Broadband “plan” may undermine competition

Impetus

This morning’s Irish Times has a story on broadband competition, or the lack thereof. Much of which one would agree with. The current government non-plan for broadband fails to deal with all the elements of a broadband infrastructure roll-out in a cohesive manner.

1) You have the fibre network plumbing – which can be done by separate entities in each region if necessary. All that matters is that it is open to competing service providers and they can deal with the fibre operator in a regulated manner. There is no point in having multiple fibre pipes in each town or city to each premises – needless duplication of resources and a cost to the end user. Call this fiber trunk unbundling.

2) Next come the retailers of the service. This could range from mobile phone stores to WISPS (wireless internet operators) of which there are at least 36 in the country, operating typically in rural areas. Fibre would wipe out the Wisp’s business in a short period. However Wisps have a loyal customer base, and it should be possible for them to act as “last km vendors” of fibre based services along with mobile phone stores and other interested parties. By fibre I mean FTTP (fiber to the premises) (not the fake marketing mis-use of “fibre” by Eir (for VDSL2 services delivered over copper pair to the customer) and “Fiber Power” (used by NTL for a system that uses obsolete co-ax to the customers’ premises).

3) Most of the margin is in providing internet services. Content is expensive to produce. Content providers (eg RTE, Netflix, Amazon, etc) should have access to the fibre network at the other end to stream content (with the option of downloading) to end users. NTL (aka Virgin) would probably fit into the content provider’s department, and may have some door to door assets to pool into the system – although most of NTL’s infrastructure is copper, based on EuroDOCSIS3 and is therefore obsolete going into the future in terms of carrying capacity.

4) Ireland keeps fiddling with broadband technologies that have a short shelf life and limit competition. Broadband infrastructure short-termism. This can’t be allowed to go on. Even Mobile data is being mis-used as a platform for delivering broadband to fixed locations – which provides a poor experience to the fixed user, and saturates the networks for the mobile user. The closest to the state of the art networking strategy is Monaco. Every household and business in MC has Gigabit (1,000 Mbits/sec) fiber to the home for 49,90€ which includes unlimited calls to Monaco and France, to fixed or mobile numbers. For another 15 EUR, free calls are extended to the whole of Europe. Initially they are using existing DOCSIS3 in old apartment buildings within the building to deliver service to each household. The mobile network in MC offers G++ which offers up to 452 Mbits/sec down and 51 Mbits/sec up – and the service is fast because it is not being used to provide data to fixed premises. There is no point in engaging in iterations of interim technologies when Gigabit internet is well established as is G++ mobile. You will need it anyway within five years or so.

The key is to separate the network elements and competition at the content provider and retail distribution ends. In the middle, a regional fiber network operator might be licensed for a period of ten years, with provision for renewal of the license if their quality of service meets minimum requirements.

Where is the demand for internet capacity going to come from? Ever increasing video on demand, and higher video quality (eg UHD). Virtual reality for entertainment and business use is likely within a few years. Nokia already make virtual reality cameras which has a ball made up of dozens of cameras - so the camera can "see all around" - eg the viewer can experience what it might be like diving in the Pacific ocean or jumping off Burj Al Arab. Later on will come holographic imagery. All these services will provide enormous value to consumers, business, medicine and other markets.

Nokia VR camera https://ozo.nokia.com (priced for professional use at the moment - but no doubt will become more affordable over time).

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/broadband-plan-may-undermine-competition-claims-expert-1.2465244

Cuddlesworth

1 - Its more complicated then just laying fibre. You need to build out a complex layer 2 or layer 3 service with monitoring, long term support and facility's to enable split usage of services for different providers.

2 - I'd be surprised if WISP's could actually match the other operators overheads or buying power. They will still need IPV4 address space, they will need peering arrangement's to meet the increased traffic loads, they will need 24/7 support desks and will have to buy end user equipment at nowhere near the discount the others will.

And CAT5 coax can do 1gig down with DOCSIS 3, 3.1 can do 10gigs. Not sure where you are getting obsolete from. A H.265 4k stream pulls down about 20mbps, that's roughly 500 concurrent 4k video streams possible on 3.1.

3 - Content providers can pay for peering. That's how the internet actually works. That's how they currently provide their online services and that's how they will continue to provide online services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering

4 - Monaco has an area of 2.02 km2 (0.78 sq mi) and a population of about 37,800. Ranking it no 1 in the world for people per square kilometer. Do you know what the first thing any cable company looks at when they look to see if laying cable is feasible? Any idea's as to why that is.

