[UK]Broadband over AC Electricity Wires..Finally it Works(and at £25 a month too)

spongebob · 10-03-2003 2:15pm #1

The Trials are over, the technology apparently works and therefore Scottish Hydro is launching a commerical service at UK25-30 a month (under €40) including VAT and Modem thang thrown in.

Details are to be found Here .

M

LFCFan · 10-03-2003 2:20pm

they don't seem to mention speeds but going by the Speed Comparison table it looks like a 2Mbit service and with free installation and £25 a month, that would be an unbelievable service. Come on ESB and play catchup.

Praetorian · 10-03-2003 2:57pm

Surely with a modest investment, the ESB could easily dominate the broadband market in Ireland.

However, I find it hard to believe that there is someone working for the ESB with enough intelligence to realise the potential of broadband over electricity wires.

I can imagine the ESB hierarchy…..a bunch of grumpy old men that have never heard of “de internets” or “band o broads”

LFCFan · 10-03-2003 3:05pm

to be honest, of all the utilities in Ireland the ESB strike me as being more with it then the rest(apart from Bord Gais maybe). They have already created a new Fibre ring so they are obviously well informed of what the internet is. They have also won a tender to build a new power station somewhere in Spain so they must have impressed someone. Let's just hope they were looking at the Scottish ESB and they now follow suit.

MDR · 10-03-2003 3:17pm

don't know wether they are than interested in the residental
market might be worth going to see them ...

iwb · 10-03-2003 3:37pm

If you read the small print, the prices are in effect until the end of 2003 as it is currently being part funded by others.
Hopefully it will stay this cheap for them when the funding goes away. I can't imagine they would make it artificially cheap and put the price up to a hundred quid next January anyway.
I had heard the ESB were going to trial the technology later this year so maybe this will help them to hurry up and do it sooner.

bk · 10-03-2003 3:56pm

The ESB is a very efficient operator, with one of the lowest electricity charges in Europe, yet one of the best profit margins.

Rumour has it that the government wants to raise prices so that other competitiors can enter the market, at the ESB's current prices it is currently not viable for others to enter the market.

More interestingly I heard from very reliable sources, that a few years ago the ESB where all ready to test and launch a Broadband over electricity service, they had even done the deals with the equipment suppliers etc.

However at the 11th hour they where forced to pull out because they believed they would be anti-competitive and a monopoly, you would have been able to get many of your bills all in one. The ESB would have been using it's monopoly on the electricity to enter the telecoms market

I've been told that the ESB won't look at selling bb over electricity retail until the deregulation of the electricity market is complete. Probobaly another year or two

Dave and the rest of the IOFFL committee, what about asking your sources about the full story of the ESB and BB, if we can find out what is now holding them back, maybe we can help to fix it.

ComReg seems to be looking for alternatives to Eircom, in order to drive competition, I think the ESB could be exactly what the doctor ordered.

LFCFan · 10-03-2003 4:06pm

I would be more than willing to accept the ESB as a monopoly if they were able to keep the prices down of Electricity supply, telephone and broadband. Monopolie's only become a problem when they are inefficient and overpriced.

crawler · 10-03-2003 4:08pm

I looked at this before a great deal.....

My understanding ( and Muck might correct me here ) of the technology is as follows :-

On the local domestic feed you send your IP information and use repeaters at regular intervals , like sub stations etc.....This is fine as the interference from the lecky is minimal.

On the main back-haul you use Fibre or Telco lines to bypass the main grid feed - the interference on the main distribution grid is too high to carry the poor ikkle packets so you need to bypass that leg of the link.

Now in the case here that would mean using say eircom or some of the ESB fibre ( wasnt available when I looked at this ).

Now if ESB have a fibre distribution , and a domestic feeder grid, it seems to me like a match made in heaven?

DeVore · 10-03-2003 4:11pm

Damn you Muck... I thought that was going to be here... its only in the UK right? or am I missing something...

DeV.

MDR · 10-03-2003 4:19pm

Originally posted by bk
The ESB is a very efficient operator, with one of the lowest electricity charges in Europe, yet one of the best profit margins.

Rumour has it that the government wants to raise prices so that other competitiors can enter the market, at the ESB's current prices it is currently not viable for others to enter the market.

I've been told that the ESB won't look at selling bb over electricity retail until the deregulation of the electricity market is complete. Probobaly another year or two

ESB is v.good in nearily every respect.

The ESB currentily uses revenue from business customers to subside residential customers. This is fine, but makes it easy for competitors to steal its business customers, and very hards for them to compete in the residental market.

Full regulation by 2005 aparentily ....

LFCFan · 10-03-2003 4:27pm

Originally posted by MDR
ESB is v.good in nearily every respect.

The ESB currentily uses revenue from business customers to subside residential customers. This is fine, but makes it easy for competitors to steal its business customers, and very hards for them to compete in the residental market.

Full regulation by 2005 aparentily ....

It's typical. On one hand you've got €ircon who are basically useles and they overcharge for their service. People moan and complain and feck all is done about it. On the other hand you've got the ESB. They are efiicient, cheap and nobody has a problem with them but they are going to be regulated which more than likely will push prices up and we'll have another utility to complain about.

spongebob · 10-03-2003 4:35pm

Originally posted by iwb
If you read the small print, the prices are in effect until the end of 2003 as it is currently being part funded by others.
Hopefully it will stay this cheap for them when the funding goes away. I can't imagine they would make it artificially cheap and put the price up to a hundred quid next January anyway.
I had heard the ESB were going to trial the technology later this year so maybe this will help them to hurry up and do it sooner.

I went over it again. The subsidy allows the £25 a month price for certain subscribers at present.

