Eircom to roll out 1Gb/s FTTH to 66 towns

The Cush

kleefarr wrote: »

Just wondering, out of all of these people who are looking forward to getting FTTH are you all going to pay the €80 plus for the benefit of using it or is that just a figure that is being thrown around and is likely to cost less or even more?

There are various standalone and bundled prices for the eir Fibre Extreme 150/300/1000Mb (FTTH) products

Bundles - https://www.eir.ie/opencms/export/sites/default/.content/pdf/pricing/Pt4.1.10.pdf
Standalone - https://www.eir.ie/opencms/export/sites/default/.content/pdf/pricing/Part3.1.pdf (page 3)

Gonzo

kleefarr wrote: »

Just wondering, out of all of these people who are looking forward to getting FTTH are you all going to pay the €80 plus for the benefit of using it or is that just a figure that is being thrown around and is likely to cost less or even more?

I probably wont see this FTTH for another 3 years at least but seeing as im on 9 meg now and that's as good as it gets until the FTTH is finally here, I will definitely get the 1 gig for starters and after a while if it's too expensive i'll drop it down to 300 meg or whatever packages that the will have by then!.

rob808

The Cush wrote: »

There are various standalone and bundled prices for the eir Fibre Extreme 150/300/1000Mb (FTTH) products

Bundles - https://www.eir.ie/opencms/export/sites/default/.content/pdf/pricing/Pt4.1.10.pdf
Standalone - https://www.eir.ie/opencms/export/sites/default/.content/pdf/pricing/Part3.1.pdf (page 3)

There quite expensive considering virginmedia €45 for 240mb hopefully eir will cut the price after awhile.I wonder what the other ISP would charge for these speeds.

ED E

rob808 wrote: »

There quite expensive considering virginmedia €45 for 240mb hopefully eir will cut the price after awhile.I wonder what the other ISP would charge for these speeds.

They arent competing with Virgin. Virgin have done all the legwork in their areas 3yrs ago, eir have deployment costs and debt to pay off.

People with a grudge against NTL/UPC/Virgin will go with eir in Virgin areas, rest will go with Virgin. They know this, we know this.

Its the couple million homes outside the Virgin areas that they're competing for.

rob808

ED E wrote: »

They arent competing with Virgin. Virgin have done all the legwork in their areas 3yrs ago, eir have deployment costs and debt to pay off.

People with a grudge against NTL/UPC/Virgin will go with eir in Virgin areas, rest will go with Virgin. They know this, we know this.

Its the couple million homes outside the Virgin areas that they're competing for.

well that true I would probably go with 150mb which i think most people will go for.

swoofer

When I check my line I now find its suitable for 1000mb but I am with VF and they say they are not going to avail of eir ultrafast BB but will use siro!! Thats not yet available here in Ennis!! I thought VF could do both! Also I cant see siro been made available to me, cable runs underground, its that armoured stuff, runs underneath garden so cant see how siro would hook up, ie I'll be in the category... sorry siro not available. Is this going to be the norm ie move from VF where no siro etc?

I thought eir could use siro and VF use eir!!

Does not make sense.

I dont want to wait but is that eir F2000 modem easy to access and bridge? Or is the new modem a totally different model?

The Cush

This post indicated Vodafone may offer open-eir FTTH from Nov http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=96954293#post96954293, of course that was just a person in sales .

As open-eir and Siro are both wholesalers there's no reason why eir or VF cannot offer the service via the other networks other than a commercial decision not to do so.

swoofer

Thanks for that and I had seen it but it did not register!! Will there be a new modem for FTTH and I think I'll wait.

What a mess but if siro had not appeared we may have been waiting a lot longer for FTTH and to be honest I would rather go with them than eir. That 18 month contract is a killer as well. BUT 1000Mb has me drooling and I think I am dreaming, never ever thought it would happen in my liftetime.

joe_99

swoofer wrote: »

Thanks for that and I had seen it but it did not register!! Will there be a new modem for FTTH and I think I'll wait.

What a mess but if siro had not appeared we may have been waiting a lot longer for FTTH and to be honest I would rather go with them than eir. That 18 month contract is a killer as well. BUT 1000Mb has me drooling and I think I am dreaming, never ever thought it w UKould happen in my liftetime.

No new modem. F2000 is being used.

TheDoc

ED E wrote: »

They arent competing with Virgin. Virgin have done all the legwork in their areas 3yrs ago, eir have deployment costs and debt to pay off.

