Regions make ready for broadband

dahamsta

SIlicon Republic (Reg Rqd)

The reality is that four years after the telecoms market was deregulated, one incumbent telecoms player still rules the roost and much future progress depends on how much leeway that telecommunications company (telco) is going to give others in freeing up the local loops and last miles that will see the Government’s dream of 5Mbps to every home and business by 2005 realised.

This 5Mbps by 2005 vision was not the misbegotten musing of a government civil servant, but is an actual directive from the European Commission as part of its e-Europe plans.

In meeting such ambitious directives — well in this country’s case at present and certainly ambitious — the Government earlier this year allocated €200m to a National Broadband Strategy under the auspices of the National Development plan that would see high speed metropolitan area networks (MANs), or fibre rings, built around some 67 towns, creating a network of some 56,000 fibre kilometres.

Recent cutbacks by Finance Minister, Charlie McCreevy TD, have put this €200m vision in jeopardy as the Government performs a balancing act between over-generous spending during the past five years and the need for moderation in a world blighted by recession.

In the most recent Book of Estimates, the government department responsible for broadband rollout, the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, saw its annual estimate for 2003 cut by 9pc to €484.4m, some €46.2m less than expected. For 2003, a department spokesman told Digital Ireland that these cuts would have no impact on the first phase of the project involving 19 principal towns and an investment of some €44m. “We are able to draw down the money required for this phase in the coming year,” he said.

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ednwireland

just heard that only three towns in donegal are even on the radar for DSL upgrade despite donegal town having no ISDN availability at the moment it isn't even on the second list at eircom ring up the biddies and they will say march !(funny how up the road when our illustrious td became a minister people got ISDN after years of asking though)

Maj. TightAss

Is there a list of these 67 towns available anywhere online?

dahamsta

It's probably on this forum, or if it's not, it's certainly been linked to from here. Try a search for "fibre rings towns".

adam

STaN

id love to see the fibre ring list ASWELL as a list of any/all exchanges that are on target for upgrade and by which operator (and on a county per county basis, if that is available)

pork99

Originally posted by ednwireland
funny how up the road when our illustrious td became a minister people got ISDN after years of asking though

just another example of some pig-ignorant inbred retard being in a job he or she is not fit to do

a good old Stalinist style purge would be good in this country, maybe turn Leitrim into a gulag for them

Dawg

list of the towns mentioned here

guess I may wait until sometime in the next decade for a decent bb package round here, or just move to a country where the government actually has a clue..

STaN

and who will own the fibre rings? free for all?

Son of Blam

Is it just me, or does "fibre ring" have nothing whatsoever to do with ISDN or ADSL availability?

Surely your ISDN and ADSL availability would have more to do with your proximity to your phone local exchange. Maybe I'm totally wrong on this, but any "fibre ring" would more likely get you a cable connection similar to NTL's offering in whatever Dublin areas they're currently available in. Please correct me.

Balfa

this fibre ring looks like it will be separate from DSL etc. a purpose-laid infrastructure, it seems.

typical that Bray, like the kid who was held back 2 years in school, is sitting in phase three with all the cruddy little 1,500 population towns

and Gaoth Dobhair in phase 1? wha?

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Son of Blam
Is it just me, or does "fibre ring" have nothing whatsoever to do with ISDN or ADSL availability?

Surely your ISDN and ADSL availability would have more to do with your proximity to your phone local exchange. Maybe I'm totally wrong on this, but any "fibre ring" would more likely get you a cable connection similar to NTL's offering in whatever Dublin areas they're currently available in. Please correct me.

Yes, the fibre rings has nothing to ISDN and ADSL availability. Only, perhaps, as far as providing possible backhaul for Eircom or other DSL providers.

The fibre rings is mainly for corporate level connectivity outside Dublin where the telcos may not have extensive networks. Companies will probably connect via leased lines.

By themselves, they do not solve the monopolised last mile issue, which is still the main problem in Ireland. One of the recommendations of the recent Dublin Chamber of Commerce report was to allow kerb-side access to the rings:

For the majority of users, the issue of last mile access is not directly addressed by the MAN’s, and only a minority of public sector interests are likely to be physically close enough to directly connect to these networks. Ireland cannot afford to leave the issue and economics of the last mile infrastructure to the MAN programme, to the incumbents or to chance.

We specifically consider that priority should be now be given to regulating for the unbundling of access to the last mile “at the kerbside”. Currently operators can gain unbundled access to local loop: however they are still reliant on the local loop itself – ie on the copper cable between the exchange and the customers of the incumbent. In turn the physical length and quality of this copper cable may limit the transmissions speeds available to and from the exchange and the customer. Extending unbundling right to the kerbside would allow operators to install their own equipment very much physically closer to customers, allowing higher transmissions speeds where demanded (c.f. section 5.3.6).

spongebob

not one has been installed and commissioned yet

Raskolnikov

Sweet mother of mercy, they've actually marked out Carrigaline for the scheme, even if they were off on the population of the place by 10,000 peeps or so.

Stonemason

Im glad im not the only one to notice the figures on the town list is way out of date Nenagh is down for about 5000 even though there is about 10/12000 people live there now.I just hope that if they are planning the roll out by population size someone should upate the figures.
Typical lazy research from overpaid under acheiving civil servants.

iwb

While the fiber rings may not be the answer to all our prayers, they will definately help to get broadband out there. Most of the rings are in close proximity to the ESB telecom network. This makes it fairly easy for small local access operators to plug into some bandwidth. This is the single biggest bar to the likes of LEAP and Irishbroadband getting outside Dublin.
When they were originally announced, it seemed that they would be dark fiber and ducts only and that operators will have to light them up themselves. It now looks as though in addition to the ability to lease duct and fiber, there may also be a lit portion to the network. That statement was made by Niall O' Donnchu at a forum late last year. This could mean that a small operator who wants to service an area would grab bandwidth very inexpensively using 10/100 baseT from the live part of the network.
I for one am hopeful that DCMNR decides to make some of it live and make a deal with ESBT or whoever and this scenario could be a reality.
IWB

rardagh

I just got an invite to the Launch of the ESB Fibre Optic Broadband Network on the 31/1 - by Minister Ahern...Maybe something good happening?

I'd agree with the comments above that these rings combined with somesort of backhaul solution (ESB or CIE) will allow more operators deploy around the country quicker...with whatever last mile technology (Although wireless is the obvious and best choice...)