ComReg/Eircon Pricing

DSLinAbsentia

Would any of you folks out there have any news/gossip on the actual date when ComReg and Eircon will have finalised the politics of the pricing for low(er) cost DSL?

I've contacted my own account manager who says ComReg are delaying it and e-mailed ComReg who've indicated that they're waiting for more information from EirCon. A classic Oirish Runaround.

spongebob

they need only agree on the wholesale price at the moment
this was done last friday. if your account manager told you that this was not done then the account manager was lying.

eircom themselves set a retail rate (to business or end user) they are now in a hiatus period between wholesale and retail offerings.

after the wholesale rate is agreed eircom may launch a product 21 days later......they can soft launch through jamie smyth or ailish o hora .....journalist allegedly.....any time they feel like it.

tell your account manager to stop pissing you around now that comreg and eircom have an agreement. if he says they dont' you should report him to comreg by name.....he'll change his tune faily sharpish then so he will

DSLinAbsentia

Got a response indicating that the retail package will be available in 2-3 weeks. If I take that from today, then that puts it in the mid to end-April 2003 timeframe before general availability.

Signing a contract for the service now will prohibit a move to the lower cost option within this timeframe.

S.

spongebob

Originally posted by DSLinAbsentia

Signing a contract for the service now will prohibit a move to the lower cost option within this timeframe.

S.

Eircom will argue with some logic that the new product is RADSL and the current old product is ADSL and that they are different products etc etc ,

Yoiu should periodically check out the official and fabulously informative site that Eircom have for us at ADSL.IE . All the latest news is there including prices and rollout scehdules in your own town

M

Hannibal_12

Last updated: Nov 27, 2002

Nice to see they are keeping on top of things.

DSLinAbsentia

I still find it unfathemable that we're nearly half way through 2003 and I still have a 56K modem (which I've had for years - go multitech!!!)

Anyway, the misery might actually come to an end!

The difference, I believe, with the RADSL is that they've extended the each from the exchange to 5km which means a potential contention ratio of 50:1 meaning they'll only guarantee a minimum 256Kbs downlink.

spongebob

Originally posted by DSLinAbsentia

The difference, I believe, with the RADSL is that they've extended the each from the exchange to 5km which means a potential contention ratio of 50:1 meaning they'll only guarantee a minimum 256Kbs downlink.

5Km should do, maybe 6 or 7 if the copper is spot on.

The 50:1 is the number who share a 512k slab of fibre down the exchange , if you had a 50:1 contention with a 56k modem (connected at 50k ) you would have an effective 1k connectiom when it got busy. Thats kilobit, means you would download data at 0.125k because you have 1/50th of the bandwidth as do all the others on that 'pop' .

The 256k speed is related to distance ....the contention isn't. I will be most interested to see if ANYBODY gets the nominal 512k connect speed with this product or whether it is Really a 256k all along with 50:1 contention. A 56k modem tries to negotiate at 56k and then falls back to a sustainable speed in 1.3k chunks. Therefore the modem will keep dropping the attempted speed by 3% of the initial speed or so.

I trust that the 512k RADSL modem will try 512k first and then fall back in 8k or 16k chunks, I would be Moooossst disappointed if Eircom had it fall straight back to 256k if it failed at 512k . Who makes them anyway?

These are the sort of questions that you should be asking your account manager. You may find that it takes him a while to get back to you on it 2 or 3 weeks maybe ????

The ESAT residential product is ADSL (not RADSL) and works at 3 or 4 km out from the exchange(not 5+) . Allegedly it IS a genuine 256k ....see the Broadband board. I say allegedly because it is notably difficult to get ESAT to sell you the damn thing and then install it. If you with to waste your time then try 1800924924 over the next 2 weeks or so with the intention of buying.

Eircom is within the 21 day period where they may not sell the new RADSL product and will not be allowed to take orders for over 2 weeks yet.