People with a grudge against NTL/UPC/Virgin will go with eir in Virgin areas, rest will go with Virgin. They know this, we know this.

Its the couple million homes outside the Virgin areas that they're competing for.

Really doesn't appear to be a competitive price point for me. From what I saw the retail price was €87 a month after an initial 4 month deal.

I'm always up for "faster speeds" but will never be giving Eir/Eircom my business again. One of the really frustrating points and issues for me is how they gouge areas with little options and availability. Won't be surprised if down the line they start deactivating other services and force customers in through the high price point.

And while they are not competing directly with Virgin in these areas, I'll probably expect a bump in speeds for customers, for free, by end of April next year.

ED E

TheDoc wrote: »

Really doesn't appear to be a competitive price point for me. From what I saw the retail price was €87 a month after an initial 4 month deal.

I'm always up for "faster speeds" but will never be giving Eir/Eircom my business again. One of the really frustrating points and issues for me is how they gouge areas with little options and availability. Won't be surprised if down the line they start deactivating other services and force customers in through the high price point.

And while they are not competing directly with Virgin in these areas, I'll probably expect a bump in speeds for customers, for free, by end of April next year.

I've heard tell that UPC may have been pushing the 120Mb custoers onto 240Mb already(free, no contract). Mine hasnt moved yet.


I dont believe eir are being unfair here really. Remember they're 500Mil in debt and are planning to try and sell key real estate to keep funding this rollout. If they go to cheap then it'll all just come to a halt in a year and rural towns will still be on radio ADSL in 2020.

They charge the OLOs €100 to install but realistically its going to cost them €1000+/home to deploy the GPON network. This has to be recouped. End of. If they try and do this on a shoestring repair levels will go to 2wks per fault in winter time, do you really want that?

In most areas: (No Virgin)
35-40 for ADSL
~40-50 for VDSL
80-90 for GPON

Those on good VDSL connections will stay on them, those without VDSL or shít VDSL will upgrade to GPON. As will heavy users. All the rural 5Mb ADSL lines will take it (excepting OAPs etc). Yes its expensive, but so is paying a team of a dozen KNN lads to spend a week blowing fibre and clearing ducts.

TheDoc

On the pricing point, when I was on Donabate (Fingal ****ing area in Dublin like, not the stix) I was being charged €67 a month for 24mbps ADSL. My issues in that scenario aside, I can see people will definitely jump onto this Eir rollout as it's clear value, considering the pricing point they are probably paying at the moment, without having access to Virgin. But then its also dependent if people will trust signing up to those services with Eir. I wouldn't TOUCH of them during a rollout phase, let alone engage in a year long contract.

Part of the issue I had with donabate was they rolled in, enabled that "next gen broadband" ****e, enabled it for 30% of the area and that was the target for them to be done and move on. And the feedback I was getting was there was no engineers available to investigate the exchange issues while the rollout was taking place. Pure garbage resource management.

I really don't see how Eir's debt and consistent mismanagement both operation wise and financial wise, should be offered as an excuse for them offering what on the surface looks a very good product, but at a very high pricing point. And with Eir, there will no doubt be massive issues and problems with service no doubt. I'm keeping my eye on the whole thing to see performance and uptime, but only because I guess I know that if Virgin feel even a whiff of it going well, they can just bump speeds at will.

What you mentioned in the first sentence there is true. My father downgraded the entire UPC package when I moved out, and was contacted few months back and provided a free bump back to 240mb, with no contract obligation. And I guess I've just stood witness to see the speeds they can hit, on some routers and infra that was at this point five years old. Had a very informative day with a really nice UPC engineer

swoofer

Its 18 months which is even worse.

Gonzo

I know 8 familes near my home and every single one of them will jump to Eir's FTTH as soon as its available and there are 64 houses in the general area all of which are on Eir's blue lines. Most people on our road are getting between 6 and 12 meg which isn't as bad as some even more rural spots but most are complaining these speeds are not near enough for their use such as several people online in the same house streaming netflix, playing games, surfing the web and downloading whatever.

Once Eir rollout to the 300,000 homes I think their FTTH rollout uptake will be very successful. Most of us can't wait to finally chuck away these old slow connections for something much faster for relatively little extra money.

TheDoc

swoofer wrote: »

Its 18 months which is even worse.

I don't know. Maybe the areas its going to, Eir just know people are desperate. But I would be extremely weary and reluctant to jump into a contract with them during a new roll out and implementation.