Bill Shock

The Op is obviously connected to the bunch of WISPs who are hell bent on keeping rural Ireland tied to their current service. Report from the dinosaur Colm McCarthy is nothing more than self-serving tripe...paid for by the WISPs so what else was he going to say but that the NBP was bad for Ireland. Best thrown in the bin where it belongs.

ED E

Check the OPs history, he's a troll. TLDR: "Broadband in switzerland is awesome, it sucks in ireland, har har"

Impetus

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

1 - Its more complicated then just laying fibre. You need to build out a complex layer 2 or layer 3 service with monitoring, long term support and facility's to enable split usage of services for different providers.

I assume you represent an actual/aspiring monopolist? The roles and responsibilities of each party in the chain can be defined. The main issues with Wisps and similar is that they have an existing customer base, and a local presence to provide service, and a customer relationship. Their networks are unlikely to be able to handle the burden of heavy video/virtuall reality programming and games into the future. Their radio equipment will need replacement.

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

2 - I'd be surprised if WISP's could actually match the other operators overheads or buying power. They will still need IPV4 address space, they will need peering arrangement's to meet the increased traffic loads, they will need 24/7 support desks and will have to buy end user equipment at nowhere near the discount the others will.

Please don't get totally hung up on WISPs here. They are just one factor to be accommodated. You have mobile phone networks who may aspire to offer multi-play, traditional copper carriers, and cable TV. All could benefit. The customer will not benefit with a monopoly or binopoly when it comes to broadband.

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

And CAT5 coax can do 1gig down with DOCSIS 3, 3.1 can do 10gigs. Not sure where you are getting obsolete from. A H.265 4k stream pulls down about 20mbps, that's roughly 500 concurrent 4k video streams possible on 3.1.

The problem with cable is that the same cable runs from house to house in coax format. This has security issues, bandwidth management issues, has a higher cost of maintenance than fiber etc.

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

3 - Content providers can pay for peering. That's how the internet actually works. That's how they currently provide their online services and that's how they will continue to provide online services.

Peering is actually a no charge link-up between two operators. The very fact that you mention charges might be concerning. If RTE want to provide content to their customers, they recover their costs with license fee and advertising. The customer pays for the broadband connection. RTE also pays for broadband. Why should they pay on top of that for peering / a right to deliver their content? Where do you stop with a peering charge? Google? Microsoft? A hotel chain? A personal website that I may happen to own?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

4 - Monaco has an area of 2.02 km2 (0.78 sq mi) and a population of about 37,800. Ranking it no 1 in the world for people per square kilometer. Do you know what the first thing any cable company looks at when they look to see if laying cable is feasible? Any idea's as to why that is.

Monaco also has no politicians to mess things up. Proximity and high population density is all over Asia, many parts of Europe, the US and Latin America. Yet many / most of these have very poor broadband services.

Impetus

ED E wrote: »

Check the OPs history, he's a troll. TLDR: "Broadband in switzerland is awesome, it sucks in ireland, har har"

Most people who use the "troll" word in this venue tend to be incapable of lucid technical discussion on a top. The modern day culchie/begrudger culture is alive and well in virtual space...

Impetus

Bill Shock wrote: »

The Op is obviously connected to the bunch of WISPs who are hell bent on keeping rural Ireland tied to their current service. Report from the dinosaur Colm McCarthy is nothing more than self-serving tripe...paid for by the WISPs so what else was he going to say but that the NBP was bad for Ireland. Best thrown in the bin where it belongs.

I have no connection with any Irish Wisp. I don't live in the country and have no business interests or employment in Ireland.

rob808

It clear that those 36 Wisp just want to keep there monpoloy on rural Ireland.That analysis doesn't have a clue about telecommunication trying to say giving rural people better broadband a bad idea.I mean how dare eir and siro give us better broadband we love slow wisp broadband yea right ripplecom just die already you won't be missed.

Impetus

rob808 wrote: »

It clear that those 36 Wisp just want to keep there monpoloy on rural Ireland.That analysis doesn't have a clue about telecommunication trying to say giving rural people better broadband a bad idea.I mean how dare eir and siro give us better broadband we love slow wisp broadband yea right ripplecom just die already you won't be missed.

