Eir has been a waste of money to everybody – customers, gov.ie, s'holders.. planet

turbbo

Marlow wrote: »

I'm just saying fibre connectivity is available. It will cost you. And of course, it's mostly businesses that can afford it.

So in my case, I needed to be able to do my work. You have to spend some money to make some money. And this was also in an Urban area.

However .. since I was moving anyhow, I sure made it a requirement that I would be able to get FTTH at the new place. Alone for the fact of greater speeds and less cost.

I'm just saying ... it's available and it can be done. But it's not an off the shelf product.

/M

All very fair - but I thought we were gonna use this thread to $hit on Eir.

heffo500

Is there every a chance the state will buy Eir back? Was the network not one of the most modern in the world prior to privatization, I wonder would still be the case if the state still owned it.

Marlow

The Government will do nothing as can be seen with the NBP ... they're just pushing the issue around.

And this thread is pointless

/M

turbbo

heffo500 wrote: »

Was the network not one of the most modern in the world prior to privatization

Well we could pick up a phone and ring a number and it usually worked even if you lived in the stix. I guess it was fit for purpose. Unlike today's service. Not sure it was bleeding edge tech - but definitely a well maintained copper network - line noise wasn't a thing where we lived when I was a kid until many years later when Eircom were in charge, assume that was down to lack of investment and splitting lines as more customers signed up for phones.

turbbo

Marlow wrote: »

The Government will do nothing as can be seen with the NBP ... they're just pushing the issue around.

And this thread is pointless

/M

Think of it a venting or rant thread - it is what it is.;)

turbbo

We had pulse dialing in the 90's remember my cousin visiting from the US thinking it was very backward.

9726_9726

I have absolutely no interest in the OPs points, but just would like to point out that the ESB vans (with the branding that uspet him into his "Ireland is shameful compared to the greener pastures I have found" state of mind) working at the SIRO poles were probably doing make-safe works which are compulsory before the SIRO guys are allowed to connect customers.

Over and out.

EdgeCase

turbbo wrote: »

We had pulse dialing in the 90's remember my cousin visiting from the US thinking it was very backward.

They had plenty of pulse dialling in parts of the US in 1990 too. If you were unlucky enough to have been in an area that was updated to what was the latest crossbar (analogue) technology in the 1970s, your 25 year old local exchange wasn't fully upgraded until into the 1990s.
These things cost serious money (millions of Euro each in modern terms) and worked very effectively to provide phone services, so they lived out their planned live spans in all of the developed world. Digital local switching rolled out here from 1980 onwards in Ireland and from about 1983 in the US. On average Ireland in 1990 would have had a lot more digital phone service than the US because most rural areas went straight to digital, whereas the US would have seen much more deployment of older tech.

Marlow

The US is the wild west, when it comes to telephony.

And vastly more backwards than Ireland.

That's for sure.

turbbo's cousin was just lucky, that he was in an area, where his telco was a bit more modern. But it's lottery over there ... at best.

/M

turbbo

Marlow wrote: »

The US is the wild west, when it comes to telephony.

And vastly more backwards than Ireland.

That's for sure.

turbbo's cousin was just lucky, that he was in an area, where his telco was a bit more modern. But it's lottery over there ... at best.

/M

It's a real life example is all lads jeeze!!

EdgeCase

Siro has actually been ramping up publicity in line with rollout.

Vodafone (the ESB's partner in Siro) has been doing extensive TV advertising for Gigabit broadband and Sky has begun to advertise too.

The availability will go way up as Siro rolls out. For example the Cork City deployment is the biggest rollout of FTTH in the state thus far and is proceeding pretty fast.

I would assume Eir and Virgin will respond to this as they'll be loosing customers otherwise.

The notion that Siro isn't well branded is frankly absolute b/s. Their website is also very straight forward and you can query any Eircode.

I'm all for constructive criticism of Ireland's broadband infrastructure, but I just prefer to deal with facts.

turbbo

EdgeCase wrote: »

Siro has actually been ramping up publicity in line with rollout.

Vodafone (the ESB's partner in Siro) has been doing extensive TV advertising for Gigabit broadband and Sky has begun to advertise too.

The availability will go way up as Siro rolls out. For example the Cork City deployment is the biggest rollout of FTTH in the state thus far and is proceeding pretty fast.

I would assume Eir and Virgin will respond to this as they'll be loosing customers otherwise.

The notion that Siro isn't well branded is frankly absolute b/s. Their website is also very straight forward and you can query any Eircode.