I know myself if 1GB came into my estate I'd be swetting bullets trying to hold off. But if it was only Eir supplying, I would hold off and see how things go for six months ebfore committing. So the situation can only be harder in areas where the competition is non existent or only Eir's sub-par packages themselves.

I know there has been a few numbers banded around already, but I'm reading €87 a month being the retail cost for domestic users according to their own website. €1500 is a sizeable investment to make for anyone really for a new technology/product.

I suppose the downside is if everyone takes that attitude there won't be any guinea pigs. But Eir history is not one of rewarding early adopters. I can say that hand on heart as one of the first domestic households in Dublin if not Ireland, on their original always on broadband. €120 euro a month for 256kbs that did move to 512kbs ADSL. Boy how times have changed

TheDoc

Gonzo wrote: »

I know 8 familes near my home and every single one of them will jump to Eir's FTTH as soon as its available and there are 64 houses in the general area all of which are on Eir's blue lines. Most people on our road are getting between 6 and 12 meg which isn't as bad as some even more rural spots but most are complaining these speeds are not near enough for their use such as several people online in the same house streaming netflix, playing games, surfing the web and downloading whatever.

Once Eir rollout to the 300,000 homes I think their FTTH rollout uptake will be very successful. Most of us can't wait to finally chuck away these old slow connections for something much faster for relatively little extra money.

Yeah I suppose that is where the pricing point makes sense. Your probably coughing up €60-70 a month for ADSL of garbage, so another €20 for a massive leap in stability and speed is going to be worth it.

I guess I just find it irritating that the high price point is a kinda "what do you expect, we need to plough hundreds of millions to get your service" where as maybe some other countries might see that as genuine investment to be made on behalf of the state.

Havn't kept mad in touch with this infamous broadband rollout plan, other then the funding got slashed in half, and I wouldn't trust anyone in Dail Eireann with a USB stick. This is the crowd that implemented Lotus notes within their first year of government.....

Johnboy1951

I would like to see some ISP offer whatever level of connection they believe suitable, for the same cost as people on 5Mb/s ADSL are paying at the moment ..... say €45 to €50 ... including phone connection but not calls.

Even if that connection was only 30Mb/s lots of people would jump over to FTTH, and in (I believe) a short time quite a lot would upgrade their package as they found more reason to use the faster speeds.

The difficulty I see presently is that people on a 5Mb/s connection are not using broadband to its fullest potential because of slow speeds, and thus they presently see no great reason for higher speeds ....... particularly if such speeds are going to mean a hike in monthly payments.

So hopefully there will be a 'low end' option for those switching initially.

bk

ED E wrote: »

Those on good VDSL connections will stay on them, those without VDSL or shít VDSL will upgrade to GPON. As will heavy users. All the rural 5Mb ADSL lines will take it (excepting OAPs etc). Yes its expensive, but so is paying a team of a dozen KNN lads to spend a week blowing fibre and clearing ducts.

That is an excellent summary of what I see happening too, at least in the short term.

TheDoc wrote: »

I really don't see how Eir's debt and consistent mismanagement both operation wise and financial wise, should be offered as an excuse for them offering what on the surface looks a very good product, but at a very high pricing point. And with Eir, there will no doubt be massive issues and problems with service no doubt. I'm keeping my eye on the whole thing to see performance and uptime, but only because I guess I know that if Virgin feel even a whiff of it going well, they can just bump speeds at will.

I don't think any of us are using Eir's debt as an excuse, just trying to explain the reality of the situation.

The truth is Eircom should never had been privatised in the way it was. Instead it should have been split and the network section kept semi public. Had that happened we would all be on FTTH today for about €40 to 50 like some other northern European companies.

But instead we all ended up getting screwed. Given Eir's current financial position, them rolling out FTTH for about €80's with free install in rural areas is actually quiet impressive.

It could be far worse, look at BT in the UK, if you want FTTH, they will charge you about €10,000 for the install and then €120 per month for just 330Mb/s!!

As for it being almost double the price of Virgin/UPC, that is unfortunate, but also probably reflects the reality that it costs a hell of a lot more to deliver services and infrastructure in rural areas, then it does in urban.

Think of it similar to how the ESB charge more for electricity connections in rural Ireland.

Obviously in time I expect Eircoms prices to drop, in particular if they are allowed to remove the old copper network. I'd expect some substantial savings then. Also I hope we see SIRO introduce some real competition in the non Virgin areas.

bk

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I would like to see some ISP offer whatever level of connection they believe suitable, for the same cost as people on 5Mb/s ADSL are paying at the moment ..... say €45 to €50 ... including phone connection but not calls.