Sure WISPs want to keep a monopoly of their area. The same goes for Eir and Voda and NTL (hardly a Virgin given the number of spouses and partners over the years).

Every element in the industry has something to offer - be it content, customer base, long haul fibre, local fibre etc. It seems to me that Ireland needs to focus on competition and points of contact. Irish people are slow to change, conservative. Marketing is a major effort - which is why you need local contact in every town and urban mall. At the moment Ireland is running duplicated infrastructures in terms of Eir PSTN/ISDN and everything else including NTL and Eir FTTP. The faster FTTP takes over everything, the less duplication and maintenance cost of the core network. This allows competition and open access at both ends of the fiber - be it the content and international IP feed at the top end, or just selling the service door to door (virtually, not physically) at a local level.

Prevent monopolies, prevent duplication, and maximize competition. Using a single fibre pipeline minimises digging up streets and access lines to properties.

You can buy electric power from several suppliers, at the voltage and frequency (Hz) you need it, with just one connection between the grid and hour premises. You can also sell any power your produce (eg if you have PV solar on your roof), over the same cable. Those cables have a long shelf life. In the telecom area copper is dead, and needs to be ripped out of the network and sold when copper prices rise in the recycling market. They have tried wireless broadband - it can't handle the traffic volumes. They have tried IP over the electricity grid - it failed due to "crosstalk" for want of a better term. The only solution is fiber. One fiber can handle everything, at any speed required into the future.

guil

Who is going to pay for this national single fibre network?

ED E

If you have a single wholesale operator network, then you have a single set of field staff. Then they can do whatever the hell they want and strike until they get extortionate wages just like the other state run institutions.

We need competition + proper regulation from COMREG, not another Irish Water Fibre.

bk

Impetus wrote: »

The problem with cable is that the same cable runs from house to house in coax format. This has security issues, bandwidth management issues, has a higher cost of maintenance than fiber etc.

The same issues exist for GPON FTTH which is what Siro and Eir are deploying. GPON is shared with up to 64 homes *, with the bandwidth shared with your neighbours and with all data packets being transmitted to all neighbours, so it also has the same potential (but unlikely) security concerns.

* Though they are likely connecting less homes, 16 or 32.

This is just one example of the many technically and factually incorrect comments you have made on this thread so far!

ED E

Two edits their BK, SIRO are doing P2P fibre AFAIK (They're offering 1G Symmetric) and GPON only shares downstream traffic (encrypted) with your neighbors, they never see the upstream.

Still the points apply, and realistically the HFC network here is in really good condition as NTL/UPC/VM have focused on tight well serviced areas, changing drop cables out is a huge job and it just doesnt make sense to do it prematurely. EURODOCSIS 3.1 gives a 1GB pipe + HDTV, so in effect its faster than the current Eir/ESB offerings. I'd be well happy with that until 2022 when they can get OLTs for buttons.

rayfitzharris

Hi op,
I'm a long suffering customer/cash cow of a rural wisp(s), the feckers charge 55pm for 6mb purely because they know their customers have no other choice. I would like nothing better to see them all die out and stop leaching off the rural population. The only thing that will force them to up their game is proper competition. If I had any other choice at all I would drop them instantly.

Sadly despite all the promising announcements of nbp or Siro etc.. I believe I'll be trapped in the exact same boat in 5years time when everyone else has 1G fibre.

After a long battle with eircom, line on wrong side of road excuse,
I'm waiting over 7months now for eircom to install a line, which they can't even tell me roughly what speed it will be when eventually installed. Chances are it'll be 2meg, and I'll be locked into a useless year long contract.

The time for taking is long over, just spool out the dam fibre and let this country be a world leader instead always being the gimp lagging behind.

Cuddlesworth

rayfitzharris wrote: »

Hi op,
I'm a long suffering customer/cash cow of a rural wisp(s), the feckers charge 55pm for 6mb purely because they know their customers have no other choice. I would like nothing better to see them all die out and stop leaching off the rural population. The only thing that will force them to up their game is proper competition. If I had any other choice at all I would drop them instantly.

Sadly despite all the promising announcements of nbp or Siro etc.. I believe I'll be trapped in the exact same boat in 5years time when everyone else has 1G fibre.

After a long battle with eircom, line on wrong side of road excuse,
I'm waiting over 7months now for eircom to install a line, which they can't even tell me roughly what speed it will be when eventually installed. Chances are it'll be 2meg, and I'll be locked into a useless year long contract.

