Why is broadband in Ireland so slow?

mr_fegelien

I used to live in South Dublin (Dun Laoghaire/Blackrock area) and the connection was fairly good. I now live near Louth/Meath and it's crappy even with Three and Vodafone.

But that aside, the best internet connection I experienced was in continental Europe. I travelled to a friends home in Faro, Portugal and the downloads were amazing. I completed a 60GB torrent in 5 minutes. That would take me an hour or two here.

Xterminator

your argument smacks a little of apples and oranges.

Are you really comparing speed of broadband on rural areas / towns in ireland with that of metropolitan faro pop 61k people
.
https://ugeo.urbistat.com/AdminStat/en/pt/demografia/popolazione/faro/20318845/4

that would make it the 7th biggest city in ireland, more than waterford, less than tallaght. you can get siro gigabit broadband in waterford city & download that file in minutes.

Because we have Fianna Fail and Fine Gael giving their buddies contracts.

CrankyHaus

The Privatisation of Telecom Eireann, including the public telecommunications network built up over decades, was an incredibly foolish mistake, possibly even a corrupt one given how many involved profited.

As our former telecoms monopoly was kicked around as a debt football for plutocrats, necessary upgrades to our telecommunications which would have allowed us to keep pace with the rest of Europe were not carried out.

If privatisation was necessary then the network should have been seperated from the operator, similar to how it was with ESB and Bord Gáis, to enable responsible stewardship of national infrastructure.

Xterminator

i remember the several year waiting list to get a phone line in, back in the 80's when it was a public company.
the only way you could skip the queue was if you knew someone.

just because its public /semi-state doesn't mean better service. Actually it is usually the opposite.

i think the last poster made a good point saying there should be separation of network management and infrastructure from operators. However the state did get a windfall from the sale assets.

Gooey Looey

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Because we have Fianna Fail and Fine Gael giving their buddies contracts.

Heh? The last broadband contract awarded by the state was the national broadband scheme awarded to Three by Eamon Ryan of the Greens

The current one is in the surveying and planning stage and will bring fibre to the home to people in rural areas

Which are you on about? And what's your point?

thenightman

Gooey Looey wrote: »

Heh? The last broadband contract awarded by the state was the national broadband scheme awarded to Three by Eamon Ryan of the Greens

The current one is in the surveying and planning stage and will bring fibre to the home to people in rural areas

Which are you on about? And what's your point?

The current FG approved deal gives €3 billion of taxpayers money to a private investment firm to build the network, then hands over that vital publicly funded piece of national infrastructure to said company in 25 years time, for them to do with as they please. We'll end up with the same shambles we have with the copper network pretty much, with wave after wave of firms coming in and asset stripping/loading company with debt.



Oh and this was after private lunches between the then communications minister and the ceo of successful bidder, which said ceo paid for. All above board I'm sure!

Gooey Looey

thenightman wrote: »

The current FG approved deal gives €3 billion of taxpayers money to a private investment firm to build the network, then hands over that vital publicly funded piece of national infrastructure to said company in 25 years time, for them to do with as they please. We'll end up with the same shambles we have with the copper network pretty much, with wave after wave of firms coming in and asset stripping/loading company with debt.



Oh and this was after private lunches between the then communications minister and the ceo of successful bidder, which said ceo paid for. All above board I'm sure!

I'm guessing you're not getting any. It sucks to be you!
Or else you don't need it, I'm alright Jack!

It's a great plan for rural Ireland.

What is your alternative? Remember there are/were no companies queueing up to bring broadband to rural Ireland

Edited to add that in 25 years this fibre network will be end of life, just like the rotten rural copper network openeir have currently

Lots of assumptions here.

I still have internet in Spain. Having lived in a number of locations I can tell you I pay less in Ireland for a better service and that's even now surprising considering the cost of living difference.

I might get 30mb/s on my fiber in northern Spain, I get 60+ in Dublin.

joe123

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

Lots of assumptions here.

I still have internet in Spain. Having lived in a number of locations I can tell you I pay less in Ireland for a better service and that's even now surprising considering the cost of living difference.

I might get 30mb/s on my fiber in northern Spain, I get 60+ in Dublin.

You start with your post "Lots of assumptions" then your post seems to assume because you get 60+ in Dublin it means Ireland has good broadband.

All I say is thank god the NBI plan was signed. I live in a town 20 minutes outside Galway City and can't get speeds above 10Mb down / 0.6 up.

I literally have to stop certain downloads for work, so I can get other work done in the meantime. Then resume downloads once I finish other work tasks.

I should also point out, I've family living in Mayo who are still only able to get 2Mb max speed, and they dont live in some rural arse end of nowhere. Main road, 2 minutes from FTTH premises and a town.

