Fibre providers

1huge1

This is really just to satisfy my own curiosity, but am I right in my understanding and from what I have seen from searches that there are only two Broadband providers in this country that have put down their own Fibre lines. Those being Eircom and UPC.

From what I can see, all the others (Magnet, Vodafone, Digiweb etc) are all just reselling Eircoms fibre product. Or maybe some are reselling UPCs lines as well but I have not come across this.

Thanks for anyone who can clarify this for me.

ED E

UPC - UPC only. Fibre to the street and coax to the house

Eircom Wholesale: Fibre to the cabinet, phone line to the house.
Resold by: Eircom Retail. Vodafone.

Magnet use their own kit and lease eircom lines. Also do wimax.

yomamasflavour

Eircom isn't selling fibre connections, only VDSl (nb. they do have two trial areas where they offer FTTH but it's not much faster than the standard VDSL so..).

Magnet do have their own fibre lines/ fibre enabled estates. Though there's only a small handful of them and they're all near Dublin/Meath.

I don't think UPC allows anyone to resell or use their lines.

ESB has lots of fibre, supposedly doing a rollout with Vodafone sometime soon..

Also a few 1 off areas around the country e.g Cablesurf in Waterford, Airspeed telecom in Claremorris etc. offer high speed connections 100-200Mb and so on.

There's also the LLU exchanges, though I don't know whether they count. I think they're still only up to 24Mb, could be wrong.

1huge1

Thanks for the reply guys, a few questions if you don't mind.

What do you mean by coax to the house? That is superior to phone line to the house I assume but not quite fibre to the house.
Since Magnet use their own kit on Eircoms lines, can we assume that their service is better than others who use Eircoms lines?

Interesting what you said regarding Eircom and vdsl yomamasflavour, I came across an article or two that referred to their VDSL2 as Fibre to the cabinet.

The fibre deal between the ESB and Vodafone does have promise, while they have been offering fibre for a year by reselling Eircoms product, they recently took over the running of UTVs broadband so perhaps now they might be willing to offer a better service with the ESB than with Eircom.

Here are the four types of fibre I have come across online. I hope to see more FTTH in the future but UPC's FTTC seems to be the best option for the moment.

FTTH (fibre to the home) – fibre-optic cables run all the way to the outside of your house. This is the quickest service, but is not widely available.
FTTB (fibre to the building/basement) – fibre-optic cables run all the way to your premises. If you are a flat in a large building, the fibre terminates at the building, rather than your individual living space.
FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) – fibre-optic cables run all the way to the cabinet in the street, which can be up to 300m away. This is the most common connection.
FTTN (fibre to the node) – roughly the same as above, only the street cabinet can be further away (up to several km away) with the rest of the distance to your house being covered by regular copper wiring.

bk

In many cases UPC can be FTTB. In my case it is, it is Fibre right up to my apartment building, which has it's own dedicated cabinet and then Coax to each apartment from there.

Coax is a high quality shielded and insulated copper cable, it is the type of cable that UPC uses to carry TV and broadband services into each house and is similar to good quality satellite cable. While not fibre, it can carry massive amounts of data (1Gb/s in the next year or so) and is typically of a much higher quality then the twisted pair cable used by Eircom and other phone companies.

UPC's network is usually called a Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network and it is usually FTTC or FFTB.

I'm afraid ED E is mistaken about Magnet, they offer a few different products:

- FatPipe 24 which depending on your location is either resold Eircom ADSL (BitStream) or their own LLU (Local Loop Unbunbled) ADSL2+

- FatPipe 100, just resold Eircom VDSL2/eFibre, same as what Eircom Retail and Vodafone offer.
- In certain apartment buildings around Dublin and close by, they have their own Fibre to the Building, with ethernet up to each apartment. But very few places have this.

So no, with the exception of the last product, Magnet wouldn't be much better then Eircom or Vodafone.

BTW note by the definitions you give above, Eircoms VDSL2/eFibre is more FTTN then FTTC, as the line lengths can be up to 2km from the cabinet!

I think when Eircom calls their network FTTC, they mean Fibre To The Cabinet, rather then the traditional Fibre To The Curb.

