How the Eircom announcement affects the NBP map

clohamon

Recently Deputy Robert Troy asked the Minister about the map,

510. Deputy Robert Troy asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Alex White if he will clarify, in relation to the national broadband plan, if new private planned next generation access investments may be added to the map at any time between now and 31 December 2020; if further public consultations will be carried out, on foot of the consequent amendments to the map; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19584/15]

the Minister responded..

New private planned next generation access investments may be added to the national high-speed coverage map, once it is established that these plans are definitive and meet the relevant criteria required to be put on the map. i.e. that they will deliver high speed broadband service to end users. It is envisaged that the map will be updated on an ongoing basis from now until the award of a contract or contracts relating to the State intervention. How the map will develop beyond the contract award has yet to be determined.

Today, with the announcement by eircom, the Minister explained how this works in practice .

Officials in the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources will now revise their National Broadband Plan intervention assumptions and models to take account of eircom’s expanded plans. They will seek firm assurances from eircom that their new plans will be realised, as this is a requirement for all operators. The high speed broadband map will then be amended to reflect these plans and those of other operators.

oscarBravo

Cynicism about eircom's sincerity aside, that's a reasonable approach.

The NBP is a plan of last resort, to deliver services where commercial operators don't plan to do so. If a commercial operator is planning to roll out suitable services anyway, then it doesn't make sense for the government to spend money doing so.

The obvious question is: what happens if eircom (or Siro, or whoever) don't deliver on their promises? The answer is that those areas go back on the map.

clohamon

oscarBravo wrote: »

Cynicism about eircom's sincerity aside, that's a reasonable approach.

The NBP is a plan of last resort, to deliver services where commercial operators don't plan to do so. If a commercial operator is planning to roll out suitable services anyway, then it doesn't make sense for the government to spend money doing so.

The obvious question is: what happens if eircom (or Siro, or whoever) don't deliver on their promises? The answer is that those areas go back on the map.

I don't think you can leave eircom's cynicism aside. We know how long it took to roll out their November 2007 announcement. Some of those exchanges are still not upgraded to basic DSL. But it's not just eircom , Wik Consult identified 'over-announcing' as a systemic problem with this approach across Europe.

And there are other peculiarly Irish problems.

There is still no proper definition of NGA.
There is no cut off date for the announcements.

The mapping was due to begin after the spectrum auctions (Nov'12). Two and a half years later we have a single layer shapefile which has 500M circles, 1000M circles, and some settlement areas cogged straight from the CSO GIS downloads. It is difficult to know what was actually going on during that time. The map is touted as being accurate down to single house granularity. Yes it is, because the underlying OSi map does that. But the overlay, being circles and CSO settlements, cannot possibly be accurate. I would be interested to know what information eircom actually supplied to the department.

And let's suppose that eircom win the public contract but eircom's private announcements don't materialise. Do eircom then get subsidised to deploy in the areas they defaulted on?

watty

The NBP is a plan of last resort, to deliver services where commercial operators don't plan to do so

But when?
It's not workable. Not the way it's being done. Which is of course to avoid doing anything.

rob808

Do you guys think the remaining 460,000 house are screwed over by this announcement?.

clohamon

rob808 wrote: »

Do you guys think the remaining 460,000 house are screwed over by this announcement?.

It makes an awful mess of the plan.

The area to be covered remains pretty much the same, but the customer base has been halved and well and truly cherry picked. What’s more, now that the target area has been atomised it will be exponentially more expensive to build the network. With a network that thin and fragmented its an open question whether it would be financially viable even at an operating level (ie after all the infrastructure investment have been written off).

It is not allowable for the State to subsidise a network at an operating level in perpetuity. If it’s not viable on its own, then the ownership would have to go to a market player who would be prepared to take it on.

Remember eircom is for sale. The return to vital telecoms infrastructure being serially stripped and flipped by private equity is not unrealistic.

DCENR could have avoided this by closing the announcement window in August 2013 like they said they would. They may claim they are saving the taxpayer, I guess we’ll never know the answer to that for sure, but I doubt it.

rob808

clohamon wrote: »

It makes an awful mess of the plan.

The area to be covered remains pretty much the same, but the customer base has been halved and well and truly cherry picked. What’s more, now that the target area has been atomised it will be exponentially more expensive to build the network. With a network that thin and fragmented its an open question whether it would be financially viable even at an operating level (ie after all the infrastructure investment have been written off).

It is not allowable for the State to subsidise a network at an operating level in perpetuity. If it’s not viable on its own, then the ownership would have to go to a market player who would be prepared to take it on.

Remember eircom is for sale. The return to vital telecoms infrastructure being serially stripped and flipped by private equity is not unrealistic.

DCENR could have avoided this by closing the announcement window in August 2013 like they said they would. They may claim they are saving the taxpayer, I guess we’ll never know the answer to that for sure, but I doubt it.

Well guess that means iall never have FTTH now thanks to Eircom.

clohamon

rob808 wrote: »

Well guess that means iall never have FTTH now thanks to Eircom.

Don't blame eircom. It's a completely rational move. They were allowed to do this; so they did.

rob808

I don't how it be more expensive because goverment NBP should be 400m and with bidder matching so 800m surely that be enough for fibre the rest 460,000.

clohamon

Paul Bradley, eircom's head of corporate communications speaks to Shannonside radio. (audio)

http://www.shannonside.ie/news/eircom-earmarks-25-more-local-areas-for-high-speed-fibre-broadband-by-2020/

rob808

clohamon wrote: »

Paul Bradley, eircom's head of corporate communications speaks to Shannonside radio. (audio)

http://www.shannonside.ie/news/eircom-earmarks-25-more-local-areas-for-high-speed-fibre-broadband-by-2020/

The most rural areas I knew it they avoid the other 460,000 because cost them to much not looking good for me.