Sorry if this post comes across a little tetchy but broadband is a disgrace around the country and I cant stand it when someone says "Well its great for me here in Dublin".

mr_fegelien

Does it have anything to do with fiber optic cables? Perhaps cables running from continental Europe are better quality/numerous in quantity than off the shore of Ireland.

bk

CrankyHaus wrote: »

If privatisation was necessary then the network should have been seperated from the operator, similar to how it was with ESB and Bord Gáis, to enable responsible stewardship of national infrastructure.

In fairness to the "government" the reason ESB and Bord Gais were separated in this manner was based on learning from the mess with Telecom Eireann.

They learned the importance of holding onto at least the core infrastructure, even if the rest was privatised.

bk

mr_fegelien wrote: »

Does it have anything to do with fiber optic cables? Perhaps cables running from continental Europe are better quality/numerous in quantity than off the shore of Ireland.

No half of the fiber connections going from Europe to the US pass through Ireland. We are VERY well connected in that regard.

Your issue is because you moved from a City to a very rural area. Rural areas usually don't have services anywhere as good as a City.

It is much more expensive to deliver high quality service to low density rural areas then it is to dense urban areas. Just the reality of most technology and services.

Having said that the National Broadband Scheme might eventually get you FTTH there.

Lantus

I have a 1gb connection. Realistically 800mb on a cable. Not slow....

Grab All Association

Same. Was one of the first to get 1000mb FTTH in my area in 2018. Two outages, first was because a tractor crashed into the pole. 2. KN clown installing a neighbours broadband somehow damaged the DP. Eircom had to come out and replace it.

Imagine are now in my area and everyone is signing up to them

accensi0n

mr_fegelien wrote: »

I completed a 60GB torrent in 5 minutes.

1.6Gbps throughput?

Hmm....nope.

joe123

joe123 wrote: »

You start with your post "Lots of assumptions" then your post seems to assume because you get 60+ in Dublin it means Ireland has good broadband.

All I say is thank god the NBI plan was signed. I live in a town 20 minutes outside Galway City and can't get speeds above 10Mb down / 0.6 up.

I literally have to stop certain downloads for work, so I can get other work done in the meantime. Then resume downloads once I finish other work tasks.

I should also point out, I've family living in Mayo who are still only able to get 2Mb max speed, and they dont live in some rural arse end of nowhere. Main road, 2 minutes from FTTH premises and a town.

Sorry if this post comes across a little tetchy but broadband is a disgrace around the country and I cant stand it when someone says "Well its great for me here in Dublin".

I didn't assume anything. I gave two speeds from two areas that I have personally experienced. Both in cities

The simple reality is that people think that mainland Europe is some kind of utopia where everything is better. They then make statements to that effect without backing.

10mb down should still be good enough for the average user. I have experienced worse in rural Spain. A lot worse.

In fact, Ireland had an average speed of just under 24mb/s which is good enough for 29th in the world. IN THE WORLD. That's 29th from 196 official countries (250 if you are counting geography only). Can be seen here: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/broadband-downloads-telecoms-speeds

In the eu we seem to rank between 15th and 20th depending on the study. Not a great result I agree but again, not terrible and not when baby of the places are separated by small margins.

Hotblack Desiato

Gooey Looey wrote: »

Edited to add that in 25 years this fibre network will be end of life, just like the rotten rural copper network openeir have currently

Which makes it an even worse investment for the taxpayer. Although usually investing in something means you at least get to own it!

The J Stands for Jay

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

Lots of assumptions here.

I still have internet in Spain. Having lived in a number of locations I can tell you I pay less in ggettinIreland for a better service and that's even now surprising considering the cost of living difference.

I might get 30mb/s on my fiber in northern Spain, I get 60+ in Dublin.

Why so slow? I was getting 200+ when I was living in Dublin

Gooey Looey

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Which makes it an even worse investment for the taxpayer. Although usually investing in something means you at least get to own it!

How that? Openeir couldn't give away their copper network at the moment, it's worthless. This will be the same. 25 years is 10 years beyond the life of the fibre cable

Grab All Association

If any of you ever follow Eircom/openeir on Twitter, you’ll see they always gets threats on Twitter from Dubliners moaning about having 10mb VDSL and rural Ireland with its FTTH. Maybe if you hadn’t voted for that fu****g eejit Eamon Ryan, who was more concerned about subsidies for wood chip burners at the time, Eircom would’ve won the NBS in 2008 rolled out ADSL/ADSL2+ to more exchanges in rural Ireland and FTTH would’ve rolled out in Dublin first.

