NBP part II

theguzman · 11-09-2019 11:05PM

Messer1 wrote: »

What will a home need a Gbps for given that the FCC for example guides 25 Mbps for an intensive user home?

8k streaming, the internet of things, data demands are going to grow infinitely going forward, the only solution is Fibre to the Home, the starlink array of low earth satellite might be handy for that remote outback cattle station bang in the middle of the red waste in the Northern Territory in Australia. 25Mbps is too low by todays standards never mind by the time such satellites are projected to be launched. I think you'd be better of preaching their efficacy to places like Nigeria, Tristan da Cunha etc. than suggesting it is a solution for Ireland's modern broadband requirements.

ussjtrunks · 11-09-2019 11:11PM

If we can't even get decent speeds at peak time on fixed wireless, Satellite would be very bad, Latency aswell becomes and issue even at that altitude

Messer1 · 11-09-2019 11:12PM

ArrBee wrote: »

Ahhh here.
First you pretend that the issue is ownership. The state should own the infrastructure.
Now you're saying that the state should pay for a supply contact for capacity on satellites.
Latency will be an issue for any satellite solution. Throughput is not the only KPI.
I don't see any wireless solution being more than a way to plug the holes left by lack of physical infrastructure.
Ie in the middle of nowhere.

Question is. Do you consider rural Ireland the middle of nowhere?
And. Do you think Irish internet availability should be equal or divided by location?

Yes, the State should own the fibre to the proposed 1500 key locations and any extensions from those which are nor covered by FWA, 5G or sat. BTW the State would not contract satellite space, end users would purchase services either directly from sat op or through sales outlets. I suspect the former.

I think that everyone should have a minimum level of access (say 100 mbps). After that it is up to economics and logistics as in the case of roads.

Messer1 · 11-09-2019 11:27PM

theguzman wrote: »

8k streaming, the internet of things, data demands are going to grow infinitely going forward, the only solution is Fibre to the Home, the starlink array of low earth satellite might be handy for that remote outback cattle station bang in the middle of the red waste in the Northern Territory in Australia. 25Mbps is too low by todays standards never mind by the time such satellites are projected to be launched. I think you'd be better of preaching their efficacy to places like Nigeria, Tristan da Cunha etc. than suggesting it is a solution for Ireland's modern broadband requirements.

8k streaming seems a luxury to me unless you are conducting several major medical ops simultaneously. Still don't know what an extra 975 mbps would be needed for in a home. From what I see the biggest demand worldwide will be in semi-rural & semi-urban areas where users have only one lousy supplier to such an extend that SpaceX has had to dampen expectations.

Messer1 · 11-09-2019 11:37PM

ussjtrunks wrote: »

If we can't even get decent speeds at peak time on fixed wireless, Satellite would be very bad, Latency aswell becomes and issue even at that altitude

Peak time congestion is a big big problem. Can't guarantee that sats would solve this but they can add capacity (more sats etc. as will be done by Starlink). Depending on the communication distance - sat seems to be faster than fibre beyond about 2k kms.

The Cush · 11-09-2019 11:45PM

Messer1 wrote: »

- sat seems to be faster than fibre beyond about 2k kms.

I think you're mixing up FTTH fibre (20kms) with copper based e-fibre aka VDSL/FTTC with a max distance of 2000m

Messer1 · 11-09-2019 11:52PM

The Cush wrote: »

I think you're mixing up FTTH fibre (20kms) with copper based e-fibre aka VDSL/FTTC with a max distance of 2000m

Sorry, I was unclear. I'm talking about round tripping over 2,000 kms. Sat is faster as signal travels much faster in space than thro fibre and fewe repeaters needed.

theguzman · 12-09-2019 12:01AM

Messer1 wrote: »

Sorry, I was unclear. I'm talking about round tripping over 2,000 kms. Sat is faster as signal travels much faster in space than thro fibre and fewe repeaters needed.

