Eir rural FTTH thread

I have been saying this for years, but this has to be addressed by government policy and state investment. A lot of Ireland's population is living in areas that are not economically viable to connect to broadband using direct wiring of any type (copper or fibre) and will need subsidy to do so.

Eir is not Telecom Éireann nor is it a state service. It's a commercial company operating in a regulated market. It still has to make business decisions that keep it solvent and profitable. Otherwise, it would go bankrupt (again).

Going back to the early 2000s, the assumption has been that the market would resolve this. The market will indeed resolve this by not providing service in areas where it can't make any money. So, you have to come up with a solution where by the whole thing is subsidised.

I honestly don't see the point in pillorying them at the moment. They're operating in a competitive environment and aren't really in a position to abuse a monopoly position anymore as they don't have one in most of their market.

We can go on shouting at Eir, which will achieve nothing other than years of frustration as they cannot solve this situation. Or, we can actually come up with a sensible plan and move forward with rural broadband on the same basis as Rural Electrification in the old days, only with multiple providers and a competitive market.

What I would do is the following:

1. The state provides capital investment for rural open networks. They could be run by any company for a period of say 10 years but the infrastructure would be owned by the state. Normal tendering applies. Any operator could use them.

What I would propose for example for remote houses might be some kind of combination of a grant and a spread-payment loan for broadband access FTTH infrastructure to the house to cover up to whatever amount. It could be paid back maybe over 5 years or something like that and arranged through the telco you ordered it from.

2. The maintenance of these networks will have to be subsidised. This could be done a couple of ways.

a) Using some kind of universal service obligation charge levied on all ISPs who want to access any part of these open networks. So you would spread the cost across all customers, regardless of who you use.
This would mean higher internet access bills, but that's the nature of providing universal service. The costs have to go somewhere and we don't have the population density to do these things on the cheap. You'd have to have some kind of open, clear and accountable methodology for doing this, probably overseen by ComReg.

b) Direct state subsidy. This is probably more problematic as you could get operators trying to shift costs they should be accepting back onto the state. There's a big risk of that turning into a political football and also another stream of revenue for unaccountable state-funded bodies. So, I wouldn't be too keen on it.

On technology, I'm fairly neutral.

If you can come up with a wireless solution that can deliver 1Gbit/s with a low ping time, I can't see any reason why not to use it. There's no point in getting overly hung up on the distribution medium as long as it's future proof.

You do need lots of fibre aggregation points so that the "last mile" (or 20+ miles) can be connected using FTTH and Wireless though.

What isn't acceptable is using mobile LTE services. Whatever is done it should be done with future proofing in mind and with proper fixed infrastructure - even if that's radio based to some remote places.

There needs to be very strict service level requirements though.

1. Speed up and down.
2. Data allowances - should preferably be uncapped.
3. Quality of service : ping / jitter etc.

If you can meet those requirements, whether it's done with FTTH or some kind of advanced fixed LTE, the end result shouldn't be any different.

What should be in place though is enough rural fibre to ensure that there's a plan to ultimately connect as many people as possible to FTTH.

In terms of rural broadband for industry what is essential here is high quality (and preferably multiple providers) fibre to every town and village in the country and to serviced business development locations. Large businesses with an IT-focus need access to serious bandwidth. FTTH / SoHo and residential broadband isn't all that relevant to them, other for remote colleagues working from home.

tsue921i8wljb3

flaneur wrote: »

1. The state provides capital investment for rural open networks. They could be run by any company for a period of say 10 years but the infrastructure would be owned by the state. Normal tendering applies. Any operator could use them.

What I would propose for example for remote houses might be some kind of combination of a grant and a spread-payment loan for broadband access FTTH infrastructure to the house to cover up to whatever amount. It could be paid back maybe over 5 years or something like that and arranged through the telco you ordered it from.

This full-concession option was part of the NBP spec but was rejected in favour of the "cheaper" commercial stimulus model.

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/national-broadband-plan-ownership-ireland

Your points are valid and noble but just look at how long it has taken to get to this point. If this NBP project goes tits-up in the next year or so are we going to be back at square one with endless consultant reports and interminable delays that have been a feature of the current project.