The only reason rural FTTH happened in the first place was because Eircom had just come out of examinership (by the skin of its teeth) and a cash rich ESB/Vodafone (the former state owned with its excellent infrastructure and poles vs eircom) were the favourites on winning the National Broadband Plan and Eircom would have eventually lose its monopoly. Hence 300,000 (Later 330,000)

Meanwhile in Dublin/Leinster, people were voting in idiots like Dial-up Dempsey and Eamon Ryan who ignored the advice of Ireland Offline and awarded the NBS to Three. Search NBS here on boards for some entertaining reads and how €79m of our tax money and EU funding was wasted on this contract. Meanwhile we had people from Dublin coming on here gloating saying they have 20-24mb ADSL2+/50mb UPC etc and banging on about how nobody outside of the pale needed broadband.

Tables have turned now and they decrying discrimination and corruption.

mr_fegelien

Grab All Association wrote: »

If any of you ever follow Eircom/openeir on Twitter, you’ll see they always gets threats on Twitter from Dubliners moaning about having 10mb VDSL and rural Ireland with its FTTH. Maybe if you hadn’t voted for that fu****g eejit Eamon Ryan, who was more concerned about subsidies for wood chip burners at the time, Eircom would’ve won the NBS in 2008 rolled out ADSL/ADSL2+ to more exchanges in rural Ireland and FTTH would’ve rolled out in Dublin first.

The only reason rural FTTH happened in the first place was because Eircom had just come out of examinership (by the skin of its teeth) and a cash rich ESB/Vodafone (the former state owned with its excellent infrastructure and poles vs eircom) were the favourites on winning the National Broadband Plan and Eircom would have eventually lose its monopoly. Hence 300,000 (Later 330,000)

Meanwhile in Dublin/Leinster, people were voting in idiots like Dial-up Dempsey and Eamon Ryan who ignored the advice of Ireland Offline and awarded the NBS to Three. Search NBS here on boards for some entertaining reads and how €79m of our tax money and EU funding was wasted on this contract. Meanwhile we had people from Dublin coming on here gloating saying they have 20-24mb ADSL2+/50mb UPC etc and banging on about how nobody outside of the pale needed broadband.

Tables have turned now and they decrying discrimination and corruption.

Sorry, I'm not technologically savvy. Could you please explain all of these terms in layman's terms?

ED E

mr_fegelien wrote: »

Sorry, I'm not technologically savvy. Could you please explain all of these terms in layman's terms?

You clearly have access to the internet....right click, Google search.....


Ireland is moving ahead in leaps and bounds. NBI is a mess but we're still progressing.

joe123

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

I didn't assume anything. I gave two speeds from two areas that I have personally experienced. Both in cities

The simple reality is that people think that mainland Europe is some kind of utopia where everything is better. They then make statements to that effect without backing.

10mb down should still be good enough for the average user. I have experienced worse in rural Spain. A lot worse.

In fact, Ireland had an average speed of just under 24mb/s which is good enough for 29th in the world. IN THE WORLD. That's 29th from 196 official countries (250 if you are counting geography only). Can be seen here: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/broadband-downloads-telecoms-speeds

In the eu we seem to rank between 15th and 20th depending on the study. Not a great result I agree but again, not terrible and not when baby of the places are separated by small margins.

10Mb is fine for the average user, now add a couple of people in one household trying to do anything over an ADSL line? One large download? Can reduce speeds dramatically for everyone. Good luck trying to stream RTE Player or Sky for someone else in the household. Even regular Internet usage with a background download can cripple copper broadband.

Upload speeds of max 0.6? Try uploading large files on that.

Then drop in a touch of ADSL randomly dropping, speeds dropping etc. Its not consistent and its not reliable.

Nevermind the 2Mb max speeds mentioned from Mayo.

I never said the rest of the world is a utopia and hopefully within 5 years when NBI have completed their rollout, Ireland will be pretty much covered with FTTH speeds, but using Dublin as your current litmus test is not representative of the rest of the country.

Grab All Association

mr_fegelien wrote: »

Sorry, I'm not technologically savvy. Could you please explain all of these terms in layman's terms?

That wasn’t directed at you. It’s directed at the people who spout nonsense about NBI being corrupt etc. “Imagine would‘ve of done it for free” “Elon Musk satellites”
“Fibre is obsolete, Imagine “5G” is #1 Future proof” “Dublin should be first” etc

The NBS could have been delivered a hell of lot more cheaply had Eircom not taken out 330,000 (it’s actually more than that. I’ve seen fibre and DP’s in areas still marked amber. Even outside an abandoned rural school in Templederry Nenagh) and later pulled out after Siro. It would’ve cost a hell of a lot more had the tender been scrapped.

joe123

joe123 wrote: »

10Mb is fine for the average user, now add a couple of people in one household trying to do anything over an ADSL line? One large download? Can reduce speeds dramatically for everyone. Good luck trying to stream RTE Player or Sky for someone else in the household. Even regular Internet usage with a background download can cripple copper broadband.