So Eircoms new VDSL2/eFibre network is a FTTN network, UPC's is more of a FTTC/FTTB network, typically the Fibre is closer to the customers.

WicklowTiger

Hi all,

Having major problems at the moment with Eircom and getting Fibre line in (I've a thread in the talk to Eircom forum, can't post link.) Just wondering, is there any option for fibre in Wexford town that cuts Eircom out of it altogether? I fear I'll never get anywhere when they're involved, it's been going on almost 2 years now.

1huge1

Guess by going by this thread, your only option is to get in contact with UPC and see if they will offer it to you.

WicklowTiger

1huge1 wrote: »

Guess by going by this thread, your only option is to get in contact with UPC and see if they will offer it to you.

Unfortunately UPC don't provide broadband in Wexford. Thanks anyway.

WicklowTiger

Considering Three's 4G option as we currently have no broadband whatsoever. Anyone any experience - is it a viable alternative at this stage to fixed line BB?

jca

WicklowTiger wrote: »

Hi all,

Having major problems at the moment with Eircom and getting Fibre line in (I've a thread in the talk to Eircom forum, can't post link.) Just wondering, is there any option for fibre in Wexford town that cuts Eircom out of it altogether? I fear I'll never get anywhere when they're involved, it's been going on almost 2 years now.

I had a kn guy installing eVision last week. He told me there's no fttc in Wexford town at all, I couldn't believe it considering it's such a large town. Eircom seem to be stuck continuing with with the expansion of their ftth in Wexford town. He said it was complete ****e with more installations ending in failure due to blocked ducts into the premises and the speeds were bad. He reckoned the fttc was much better and much more reliable.
I've used the 4G in Wexford town on a samsung s4 and found it very good, best result I got on a speed test was over 60 meg. It has dropped back a lot since those early days but when I'm in Wexford I always test it and still get over 30meg. I see 4G starting to flash up on my phone in Enniscorthy today.

WicklowTiger

jca wrote: »

I had a kn guy installing eVision last week. He told me there's no fttc in Wexford town at all, I couldn't believe it considering it's such a large town. Eircom seem to be stuck continuing with with the expansion of their ftth in Wexford town. He said it was complete ****e with more installations ending in failure due to blocked ducts into the premises and the speeds were bad. He reckoned the fttc was much better and much more reliable.
I've used the 4G in Wexford town on a samsung s4 and found it very good, best result I got on a speed test was over 60 meg. It has dropped back a lot since those early days but when I'm in Wexford I always test it and still get over 30meg. I see 4G starting to flash up on my phone in Enniscorthy today.

Thanks for the info. What network are you on?

jca

WicklowTiger wrote: »

Thanks for the info. What network are you on?

I should have said. I'm on three for my mobile. Luckily I'm on eFibre in Enniscorthy with eircom I can't fault either services both work perfectly for me.

MrO

jca wrote: »

Eircom seem to be stuck continuing with with the expansion of their ftth in Wexford town. He said it was complete ****e with more installations ending in failure due to blocked ducts into the premises and the speeds were bad. He reckoned the fttc was much better and much more reliable.

Sorry, but this is total bull. Eircom are not 'stuck' with the expansion of FTTH - they have no intention of doing FTTH.

The bit about FTTC being more reliable is just plain wrong too - search on the threads here and you'll find a lot of reasons why.

jca

MrO wrote: »

Sorry, but this is total bull. Eircom are not 'stuck' with the expansion of FTTH - they have no intention of doing FTTH.

The bit about FTTC being more reliable is just plain wrong too - search on the threads here and you'll find a lot of reasons why.

Oh Jesus another one who can't read. In WEXFORD TOWN there are no vdsl cabinets because Wexford town was chosen as a pilot area for ftth which they are continuing with. According to the kn guy, breakdowns are more frequent in ftth premises than fttc. Now this is the important bit, This only applies to WEXFORD TOWN get it? WEXFORD TOWN. No point in getting people to read all the threads regarding fttc as it's NOT AVAILABLE in, guess where? WEXFORD TOWN.

