Eircom set wholesale DSL charge @€27

Tazz T

Well, at least FRIACO and broadband are finally becoming a real option for the Irish user. I'm with Ciscokid on the line rental issue though. I live alone and only use my landline for Internet only. If I didn't use the Internet it would be far cheaper just to rely on a mobile.

Complete LLU and real competition should be the ultimate goal here. Only then will we see Irish users getting a fair deal.

kamobe

I was under the impression that the service would be "up to" 512 down and 128 up, but there would be no guarantees of speed due to the TERRIBLE contention ratios. This would basically mean that during peak times the connection could fall down to as low as ISDN speeds, and theres shag all you can do about it

Regardless of price, I personally refuse to get any offering with a cap on it.....

Paulw

Originally posted by Urban Weigl
You know that what you are saying simply is not true; ADSL modems and DSLAM's are not somehow magically cheaper in the UK because they have a bigger population,

But, they ARE cheaper in the UK. It's cost reduction based on volume. The more you buy, the bigger your discount, hence the less they cost per unit.

That's simple business, and not magic at all.

sceptre

True Paul but in an economic sense economies of scale don't lead to the cost price of the modems dropping towards zero as the amount increases. In other words, I'll bet I could buy 1000 little plastic electronic boxes for the same price I'd get if I ordered half a million. Or close enough that we're talking pennies of a difference in price. The price difference can't be explained by the difference in population size.

Boston

Originally posted by jonski
Don't we know this already ?

512 down and 128 up ?

and probably capped at 4 gig per month.

Since thats the business model i doubt the residential service will have that spec. Maybe it will be just the contention ratios.

popinfresh

Well I think I'll most likely get it, it's a tad expensive but fukkit. Eircom seem to be missing out here, if they dropped their prices to 35, they'd easily double the amount of subscribers therefore making more money. The cap is a bit of a turn off though..

SkepticOne

I agree with sceptre. Economies of scale level off after a certain point.

As to the spec Eircom did state that it would be 512k down and 128k up maximum. They also said that it would adapt to distance and that some users would get less than this, but the majority would get the 512k (this suggests the use of RADSL, rate adaptive DSL, an ADSL varient).

This is what Eircom said. Usual disclaimers apply

A former Eircom employee then confirmed on the IIU mailing list that it woud be 512k down, 128k up. He further said that it would be using RADSL, that there would be a contention ratio of 50:1 and that it would be self install.

LFCFan

if you were to get in IBB for your broadband service you could get rid of the phone line altogether and the cost would only be €48 a month. With DSL you have to pay line rental aswell as for DSL so I think you have to factor line rental into the cost. €55 a month is still too high but at least it's moving in the right direction, albeit very slowly. I for one am holding out for a Wireless service whether it be IBB, Leap, IrishWISP or someone else. They are cheaper(apart from installation), less contention and they are symmetrical up and down. No contest.

MDR

Me thinks ireland.com is blowing smoke up our asses,
don't believe a word of it until you hear it from COMREG,
this could very possibly be Eircom sponsored media hype,
to show it is moving on affordable broadband (I use the term lossely), I suppose it maybe nothing more than an attempt on their part to appease Minister Dermot Ahern without actually producing anything tanigable (they historically have been masters at doing this sortof thing).

COMREG has said nothing (as far as I know) on this matter,
and I for one will keep my powder dry until they do.

milltown

It is more than is charged in other countries yes, but as has been said before its a lot better than what was on offer. I will get it if I can but that may be a big if. My exchange is enabled but when I got my line tested about a month and a half ago I was told there was no way I could get DSL on my line.
Is RADSL a new technology to Eircom? I mean were they previously testing lines with a different flavour in mind, meaning I have a chance with RADSL?

Ardmore

Originally posted by milltown
It is more than is charged in other countries yes, but as has been said before its a lot better than what was on offer. I will get it if I can but that may be a big if. My exchange is enabled but when I got my line tested about a month and a half ago I was told there was no way I could get DSL on my line.
Is RADSL a new technology to Eircom? I mean were they previously testing lines with a different flavour in mind, meaning I have a chance with RADSL?

Yes, Rate Adaptive DSL is designed to "skip over" some channels if the signal quality isn't good enough, so that you can still get a usable service even if the full signal isn't available. This means that lines that wouldn't pass when tested for a 1MB service (even if you only wanted the 512 service!) might now be able to deliver a usable service.

It also means that some people won't get 512, but that's just the way the service works.

Ardmore

Originally posted by theciscokid
i have one line into my flat , dont use the phone just for net..
dsl for me a month including line rental is €75 - no bloody way

How much was your last phone bill? So you currently pay a minimum of €50 (assuming you use a package like UTVs). You can have ADSL for an extra €25.

There are many, many more people paying for a 2nd phone line for the 'net than there are people who wouldn't bother with a phone if it wasn't for the 'net. Those people can now cancel the 2nd line and effectively get DSL for €35.

crawler

Few things to note....

1) The price to the end user will have to include line rental ( as mentioned already ) so you actually have the line rental charge and the service charge , and line rental is about to be increased

2) This version of DSL will not be good for gamers , Not because it's RADSL but because of the network topology , inter-leaving etc..

3) There will be no cap passed on to OLO's for the wholesale versions - that will be up to the OLO's to impose

4) Only about 20% at max will actually get a full 512k service but that's just life.....

5) Apart from the €27 pm charge there are also service establishment , Port charges etc for OLO's so in real terms the price will be more or less the same as eircom's

Gremlin

Originally posted by crawler
2) This version of DSL will not be good for gamers , Not because it's RADSL but because of the network topology , inter-leaving etc..