I'm all for constructive criticism of Ireland's broadband infrastructure, but I just prefer to deal with facts.

Pity Siro wouldn't rollout everywhere - seems to ramping up which is good. Esb and vodafone at least have a clean sheet with this - Eir have burnt their bridges everywhere.

EdgeCase

turbbo wrote: »

Pity Siro wouldn't rollout everywhere - seems to ramping up which is good. Esb and vodafone at least have a clean sheet with this - Eir have burnt their bridges everywhere.

Rolling out everywhere takes time. You can't just wire up the whole country in 12 months. You're talking about a couple of million premises.

Bear in mind rural electrification (at least the main bit of it) took from the end of WWII until 1973.

Fibre's a bit easier in the sense that it's hopping along existing poles and ducts and the cabling's very light, but it's no small project to wire up every home and business.

turbbo

EdgeCase wrote: »

Rolling out everywhere takes time. You can't just wire up the whole country in 12 months. You're talking about a couple of million premises.

Bear in mind rural electrification (at least the main bit of it) took from the end of WWII until 1973.

Fibre's a bit easier in the sense that it's hopping along existing poles and ducts and the cabling's very light, but it's no small project to wire up every home and business.

True but Eir have been at it for 2.5 years already. They've shown how useless they are time and time again.

Marlow

turbbo wrote: »

Pity Siro wouldn't rollout everywhere - seems to ramping up which is good. Esb and vodafone at least have a clean sheet with this - Eir have burnt their bridges everywhere.

turbbo wrote: »

True but Eir have been at it for 2.5 years already. They've shown how useless they are time and time again.

SIRO is a business that was build from scratch. With limited experience. It's been a rocky path at times, but they've prevailed. And they are very brand protective and very good at marketing. That's for sure.

OpenEIR on the other side only did the rollout to maintain their monopoly. That's about it. That's also the reason, that they're now diverting back to Urban FTTH, once the 300k is finished.

/M

turbbo

The 300k is supposed to be finished. Yet they got an extension up to mid 2019 because of 2 storms.
Some bunch of clowns they can't even finish the 300k on time knowing that it's their only chance of survival. If they were well ran they'd have finished the 300k ahead of schedule to make sure they were grabbing as many customers as possible - but they've been too busy getting sold and bought again - i.e. focus has been everywhere but on their customer base. Meanwhile people are looking to move to any other provider in their droves. It's hard for them when management want to milk it dry.

MrO

Marlow wrote: »

And this thread is pointless

/M

Agreed the original post is a rant full of inaccuracy - but there is one interesting point that is worth considering. If overbuild is seriously being considered, there will be some homes in urban Ireland with 2 x FTTH providers (potentially 3 with VM) and a lot (rural) with nothing.

It's time for a serious network sharing discussion to happen between infrastructure providers/builders - there is precedence in mainland Europe (Portugal and Spain) for this. Surely it's not beyond possibility that some form of agreement could be achieved which in theory (gasp) could even extend to a good % of rural homes...wishful thinking maybe. I don't hold out much for a department led initiative here - but the 'industry' should attempt it. The waste involved in 2 or 3 companies overbuilding is crazy.

EdgeCase

The problem with that in Ireland to date has been that were Eir was the only access platform they simply didn't innovate or drive speeds forward at all. You'd multiple ISPs and phone companies, but the access network assets were being sweated. The result was bog standard ADSL.

The cable companies here also did the same when they thought that access to UK terrestrial TV was all they needed. They only started seriously investing in their networks and delivering viable broadband when Sky launched BBC and their monopoly ended.

I think competition between platforms in urban areas where it's viable week will drive innovation and speeds.

In rural areas where densities are low they should be encouraged to cooperate. You can deliver any of their products over any fibre network. There's plenty of precedence for this in the mobile networks with mast sharing while maintaining separate networks.

Where you get into trying to minimise capital outlay by creating monopolies, you then need to have very intense regulation to ensure that the monopolist doesn't just abuse position or set the standards very low. That's where things start to get complicated.

You will likely see 3 systems in urban areas though. I could see them consolidating naturally. For example, Liberty/Virgin might opt to deliver service using Siro in areas it hasn't cabled. Or you might get more sharing of infrastructure further back etc

ComReg can facilitate network sharing but I'm loathed to ever see a single network provider end up with the monopoly power Eircom once had. Even in its state owned days TE was very expensive and didn't bother innovating either. I think we've a rose tinted glasses view of TE when it was state owned. Other than when it jumped ahead with digital telephony in the 80s, it wasn't a very impressive telco. They even dragged their feet with ISDN, not launching it early when the network equipment could have easily supported it. They had advanced digital switching and often didn't bother investing in the access layer (local switches) to provide ISDN - it literally just meant installing slightly more advanced line cards. Instead of being an early adopter and world leader in that, they launched it so late that it was nearly pointless when it could have been very useful for the 80s and early 90s had it been switched on.

