Urban FTTH - any progress?

BlinkingLights

There's a lot of focus on the rollout of FTTH in rural Ireland but, there seems to be very litte public discussion about bringing the technology to urban Ireland.

I'm in a location where I'm just a few minutes walk from the centre of Cork City and I can't get broadband beyond approximately 40 Mbits because I'm on the edge of a FTTC cabinet footprint and my street isn't cabled for Virgin Media due to someone blocking access their predecessors 30 years ago and the houses are individually built, so Virgin seems to have no interest in connecting the area.

I'm sure I'm not alone in bring in a situation like this ; urban area but stuck with fairly mediocre broadband that's going to be inadequate in a few years as the rest of the country moves to better technology.

Eir was promising all sorts of wonderful with FTTH but I haven't seen any evidence of them rolling out any fibre services in cities at all other than FTTC. They're also not even showing any interest in adding extra cabinets to fill in the gaps in coverage and are just sticking to the chesp option of not doing any copper rewriting by adding new PCP cabinets to shorten the lines.

We've easily got 300+ homes all fed from PCP cabinets nearly 1.6km away and a large area that has direct fed lines with unusable exchange launched VDSL and patchy cable coverage.

Virgin is being allowed to cherry pick and not being required to cable up the bits of the cities that might cost them a few quid. It's easy to bring cable to prewired housing estates or places they can get away with going house to house overhead. But, anything that requires ducting or digging seems to be of no interest to them at all and they just steer clear.

Is there any solution to this or are many urban customers just going to be left to the whims of the market while a few km away in "rural" suburban Ireland they'll all be hooked up to FTTH.

I can't see us ever getting Siro either as that's also focusing on rural areas and city hinterlands.

I just thought it might be worth starting a thread about the progress (or lack there of) of FTTH in the cities.

There are areas that seem to be falling between the cracks where they're likely never going to see super fast broadband unless it's wireless.

In fact in the DSL days, many of my neighbors had to resort to FWA in the middle of a city.

The assumption that if you're in a big urban area you automatically have decent broadband services available simply isn't always true.

...

Maybe we could start by posting info about any urban areas that actually have FTTH?

Johnboy1951

I can't get broadband beyond approximately 40 Mbits

Many of us would be hugely grateful for such a connection!

Siro to date have done only urban areas, mostly in some smaller towns.

Maybe when the rest of the country can get usable broadband there will be a push to raise the minimum from 30 to maybe 100Mb/s which should see connections like yours also get an improved service.

The assumption that if you're in a big urban area you automatically have decent broadband services available simply isn't always true.

That is correct, but IMO you already have 'decent' broadband.

going to be left to the whims of the market

Remember it was the same 'whims' which got you what you have now, which is vastly superior to a large number of people.
Is there any reason to suppose the market will not react to improve matters in time?

Sorry, I am not very sympathetic to those who presently have better connection than the minimum specified for the NBP.
There are large urban areas who can barely get a few Mb/s which need attention well before those above 30Mb/s.

boobycharlton

Have eir ADSL (3 or 4mb) and very oversubscribed Virgin Media available in our area, large housing estate in West Dublin. VM was grand when we got it for a good few years, but now every neighbour's SSID is VM so service has degraded considerably (40mb if lucky off peak, usually hovers around 25 ish in the evenings) VM don't really seem to do anything either. Eir have one new cabinet in the village but too far from our estate for VDSL.

So I do find it a bit irritating that folks in off builds are getting massively subsidised FTTH while urban areas are left swinging. But that's life in Ireland I suppose.

BlinkingLights

Johnboy1951 - I didn't start this thread to get into a urban vs rural argument.

I'm not looking for your "sympathy" I'm looking for properly planned infrastructure everywhere in Ireland.

I'm trying to point out that there has basically been extremely limited rollout of FTTH in cities here and there are areas that are going to be stuck with ADSL like speeds in exactly the same situation as small villages.

40 Mbits isn't decent broadband. My mobile phone is often faster than my VDSL connection and the landline occasionally drops out too. It's on the margin of the cabinets coverage with very poor signal to noise ratio.

I can't even reliably use VoIP.

There's an assumption that just because you're inside a city limits you're sorted. That isn't the case at all.

What I was hoping people could do here was catalogue where FTTH rollout in cities that aren't covered by the national state sponsored scheme is happening.

In Cork for example, the was rollout in Mountoval, a housing development in Rochestown on the southern edge of Cork City but in the County Council area. That's an area with extensive cable coverage and 360mbit widely available. Many of the areas that are direct exchange fed in the city centre and older suburban places can't get FTTC broadband at all and may not have cable would have hugely benefited, but it looks like Eir is chasing the same customers as Virgin, low hanging fruit, plenty of ducts, correct age profile and income levels.