Johnboy1951

the infrastructure would be owned by the state

That of course is the best option of all ....... which has been dismissed by gov on the basis of cost (IIRC).

The NBP probably won't go tits-up but it will probably fail to deliver what the politicians promised.

Blaming Eir for this is a bit like flogging a dead horse. The reality is that with all the will in the world, nobody can make a lot of this stuff commercially viable without passing the costs on to the whole customer base or the tax payer.

We live in a country with badly planned quasi-rural sprawl and a lot of low density rural housing. That costs. You will simply never deliver broadband here at the same price as a place with population density. You have to decide: is this worth paying for, or do you want an eternity of poor broadband?

Also, frankly preventing Eir from lashing fibre into the profitable urban markets is also dangerous as you could end up bankrupting them. They need to get FTTH rolled out in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and all the regional towns to keep the cash flow up as this is where there's a density of customers.

The alternative is that Virgin Media picks off all of their most profitable areas and you end up with a new urban monopoly without open access and an OpenEir network that's floundering around in high cost, low profit markets and eventually just tanks or struggles on with poor technological rollout.

What happens in the cities has a direct impact on what happens in rural areas, as those are the areas where these companies can generate serious revenue.

It's ultimately a political decision: pay for it, or just have broadband in denser areas.
If you think it can be done for cheap or for free, or that the market will just fix this - you're either grossly mislead or you're misleading.
We need to be realistic and just accept that this stuff costs money, just like motorways and hospitals and trains. If it's something that the public is willing to pay for, let's just get on with it.

It can't be THAT expensive spread across the entire market.

I think Ireland's always had this paradoxical nonsense where on the one hand we're demanding what are public services and on the other we aren't willing to pay for them. If you're going to have Nordic-style public services, they cost money. They also take cooperation and good planning. You can't just have disorganised chaos and expect to have service levels like Finland, at least not without astronomical costs, or big technical compromises.

Sorry if this is a bit ranting, but I just get fed up with the lack of realistic planning and discussion about infrastructure here.

turbbo

flaneur wrote: »

Sorry if this is a bit ranting, but I just get fed up with the lack of realistic planning and discussion about infrastructure here.

Ah the rural sprawl chestnut. - No mention of Eir being sold 7 times in 20 years - with little or no long term investment. With successive CEOs and top management walking away with massive bonuses, golden handshakes and pensions. Nah that isn't worth mentioning.

If our government ever learned anything it's that Eir will not deliver on any promise. Awarding them the NBP would be complete folly.

turbbo wrote: »

Ah the rural sprawl chestnut. - No mention of Eir being sold 7 times in 20 years - with little or no long term investment. With successive CEOs and top management walking away with massive bonuses, golden handshakes and pensions. Nah that isn't worth mentioning.

If our government ever learned anything it's that Eir will not deliver on any promise. Awarding them the NBP would be complete folly.

The fact that Eir's origins are as a privatisation disaster and multiple hostile takeovers only adds to the problem.

The company effectively went bankrupt, only emerging in its current form after massive debt restructuring and write downs as well as restructuring of its businesses.

That bit of history certainly contributed to Ireland's broadband rollout issues in the 2000s.

The current entity isn't really the same company. Debt is gone down to a manageable level, management has largely been changed and the parent company is now a telco rather than another speculative investment fund.

However, it doesn't change the fact that the project is basically not economically possible, whoever is awarded the contracts it's trying to do the the impossible, on the cheap and trying to make private companies behave as if they're public bodies, which simply isn't going to happen.

It can only end up with a situation where it over promises and does not deliver.

turbbo

flaneur wrote: »

The fact that Eir's origins are as a privatisation disaster and multiple hostile takeovers only adds to the problem.

The company effectively went bankrupt, only emerging in its current form after massive debt restructuring and write downs as well as restructuring of its businesses.

That bit of history certainly contributed to Ireland's broadband rollout issues in the 2000s.

However, it doesn't change the fact that the project is basically not economically possible, whoever is awarded the contracts it's trying to do the the impossible, on the cheap and trying to make private companies behave as if they're public bodies, which simply isn't going to happen.

It can only end up with a situation where it over promises and does not deliver.

I think we're on the same page.:D

I just don't see the point in being unrealistic about the costs and then assuming that private companies are going to operate as if they're public bodies with a public service, rather than profit, motive.