MrO

jca wrote: »

Oh Jesus another one who can't read. In WEXFORD TOWN there are no vdsl cabinets because Wexford town was chosen as a pilot area for ftth which they are continuing with. According to the kn guy, breakdowns are more frequent in ftth premises than fttc. Now this is the important bit, This only applies to WEXFORD TOWN get it? WEXFORD TOWN. No point in getting people to read all the threads regarding fttc as it's NOT AVAILABLE in, guess where? WEXFORD TOWN.

I can read just fine no matter how many CAPS you use. Yes there were 2 x FTTH trials, one of which is in Wexford. Eircom have publicly stated (through their CEO) that they are not at this time investing any further in FTTH as they don't see a business case or demand for the higher capex and capacity associated with FTTH.

bk

MrO wrote: »

I can read just fine no matter how many CAPS you use. Yes there were 2 x FTTH trials, one of which is in Wexford. Eircom have publicly stated (through their CEO) that they are not at this time investing any further in FTTH as they don't see a business case or demand for the higher capex and capacity associated with FTTH.

Can you please link to where the Eircom CEO said this?

Eircom are certainly focused on FTTC, but they are still doing FTTH installs in the two trial areas and there are rumours that they might do some FTTH installs in one or two other areas where FTTC is difficult to do (Dublin and Cork core city centers).

It is good that Eircom is doing some FTTH installs in the trial areas, as it allows them to build up experience of it and it's unique difficulties and the true cost of doing FTTH. After all that is the whole point of a trial!

It is likely that Eircom will be forced to do a wider rollout of FTTH over the next 5 years, when UPC go to 1gb/s speeds with DOCSIS 3.1 and with the ESB doing FTTH. So good to get experience in it now.

MrO

bk wrote: »

Can you please link to where the Eircom CEO said this?

Eircom are certainly focused on FTTC, but they are still doing FTTH installs in the two trial areas and there are rumours that they might do some FTTH installs in one or two other areas where FTTC is difficult to do (Dublin and Cork core city centers).

It is good that Eircom is doing some FTTH installs in the trial areas, as it allows them to build up experience of it and it's unique difficulties and the true cost of doing FTTH. After all that is the whole point of a trial!

It is likely that Eircom will be forced to do a wider rollout of FTTH over the next 5 years, when UPC go to 1gb/s speeds with DOCSIS 3.1 and with the ESB doing FTTH. So good to get experience in it now.

Let me try dig it out, think it was Silicon republic. As far I can remember he said something about not needing it for 10 years. Agreed that they may be forced to move quicker!

bk

jca wrote: »

I've used the 4G in Wexford town on a samsung s4 and found it very good, best result I got on a speed test was over 60 meg. It has dropped back a lot since those early days but when I'm in Wexford I always test it and still get over 30meg.

Do remember that 4G is a shared medium, the more people who use it, the slower it gets. When 4G first launched, almost no one had a 4G device, so you were seeing the maximum possible speed. But over the next year or two you will see more and more people get 4G phones, tablets, mifi's, etc. and you will see a corresponding drop in speeds. Eventually I don't expect it to end up much faster then 3G per user *

* But much more overall capacity, it is just getting eaten up by more people using more mobile data then ever before.

WicklowTiger, 4G or any mobile wireless will never be a replacement for quality wired broadband. However if you can't get anything else, then it is better then nothing.

However a better solution, is a fixed wireless service, many operate in Wicklow, you should check the map here to see if any might be available to you:

http://irelandoffline.org/map/

And select Fixed Wireless ISPs on the left hand side.

MrO

bk wrote: »

Can you please link to where the Eircom CEO said this?

This is what he was saying back in early 2013

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/31582-eircom-next-gen-network-is/

Hribar said that at present the economics don’t add up.

Installing fibre to every home in Ireland would be an investment that could amount to billions of euros.

“I’m sure that Ireland will one day enjoy FTTH across a large part of the country, but it could take a long time to get there but we’re building our network in anticipation of evolving it to that point."

