NBP: National Broadband Plan Announced

KOR101 wrote: »

Wireless pioneer battling the State on national broadband plan
Interview: Seán Bolger of Imagine claims the route to rural connectivity is wireless

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/wireless-pioneer-battling-the-state-on-national-broadband-plan-1.2960688

What a load of horsesh1t! Makes me irrationally angry reading anything about that man. He seems to be on a crusade against FTTH, and his modus operandi is using the (unwitting?) media to spread disinformation and FUD. If he succeeds, it will be to the detriment of this country for decades to come. :mad: I'd love to get him in a room and debate the inadequacies of LTE vs fibre with him.

I am an Imagine LTE customer, and while the product has some merit, I see it as a stop-gap only. It is quite frankly not fit for purpose for the NBP (which is why they were excluded in the first place).

The fact is that Imagine simply want to make a quick buck while they can while providing as little service as they can get away with.

There's a whole thread dedicated to this, so I'll try not to bog down this one, but the gist of it is that their high-sites simply do not have sufficient back-haul, or the LTE technology itself cannot handle the number of subscribers. Either way, their solution is not good enough, and becomes unusable at peak times for a lot of customers (myself included). On top of that, they have a very anti-customer ethos, which I presume derives from Mr. Bolger himself.

If Bolger is correct then he must be very happy indeed ...... after all the NBP using fibre will be way too costly and will take way too long to get to real rural locations.

That surely must be great news for him (if he believes it) because it allows him to roll out his wireless product without any competition, and to establish his service in the absence of any competition.

He must be 'over the moon' with joy at how the immediate future looks for his service and company.

In addition his costs will be (according to him) much lower so he can be very competitive even after fibre arrives in an area.

It seems there is no commercial downside for Imagine .... except it is not being subsidised.

Read the article there now.

What's the fastest speed the technology he uses can provide?

xxyyzz wrote: »

While I agree that LTE isn't future-proofed this statement is not correct. LTE is a very good service, for me anyway. 70Mpps offpeak and 40 or more during peak hours. That's better than a lot of FTTC that moost people currently have outside of Dublin.

Aye, I was the same until last November. Since then, peak speeds are ~5mb, usually with an attendant increase in latency. 80mb+ is great, but not a lot of use at 5AM...

Anyway, there's an Imagine thread for that. I was only trying to highlight that their product is in no way comparable to FTTH.

Timestamp Down Up Loss Ping Jitter
========== ====== ====== ====== ====== ======
01/02/17 09:01 42.72 6.15 0.0% 26.9 6.0
01/02/17 13:01 57.81 4.85 0.0% 28.1 4.7
01/02/17 17:01 30.52 4.82 0.0% 27.4 5.6
01/02/17 21:01 5.93 1.08 0.0% 2104. 229.
02/02/17 01:01 41.89 4.86 0.0% 27.2 5.4
02/02/17 05:01 70.84 6.37 0.0% 27.1 4.8
02/02/17 09:01 51.90 6.37 0.0% 29.0 3.9
02/02/17 13:01 50.46 7.03 0.0% 30.9 4.9
02/02/17 17:01 29.03 5.33 0.0% 32.3 11.0
02/02/17 21:01 4.55 1.29 0.0% 38.7 14.2
03/02/17 01:01 40.67 2.79 0.0% 28.4 4.0
03/02/17 05:01 85.19 6.66 0.0% 25.4 5.6
03/02/17 09:01 74.70 6.81 0.0% 27.8 3.6

lte are around here in the past two weeks, the area already has wireless broadband via celtic broadband, they wwill not be much opposition, i speak as a very disatisfied ex customer, i was paying 35 euro monthly, it was so slow i could not use a ccline, i went to 3 via my fone and i am happy with their service

Gonzo wrote: »

true for now, but i'm not sure Imagine's system is up-gradable. FTTC can be boosted with g.fast and the like. Eir probably also have a plan hidden away to make FTTC areas FTTH at some stage.

The contention and daily cap with Imagine is an even bigger issue and an issue that is never going to go away with Wireless. Imagine's LTE service is fine for now and serve's rural communities that have nothing else but those speeds won't be looking so great in 2020 when the internet requirements will have once again rocketed by then.

Fully agree, however I think there will be no viable alternative by 2020 or for a few years after that. The 20gb cap is what it is and you know that getting into the contract, however if you are in an area that you need to get imagine then 20gb was never an issue for you to start off with

damienirel wrote: »

Yeah - I used to buy it on Saturdays - not now if they continue to print advertising dressed as journalism.

Papers and websites are so desperate for cheap (or free) content they'll publish any auld muck these days

Dero wrote: »

What a load of horsesh1t! Makes me irrationally angry reading anything about that man. He seems to be on a crusade against FTTH, and his modus operandi is using the (unwitting?) media to spread disinformation and FUD. If he succeeds, it will be to the detriment of this country for decades to come. :mad: I'd love to get him in a room and debate the inadequacies of LTE vs fibre with him.

I am an Imagine LTE customer, and while the product has some merit, I see it as a stop-gap only. It is quite frankly not fit for purpose for the NBP (which is why they were excluded in the first place).