The time for taking is long over, just spool out the dam fibre and let this country be a world leader instead always being the gimp lagging behind.

I get that the OP is a troll now, but jesus whats with the hate against WISP's on this forum? Is it because you are getting a whiff of a heavily subsidized network role out, that it's fair game to **** on the only company who actually gave you a economic option? What was stopping you from contacting Colt or K&N and having fiber laid down to the closest peering exchange besides the 100k + bill if your lucky?

I haven't seen anything in the current role out plan to tell me that future cable layers can't just jack the price up year on year, because its extremely unlikely that anybody else would ever bother laying cable in most of this country which means they can do what they want with their infrastructure. That's what happened in America. The phone company's took the subsidies, built most of the network and then knew nobody could compete with them for decades.

ED E

I'm just waiting for the rants to come in when the NBP actually goes ahead.

NBP covers 90% of an area
WISP shuts down
10% left over are left with nothing

Its gonna happen, no way they get 100% coverage and 2 users do not pay annual mast costs.

Be careful what you wish for.

rob808

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I get that the OP is a troll now, but jesus whats with the hate against WISP's on this forum? Is it because you are getting a whiff of a heavily subsidized network role out, that it's fair game to **** on the only company who actually gave you a economic option? What was stopping you from contacting Colt or K&N and having fiber laid down to the closest peering exchange besides the 100k + bill if your lucky?

I haven't seen anything in the current role out plan to tell me that future cable layers can't just jack the price up year on year, because its extremely unlikely that anybody else would ever bother laying cable in most of this country which means they can do what they want with their infrastructure. That's what happened in America. The phone company's took the subsidies, built most of the network and then knew nobody could compete with them for decades.

The hate against the 36 wisp lead by ripplecom that don't want the NBP to go a head.it because of fears they be put out of business which is nonsense.It going to be a open network so no monopoly it give rural people a choice which ISP to go with not just being stuck 2 or 1 wisp with no other choice and plus there broadband could be terrible with low download caps.
I don't think if Eir or siro win it they would force them out of business it just mean they have change there business model and if there customer are happy to stay with them they be ok.

chris_ie

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I get that the OP is a troll now, but jesus whats with the hate against WISP's on this forum? Is it because you are getting a whiff of a heavily subsidized network role out, that it's fair game to **** on the only company who actually gave you a economic option? What was stopping you from contacting Colt or K&N and having fiber laid down to the closest peering exchange besides the 100k + bill if your lucky?

This is the problem. "the only company who actually gave you a economic option", thats exactly the way quite a few WISPs see things. They provide a poor service knowing that you have no other option and will likely need to stick with them.

When I signed up with my provider they were good. Decent enough speeds and ok-ish pings/packet loss. Then things started to go down hill. 50MB package, used to get speeds around 15MB, that dropped to 8MB, then 5MB and now I'm at 1-2MB most evenings with some evenings dropping to 0.5MB and packet loss is bad even within their own network. I've been contacting them for over 2 years regarding these issues to which I'm told they're making changes and upgrades to the network. After these so called upgrades things got worse.

Other customers of theirs I know, have the same problems. Some even lose connection for more than a week and cannot get in contact with them.

And it all falls back to things like "the only company who actually gave you a economic option". They would be out of business already if there were other otions, but they know there aren't and they dont do anything to improve things.

If companies like this can't even maintain their current network and refuse to acknowledge issues, then I can't see how people can have faith in them that they would do a good job with the NBP.

Impetus

chris_ie wrote: »

This is the problem. "the only company who actually gave you a economic option", thats exactly the way quite a few WISPs see things. They provide a poor service knowing that you have no other option and will likely need to stick with them.

When I signed up with my provider they were good. Decent enough speeds and ok-ish pings/packet loss. Then things started to go down hill. 50MB package, used to get speeds around 15MB, that dropped to 8MB, then 5MB and now I'm at 1-2MB most evenings with some evenings dropping to 0.5MB and packet loss is bad even within their own network. I've been contacting them for over 2 years regarding these issues to which I'm told they're making changes and upgrades to the network. After these so called upgrades things got worse.

Other customers of theirs I know, have the same problems. Some even lose connection for more than a week and cannot get in contact with them.