M

Ardmore

Originally posted by Muck
The 50:1 is the number who share a 512k slab of fibre down the exchange , if you had a 50:1 contention with a 56k modem (connected at 50k ) you would have an effective 1k connection

in the extremely unlikely event that every single one of the 49 other people you are in contention with logged on at the same time.

A 56k modem tries to negotiate at 56k and then falls back to a sustainable speed in 1.3k chunks. Therefore the modem will keep dropping the attempted speed by 3% of the initial speed or so.

I trust that the 512k RADSL modem will try 512k first and then fall back in 8k or 16k chunks, I would be Moooossst disappointed if Eircom had it fall straight back to 256k if it failed at 512k.

It's not eircoms technology, and there are limits to how much fiddling they can do with it. RADSL essentially splits the "pipe" into a number of parallel pipes at different frequencies. Some of these frequencies will fail sooner than others, leading to a "graceful" degradation of the service as the line to the exchange gets longer.

spongebob

Originally posted by Ardmore

It's not eircoms technology, and there are limits to how much fiddling they can do with it. RADSL essentially splits the "pipe" into a number of parallel pipes at different frequencies. Some of these frequencies will fail sooner than others, leading to a "graceful" degradation of the service as the line to the exchange gets longer.

But it does depend on the configuration that Eircom use..... remember how they made the original ADSL more 'fault tolerant'

This had implications for Gamers as we know.

Lets see what the implications of the RADSL fault tolerant configuration may be .

M

Ardmore

Originally posted by Muck
But it does depend on the configuration that Eircom use..... remember how they made the original ADSL more 'fault tolerant'.

That's exactly my point - they didn't "mess" with the technology, they used a standard configuration to delivery the best service to their customers (they had no interest in the "gamers" market).

Lets see what the implications of the RADSL fault tolerant configuration may be .

If they were trying to limit who could get the service, they wouldn't be bothering with RADSL in the first place. They've gone from a "no risk, if you get it, it'll work 100%" approach to a "if it'll work, you can get it" approach.

Frankly, if leaving interleaving on would allow the new product to qualify an extra 10% of lines, I'd rather see it left on than off. A bigger market will be of more benefit to us all in the long run than shaving 15ms off ping times.

DSLinAbsentia

I'd agree. For me, I simply want to be able to telecommute without needing another line, bothering with dialup nonsence and at a higher overall speed. Even if contention drops this overall speed, I'm still winning (though admittedly at a premium cost).

It would be better if the pricing worked on a base committment to get you 256K and the full rate would only apply if performance throughputs were at the full speed. Kinda like discounts for performance drops. Bugger, we live in monopolistic Ireland - though I lived somewhere else for a sec.


I will, of course, discourage all of my neighbours from taking up the service so I can keep going at 512K

spongebob

Originally posted by DSLinAbsentia

It would be better if the pricing worked on a base committment to get you 256K

I will, of course, discourage all of my neighbours from taking up the service so I can keep going at 512K

It will commit at 256k minimum, the line test will fail if you apparently cannot sustain this speed.

But if the system slows right down (anyway) you must get them all to sign up ....in the hope of getting a new dslam or a fatter pipe out the back.

Does Ardmore or anybody know if Eircom are doing the 'old' line test or the 'new' more tolerant line test as standard nowadays.? Another thread seems to idicate that they are as ISDN is now testable.

M

Ardmore

Originally posted by Muck
Does Ardmore or anybody know if Eircom are doing the 'old' line test or the 'new' more tolerant line test as standard nowadays.? Another thread seems to idicate that they are as ISDN is now testable.

I don't know, but my reading between the lines (of the posts here) suggests that "the database" is probably based on the old, 1M data, but if whoever you call doesn't give you an immediate answer (they're not looking you up in the database), then whether you get an "old" or "new" test will depend on which exchange you're on, and which engineer actually does the test. In other words, it'll be pot-luck for the next few weeks until the new product is officially available.

(From a ComReg point of view, eircom probably aren't allowed test you with the "new" standard yet. It certainly breaks the spirit, if not the letter of the 21-day delay).