Rural broadband in 2015 what a joke !

Buster2000

Hi all
I am just wondering if I am the only one who is sick to the back teeth of watching ads on the television about multi-megabyte ,fibre ,unlimited blah blah broadband ?!!
Successive governments have made loads of promises as to what will be made available to the rural communities in the future and how broadband is of such importance to the country .. e-commerce, working from home etc . I know if I tried to work from home with what is available to me here I would get sacked !
some companies are distributing fibre but unless your in the path you can forget about it..i wonder if the ESB took that attitude many moons ago would we still be on the oil lantern here in rural Ireland ?
The subsidized rural broadband scheme has gone the way of the dinosaurs and no "proper" substitute has replaced it.
Unless I am very much mistaken we pay our fair share of income tax etc and surely the government could do better ? Technology is for all but the idea of fair priced reliable broadband for rural areas is still YEARS away and the very idea of watching NETFLIX is just a dream for us! The Rural children have to get into the schools or towns to be able to access broadband reliably.
I myself had a VERY unreliable "2Mb" lol radio based Broadband service from Permanet who have after months of breakdowns due to old out of date technology have informed us that there will be no further repairs as it is not "economically viable" ! I suggested to them that as the sole providers of broadband in this area that they might have some sort of civic responsibility to the people in this area..at this point they just continued to hide behind their T&Cs and will there be any sort of refund after paying for a service we have not had since Dec 2014 ??
so now I have a Vodafone dongle with a 10Gb allowance and that lasted all of three weeks and now we have to pay 3 cent / Mb oh the JOY !!
apologies for the venting but this Technological divide that is keeping rural areas in the dark ages needs to be addressed ..
.........but not to worry..there is another general election on the way and Broadband will no doubt become super popular as a rallying cry for the political parties..that is of course until the Ballot boxes have been counted at which point things will return to "normal"...

mass_debater

The next plan in the works looks like it's going the right way about things, fibre to the home, they're not listening to the mobile companies false promises
http://www.broadband.gov.ie/
http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Communications/National+Broadband+Plan/
http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Communications/National+Broadband+Plan/National+Broadband+Plan+-+Mapping.htm
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057332672
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057265461

Some reading for ye

Buster2000

thanks Mass_ D
I have already read up on those but unfortunately it leaves it on a voluntary basis to the companies and as we know they will only choose "economically viable" areas so no not likely to be any change there unless they receive massive subsidies from the state.
I really love the way the entire country is in amber and that the statment infrastructure will start in late 2016.... nobody brave enough to put in and end date .... I wonder why ..... NOT.
to be honest im not a huge fan of the mobile companies but they HAVE coverage over the vast majority (I think) of the country and if 4g were to be made available and even partially subsidized by the state with a decent download package it would at least mean that anyone who has mobile phone coverage could avail of a half decent service..i have had a tatste of the independent companies as I mentioned in a previous post and there is a very sour taste left because of it , however I am in the process of sharing that sour taste with Comreg et al

looks like carrier pigeon broadband for the foreseeable future

soc

We're in Kildare (and not that far from Newbridge) yet we don't even receive a 3G mobile phone network... so we can't even use Mobile Internet here on the phone, let along on a computer.

We used to have Satellite Internet, and promptly dumped it when Eircom FINALLY upgraded phone lines out our way and we finally were able to get BroadBand speeds... they promised us speeds of 40MB when they wanted us to sign on the dotted line... but we only get 25MB. Either way, it's WAY better than what we had with Satellite - but I agree with you OP. The infrastructure is only being rolled out to major towns (and of course Dublin!). ... while the rest of us folk are being forgotten about. It annoys me when I see companies 'rolling out' 4G, and faster broadband to areas, when they don't bother rolling out the existing infrastructure out to the rest of the country.

mass_debater

FFS, did you read any of it, the plan is to subsidise rural areas that these companies won't touch as they're not economically viable. Bringing fibre closer to your door first to towns and villages benefits everyone, wireless companies can use it for their backhaul improving their speed offerings. It's a long term plan, it's going to take years and years.

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

Buster2000

we have had issues with our phone broadband too until I visited the "siteviewer" on the Comreg website . on there it showed the masts that were closest to us and as a result we changed our Mobile phone company ,we were fortunate in that there is a mast very close to us and can receive 3G speed from Vodafone in the region of 6 Mb which after our experience with Permanet was a god send. perhaps there is a mast closer to you served by a different company and if so maybe vote with your feet and money and change provider.
the Vodafone package is poor but I found the staff helpful an hopefully they will listen to the peoples needs.. we can hope.... or the "Feet voting" will take place again !!!

