Copper "Switch-Off"

clohamon

''https://www.comreg.ie/publication/notification-to-ec-berec-and-nras-of-draft-decision-on-migration-from-legacy-infrastructure-to-modern-infrastructure''

ComReg's draft Copper Switch-Off decision has now been sent to Europe for approval. 'Switch-Off' assumes a rolling process and will use Eircom's existing copper exchange areas as a the geographical references.

Subject to notification periods 'Switch-Off' may happen when 100% of the relevant exchange area has access to "Alternative Comparable Products" (ACPs) including those available from other providers (e.g. NBI, SIRO)

ACPs are assumed to be predominantly FTTH/P, but Eircom may propose FWA or other technologies as qualifying ACPs for difficult to reach premises. FTTH is the only technology that will not require trial and approval by Comreg.

Whether the end-user will be fully informed about non-FTTH ACPs is an open question. ComReg seems to be inviting dishonesty here. (para. 4.29)

"While it is essential that Access Seekers [retailers] have all the information required in advance of migration so that they can inform their customers, this does not include any requirement to compare ACPs"

... and ComReg foresees the process taking "many" years (para.4.31)

Charles Babbage

BT in NI are removing the old fashioned network in a year or so, although this is not removing copper entirely as people without FTTH will still be using the copper for their IP based service.

clohamon

I presume there's more advantage in a total shutdown, which I think is why ComReg are setting harder conditions than Ofcom.

Questions still about what solution Eircom will propose for all those non-ducted buried lines from the '90s.

I’m assuming they’re just installing a new network over the top of them.

I’m in an urban area and we have some non ducted, buried lines where I am and they’ve laid ducts and put in FTTH. Seemed they were just moling them in. Some houses also just connect overhead, just as they did for copper.

Siro did similar work in parallel and Virgin are working on their fibre too.

AerLingus747

FTTC will be in existence for a number of years until a FTTP is available... Meaning distribution side copper will still be in existence, removing the need for exchange side copper*

*** once direct fed connections from the exchange are sorted

I'm not sure if Eir's been clever in this or if it's just they've been accidentally dragged into a position, but a lot of European countries pushed ahead quite rapidly to replace the POTS/PSTN (classic telephony) equipment in exchanges with VoIP based MSANs in cabinets - it was quite an expensive process.

Eir (and also BT in the UK) had plans to do similar, but then swapped to a strategy of pushing people over to VoBB (VoIP over Broadband) and also just letting the telephone network wither and shrink as people naturally move away from it, but without lashing tons of money into what would be redundant large scale VoIP gear to directly replace it at exchange level..

They pretty much got every last bit of use out of the old exchange gear until Ericsson and Alcatel (Nokia) stopped supporting it.

Eir seem to have been passively 'pruning' exchanges down to smaller scale, and have in the last couple of years been swapping out the local exchange equipment for a Nokia MSAN platform that delivers PSTN-like service from the exchange, which is on a far smaller scale and will likely be quite short-lived. If you ordered a phone line or upgraded to VDSL/FTTC or FTTH they'll have ported your phone over to VoIP with whoever your ISP is, and off the old OpenEir PSTN.

From what I gather, there isn't really much PSTN equipment left in service, they're well through the swap over. Most end users won't notice any difference, unless you're trying to use certain modems over the landline - VoIP gives higher quality voice, but can confuse classic modems - so some alarm systems etc are completely redundant now.

France also didn't bother replacing the PSTN and just went for straight cut over to FTTH where possible. Even a basic phone service now is delivered as fibre to a router, even if you don't want broadband. If there's no FTTH, they offer mobile based landline replacement service. You're also going to see improved speeds in rural areas as more of the spectrum being used by 2G and 3G is given over to 4G and 5G. The lower frequency bands tend to propagate more.

There's a lot of b/s about the landline networks being more reliable etc etc, very little of which stands up to scrutiny. E.g. in a storm rural phone lines are often far more impacted than ESB connections, so in reality mobile service is far more reliable, but it's resulted in somewhat stupid reasons for delaying cutover to FTTH in several countries.