They also went on and on and on about their digital switches which were very advanced for the 80s and early 90s, but they never bothered to implement their advanced data services so effectively they were super fancy telephone exchanges providing bog standard POTS and TDs and ministers who knew nothing about computers at the time were very impressed by it.

It was a bit like having bought a TGV, not buying the wheels and limiting it to doing 100km/h then giving ministers and the press endless looks at your lovely TGV.

Basically they lived off good PR from the 80s.

MrO

Great post!

Impetus

EdgeCase wrote: »

The problem with that in Ireland to date has been that were Eir was the only access platform they simply didn't innovate or drive speeds forward at all. You'd multiple ISPs and phone companies, but the access network assets were being sweated. The result was bog standard ADSL.

The cable companies here also did the same when they thought that access to UK terrestrial TV was all they needed. They only started seriously investing in their networks and delivering viable broadband when Sky launched BBC and their monopoly ended.

I think competition between platforms in urban areas where it's viable week will drive innovation and speeds.

In rural areas where densities are low they should be encouraged to cooperate. You can deliver any of their products over any fibre network. There's plenty of precedence for this in the mobile networks with mast sharing while maintaining separate networks.

Where you get into trying to minimise capital outlay by creating monopolies, you then need to have very intense regulation to ensure that the monopolist doesn't just abuse position or set the standards very low. That's where things start to get complicated.

You will likely see 3 systems in urban areas though. I could see them consolidating naturally. For example, Liberty/Virgin might opt to deliver service using Siro in areas it hasn't cabled. Or you might get more sharing of infrastructure further back etc

ComReg can facilitate network sharing but I'm loathed to ever see a single network provider end up with the monopoly power Eircom once had. Even in its state owned days TE was very expensive and didn't bother innovating either. I think we've a rose tinted glasses view of TE when it was state owned. Other than when it jumped ahead with digital telephony in the 80s, it wasn't a very impressive telco. They even dragged their feet with ISDN, not launching it early when the network equipment could have easily supported it. They had advanced digital switching and often didn't bother investing in the access layer (local switches) to provide ISDN - it literally just meant installing slightly more advanced line cards. Instead of being an early adopter and world leader in that, they launched it so late that it was nearly pointless when it could have been very useful for the 80s and early 90s had it been switched on.

They also went on and on and on about their digital switches which were very advanced for the 80s and early 90s, but they never bothered to implement their advanced data services so effectively they were super fancy telephone exchanges providing bog standard POTS and TDs and ministers who knew nothing about computers at the time were very impressed by it.

It was a bit like having bought a TGV, not buying the wheels and limiting it to doing 100km/h then giving ministers and the press endless looks at your lovely TGV.

Basically they lived off good PR from the 80s.

I know somebody who did everything in his power to get the political bots to move from electromechanical crossbar 'telephone exchanges' to AXE and E10B back in the day. Money was being squirted down the drain on old platforms at the time. Which brought us to the ISDN level - which was priced to death by the state monopoly. And still is. And while it has since (in tech terms) been replaced with IP (eg VoIP and 10GB internet), few have access to it and Ireland seems to be the most lethargic to GB broadband etc in the world (not just Europe). Switzerland has 10GB internet thanks to the same guy who controls most of Eir's share capital. Siro is sick. I don't live in Ireland, but have an inherited house there which I visit from time to time. After Christmas I noticed Siro (ie a non-Siro branded ESB truck platoon installing fiber on the road. Yet when I enter the 'postcode', there is no info on future availability. I called one of the service providers using the Siro platform and he predicted that it might take six months before the next bureaucratic thing happens - a form from ESB Networks for permission to connect fiber to your house. (The guys on the road were finished the job within a half an hour, as one of them told me). And fine, when I visit the house I have cable internet at the top speed they offer, which degrades in speed in the evenings - insufficient backhaul to cover demand. So some might call me a spoilt brat - especially those in rual areas waiting for 1 MBits/sec or whatever. We are all suffering from the same sick state set-up.

Many of these former gov operations (not to mention many current gov agencies) have total contempt for the customer, who they seem to treat like a victim to pay their salary/pension, sans innovation. There are exceptions.