I'm interested in this service for gaming. Not for high bandwidth but for better ping times. The games I play require very little in the way of bandwidth (typically 33K is fine) but I'm hoping that this new service will help with reducing ping times. Am I to be dissapointed?

ANother thing that makes me wonder is why on earth anyone would want to d/l more than the cap allowance. Where do you plan to store all of this? For me, all i want is to be able to play the odd game and to d/l software without having to shave between starting and finishing the d/l:)

crawler

I dont work for eircom Gremlin but me guess is you might be. Muck is usually a good authority on these things......

what I can say is the people I have spoken to me that are "close to the situation" say that it wont be great for gaming....

Lemming

Gremlin,

everytime that you 'load' a webpage, you are eating into your download cap. All those images, audio, video, text and html objects/items take up bandwidth. Everytime you download an email via pop/imap, you're also eating into your download cap. Everytime you receive an message from some IM client (yahoo messenger, MSN messenger, ICQ, etc) you are eating into your download cap. NOT just when you click on that "download uber-large donkey-pr0n video file now" button.

Do you begin to see the makings of a rather possible problem?

spongebob

Originally posted by Gremlin
I'm interested in this service for gaming. Not for high bandwidth but for better ping times. The games I play require very little in the way of bandwidth (typically 33K is fine) but I'm hoping that this new service will help with reducing ping times. Am I to be dissapointed?

Eircom set thir lines iup in a way which is not good for gamers as Crawler said. I am not an authority on the matter but it is widely known.

Gamers and VoiP users would be affected by this, possibly some VPN users too. Others have tried to get Eircom to turn off the ' Interleaving ' feature on their DSL but have had no success.

ESAT pings are significantly faster than Eircom's ....... in fact I heard that Eircom and someone in Slovenia are the only 2 carriers who turn on Interleaving as standard. That is because we have some of the very worst lines in Europe (along with Slovenia it seems) as well as their being the most expensive of all.

M

Ardmore

Originally posted by Muck
Gamers and VoiP users would be affected by this (interleaving)

If VoIP was adversely impacted by interleaving, that might certainly explain why eircom would want to enforce it, but I'm not sure that interleaving hurts VoIP. The lag should still be within acceptable limits with interleaving on, and the increased reliability will improve sound quality.

(A quick google search suggests that some form of interleaving is actually used to improve VoIP performance, but it's not clear if it's the same "interleaving" that eircom are doing).

spongebob

may be found Here and includes a quick explanation of interleaving.

To confuddle matters some more, I was left with the impression that Interleaving may be used by Eircom (as standard) not because Eircom lines are exceptionally crappy by international standards but because their preferred DSL modem (an Alcatel) is exceptionally crappy instead. The DSLAM at the exchange end is also Alcatel.

Even if you buy yourself a less crappy DSL modem they still won't turn off the interleaving on your line, allegedly they can't but I suspect that they could.

This situation may change when they bring out the new RADSL product next month. It may come with interleaving turned off as standard.

Has anyone heard about the kit they will be using for this, is it still Alcatel at both ends or do €ircon have a different supplier for their RADSL DSLAMs and Modems ?????

M

jonski

Originally posted by Muck
Has anyone heard about the kit they will be using for this, is it still Alcatel at both ends or do €ircon have a different supplier for their RADSL DSLAMs and Modems ?????

M [/B]

The good news is I know a person in the company that is supposedly supplying the modems.....the bad news is I stopped talkin to him last week cause the little **** did me out of 50 euro

I was told by him that they would be involved in the setup...
but never got to find out the name of the modems

spongebob

not Alcatel then ?

Gremlin

Originally posted by Muck
Others have tried to get Eircom to turn off the ' Interleaving ' feature on their DSL but have had no success.

Thanks for the info on this, from reading the 'technobabble' pdf it strikes me that the interleaving thing can be both good and bad. Although it increases delay (and correct me if I'm wrong), it also decreases noise so there is a better likelyhood that a 'packet' will reach its destination. This is also important for me since the games i play rely on UDP rather than TCP, the benefit of UDP being that the receiving station doesnt have to verify that it received a particular packet. So with interleaving it is more likely that my UDP packets will arrive(even if a little later). I suppose the crucial thing is that even with interleaving on will this new service be faster (in ping times) than my existing dialup,.

Heres where I'm askin someone with broadband for a big favour. Could someone with existing eircom BB ping (216.91.187.38 ) (my games server) and let me know what kind of response you get? I know I'm askin a biggie and also goin slightly off the topic of this thread (sorry ). FTR my existing eircom and utv dialups average at about 240ms to this server at the mo.

Thanks again

crawler

The strange thing is that eircom dont turn on interleaving on the wholesale versions of the product - unless I am being lied to by our A/C manager.

Could there be a hidden agenda?

jonski

Originally posted by jonski
I was told by him that they would be involved in the setup...
but never got to find out the name of the modems

ok was talking to that guy today and he said the modems would be "zyzel" , if this means anything to anyone .

Ardmore

Originally posted by jonski
ok was talking to that guy today and he said the modems would be "zyzel" , if this means anything to anyone .

That's ZyXEL. You can read some reviews of their consumer equipmet on the ADSLGuide site.

OHP

No sure how good ZyXel modems are for DSL but I had two of them for ISDN ( one for work one for home ) courtesy of Eircon @ £175 a piece. They only thing I can say about them is that I now have two totally different modems which work a lot better and cost a lot less.


OHP