What were going to end up with is areas of cities with multiple >300mbit options and other areas on basically ADSL or long lines and eVDSL at best.

ED E

Compare the mobile market against fixed line. Look at the strides that have been made in the density of sites we have now. A fixed access network is really expensive. If you arent an idiot you'll make profit on it, but not a large profit relative to your capex. The reason Eir and Vodafone want TV is the margins are way better.

There is no competition in your area despite its density, arguably you're in the ideal setup for a real market. But nope.

The solution? Make it cheaper. Deploying access is digging streets, putting down cabs and pillars, poles and ducts. Firms spend six months getting permission to do a job and <2wks doing it. If we wanted a competitive market we would:

A. Nuke all civils fees, fastrack BB applications
B. Legislate for the MANs operated by ENET to provide near to cost price connectivity at POPs in regional and subregional centres allowing new endeavours to get off the ground without having to cover 1M premises as a starting point.

Johnboy1951

boobycharlton wrote:

So I do find it a bit irritating that folks in off builds are getting massively subsidised FTTH while urban areas are left swinging. But that's life in Ireland I suppose.

Nobody is being left swinging.
Everybody is guaranteed 30Mb/s, regardless their location.
Nobody is guaranteed FTTH ...... it is left to the provider to decide what technology they use, within the parameters set out.
That applies to urban and rural alike.
The provider might well decide that FTTH is the better option .... or not.

If anybody checks the map and finds their home is not in the NBP, but they have less than 30Mb/s connection then they are encouraged to register their home for inclusion in the NBP.

None of that applies to BlinkingLights as they have 40Mb/s available.

BlinkingLights wrote:

Johnboy1951 - I didn't start this thread to get into a urban vs rural argument.

I'm trying to point out that there has basically been extremely limited rollout of FTTH in cities here and there are areas that are going to be stuck with ADSL like speeds in exactly the same situation as small villages.

There is extremely limited FTTH roll out everywhere.
It is up to the providers to do this or not, and I guess market forces will help determine that in urban areas.
No area will be stuck with less than 30Mb/s via the NBP.
It is clear you consider that inadequate.
Those people in urban and rural areas on 5Mb/s and less might have a different view.

BlinkingLights

Quite honestly, 30mbits is extremely unambitious as a target when LTE is already easily delivering faster than that on mobiles and there's an international push towards 1gbit and beyond.

I think there needs to be a universal services clause in urban areas for OpenEir and Virgin. They're both (and more so Virgin) avoiding rolling out services in area in urban areas that have any difficulties with civil engineering.

You've islands of slow broadband in large areas of older central and suburban parts of cities being direct fed from exchanges without any cabinets and you've got various parts of cities or bits of streets where Virgin just doesn't bother.

These companies have a duopoly and in some cases a monopoly on infrastructure and need to be held to some kind of minimum standard.

Johnboy1951

BlinkingLights wrote: »

Quite honestly, 30mbits is extremely unambitious as a target when LTE is already easily delivering faster than that on mobiles and there's an international push towards 1gbit and beyond.

I think there needs to be a universal services clause in urban areas for OpenEir and Virgin. They're both (and more so Virgin) avoiding rolling out services in area in urban areas that have any difficulties with civil engineering.

You've islands of slow broadband in large areas of older central and suburban parts of cities being direct fed from exchanges without any cabinets and you've got various parts of cities or bits of streets where Virgin just doesn't bother.

These companies have a duopoly and in some cases a monopoly on infrastructure and need to be held to some kind of minimum standard.

Remember LTE cannot guarantee that all premises will meet the minimum, or be able to meet any future minimum which might be introduced.

I do not see any reason to divide the country between urban & rural for the sake of a universal service.
Not unless you want to introduce a new divide such as exists at present.

For the present, the NBP will address the worst cases.
If for instance it is more economical for providers to use FTTH in such areas (urban &/or rural) then that is what they will do under the NBP.
I reckon FTTH will be the preferred option.
If so then what you will have in urban areas is some on FTTH and other FTTC ....... which in time and with market forces is likely to change to all FTTH.

Remember that the 30Mb/s is the minimum guaranteed ..... we have never had a guaranteed minimum before.
To be able to guarantee a minimum, (it seems from everything that is available presently), and at the same time be capable of ramping up in the future, that FTTH will be the preferred option for 'new' connections ('new' = those which fail to meet minimum standards at present).
Once the NBP is finished it is back to market forces to determine what happens.

What a lot of people seem not to grasp is that the NBP is equally applicable to urban and rural premises.
The guaranteed minimum is specified.
What is available above and beyond that is likely to be due to the technology used for the NBP upgrades.

