IrlandOffline FAQ - questions needed!

LegacyUser · 01-09-2001 10:14am #1

Its been suggested on a different thread that we start to look at putting together a FAQ of sorts for the website, partly because it would help explain the situation to newcomers who stumble across the site, and partly because, with member numbers growing rapidly, there's now fairly regular repetition of certain questions on the forum.

Fergus and I have come up with a couple of questions below, but, obviously, 12 questions do not make for much of a FAQ.

So everybody, lets try to get the ball rolling by posting as many questions as possible below - anything that you feel could be usefully answered on the website. I guess we can worry about finding the answers later (unless you happen to have an answer as well

) Perhaps we could post some of the tougher questions on their own threads later, and have everybody research answers or something.

And Martin, Niall, David, ELana et. al. - I wouldn't want you to think I'm going over your head with this - if any of you would like to take over with this (or kill it), feel free:

"This FRIACO.. is it or isn't it economically viable?"
"What does an ADSL service really cost?"
"Is Ireland too small a market to have proper internet access?"
"What Broadband is available right _now_ in Ireland" (short answer

)
"What Flatrate services are available right _now_ in Ireland?"(shorter answer

)
"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?"
"What's this I hear about Satellite Internet access?"
"Is home-brew DSL possible?"
"Chorus just annouced Powernet again! Are they ever going to launch it?"

(Nice - Just noticed my spelling of IrelanoOffline in the Topic heading - which I can't change. Grrr.)

[This message has been edited by hudson806 (edited 01-09-2001).]

LegacyUser · 01-09-2001 10:57am

Good start.. how are we going to update this.. procedure? Are you going to collate things from the board?

I'm gonna do some more research on FRIACO in the UK

Bard · 01-09-2001 11:12am

I wouldn't want you to think I'm going over your head with this - if any of you would like to take over with this (or kill it), feel free

Not at all- I think it's a GREAT idea.

The only thing about coming up with a FAQ on here is that it could be discussed and discussed to kingdom-come without conclusive answers to some questions. However, I think a FAQ or "glossary of terms" would be a brilliant addition to the website and I'll happily include it in my next update.

Good work, fella's

Bard

'First motorbike in the bible ???? ---- a Triumph --- 'Yea verily Moses struck down the ammmanites and all the land heard the roar of his triumph !!!'

LegacyUser · 01-09-2001 11:14am

Thx Lads for getting someting along this lines together. I spoke to both of you @ the seminar & was impressed w/ your knowledge of the technical aspects of the situation we're in

Originally posted by hudson806:

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

I'd definitley like to be informed throughly about satelite access. There seems to be a lot of conjecture as soon as any topic is posted to do w/ satelite. As far as I can see...This could be one of the most important pieces of technology going forward as it effectively bypasses some of the major problems (i.e.-€ircom & their lines??)
It also provides services that require a lot less capital investment in infrastructure terms of laying lines etc. & may be most useful in the context of Ireland & for ppl like Martin, in some of the more far flung places

Overall, there is definitley a need for an informed debate, as oppossed to just hear say & speculation as to what, when, how internet access will be develop in Ireland

An FAQ section thus is very important. Perhaps you should contact Niall w/ a view to incorporating it into the IOffline site & not just purley the boards!?

Actually disregard the last bit, Niall just jumped in before me :

80p.
SAVE CHIP !!

[This message has been edited by 80project.com (edited 01-09-2001).]

[This message has been edited by 80project.com (edited 01-09-2001).]

[This message has been edited by 80project.com (edited 01-09-2001).]

LegacyUser · 01-09-2001 11:48am

Does anybody have any idea of when the local loop will be unbundled? Will will Ireland get ASDL? When will CIE get rid of the 1950 trains?

LegacyUser · 01-09-2001 11:51am

Well of course the local loop is unbundled... how about "Why isn't Esat in a hurry to put it's own kit in the exchanges so they can bypass eircom's charges"

LegacyUser · 01-09-2001 12:09pm

"How come eircom claim they don't have the capacity to cope with FRIACO if:

total fixed lines in ireland = 1.6 million
bandwidth for one voice line = 8k
bandwidth for every line in the country in use at the same time = 12.8 Gbps

which is peanuts in fiber optic terms.

LegacyUser · 01-09-2001 12:20pm

Does it cost eircom more to post a bill to a customer than it does to supply the calls being billed for?