And it all falls back to things like "the only company who actually gave you a economic option". They would be out of business already if there were other otions, but they know there aren't and they dont do anything to improve things.

If companies like this can't even maintain their current network and refuse to acknowledge issues, then I can't see how people can have faith in them that they would do a good job with the NBP.

Technically I am totally against any form of radio to provide fixed broadband. While I am sure the well set-up WISP gives an acceptable service day one - when contention rates are low due to the small number of customers, as the customer list grows, and they consume more video and other high consumers of bandwidth, the WISP's QoS invariably falls. I am taking that as a given. Which is why I have been promoting the idea of installing a single national fiber infrastructure for nearly ten years. An open infrastructure. It offers the highest quality of service, is scaleable, more reliable than copper or wireless, and cheaper - especially if infrastructure is shared (eg running fiber around electric power cables for example). It also has a low maintenance overhead.

The system should be open to anybody who has a customer base to easily join the single fibre infrastructure and convert their customers to FTTP. Provision should also be made for existing fiber and other resource owners to put their installed equipment base, if suitable, into the network. With a view to eliminating unnecessary duplication.

guil

Impetus wrote: »

Technically I am totally against any form of radio to provide fixed broadband. While I am sure the well set-up WISP gives an acceptable service day one - when contention rates are low due to the small number of customers, as the customer list grows, and they consume more video and other high consumers of bandwidth, the WISP's QoS invariably falls. I am taking that as a given. Which is why I have been promoting the idea of installing a single national fiber infrastructure for nearly ten years. An open infrastructure. It offers the highest quality of service, is scaleable, more reliable than copper or wireless, and cheaper - especially if infrastructure is shared (eg running fiber around electric power cables for example). It also has a low maintenance overhead.

The system should be open to anybody who has a customer base to easily join the single fibre infrastructure and convert their customers to FTTP. Provision should also be made for existing fiber and other resource owners to put their installed equipment base, if suitable, into the network. With a view to eliminating unnecessary duplication.

Once again, who will pay for the single fibre network?

rob808

guil wrote: »

Once again, who will pay for the single fibre network?

The network 50% by goverment and other 50% by the ISP.it going to cost tax payer like it does for road ect.I would like NBP done right rather than it have to be done again especially if there stupid enough to give it to wisp.

guil

rob808 wrote: »

The network 50% by goverment and other 50% by the ISP.it going to cost tax payer like it does for road ect.I would like NBP done right rather than it have to be done again especially if there stupid enough to give it to wisp.

I know that's the idea for the NBP but what impetus is suggesting is that a single fibre network is constructed nationwide with the state owning all of it. No ISP is going to pay money towards that.

digiman

ED E wrote: »

Two edits their BK, SIRO are doing P2P fibre AFAIK (They're offering 1G Symmetric) and GPON only shares downstream traffic (encrypted) with your neighbors, they never see the upstream.

SIRO are using GPON, I've not seen anything anywhere about what products they are offering resellers but products offerings don't necessarily mean anything either as you could offer 1G symmetric over both GPON and P2P.

ED E

Pictures on here from a shopping center in Cork demo-ing 1G symmetric.

I suppose they could offer a premium single fibre option for those that want it and shared GPON for the rest.

EDIT:

SIRO Ireland
‏@SIROIreland
@Dbyrne_Trend We will be offering GPON services with a global split ratio of 1:32. Further information will be released at a later date.
11:42 AM - 12 May 2015

bk

SIRO is definitely GPON.

Nollog

ED E wrote: »

Pictures on here from a shopping center in Cork demo-ing 1G symmetric.

I suppose they could offer a premium single fibre option for those that want it and shared GPON for the rest.

EDIT:

what's with your hate of synchronized gpon? (:p)

they're probably doing it since the Max. theoretical upload on gpon1 is roughly 1gbps, and its simpler to market a synchronized service than asynchronous maybe.

I could see them offering 2/1 gbps around phase 2.

ED E

/\/ollog wrote: »

what's with your hate of synchronized gpon? (:p)

they're probably doing it since the Max. theoretical upload on gpon1 is roughly 1gbps, and its simpler to market a synchronized service than asynchronous maybe.

I could see them offering 2/1 gbps around phase 2.

No hate, non whatsoever.

Depends on how they lay their runs but it just could be disorganized. Say in an estate they run two fibres to feed a row of five homes on cul de sac, then one person orders gig symmetric. The rest are then prevented from ordering same as they must share the other cable.

