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National Broadband Plan - necessary/wasted investment?

24

Comments

  • #32
    zapitastas
    Closed Accounts Posts: 498 ✭✭zapitastas


    Thelonious Monk wrote: »
    It's believed that countries would be better managed if most people lived in towns, cities and clustered developments where resources are easier to share and people are less reliant on cars etc. You can have better public transport, broadband, centralised medical facilities, and thriving small towns and villages.
    Every county in Ireland has a lot of one off housing that makes it harder to run the country, hence why providing things such as broadband is so difficult.
    Ireland is a never ending sprawl of houses. If you compare it to the UK for e.g. these places would never get planning permission. I think it's because our laws allow family to build on land regardless. Take a drive through Donegal and it's particularly noticeable. The ribbon development outside of Galway seems to go on for 100s of km lol.
    It makes everything harder to administrate but it seems that's how Ireland and its politicians wants to stay.

    That is the situation now. To make claims like a poster did that uncontrolled building of one off houses is a current practice is completely misleading. Donegal is an interesting case in that a sizeable bulk of the one off houses belong to those in Dublin and Belfast. Are a compete eye sore and have wrecked large areas of the most scenic parts of the county. Locals were priced out of buying sites or houses a long time ago


  • #33
    marno21
    Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 14,341 Mod ✭✭✭✭marno21


    Sam Russell wrote: »
    John Fitzgerald, economist, was on radio this morning suggesting they have it skewed with the wrong goals. FTTH is not the goal, it should be performance related.

    My take on his view - This is like the goals set by Soviet central planning in the 1950s and 1960s, setting the goal for sewer pipe at so many thousand tons, which favoured concrete pipes over cheaper and more effective plastic pipes. By setting the goals wrong, we will be installing FTTH when that will be old hat, and the cheaper version will pass us by. The time for fixed wired phones (POTS) has passed. Let us hope the FTTH is still worthwhile when we connect the last home.

    There appears to be little concern for the level of take up by those homes passed for which it will be available. Rates of 15% are quoted, making the most expensive connections actually taken up at €80,000. Surely, there has to be some consumer contract before such amounts are committed?

    FTTH does not become old hat. It is literally the only possible way to roll out high speed guaranteed internet that does not become old hat.

    The networking equipment aside from the fibres can be replaced as new technology becomes available (and would have to be anyway with any equivalent wireless technology - which is also more frequent).


  • #34
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,336 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    marno21 wrote: »
    FTTH does not become old hat. It is literally the only possible way to roll out high speed guaranteed internet that does not become old hat.

    The networking equipment aside from the fibres can be replaced as new technology becomes available (and would have to be anyway with any equivalent wireless technology - which is also more frequent).

    In 1965, the Post Office Tower (now called the BT Tower) opened as the key of a microwave network providing state of the art telecomunications. It was a state secret even though it was 190 m high and pretty obvious to all. Micowaves were the gold standard for telecoms at the time. Who uses that now?

    The fibre network will rely on timber poles put up by the vikngs. [Well not literally, but old technology]. Storms will fell those timber poles and then where will the fibres be?


  • #35
    marno21
    Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 14,341 Mod ✭✭✭✭marno21


    Sam Russell wrote: »
    In 1965, the Post Office Tower (now called the BT Tower) opened as the key of a microwave network providing state of the art telecomunications. It was a state secret even though it was 190 m high and pretty obvious to all. Micowaves were the gold standard for telecoms at the time. Who uses that now?

    The fibre network will rely on timber poles put up by the vikngs. [Well not literally, but old technology]. Storms will fell those timber poles and then where will the fibres be?

    Microwaves are still widely used in telecommunications. It's not comparable to compare telecom backhaul with delivering internet access to widely dispersed houses.

    Storms have just as much chance of knocking out wirelsss masts. During Storm Darwin in 2014 I never lost my landline access but had no mobile phone or fixed wireless internet for several days


  • #36
    cgcsb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,262 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    zapitastas wrote: »
    Can you name one county where there is uncontrolled building ?

    I can name 32.


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  • #37
    zapitastas
    Closed Accounts Posts: 498 ✭✭zapitastas


    cgcsb wrote: »
    I can name 32.

