putting mobile broadband masts on churches for rural areas

Andy From Sligo

just heard on the news Today that (in the UK) they are trialing putting Mobile (4G) transmitters/masts to serve people in villages with mobile broadband, where they only got poor broadband or no broadband at all on top of churches (could be church of England churches, I dont know if catholic churches)

The (white) transmitters painted to match the brickwork of the church so they blend in. (well as much as they can, and they are quite high up) the mobile phone operators pay rent to the church as well.

good idea for Ireland or not? - for rural area's with poor reception / broadband?

Sky News - How church steeples boost wifi connectivity in rural communities

digiman

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

just heard on the news Today that (in the UK) they are trialing putting Mobile (4G) transmitters/masts to serve people in villages with mobile broadband, where they only got poor broadband or no broadband at all on top of churches (could be church of England churches, I dont know if catholic churches)

The (white) transmitters painted to match the brickwork of the church so they blend in. (well as much as they can, and they are quite high up) the mobile phone operators pay rent to the church as well.

good idea for Ireland or not? - for rural area's with poor reception / broadband?

I know of a few churches around the country where this has already been done.

http://siteviewer.comreg.ie/#site/LX0020/53.0347739316/-7.2931714861/1/Site%20LX0020

irishgeo

the mountains of the west of ireland would still cause a problem.

Andy From Sligo

digiman wrote: »

I know of a few churches around the country where this has already been done.

http://siteviewer.comreg.ie/#site/LX0020/53.0347739316/-7.2931714861/1/Site%20LX0020

ah right - interesting , so they are doing it in Ireland already then . i never heard of it until now.

Andy From Sligo

irishgeo wrote: »

the mountains of the west of ireland would still cause a problem.

but if its a village with poor broadband and a suitable church is in the village then mountains be in the way of the church and the village and wouldnt block the signal. - mind you, you then have to look at the population of the village and think is it viable to install the equipment if its only a village with a tiny population?

Del2005

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

but if its a village with poor broadband and a suitable church is in the village then mountains be in the way of the church and the village and wouldnt block the signal. - mind you, you then have to look at the population of the village and think is it viable to install the equipment if its only a village with a tiny population?

That's the problem with our ribbon development. People still won't be close enough for decent signal strength.

ED E

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

but if its a village with poor broadband and a suitable church is in the village then mountains be in the way of the church and the village and wouldnt block the signal. - mind you, you then have to look at the population of the village and think is it viable to install the equipment if its only a village with a tiny population?

That used to be the case, now nearly all villages with an exchange are NGB. The issue isnt the village, its people living 6 miles out the road.


There are villages in Cavan with full exchanges but less than 50 homes actually in the village. The church might have LOS to 80 dwellings, mostly covered by the existing exchange.

The brits have hamlets, we don't.

irishgeo

the solution to our issue is the project loon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Loon

ED E

irishgeo wrote: »

the solution to our issue is the project loon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Loon

Glad we're admitting Ireland is 3rd world now.

irishgeo

ED E wrote: »

Glad we're admitting Ireland is 3rd world now.

in broadband terms anyway

Skedaddle

Well, to be fair there are very very few countries getting ultra fast broadband out to really scattered rural locations. It's similar or worse in parts of rural USA and rural France in my experience. The difference in Ireland is that kind of scatter dwelling makes up a relatively higher % of homes, as one of the least urbanised developed countries in the world.

Andy From Sligo

how we doing with satellite broadband over here in ireland ? - is it still lagging with high latency or has that been sorted out now these days? - if its pretty good these days why cannot eir put a satellite dish system where their cabinets are in a rural location and then distribute the signal from the dish to the phone lines and then to the houses in the rural areas? - i know it wont be as fast as fibre, but if fibre FTTC has been put on hold now (which it seems) why can they not distribute to people that way in people who are all dotted around the place in rural areas and villages and small towns?