Just come up with an honest budget and a viable financing mythology and a long term strategy for running it stably and then implement it and explain it as what it is!

turbbo

flaneur wrote: »

I just don't see the point in being unrealistic about the costs and then assuming that private companies are going to operate as if they're public bodies with a public service, rather than profit, motive.

Just come up with an honest budget and a viable financing mythology and a long term strategy for running it stably and then implement it and explain it as what it is!

Yes it's typical of what the government have been doing across other domains too - dropping state ownership yet pretending the state still has control somehow.

Danny Boy

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

That of course is the best option of all ....... which has been dismissed by gov on the basis of cost (IIRC).

How are you going to get fibre into people's homes if your'e not using the open eir poles?

[Deleted User]

Danny Boy wrote: »

How are you going to get fibre into people's homes if your'e not using the open eir poles?

Via the ESB lines, all recent power cable installations include a fibre for future connection. So it will only be a case of splicing the fibres and installing comms equipment to enable them to carry broadband.

KOR101

It's worth remembering that the Independent article did say that Eir intend to honour their commitments. Also, there was a lot of talk about mending fences with Comreg. It's hard to see how they can make nice while reneging on the contract. They are also bound to win something in the NBP tender so they may still want to be onside with the government. The risk is that they reckon they have so little to lose that they simply ask too much.

They really do need to focus more effort in urban too though. They'll end up losing a lot of customers to Virgin otherwise.

A lot of urban areas don't have amazing speeds on OpenEir and there's only so much you can do with VDSL.

Also in general, urban FTTH is easy to roll out as you've densities of customers and duct networks.

I think Eir have been taking their eye of the ball in urban Ireland. VDSL isn't really a long term solution.

The one thing to remember is they don't do rollout themselves really. They'll just contact out to KN, Huawei and whoever else they need to. They've only about 3000 staff in Eir these days. So they can actually scale up urban rollout easily enough, without necessarily undermining contractual obligations for the royal schemes.

I just think though we still need to ensure that if we want total coverage, the state puts resources in place and doesn't just expect it to happen by magic.

fritzelly

They'll just contact out to KN, Huawei and whoever else they need to.

And when it takes multiple visits to even get fibre installed it just extends any kind of plan
e.g. KN tech goes out and see DP not active - leaves (why is it not checked when the fibre is done on the external side?)
Another tech comes and activates DP
Another tech comes and finds the duct blocked
Customer unblocks duct
Tech comes back out again (usually a couple of months after the initial order)

Tho if true where KN techs only get paid for completed jobs it makes sense why they won't even do preparatory work for the next visit in case it's not them on the job

Something not quite right about how the whole thing is set up or rather it's set up to fail and piss off customers

ED E

First 28 days KNN go back for free. They had all the initial NGA installs and have at least the majority of these ones.

flaneur wrote: »

If you can come up with a wireless solution that can deliver 1Gbit/s with a low ping time, I can't see any reason why not to use it. There's no point in getting overly hung up on the distribution medium as long as it's future proof.

flaneur wrote: »

VDSL isn't really a long term solution.

It's funny how you can be so right about copper and so wrong about wireless at the same time.

VDSL isn't a long-term solution because there's only so much bandwidth you can squeeze out of a pair of copper wires. You can wring incrementally higher speeds at incrementally shorter distances - g.fast, supervectoring and all that - but eventually you hit the laws of physics.

At the same time, you introduce a hypothetical hand-wavy gigabit wireless solution without seeming to understand that you are facing exactly the same problems, only worse: a copper pair isn't a shared medium, and interference is limited to crosstalk; copper pairs don't have line-of-sight limitations; and so on.

"Future-proof wireless solution" is an oxymoron. There's only one future proof solution, and that's fibre. If we're going to fritter millions of taxpayers' money on another stupid wireless stopgap like the NBS, we should at least be honest enough to admit it, but pretending that a wireless solution is an investment in the future is nothing more than bullcrap designed to spare a Minister's blushes.

Build a fibre network or scrap the project. Nothing else makes sense.

The cost is going to have to be covered for FTTH to very remote locations though and it seems nobody is willing to pay.