    Any chance of an example or two from specific county councils where the planning requirements on one off housing are lax and should be tightened up? Or are you just going with a feeling


  • #38
    Thelonious Monk
    Registered Users Posts: 13,690 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    zapitastas wrote: »
    Any chance of an example or two from specific county councils where the planning requirements on one off housing are lax and should be tightened up? Or are you just going with a feeling

    wherever the f*ck this is

    bb.jpg


  • #39
    cgcsb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,262 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    zapitastas wrote: »
    Any chance of an example or two from specific county councils where the planning requirements on one off housing are lax and should be tightened up? Or are you just going with a feeling

    :pac: There's houses being built on lanes all over the midlands and west, I drive past them all the time. If you claim to be from a place you can build as you see fit in this country. There is no real restrictions.


  • #40
    zapitastas
    Closed Accounts Posts: 498 ✭✭zapitastas


    cgcsb wrote: »
    :pac: There's houses being built on lanes all over the midlands and west, I drive past them all the time. If you claim to be from a place you can build as you see fit in this country. There is no real restrictions.

    That is patently not true. The days of getting planning and throwing up a house are long gone. The planning restrictions and conditions are pretty onerous. I don't know any county council that would allow unrestricted building. If you take country Leitrim for example, the septic tank requirements can be around 60k. Building one off houses in the countryside has become unattainable to a lot of people


  • #41
    zapitastas
    Closed Accounts Posts: 498 ✭✭zapitastas


    Thelonious Monk wrote: »
    wherever the f*ck this is

    bb.jpg

    And how many of the houses in that picture have been built in the last two or three years , or even in the last decade.


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  • #42
    Thelonious Monk
    Registered Users Posts: 13,690 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    zapitastas wrote: »
    And how many of the houses in that picture have been built in the last two or three years , or even in the last decade.

    No idea. Have the rules changed or something recently?


  • #43
    CatInABox
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 10,225 Mod ✭✭✭✭CatInABox


    You know, I just read a great article (found it through Reddit) on the stats surrounding one-off housing in Ireland, found it incredibly interesting, and sadly grim.

    Some relevant paragraphs:
    There is a widespread misperception that current planning policy makes it difficult to get planning permission for a one-off dwelling. This is usually based on anecdotal evidence from individual hard cases. However, in reality between 2000- 2017, according to the Central Statistics Office, the Irish planning system permitted almost 190,000 new detached one-off dwellings. Nationally, this accounts for 24% of all houses granted planning permission during this period.

    There are strong geographical variations with Galway (52%), Mayo (45.9%), Donegal (41.3%) and Kerry (40%) having the highest share of one-off permissions. The breakdown of the regions with the highest share of one-off permissions was in the West (42%) followed by the Border (31.7%), Mid-West (31%) and South-West (29%) with the Midland (24%) and Mid-East (17.6%) having the lowest share.

    Galway being the worse is no surprise, and no surprise that the city is struggling with traffic problems either.

    Anyway, the article is here. Great to see some facts and figures on it.


  • #44
    Thelonious Monk
    Registered Users Posts: 13,690 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    So there we go, one offs thriving in Ireland still. But again, if ever this discussion comes up, half want to live in a one off and the others are against the impact they have. So they're not going anywhere, they seem to be part of Irish culture.


  • #45
    FishOnABike
    Registered Users Posts: 4,344 ✭✭✭FishOnABike


    Thelonious Monk wrote: »
    So there we go, one offs thriving in Ireland still. But again, if ever this discussion comes up, half want to live in a one off and the others are against the impact they have. So they're not going anywhere, they seem to be part of Irish culture.

    I can get a one off planning permission for a house on in an area consisting of a number of serviced sites within a city boundary - not all one off houses are isolated buildings out in the sticks.

    What is the split of those one off houses between those in or adjacent to an existing population centre and those out on their own?


  • #46
    OneEightSeven
    Registered Users Posts: 1,333 ✭✭✭OneEightSeven


    The government banned one-off housing when Eir dropped out of the NBP last year, but they still have a local-only clause, which is illegal under EU law. They know full-well this country has a serious problem with one-off housing, but when you see half-hearted attempts to address the issue, it makes me want to emigrate in disappointment and assimilate into another ethnicity/nationality.