Del2005

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

how we doing with satellite broadband over here in ireland ? - is it still lagging with high latency or has that been sorted out now these days? - if its pretty good these days why cannot eir put a satellite dish system where their cabinets are in a rural location and then distribute the signal from the dish to the phone lines and then to the houses in the rural areas? - i know it wont be as fast as fibre, but if fibre FTTC has been put on hold now (which it seems) why can they not distribute to people that way in people who are all dotted around the place in rural areas and villages and small towns?

The problem we will always have in this country is ribbon development. It doesn't matter were you put the infrastructure as there are not enough people living close enough to make it viable.

The UK has admitted that it cannot reach all their properties with broadband and they as already posted mainly live in towns and villages, we have people spread up and down every boreen you can find and think that we will be able to provide them with fibre broadband.

Australia is trying to get broadband to everyone and its going worse than our rollout

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/b0b3c2fc-9d32-11e7-8cd4-932067fbf946

ED E

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

how we doing with satellite broadband over here in ireland ? - is it still lagging with high latency or has that been sorted out now these days? - if its pretty good these days why cannot eir put a satellite dish system where their cabinets are in a rural location and then distribute the signal from the dish to the phone lines and then to the houses in the rural areas? - i know it wont be as fast as fibre, but if fibre FTTC has been put on hold now (which it seems) why can they not distribute to people that way in people who are all dotted around the place in rural areas and villages and small towns?

Thats not satellite. Satellite goes to space and is entirely useless due to travel time up and down.

Fixed wireless is what you're talking about. See Imagine: Fine at 2AM, brutal at 6PM. With phone lines if you've say 4Mb avg then 200 lines is 800Mb. With wireless 200 dishes on a 100Mb system is 0.5Mb each. More you add, less each gets.

Skedaddle

Satellite broadband is by its nature laggy. The signal travels at the speed of light to and from a satellite in geostationary orbit, which is roughly 36,000km overhead. That's fine for broadcast television but for real time communication it's very laggy. You can't change the laws of physics and they apply in Ireland in exactly the same way as anywhere else. Satellite broadband is generally poor for anything like online gaming of VoIP, video calls, etc etc

FTTC uses VDSL which only has a range of a little over 1.5km on cooper lines before there's a huge drop in speed. Every house has to be close to be within a short distance of the cabinet. It's fine for rural villages and clusters of homes, but it's totally unsuitable for individual homes in the countryside or ribbon development along roads. The cabinet needs to be at the centre of a cluster of homes.

You're really looking at either FTTH with fibre to homes or FTTX where X is a high speed radio link to the homes, which also requires like of sight to a transmission mast. So it's maybe able to serve all the homes in a particular valley or whatever but, you'll get the odd one out of coverage still.

There's no easy or cheap solution to remote and one off housing's broadband issues.

Ribbon development is probably the most suited for FTTH solutions as there is at least a density of users that can be connected to one long fibre route.

The issue is when you're into one off houses without any pattern of development; it's an expensive line running job.

Realistically, you'd need to look at similar scale rollout to rural electrification and that took something like 40 years and rural dwellers have to pay a contribution toward ESB hook ups, it's never been free.

There's really no way of doing it without running overhead lines on poles and that costs serious money. Pretending it's doable on a commercial basis nonsense. It will cost more to do than urban band village and even ribbon development broadband and we need to be realistic about that. You can't expect it to happen when commercial operators can't make a business case to do it. So it needs a total rethink.

The high horse brigade

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

how we doing with satellite broadband over here in ireland ? - is it still lagging with high latency or has that been sorted out now these days? - if its pretty good these days why cannot eir put a satellite dish system where their cabinets are in a rural location and then distribute the signal from the dish to the phone lines and then to the houses in the rural areas? - i know it wont be as fast as fibre, but if fibre FTTC has been put on hold now (which it seems) why can they not distribute to people that way in people who are all dotted around the place in rural areas and villages and small towns?

Yeah we defeated the laws of physics, was a real bitch.

Honestly, a satellite is 23000 miles away, we can't make radio waves go any faster. A satellite covering the whole of Europe has the same backhaul as a small rural exchange. Satellite is not the answer.