Unfortunately the mentality is deep in the culture, pre/post privatisation ethos. And the 'legal system' in Ireland seems to be primed to protect them. Not that I am criticising the court system which provide a good service given resources allocated to them, and the poorly writen and antiquated statute and 'common laws' they preside over. However many employees of ex-state companies, to the highest level seem to be above regulation and legal control and can do what they like, irrespective of law, morals or the resources made available to them.

TV in Ireland is stuck in Anglo-Saxon land linguistically speaking, leaving many school leavers non-viable linguistic capable bots in a European business culture. Forcing IRL to import language speakers, who can't get a house or apartment unless they work for a financial organisation or similar to pay the high cost of same - again due to planning and public transport incompetence all governments have prosided over for decades.

It is a total mess. We are left with a society that goes from economic crash to boom to crash - zero sustainability. Almost zero broadband. Zero public transport *system* - and that includes high speed data, as well as trains, trams, buses, furnicular rail, water ferries, etc

turbbo

Impetus wrote: »

I know somebody who did everything in his power to get the political bots to move from electromechanical crossbar 'telephone exchanges' to AXE and E10B back in the day. Money was being squirted down the drain on old platforms at the time. Which brought us to the ISDN level - which was priced to death by the state monopoly. And still is. And while it has since (in tech terms) been replaced with IP (eg VoIP and 10GB internet), few have access to it and Ireland seems to be the most lethargic to GB broadband etc in the world (not just Europe). Switzerland has 10GB internet thanks to the same guy who controls most of Eir's share capital. Siro is sick. I don't live in Ireland, but have an inherited house there which I visit from time to time. After Christmas I noticed Siro (ie a non-Siro branded ESB truck platoon installing fiber on the road. Yet when I enter the 'postcode', there is no info on future availability. I called one of the service providers using the Siro platform and he predicted that it might take six months before the next bureaucratic thing happens - a form from ESB Networks for permission to connect fiber to your house. (The guys on the road were finished the job within a half an hour, as one of them told me). And fine, when I visit the house I have cable internet at the top speed they offer, which degrades in speed in the evenings - insufficient backhaul to cover demand. So some might call me a spoilt brat - especially those in rual areas waiting for 1 MBits/sec or whatever. We are all suffering from the same sick state set-up.

Many of these former gov operations (not to mention many current gov agencies) have total contempt for the customer, who they seem to treat like a victim to pay their salary/pension, sans innovation. There are exceptions.

Unfortunately the mentality is deep in the culture, pre/post privatisation ethos. And the 'legal system' in Ireland seems to be primed to protect them. Not that I am criticising the court system which provide a good service given resources allocated to them, and the poorly writen and antiquated statute and 'common laws' they preside over. However many employees of ex-state companies, to the highest level seem to be above regulation and legal control and can do what they like, irrespective of law, morals or the resources made available to them.

TV in Ireland is stuck in Anglo-Saxon land linguistically speaking, leaving many school leavers non-viable linguistic capable bots in a European business culture. Forcing IRL to import language speakers, who can't get a house or apartment unless they work for a financial organisation or similar to pay the high cost of same - again due to planning and public transport incompetence all governments have prosided over for decades.

It is a total mess. We are left with a society that goes from economic crash to boom to crash - zero sustainability. Almost zero broadband. Zero public transport *system* - and that includes high speed data, as well as trains, trams, buses, furnicular rail, water ferries, etc

1. "Many of these former gov operations (not to mention many current gov agencies) have total contempt for the customer."

Might seem like contempt to you - but they were privatized and can't survive in a sparsely populated country and provide the same level of service at the price you've become accustomed to.
Pop density Switzerland=212 sq. km and Ireland =70 sq. km.
So 3 times the density!

2. "Not that I am criticising the court system which provide a good service given resources allocated to them."

Court system in Ireland is one of the few things you could argue needs to be singled out for major reform - there is no political will as long as the 2 are so tightly coupled.

3. "TV in Ireland is stuck in Anglo-Saxon land linguistically speaking, leaving many school leavers non-viable linguistic capable bots in a European business culture."

Since when did TV = Education ?
Language has never been less important to us in Ireland or the world. With technology breaking down those barriers very quickly.
We're also in the fortunate position that English is the international language of business.

We need engineers scientists and doctors not multilingual call centre workers.


Your earlier rants were daft but this last one shows you up as been completely detached from all realities.

AirBiscuit

Annoying shill, only suitable course of action for you.