LegacyUser · 01-09-2001 1:13pm

Originally posted by Fergus:
Does it cost eircom more to post a bill to a customer than it does to supply the calls being billed for?

Whatever about that being the case, I had an interesting experience about 2 months ago.

I rang Eircom International Enquiries to get a number in London. The call lasted something like 1.5 minutes. I rang the number in London after that - it lasted something like 7-8 minutes. I made both calls around 5pm in the evening, during the week (not weekend).

The call to International Enquiries was MORE expensive than the call to London!!!!!!

Mike

dahamsta · 01-09-2001 1:26pm

hudson, I presume I'm stating the obvious, but I think you should have a glossary as part of the FAQ, you know: DSL and all it's variants (and pseudonyms); VSAT; LLU; POTS; etc, all of 'em in nice, simple to understand terms.

adam

LegacyUser · 01-09-2001 1:31pm

Originally posted by Fergus:
Does it cost eircom more to post a bill to a customer than it does to supply the calls being billed for?

Nice. I wish someone had asked that at the seminar.

I'm not certain it belongs in a FAQ though - I'd hope that a lot of the people who read it would be 'ordinary' net users - don't forget that that something like 140% of these people think that Internet access isn't nearly expensive enough, according to Soula Evans from Eircom.

How about I post one or two of the questions on a separate thread, and ask people to post some facts? I was thinking about the Satellite Access and Powernet ones
. does that sound OK?

LegacyUser · 01-09-2001 1:36pm

Originally posted by dahamsta:
hudson, I presume I'm stating the obvious, but I think you should have a glossary as part of the FAQ, you know: DSL and all it's variants (and pseudonyms); VSAT; LLU; POTS; etc, all of 'em in nice, simple to understand terms.

That sounds nice, but I really don't have time to do everything. If someone else wants to deal with the FAQ, I'd be willing to do this instead - its probably something I'd be better suited to.

Any takers? Please?

LegacyUser · 01-09-2001 9:20pm

Originally posted by hudson806:
So everybody, lets try to get the ball rolling by posting as many questions as possible below - anything that you feel could be usefully answered on the website.

I suggest dropping the use of such terms as FRIACO except in brackets. It's an intimidating experience for ordinary users.

I suggest putting together a ten page information pack, to include the FAQ and other appropriate background information on the campaign, and with the help of a sponsor make it available to the public on receipt of a stamped addressed envelope.

Question suggestions:

# What are some things I can put into a letter to my local TD or minister ? Could I have one or two sample letters as a guide ?

# Why are we still charged per minute when telecomms are supposed to be digital and most of the time there is little data flowing ? Why is it not like electricity which is always on ???

# What benefit is it to me and the economy to have FlatRate internet service ? What could I do that I cannot do now ?

# What benefit is it to me and the economy to have BroadBand internet service ? What could I do that I cannot do now ?

# Eircom say that a large percentage of the population have no interest in the internet. Is this really true ?

# Will my shares in Eircom suffer if Eircom have to invest millions in supplying FlatRate and Broadband to the public ?

#The Gov says Ireland is a hub of the Internet in Europe. If so, the what's the problem ?

LegacyUser · 02-09-2001 10:46am

I like the ideas, but I'm inclined to think that putting a FAQ of that sort together is the job of the c'tee - essentially those questions are IOffL policy statements, and as such fall outside of the remit of this FAQ.

Anyone from the c'tee care to comment on Smokin' and Chewin' Man's suggestions?

LegacyUser · 02-09-2001 1:09pm

Originally posted by hudson806:
That sounds nice, but I really don't have time to do everything. If someone else wants to deal with the FAQ, I'd be willing to do this instead - its probably something I'd be better suited to.

Any takers? Please?

There are sites already that give good technical expalnations for a lot of the technical terms and acronyms used in this group: the one I think is good is at www.whatis.com. Why not use refs these sites rather than 'reinventing the wheel'? unless of course you want to put the terms in an Irish context but you could still save a lot of time by including a ref to the basic technical description.

Looking for the Digital future

http://www.geocities.com/gerryh123

LegacyUser · 02-09-2001 2:09pm

Originally posted by cableskeptic:
Why not use refs these sites rather than 'reinventing the wheel'? unless of course you want to put the terms in an Irish context but you could still save a lot of time by including a ref to the basic technical description.

Yup, sounds good to me, although I think it would necessary to transpose it into an Irish context as well.

