SIRO - ESB/Vodafone Fibre To The Home

KOR101

bk wrote: »

. The ESB are the one company best placed to bring high quality broadband to rural Ireland. The ESB think long term in terms of investments and returns, they already have massive engineering experience in bringing infrastructure to rural Ireland and they have the highest quality infrastructure in rural Ireland. They are by far the best placed to bring FTTH to rural Ireland. The only thing they lacked is experience in building a broadband network. It was never realistic that they would start in "low density" areas when they are so many "high density" profitable areas to take first. The sooner they get these areas done, then the sooner they gain experience and turn their attention to "low density" areas with government assistance. .

This is an argument that the NBP comes too soon for them. But, you're right, you only have to look at what they're doing with electric cars to see they can take a very long term view.

bk

KOR101 wrote: »

This is an argument that the NBP comes too soon for them. But, you're right, you only have to look at what they're doing with electric cars to see they can take a very long term view.

Well sort of, I don't think work on the NBP is expected to start until 2017, so that gives them 1 to 2 years experience rolling out FTTH in the meatime if everything goes to schedule.

Excellent point on the electric cars. It shows just how forward thinking a company the ESB is. I was highly impressed by an interview I read with the CEO of the ESB. Clearly a very well informed guy with a strong engineering background and long term vision.

KOR101

bk wrote: »

Well sort of, I don't think work on the NBP is expected to start until 2017, so that gives them 1 to 2 years experience rolling out FTTH in the meatime if everything goes to schedule.

I was thinking about the tendering by this time next year. Because, at this point, it's really just a question of how far the fibre will run. The limiting factor on that will be the cost, and Eircom will be in a better position to judge that.

SpaceTime

If eircom were to take a legal action against ESB demanding direct access to ESB ducts and wires, they could be opening a can of worms that might do themselves quite a lot of damage too.

Eircom and ESB are in very similar positions as access network monopolists. They both grant wholesale access to their respective networks to other companies.

If (highly unlikely) eircom were to win a case against ESB, then UPC, Vodafone and others would equally be able to take a similar case against eircom for direct physical access to its ductwork and overhead wiring networks, exchange buildings, cabinets etc.

A precedent would be established that would be very hard for them to argue against.

The European Commission also gave permission for the ESB-Vodafone joint venture fibre rollout, so there shouldn't really be any issues regarding competition law. It's just opening up a new level of infrastructural competition and disrupting an old monopoly market.

Danny Boy

The ESB are the one company best placed to bring high quality broadband to rural Ireland. The ESB think long term in terms of investments and returns, they already have massive engineering experience in bringing infrastructure to rural Ireland and they have the highest quality infrastructure in rural Ireland. They are by far the best placed to bring FTTH to rural Ireland. The only thing they lacked is experience in building a broadband network. It was never realistic that they would start in "low density" areas when they are so many "high density" profitable areas to take first. The sooner they get these areas done, then the sooner they gain experience and turn their attention to "low density" areas with government assistance.


Why so?

ED E

Esb have had a telecomms dept for yonks, they have the core networking skillsets required. All that's needed is last mile training.

murphaph

I can't really see the ESB training up loads of expensive ESB staff to do this stuff. They'll just contract it all out to KN etc. to do that stuff.

ED E

murphaph wrote: »

I can't really see the ESB training up loads of expensive ESB staff to do this stuff. They'll just contract it all out to KN etc. to do that stuff.

Yeah, they won't use internals for the deployment, but may do for long term maintenance.

May the country pray its not KNN that get the contract though...

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

murphaph

Personally I think that Eircom know full well their last mile infrastructure simply isn't as capable of being used for FTTH as that of the ESB. Just one look at their leaning poles and sagging cables reveals why they want access to the ESB's. Sure, Eircom have some useful ducting but the ESB have that too. Eircom know that in areas using overhead supply that their infrastructure simply won't support fibre runs, whereas the ESB's will.

Sheldons Brain

With a bit of lateral thinking the Fibre network should be owned as a public resource, open to all services, and the Eircom network could then be dismantled in rural areas. People may decide to not have a landline, but they will rarely decide not to have power. While all of this being built out, fibre should run near enough places for a cabinet to provide moderate service on the existing copper network in the meantime.