Marlow

As for churches:

lots of fixed wireless isps and sometimes the mobile providers use their towers in Ireland. That's nothing new. Even the old Mortello towers are a great place to place gear, because they all were build within line of sight of each other.

The problem is maintenance. Access can be a real problem and when it is, that solution falls flat on it's face.

Either way ... it's nothing new. That approach was taken in Ireland over 10 years ago. Just not on a nationwide level, as the churches here aren't quite as organised as under the Church of England or the likes.

/M

Skedaddle

It looks like someone sent a press release or someone noticed this for the first time. It's nothing new and is done all over the world.

Andy From Sligo

Skedaddle wrote: »

It looks like someone sent a press release or someone noticed this for the first time. It's nothing new and is done all over the world.

gord when i saw it on Sky News I though "wow this is a breakthrough! - maybe this will work in Ireland where villages cannot get broadband" .. and what dya know it sound like Ireland have already been doing it for the last decade!

oscarBravo

Stability can be a problem too. I've seen an example where a church was being used as a (really good) repeater site, then the parish priest was replaced and the new one decided that unless he started seeing mobile site-level income, it would have to come down.

It came down.

Andy From Sligo

oscarBravo wrote: »

Stability can be a problem too. I've seen an example where a church was being used as a (really good) repeater site, then the parish priest was replaced and the new one decided that unless he started seeing mobile site-level income, it would have to come down.

It came down.

bloody hell - would have been better to replace the priest!

Andy From Sligo

wahat about telephone/telegraph wooden poles in rural areas wouldnt it be good to put 4G mast(s) on the highest poles in a village? - even if it was eir who done it after all they own the overhead lines/poles/infrastructure - or wouldn't even the highest poles / ones up the highest altitude in a village be high enough to work?

ED E

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

wahat about telephone/telegraph wooden poles in rural areas wouldnt it be good to put 4G mast(s) on the highest poles in a village? - even if it was eir who done it after all they own the overhead lines/poles/infrastructure - or wouldn't even the highest poles / ones up the highest altitude in a village be high enough to work?

You'd need a pylon not a pole to get high enough.

Remember these sectors are put in for 500 users, not 50, so covering 1500m in each direction is of no use.

jester77

The high horse brigade wrote: »

Yeah we defeated the laws of physics, was a real bitch.

Honestly, a satellite is 23000 miles away, we can't make radio waves go any faster. A satellite covering the whole of Europe has the same backhaul as a small rural exchange. Satellite is not the answer.

The low orbit satellites that will come on line over the coming years should solve a lot of those issues. They will be floating around at 1200 km and will have a latency of 25-35ms which should be an improvement on mobile.

Andy From Sligo

ED E wrote: »

You'd need a pylon not a pole to get high enough.

Remember these sectors are put in for 500 users, not 50, so covering 1500m in each direction is of no use.

ooh, electricity pylon then - Vodafone has already gone into marriage with ESB with this SIRO expedition - so maybe ESB would let Vodafone put mobile masts on their Pylon infrastructure?

Andy From Sligo

jester77 wrote: »

The low orbit satellites that will come on line over the coming years should solve a lot of those issues. They will be floating around at 1200 km and will have a latency of 25-35ms which should be an improvement on mobile.

what roughly is latency on mobile 4G at the moment is it quite high? - i suppose the answer on that has other factors like how near or far you are to the masts isnt it?

irishgeo

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

ooh, electricity pylon then - Vodafone has already gone into marriage with ESB with this SIRO expedition - so maybe ESB would let Vodafone put mobile masts on their Pylon infrastructure?

rural areas dont have pylons though. they dont need the high voltage lines that a pylon are used on.

ED E

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

ooh, electricity pylon then - Vodafone has already gone into marriage with ESB with this SIRO expedition - so maybe ESB would let Vodafone put mobile masts on their Pylon infrastructure?

