New direction for Irelandoffline

Stonemason

It just occured to me that perhaps Irelandoffline is barking up the wrong tree i think we all agree that eircom neither has the will or the money to give us what we really need.This is being partly provide by ESB perhaps we should be looking at the goverment not some much wasting time money and energy with eircom instead setting up a new network to provide the public with access to ESBs fibre network as the goverment controls ESB would it be to far fetched for them to have a national broadband company created to suply the demand.Let eircom take their ball home and play with themselfs at least thats one thing they maybe able to get right.



Stone

The words i long to hear BYE BYE eircom

dahamsta

We're not really tackling Eircom directly Stonemason, we never have. Sure, we say "Eircom should unbundle the local loop" (they will soon) "Eircom should roll out DSL" (they did), "Eircom should roll out flat-rate" (they most certainly didn't), but we know as well as anyone that all that counts to Eircom, all that's ever counted, is the bottom line, and Eircom will never do anything until they're good and ready. And we have to say those things, it would be remiss of us not to, because we have to expose Eircom for what they are - an anti-competitive monopolist. But what we /do/ is different. The only way to /really/ get those things done is to concentrate on legislation, lobbying and informing and educating the media, the politicians, and of course the consumers and businesses who are affected by this - and believe me, a lot of them don't even understand the scale of the problem. And that's what we do. We educate, we lobby, we inform. About all the options, including alternatives like the ESB, satellite, and Wireless in the Local Loop.

adam

Stonemason

Perhaps im being abit harsh on the government but I have the feeling that their lack of knowledge on the subject will mean they will pass this bill and that bill to try and make eircom and other telcos to toe the line as they will see eircom as the major player in the Telco market and assume by trying to force them to unbundled at a fair price and do all the things that need to be done will be the easiest way forward.
Eircom in return will use "OUR" money to buy the best loophole hunters and dodge the bullet for months to come as we have seen them do so far.
My concern is that they will focus on eircom to much and tailor bills to that end.
Broad sweeping reforms are needed but I feel the government is to near sighted for that.
On the point of having a state owned national Broadband company I feel that this too important an issue to be left to private Business only interest in profit.
The phrase the digital divide is more than a catchphrase its what will happen if the government doesn’t get a move on.
In modern terms we will be a country of illiterates and a laughing stock of europe (again)not to mention the damage to our economy.That post you put up the ex BT fella says it all, fibre is low maintanace more resistant to damage and best of all highspeed.The fastest most cost effective way is to forget existing Telcos for now and force them to play catch up then we may see competion.

Stone

Dustaz

Ive got to say i dont agree that a national state owned broadband company is important. A healthy and competitive market is MUCH more important. Look at Ryanair. Having said that, we have neither atm

That article is indeed a very good insight into the future, but thats what it is - The Future. By all means plans should be made now to help widebands eventual introduction but NOT imo to the detriment of current broadband rollouts.

There seems to be a lot of exitement about the ESB's plans, but arent they just that, plans? How much work has been completed on it so far?

Force LLU, Force a decent bitstream pricing, Force a bit of competition into the telco market for the moment. THEN concentrate on wideband solutions. We must learn to walk before we run.

Manic

We educate, we lobby, we inform. About all the options, including alternatives

This sadly has failed!

What is our next course of action ? Its time to face facts now. But just bypass this again if ye want to. Turn it into a Troll, abouse, accuse, whatever. My answer to this is ye dont, and ye dont and dont want to. Why ? this is what people that support you want you to do. You guys sure are a strange bunch of people. Dont have my glasses and no doubt my spelling is sh1t. But watch the replies and PM's i get. WEIRD!

pete

Originally posted by Manic
This sadly has failed!

What is our next course of action ? Its time to face facts now. But just bypass this again if ye want to. Turn it into a Troll, abouse, accuse, whatever. My answer to this is ye dont, and ye dont and dont want to. Why ? this is what people that support you want you to do. You guys sure are a strange bunch of people. Dont have my glasses and no doubt my spelling is sh1t. But watch the replies and PM's i get. WEIRD!

Maybe you should get your glasses - you appear to have misplaced your better suggestion.

dahamsta

[Just picking one item out of this.]

Broad sweeping reforms are needed but I feel the government is to near sighted for that.