You are clueless and just telling absolute lies, Fibre optic is the speed of light, radio waves bounced even from a low earth orbit are neither as fast nor have they the same capacity of data throughput. Fibre optics do not use repeaters at all.

westyIrl · 12-09-2019 12:46AM

Me thinks he trolls.....

plodder · 12-09-2019 07:50AM

Messer1 wrote: »

8k streaming seems a luxury to me unless you are conducting several major medical ops simultaneously. Still don't know what an extra 975 mbps would be needed for in a home. From what I see the biggest demand worldwide will be in semi-rural & semi-urban areas where users have only one lousy supplier to such an extend that SpaceX has had to dampen expectations.

It's true that most people don't need 1Gbit download speeds today, but households with a larger number of people might. Aside from that.

1) Remember Bill Gates and his famous (640K RAM should be enough for any PC). Applications to use the bandwidth will emerge in time.

2) Upload speeds are only a fraction of download and it's certainly the case that working from home will make use of the higher upload speeds already today. There are already quite ordinary jobs available today that need the upload capability of the 150 and 300 meg packages. Upload has made a big difference to my ability to work from home.

You're on very shaky ground as well with the claims about raw speed of the technology itself. Latency will always be slower even with LEO satellite. Don't forget most of the rest of the internet is still delivered over thousands of miles of fibre and other cabling. All this replaces is the last few miles of fibre, with 600-1000 km of air/vacuum which adds a few milliseconds of latency on top of everything else.

oscarBravo · 12-09-2019 10:02AM

theguzman wrote: »

You are clueless and just telling absolute lies, Fibre optic is the speed of light, radio waves bounced even from a low earth orbit are neither as fast nor have they the same capacity of data throughput. Fibre optics do not use repeaters at all.

Messer1 isn't entirely wrong in every aspect: some of the technical arguments have vague merit.

It's true that light travels more slowly in glass than radio waves in air or vacuum; as such it's true that LEO satellites may offer marginal advantages in latency over very long distances compared to (say) ocean-spanning fibre.

The problem isn't with the possible future technical capabilities of LEO satellite; it's with the idea that we shouldn't build an infrastructure network on proven technologies now, just in case we might be able to depend on the largesse of American billionaires to offer us an access network some time in the next few years.

I think that LEO satellites will offer interesting applications. I'm reserving judgement on them until (a) there is an actual functional service available, and (b) we know what the actual commercial terms of that service are.

In the meantime, it's vapourware. In the same vein as people telling us that 5G will solve all our rural broadband problems, because someone whose job it is to sell 5G equipment has told us so, I'm not going to take Elon Musk's or Jeff Bezos's word for it that we don't need fibre infrastructure.

ArrBee · 12-09-2019 10:10AM

Messer1 wrote: »

Yes, the State should own the fibre to the proposed 1500 key locations and any extensions from those which are nor covered by FWA, 5G or sat. BTW the State would not contract satellite space, end users would purchase services either directly from sat op or through sales outlets. I suspect the former.

I think that everyone should have a minimum level of access (say 100 mbps). After that it is up to economics and logistics as in the case of roads.

While I respect your right to have your opinion and to express it in a respectful way - like you are doing, I have to call out a few inaccuracies to what you seem to be saying.

The opinion you have expressed boils down to "there should be no intervention. In a few years, market forces will be enough to satisfy Ireland's current needs and if the needs of Ireland in the future is beyond the current need then a urban/rural divide is acceptable."

This indicates to me that essentially you are against the aims of the NPB and what it is attempting to do (to not leave 25% of the country behind as we move toward the future). I say this because no response from you yet has made a suggestion that meets the objective of the NBP. It is no wonder submissions were ignored.

Consider it similar to me making a submission that the whole broadband issue could be solved by connecting all public libraries to 25Gb fibre with a bunch of WAPs inside where anyone can go and watch cat videos if they want, and shure the market will look after the rest eventually, or not, but wont it be great if you live next door to the library.

Whether your view is helped by the likelihood that as a FTTC customer you can reasonably expect to be offered FTTH as part of a commercial build out, or not, I'll leave to others to decide.

ctlsleh · 12-09-2019 10:36AM

Messer1 wrote: »

8k streaming seems a luxury to me unless you are conducting several major medical ops simultaneously. Still don't know what an extra 975 mbps would be needed for in a home. From what I see the biggest demand worldwide will be in semi-rural & semi-urban areas where users have only one lousy supplier to such an extend that SpaceX has had to dampen expectations.