Perhaps if Eircom funded some of the rollout costs in a given area, they could then be released from universal service obligation and provide service over fibre.

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

KOR101

One factor favouring very large long-term investment right now is falling bond yields. ESB 10 year bonds currently yield 1.67%.

http://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/en/search/result?order_by=wm_vbfw.name&name_isin_wkn=ESB+FINANCE

It was issued in late 2013 at an initial yield of 3.49%. In 2012, a 5 year bond was issued at a rate of 6.25%.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/esb-pays-price-of-market-return-as-loan-costs-soar-29800505.html

This dramatically improves the investment case for what they are doing.

satguy

Eircom had it all,, the whole shebang,, back in the day, even if you got your TV from a Sky dish, you needed an Eircom land line as the bloody Sky Box needed to be connected to a land line. They were raking in wads of cash,, and then to make things worse, add in the bloody line rental, we all had to pay it, no way around it. Even before you rang up for a Dominos Pizza you were paying €24 per month. If you got 2 months in Mountjoy Prison for not paying your TV licence, you owed Eircom €48 when you got out.

What happened to all them "wads of cash" , why were we all left using old copper when they had money to buy better wires. Maybe Mary Lou has some answers in her Ansbacher List as to where all the cash went.

Then came UPC, they had wads of cash, it was their own cash and they were going to buy good wires, top of the range wires, with their own cash. They saved us, they saved the country, we would be a laughing stock in Europe if it were not for them. As we would still be on old copper and paying €24 per month for the pleasure.

Now come ESB/VF with more money to spend on wires, and Eircom want to stop them, because its not fair,, that takes the biscuit it just goes to show how Eircom are the joke now, and the laughing stock in Ireland today.

jca

satguy wrote: »

Eircom had it all,, the whole shebang,, back in the day, even if you got your TV from a Sky dish, you needed an Eircom land line as the bloody Sky Box needed to be connected to a land line. They were raking in wads of cash,, and then to make things worse, add in the bloody line rental, we all had to pay it, no way around it. Even before you rang up for a Dominos Pizza you were paying €24 per month. If you got 2 months in Mountjoy Prison for not paying your TV licence, you owed Eircom €48 when you got out.

What happened to all them "wads of cash" , why were we all left using old copper when they had money to buy better wires. Maybe Mary Lou has some answers in her Ansbacher List as to where all the cash went.

Then came UPC, they had wads of cash, it was their own cash and they were going to buy good wires, top of the range wires, with their own cash. They saved us, they saved the country, we would be a laughing stock in Europe if it were not for them. As we would still be on old copper and paying €24 per month for the pleasure.

Now come ESB/VF with more money to spend on wires, and Eircom want to stop them, because its not fair,, that takes the biscuit it just goes to show how Eircom are the joke now, and the laughing stock in Ireland today.

A nice party political broadcast on behalf of UPC. Upc in my area is a joke, ancient cabling ancient equipment. When I was a UPC customer we had a huge price hike to "upgrade" the system (an upgrade funded by the customers not UPC) all sort of promises were made, you'll get the uk radio stations that weren't on the system( a breach of contract) a top of the range digital service and brilliant bb..... I stuck with them until 2010 and said enough is enough and went to sky. Maybe Mary Lou could ask UPC what they did with my "upgrade" money while she's at it.
UPC saved the country, that's a f***ing joke, they lined their pockets and gave us the two fingers...

satguy

jca wrote: »

A nice party political broadcast on behalf of UPC.

It's not about UPC, it's about spending money on good wires, as ESB/VF are now doing, as UPC did. And it is about those who did not, at least until the had to, due to UPC forcing their hand.

Gosub

satguy wrote: »

It's not about UPC, it's about spending money on good wires, as ESB/VF are now doing, as UPC did. And it is about those who did not, at least until the had to, due to UPC forcing their hand.

Eircom middle and senior managers were not allowed to 'buy good wires' they were not allowed to spend money on network maintenance, never mind on the upgrade side. Blame the government cronies for stripping the assets out of the company. These were national assets, by the way. Belonging to you and me, paid for from our taxes.

satguy

Gosub wrote: »

These were national assets, by the way. Belonging to you and me, paid for from our taxes.

All true, we paid for it with our taxes...