"Handwavey solutions" have been used quite successfully in places like Finland.

flaneur wrote: »

The cost is going to have to be covered for FTTH to very remote locations though and it seems nobody is willing to pay.

Phrases like "very remote locations" are pretty hand-wavy too.

The strange thing about Ireland's extremely dispersed population is that there are very, very few places where it would be necessary to build several kilometres of fibre to reach a single isolated premises. Very remote locations in Ireland, unlike very remote locations in many other countries, tend to have clusters of houses - not necessarily in immediate proximity to each other, but certainly at the point where when you've built to one, you've done most of the hard work required to build to the rest of them.

There's also the unkillable myth, despite all my best efforts to dispel it over the past few years, that it's somehow easier to deliver a wireless service to very remote places in Ireland than it would be to deliver a wired service. I've made the point before, and I'll make it again: the number of houses in this country that have a service delivered over wires (electricity) is, to a useful approximation, 100%. What percentage of those houses have mobile phone coverage? Hell, what percentage have Saorview coverage?

Show me a house that you consider impractical to serve with fibre, and I'll show you ten that would be basically impossible to serve wirelessly.

It depresses me that I keep having to make this point, but: stop buying the marketing bull that says wireless is magic... at least the next generation will be. Honest guvnor.

We know fibre works. We know it's possible to deliver it; we have a fair idea what it will cost. We know that it is futureproof. Build a fibre network, or cancel the project. Those are the choices.

"Handwavey solutions" have been used quite successfully in places like Finland.

Really? Gigabit speeds with low latency to hundreds of thousands of premises with terrain that makes line-of-sight physically impossible to achieve without thousands of masts?

You can't achieve a large-scale gigabit wireless network without massively increasing mast density, and providing fibre to all of those masts. If you're going to build fibre to the number of masts required to provide a half-useful service to Ireland's dispersed population, you've done most of the work already, so stop faffing about and build the rest of the network.

tsue921i8wljb3

oscarBravo wrote: »

Phrases like "very remote locations" are pretty hand-wavy too.

The strange thing about Ireland's extremely dispersed population is that there are very, very few places where it would be necessary to build several kilometres of fibre to reach a single isolated premises. Very remote locations in Ireland, unlike very remote locations in many other countries, tend to have clusters of houses - not necessarily in immediate proximity to each other, but certainly at the point where when you've built to one, you've done most of the hard work required to build to the rest of them.

There's also the unkillable myth, despite all my best efforts to dispel it over the past few years, that it's somehow easier to deliver a wireless service to very remote places in Ireland than it would be to deliver a wired service. I've made the point before, and I'll make it again: the number of houses in this country that have a service delivered over wires (electricity) is, to a useful approximation, 100%. What percentage of those houses have mobile phone coverage? Hell, what percentage have Saorview coverage?

Show me a house that you consider impractical to serve with fibre, and I'll show you ten that would be basically impossible to serve wirelessly.

It depresses me that I keep having to make this point, but: stop buying the marketing bull that says wireless is magic... at least the next generation will be. Honest guvnor.

We know fibre works. We know it's possible to deliver it; we have a fair idea what it will cost. We know that it is futureproof. Build a fibre network, or cancel the project. Those are the choices. Really? Gigabit speeds with low latency to hundreds of thousands of premises with terrain that makes line-of-sight physically impossible to achieve without thousands of masts?

You can't achieve a large-scale gigabit wireless network without massively increasing mast density, and providing fibre to all of those masts. If you're going to build fibre to the number of masts required to provide a half-useful service to Ireland's dispersed population, you've done most of the work already, so stop faffing about and build the rest of the network.

Unfortunately what is likely to happen is a two tier system with those in more remote areas left with a substandard wireless solution. Three months ago Carolan Lennon was talking about fibre deserts where no core fibre exists and is never likely to. Now apparently enet are also looking at a wireless solution for at least part of the project.

Could you please define “handwavey” ?

All I’m saying is fund the damn thing properly and don’t expect Eir or any other private entity to behave as a public body.

We keep trying to do these projects with unrealistic budgets. Just be honest - it will cost significant money to do. If that’s something people are willing to pay - fine.