Upload speeds of max 0.6? Try uploading large files on that.

Then drop in a touch of ADSL randomly dropping, speeds dropping etc. Its not consistent and its not reliable.

Nevermind the 2Mb max speeds mentioned from Mayo.

I never said the rest of the world is a utopia and hopefully within 5 years when NBI have completed their rollout, Ireland will be pretty much covered with FTTH speeds, but using Dublin as your current litmus test is not representative of the rest of the country.

Ah here, sure we can all say that. Download speeds are normally higher than upload. if you want high upload speeds as in, you are running servers, you pay for it.

Any speed will get trottled when theres numerous people streaming live TV. Thats true the globe over.

Again, 29th in the world per country, thats a lot of countries that are suffering worse in those situations. You think Singapore speeds dont suffer when the entire family is streaming the latest shows? You think the speed average in Spain and Germany isnt also covering reduced speed rural areas?

joe123

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

Ah here, sure we can all say that. Download speeds are normally higher than upload. if you want high upload speeds as in, you are running servers, you pay for it.

Any speed will get trottled when theres numerous people streaming live TV. Thats true the globe over.

Again, 29th in the world, thats a lot of countries that are suffering worse in those situations. You think Singapore speeds dont suffer when the entire family is streaming the latest shows?

Not sure why I'm wasting my time. So I wont.

Deagol

mr_fegelien wrote: »

I used to live in South Dublin (Dun Laoghaire/Blackrock area) and the connection was fairly good. I now live near Louth/Meath and it's crappy even with Three and Vodafone.

But that aside, the best internet connection I experienced was in continental Europe. I travelled to a friends home in Faro, Portugal and the downloads were amazing. I completed a 60GB torrent in 5 minutes. That would take me an hour or two here.

Dunno what you're talking about - I live in rural village in west Clare, I get have a 1gps FTTH connection and get 800+mbps on a wired connection. Maybe you need to need to move to Faro.

Hotblack Desiato

Grab All Association wrote: »

Maybe if you hadn’t voted for that fu****g eejit Eamon Ryan

Approx 1.4 m people live in the greater Dublin area

Fewer than 9000 people voted for Eamon Ryan in 2020. In 2007, 6,768 to be precise

Eamon Ryan who ignored the advice of Ireland Offline and awarded the NBS to Three.

Anybody who can describe wireless internet as "broadband" is clearly a fcuking idiot.

Lantus

accensi0n wrote: »

1.6Gbps throughput?

Hmm....nope.

200mb/s surely? Seems reasonable. I did 34gb last night in about 2.5 mins. Again 220mb/s roughly.

KildareP

Lantus wrote: »

200mb/s surely? Seems reasonable. I did 34gb last night in about 2.5 mins. Again 220mb/s roughly.

1Gbps/sec = 125MB/sec, best case, ignoring any overhead
(1 Gigabit per second = 125 Megabytes per second, 8 bits in a byte)



That means a 1Gb connection can transfer no more than 7.5Gigabytes in a minute. It's physically impossible.



Even if your internet connection was theoretically >1Gb, a standard Ethernet card is only capable of 1Gbps anyway so your absolute max is still 7.5GB per minute.


While 2.5Gb or 10Gb Ethernet cards exist, they're extremely expensive and very rare to find them as standard in a computer.

dam099

Lantus wrote: »

200mb/s surely? Seems reasonable. I did 34gb last night in about 2.5 mins. Again 220mb/s roughly.

That equates to 220MB (megabytes) not 220Mbps (megabits).

In bits per second that would be roughly 1.8Gbps (gigabits), not possible on a residential connection in Ireland.

Nonoperational

Gas how people would make up things to back up an error. Very strange.

Capt'n Midnight

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Which makes it an even worse investment for the taxpayer. Although usually investing in something means you at least get to own it!

SpaceX, OneWeb and Amazon etc are all launching satellite broadband.

So depending on the price point the national broadband scheme may not be all that attractive to people who only need basic access to email and websites.

ED E

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

SpaceX, OneWeb and Amazon etc are all launching satellite broadband.

So depending on the price point the national broadband scheme may not be all that attractive to people who only need basic access to email and websites.

Stop.

Just stop. NBI is mass appeal, LEO systems are niche. They cannot and will not support the masses.

BailMeOut

The speed of internet over copper is simply a function of distance to the exchange and if you live rual and have a copper phone line the further you away the worse your connection will be due to attenuation. The only way around this is to use fibre which has very low attentuation rates but expensive to run and you can run fibre to every home (best solution) or to localized cabinets from where you then run copper to the home. This however only works well for more built up areas.

This is pretty good bbc article 'Will fibre broadband be obsolete by 2030 - and what about 5G?'