Buster2000

mass_debater wrote: »

FFS, did you read any of it, the plan is to subsidise rural areas that these companies won't touch as they're not economically viable. Bringing fibre closer to your door first to towns and villages benefits everyone, wireless companies can use it for their backhaul improving their speed offerings. It's a long term plan, it's going to take years and years.

"FFS" I did lol and am quite familiar with the routes in fact I watched the ESB string the fibre onto the pylon just a few hundred metres from my house I saw it come and then pass right on by..... the backhaul provision such as that from Motorola canopy etc are dependent on line of site and that is the issue and why it isn't viable. the Mobile system is not and can cater for areas in the countryside where hills prevent LOS. sadly I have had far too much experience with it.
Would I like to have Fibre? of course I would !! but I would also like some sort of proper broadband during my lifetime .

mass_debater

yuloni wrote: »

From my own village the other day, this is the sad reality of rural broadband for many

That is copper which has reached the end of its days, we need a new network built from scratch with fibre

Buster2000 wrote: »

"FFS" I did lol and am quite familiar with the routes in fact I watched the ESB string the fibre onto the pylon just a few hundred metres from my house I saw it come and then pass right on by..... the backhaul provision such as that from Motorola canopy etc are dependent on line of site and that is the issue and why it isn't viable. the Mobile system is not and can cater for areas in the countryside where hills prevent LOS. sadly I have had far too much experience with it.
Would I like to have Fibre? of course I would !! but I would also like some sort of proper broadband during my lifetime .

Ok well if you read the plan you'd see the idea is to eventually bring fibre to every home in the country. Be logical here, if you are in an rural area like you say, surrounded by hills how do you expect provision immediately?

human 19

I would have assumed that if you are surrounded by hills, at least 1 has a mast on it, no?
Im in the middle of low lying longford with a dongle on an extension lead just inside out the window upstairs listening to the Ardagh mast off in the distance

This isnt brilliant but enough to do the job. This is with meteor. It's actually usually better




http://speedof.me/show.php?img=150316112951-71384.png



My 3 phone shows 4G nowodays. Things have been slowly improving over the years , without government intervention.

Satori Rae

Buster2000 wrote: »

Hi all
I am just wondering if I am the only one who is sick to the back teeth of watching ads on the television about multi-megabyte ,fibre ,unlimited blah blah broadband ?!!
Successive governments have made loads of promises as to what will be made available to the rural communities in the future and how broadband is of such importance to the country .. e-commerce, working from home etc . I know if I tried to work from home with what is available to me here I would get sacked !
some companies are distributing fibre but unless your in the path you can forget about it..i wonder if the ESB took that attitude many moons ago would we still be on the oil lantern here in rural Ireland ?
The subsidized rural broadband scheme has gone the way of the dinosaurs and no "proper" substitute has replaced it.
Unless I am very much mistaken we pay our fair share of income tax etc and surely the government could do better ? Technology is for all but the idea of fair priced reliable broadband for rural areas is still YEARS away and the very idea of watching NETFLIX is just a dream for us! The Rural children have to get into the schools or towns to be able to access broadband reliably.
I myself had a VERY unreliable "2Mb" lol radio based Broadband service from Permanet who have after months of breakdowns due to old out of date technology have informed us that there will be no further repairs as it is not "economically viable" ! I suggested to them that as the sole providers of broadband in this area that they might have some sort of civic responsibility to the people in this area..at this point they just continued to hide behind their T&Cs and will there be any sort of refund after paying for a service we have not had since Dec 2014 ??
so now I have a Vodafone dongle with a 10Gb allowance and that lasted all of three weeks and now we have to pay 3 cent / Mb oh the JOY !!
apologies for the venting but this Technological divide that is keeping rural areas in the dark ages needs to be addressed ..
.........but not to worry..there is another general election on the way and Broadband will no doubt become super popular as a rallying cry for the political parties..that is of course until the Ballot boxes have been counted at which point things will return to "normal"...