That's what we said 20 years ago when we had 56K modems, we never thought we would need more bandwidth then either. The reality is that as Bandwidth speeds increase so does innovation, hence video streaming rather than renting DVDs from ExtraVision. New innovation and applications will come that will consume more and more data, we just don't know what they are yet, just like we didnt know that Netflix would come 20 years ago........its an ever evolving world, its not going to stop and in 20 years, we will be saying that 1G isn't enough if not sooner. at least with Fibre, the capacity is infinite, its easy to upgrade the bandwidth once the fibre is in place. This is also why wireless will never keep pace and will ultimately cost a lot more in the long run.

ussjtrunks · 12-09-2019 10:51AM

Until we get fibre rolling out wireless should be something we invest in if even a small bit, even getting 50% of the towers fibre would enable better WISP speeds and better mobile speeds.

Its not like it would be wasted either as mobile operators will still need it after WISPs are long gone.

Fibre is the future but what are people that have to wait 7 years supposed to do while it roles out.

Robxxx7 · 12-09-2019 10:54AM

plodder · 12-09-2019 11:09AM

oscarBravo wrote: »

Messer1 isn't entirely wrong in every aspect: some of the technical arguments have vague merit.

It's true that light travels more slowly in glass than radio waves in air or vacuum; as such it's true that LEO satellites may offer marginal advantages in latency over very long distances compared to (say) ocean-spanning fibre.

Whatever about satellite being used to deliver local broadband access in some places, I think the idea that these LEO networks would form part of the internet backbone itself, completely unbelievable.

Messer1 · 12-09-2019 11:11AM

theguzman wrote: »

You are clueless and just telling absolute lies, Fibre optic is the speed of light, radio waves bounced even from a low earth orbit are neither as fast nor have they the same capacity of data throughput. Fibre optics do not use repeaters at all.

Instead of accusing me of telling lies, a simple search for "speed of light and fibre" would have revealed:

The

speed of light

in a vacuum is 299,792,458 meters per second, or 186,282 miles per second. In any other medium, though, it's generally a lot slower. In normal optical

fibers

(silica glass),

light

travels a full 31% slower. ...

Messer1 · 12-09-2019 12:09PM

ArrBee wrote: »

This indicates to me that essentially you are against the aims of the NPB and what it is attempting to do (to not leave 25% of the country behind as we move toward the future). I say this because no response from you yet has made a suggestion that meets the objective of the NBP. It is no wonder submissions were ignored.

.

My belated response … The underlying objective of the NBP is to deliver H-S BB to rural users, not specifically to run fibre everywhere. I was concerned about the total cost of the NBP (€5 bn including taxpayers net €2.5 bn). If, say, 100k users (20% of current IA which may shrink much further) take up fibre, the total cost works out at €50k/user with €25k/user coming for taxpayers. These are huge sums by any measure.
My submission only sought to make the case that next-gen sats could be a PART of the NBP and help achieve the its objective at much lower cost. The prime recommendation was that an independent, expert study be undertaken by space technologists/economists to establish what roles LEO sats etc. could play (go, no-go or maybe). At worst, this might delay the NBP by a few months and cost a tiny fraction of the €25 mln already spent on consultants. I also urged that fibre be rolled out as quickly as possible to 1000+ BB connection points using a State-funded SPV (this wouldn't break EU rules if/when the IA has been defined). As this is happening, the actual potential/role of sats etc. would become much clearer (performances, charges, time-lines etc.) and the NBP could be rejigged.

Orebro · 12-09-2019 12:13PM

This "we'll only ever need 25Mbps" connections, and "what else could we possibly need more speed for" arguments are getting tiresome. We have the benefit of a couple of decades of internet to know that bandwidth requirements are only going to grow - to say otherwise is very shortsighted or to have some vested interest in some technology other than FTTH.

I think we should stop feeding the troll.

purpleisafruit · 12-09-2019 12:17PM

Obvious troll is obvious!

ArrBee · 12-09-2019 12:38PM

Messer1 wrote: »

.