Also we need to create no more of these daft projects like running “metro fibre networks” down the main streets of small towns like Manorhamilton without any notion of providing either an ISP or any kind of access network.

flaneur wrote: »

Could you please define “handwavey” ?

Something like "if you can come up with a wireless solution..."

When someone comes up with a wireless solution that works around the laws of physics, I'll be all ears. Until then, I'll keep saying this until I'm blue in the face: it will cost more to do this wirelessly, unless it's a shìtty wireless solution. And it will be.

All I’m saying is fund the damn thing properly and don’t expect Eir or any other private entity to behave as a public body.

I'm saying the same thing. I'm just not including the "if you're not going to fund it properly, waste vast amounts of money on a stupid wireless solution that only makes things worse, even though the marketing guys swore blind that this time it would actually work" part.

Also we need to create no more of these daft projects like running “metro fibre networks” down the main streets of small towns like Manorhamilton without any notion of providing either an ISP or any kind of access network.

Metro fibre networks are a superb idea. Metro fibre networks that cost orders of magnitude more to access than comparable fibre networks in well-regulated markets give them a bad name.

If open eir provide dark fibre in a rural town, they can't charge any more than €0.26 per metre/pair per annum for it. If enet were charging those sort of prices, there would be smoke coming off their fibre in Manorhamilton, it would be that busy.

The problem isn't building metro networks in regional towns; the problem is building metro networks, handing them off to a private company and telling them to charge whatever the hell they feel like for access to it.

oscarBravo wrote: »

Something like "if you can come up with a wireless solution..."

When someone comes up with a wireless solution that works around the laws of physics, I'll be all ears. Until then, I'll keep saying this until I'm blue in the face: it will cost more to do this wirelessly, unless it's a shìtty wireless solution. And it will be. I'm saying the same thing. I'm just not including the "if you're not going to fund it properly, waste vast amounts of money on a stupid wireless solution that only makes things worse, even though the marketing guys swore blind that this time it would actually work" part. Metro fibre networks are a superb idea. Metro fibre networks that cost orders of magnitude more to access than comparable fibre networks in well-regulated markets give them a bad name.

If open eir provide dark fibre in a rural town, they can't charge any more than €0.26 per metre/pair per annum for it. If enet were charging those sort of prices, there would be smoke coming off their fibre in Manorhamilton, it would be that busy.

The problem isn't building metro networks in regional towns; the problem is building metro networks, handing them off to a private company and telling them to charge whatever the hell they feel like for access to it.

Let's be honest though, who can make money of selling fibre at 26c/m?

digiman wrote: »

Let's be honest though, who can make money of selling fibre at 26c/m?

That's on the high side for metro fibre worldwide, so the answer seems to be "any well-run wholesale fibre operator who sees their network as a long-term infrastructure investment rather than a short-term asset-sweating exercise".

The more pertinent question is: if ComReg calculate that open eir can make a profit at 0.26c on a fibre network that they had to build and pay for themselves, how hard could it be to make money at that price on a network that the taxpayer has already built?

brianbruff

A few more questions:

1)
I've seen posts on Bridged Mode that seem to help allocate a different IP to a customers router, does this work the same a fixed IP?
I have a Ubiquiti home network and wish to continue to use my existing USG router.
2)
Also is bridged mode still the only solution? no hope of just using my USG router? (it supports all the requirements..)
3)
Also my existing routers are upstairs directly over the entry point to the house, from what i gather the ODP will have to be downstairs near the entry point; can I buy an extension cable between the ODP and ONT so that I can locate the ONT upstairs in my Cabinet?
(not a big deal i can bring some power to this entry point location worst case but rather have the ONT upstairs with all my communication gear.

tnx in advance for any advise

oscarBravo wrote: »

That's on the high side for metro fibre worldwide, so the answer seems to be "any well-run wholesale fibre operator who sees their network as a long-term infrastructure investment rather than a short-term asset-sweating exercise".

The more pertinent question is: if ComReg calculate that open eir can make a profit at 0.26c on a fibre network that they had to build and pay for themselves, how hard could it be to make money at that price on a network that the taxpayer has already built?

Do you have any idea the cost to lay fiber per meter in this country? A commercial company would never make their initial investment back unless they were using the fiber themselves for their own network at the price of 26c/m. Not sure how comreg came up with that price but one thing I do know is that there are not many if any at all using Eir dark fiber as a product.