  • #47
    CatInABox
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 10,225 Mod ✭✭✭✭CatInABox


    OneEightSeven wrote: »
    The government banned one-off housing when Eir dropped out of the NBP last year, but they still have a local-only clause, which is illegal under EU law. They know full-well this country has a serious problem with one-off housing, but when you see half-hearted attempts to address the issue, it makes me want to emigrate in disappointment and assimilate into another ethnicity/nationality.

    I'm not familiar with the ban, how did they ban it?


  • #48
    CrabRevolution
    Registered Users Posts: 2,796 ✭✭✭CrabRevolution


    zapitastas wrote: »
    That is patently not true. The days of getting planning and throwing up a house are long gone. The planning restrictions and conditions are pretty onerous. I don't know any county council that would allow unrestricted building. If you take country Leitrim for example, the septic tank requirements can be around 60k. Building one off houses in the countryside has become unattainable to a lot of people


    Meath is one county anyway.

    Drive 2km out each road in my town and you'll get maybe 20+ one off houses being currently constructed and a few more recently cleared sites/removed hedges that are almost certainly for more one off housing. There's also 4 pages every week of planning applications in the Meath chronicle, at a rough guess, 2 thirds of them are applications for a "new dwelling" on whatever site.

    Maybe other counties have introduced restrictions or tightened them up, but Meath county council certainly havent.


  • #49
    charlie14
    Registered Users Posts: 14,849 ✭✭✭✭charlie14


    I hoped this government might have learned something from the Children`s Hospital fiasco, but apparently not. They are now giving a contract to a sole bidder for an amount that is many multiples of the original estimate, that we will not even own on completion, not knowing how much this bidder is contributing and without a clue how many will connection to this system or how much it will cost to do so.
    All this against the advice of this government`s own Office of Public Expenditure.

    This whole thing comes across as nothing more than a very expensive spend in an effort to buy votes in the upcoming local elections and the soon to be GE. If they were honest and admit it, that at least would be something rather than hiding behind a report they themselves commissioned. In fact in light of their own Office of Public Expenditure advice that report looks nothing more than a further waste of public money too rubber stamp a decision already taken.


  • #50
    Praetorian
    Registered Users Posts: 3,711 ✭✭✭Praetorian


    I've mixed feelings about this situation. I think it's a stupid amount of money to spend on the national broadband plan. It's been poorly handled from almost the beginning. What more can we expect from our politicians. The childrens hospital is another fine example.

    I was in my uncles house in rural Co. Monaghan yesterday and incredibly it's 2019 and they have still no broadband. No ftth, no vdsl, no adsl2+, not even adsl1. No dial up... Nothing. They have a telephone line miraculously.

    Honestly I think the one off housing people probably should have to heavily subsidise their connections. They already have the advantage of almost always having smaller mortgages compared to town / city dwellers. They have chosen to live in rural areas they should have to pay a rural tax to get a good service.


  • #51
    ED E
    Registered Users Posts: 36,163 ✭✭✭✭ED E


    Sam Russell wrote: »
    As far as I am aware, the 5G proposal is not 5G mobile, but point to point radio using 5G technology. I may be wrong, but if the last 5% or so is done wirelessly, then the project cost reduces significantly.

    5G using the spectrum we've just liberalised is not a replacement for the 4G on your phone. When you walk into a shop you don't lose all 4G service, you likely would with 5G at 3600Mhz. Good for use where you have line of sight to the serving cell or only obstructed by foliage or glass.


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  • #52
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,336 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    ED E wrote: »
    5G using the spectrum we've just liberalised is not a replacement for the 4G on your phone. When you walk into a shop you don't lose all 4G service, you likely would with 5G at 3600Mhz. Good for use where you have line of sight to the serving cell or only obstructed by foliage or glass.

    5G could be used for fixed wireless connections, which would work well for the last 10% of connections.

    Why guaranty FTTH for all rural dwellers, when urban subscribers cannot get it? If there was guaranty of FTC that gave a minimum of 50mbs, then that would be better than most current subscribers.

    Combine both of those and that would have a substantial reduction in the overall cost of the project.

    Again, why commit to give the whole project to one bidder? It should be divided up into several projects, perhaps divided by geography.


  • #53
    blanch152
    Registered Users Posts: 27,153 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    There is no political party that is willing to say that broadband to every hamlet and house in the country is the wrong idea.