You are very lucky dongles don't work where I live on any network . ...its a disgrace to be in 2015 without access to proper Internet

Buster2000

human 19 wrote: »

I would have assumed that if you are surrounded by hills, at least 1 has a mast on it, no?
Im in the middle of low lying longford with a dongle on an extension lead just inside out the window upstairs listening to the Ardagh mast off in the distance

This isnt brilliant but enough to do the job. This is with meteor. It's actually usually better





My 3 phone shows 4G nowodays. Things have been slowly improving over the years , without government intervention.

Hi Human
yes that is the point I was trying to make, Mobile BB is a possibility for a lot of people with varying degrees of success. It would be great if this could be supported in the short term to 4G in rural areas while we wait for the fibre / backhaul roll out .
The fibre , understandably , will take quite a long time to get into place in fact a nearby town had a fibre connection brought into the town a good few years ago but they just stopped and nobody heard a thing about it since.. a dead end.
there is indeed a Vodafone mast nearby and the speed is quite good the only issue is the download limit of10Gb,if this limit were higher such as the 30Gb offering from Meteor I would be delighted. Mobile WIFI reception is far better if there are no walls in the way(mine is better at the window also) so I have just ordered a Huawei B593s router that I can connect an external aerial to , it isn't locked to any network so hopefully I can do a little network testing with it and from what I have been reading about it has been very successful.
if / when 4G and higher download limits do eventually makes its way out here to the sticks it would be a massive improvement from where I started in the Broadband . lets hope..

mass_debater

Mobile internet is not broadband, and never will be. It should never be allowed be marketed as a fixed broadband substitute. You will never see higher limits, any deal offering unlimited 4G is a short term marketing strategy, they cannot sustain it. Also, when they oversell it (and they will) it will end up being as slow and useless as 3G, 4G networks are empty at the moment.

The long term goal has to be fibre with possibly a subsidised fixed wireless as a interim stopgap as it can do 20-30mbit each way when done right (planned and subsidised).

Buster2000

Satori Rae wrote: »

You are very lucky dongles don't work where I live on any network . ...its a disgrace to be in 2015 without access yo proper Internet

This is the type of support I am talking about. if just one Mobile mast could be erected in "Black spot" areas it would give a lot of people some sort of access in the short term .

I do NOT work for any mobile company but do need Broadband for work.

Children going to school are increasingly reliant on broadband and cannot wait years for its provision... the window is too small.

Banking , revenue , car tax, farmer online access and a multitude of other areas require a connection even more so now that Banks and post offices are and have been closed. Government services assume a connection is available and more and more request that we go online.

Broadband is no longer a luxury but rather a necessity just like electricity or water just ask the kids ..such as when a teacher suggests to them that they can research a project online.

Buster2000

mass_debater wrote: »

Mobile internet is not broadband, and never will be. It should never be allowed be marketed as a fixed broadband substitute. You will never see higher limits, any deal offering unlimited 4G is a short term marketing strategy, they cannot sustain it. Also, when they oversell it (and they will) it will end up being as slow and useless as 3G, 4G networks are empty at the moment.

The long term goal has to be fibre with possibly a subsidised fixed wireless as a interim stopgap as it can do 20-30mbit each way when done right (planned and subsidised).

I couldn't agree more !

murphaph

soc wrote: »

We're in Kildare (and not that far from Newbridge) yet we don't even receive a 3G mobile phone network... so we can't even use Mobile Internet here on the phone, let along on a computer.

We used to have Satellite Internet, and promptly dumped it when Eircom FINALLY upgraded phone lines out our way and we finally were able to get BroadBand speeds... they promised us speeds of 40MB when they wanted us to sign on the dotted line... but we only get 25MB. Either way, it's WAY better than what we had with Satellite - but I agree with you OP. The infrastructure is only being rolled out to major towns (and of course Dublin!). ... while the rest of us folk are being forgotten about. It annoys me when I see companies 'rolling out' 4G, and faster broadband to areas, when they don't bother rolling out the existing infrastructure out to the rest of the country.

Forgotten about with your 25Mb?

mass_debater

http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/existing-infrastructure-should-reduce-500m-taxpayer-bill-for-national-broadband-plan-government-31077928.html

Great news in the last line
"Mobile cellular broadband, such as 4G, has been ruled out" \o/

rob808

mass_debater wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/existing-infrastructure-should-reduce-500m-taxpayer-bill-for-national-broadband-plan-government-31077928.html

Great news in the last line
"Mobile cellular broadband, such as 4G, has been ruled out" \o/

I don't like that there still considering wireless even if it fixed broadband over fibre when will government ever learn.They should just do it rigth instead of being cheap all the time looking at other Nbp look how they turn out.I don't think anybody should hope for better broadband can't see them doing it rigth.

mass_debater

rob808 wrote: »

I don't like that there still considering wireless even if it fixed broadband over fibre when will government ever learn.They should just do it rigth instead of being cheap all the time looking at other Nbp look how they turn out.I don't think anybody should hope for better broadband can't see them doing it rigth.