Who could be bothered to sell a 1km of fiber to someone when all you are going to take in is €260/year. Granted you will have setup costs etc but they are not paying back the capex already spent in deploying the fiber originally.

The MAN networks laid in those towns were laid with public money and never connected to anything. They operated on the notion of 'if we build it they will come'. They didn't come as the populations were way too small, there were no businesses in need of massive fibre connectivity and the towns weren't connected to any kind of national fibre backbone in some cases.

The MAN networks laid in places like Cork City see heavy use.

There's been a lot of cart-before-horse stuff here in the past.

If you're going to do serious fibre rollout here, the first step is ensuring that the towns and villages have access to core fibre network and then start building out from there. The MANs built an intermediate part of the access network and provided nothing else.

digiman wrote: »

Do you have any idea the cost to lay fiber per meter in this country?

Yes.

Not sure how comreg came up with that price...

...then, with respect, I suggest you go find out. Their calculations are published.

...but one thing I do know is that there are not many if any at all using Eir dark fiber as a product.

That's because, although ComReg saw fit to set a price for it, they didn't see fit to force open eir to actually make it available. There are many, many businesses who would happily use open eir fibre if it was available.

flaneur wrote: »

The MAN networks laid in those towns were laid with public money and never connected to anything.

Almost all of them are connected to various backhaul fibre networks.

They operated on the notion of 'if we build it they will come'.

Which is a perfectly valid hypothesis. Unfortunately, "if you build it and charge stupid amounts of money, they will come" is not.

oscarBravo wrote: »

Yes. ...then, with respect, I suggest you go find out. Their calculations are published. That's because, although ComReg saw fit to set a price for it, they didn't see fit to force open eir to actually make it available. There are many, many businesses who would happily use open eir fibre if it was available.

Almost all of them are connected to various backhaul fibre networks. Which is a perfectly valid hypothesis. Unfortunately, "if you build it and charge stupid amounts of money, they will come" is not.

Can you provide the link to the calculations please? I would love to see how they could come up with that price given how costly it is to build it just doesn’t make any sense.

My only point is that it is doesn’t make economical sense to build fiber networks and then be forced to lease the fiber back at 26c/m as they would go bust with the likes of SIRO, Enet and any other people who would feel inclined to lease what would effectively be a parallel network for a fraction of the cost.

You either agree with me and are not saying it or else not providing any basis to say otherwise.

The likes of the MANs should be leased at a reduced cost as they were government funded in the first place but I don’t agree that networks which were and are being built commercially should be leased back at such a low price.

Marlow

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

It seems the UK intend to do something of the sort (which usually means it will be considered here also).

No .. Broadband was ALWAYS part of the USO in the UK. Broadband was NEVER part of the USO in Ireland.

That's the whole problem.

digiman wrote: »

My only point is that it is doesn’t make economical sense to build fiber networks and then be forced to lease the fiber back at 26c/m as they would go bust with the likes of SIRO, Enet and any other people who would feel inclined to lease what would effectively be a parallel network for a fraction of the cost.

First of all, it's NOT fraction of the cost. Secondly, OpenEIR is not the solution to everything .. because a lot of operators will require phyiscal and economical diversity / redundancy .. so there will always be the demand for at least 2 fiber networks.

The price has been set based on the cost for the civils, run the fiber and operate it for the life-span of the fiber including a fairly decent upmark.

The cost also reflects, what that sort of dark fiber is sold for EVERYWHERE ELSE in Europe .. or even worldwide.

It costs operators here in Ireland at least 10 times the price to lease dark fiber .. IF THEY CAN GET IT .. to get from west to east . .. opposed to what it costs them to get from Dublin, Cork or Belfast to London or Paris. Go figure.

And there's loads of fiber actually lying idle, decaying ... because the price point was set extortinate. So instead of making sure all fiber is utilized and to get the economy going, the pricing on the fiber in use has been set so high .. that companies like Virgin prefer to dig their own ducting, and lay their own fiber ... opposed to subletting ducting or fiber, which they did previously .... so why do you think, that's going on ? Certainly not, because Virgin are throwing money out the window.

/M