    There are plenty of opportunistic politicians who are willing to say the way the government is doing it is wrong or that it is going to cost too much, but they are much too craven to call it the way it is. Opposition for opposition's sake is the way that Labour, FF and SF are responding to this.

    This is a very bad decision, not quite as bad as FF's decision to guarantee the banks, but the worst decision of the current government. And there is nobody on the opposition benches brave enough to criticise it for the correct reasons.

    If you are going to bring fibre broadband to every house in the country, it is going to cost billions and it is going to mean handing over money to a private company to do it, so people should stop whinging over those aspects.

    This country has an unsustainable rural population problem. The correct way to do this is to bring fibre broadband to towns and villages with a minimum number of houses and dwellings. Those that live in one-off housing in the middle of nowhere are living a life that is unsustainable in respect of climate change, health, education and utility services. People have to live in villages at the very least.


  • #54
    blanch152
    Registered Users Posts: 27,153 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    charlie14 wrote: »
    I hoped this government might have learned something from the Children`s Hospital fiasco, but apparently not. They are now giving a contract to a sole bidder for an amount that is many multiples of the original estimate, that we will not even own on completion, not knowing how much this bidder is contributing and without a clue how many will connection to this system or how much it will cost to do so.
    All this against the advice of this government`s own Office of Public Expenditure.

    This whole thing comes across as nothing more than a very expensive spend in an effort to buy votes in the upcoming local elections and the soon to be GE. If they were honest and admit it, that at least would be something rather than hiding behind a report they themselves commissioned. In fact in light of their own Office of Public Expenditure advice that report looks nothing more than a further waste of public money too rubber stamp a decision already taken.

    This is an example of a post that completely misses the point. Broadband to every home is the problem, the cost and the sole bidder are only inevitable outcomes.


  • #55
    cgcsb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,262 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    I do think it will be quietly dropped in June, every consultant worth their salt thinks it's bananas idea.


  • #56
    plodder
    Registered Users Posts: 7,120 ✭✭✭plodder


    It's certainly very expensive, but I think it will go ahead. If we were able to supply electricity and telephone service to the whole country, then I think we should be able to afford to do it with decent fibre broadband. Fibre suits this country quite well I think. Though, I suspect a longer rollout period would have reduced the cost a lot. Also, the revelation (if true) that its economic value will only be 10-15% of the investment made probably means the state not owning it is less of an issue.


  • #57
    cgcsb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,262 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    plodder wrote: »
    If we were able to supply electricity and telephone service to the whole country, then I think we should be able to afford to do it with decent fibre broadband.

    REALLY? and why can no other nation achieve this?


  • #58
    plodder
    Registered Users Posts: 7,120 ✭✭✭plodder


    cgcsb wrote: »
    REALLY? and why can no other nation achieve this?
    That's the irony of it I think. Fibre seems to work quite well with the Irish rural settlement pattern, in a way that existing broadband just doesn't. It was a surprise to many that Eir were able to cover so much of it on a commercial basis already.


  • #59
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,439 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    plodder wrote: »
    That's the irony of it I think. Fibre seems to work quite well with the Irish rural settlement pattern, in a way that existing broadband just doesn't. It was a surprise to many that Eir were able to cover so much of it on a commercial basis already.

    I mean it really isn't. It is a terrible option because of how expensive it is.

    It is the only workable wired option, because the other cheaper options used in urban areas, DSL and HFC basically require good density and short distance from the distribution points.

    It is rural Irelands terrible rural density and distant rural homes that make the usual cheaper tech a non runner, leaving you with just the VERY expensive overkill option.


  • #60
    cgcsb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,262 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    There is nothing positive about this plan. Even if you ignore the costs and the technical infeasibility and the fact that new homes will want to be connected ad infinitum, the current crop of rural teenagers and 20 somethings who don't go to college or move elsewhere to work or work on a farm will now be on netflix and pornhub all day, not a good thing for society. My partners mother lives in one of these areas, lots of 20 somethings scratching their holes waiting for 'degovernment' to build a factory next to them they can work flexi-hours in.


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  • #61
    Gazzmonkey
    Registered Users Posts: 816 ✭✭✭Gazzmonkey


    cgcsb wrote: »
    REALLY? and why can no other nation achieve this?

    Ireland is a tiny little spec of an island, most other nations are gigantic in comparison… no?


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