Because subsidised fixed wireless with the proper allocated spectrum and fibre backhaul can easily do 30mbit each way over huge distances which is a good stopgap until fibre is available

Ballycarton

I live in rural New Ross, Co. Wexford. Although we are 3 miles from town, we cannot get fibre broadband. Although most of the homes in our townsland are connected to an e fibre cabinet. Eircom have told us that our home is too far away from the cabinet and indeed from the local exchange to ever get e fibre. I suppose we are lucky to be able to get ordinary Eircom broadband. Rang Eircom last week to enquire when we might get e-fibre , the customer service agent did a line test for us & our line speed is only 5Mbs. Also told me as stated above that we are too far from exchange & cabinet to get e-fibre. I asked him if there is any possibility that we might get e fibre under the proposed National Broadband Plan & he replied that he did not know but its probably highly unlikely as the last NBS only covered those who could not get broadband at all & it was provided by 3 Ireland as a form of mobile broadband, given that we can get Eircom broadband. Although the Government are proposing a speed of 30 Mbs under this new National Broadband scheme it looks af these speeds will only be a pipe dream for a lot of us .

mass_debater

Ballycarton wrote: »

I live in rural New Ross, Co. Wexford. Although we are 3 miles from town, we cannot get fibre broadband. Although most of the homes in our townsland are connected to an e fibre cabinet. Eircom have told us that our home is too far away from the cabinet and indeed from the local exchange to ever get e fibre. I suppose we are lucky to be able to get ordinary Eircom broadband. Rang Eircom last week to enquire when we might get e-fibre , the customer service agent did a line test for us & our line speed is only 5Mbs. Also told me as stated above that we are too far from exchange & cabinet to get e-fibre. I asked him if there is any possibility that we might get e fibre under the proposed National Broadband Plan & he replied that he did not know but its probably highly unlikely as the last NBS only covered those who could not get broadband at all & it was provided by 3 Ireland as a form of mobile broadband, given that we can get Eircom broadband. Although the Government are proposing a speed of 30 Mbs under this new National Broadband scheme it looks af these speeds will only be a pipe dream for a lot of us .

Blue or amber on this map?
http://www.broadband.gov.ie/

rob808

Ballycarton wrote: »

I live in rural New Ross, Co. Wexford. Although we are 3 miles from town, we cannot get fibre broadband. Although most of the homes in our townsland are connected to an e fibre cabinet. Eircom have told us that our home is too far away from the cabinet and indeed from the local exchange to ever get e fibre. I suppose we are lucky to be able to get ordinary Eircom broadband. Rang Eircom last week to enquire when we might get e-fibre , the customer service agent did a line test for us & our line speed is only 5Mbs. Also told me as stated above that we are too far from exchange & cabinet to get e-fibre. I asked him if there is any possibility that we might get e fibre under the proposed National Broadband Plan & he replied that he did not know but its probably highly unlikely as the last NBS only covered those who could not get broadband at all & it was provided by 3 Ireland as a form of mobile broadband, given that we can get Eircom broadband. Although the Government are proposing a speed of 30 Mbs under this new National Broadband scheme it looks af these speeds will only be a pipe dream for a lot of us .

Yea it gona be a pipe dream again but we migth get fixed wireless of course fibre better but knowing our government they go the cheap route again.

Access

I remember reading about a few communities in rural england who banded together to pay for the fibre lines themselves and are now getting 100Mbps.

Think it was on BBC Tech.

Is that an option here or is it even affordable. Any communities here tried anything like that?

delthedriver

Rural broadband? Parts of rural Ireland have no mobile phone signal !

martin12

Access wrote: »

I remember reading about a few communities in rural england who banded together to pay for the fibre lines themselves and are now getting 100Mbps.

Think it was on BBC Tech.

Is that an option here or is it even affordable. Any communities here tried anything like that?

http://b4rn.org.uk/

tinner777

that would be great, any idea on how'd you cost that in ireland? 1.8mb via eircom....