In the long term it is also potentially a lot easier to make FTTH more robust, as there's simply less complicated wiring involved. So, the lines can potentially be dropped into ducts far more cheaply.

clohamon

I presume the incentive for Eircom is being shot of the line maintenance/repair costs. (I've logged 5 faults this year on copper voice)

The benefit for the Government is getting Eircom to provide a FTTP replacement in all cases which (combined with the NBP) should deliver the European 2030 target for fixed line 'Gigabit connectivity for everyone'.

Gigabit connectivity, measured as the percentage of households covered by

fixed Very High-Capacity Networks (VHCN). The technologies considered are

those currently able to deliver gigabit connectivity, namely Fibre to the

Premises and Cable DOCSIS4 3.1.5 The evolution of the Fibre to the Premises

coverage will also be monitored separately and taken into consideration when

interpreting VHCN coverage data.

....and interesting to see if Eircom challenge the ~100% condition as being unreasonable.

AerLingus747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120968842#Comment_120968842

shouldn't be, MG.FAST and it's subsequent iterations are options for FTTC customers

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969312#Comment_120969312

Eir seem to have decided to skip G.Fast and are instead going all in on FTTH

G.Fast isn’t great, you only get 1gig at a distance less than 100m, it quickly fall off to just 100mb/s at 500m. Most of Eir’s customers would be closer to 500m are even further. That really isn’t going to compete with Siro rolling out FTTH or VM 1gig DOCSIS and their own FTTH rollout.

Anyway, it is much more expensive to maintain a FTTC network, than a FTTH network. With FTTC you have the expense of dealing with constant copper faults, expensive in field FTTC cabs that would require expensive G.FAST gear in the cab, power to the cab, etc.

You mention G.mgfast, but that only works over extremely short distances, it isn’t FTTC, instead they call it FTTF (Frontage), basically running the fibre almost to the front of your home and then using copper for the last 20 meters or so. Note there haven’t been any deployments yet and there is very little interest in it.

By comparison FTTH is much cheaper to maintain and operate. Far less faults, simple non powered splitters in the network, no complex and expensive cabs, etc.

It is really a no brainier for them to completely drop copper and go all in on FTTH.

10-10-20

Good information here as we don't often see this info documented in low-level elsewhere. Appreciate the updates.

AerLingus747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972427#Comment_120972427

Eir will not foot the bill for retro-fitting copper distributed multi-dwelling buildings... MG-fast is ideal for this type of deployment.

Most others, as you said, will be mopped up with FTTH or 5G (6G by 2030?) solutions.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120973124#Comment_120973124

They are literally doing it in my apartment building at the moment! They are currently installing FTTH here. They are using a system called OFS Invisilight. Basically they are just running a very thin bundle of up to 32 fibre cables along the ceiling, above each apartment door. When someone orders the fibre, they just bring it into the apartment then.

Looks relatively cheap and straight forward to do. I suspect running expensive G.Fast gear in the basement might be more expensive in the long term.

AerLingus747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120973200#Comment_120973200

interesting, hadn't heard that, and will definitely be cheaper than mg.fast. Last I was involved with it, any potential retrofitting had stopped.

bk

Discussion about it on the following thread, links to some info about it and pictures of people who have already had it installed. Take a look across the last two pages of the thread:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2057946234/eir-urban-ftth

Initially I thought it was VM doing it, but turns out OpenEir.

clohamon

According to the Independent and others the European Commission have now responded to ComReg's proposals and have raised the pricing issue.

It [the European Commission]also questioned ComReg’s basis for imposing a control over the price Eir might charge where it is required to ensure an alternative is in place for customers losing copper connection and the fairness of requiring the company to carry the full burden of so-called “non-standard connection costs”, with no upper price limit in cases where additional work is required to ensure services are maintained.

Apparently the response letter is on the EC website but I can't find it.

I think we're getting a bit stuck in PSTN nostalgia. Copper service isn't generally necessary at all. If someone doesn't want fibre broadband, they will likely just get offered a mobile phone or some kind of mobile>PSTN gateway box that mimics a landline.