It is a symmetrical service from what I can see but I dont know what the sped is at £25 a month .....512/512 I think from memory.

The really good news it that they seem to have ironed out the glitches that they had in Manchester 4 years ago and that there is a manufacturers consortium behind the technology .......the failed Manchester technology was all Nortel kit.

roll on the trials here

M

dahamsta · 10-03-2003 4:35pm

This is dragging things a little off-topic but I think it's relevant: Personally, I think the ESB is a pretty good company, but things like the closure of Rhode today have to make you wonder. The employees of this station have been going into work every day for the past two years, despite the fact that it hasn't been operational since May 2001. This isn't solely down to ESB management, but like I said, it makes you wonder.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2003/03/10/story91122.html

Also, here's a story from the Register:

Scots BB over power lines trial goes commercial

adam

MDR · 10-03-2003 5:02pm

They are efiicient, cheap and nobody has a problem with them but they are going to be regulated which more than likely will push prices up and we'll have another utility to complain about.

unless of course you are a business customer ...

bk · 10-03-2003 5:10pm

Originally posted by MDR
unless of course you are a business customer ...

I have also heard that the ESB is not allowed to take on anymore large business customers, they must all go to competitiors, who aren't as cheap.

Ah isn't competition great.

BTW I have also heard that the governemnt has learnt a lesson from the Eircom IPO. They plan on seperating the ESB into two companies, one company government owned who will run the national power grid and another who will generate the power and sell it to customers, while paying for the use of the power lines to the first company. This will mean all power companies will pay the same amount for the network while competing on price of power generation.

In other words exactly what they should have done with Eircom.

fatherdougalmag · 10-03-2003 5:25pm

bk,
Is it too late for this to happen?

Is there anything ComReg can do to facilitate this or, now that Eircom is a private company, do they not have the power to do this? As long as Eircom own and continue to lay cables Eircom will always have the upper hand. It seems that something radical like this needs to be done before we can expect any innovation with regard to communications.

If there was a separate company who would initially buy the existing network maybe there would be a bit more freedom WRT lines and what is done with them. Or am I too naive?

DMT · 10-03-2003 7:23pm

Originally posted by bk
However at the 11th hour they where forced to pull out because they believed they would be anti-competitive and a monopoly, you would have been able to get many of your bills all in one. The ESB would have been using it's monopoly on the electricity to enter the telecoms market

But that wouldn't be much different to eircon's monopoly on line ownership. Surely they would just have to sell a wholesale product to start offering it?

The Clown Man · 10-03-2003 9:00pm

AFAIK there shouldn't be a problem with a company holding a monopoly as long as they are not abusing their dominant position. I doubt that eircom could complain that there is an abuse by charging an average European price on broadband.

Seems odd that they would be stopped on competition grounds.

Stonemason · 10-03-2003 9:27pm

In a moment of total optimism I was thinking firstly its quite strange that the ESB is laying so much fiber if as they say they don’t want to enter the Telco market and secondly these vague remarks by the TD,s about every home in Ireland being broadband enabled by 2005 but no visible way of doing this.A wee germ of hope springs to mind what if said government has realized that Eircom being private and ESB still being state owned it maybe better to go with the ESB which is the only company with more access to homes than Eircom.:D

Ok for the downside firstly this would be to smart a move for a TD secondly Eircom would have a major hissy fit and start screaming MONOPLY (no matter how hypocritical it sounds) thirdly the numbers don’t match I.E 2mb connections instead of the EU, s 5Mb.

OOOOO well Optimism all finished

yellum · 10-03-2003 10:48pm

Originally posted by Praetorian

However, I find it hard to believe that there is someone working for the ESB with enough intelligence to realise the potential of broadband over electricity wires.

I can imagine the ESB hierarchy…..a bunch of grumpy old men that have never heard of “de internets” or “band o broads”

The ESB are very sharp and work and compete in International Markets too, despite being a semi state company. The fibre ring idea is actually a damned good project and I wish them the best with it (like they care what a mosquito like me thinks )

The ESB to use a dahamsta phrase are "proactive and not reactive"

bk · 10-03-2003 11:28pm

Originally posted by DMT
But that wouldn't be much different to eircon's monopoly on line ownership. Surely they would just have to sell a wholesale product to start offering it?

I don't know for a fact, but I believe it had more to do with the ESB using its monopoly of the electricity market to leverage itself into other markets.

jodome · 10-03-2003 11:36pm

Us poor schmucks living out in da country would gladly clutch at any straw thrown our way when it comes to a decent connection. Aside from forking out 450 odd euros every two months to eircon (two PCs, ISDN, fair bit of EQ) the damn connection is so bad we're convinced they someone is routing it through dinosaur bones. If there was a prayer of ESB getting their act together more power to them

ElNino · 10-03-2003 11:43pm

Anyone know what the distance limitation is on this?

Just wondering whether people living in the sticks, like me, who will never be able to get DSL can dream.

Praetorian · 10-03-2003 11:48pm

I stand corrected.

I live in hope. Thats all I have

De Rebel · 11-03-2003 12:14am

yummy.....

lots of lovely bandwidth and not a penny to eircom. how about ireland inc. volume and stress tests it for the rest of the globe.... come on ESB, ya got it in ya...

and its part of Dermot Ahern's DCMNR brief as well, so no government territory fights.....

and while it may appear to be far fetched, its a lot more likely to happen that Chorus/NTL doing anything useful....

and it would add a lot of value to the ESB prior to any partial/privatisation

difficult to think of any good reason for it not to happen.....

i wonder if the DCMNR have any views?

[UK]Broadband over AC Electricity Wires..Finally it Works(and at £25 a month too)

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