Ballycarton

Mass debater, thanks for answering & enclosing govt map. We are amber so therefore should qualify under new NBP hopefully.

Buster2000

Broadband, availability of courses , taxis , public transport , hospitals closing down , post offices , banks in so many ways the rural community has taken hit after hit from Governments who are turning their back on them.
The only time they show interest is when it comes time to vote and then the country resounds with the sound of all they will do if only you "don't forget us "... well who is forgetting whom ??
Local hospitals were closed down or severely limited in favour of "centres of excellence" while the idea of a centre of excellence is fine what do people do when they need urgent attention and the nearest emergency room is an hour away now that the local one has been closed?? Rural pubs closing down left right and centre where once they served as a meeting place for people to play a hand of cards on a winters night and maybe God forbid having a pint or two oh my yes some of these pensioners and farmers are Real speed demons !! This is not condoning drink driving but it is asking for recognition that living four or five miles from your local does mean driving ( No taxi ranks or bus stops here!! ) and once upon a time the local garda knew who was who and maintained a "sensible" control..but wait the LOCAL garda has gone too and now these batchelor farmers stay at home and chat to the dog instead.
Mental and specialist health care is concentrated in the cities with no support for those in need.
This should in NO way be viewed as an criticism of those living in towns and cities...been there .done that but rather a call to anyone living in the country to make our views known to these Politicians who promise so much and deliver so little.
When something as simple and easily deployable as 4G internet access is just written off so easily how could we possibly expect an emergency room ?? Maybe they will bring in a Country persons tax of 15% to reflect available services... Don't hold your breath..

Buster2000

apologies to all contributors for the rant.. and while it doesn't exactly fit the opening post or I feel it is symptomatic.

jcon1913

As far as i can see crap broadband has to do with low investment from eircom in infastructure. So when the govt say they are going to sell their stake in Aer Lingus think about selling a vital part of national infastructure line those copper phone lines.

No private company will service the country properly. They only want to service towns. Even towns are badly served.

I live in Dublin and the service in our house is poor. Unbelievably neighbours to the left and right have fine broadband but our house has rubbish service.

I can only shudder to think what the muppets in the call centres tell callers from rural Ireland when they call to complain about their broadband "service".

cfhaynes

The damage to the economy and society in rural Ireland by the thousands of people and large areas still not served by broaband after the 80 million of public funds spent on the NBS is a national disgrace. Three used public funds to build a monopoly and is now disposing of former NBS subscribers with all kinds of dodgy practices. Can anybody advise if we could initiate a class action against Three for the devaluing iof our property by not meeting its commitments during the NBS and since last August? My house is unsalable if there is no mobile or broadband signal - a fact I am legally required to disclose to potential buyers.

Three has now offered a nominal refund if I voluntarily quit - but Comreg's failings have given them a monopoly, with satellite not a viable alternative. Perhaps we could sue Comreg also - they don't seem to deal with complaints properly either.

ED E

LOL.

Good luck with that.

syklops

soc wrote: »

We're in Kildare (and not that far from Newbridge) yet we don't even receive a 3G mobile phone network... so we can't even use Mobile Internet here on the phone, let along on a computer.

We used to have Satellite Internet, and promptly dumped it when Eircom FINALLY upgraded phone lines out our way and we finally were able to get BroadBand speeds... they promised us speeds of 40MB when they wanted us to sign on the dotted line... but we only get 25MB. Either way, it's WAY better than what we had with Satellite - but I agree with you OP. The infrastructure is only being rolled out to major towns (and of course Dublin!). ... while the rest of us folk are being forgotten about. It annoys me when I see companies 'rolling out' 4G, and faster broadband to areas, when they don't bother rolling out the existing infrastructure out to the rest of the country.

I can see the luas from my bedroom window, and am currently stuck on 4Mb. Not 40, 4. Supposed to be upgraded in a few weeks time but when they can't get broadband out to people like us, you'd wonder when they will get to bally-go-backwards(no offence meant).

jcon1913

jcon1913 wrote: »

muppets in the call centres

Bet you are a pleasure to deal with on the phone!

jcon1913

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Bet you are a pleasure to deal with on the phone!

Well when your employer lies to you, and you lie to the customers, its time to find another job - or suck it up. I ve had plenty of patience dealing with people in call centres fobbing me off with excuses. After you give em some rope you have to hang em!

