[FAQ] Satellite, PowerNet, Glossary

LegacyUser

"What Broadband is available right _now_ in Ireland"

"What Flatrate services are available right _now_ in Ireland?"

"What's this I hear about Satellite Internet access?"

What is VSAT?

What is LLU?


Would anyone care to answer any or all of these questions for the website? Any and all input would be much appreciated, as I don't have the time or knowledge (or inclination) to do it all myself. Brief answers, in point form with all the relevant information such as websites, prices, speeds, locations would be really cool.

Either post 'em here or email them to me at hudson806@yahoo.com. It would be really great if we could have something for the site within the next few days.

Seriously - if everyone is willing to take a few minutes to research an answer or two, we will have the best FAQ anywhere about Irish Internet access, and really improve IrelandOffline's visibilty.

LegacyUser

"What Broadband is available right _now_ in Ireland"

Trials in dublin, Powernet trials in ennis, and in Northern ireland, ntl Cable internet

"What Flatrate services are available right _now_ in Ireland?"

None, in the republic of ireland.

"What's this I hear about Satellite Internet access?"

What part? be more specific... Some satelite services are available in ireland, but costs of up to £600 hardware fee and £150 per month

"What is vsat?"

Never heard of that

"What is LLU?"

Local Loop Unbundling

LegacyUser

I think the first answer should be a bit more detailed.

1)What Broadband is available right _now_ in Ireland

NTL have cable modem broadband available in selected areas of Tallaght in Dublin. Plans to expand to other areas are uncertain. Survival is the main priority of NTL at the moment, they are having financial difficulties (Irish Section of NTL).

Eircom is having Commercial trials as we speak in certain areas of Dublin. September 28th is the supposed launch date of the ADSL, but it is uncertain as yet, could be another 2 month delay. When ADSL is launched, it will be limited to dublin, and also limited to certain exchanges in Dublin for the near future. Plans to expand ADSL to other parts of the country are uncertain as yet.

Chorus, I can't comment on this, as I do not know much about it other than dublin offerings. Chorus were suppose to realease their Powernet in July, to south dublin, then was suppose to expand to N.Dublin by September. They still have not launched in S.Dublin at this time (1st September). But, strong rumors are spreading that Chorus will give Powernet another push for release over the next 3 months for North and South dublin. You will need to be within 20Km of '3Rock Mountain' and have 'line of sight' to avail of this.

Satellite access to the internet is available now from a company called Beam. Speeds are similar to a cable modem, but latency (ping) is high, which would make it unusuable for playing games online. Prices from Beam start at aprox £900 (punts) for the first month(setup, hardware etc) and £150 per month. Tiscali are suppose to launch a European service from Autumn. All of europe should be available to take this service up by the end of 2001, (every country that Tiscali operates). Tiscali does not operate in the Republic, so there is doubts that they will offer their service here, although we would easily be within range of the service. Web-Sat also offer a satellite internet access service, but costs are aimed at businesses. £2000 installation, £150 per month, and a 450MB download limit per month is not an option for a typical residential user.

LegacyUser

Nice work guys, I've stuck them into v.5 of the FAQ. Does anybody have any more specific in for about the Satellite services, such as websites, prices, download limits etc?

LegacyUser

I would like to add the question:

"What is broadband?"

This is important because there are a lot of usages for this term depending on the context. People need to be able to distinguish between the various meanings depending on the context.

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Skeptic1:
I would like to add the question:

"What is broadband?"
</font>

Nice. I don't suppose you'd be willing to provide an answer, too ?

(I know it only takes about 15 minutes to throw a response together, but if you have to do 20 of them, it takes rather a lot of your time...)

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by hudson806:
Nice. I don't suppose you'd be willing to provide an answer, too ?

(I know it only takes about 15 minutes to throw a response together, but if you have to do 20 of them, it takes rather a lot of your time...)</font>

Hey, this 'FAQ' thing wasn't my idea. .

OK. I'll get something on it by tomorow morning.

LegacyUser

Broadband is commonly used to describe high-speed data moving over a transmission network.

Oh BTW, congrats to the republic on beating holland !!!!!!

LegacyUser

What is broadband?

Traditionally, broadband refers to a means to transmit multiple channels of information over a single transmission medium.

Nowadays, the term more commonly describes high-speed data moving over a transmission network. [ando]

The actual rate of transmission depends on the context. For residential use, we are typically talking about speeds of 256 kilobits/second and upwards.

Typical means of delivering broadband data to the home include ADSL and cable modems.

LegacyUser

Added. Great Stuff Skeptic, Ando and ru1nzx!

We've now got answers to:

"What is broadband?"
"What Broadband is available right _now_ in Ireland?"
"What Flat Rate Dialup is currently available?"
"NTL are 'going digital' - does this mean cable Internet access is now available?"
"When will Eircom be launching their DSL service? Where will it be available?"
"Is home-brew DSL possible?"
"When will the local loop be unbundled?"
"What are these National Development Plan Projects the Government keeps harping on about?"

And I've worked on a glossary including:

DSL, ADSL, RADSL, HDSL, SDSL, POTS, LLU, OLO, ODTR, Incumbent/ILEC.

Some of it is a little rough around the edges, but I'd prefer to encourage people to provide a few more questions (with answers, if possible ) before posting it for public dissection, in an effort to keep the discussion focussed on answering as many questions as possible.

Anybody like to tackle some of Fergus' questions?

