Eircom to roll out 1Gb/s FTTH to 66 towns

plodder wrote: »

Amazing that they would risk losing the cable by pulling it too hard. What would they do if it broke somewhere they couldn't access? But glad to hear you are up and running.

I suppose then they'd just use the cable rods and try and feed it through and then pull both cables back... They leave the old copper wire in place also!!

Ok I can't quite believe trucks arrived outside our place about two months ago and laid the ducting and then fibre and I called eir today , Sunday and asked about eir extream. They said I could order and gave an install date for next week! I'm booked in.

I'll post updates but a few questions I have.

I know they plan on using my existing connection to pull through the fibre, I'm in a rural set up and the pole is at the end of my site, not far about 20m, thing is I recall when my house was built. A duct was brought to the end of the site and then another was brought from the pole. The builder and I did a bit of scabby job to cover the non join ducts, consequently know a cable cannnot be pulled through the existing ducting it's simply going to tear at the junction. I could try and dig it up at the junction but my question is;

Will they / can they take a cable from the pole at the pole height and join to my house, ie at the table like an old connection to a house ? It would not be bad as it's on the side end of my site , would not be unsightly.
Can they do this / will they do this ?

If the suggestion is to fix my trunking - which I will try and do, I'm also concerned that when it enters the house it goes up to the attic and down to the box in the hall. Again no chance it can be pulled though cleanly to the box in the hall.
I don't want to have a non install in Friday - any advice please ?:)

They called today - they made a mistake, not available now until March !

Bodie Stale Jawbreaker wrote: »

The FTTH Council Europe is holding it's annual conference in Marseille this week. Yesterday they published their annual rankings of European countries for FTTH/B penetration. Yet again Ireland does not make the list. There are now 27 European countries ahead of us.

Hardly surprising really since the NBP has not yet commenced.

Gonzo wrote: »

maybe next year we will make it. However it does not include cable fibre which is really fast anyway and there are a lot of cable fiber customers in this country.

The problem is that many "e-fibre" (FTTC+VDSL) subscribers only get 30up/8down Mbps, like I do.This is much better than ADSL but not really fibre grade. Only 100+ down Mbps connections should be counted like that.

Bodie Stale Jawbreaker wrote: »

Somewhat surprising seeing as there are almost 90000 premises passed with FTTH (SIRO 36500 (Nov 2016) eir 53000 (Dec 2016)) that they cannot get the ~17000 subscribers needed for 1% penetration. Why are customers not signing up? Too expensive? Speed increase not needed?

Seems to me a large number of areas that are now getting FTTH, or will in the next while, seem to be already well served by eVDSL, FTTC or ADSL2.... People just don't see the need to upgrade. Compare that to rural areas in the next year and the take up surely should be much higher.

Bodie Stale Jawbreaker wrote: »

True. Also Virgin Media. Will FTTH packages have to decrease in price to attract subscribers?

Perhaps. I think the numbers will dramatically increase once rural areas become live. Fairly sure most around me would take the option of paying another 15 Euro to get the 150Mb package with free national and mobile calls.

Also the resellers need to get involved. Not having Vodafone reselling FTTH in rural locations is a factor. A lot of my neighbours are with Vodafone as they are cheaper than Eir.

BandMember wrote: »

For me, it's a combination of two things and you're going to see both a lot in the early stages of the FTTH rollout (and to a lesser extent the NBP) as well:

(1) Price. Where they are rolling this out in areas where people have never had any wired internet and have been only used to dongles/satelitte with really low speeds and usage limits, they have learned to adapt and use only certain things so don't see the need to double their monthly bill - mainly because they haven't experienced what the web has to offer. I've seen it in areas that have already got Fibre in the last year or two, for some people it's a whole new world!

(2) Contracts. Because Eir are not releasing definite dates for live services until the last minute and because there has been a lot of slippage in dates, people are locked into contracts and can't leave without buying them out - which can be very expensive and not something that most are able or willing to do.