RossD12

I checked Eircom's eFibre map to see when we could get fibre broadband in our area - January-March 2016.. So I've a year to watch all of those ads on the telly before I can actually get a fibre connection..

murphaph

RossD12 wrote: »

I checked Eircom's eFibre map to see when we could get fibre broadband in our area - January-March 2016.. So I've a year to watch all of those ads on the telly before I can actually get a fibre connection..

We'll soon live in a town of 12k people, 10km from the Berlin city boundary and we have no planned delivery date whatsoever for VDSL. Count your blessings. I only know there's no plan because I contacted Deutsche Telekom directly-no nice maps here the way Eircom provides them. In fact, I'd say Eircom provide significantly more information to the general public than most any other telco anywhere. Maps down to the individual cabinet locations and the like. Wish we had that here.

RossD12

murphaph wrote: »

We'll soon live in a town of 12k people, 10km from the Berlin city boundary and we have no planned delivery date whatsoever for VDSL. Count your blessings. I only know there's no plan because I contacted Deutsche Telekom directly-no nice maps here the way Eircom provides them. In fact, I'd say Eircom provide significantly more information to the general public than most any other telco anywhere. Maps down to the individual cabinet locations and the like. Wish we had that here.

We don't have VDSL here either, never mind DSL on its own.. I'm using mobile broadband from 3 with speeds of up to 1mbps up and down.

mass_debater

RossD12 wrote: »

We don't have VDSL here either, never mind DSL on its own.. I'm using mobile broadband from 3 with speeds of up to 1mbps up and down.

You don't, 1.6 million households have or will have before the end of the year

murphaph

RossD12 wrote: »

We don't have VDSL here either, never mind DSL on its own.. I'm using mobile broadband from 3 with speeds of up to 1mbps up and down.

You'll have it next year and you have a fair idea when, thanks to Eircom publicising as much information as they can. The way things are going in Ireland you'll probably have FTTH before we get VDSL and good luck to you, just reminding you that things are really positive in Ireland in the broadband arena. Everything moving in the right direction and reasonably fast at that.

bk

Yes, Eircom today has become almost unrecognisable from it's former self.

In the past it was probably one of the most non-transparent and secretive company imaginable and also incredibly slow moving.

The Eircom of today has become one of the fastest moving, innovative, forward planning and transparent teleco I've seen anywhere in the world!

It really is a breath taking change and long may it last.

Their VDSL rolloutout has been one of the fastest and most impressive I've seen anywere in the world. Quickly bringing "good enough" high speed broadband to the majority of the country and future proofing it for the FTTH future from the start. Also innovative by being one of the first telcos to successfully use vectoring.

I've also been super impressed by their transparency on future plans. With pretty detailed maps and timelines for VDSL rollouts easily available to the public. Something you rarely see from other teclos world wide.

And the videos Eircom Wholesale release are very informative and interesting, giving far more interesting detail and information then anything I've ever seen from normally secretive telcos around the world.

I still remain wary of Eircom due to their awful neglect of the network for 15 years. I remain fearful that they will slip back to their old ways. But for the moment, they seem to have had a seismic change in management and company culture and I'm willing to give them the benefit of my doubt for the time being.

Hopefully rural Ireland will also benefit from these changes.

syklops

I wonder if the improvements is down to the new generation of Eircom employees, both managerial and technical staff being of "the internet age", where they want Eircom broadband to work for themselves and their families. I remember talking to an Eircom engineer years ago at a wedding and his job was rolling out DSL and ISDN to customers and he didnt have the internet at home and 'wasnt into computers'. Now, a 35 year old Eircom engineer rolling out broadband to Clondalkin wants it to work and work well because he wants his own broadband at home to work well.

Just a thought.

jcon1913

bk wrote: »

Yes, Eircom today has become almost unrecognisable from it's former self.

In the past it was probably one of the most non-transparent and secretive company imaginable and also incredibly slow moving.

The Eircom of today has become one of the fastest moving, innovative, forward planning and transparent teleco I've seen anywhere in the world!

It really is a breath taking change and long may it last.

Their VDSL rolloutout has been one of the fastest and most impressive I've seen anywere in the world. Quickly bringing "good enough" high speed broadband to the majority of the country and future proofing it for the FTTH future from the start. Also innovative by being one of the first telcos to successfully use vectoring.

I've also been super impressed by their transparency on future plans. With pretty detailed maps and timelines for VDSL rollouts easily available to the public. Something you rarely see from other teclos world wide.

