E-net, what are they doing in Kiltimagh?

ifconfig

I know they have launched a Metropolitan fibre ring around
Kiltimagh and that town has been progressive for a town of
its size. So no arguments about *why* they launched there.
However, I was there recently and a relative showed me a
small radio dish which was at about 8-10feet above street
level and pointing down the length of the street. It looked
like a wireless repeater.

So, what have they installed in Kiltimagh ? A fibre backbone
which other carriers can use within the town to deliver
consumer level broadband along with businesses who might
buy higher bandwidth packages?

I'm assuming that the nearest DSL equipped exchange is
in Ballina or Claremorris. So where is the internet traffic
routed from the E-net MAN out to the public internet ?
And what might the wireless repeater be doing on a section
of road which I know already was excavated to lay down
fibre encircling the town ? Might it be a wireless access point
for the benefit of whichever retail provider might purchase
capacity to be sold on as a wireless internet package ?

hmm. anyone who can explain the E-net strategy in towns
like this in English for me ??

--ifconfig

spongebob

ifconfig wrote:

hmm. anyone who can explain the E-net strategy in towns
like this in English for me ??

None !

They installed the fibre but did not connect it to anything or light it. It remains in splendid isolation under Kiltimagh to this very day.

The Wireless thang is ANOTHER Government funded project which is not IN ANY WAY connected to fibre or eNet but is a VSAT backhaul jobbie. You may use it as a slow DSL substitute I suppose.

Details are Here .

HTH

M

ifconfig

Thanks for the info and link Muck.

I stumbled across some posts on this forum about E-net and I heard a
portion of one of their interviews on the Business section on Morning
Ireland about a week ago. So, the fibre ring is inactive because there
are no customers signed up to buy from E-net or what ? I'm just interested
in what the actual story is.

Also the link
http://www.ruralbroadband.ie/docs/rbc-fly-32.pdf

is from the wireless provider you mentioned. However, they talk about
the Fibre MAN in their literature but don't make it clear that it is from
a different provider.

One last thing. What exactly is VSAT? It seems to me that the rural
broadband crowd are using 2.4GHz links (which is basically 802.11b
or similar) - is VSAT deployed via Wifi repeaters and a hub which
routes back via satellite ? I googled for VSAT and I couldn't see how
the wifi repeater concept was embedded into the deployment of
this type of access method.


thanks again for your rapid answer and pointers!

I'm moving westwards in a few months time myself and I will
be about 7 miles or more away from any town of reasonable size.
My guess is that I will have to make do with satellite broadband,eg
digiweb which means at current prices, 1.5k or so install charge and
100 Euro per month tariff. Actually it may be 15 months before I
make the move westwards. I'd say it would be safe to assume that
even satellite broadband will probably have dropped in price by then...
hopes he ) !!!
--ifconfig

spongebob

ifconfig wrote:

Thanks for the info and link Muck.

One last thing. What exactly is VSAT?

2 Way Satellite Backhaul.

ifconfig wrote:

I'm moving westwards in a few months time myself and I will
be about 7 miles or more away from any town of reasonable size.
My guess is that I will have to make do with satellite broadband,eg
digiweb which means at current prices, 1.5k or so install charge and
100 Euro per month tariff.

Try searching for Knockmore on the Board , they are the premier Group BB scheme in Mayo and the original of the species nationally. PM bminish or oscarbravo and tell them where you live/ reqs etc and ESPECIALLY if you are moving to a hilltop location with a good view

Better still get your own Group BB scheme (GBS) going. Mayo is a veritable hotbed for these.

M

bminish

Muck wrote:

IN ANY WAY connected to fibre or eNet but is a VSAT backhaul jobbie. You may use it as a slow DSL substitute I suppose.
M

It also appears to support Telex according to the pdf fact sheet.

.Brendan

thegills

They installed the fibre but did not connect it to anything or light it

Muck, I would expect you mean that Mayo CoCo sought funding for Ballina / Kiltimagh and subsequently built MAN's in both of these towns.

e-net has signed a concession agreement with the DCMNR to manage, maintain, etc. all of the MAN's. There is a process whereby each MAN is individually handed over to e-net, a process which takes up to 8 weeks. Kiltimagh has been handed over a number of weeks now; Ballina, Galway, Letterkenny, Roscommon, Athlone, Clonmel and Dungarvan have since followed.

A major part of the solution for a town is the backhaul out of the town and AFAIK the framework agreements that the DCMNR signed with ESBT and Esat BT do not cover Kiltimagh. As such e-net is now looking at backhaul options for Kiltimagh and as you can imagine, they are few and far between (RTE / radio, eircom / Fibre, etc.).

In towns where backhaul is available there has been good interest and a number of OAO's have signed up for services.

thegills

spongebob

thegills wrote:

Muck, I would expect you mean that Mayo CoCo sought funding for Ballina / Kiltimagh and subsequently built MAN's in both of these towns.

Yes TheGills . I meant what you actually said and stand corrected.

thegills wrote:

A major part of the solution for a town is the backhaul out of the town and AFAIK the framework agreements that the DCMNR signed with ESBT and Esat BT do not cover Kiltimagh. As such e-net is now looking at backhaul options for Kiltimagh and as you can imagine, they are few and far between (RTE / radio, eircom / Fibre, etc.).