I think the 10 years was the 2.5bn investment that they were talking about for NGA (i.e. FTTC)

I suppose the party line is that they are 'ready' for FTTH,
...sure aren't we all!

bk

MrO wrote: »

This is what he was saying back in early 2013

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/31582-eircom-next-gen-network-is/

I would agree with everything he said in this article, but it isn't saying that Eircom aren't investing in FTTH.

In fact it quiet clearly says the opposite, that they have heavily invested in Fibre and have designed their FTTC network to be fully future proofed for FTTH, with spare fibre lines and splices run to each cab, from which they can run FTTH when needed.

So yes, they aren't investing in widespread FTTH roll out at the moment (and rightfully so), but they are still quietly working away on a FTTH future.

jca

bk wrote: »

I would agree with everything he said in this article, but it isn't saying that Eircom aren't investing in FTTH.

In fact it quiet clearly says the opposite, that they have heavily invested in Fibre and have designed their FTTC network to be fully future proofed for FTTH, with spare fibre lines and splices run to each cab, from which they can run FTTH when needed.

So yes, they aren't investing in widespread FTTH roll out at the moment (and rightfully so), but they are still quietly working away on a FTTH future.

So what the kn guy told me wasn't "Bull"

bk

jca wrote: »

So what the kn guy told me wasn't "Bull"

While not bull, what he told you was highly inaccurate, in particular the "bad speeds" thing.

jca

bk wrote: »

While not bull, what he told you was highly inaccurate, in particular the "bad speeds" thing.

The highest speed he ever got from a ftth install was 101 meg which in comparison to a vectored fttc which, on a cost basis is very poor. He thought it was unimpressive. He reckoned the quality of hardware being used on the fttc rollout was far superior to the equipment on the ftth, with many faults occuring on the ftth equipment.

MrO

bk wrote: »

I would agree with everything he said in this article, but it isn't saying that Eircom aren't investing in FTTH.

In fact it quiet clearly says the opposite, that they have heavily invested in Fibre and have designed their FTTC network to be fully future proofed for FTTH, with spare fibre lines and splices run to each cab, from which they can run FTTH when needed.

So yes, they aren't investing in widespread FTTH roll out at the moment (and rightfully so), but they are still quietly working away on a FTTH future.

Just my opinion...I think it's quite easy for Herb to say that they are evolving to FTTH to placate anyone who is pushing for it. An FTTH ready network is still not an FTTH network. In theory then have been evovling to an FTTH network since they first laid fibre.

It obvious that from his perspective there limits on available funding and in urban centres you are battling against UPC with a far superior product. They (and most incumbent telcos) know that the minute the FTTH goes in - the copper is dead and they cannot extract any value from it.

Eircom have been bought and sold (and squeezed) so many times that under investment was an inevitability. Thankfully that appears to be changing, but going by the ADSL lifespan - it is likely that they will happily sit on VDSL for the next 10/15 years. Unless...other market forces dictate that they must shift to FTTH or lose major business (do or die).

I can't help feeling that the mindset in Eircom is still very much of the incumbent i.e. you need what we tell you we need (even in a regulated environment), 50/70/90 MBit/s as a headline speed is enough and quality of service is secondary.

Maybe things will change but that's just my read on it. If we (as a country) are serious about being a tech powerhouse we should be investing in something that put's us there, not yesterdays technology tomorrow.

bk

jca wrote: »

The highest speed he ever got from a ftth install was 101 meg which in comparison to a vectored fttc which, on a cost basis is very poor. He thought it was unimpressive. He reckoned the quality of hardware being used on the fttc rollout was far superior to the equipment on the ftth, with many faults occuring on the ftth equipment.

And that is the point of running a trial, they find these things out and buy different/more reliable gear for the wider rollout.

Just as they did with FTTC/VDSL, Eircom are using completely different gear and supplier for the FTTC rollout then they used on the FTTC trials (that gear was also far inferior to what they ended up eventually using, the superb Huawei kit).

I'm not discounting what the installer told you, it is certainly interesting information. But I wouldn't take it as an indicator to what Eircom are doing at a managerial strategic level.

jca

bk wrote: »

And that is the point of running a trial, they find these things out and buy different/more reliable gear for the wider rollout.