I agree with you on the former 100%, but the latter is something we can tackle. Yes, the government are near-sighted, yes, the government have sh1tty and/or corrupted advisors, but more and more people and organisations are forcing these issues on them now. The government is quite literally in dire straits right now, and they're going to be lucky if they can pull out of the tailspin they've created. But they've been caught rotten, and the pressure being brought to bear is putting them in the position where now they're stalling for time, rather than dismissing the problem out of hand. They /have/ to do something now, or their going to end up the laughing stock of Europe. What's changed is that /they're/ seeing that now, at least to a degree.

Anyway, the reason I picked out this particular part (peter piper picked a pickled pepper) of your response was so I could point people at an excellent document produced by the International Telecommunication Union, entitled "Regulatory Implications of Broadband", which was developed from a workshop of the same name. One of the topics addressed in this document is the broad sweeping reforms you mention, and the degree to which some countries have taken this. Here's an extract from a sidebar in that document:

Box 1.1: Malaysia prepares for a broadband future

Malaysia began preparing for a broadband future as early as 1994 when it established the National Information Technology Commission (NITC) and set about identifying possible barriers to an IT-led leapfrog towards developed-nation status. A major finding was that too many regulations (and too many regulators) did not suit the needs of industry. Subsequently, the Communications and Multimedia Commission (CMC) was established in 1999 under the Communications and Multimedia Act to regulate the activities of:

• Network facilities providers, regardless of their transmission medium;
• Network services providers, regardless of the network technology;
• Application service providers, regardless of whether the service be voice, data, broadcast, video, radio, etc;
• Content applications service providers, regardless of transmission medium and application.

The CMC can therefore be regarded as a converged regulator with a technologically-neutral stance.

There are however, legacy regulations that are not yet consistent with a totally converged environment. For instance, universal service obligations relate only to basic telephony, and the interconnectivity regime does not require local loop access to applications other than telephony. The main regulatory reform expected over the next two years is a complete review and modification of this legacy regulation.

Malaysia’s obsession with all things to do with multimedia means that preparation for a broadband future has involved much more than changing the regulatory framework. The seedbed is the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) with its totally planned ‘Silicon Valley’ environment, in a manicured tropical garden setting. The business hub of Cyberjaya and the neighbouring new national administrative capital of Putrajaya have universal broadband connectivity, smart houses and the world’s first multimedia university. Currently 40 of the top 50 “world class companies” that Malaysia sought to attract have a presence in the MSC.

At a national level, the government has established several programmes to kick start broadband use by individuals andcompanies, including:

• E-services — bringing access to government services to individuals and companies;
• E-labour market — where the government acts as an agent bringing together workers and companies;
• E- procurement where government agencies buy common requisites;
• Smart schools – targeting the one-third of the Malaysian population in schools.

These programmes are currently being piloted. But, there are many barriers to overcome before a national roll-out of broadband-based services will succeed. With no history of cable TV, cable modem access is an unlikely future. While a fibre optic broadband backbone is in place, connectivity to homes and small businesses is via twisted copper wires. Therefore, with the incumbent’s local loop not unbundled, companies seek wireless solutions for the last mile. These solutions are hampered by lack of spectrum allocation in ranges far enough away from 2.4 MHz to be robust in tropical weather.

In some Malaysian states, 25 per cent of households do not have mains electricity, and 35 per cent of households do not have a telephone. Although there are some community telephone and Internet services, some citizen live as many as three days walk from the nearest telephone!

Source: ITU Malaysia country case study, available at: <www.itu.int/broadband>.

The full document is available here, in Word and PDF format (see Briefing Paper under Activities on the right-hand panel), and it's well worth a read. The rest of the site has a lot more interesting information, in particular the country case studies.

adam

Manic

Maybe you should get your glasses - you appear to have misplaced your better suggestion.

Here we go. TROLL time. Its ok blame me. Im used to it.

dahamsta

Manic, stop acting like a child please, pete was absolutely correct in what he was hinting towards.

The first part of his comment referred to your blindness to the current situation. Nearly every single day now, large corporations, politicians, the media and representative organisations are highlighting and underlining the problems in the Irish telecommunications maketplace, in particular with reference to the Internet. IrelandOffline certainly can't claim all responsibility for that, but we can damn well claim a hefty chunk of it. There is absolutely no way you could deem IrelandOffline's efforts a failure in light of that, it's an absolutely ludicrous assertion.