And the videos Eircom Wholesale release are very informative and interesting, giving far more interesting detail and information then anything I've ever seen from normally secretive telcos around the world.

I still remain wary of Eircom due to their awful neglect of the network for 15 years. I remain fearful that they will slip back to their old ways. But for the moment, they seem to have had a seismic change in management and company culture and I'm willing to give them the benefit of my doubt for the time being.

Hopefully rural Ireland will also benefit from these changes.

All good points and very true.

The company was run for a few years by a bunch of people that just treated it as a cash cow, took a very short term view of what the company should be doing. Before going public the company spent money on a ASDL system, and flogged that to death to make money on it.

Then when they were good and ready they moved on to the present system, when they had exploited the ASDL to its limit. Theres no doubt that Eircom held the country back in terms of savings that could have been made with better access to broadband, in terms of people working remotely etc, better quality Skype, whatever. If the broadband system had been working there would be an 2 / 3% of the economy's productivity. All for a few billion back in day when it was floated and the Govt lost control, and the company was run in the interests of a few, instead of using the national system that was paid for through the old P&T for the good of all.

Anyway that was then this is now, so hopefully all that crap is behind us and they are a better company now. I will give them the benefit of the doubt for a few months until I see if things have changed for the better.

ItHurtsWhenIP

bk wrote: »

Hopefully rural Ireland will also benefit from these changes.

Amen Brother/Sister!

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

Buster2000

We got rid of the landline years ago as we were at the limit of line resistance over distance and the phone quality was awful easier to stand outside and shout (don't even ask about the dial up net ) .
We can hope that lessons are learned from mistakes of the past or we are doomed to repeat them. Short term gain by selling off the "family silver" is always a mistake! Telecom Eireann was an obvious one but there are others ,electricity grid,gas grid,national airline and more where short sighted governmental notions of paying the most immediate bills with a sell off puts future prosperity at risk.
Quangos are not to be encouraged but a "quango" is a government creation i.e. Installing people with absolutely no knowledge of a business to a position of influence over it is sheer lunacy and rewarding staff for turning up instead of encouraging effort only convinces those trying not to bother.
The "family silver" can be run efficiently and should be to entice more foreign investment and allow indigenous companies to compete on an equal footing with anywhere else in the world. We appear to be taking the first steps in broadband,perhaps further "cloud computing" opportunity will follow... Politically stable,weather suitable etc. cheaper electricity would help and we may even be able to keep our youth here instead of exporting them each time a recession/financial correction occurs.
We have many things going for us but also many issues,the youth of the country need to become more financially astute and politically active in the hope we can move away from entrenched party politics and open all our eyes to opportunity on a world class level. Our youth are world class but somehow we manage to bog down their enthusiasm and regress them as they integrate into last century politics..the old boys network ensures this.
What we lack in natural resources we need to make up for in enthusiasm in all areas,tourism,computing, ebuisness,financial. A typical example is a hotel where as soon as there is an event they jump the prices ,do they all do this ? Probably not but enough do it to give us a bad name. We need to do what we do..but better !!!!!
Oops just fell off my soapbox
I just hope they are careful hanging the fibre or the poles that cable is presently holding up will fall.

bk

I absolutely agree that vital national infrastructure should remain under government ownership, roads, rails, electricity networks, telecommunications networks, etc.

Private companies tend to do a bad job at investing in infrastructure, as they tend to be too focused on the short term and the next quarter, rather then what their return might be in 30 years time. Also private companies have little interest in delivering infrastructure to uneconomic areas, which is where the government needs to step in.

However the flipside of that is that governments do a terrible job of running organisations with a large number of employees. Telecom Eireann was massively inefficient in it's labour practices, it had literally thousands of ladies who formally operated the switch boards, but couldn't be fired because of semi state mentality and thus were left literally sitting there everyday doing nothing!!!

I think it is best for governments to keep out of employing large numbers of people and leave that to the private companies while instead focusing on infrastructure.

The Luas is probably the best example of this, paid for and designed by the Irish government and continues to be owned by the government and managed via contracts by the government (they set ticket prices, schedule, quality standards and even own the trams). However the actual building of the Luas was done by private companies and their employees and it is actually run day to day by private companies and the drivers, security, etc. are employed by this company.

Basically leaving everyone to do what they are best at.

Coming back to Telecom Eireann, it was a mess and it absolutely had to change and be privatised and made more efficient. The problem is the government made a complete mess of it due to their immaturity with these matters. They privatised the entire company which was a big mistake.