Sensitive RF kit and big fecking RFI generators don't mix............. :rolleyes:

Andy From Sligo

ED E wrote: »

Sensitive RF kit and big fecking RFI generators don't mix............. :rolleyes:

yep - i didnt take that into account

clever bit of technology that is what SIRO has going on then running hi-speed broadband alongside the esb power cables then on the pylons.

Im not even 100% sure what this SIRO thing is really about, do they (vodafone) run fibre optic cables along the pylons or do they use the ESB powerlines themselves to carry the broadband signal ? - sorry for my naivety but i dont know the full ins and outs of how they are doing this

ED E

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

clever bit of technology that is what SIRO has going on then running hi-speed broadband alongside the esb power cables then on the pylons.

Light is not sensitive to RFI, optical carriers are non conductive etc.

Maybe its back to AH with ya as this is all going kilometers over your head.

Andy From Sligo

ED E wrote: »

Light is not sensitive to RFI, optical carriers are non conductive etc.

Maybe its back to AH with ya as this is all going kilometers over your head.

ooh i say, do i detect a bit of AH snobbery going on there ED E ?

anyway, thanks you answered my question there - so it is fibre optic then they use

Marlow

oscarBravo wrote: »

Stability can be a problem too. I've seen an example where a church was being used as a (really good) repeater site, then the parish priest was replaced and the new one decided that unless he started seeing mobile site-level income, it would have to come down.

It came down.

Another example is, where wood-worm was found in the wood for the tower, so as to not fix that problem ... access was denied and only could be done with a specialists hoist, that can go high enough to reach the top of the tower.

Essentially making the site unservicable ...and the gear being removed.

But yes ... those issues are a common occurrence. That can only be avoided in the case, where the word comes from the top. If it's deals with different parish priests individually .... it can quickly go the opposite way.

/M

Marlow

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

anyway, thanks you answered my question there - so it is fibre optic then they use

You did spot, that is says "Ireland's 100% fibre optic network." on SIROs website ?

Just saying

There isn't a chance in hell, that they'd provide that sort of bandwidth over those distances without going fiber optic. ... not in the volume, that it has to be build and provided in.

/M

Andy From Sligo

Marlow wrote: »

You did spot, that is says "Ireland's 100% fibre optic network." on SIROs website ?

Just saying

There isn't a chance in hell, that they'd provide that sort of bandwidth over those distances without going fiber optic. ... not in the volume, that it has to be build and provided in.

/M

yeah i should have guessed really - no I havent seen/visited the SIRO website for ages because last time I checked it was only available in Town and i'm in the rural area

ED E

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/retail-and-services/three-ireland-ordered-to-remove-dublin-phone-mast-1.2654020

One must remember we're a nation of NIMBYs that then complain there's no broadband. How many old codgers have obstructed Chorus/NTL/UPC/VM etc over the years?

oscarBravo

ED E wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/retail-and-services/three-ireland-ordered-to-remove-dublin-phone-mast-1.2654020

One must remember we're a nation of NIMBYs that then complain there's no broadband. How many old codgers have obstructed Chorus/NTL/UPC/VM etc over the years?

Remember the TV footage of "no mast here" protesters with a placard in one hand and a mobile phone held to the ear with the other?

Andy From Sligo

ED E wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/retail-and-services/three-ireland-ordered-to-remove-dublin-phone-mast-1.2654020

One must remember we're a nation of NIMBYs that then complain there's no broadband. How many old codgers have obstructed Chorus/NTL/UPC/VM etc over the years?

i never forget years ago when mobile phones were in their infancy and not every man and his dog had one, and vodafone or someone wanted to put a mast near a field round here - quite a fair old turnout . farmers said no because of their animals, mothers said no because they didnt want their kids having cancer from it (the obligatory baby in pram was wheeled out whilst the mother wave a hand written placard on a stick) .. and the rest , well they didnt want a blot on the landscape. ..

and then I got to thinking i wonder how many of these people have a mobile phone these days and look back on that

Marlow

I had a scenario recently, where locals tried to get fixed wireless antennae removed from a church tower, because there had been 2 recent cases of brain cancer nearby.