The second part of his comment referred to your continued flouting of the rules of this forum. It says it in very simple terms on the very first thread when you load the forum - in big letters for people like you - that you can criticise IrelandOffline all you want, but if you decide to go down that path, you /have/ to suggest alternatives. You post was devoid of such alternatives.

So either grow up and start acting responsibly, or I'll show you the door. Again.

adam

dahamsta

Hi Dustaz,

There seems to be a lot of exitement about the ESB's plans, but arent they just that, plans? How much work has been completed on it so far?

Well, I think they have a fairly substantial dark fibre network, so it's really just a case of lighting it up. They would appear to be trying to create the demand to make it viable with this initiative. Which is something we've been complaining about, to be fair.

Force LLU

Force pricing you mean....

Force a decent bitstream pricing

Absolutely, but define decent pricing. Seriously, I'm asking: What do you think is a fair retail price for bitstream DSL access? Without the fairy tales...

Force a bit of competition into the telco market for the moment.

Absolutely.

THEN concentrate on wideband solutions. We must learn to walk before we run.

And once again, absolutement. This concept of rolling out broadband countrywide almost instantaneously, and the fact that politicians actually think they can do that, really gets on my wick. Makes you think Enid Blyton is at the controls.

adam

Dustaz

Originally posted by dahamsta
Hi Dustaz,

Howaya

Well, I think they have a fairly substantial dark fibre network, so it's really just a case of lighting it up. They would appear to be trying to create the demand to make it viable with this initiative. Which is something we've been complaining about, to be fair.

OK, so as a complete guestimate, how long before there are people acessing the internet using the ESB's netowork - 6 months? a year? 2 years? Can anyone guess?

Force LLU

Force pricing you mean....

May i be publically stoned, i cant believe i made that mistake!!
Dont think this means i wont stop chastising ppl who make the same mistake tho:)

Force a decent bitstream pricing

Absolutely, but define decent pricing. Seriously, I'm asking: What do you think is a fair retail price for bitstream DSL access? Without the fairy tales...

No idea. Whatever price that allows an OLO offer a basic DSL service for around EUR70 per month. That seems to be the standard everywhere else.

dahamsta

'Allo again.

OK, so as a complete guestimate, how long before there are people acessing the internet using the ESB's netowork - 6 months? a year? 2 years? Can anyone guess?

I have no idea. That's up to the ESB and the licence holders. I don't doubt the ESB have projections though - why not give 'em a ring? All they can say is "MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS, YA NOSEY FECKER!"

May i be publically stoned, i cant believe i made that mistake!!
Dont think this means i wont stop chastising ppl who make the same mistake tho

<adam fires a stone in dustaz's general direction>

No idea. Whatever price that allows an OLO offer a basic DSL service for around EUR70 per month. That seems to be the standard everywhere else.

Actually, that's what I meant, the retail price. Interesting. Anyone else?

adam

Stonemason

Basicaly what Dahamster said i would add that (gails/foot&mouth ect ect)did, and will slow progress so prey for good weather and good health.Hopefully ESBs network will be ready middle to end of this year but as to who will be first in to buy bandwidth of them is truly open to anyones guess how fast this so far fictional company will be in rolling out a workable system is also unknown.But im staying optomistic that some forward thinking company will step in and get the jump on the other telcos.


Stone

Coyote

price for Retail DSL ?
well there is no way that Eircom could even if they wanted to get the base cost price for them down as far as other EU contres (IE: as little as €20 for bitstream access in some places.
i would say that the eircom will end up selling to other companys at around €40-€50 and the retail price will end up at around €75

Manic

Manic, stop acting like a child please, pete was absolutely correct in what he was hinting towards.

As soon as you stop treating me like one I will. In the meantime why "Hint!" why not 'Inform' ? Mind Readers Required. Apply withen!

BoneCollector

its obvious that eircom and the gov are just lazy bAS**RDS and patronise everone with stupidity.

Take the WAR some where esle...
start contacting The EU and get them to put pressure here in ireland on both the gov and eircom.

its seems we all want the same thing but posting and complaining here is absolutely! none productive.

Be productive, be pro-active
and keep reporting here what your responces where and work on it from there.

I have previously sent mails and posted some responces, so far i havent seen many other people taking up the same oppertunities.

if we dont tell people about it, then they will not think theres a problem.
if we all send mails, then it becomes obvious there is! a problem.
No attack can be mounted directly from this board.
its only a place for informing each other or expresing ideas.
these need to be acted on and stop! chasing our own tails!.

You all have email so start using it.