ESB,s plans

Stonemason

I just got this e-mail from ESB and though its abit bad at least it will allow other telco,s to bypass eircon.



Many thanks for your e-mail and my apologies for not replying sooner.
ESB Telecoms is constructing a high-capacity network around Ireland at
present and I attach a map of the proposed route for your information.
However, this network will only be what is called a backbone network and
ESBT will not be offering service to individual customers(access network),
be they residential or business. ESBT will be offering this capacity to
other telecoms operators only, i.e., ESBT will be in the wholesale telecoms
market rather than the retail market.
<<ESB National Fibre Network.ppt>>
I hope this answers your query. If you have any further questions, please do
not hesitate to contact me

Best regards,
Peter Kelly,
Marketing Manager,
ESB Telecoms,
39 Merrion Square,
Dublin 2.

Now let me see if i owned a telco company would i go with rickety old eircon or shiny new fibre optic ESB hhuuuuuum tough one that .:)

Manic

LOL! No Contest! I know where i would be going

MarcusGarvey

Any chance of uploading that powerpoint file somewhere ?

SkepticOne

If you can email it to me here I might be able to get it on to the IOFFL website.

dregin

yeah it sounds like things could be looking brighter but how long is it gonna take for anything substantial to get up and running?

It'd be nice to get a look at the map too.

Thank you for your time:)

SkepticOne

I think I've seen maps before of this. Very substantial coverage of the country. One thing it could lead to is cheap wireless projects provided people don't object to the masts as rural folk are wont to do

Shame ESB themselves aren't going into the retail business. I guess it will be up to some other company to make the big bucks.

Boston

damn, sometimes i hate being right

Stonemason

I just sent him another E-mail asking if any telco,s have been asking about their new network ill let you know if he can tell me that kind of info.As for when itll be available that depends if they are in talks now with telco,s ready for when the networks finished or whether they arent going to even talk until its fully completed which is estimated to be the end of this year begining of next hopefully they will already have someone in getting ready to lauch when the network become active (esat broadband anyone? ).



Stone

Think this was posted before but hey good news never gets boring

http://www.ireland.com/business/news/2002/0104/news2.htm

Dustaz

If and when this network is up and running can any firm set up as a telco and use the network? Or does it have to be one of the exisiting OLO's ?

Boston

well id imaigine for the general public consumtion, it woudl be easier and cheaper to go through one of the olo, but for bussiness leased lines and the like, and providing bandwidth to exchanges for full LLU, it would be cheaper to cut out the middle man(the olo's) alltogether.

I couldnt dismiss this, as this could mean that more and more small firms that whould have had to go through either esat or eircom for the badwidth to run a llu service now can go else were and probably cheaper

seamus

I hate to be sceptical, but we know how it goes in this country. If the ESB charge too low a price for their wholesale bandwidth, there are many things that may go wrong.
Eircom may cry uncompetitiveness and hold up the rollout.
Eircom may buy up most of the bandwidth and keep it for their corporate customers, who will be charged an arm and a leg for it, thereby making it viable.
*Someone* somewhere could make a stupid decision (as we know is commonplace in this country) and limit it for sale to corporate customers. Just an example - we know how far the government will go to keep big businesses happy :rolleyes:

As I said I hate being sceptical, but I know from experience it's not worth getting excited about promises. Just amoi, what is the story with licencing for the telco's in this country? Do licences apply to all forms of telecommunications or just voice? If some company could arrive in with a non-voice, affordable internet product, using the ESB network, they could essentially capture the majority of the demand, at least until eircom became competitive and customer-driven. Idea?

Boston

i doubt eircom would have the money to buy up even a faction of the bandwidth, nor would they be allowed.

Dustaz

Originally posted by Boston
well id imaigine for the general public consumtion, it woudl be easier and cheaper to go through one of the olo, but for bussiness leased lines and the like, and providing bandwidth to exchanges for full LLU, it would be cheaper to cut out the middle man(the olo's) alltogether.

Boston, read the original post. According to the email above, It seems you WILL have to go through a middle man even if you are a large business.

Im just wondering whether this middleman has to be an exisiting OLO or could an O Brien type set up a telco specifially to use the ESB's bandwith.

The latter scenario would surely be much more of a boon to the situation here. Rather than have one or two companies controlling the bandwith and access, it could lead to multiple small (and possibly regional) ISPs springing up. For example, instead of going to ESAT or Eircom for your connection, one could approach 'Leitrim On-Line' or 'Munster Wired inc.' who would provide you with your esb broadband.

I guess what im actually asking is if anybody knows whether you need a public license for this sort of thing and/or if its covered by ODTR regulation. I realise that the ESB's plans are miles away from reality, but i really think the above situation would be sweet.

Im completly open to correction on any of the above, but discuss please:)

dahamsta

I can't answer you directly Dustaz, but I doubt very much you would have to be an existing licence holder. A licence is a licence, if you have it, you already had to pass muster. I can't see the ESB refusing business, and I can't see the Regulator intervening. On top of that, I wonder to myself if people using the ESB's backbone will actually /need/ to be licence holders - some ISP's don't have licences. Fergus would be the person to answer this though, not me.

TBH, I can see a raft of licence applications this year, if of course the current "battles" are settled - and let's be honest, they can't go on forever, something has to give. I wouldn't be in the least surprised if DOB was one of them. Personally, I have to say I would welcome it. I don't deny that Denis has had his moments, but I think there's a chance he would drive competition. At this stage, I'm willing to try anything.

adam

Boston

Originally posted by Dustaz


Boston, read the original post. According to the email above, It seems you WILL have to go through a middle man even if you are a large business.

the way i read it, is they will not provide a business service, that not what im talking about. im talking about the likes of small to mdeium isps setting up wireless broadband services or llu services could use esb's network to provide the backbone, wereas before eircom would charge huge amonths for this as they dont what other isp's in bussiness against them.

the fact that esb wont be providing the service means they will charge as low as they can make a profit on, therefore increasing the number of localized isp's in ireland. with a smallish amount of investment, a company could suply broadband to certain cities

Stonemason

The only problem with this it will take a certain amount of courage for small upcoming providers to step into the breach so to speak because the telco/digy TV busines seems to be a pretty nasty place to be at the moment.I reckon the most cost efective way will be to use a combination of the ESB,s loop and also their masts and some kind of transmitter set up (much like chorus was suposed to be)As aposed to wireing the whole country.This also has the advantage of being alot quicker so they can start collecting revenue.Only problem is whos gonna have to balls.Ill bet their will still be people out there that will complain when the transmitters go up, I mean who would want to spoil the beautyfull symmetry of those Pillons.



Stone

Boston

well what about bskyb, they had palns for the internet down the dish, but lacked to funds to build the broadband backbone, this could provide that to them.

Stonemason

I think Sky would only really be intrested in a limited internet service i.e E-mail and shopping they could get alot of revenue from advertising as far as a full on downloading/game playing solution i cant see it come to that even using it for TV would seem pointless as their satilite sytem gets alot more coverage than say cable.



Stone

SkepticOne

Here's the map from the powerpoint file sent to stonemason by the ESB.