Gweedore is similarly stranded without backhaul and also got a VSAT/WiFi overground solution which went live last week ...under the GBS scheme.

M

machalla

I wouldn't worry, Noel Dempsey will be round with the van and a handy dandy Eircon satellite to hook up all of the west in a flash.

thegills

What worries me is that once you start rolling out the next 88 (90) towns the backhaul options are limited to a) radio from a no. of sources and b) fibre from eircom only. Once again i could see eircom holding the state to ransom.

Drapper

E Net is not a provider but facilitator of infrastructure owned by the gov. The providers still have to use the network to make it a success.

Commercial now and next Resi.

Makes sence !!!! Costs too much for providres to lay cables in town where there is no demand.

ENet is a good thing. OPEN ACEES NEUTRAL NETWORK !!!

spongebob

thegills wrote:

What worries me is that once you start rolling out the next 88 (90) towns the backhaul options are limited to a) radio from a no. of sources and b) fibre from eircom only.

The state has instructed local authorities to plan Radio networks to deal with the 'stranding' problem as in Gweedore and Kiltimagh today.

I'm not sure how the funding for this will be disbursed but the Local Authorities will own the backhaul/mast elements in certain cases. I can think of other uses fo those masts

M

eircomtribunal

Drapper wrote:

Commercial now and next Resi.

Makes sence !!!! Costs too much for providres to lay cables in town where there is no demand.

ENet is a good thing. OPEN ACEES NEUTRAL NETWORK !!!

Let's not forget:

Ireland is unique with it's MAN's project.

How come?

Because the project is BS, but of such a big dimension that nobody dares to spell it out. The fact that it is financed to a great part by EU money does not make it less of a waste of taxpayers money.

Ballina does not need a Metropolitan Area Network, nor do any of the other towns (!).

Towns need fibre access, and this is already in existence. With intelligent regulation the existing fibre backbone could and should have been made accessible.

Ireland's bottle neck is in the last mile and not in the backhaul.


(I am not saying that the MAN's will not be useful to a certain extent in the future, but the cost/benefit relation is horrendous.)

P.

Drapper

The cost is less, read www.enet.ie , Eircom and Esat will not go to these town and how dare you say Ballina or any of the other towns do not deserve it !! All were invite to submit proposals and didnt !!!

Now lets see the companies take it up !! the MAN ins Cork is roaring and in Limerick there has been takeup """

And Galway was launched recently too !!!

BTW the MAn has Duct and Fibre inside !!! and it can convert to WOMAN (wireless over MAn) to reach other non fibre areas !!!! Wifi !!! IBB and Leap are queing up with licences to use it !!!

D

eircomtribunal

Drapper wrote:

The cost is less, read www.enet.ie

I am doubtful this price list can give rise to such conclusions.

Eircom and Esat will not go to these towns

I don't think any MAN was built to date in a place which did not have existing fibre backhaul! Or will go to any in the future.

and how dare you say Ballina or any of the other towns do not deserve it !! All were invite to submit proposals and didnt !!!

They simply do not need a fibre ring.
Any co-location and back-haul tariff E-Net will have to charge could and should have been mandated by ComReg for Eircom exchanges long time ago.

Now lets see the companies take it up !! the MAN ins Cork is roaring and in Limerick there has been takeup """
D

That would be paraphrasing Noel's misguided optimism in this matter. The Last Mile has to be cracked by LLU to make the MAN's an alternative to Eircom's backhaul.

P.

Drapper

Once again disagre. I work in an organisation promoting ENet and Eircom have made enquiries about using the network !!!

BTW the open access nature of the MAn allows access by building not along the ateries, where drops are expansive !!! This being the biggest cost !!!!!!!!!

GIVE THE MAN time !!!

:-)

REmeber what we said about LUAS ??

spongebob

I am quietly confident about the MAN model in towns where the population is over 15k or so.

Regrettably the government started the MAN strategy cack handed after a document was issued by the dept of the Taoiseach some 3 years back. It recommended a multi prong strategy including MANDATORY ducting in ALL new developments, housing or otherwise along with MANs and other whatnots.

That dismal muppet Cullen never acted on his end of it , the Planning regulations. 200,000 houses built since = 15% of the housing stock in Ireland. No ducting and no alternative last mile.

Gob****es

M

Drapper

Agreed but the gov can only suggest "DEvelopers" are the one who pull the national purse strings !!!

TRY TO EDUCATE them on the benefits of fibre !!! against Copper !!!!

Think about it !!!

FIbre to the home is in Dublin in a new Development in Baldoyle !!! I think its great !!!

100 meg for TV, Phone and BB.

Once one development is successful the other will follow !!!

A recent study concluded that Fibre adds 10% to the value of a premises !! Lets hope they see this !!!

damien

There should be a boards.ie tax on exclamation marks.

Drapper

damien.m wrote:

There should be a boards.ie tax on exclamation marks.