I believe we will be able to see SIRO do that, though perhaps not in the most rural areas.

The problem Eir has is that they have to pay for:
- Maintenance of the copper network, even if people aren't connected to it
- Build out of the new Fiber network and maintenance of it
- Interest on 2.5 billion worth of debt!

Siro should be able to do it cheaper due to their only costs being the rollout and maintenance of their new FTTH network.

On the other hand, Eircom have an advantage of an already in place and very extensive FTTC network from which to build from.

KeRbDoG

bk wrote: »

It could be far worse, look at BT in the UK, if you want FTTH, they will charge you about €10,000 for the install and then €120 per month for just 330Mb/s!!

Didn't BT get forced to deal with communities who organised together to provide them with service to a location in their town and communities then run the final mile(s) acting like a mini ISP?

bk

KeRbDoG wrote: »

Didn't BT get forced to deal with communities who organised together to provide them with service to a location in their town and communities then run the final mile(s) acting like a mini ISP?

Yes and those communities are amazing, but also there are incredibly small and few. A tiny percentage of the UK rural population.

What Eir and SIRO are doing here and what the NBP is proposing is FAR more extensive then anything happening in the UK.

Shockingly we have vaulted past the UK over the last 3 years and now we look to the Scandinavian countries as a model rather then the UK like we did in the past!

digiman

What is Eircom's strategy for new housing developments does anyone know? Are they putting in fibre from the start rather than putting in copper going back to a VDSL cabinet? I really hope its fibre, would seem stupid not do really

bk

digiman wrote: »

What is Eircom's strategy for new housing developments does anyone know? Are they putting in fibre from the start rather than putting in copper going back to a VDSL cabinet? I really hope its fibre, would seem stupid not do really

They really should be using FTTH for new developments. However there maybe and issue with Comreg and the USO requiring them to install a copper line to every home.

Johnboy1951

digiman wrote: »

What is Eircom's strategy for new housing developments does anyone know? Are they putting in fibre from the start rather than putting in copper going back to a VDSL cabinet? I really hope its fibre, would seem stupid not do really

They have't had to consider that for the past few years

Praetorian

I've thought for years that the USO should have been for FTTH, absolutely pointless rolling out copper in this day and age.

mass_debater

bk wrote: »

They really should be using FTTH for new developments. However there maybe and issue with Comreg and the USO requiring them to install a copper line to every home.

They ran both copper and fibre in Belcarra, I'm told this will be the norm unless the customer orders a data only package

bk

mass_debater wrote: »

They ran both copper and fibre in Belcarra, I'm told this will be the norm unless the customer orders a data only package

Well at the moment, they still don't have VoIP gateways, well at least not for consumer services. So if you want voice, then you have to have a PSTN copper line at the moment.

In future I expect Eir will rollout a consumer VoIP service and then they can offer voice without the copper cable, assuming Comreg lets them do that per the USO.

BTW I've read Comreg docs that indicate the USO is technology neutral and thus could be delivered over FTTH if open to all other companies in the same way the copper network is, which is as it should be. However I'm certain there are still details to be worked out. i.e. should it support a standard PSTN dial tone, support fax, modems, sky+ boxes, alarm monitoring, emergency alert monitoring, etc. and then there is the question of power backup when their is an ESB outage.

So not a simple question.

Johnboy1951

bk wrote: »

Well at the moment, they still don't have VoIP gateways, well at least not for consumer services. So if you want voice, then you have to have a PSTN copper line at the moment.

In future I expect Eir will rollout a consumer VoIP service and then they can offer voice without the copper cable, assuming Comreg lets them do that per the USO.

BTW I've read Comreg docs that indicate the USO is technology neutral and thus could be delivered over FTTH if open to all other companies in the same way the copper network is, which is as it should be. However I'm certain there are still details to be worked out. i.e. should it support a standard PSTN dial tone, support fax, modems, sky+ boxes, alarm monitoring, emergency alert monitoring, etc. and then there is the question of power backup when their is an ESB outage.

So not a simple question.

I don't see any great difficulty in that list.

ctlsleh

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I don't see any great difficulty in that list.

It should be part of the building regulations to run Fiber in new builds surely?

ED E

ctlsleh wrote: »

It should be part of the building regulations to run Fiber in new builds surely?

Ireland isn't nearly that progressive. I dont think even Sweden has that.