We were robed X 3 Times, maybe 4 times.

No.1 We paid our tax to pay for upgrade of network.
No.2 We paid high phone bills as Eircom had a monopoly.
No.3 We paid trough slow speeds, when the rest of world had BB.
Maybe, No.4 We paid when Eircom was sold for a song.

It seems like all our Phone Networks or Phone Licences are sold cheep.

I still remember when "you know who" ran off to Portugal with 300 Million of Phone Money.

So lets just hope that this ESB/VF network moves the whole country another step forward.

mass_debater

Isn't this the ESB/Vodafone thread, not the bitch about Eircom thread

KOR101

KOR101 wrote: »

One factor favouring very large long-term investment right now is falling bond yields. ESB 10 year bonds currently yield 1.67%.

http://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/en/search/result?order_by=wm_vbfw.name&name_isin_wkn=ESB+FINANCE

It was issued in late 2013 at an initial yield of 3.49%. In 2012, a 5 year bond was issued at a rate of 6.25%.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/esb-pays-price-of-market-return-as-loan-costs-soar-29800505.html

This dramatically improves the investment case for what they are doing.

And, for comparison, Eircom at 7.34%, with 6 years to maturity.

http://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/en/search/result?order_by=wm_vbfw.name&name_isin_wkn=Eircom

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

SpaceTime

The problem was a distorted market with a private monopoly player that owned the only viable access infrastructure.

Eircom could have been privatised a lot more effectively. The regulation framework was all wrong and there was a notion that Eircom PLC was still Telecom Éireann - a public body with a legal responsibility to provide and develop telecommunications infrastructure.

Eircom is a private company and its only responsibilities are to make profits for its shareholders.

That's why, without a functioning competitive market, we ended up paying a huge amount of money for a poor service. If there was only one supermarket, airline, car manufacturer etc you can be sure that similar would happen.

I don't see the point in bashing Eircom. We just need to understand that they're a for profit company and organise the market and regulatory framework to make the best of that.

UPC were market disrupter as they have their own infrastructure. Their predecessors were also monopolies, and relied on their exclusive access to UK terrestrial TV channels to make profits so, never bothered much with broadband and phone.

Sky got rights to carry BBC and Channel 4, blowing those old cable providers out of the water.

UPC saw an opportunity to buy up and redevelop the CATV network and take a big bite of Eircom's pie.

ESB + Vodafone are likely to similarly disrupt the market too with FTTH access that's independent of either eircom or UPC.

I think it's pointless personalising eircom, UPC, Vodafone or ESB etc.. They'll all profit seek where they can. That's what companies do.

Failure to regulate properly and enforce adequate competition laws is what puta customers in a position of being ripped off with overpriced inadequate services.

The fault lies at FF, FG, Labour the PDs and the Greens' doors. FF & PDs in particular as they organised the market rules initially.

Irish Steve

Completely unmentioned is that UPC have been very selective in the way they have upgraded their systems, a classic example of this being the UPC "service" in Ashbourne, which is still running on a VHF cable system, and dire in the extreme, very basic channel line up, no stereo sound, no HD, no broadband, it's a relic from the days before Chorus, (who were DIRE to deal with) back when it was a local relay service that grabbed the UK signals from a high mast and sent it out on a VHF system. The UK channels now come via the UPC MMDS system, or SKy, and they have some Sky content from a local dish, but in terms of a modern, decent cable system, forget it, it's junk, and should have been switched off years ago, most modern sets can't even tune Sky1, as it's below the normal VHF tuner range. I gave up on cable years ago, and we have a mixture of Saorview and Sky, both of which work well, and give us most of the channels we want, and now that Sky have broadband on their newer HD boxes, there are other options now, though care is needed due to the prehistoric capping that many services still impose, and Sky's broadband offering isn't worth a candle locally, due to the lack of fibre from them.

Chorus had the offer to put Fibre in to the area from their Swords system when Bord Gais were digging a trench between the 2 towns a number of years ago, but they weren't prepared to spend the money to do it, despite Ashbourne being the second largest town in Meath.

Unfortunately, ESB/Vodafone haven't published any plans for Ashbourne yet, more's the pity, Eircom Fibre is covering part of the town, but I'm reluctant to go back that way, and there's no incentive to move from the present (Wimax Radio based) service that's surprisingly reliable, though some extra speed would be nice, but for the price we pay, it's not bad.