The fundamental problem is that, like everyone else here, I don't have time to do all this research myself. If I had to sit down and think up the 25-30 questions in the FAQ, research them and edit them, it would take me far more time than I have to spare.

That's why I'm posting all this stuff here - I could probably write answers to all of the questions posed here, but I just don't have time to research and write it up in a suitably FAQqy format and besides, there are real honest-to-god experts in a lot of these areas here who could produce much better material than I could (for instance, jmcc for Sat access)

So once again, everybody, please, just take one question (or think of one yourself that would be useful to newbies, media etc.), do a little bit of research online, and write up a brief (10 line or so) answer.

By my reckoning, we have about 15-20 regular contributors on the forum - if each of us just did 2 questions, the FAQ would be written by now

DeVore · 02-09-2001 2:32pm

Guys, back to basics first. This is supposed to be a newbie guide and the first question suggested is about FRIACO..?

Who are Ireland Offline?

Where did you come from?

Who pays your wages?

Why is broadband important to Ireland?

Isnt it just so webpages can go quicker?

Can the government make dispute go quicker?

Why doesnt the regulator act?

What can I do to help?

I'm really angry and I want to start a campaign, any advice?

Think of how someone just arriving here would need to know...

DeV.

Gavin · 02-09-2001 2:40pm

I'd be more than happy to give a hand with some questions etc.. I'm not claiming I'd be able to answer them all, but i do have a bit of time to research answers to technical questions, re ADSL, NAT over ADSL, cable, requirements, line testing, wireless etc...

Gav

LegacyUser · 02-09-2001 4:29pm

Does someone out there have a permanently connected host? If so, we could run a WikiWiki for a bit to allow everyone to hack away collaboratively on an FAQ. Just an idea for a minimum overhead to kick this off..

http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?StartingPoints

LegacyUser · 02-09-2001 4:31pm

DeVore, The questions you've asked sound great for the faq about IOffL - David Long (Dangger) will be looking after that one, as it really needs to be written by the c'tee. I've focused on the technical side for that reason (though the main reason I got involved was to get the ball rolling on the whole doumentation issue)

Hopefully Dangger will comment on your questions soon enough

Originally posted by Verb:
I'd be more than happy to give a hand with some questions etc.. I'm not claiming I'd be able to answer them all, but i do have a bit of time to research answers to technical questions, re ADSL, NAT over ADSL, cable, requirements, line testing, wireless etc...

That would be really cool. The glossary is still devoid of anything about wireless and cable Internet and line testing.

If you could provide a description of how they work and why they're good or bad, that would be really cool. I'm thinking somewhere about 10-15 lines, just a primer for people who've not heard of them, but whatever you think is best...

A three-liner about NAT for the glossary would be really neat too - now that you've mentioned it, I get the feeling that it could be asked about pretty regularly in the future...

If that isn't enough (

), it would be really cool if you could pad out Brendan's description of DACS, ISDN and AODI, too.

And thanks for getting the ball rolling again - I was dreading that nobody would bother to reply to my last post...

LegacyUser · 02-09-2001 4:34pm

Originally posted by Fergus:
we could run a WikiWiki for a bit to allow everyone to hack away collaboratively on an FAQ.

That sounds cool (though I don't have a machine for it

). In the meantime, if anyone wants to see what we have so far, just drop me an email and I'll send it on.

dahamsta · 02-09-2001 7:30pm

.

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

dahamsta · 02-09-2001 7:30pm

Free free:

http://iewebs.com/~dahamsta/wiki/

Or not, up to you.

adam

ieWebs - Foot.ie

LegacyUser · 02-09-2001 8:47pm

Originally posted by smokin' an'chewin' man:
I suggest dropping the use of such terms as FRIACO except in brackets. It's an intimidating experience for ordinary users.

Fair enough. I think you are like me wanting to answer the more political / causal questions, rather than the technical ones. Though both areas are important.

I'm currently going through the CUT site. I would think most of the stuff is directly applicable here. Please look at:

http://www.unmetered.org.uk/mythbusters/mythbusters2.htm

Another Q idea: "Why was eircom privatised with a monopoly on the local loop, and a regulator with no power"

LegacyUser · 02-09-2001 8:52pm

Originally posted by dahamsta:
Free free:

http://iewebs.com/~dahamsta/wiki/

Done. Incredibly enough, within 3 minutes of uploading the file I noticed somebody editing it. Brilliant.