Instead what should have happened is it should have been split into two separate companies:

- Eircom Network/Wholesale, who would have continued to own all the infrastructure, telephone lines, fiber, exchanges, etc. But who would have a relatively small staff to maintain this network, mostly management, network ops people, network planners and a few emergency repair crews. This organisation should have been kept under semi-state ownership and it would have no residential customers, instead dealing directly and equally with all consumer telecoms companies operating on it's network.

- Eircom Consumer, who would have the majority of staff (sales, marketing, consumer technical support, etc.) and who would sell services directly to consumers. This organisation should have been fully privatised and it would compete directly with other private telecos like BT, Vodafone, Sky, etc.

Obviously this would have meant the government would make less money from the sale of Eircom, but it would have kept the important part, the network under government ownership and they could have invested in it and developed it much better over the years.

Fortunately it seems the government (departments in question) seem to have learned from this mistake and they are handling the privatisation of the electric and gas companies much better, slitting them into separate network and retail divisions and seemingly keeping the network side under government ownership.

lukin

I didn't know which thread to post this on as there are so many on this subject and I decided not to start a new one.
I live in rural county Cork and I am on the €39.99 per month 3 broadband package. Since the start of the month I have no coverage. This is because of the three/O2 merger and the carry-on with three using the O2 masts now. I don't want to give you the boring details on that as it is a long story and would put you to sleep (plenty of other threads on that anyway).
I have decide to cancel my contract and switch to Tesco mobile or Vodafone (if their coverage is adequate).
However I seem to remember reading on boards that because Three were given the contract to provide broadband to rural areas under the National Broadband Scheme they are contractually obliged to make sure everyone of their customers can access it? I can't find the specific post but I am sure I remember reading that here.
So before I cancel my contact I want to make sure I don't have any comeback on this?

NIMAN

I live in rural Donegal and have 4meg on the copper land line.

I recently upgraded my 20GB VF allowance to Unlimited and when the guy was changing me over he excitedly said "and this unlimited allowance will be great for you as you'll be getting superfast broadband on your number soon".

"You having a laugh" was my response. Irrespective of what their systems are telling them, I can't see me having superfast broadband this side of 2020.

clohamon

lukin wrote: »

I didn't know which thread to post this on as there are so many on this subject and I decided not to start a new one.
I live in rural county Cork and I am on the €39.99 per month 3 broadband package. Since the start of the month I have no coverage. This is because of the three/O2 merger and the carry-on with three using the O2 masts now. I don't want to give you the boring details on that as it is a long story and would put you to sleep (plenty of other threads on that anyway).
I have decide to cancel my contract and switch to Tesco mobile or Vodafone (if their coverage is adequate).
However I seem to remember reading on boards that because Three were given the contract to provide broadband to rural areas under the National Broadband Scheme they are contractually obliged to make sure everyone of their customers can access it? I can't find the specific post but I am sure I remember reading that here.
So before I cancel my contact I want to make sure I don't have any comeback on this?

Tesco Mobile is 50% owned by O2 (now Three) and uses the Three network of masts.
The National Broadband Scheme ended in August 2014. Three have no current obligation to you.
A trial period should be possible on the other networks.

There are quite a number of Wireless ISPs in Cork. Most of them are mapped (indicatively) here
http://www.irelandoffline.org/map/#/home

..or you could try the Midband Forum.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1147

lukin

clohamon wrote: »

Tesco Mobile is 50% owned by O2 (now Three) and uses the Three network of masts.
The National Broadband Scheme ended in August 2014. Three have no current obligation to you.
A trial period should be possible on the other networks.

There are quite a number of Wireless ISPs in Cork. Most of them are mapped (indicatively) here
http://www.irelandoffline.org/map/#/home

..or you could try the Midband Forum.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1147

Thanks for that clohamon. I knew the NBS scheme ended (a perfect example of our governments commitment to providing broadband to rural areas).
I found this link here about it:http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057242031&page=3
However I thought that three were still tied in to providing broadband to all areas. Obviously they are not.
After a bit more googling I found that as you said Tesco mobile use the same masts as three so I will steer clear of them.
I am thinking of going with Meteor as on their coverage map it looks like my townland is covered pretty well. They have a 14 day returns policy so I may well have to avail of that as I don't trust coverage maps.
Thanks for the links, I'll check them out