So, IMHO, whlie initial uptake might be low at first, you will be a huge spike in numbers once people's existing contracts expire and word of mouth gets more to sign up and see what the internet actually is!

You are talking a lot of sense here. I've seen both effects with various companies I've worked with. In one case, a small business in the middle of Tipperary had adapted to using a dongle as their primary feed. They were paying somewhere in the region of €20/month. When something much better came along they wouldn't spend an extra €15/20 month because they were used to just going online for the bare minimum, to "check" the emails, etc. Just one anecdotal story.

Also when people are in contracts, it prevents a "big bang" uptake and delays ROI by on average a year while people work out their contracts.

If you take the average contract to be 18 months just for example, then when eir go live in an area the mean time remaining for subs in that area should be 9 months (really it will be way lower with rolling 30day subs). Thats nothing in the W/S perspective.

So while for us on boards that could mean we wait a little to see loads of speedtests being posted but from OE and the OLOs perspective its a tiny blip on the radar. This is 20yr plant.

damienirel wrote: »

The reality is that if Eir don't do it there will be other businesses out there that will take it on like Siro. It's a complete no-brainer. The expense kicks in when you want it done yesterday - which is kind of where we are with demand really. As other posters mentioned once word of mouth gets out around the country the uptake will be exponential. And we'll have plenty of posts here as we do already about delays etc.

Siro have shown no inclination to do other than built up areas.
It seems without the NBP neither Siro nor eir would be doing a fraction of what they are presently.

I creckon that no commercial entity would be doing FTTH at this time without the expectation of subsidies on a larger roll out.

It is even apparent that VM are upping their game in light of the competition kick started by the NBP plan.

BandMember wrote: »

For me, it's a combination of two things and you're going to see both a lot in the early stages of the FTTH rollout (and to a lesser extent the NBP) as well:

(1) Price. Where they are rolling this out in areas where people have never had any wired internet and have been only used to dongles/satelitte with really low speeds and usage limits, they have learned to adapt and use only certain things so don't see the need to double their monthly bill - mainly because they haven't experienced what the web has to offer. I've seen it in areas that have already got Fibre in the last year or two, for some people it's a whole new world!

(2) Contracts. Because Eir are not releasing definite dates for live services until the last minute and because there has been a lot of slippage in dates, people are locked into contracts and can't leave without buying them out - which can be very expensive and not something that most are able or willing to do.

So, IMHO, whlie initial uptake might be low at first, you will be a huge spike in numbers once people's existing contracts expire and word of mouth gets more to sign up and see what the internet actually is!

Well said, and also the reason of the 25 year plan, the way I see it, in 25 years, everyone including people in the back of beyond will be on FTTH..wireless masts will be long gone..

MichaelR wrote: »

I am worried about the price. I currently pay 45 Euro for Eir 30/8 eFibre broadband (includes presence of a voice line but does not include any call - Eir gave me this deal as I was upgrading from ADSL; this won't change through the contract). I would be expected to pay more than twice as much for megabit service, which I am not sure I need, even though I do a lot of online work from home. Especially since Eir's 1TB FUP limits the usefulness of gigabit speeds (no unlimited multiroom full HD, for example).

The 150 Mb service is more reasonable, but still somewhat high. (If Eir Extreme becomes available in my town I'll probably go for 150 Mb anyway).

If they both have 1TB FUP then you'll see absolutely no difference between 150Mbps and 1Gbps.

9726_9726 wrote: »

If they both have 1TB FUP then you'll see absolutely no difference between 150Mbps and 1Gbps.

Yup, agreed. Apart from high-bandwidth streaming, which is limited by FUP, there should not be a noticeable difference.

But 150 MBps probably is a significant improvement over the 30/8 that I now have. And the 30/8 was a *very* significant improvement over the 17/<1 that I had on ADSL.