NBP: National Broadband Plan Announced

plodder wrote: »

The €20 million fine was in one of the IT articles though.

Yes it was ...... did it give details of the circumstances under which that could be applied?
Nope.
No details so everything is speculation for the moment.

There must be something to it.

Yeah everything in print and on the internet is the whole truth.

Lets see the details of the contract before we make judgements.

Just happened to catch the end of the technology section on Pat Kenny this morning. They were reading out the readers comments and one in particular caught my attention: "x in Donegal says why are they wasting all this money on bringing fibre to rural Ireland? I've had Digiweb for the past 15 years and it works perfect for me. Surely satelitte broadband is the way to go?".

I honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry......

plodder wrote: »

Yes, the devil is in the details. I can't see any reason why not to publish the contract. So, hopefully we get to see it soon.

I read in one of the linked articles that after the cabinet has discussed the contract it will be published.

We can only hope that article was correct and we get to see the details soon.

nice to see my house is marked amber now anyway

frozenfrozen wrote: »

nice to see my house is marked amber now anyway

Mine is amber too, but there are light blue houses further past my house from the town.

Does this mean that houses further away might actually get connected first under Eirs rollout, and house like mine closer to the town (which already has FTTC) might not be connected until the NBP rollout, which will be slow and dragged out.

Seems nutz to me !

Persiancowboy wrote: »

The Dept was damned if it did and damned if it didn't.

If it had refused to accept eir's commitment to connect the areas/properties in question, then it was leaving itself wide open to a State Aid issue with DG Competition in Brussels.

By accepting yet another of eir's endless promises of action, it runs the risk of (a) eir yet again reneging on promised investment and (b) one or both of the remaining bidders walking away as the map has now undergone significant change and a potential contract under the NBP no longer being attractive or financially viable.

Meanwhile in Heuston Square, the champagne corks are no doubt popping both as a result of the map change and the increased value of the company in the IPO stakes (which remains of course the management's ultimate goal)

I know but it is highly frustrating as this was only done by EIR to frustrate the other bidders and to cement them as the only possible winner.

It really is a joke. Looking at the map, EIR cannot physically connect all the blue dots in less than two years with 90% FTTH.

I really think DG-Competition would also see through this bullsh#*t. The Government should just grow a pair of "you know what".

user1842 wrote: »

It really is a joke. Looking at the map, EIR cannot physically connect all the blue dots in less than two years with 90% FTTH.

On what map are you seeing these blue dots?
Edit: Found it here

LIGHT BLUE areas - new areas where commercial operators have committed to concrete plans to deliver high speed broadband in rural areas. The commercial rollout to these areas is primarily Fibre to the Home (FTTH). By 2018, all homes and businesses in these Light Blue areas can expect significant improvement to their broadband services.

I wonder does this mean that the plan is now for Eir to use LTE in some of the yellow line areas? Maybe that's the only way to reach the 2018 deadline. ....

vkid wrote: »

Looking at that map, I can't imagine Siro or enet are too happy.
Eircom seem to have gone with some seriously easy pickings in terms of the areas selected.(going by the areas I know)

Both Siro and enet had the same opportunity and did not take it.

It was, IMO, a commercial master stroke on eir's part.

I might not like the result/fall-out, but I have to admire their strategy as a company.

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Both Siro and enet had the same opportunity and did not take it.

It was, IMO, a commercial master stroke on eir's part.

I might not like the result/fall-out, but I have to admire their strategy as a company.

I would say the Goverment has a agreement with Eir for fair price to access Eir infrastructure for siro or Enet if they win NBP.

plodder wrote: »

That's going to be a tall order in rural areas. You'll need to be within 1km of a cabinet.

To be fair there are a good few spots with yellow lines that could be served all with just one cabinet, obviously ribbon developments and such won't work but the yellow lines cover a lot of villages that they could just stick a cabinet in and move on.

vkid wrote: »

Oh not doubting its a clever move by Eir.

However some of this sounds a tad optimistic.

"The agreement that I have signed with Eir means one house every minute of every working day will get fibre to the door high-speed broadband over the next 90 weeks" Mr Naughten said.


http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/national-broadband-scheme-to-cover-a-quarter-of-all-irish-households-1.3036286

Yes I must say it does seem very optimistic.
Yet, eir have signed up to it knowing of the penalty if they do not succeed. They also have experience gained to date to better estimate the time frame.

In addition all that eir fibre is to be available to one of the other bidders if eir do not get a contract for the NBP.

Mr Naughten said there was legal obligation on Eir to make its infrastructure in these areas available to the successful NBP bidder.

If either of the other bidders wanted to, they could have selected the very same areas as eir have marked with their blue/yellow lines, and said they would do those commercially. Neither have any interest in a commercial or near commercial roll out apparently. They only want the subsidised roll out.

It appears those in NBP area have a little more time to wait

The first homes are not expected to be connected until the middle of 2018, but the department hopes 95 per cent of the homes will be connected by 2020.

That alone makes me wonder if the gov intends to give the lot to eir, knowing they cannot really start the NBP until the 300k are nearly done --- they should have staff becoming available mid 2018 as the 300k reaches the end.

Now that this is signed up, will eir change their work practices, and do areas from start to end (connected) before moving on to other areas?
It might make sense now.

Some part of the Eir contract is to be withheld. I don't really see why any part of it should be. from photo above it looks like it's the monetary amount of the fine.:rolleyes: I see the 10% VDSL in the presentation also.