Just as they did with FTTC/VDSL, Eircom are using completely different gear and supplier for the FTTC rollout then they used on the FTTC trials (that gear was also far inferior to what they ended up eventually using, the superb Huawei kit).

I'm not discounting what the installer told you, it is certainly interesting information. But I wouldn't take it as an indicator to what Eircom are doing at a managerial strategic level.

Managers talk while the guys on the ground do the work. I know who I'm believing. All of this banter isn't much use to the people of Wexford Town though!!

ED E

Ookla speedtest servers(AKA all of them) are unreliable above 100Mb, when they get busy tests drop while the throughput is actually there.

The KN installers are installers. Not technicians. Not engineers. Couldnt tell you what the OSI model is. Yer man was talking out his arse.

jca

ED E wrote: »

Ookla speedtest servers(AKA all of them) are unreliable above 100Mb, when they get busy tests drop while the throughput is actually there.

The KN installers are installers. Not technicians. Not engineers. Couldnt tell you what the OSI model is. Yer man was talking out his arse.

How was he talking through his arse as you put it? A fault is a fault and more are happening with FTTH. The speeds aren't much better than a vectored fttc setup and there are no vdsl cabinets in Wexford town at the moment. Many ftth installs end in failure where (in his experience) no fttc installs to date have failed to install.

bk

jca wrote: »

Managers talk while the guys on the ground do the work. I know who I'm believing. All of this banter isn't much use to the people of Wexford Town though!!

And it was the managers/engineers who decided to go with the superb Huawei VDSL FTTC kit and also decided to future proof that kit for FTTH by running spear fibre to every cabinet.

The information from the KN installer is very interesting, but not really relevant in the bigger scheme of things.

Eircom has decided (rightfully) to focus on VDSL FTTC for now, while future proofing it for FTTH, a very wise decision.

They have decided this based on the feedback they got from both the FTTC and FTTH trials, that is what trials are for.

VDSL is very good for now, but 5 years from now? Not so much. Eircom will have to go FTTH in future and just as the Eircom CEO said, the majority of homes in Ireland will be FTTH in future. It is going to happen, fibre is the future.

No one is arguing that FTTH isn't more difficult and more expensive to do then VDSL, it was always very obvious that it always would be, it entails running a new network to basically every home in Ireland, it is going to be a horrible, massive, expensive job.

But it will have to happen, we are basically squeezing the last life out of copper with VDSL and we will have to go FTTH/B in order to keep up with demand for higher speeds and to make sure Ireland remains competitive with other countries going FTTH.

Copper/VDSL is the technology for the next 5 to 10 years. FTTH is the technology for the next 100+ years. I believe Eircom has made the right decision to rollout VDSL widely now and then slowly rollout FTTH from that basis as demand for it increases.

murphaph

bk wrote: »

I would agree with everything he said in this article, but it isn't saying that Eircom aren't investing in FTTH.

In fact it quiet clearly says the opposite, that they have heavily invested in Fibre and have designed their FTTC network to be fully future proofed for FTTH, with spare fibre lines and splices run to each cab, from which they can run FTTH when needed.

So yes, they aren't investing in widespread FTTH roll out at the moment (and rightfully so), but they are still quietly working away on a FTTH future.

Which is exactly the right strategy. The vast majority of BB users simply don't need FTTH speeds right now (in future that will change of course) so gradually spreading the fibre net around the country to cabs that can be used to go FTTH in every village is the right strategy long term.

At the end of the day you pretty much have to install the cabs whether they are for VDSL or FTTH. You can't just leap to FTTH. The fibre has to be brought to cabs first.

bealtine

jca wrote: »

Oh Jesus another one who can't read. In WEXFORD TOWN there are no vdsl cabinets because Wexford town was chosen as a pilot area for ftth which they are continuing with. According to the kn guy, breakdowns are more frequent in ftth premises than fttc. Now this is the important bit, This only applies to WEXFORD TOWN get it? WEXFORD TOWN. No point in getting people to read all the threads regarding fttc as it's NOT AVAILABLE in, guess where? WEXFORD TOWN.

There are lots of FTTC installs in Wexford town