Oppsssssssss little finger going crazy again !!! love the aul !!! mark......

thegills

Ballina does not need a Metropolitan Area Network, nor do any of the other towns (!).

Have you told this to Ballina Beverages or MBNA in Carrick-on-Shannon?
At least 5 OAO's are using the MAN's including Esat BT.
e-net have their work cut out for them but I am confident that the DCMNR Broadband strategy is the right way to go.
e.g. Leap has launched Broadband in Limerick not using the MAN but using ESBT Telecom's network which was funded under the NDP broadband plan. The MAN's are only part of the jigsaw.

Drapper

thegills wrote:

Have you told this to Ballina Beverages or MBNA in Carrick-on-Shannon?
At least 5 OAO's are using the MAN's including Esat BT.
e-net have their work cut out for them but I am confident that the DCMNR Broadband strategy is the right way to go.
e.g. Leap has launched Broadband in Limerick not using the MAN but using ESBT Telecom's network which was funded under the NDP broadband plan. The MAN's are only part of the jigsaw.

Well said !!! I hate Gov bashing !! we are small country and we need to aknowledge this !

Dont forget the pop is the same as the greaster Manchester area, spread over the same area as 1/3 of of England !!!

Roll it out !!!

spongebob

Drapper wrote:

we are small country and we need to aknowledge this !

We are a small pretty FLAT country and we need to acknowledge this !

Where is the bleedin MAST strategy ?

M

eircomtribunal

thegills wrote:

Have you told this to Ballina Beverages or MBNA in Carrick-on-Shannon?

Do you say that they needed a fibre ring to get the type of Internet connection they needed?

P.

glav100

Hi, I visited the IRD center in Kiltimagh today to see if I could get a 100Mb/sec connection to the MAN's from the drop at the back of the IRD Offices. And to my dismay they told me that the MAN's is not lit yet and it would not be for some time. I then spoke to E-net and they informed me that it maybe connected via a 155MB/sec wireless connection from Ballina within the next 10 weeks. They did not say what company is going to suply this connection but I can tell you that if 155 is all the bandwidth they are going to get the MAN's was a total waste of time and money.

Sponge Bob

One could muse that the difference between 0 and 155mbits is a good start , Kiltimagh is not that big ?

Urban Weigl

I think the point he's making is that if 155mbits is all they are eventually going to get, what was the point of building a fibre ring in the first place?

You're right, though. And as the fibre ring is already there, it's better to do something, anything, rather than leaving it to rot away...

cgarvey

Surely they could bond/add more links if the demand was there? 155Mbps is a lot to start off with.

Urban Weigl

The whole point of fibre is that it delivers gigabits of capacity. If you acknowledge that you won't use or need that capacity, surely you acknowledge that building it in the first place was a waste of money?

Not saying that 155mbits isn't enough for Kiltimagh, it's a small enough place after all (I pass it going to Castlebar). I suppose if everybody got their own gigabit connections to the internet, like what's starting to happen in some countries, 155mbps wouldn't go very far, even for a small town. But the fibre ring wasn't designed with fibre to the home in mind, so it's not going to happen.

glav100

The thing is that I am interested in setting up a small FWA/WISP in the mayo region. maybe use 2.4Ghz or 5.8Ghz license free first to see what the uptake is. But I never realised that the connections to the Internet Backbone was going to be such a problem. If I could get beyond this the rest is in my own hands. And I obliviously could not use the MAN's in kiltimagh to connect as I would hope to need more than 155 in the future. AS I do not know who is providing the bandwidth to the kiltimagh MAN's then I would be in serious trouble if it turned out to be a FWA getting its source from Galway or elsewhere. And that could be the case.

And yes what I meant was if 155 is all they are going to get period then the MAN was a waste.

cgarvey

MANs are a waste of money, IMO. I'm merely saying there's no point in wasting more money, in putting up bonded wireless links to match the fibre's Gbps rating, until the demand is there. I'm merely pointing out that they're easier to add later, if demand warrants it. There's no point in wasting more money. If a small WISP/FWA needs more than 155mbps, then something is going very right for them.

The fact that MANs are all joined up with fibre is the bigger issue, and adds to their waste of money.

cgarvey

glav100 wrote:

But I never realised that the connections to the Internet Backbone was going to be such a problem.

If that wasn't such a huge proble, everyone in rural Ireland would have access to BB.

glav100 wrote:

And I obliviously could not use the MAN's in kiltimagh to connect as I would hope to need more than 155 in the future.

And they would hope to provide more backhaul in the future. You're a long way off needing more than 155Mbps though!!

glav100 wrote:

AS I do not know who is providing the bandwidth to the kiltimagh MAN's then I would be in serious trouble

You would be looking for an SLA from e-Net. I'm reasonably confident that e-Net would not be sourcing mickey mouse upstream providers like the small guy in Galway you portray.

glav100 wrote:

And yes what I meant was if 155 is all they are going to get period then the MAN was a waste.

It's not period, it's for now. There's no point in blowing/wasting more money on bonded wireless links if they're not going to be used. Ideally, of course, the MANs would be connected by decent fibre capacity.. but that's not the reality. I would suggest that the MAN was a waste, but not for the reason you're suggesting.

.cg