BlinkingLights

Previously 14.4 kbps was defined by ComReg as "functional internet access" in the early 2000s.

I think it's fair enough to require Virgin to pass a very high % of homes in the areas there have franchises to operate. I would like to see what % have no service available.

Otherwise, you've a cherry picking situation which disadvantages OpenEir by just removing the high paying customers who want faster speeds in easy to access areas.

Johnboy1951

BlinkingLights wrote: »

Previously 14.4 kbps was defined by ComReg as "functional internet access" in the early 2000s.

...... but not all of us got that speed as there was no guaranteed minimum supply.

I think it's fair enough to require Virgin to pass a very high % of homes in the areas there have franchises to operate. I would like to see what % have no service available.

What franchises are you referring to?
They have a commercial product which anyone is entitled to compete with, as far as I am aware.

Otherwise, you've a cherry picking situation which disadvantages OpenEir by just removing the high paying customers who want faster speeds in easy to access areas.

The very nature of business is 'cherry picking'.
That is what 'the market' is based upon.
That is what Eir have done, and are presently doing.

Are you suggesting something different to the present commercial norm?

BlinkingLights

The cable operators have exclusively in the area they are licensed and are not open wholesale networks like Eir.

It would seem reasonable that they cover their entire licensed region, nor just most profitable bits.

Eir has to deliver a phone line regardless. Virgin can just tell you your house is 10m from a trunk. Sorry bye.

I can't come along and setup Blinkinglight cable and wire up Tallaght and compete with Virgin. Eir is forced to have an open network on pretty much that basis.

It's still *far* from a fully open market. So if that is the case, those market failings need to be regulated against to ensure you don't end up with coverage black spots.

You can't just assume the market will take care of it. To date it hasn't.

In the recent past, before VDSL there were parts of cities that could get neither working ADSL (due to line lenghts) nor cable.

tsue921i8wljb3

The earliest data i have is from September 12th 2016. In County Cork at that date there were the following areas FTTH enabled:

County Exchange Premises
Cork Ballincollig 130
Cork Carrigaline 1300
Cork Douglas 800
Total 2230

As of the latest update on the 6th of April the following areas are enabled:

County Exchange Premises
Cork Ballincollig 130
Cork Ballyclough 340
Cork Blarney 390
Cork Carrigaline 1270
Cork Crosshaven 120
Cork Douglas 840
Cork Macroom West 120
Cork Ringaskiddy 120
Cork Whitegate 220
Cork Youghal 320
Total 3870

Here is the link to the urban plan give by Eircom in 2014:

https://www.eir.ie/opencms/export/sites/default/.content/pdf/IR/news/eircom_Expands_Fibre_to_the_Home_Footprint_map.pdf

Here is the link to the rural plan:
http://www.openeir.ie/news/First-rural-FTTH-locations-announced/

I am not overly familiar with Cork so I don't know which of the areas in the second table would be considered urban. Obviously some will be part of the rural roll out. The issue is Openeir never publish detailed maps or numbers of premises due for their urban project so you are left guessing which are which.

I can say that in September 2016 overall they had 34400 premises passed which were all urban as the first rural premises had yet to launch. As of the latest update they have 61330 so a difference of 26930. It would be fair to say that the majority of these are part of the rural project as that is what has taken precedence for Openeir.

BorneTobyWilde

I will be going from 0.68 mbps to FFTH soon hopefully. I'm in the line of fire so to speak.
Should be matter of weeks.

Danny Boy

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

I will be going from 0.68 mbps to FFTH soon hopefully. I'm in the line of fire so to speak.
Should be matter of weeks.

In the line of fibre, so to speak

BlinkingLights

Thanks or those. Updated the tables with descriptions.

County Exchange Premises
Cork Metro Area Ballincollig 130
Cork Cork Metro Area Carrigaline 1300
Cork Cork City Suburb Douglas 800
Total 2230

As of the latest update on the 6th of April the following areas are enabled:

County Exchange Premises
Cork Metro Area Ballincollig 130
Cork Small North Cork Town Ballyclough 340
Cork Metro Area Blarney 390
Cork Metro Area Carrigaline 1270
Cork Rural but in hinterland Crosshaven 120
Cork Suburb Douglas 840
Cork West Cork Town Macroom West 120
Cork Metro Industrial Area Ringaskiddy 120
Cork Small Town Harbour Whitegate 220
Cork East Cork Large Town Youghal 320
Total 3870

Carrigaline and Ballincollig and Blarney would be equivalent to Swords to Dublin kind of relationship.

Douglas is fully part of Cork City other than part of it falls into a different local authority due to tight city limits. It is fully within the city continuous built up area.
Ringaskiddy is just outside the city but is home to a lot of the pharmaceutical industry.