On the other end if they plan a split ratio of 32:1 to actually happen then nobodys gonna get symmetric...

bk

ED E wrote: »

No hate, non whatsoever.

Depends on how they lay their runs but it just could be disorganized. Say in an estate they run two fibres to feed a row of five homes on cul de sac, then one person orders gig symmetric. The rest are then prevented from ordering same as they must share the other cable.

On the other end if they plan a split ratio of 32:1 to actually happen then nobodys gonna get symmetric...

I'm assuming they are simply marketing/selling it as symmetric, but not guaranteeing uncontended.

Much in the same way Eir's GPON FTTH 1Gb/s can't possibly be uncontended as GPON only gives you 2.4Gb/s download. Eir might not be connecting up to 64 homes to it, but I'm sure they are connecting more then 2, probably more like 16 to 32.

A 16:1 contention on a 1Gb/s FTTH connection is perfectly reasonable in the medium term IMO. And I don't see any major issues with Siro offering 1Gb/s upload with a similar 16:1 or even 32:1 contention.

All perfectly fine for home users, specially the upload speed as typically people do a lot more downloading then uploading.

To be honest I think Eir are being a bit mean selling theirs as 1000/100 Mb/s. 1000/500 Mb/s would be more reasonable. Note how 1000/500 would be closer to a symmetric balanced contention given the abilities of GPON.

ED E

TBH I don't see those kind of contention rates happening.

Each cab has 200 VDSL Ports (400 for a riser cab) and 20 dark fibers underneath. Assuming 100% takeup thats only 10:1 normally

GPON:
10:1 ?
2.48 _ 1.24 Gb

Even split gives 248Mb _ 124Mb

D3.1:
8:1
10.0 _ 1.0 Gb

Even split gives 1.25Gb _ 125Mb

Unless I'm doing some really bad maths here it looks like I'll be sticking with VM for a while to come.

digiman

ED E wrote: »

TBH I don't see those kind of contention rates happening.

Each cab has 200 VDSL Ports (400 for a riser cab) and 20 dark fibers underneath. Assuming 100% takeup thats only 10:1 normally

GPON:
10:1 ?
2.48 _ 1.24 Gb

Even split gives 248Mb _ 124Mb

D3.1:
8:1
10.0 _ 1.0 Gb

Even split gives 1.25Gb _ 125Mb

Unless I'm doing some really bad maths here it looks like I'll be sticking with VM for a while to come.

I doubt Eir would use all 20 fibres for only the 200 customers that are served by that FTTC. The copper from the FTTC has a limited reach but the fibre would reach much much further out into the country. They would most likely reserve some fibres for P2P products and also some for repair/maintenance.

I guess alot of it depends on wether EIR decide to put an OLT next to the FTTC cabinet or keep the OLT back at the exchange, I would think they will keep it at the exchange and in which case they will need to plan those 20 fibres carefully unless they are willing to blow out more fibre in the future.

Either way the splitting ratio would most likely be 32:1, even at this it is more than adequate if all customers were using a 1Gb product as with 100% take-up and efficiency you are still guaranteed around 75Mb/s in the download and 37.5 in the upload. Given internet usage at peak is around 1Mb/s there is plenty of bandwidth to spare!! Of course they will never be able to get 100% efficiency and will take a long time to reach 100% takeup so it won't be a concern.

Even if it was to congest today you could look at upgrading to NGPON and by the time it is actually required to upgrade because of congestion more options like NGPON2 will be commercially available to deploy. I don't see congestion in the download being much of a concern. I'd be more concerned with the user who previously got Eir FTTH and was uploading at over 50Mb/s all day every day. This could be a genuine problem but easy to solve if they start limited BitTorrent traffic.

ED E

digiman wrote: »

I doubt Eir would use all 20 fibres for only the 200 customers that are served by that FTTC. The copper from the FTTC has a limited reach but the fibre would reach much much further out into the country. They would most likely reserve some fibres for P2P products and also some for repair/maintenance.

I guess alot of it depends on wether EIR decide to put an OLT next to the FTTC cabinet or keep the OLT back at the exchange, I would think they will keep it at the exchange and in which case they will need to plan those 20 fibres carefully unless they are willing to blow out more fibre in the future.