There's no technical reason whatsoever that landline numbering couldn't be ported to mobile networks either. It's all just VoIP.

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121162252#Comment_121162252

Available on their website now - https://circabc.europa.eu/ui/group/2328c58f-1fed-4402-a6cc-0f0237699dc3/library/b342bd25-8211-495e-b3d9-95e7111f308d/details

Probably released to media outlets on Monday morning initially, it was mentioned on Morning Ireland's business news report that morning - https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2023/0925/1407123-copper-switch-off/

clohamon

Interesting if ComReg now attempt to regulate for “non-standard connection costs” in blue areas, but not in amber areas. Or just re-designate the expensive blue premises as amber and hand them over to NBI.

Either way its looking like a win for Eircom.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121165819#Comment_121165819

The entire basis of national broadband should have been to say to Eircom, we will take full responsibility (broadband and voice) for the hard 10% and you have full responsibility for the rest. That way you would have obliged Eircom to serve most customers with broadband in exchange for taking the hard ones off them, this would have lead to clearer costing of national broadband and likely a cheaper cost.

clohamon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121165841#Comment_121165841

The contracted NBP only promised speeds greater than 30Mb/s, whereas ComReg are now trying to regulate Eircom to provide FTTP universally, without subsidy, at standard connection costs - using the carrot of Copper Switch-Off

Part of the difficulty for Govt all along was trying to specify FTTP-only without saying it.

clohamon

SIRO looking to speed up the process with a dedicated taskforce according to the Examiner.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/companies/arid-41422042.html

AFAIK it's up to Eircom to set the pace.

clohamon

Nothing much happening, says passive-aggressive regulator.

"ComReg looks forward to eir’s switch-off proposal, which it can submit whenever it is ready to do so, we have not received any indicative timelines from them as yet," the regulator said.

On a personal note, I asked an Eircom line engineer about this (the Copper Switch Off) and he rolled his eyes and said "that'll take twenty years"

Delta2113

Siro just want to get people to move over to it's network.

The Real B-man

Yes until Comreg let them offer alternative technologies and cease copper forinstance they still sell and support ISDN and 2mb BRA, PRA etc not all businesses have moved to VOIP yet the company's may have a leased fibre line already.

You wonder if they still make money off copper are they pushed for the awkward fibre rollouts estates with no ducting etc.

kippy

A lot of businesses and SMEs are running copper cables at least internally and possibly still tied to PSTNs for emergency buttons in lifts, intruder/fire alarms, panic alarms and even faxes.

That said the messaging is out there now to anyway responsible for these types of devices.

clohamon

DECC's annual NBP State Aid report (published 15/07/2024) notes,

..the process of “Copper Switch Off” to beginning (sic) within the next year…

clohamon

Three Men Arrested in N.Ireland for Theft of Openreach’s Broadband Cables - reports ISP News

Crimes like this have become increasingly common in recent years, driven in part by the high price of copper and the rising cost of living that has pushed more people into poverty.

…..multiple thefts of copper broadband and phone cables from Openreach (BT) – said to be worth “six figures“

The ongoing deployment of full fibre (FTTP) lines should, eventually, help to reduce such thefts as fibre has no value to thieves.

clohamon

Minister’s Opinion on the existence of potential public policy tools to ensure the availability of VFL

The Department's expected response to the VFL USO consultation has given ComReg the necessary tool it needs to re-enforce 100% voice coverage at fixed locations. This seems to imply that either the USP (Eircom probably) must retain its copper network indefinitely, or alternatively ensure that there is viable fibre VOIP available to every premises in the relevant exchange areas. The latter is presumably what ComReg/DECC are aiming for.

The consultees had some objections; notably as to whether a costly ubiquitous 3Mb/s radio network was the only mobile option* that could replicate a fixed line service. But we can only guess at their reasoning because the Ministry of Truth has decided it would be better if we read its interpretation of the submissions rather than see the originals.

*AFAIK duplex voice can be delivered with just 16Kb/s over GSM.