So, as far as this area is concerned, it's Eircom, or Eircom resellers, or radio based services, which for a town the size that it is leaves me wondering what the real agenda is with broadband, clearly there's a significant reluctance to actually spend money to provide a service.

murphaph

Irish Steve wrote: »

So, as far as this area is concerned, it's Eircom, or Eircom resellers, or radio based services, which for a town the size that it is leaves me wondering what the real agenda is with broadband, clearly there's a significant reluctance to actually spend money to provide a service.

Hardly fair. I understand it's frustrating that a good sized town like Ashbourne is running on poor BB but the money is being spent, bucket loads of it in fact.

Is Ashbourne really badly served by BB though? There are several live VDSL cabinets and a few more either being commissioned or in planning (and in planning means to be delivered by end 2016 at the latest). It looks very respectable to me.

SpaceTime

I don't think there's any agenda other than UPC is rebuilding lousy Chorus or predecessors' cable.

satguy

ESB/VF are building a whole new network,, I'm in one of the towns on their list, so I keep an eye on how its going.
UPC have spent 400/500 million fixing the shambles that was the old NTL/Chorus network., Still a W.I.P.

In all a Billion will have been spent, and Ireland will have moved up a notch in the eyes of the world.

The party was already started when Eircom turned up at the door with a bottle of very cheep plonk. Now they think it's fair to grab all the finger food.

Bog Standard User

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

^^ A source for that wall of text would be nice, instead of just copy-pasting without recognition.

sorry forgot to add the url, it was on the indo

http://www.independent.ie/business/esbs-new-1000mbs-broadband-plan-spooks-eircom-30409194.html

jca

Irish Steve wrote: »

Completely unmentioned is that UPC have been very selective in the way they have upgraded their systems, a classic example of this being the UPC "service" in Ashbourne, which is still running on a VHF cable system, and dire in the extreme, very basic channel line up, no stereo sound, no HD, no broadband, it's a relic from the days before Chorus, (who were DIRE to deal with) back when it was a local relay service that grabbed the UK signals from a high mast and sent it out on a VHF system. The UK channels now come via the UPC MMDS system, or SKy, and they have some Sky content from a local dish, but in terms of a modern, decent cable system, forget it, it's junk, and should have been switched off years ago, most modern sets can't even tune Sky1, as it's below the normal VHF tuner range. I gave up on cable years ago, and we have a mixture of Saorview and Sky, both of which work well, and give us most of the channels we want, and now that Sky have broadband on their newer HD boxes, there are other options now, though care is needed due to the prehistoric capping that many services still impose, and Sky's broadband offering isn't worth a candle locally, due to the lack of fibre from them.

Chorus had the offer to put Fibre in to the area from their Swords system when Bord Gais were digging a trench between the 2 towns a number of years ago, but they weren't prepared to spend the money to do it, despite Ashbourne being the second largest town in Meath.

Unfortunately, ESB/Vodafone haven't published any plans for Ashbourne yet, more's the pity, Eircom Fibre is covering part of the town, but I'm reluctant to go back that way, and there's no incentive to move from the present (Wimax Radio based) service that's surprisingly reliable, though some extra speed would be nice, but for the price we pay, it's not bad.

So, as far as this area is concerned, it's Eircom, or Eircom resellers, or radio based services, which for a town the size that it is leaves me wondering what the real agenda is with broadband, clearly there's a significant reluctance to actually spend money to provide a service.

Exactly the same scenario here in Enniscorthy although to be fair to Eircom the whole town is vdsl enabled.... well almost... When the direct to the exchange customers are catered for it will be complete. Luckily it's on the list for phase I of the ESB/VF venture, something that UPC couldn't be arsed doing...strange company.

dbit

Eircoms latest two yogurt cartons and a piece of string phone service is awesome . Direct fed Children of the curds and whey .

jca

dbit wrote: »

Eircoms latest two yogurt cartons and a piece of string phone service is awesome . Direct fed Children of the curds and whey .

Oooookay.... Anything constructive to add to that post of drivel?

P.s. Please don't use the word awesome in your reply, thanks.