Nevermind, that the power levels of said antennas are less than what is emitted from a cellphone, they're very directional and that old MMDS dish on their roof would have emitted a lot more for decades and leaky as feck.

There's a reason, that a lot of the regional providers build their networks "under the radar" and mostly the way, where no planing is required.

/M

9726_9726

Marlow wrote: »

I had a scenario recently, where locals tried to get fixed wireless antennae removed from a church tower, because there had been 2 recent cases of brain cancer nearby.

Nevermind, that the power levels of said antennas are less than what is emitted from a cellphone, they're very directional and that old MMDS dish on their roof would have emitted a lot more for decades and leaky as feck.

There's a reason, that a lot of the regional providers build their networks "under the radar" and mostly the way, where no planing is required.

/M

I heard a funny story from an engineer who was putting in a 24GHz Airfiber point to point link from a business to a remote office across the road. An old biddy from a neighbouring house said she was getting a "desperate headache from the radiation" since he mounted the radio.

"You should take a Panadol" he said, "it hasn't been powered up yet!" 🀣

Andy From Sligo

9726_9726 wrote: »

I heard a funny story from an engineer who was putting in a 24GHz Airfiber point to point link from a business to a remote office across the road. An old biddy from a neighbouring house said she was getting a "desperate headache from the radiation" since he mounted the radio.

"You should take a Panadol" he said, "it hasn't been powered up yet!" ��

haha .. it was just the thought of it enough to give her a headache ... she could have said the radiation was giving her cancer , I wonder what his comeback for that would have been?

Marlow

9726_9726 wrote: »

"You should take a Panadol" he said, "it hasn't been powered up yet!" ��

Jup .. happens all the time. Completely and utterly pointless.

/M

Andy From Sligo

maybe the old biddy's expensive radiation detector she bought of ebay was giving out false readings , saying dish was giving out cancer causing signal .. when it wasnt even powered up? - I am presuming she had a backup to hold up her theory that this mast was causing people to get brain cancer and her headache from it .. even though it wasnt powered on?

digiman

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

ooh, electricity pylon then - Vodafone has already gone into marriage with ESB with this SIRO expedition - so maybe ESB would let Vodafone put mobile masts on their Pylon infrastructure?

Again this is already done more than 10 years ago, plenty of pylons around the country have antennas on them from various mobile operators.

Dropped pin
near M4, Co. Kildare
https://goo.gl/maps/1PtPzQzLbZG2

This is one you can see just outside Maynooth on the M4 towards Kilcock. It’s visible from street view in the Dublin bound side of the motorway.

You will find mobile sites in everything you can imagine.

Fake trees, beside Marley park
Inside the petrol station signs
On lampposts
On chimneys of pubs
Pylons
Churches
Water towers
Distributed systems Inside shopping centers, large office and football stadiums.
Garda station towers
And loads more

Andy From Sligo

digiman wrote: »

Again this is already done more than 10 years ago, plenty of pylons around the country have antennas on them from various mobile operators.

Dropped pin
near M4, Co. Kildare
https://goo.gl/maps/1PtPzQzLbZG2

This is one you can see just outside Maynooth on the M4 towards Kilcock. It’s visible from street view in the Dublin bound side of the motorway.

You will find mobile sites in everything you can imagine.

Fake trees, beside Marley park
Inside the petrol station signs
On lampposts
On chimneys of pubs
Pylons
Churches
Water towers
Distributed systems Inside shopping centers, large office and football stadiums.
Garda station towers
And loads more

blimey!, - and yet there are still a lot of blackspots around Ireland where you cannot get a mobile phone signal....

Marlow

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

blimey!, - and yet there are still a lot of blackspots around Ireland where you cannot get a mobile phone signal....

Because people object to any planning permission for masts, wherever they can. Some of these blackspots can not be covered with hidden transceivers.

Then again, coverage in Ireland is pretty good. Try Scotland. Oodles of road miles with no signal at all, when driving through Scotland.

/M