Fergus - I've made a note on the FAQ page about the political side - David Long will be looking after that, but in the meantime any and all political questions may as well go in with the rest on the Wiki-Wiki thing above.

LegacyUser · 02-09-2001 8:54pm

It's a good thing we've got humour:

http://www.unmetered.org.uk/news/news181098.htm

LegacyUser · 02-09-2001 9:12pm

Originally posted by dahamsta:
http://iewebs.com/~dahamsta/wiki/

Spot on adam

))

LegacyUser · 02-09-2001 10:34pm

may have already been posted cos its a wee bit of a basic one but anyway

"Who are Ireland Offline and why should I join?"

anyway, thats it for now

The Sweeper · 03-09-2001 9:20am

Originally posted by DeVore:

Why is broadband important to Ireland?

It's questions like these that I think are most important. Before we address questions like 'Is FRIACO economically viable' we should try to answer questions like 'Why do you want FRIACO in the first place?'

And an appropriate answer to that isn't 'So that my phone bill isn't huge'.

We should try to broaden the focus so that if people hit on the Ireland Offline website who aren't that savvy about what we've been fighting for, they'll still understand why it's so important.

There's a direct link between flat rate internet access, high speed always-on internet access, and progression in the economy.

We should try to put that into the perspective of the 'e-commerce hub' (hub of a square wheel at the moment) - bring up issues like home working, the mobile workforce etc. etc. and point out all of those 'end to end e-business solutions' companies whose offerings depend on the internet.

We need to shake the stigma that is 'pah - they just want more time online to download musak and nekked ladies'.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

LegacyUser · 03-09-2001 9:31am

Originally posted by Minesajackdaniels:
It's questions like these that I think are most important. Before we address questions like 'Is FRIACO economically viable' we should try to answer questions like 'Why do you want FRIACO in the first place?'

We should answer both questions

. The more political questions will in time be looked after by Dave Long, but in the meantime, please add it to the WikiWiki at:

http://iewebs.com/~dahamsta/wiki/

If you have the time to bash out an answer, so much the better - there's room for plenty at that site.

LegacyUser · 03-09-2001 9:36am

Isn't Wiki fun

Kix · 03-09-2001 10:23am

I've just added glossary entries for ISDN and AODI.

K

LegacyUser · 03-09-2001 10:37am

Originally posted by hudson806:
also dont forget the 859% of the population who believe the internet is a piece of kit on a trawler

don't forget that that something like 140% of these people think that Internet access isn't nearly expensive enough, according to Soula Evans from Eircom.

Gavin · 03-09-2001 11:24am

Just a wee idea. I'm sure everyone recalls microsoft's idea of implement hotlinks or whatever they were called. Link that are aoutomaticly created.

Well in this instance I think that could be quite useful. Ie, on the forum people will frequently use acronyms, which are explained in the faq. It would be handy that whenver some write ISP for example, a link is automaticaly created to the ISP explanation. I think that is would be fairly easy to do, but of course, cloud or some other would have to do it....

Gav

Bard · 03-09-2001 12:18pm

Originally posted by dahamsta:
Free free:

http://iewebs.com/~dahamsta/wiki/

Or not, up to you.

very nice...

I notice that it's phpWiki ( I'm the perceptive type

) - which is all well and good - but I've got an implementation of ASP Wiki (running off an Access dB) on the server the IOFFL site is set up on... will the database be easily transferable - or convertible?

Bard

'First motorbike in the bible ???? ---- a Triumph --- 'Yea verily Moses struck down the ammmanites and all the land heard the roar of his triumph !!!'

dahamsta · 03-09-2001 12:32pm

I notice that it's phpWiki ( I'm the perceptive type ) - which is all well and good - but I've got an implementation of ASP Wiki (running off an Access dB) on the server the IOFFL site is set up on... will the database be easily transferable - or convertible?

The Wiki is using MySQL for the backend, and I don't think Access conforms to SQL standards, so a dump won't help. But there is a MySQL import macro there for Access, and if all else fails you could just set up a parser. Let me know what you want.

adam

LegacyUser · 03-09-2001 6:13pm

I've done some starters on the reasons why people need good internet access. Please add/expand/correct:

http://iewebs.com/~dahamsta/wiki/index.php?SectionFiveWhyWeNeedProperInternetAccessForEveryone

IrlandOffline FAQ - questions needed!

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