Either way the splitting ratio would most likely be 32:1, even at this it is more than adequate if all customers were using a 1Gb product as with 100% take-up and efficiency you are still guaranteed around 75Mb/s in the download and 37.5 in the upload. Given internet usage at peak is around 1Mb/s there is plenty of bandwidth to spare!! Of course they will never be able to get 100% efficiency and will take a long time to reach 100% takeup so it won't be a concern.

Even if it was to congest today you could look at upgrading to NGPON and by the time it is actually required to upgrade because of congestion more options like NGPON2 will be commercially available to deploy. I don't see congestion in the download being much of a concern. I'd be more concerned with the user who previously got Eir FTTH and was uploading at over 50Mb/s all day every day. This could be a genuine problem but easy to solve if they start limited BitTorrent traffic.

OLTs are staying in the exchange for the forseeable future, that's known.


Its 20 fibres per cab, so they're likely allocating them for future use with the same group of customers in my eyes, otherwise they wouldnt have a fixed ratio that way. The more remote users often dont run through CCP cabs and even those that do there's nothing stopping them running additional cables out along the main pairs(200x and 500x's). The pairs sitting under cabs, IMO, are there to compete with VM and not to serve rural users (for the most part).

Do we know if its WDM or TDM? If its WDM they cant "oversell" one optic to actually contend it, but if its TDM and they do that will stack up very poorly against the HFC network for urban/suburban users.

digiman

ED E wrote: »

Do we know if its WDM or TDM? If its WDM they cant "oversell" one optic to actually contend it, but if its TDM and they do that will stack up very poorly against the HFC network for urban/suburban users.

What are you referring to here? GPON?

Nollog

digiman wrote: »

What are you referring to here? GPON?

The way they cram more than one customer on a fibre with things like gpon.

time-division, or wavelength division.

TDM
You're sending data, your neighbour is sending data right after you, then you're sending some after. You're all purple.

WDM
You're pink light, your neighbour is orange light

digiman

/\/ollog wrote: »

The way they cram more than one customer on a fibre with things like gpon.

time-division, or wavelength division.

TDM
You're sending data, your neighbour is sending data right after you, then you're sending some after. You're all purple.

WDM
You're pink light, your neighbour is orange light

Ok, there is probably some confusion here. Someone said before that Eir are using GPON and I would think they are correct. GPON only works using TDMA in the uplink direction and allocates timeslots to transmit controlled by a dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA). In the downstream it broadcasts the same data to every ONT in that PON, the data is encrypted so it only goes to the ONT that it is destined for and the other ONTs will drop it.

WDM is not used at all in GPON. I think the application use for it is so that you can have different technologies running on the same fibre, i.e. have GPON on 1490/1310 and NGPON2 etc on different wavelenghts so you don't need to upgrade every single user in that PON. High value customers could be upgraded from GPON to NGPON2 without affecting the others.

I'm just speculating really, there are so many acronyms after GPON it gets a bit crazy, NGPON1, NGPON2, XGPON1, XPON2 etc etc Hard to keep up with it all

Nollog

Yeah, the PON family just means you don't push electricity down the line too, aka passive.

bk

ED E wrote: »

Its 20 fibres per cab, so they're likely allocating them for future use with the same group of customers in my eyes, otherwise they wouldnt have a fixed ratio that way. The more remote users often dont run through CCP cabs and even those that do there's nothing stopping them running additional cables out along the main pairs(200x and 500x's). The pairs sitting under cabs, IMO, are there to compete with VM and not to serve rural users (for the most part).

There are 24 fibers passing under each cab. 4 fibers are used in the cab for FTTC. The other 20 simply pass under the cab but aren't connected to it.

I wouldn't read too much into them running under the cab, I'd say they are simply running bundles of 24 pairs to every cab. Easier to use standardised bundles, then running individual pairs to actually match the number of customers attached to the cab.

I suspect they have far more pairs running under the cab then actual FTTC customers attached to the cab and that they will also connect out to many more rural customers far outside the FTTC range.

The FTTC cabs tend to spider out along main trunk routes in a circle all around a central exchange. So obviously to get from the exchange to any distant rural customer, you are most likely going to pass one of the FTTC cabs anyway.

To be honest, for FTTH you should really forget about FTTC cabs completely and just think of them as central locations under which fiber happens to pass.

Most of the GPON splitters won't even be at the FTTC cabs (some will, but not all or even the majority), they will be further along, in ducts at the end of your street and estate.