The fact is that Imagine simply want to make a quick buck while they can while providing as little service as they can get away with.

There's a whole thread dedicated to this, so I'll try not to bog down this one, but the gist of it is that their high-sites simply do not have sufficient back-haul, or the LTE technology itself cannot handle the number of subscribers. Either way, their solution is not good enough, and becomes unusable at peak times for a lot of customers (myself included). On top of that, they have a very anti-customer ethos, which I presume derives from Mr. Bolger himself.

I had the very same feelings reading that article!
I knew from the moment I opened the page that I shouldn't read it for my own blood pressures sake!

I'm also an imagine lte customer and speeds have dropped off a cliff at peak times between 6pm and 11.30pm. They go from 60Mb down / 6Mb Up / 20 ping during the early part of day down to 7Mb down / 1Mb up / 80 ping in evenings. Close enough to mast with excellent radio signal.

I'm keeping date and times of all interavtions with their tech support, along with my speeds history.
If they try and legal challenge the nbp, I'd be more than happy to provide evidence of their proven record been unable to meet minimum requirements.
Hopefully others will do similar.
But hopefully it doesn't come to that!

I've only read through the past few pages of the thread but what's the story with houses in the "amber" regions of the map? My parents' house in Kildare is on a stretch of road about 1.5km long between two areas that are listed as blue on the Eir fiber rollout map, but nobody seems to have any plans to stick a cabinet in between to try and get some fibre to the house or the ones surrounding it. Current speed is the same as it's been since they installed in 2006 at 1.5Mb, which is obviously horrendous in this day and age, especially considering it's unchanged in 11 years.

Is there any way of knowing how much longer it will take before these start getting covered? Is there a deadline? Or is it a "at some point in the next 10 years maybe" kind of thing? I have to say, as someone who has been living in Dublin for a few years, it's kind of shocking how much my own speeds have kept going up entirely unnecessarily (I had a 50Mb connection just 3 years ago, which was perfectly fine and now I've got 240Mb on Virgin, which is substantially more than I can ever imagine needing, even as someone who lives in a house that streams a lot of HD content) while the rural (and this is only barely rural) areas are stuck in the same place as they were when Bertie was in charge.

KOR101 wrote:

Deputy McLoughlin's question is perfectly valid. Two Ministers are involved, namely, the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment and the Minister with responsibility for rural regeneration. The contract and the tender documentation to which the Deputy refers has been the subject of approximately 3,000 hours of discussion. I gather the process is more than half way through. It will probably be next year before that substantial tender is awarded. The companies involved, SIRO and Eir, as well as other network providers, are continuing to provide broadband to areas under their remit. The issue is receiving a great deal of attention, but it is exceptionally complex and it will take some time.

He won't be in government by next year judging by recent controversy!

Eir denies targeting homes to block NBP rivals

Eir has rejected accusations that it is cherry-picking commercially attractive areas for the installation of fibre broadband to make the state broadband contract more costly for its rivals.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/ireland/eir-denies-targeting-homes-to-block-nbp-rivals-qcqd3jq0c?t=ie

The article refers to comments by Brian Stanley in the Dail on 7th February.

A further concern is that one of the three preferred bidders is trying to capture part of the market before the contract is awarded. One of the Minister's ministerial colleagues raised concerns about this. Eir seems to be creating a situation where doughnut areas are being created around certain towns and centres where there is broadband connectivity and it is also cherry-picking where it will serve in terms of the rural areas. If one of the providers is cherry-picking places in the yellow area, that will make it very difficult competitively for the other bidders to roll out the scheme. I am not sure what the Minister can do about that but this matter must be examined and the Minister must intervene.

https://www.kildarestreet.com/debates/?id=2017-02-07a.275&s=national+broadband+plan+brian+stanley#g276.q

The article also quotes Sean Canney as saying...

“I believe that logic is not prevailing and the roll-out is not being done in a practical way,” he wrote in a blog post. “To me it seems that [Eir] are populating services in a disjointed way in a bid to deter other providers in the future and making it less attractive to Eir’s future rival bidders for contracts.”

And also Enet's Cona Henry saying....

“I believe that logic is not prevailing and the roll-out is not being done in a practical way,” he wrote in a blog post. “To me it seems that [Eir] are populating services in a disjointed way in a bid to deter other providers in the future and making it less attractive to Eir’s future rival bidders for contracts.”

The article also says a spokesperson for the Department says it intends to award the contract/contracts in June.

There are businesses in rural areas ...... and more to the point potential for more businesses ...... if fibre is rolled out, even though most homes do not require 1,000Mb/s.
Hopefully the fibre roll out will encourage more businesses in rural areas with all the benefits that would bring.

As for the complaints about eir "cherry-picking commercially attractive area" ...... what else would anyone expect from a commercial entity?
Some seem to be complaining because their competitors get in ahead of them. Tough!

This quote from Brian Stanley is priceless

I am not sure what the Minister can do about that but this matter must be examined and the Minister must intervene.

So the Minister can do nothing about it but he should intervene anyway?
Intervene in a commercial decision?

What nonsense!