"This FRIACO.. is it or isn't it economically viable?" (I think Fergus is already looking at this one)
"What does an ADSL service really cost?"
"Is Ireland too small a market to have proper internet access?"
"Why isn't Esat in a hurry to put it's own kit in the exchanges so they can bypass eircom's charges"

Or these ones for the glossary?

DACS, ISDN, VSAT, AODI

And of course, anything not included here that might be useful.

bkehoe

DACS: Digital Access & Cross-Connect System I think.

ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network

VSAT: Very Small Aperture Terminal ( in other words, the essential client part of 2 way satellite)

AODI: Always On Dynamic ISDN

For satellite stuff, there are several discussions, but the main one is Beam, which will give 2 way access for IR£125 per month at 400k down, 128k up, and no transfer limits.

LegacyUser

I've probably got a few books worth of text on satellite stuff lying around here so I could edit some of it into a FAQ. (I wrote the books just in case anyone is thinking otherwise. :-) )

As for the satellite internet side, I could probably do a few paragraphs there as well. (I've been working on a series of articles on satellite internet as an alternative to ADSL/DSL for HackWatch anyway.) However at the moment, I've only finished evaluating EON.

Regards...jmcc

LegacyUser

your the Author of hackwatch?
your from waterford right?
anyways, just wanted to say thanks for the site, used to follow it closely, when you updated it on a "frequent" basis.

---

Ashley Lyn

Ashley Lyn Cafagna

LegacyUser

"When will the local loop be unbundled?"

Please refine this:

Technically, is it, but uncertainty exists over the pricing because eircom is suing the regulator over the current price, which has been imposed by the regulator as of April 2001.

umm.. anyone know when that case is likely to end?? And any other reasons why OLOs would be reluctant to take advantage of LLU

LegacyUser

I'd really like to smash the eircom Insufficient Network Capacity argument in relation to FRIACO. Most of the info is available from CUT in the UK.

Could somebody who knows supply details of exchange types in Dublin, number of lines served, capacity of interconnecting routes, equipment costs.

LegacyUser

Some offices around town have more extensions and wiring on their internal PABX than some eircom public exchanges. Yet incredibly the only cost of running them is the fixed cost of the electricity going into the phone system, which may even be as much as a light bulb or two.


[This message has been edited by Fergus (edited 01-09-2001).]

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Fergus:
I'd really like to smash the eircom Insufficient Network Capacity argument in relation to FRIACO.</font>

As I said in my post about flat-rate in the US [http://www.boards.ie/community/Forum18/HTML/000467.html], the telcos there never complained about losing money on Internet calls. They did complain about congestion, but then bought switch-bypass gear from Redback, Sonus, Unisphere, Nortel, etc.

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by hudson806:
"What does an ADSL service really cost?"
</font>

Well, in a Feb 2001 analyst report on eircom by an Irish stockbroker firm, they forecast operating expenses (not equipment costs) for DSL services at 25 million euros each for 2001 and 2002. Assuming a reasonable turnover per user of 600 euros per year, they would need 42,000 subscribers to break even- difficult to achieve right away, given it's only in Dublin at first. They don't want to just break even either. Double the cost per user and it's only half the subscribers though.

The same report recommended eircom "slow down" the roll-out, which could save them "30 to 50 million euros."

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by bkehoe:
DACS: Digital Access & Cross-Connect System I think.

ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network

VSAT: Very Small Aperture Terminal ( in other words, the essential client part of 2 way satellite)

AODI: Always On Dynamic ISDN
</font>

Brendan, would you mind taking a couple of minutes to pad each of these definitions out with brief explanations of what they do and why its good or bad?

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
As for the satellite internet side, I could probably do a few paragraphs there as well. (I've been working on a series of articles on satellite internet as an alternative to ADSL/DSL for HackWatch anyway.) However at the moment, I've only finished evaluating EON.</font>

Wow, John - that would be awesome. There seem to be very few people here who are in teh know about sat access, (meaning there tends to be a lot of posts here asking about it) - if you could contribute a couple of paragraphs about the various options (there are 3, right?), that would be really cool

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
"When will the local loop be unbundled?"

Please refine this:
</font>

Refine it yourself, any way you like, Fergus! I was just cuttin' and pastin' the question from the other thread. I agree that its probably not the right way to phrase it though. Would you mind putting together a ten-liner outlining the history of this debacle? Most of the links needed are probably easily obtained by searching through the old postings here...

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
I'd really like to smash the eircom Insufficient Network Capacity argument in relation to FRIACO.</font>

I'd be inclined to think that the following quote shows the best way to do that:

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
As I said in my post about flat-rate in the US [http://www.boards.ie/community/Forum18/HTML/000467.html], the telcos there never complained about losing money on Internet calls. They did complain about congestion, but then bought switch-bypass gear from Redback, Sonus, Unisphere, Nortel, etc.</font>

Would anyone care to investigate these technologies?


Thanks again for all the contributions so far. This is really beginning to go places.



[This message has been edited by hudson806 (edited 02-09-2001).]

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by hudson806:
Would anyone care to investigate these technologies?B]</font>

I will if i get a chance, but anyone interested in learning more should Google on "internet offload", "internet call diversion", and the websites of the companies listed above.

John

LegacyUser

LLU when?

NEVER if the Eircom proposal on 'Bitstream' access becomes the norm

M

dahamsta

Bitstream was always going to come before LLU, no matter what. It's a much cheaper solution for OLO's, and should promote competition quicker, as they don't have to make the spend on equipment and infrastructure. A few startups in the telco/ISP sector would drive competition rapidly, and as those companies grow, they would be more inclined to go the LLU route. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen when there's so much still up in the air.

adam