Now I do not fault them for this nor would I call them stupid by any accounts or insult them. Most of them have not done the research or understand the applications of engineering that we will need.

The key to investment, economics, industry and creating strategies is actually to be able to look at today systems and understand what they will be like in 5,10 and 15 years times.

This is what the likes of google, mircosoft, IBM and glaxosmithkline do and they can be a good indicator as to what is coming down the line.

Take IBM Watson for example and compatible systems will all be used in the medical industry but they will also be used in Rural industries as well.

Is this going to 2016 not likely but will it be in about 2025 you can bet all your investments it will be.

Every industry is gearing its self towards advanced communications, intelligent systems and big data.

Irish agriculture as a whole will contain lots of data but if we do not have the communications systems to deal with it we will more than likely have a declining industry.

Could you actually imagine Ireland without telephones, Radar, computers or automobiles. I bet you could not. So now could you imagine the countries Irish agriculture will be competing with having a communications systems that we do not.

I am not trying to fear monger here just be realistic of where industry is heading as a whole.

football_lover

same ol sh1te wrote: »

There you go spoofing about the costs of wireless technologies you know absolutely nothing about.

The school you mention is most likely at present supplied by a fixed wireless provider starved for funding using unlicensed gear for various reasons. It's not expensive to do right, a few hundred per customer, not much more than it's already costing to do wireless. It's the red tape and licence fees that are causing problems

Wireless for rural in this country could cost billions. It is that simple. If you want wireless in rural that covers some areas and not other then it would be cheap as you want to make it.

"provider starved for funding using unlicensed gear for various reasons"

They have a patchy service because it is a rural school that has to use wireless. There is another school that far way that gets no service at all. Nothing to do with Licencing.

Fiber is the only realistic high bandwidth technology that can be used throughout Rural Ireland. Copper is not realistic due to the limitations of distance.

Wireless has to deal with hills and some of the wireless would have to actually use fiber anyway. Yes we could build a wireless network the government has probably at this point pumped in 750 million already into backing wireless and guess what it is still terrible.

This is the kinds of nonsense that Ireland is involved within check out the link below to the story.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/government-to-invest-up-to-512m-in-rural-broadband-scheme-30218310.html

Ireland spends hundreds of millions and yet there are people that do not get a service.

The ESB/Vodafone deal is all part of this load of nonsense.

same ol sh1te

I going to give up debating with someone who doesn't know the basic difference between mobile and fixed wireless but argues all the same. It's not good for my health

7upfree

football_lover wrote: »

Wireless for rural in this country could cost billions. It is that simple. If you want wireless in rural that covers some areas and not other then it would be cheap as you want to make it.

"provider starved for funding using unlicensed gear for various reasons"

They have a patchy service because it is a rural school that has to use wireless. There is another school that far way that gets no service at all. Nothing to do with Licencing.

Fiber is the only realistic high bandwidth technology that can be used throughout Rural Ireland. Copper is not realistic due to the limitations of distance.

Wireless has to deal with hills and some of the wireless would have to actually use fiber anyway. Yes we could build a wireless network the government has probably at this point pumped in 750 million already into backing wireless and guess what it is still terrible.

This is the kinds of nonsense that Ireland is involved within check out the link below to the story.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/government-to-invest-up-to-512m-in-rural-broadband-scheme-30218310.html

Ireland spends hundreds of millions and yet there are people that do not get a service.

The ESB/Vodafone deal is all part of this load of nonsense.

Nonoperational

I've still yet to see an example of a realistic large scale agricultural technology that will need high bandwidth in the next 20 years!

bk

MOD: Thanks for every ones contribution to this thread. We have often gone Off Topic on this thread, discussing rural broadband, etc. and I'm as much guilty of that as anyone! However from here on in, I'd like to keep this thread purely for the discussion of the ESB's new FTTH network in urban areas.

All further discussion of rural broadband should be directed to this new thread. Thanks

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057265461

garroff

Extract from ESB inhouse magazine re fibre roll out.

ED E

60 new jobs, probably not using ESB staff to do the installs so, and vodafone dont have field crews here so it'll be contractors doing all the work customer side.

bk

Great information there garroff. While we heard some of this info as rumours before it is great to have it confirmed. The most interesting points are:

- It really looks like this is all about to start and go ahead
- The project will start in 2015 and take 4 years to cover the first 500,000 homes
- There is an option for a future phase beyond this first phase.
- The network will be open for other ISPs (such as Eircom, UPC and Sky) to use.

This is truly a revolutionary and exciting project.

bk

ED E wrote: »

60 new jobs, probably not using ESB staff to do the installs so, and vodafone dont have field crews here so it'll be contractors doing all the work customer side.

Makes sense, probably KN Networks etc. in conjunction with support from ESB networks staff (for electrical safety work, etc.).

It is funny how KN Networks are ending up being involved in all ISPs roll outs of their network. They have been heavily involved in the building of UPCs upgraded network, Eircoms VDSL network and now looks likely they will be involved in this too!

Kristopherus

bk wrote: »

Makes sense, probably KN Networks etc. in conjunction with support from ESB networks staff (for electrical safety work, etc.).

It is funny how KN Networks are ending up being involved in all ISPs roll outs of their network. They have been heavily involved in the building of UPCs upgraded network, Eircoms VDSL network and now looks likely they will be involved in this too!

Well, as long as they keep those shysters, Sierra, out of the loop, I'll be happy.

ED E

Kristopherus wrote: »

Well, as long as they keep those shysters, Sierra, out of the loop, I'll be happy.

KNN are far from an improvement on Sierra.

bloodyhawk

Is there a difference between fiber to the building and fiber to the home?

OneEightSeven

bloodyhawk wrote: »

Is there a difference between fiber to the building and fiber to the home?

.

AlmightyCushion

bloodyhawk wrote: »

Is there a difference between fiber to the building and fiber to the home?

There can be. For a standard house no but for an apartment block it might be fibre to a cabinet in the basement/ground floor then something like ethernet/VDSL/co-ax to each individual apartment.

Edit: The above explains it very well.

bk

Great diagram above.

However it should be noted that the C in FTTC above stands for "Curb" rather then "Cabinet" as we often use it here in Ireland to describe Eircoms new VDSL network.

Curb is a more Anerican thing, we might call it street.

So Eircoms FTTC/VDSL network is really a FTTN network in the above diagram.

UPCs Hybric Fibre Coax (HFC) network would be Fibre To The Curb (FTTC) in the above diagram.

In my case, UPC network is FTTB as their cab is on the side of the apartment building and only serves my building as far as I know. But it doesn't mean I benefit any more then any other UPC customer.

I expect the ESBs new network will be mixed FTTH/FTTB with FTTB for apartments.

kaizersoze

bk wrote: »

Makes sense, probably KN Networks etc. in conjunction with support from ESB networks staff (for electrical safety work, etc.).

It is funny how KN Networks are ending up being involved in all ISPs roll outs of their network. They have been heavily involved in the building of UPCs upgraded network, Eircoms VDSL network and now looks likely they will be involved in this too!

KN no stranger to working on powerlines....
http://knnetworkservices.com/projects/power/construction-and-refurbishment-of-overhead-lines-up-to-33kv/

And already working with the ESB on their aerial fibre....
http://knnetworkservices.com/projects/telecoms/fixed/maintenance-and-extension-of-aerial-fibre-optic-network/