My belated response … The underlying objective of the NBP is to deliver H-S BB to rural users, not specifically to run fibre everywhere. I was concerned about the total cost of the NBP (€5 bn including taxpayers net €2.5 bn). If, say, 100k users (20% of current IA which may shrink much further) take up fibre, the total cost works out at €50k/user with €25k/user coming for taxpayers. These are huge sums by any measure.
My submission only sought to make the case that next-gen sats could be a PART of the NBP and help achieve the its objective at much lower cost. The prime recommendation was that an independent, expert study be undertaken by space technologists/economists to establish what roles LEO sats etc. could play (go, no-go or maybe). At worst, this might delay the NBP by a few months and cost a tiny fraction of the €25 mln already spent on consultants. I also urged that fibre be rolled out as quickly as possible to 1000+ BB connection points using a State-funded SPV (this wouldn't break EU rules if/when the IA has been defined). As this is happening, the actual potential/role of sats etc. would become much clearer (performances, charges, time-lines etc.) and the NBP could be rejigged.

You miss a couple of points.

The best part of the NBP objective is that it must be upgradeable.
Not just to supply broadband as we currently need.
This is the 1st point where your suggestion falls over.

If you deploy to centralized connection points and rely on the market to fill the void, there will be disparity as the market chooses not to participate beyond certain boundaries, and wireless solutions provide a different experience at the edge leading user to be left behind at some point.

Investing 2-3Bn to give everyone broadband does seem like a waste (especially if you already have it). But I see this as 2-3Bn to build an infrastructure that will provide equal access to emerging usecases for the next 30+ years.
In that light, I believe that the NBP is not "high cost", and is absolutely the right approach for a country to be taking.

Pique · 12-09-2019 03:06PM

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/magnet-networks-open-to-possible-merger-interest-38490049.html

Is this in any way connected to NBP suppliers/contractors perchance?

tsue921i8wljb3 · 12-09-2019 05:19PM

Pique wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/magnet-networks-open-to-possible-merger-interest-38490049.html

Is this in any way connected to NBP suppliers/contractors perchance?

No.

clohamon · 12-09-2019 06:08PM

Greek NBP gets approval from Brussels. Quite similar plan to our own except the procurement doesn't seem to have started yet. New passive infrastructure will remain in public ownership.

https://t.co/ifotOtLWE8

Noticeable emphasis on the EC's 2016 Gigabit Communication which requires underlying 1 Gb/s capability.

By providing very high speed broadband coverage in areas of the country where private operators have no commercial interest to invest in the near future, the Greek authorities pursue genuine cohesion and economic development objectives, in line with the broadband support policy of the EU, as reflected in the EU2020, DAE and the Gigabit Communication. Therefore, the present aid measure will contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the EU2020/DAE and of the Gigabit Communication and is therefore in line with the common interest.

...the Gigabit Communication sets out further targets in order to respond to technological developments and future needs: by 2025 all European households, rural or urban,should have access to broadband networks offering a download speed of at least 100 Mbps, which can be upgraded to 1 Gbps, and socio-economic drivers should have access to speeds up to 1 Gbps symmetric.

The Greek authorities define the target areas and the services to be provided based on speeds that can be reliably delivered to the end-user. ‘Reliable’ speeds per subscriber are understood as speeds that can be guaranteed at peak times.

ussjtrunks · 13-09-2019 01:01AM

Every house on my road now has Nova / Imagine, just shows how much people need the internet these days. When I got Nova 5 years ago some of these houses didn’t even have an Internet connection.

Grab All Association · 15-09-2019 06:25AM

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/news/rollout-of-3bn-national-broadband-plan-delayed-yet-again-38498568.html

Delayed again, thanks to Timmy O’Tool no doubt.

The Cush · 15-09-2019 08:15AM

Grab All Association wrote: »

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/news/rollout-of-3bn-national-broadband-plan-delayed-yet-again-38498568.html

Delayed again, thanks to Timmy O’Tool no doubt.

Similar article from the same journalist early last week - https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/broadband-rollout-contract-wont-be-signed-in-time-for-ploughing-as-was-promised-38483708.html

Sources are blaming a report by the Oireachtas Communications Committee, which wants the broadband network infrastructure to remain in public ownership.

But it is understood some work has yet to be completed before the deal with the Granahan McCourt consortium is sealed.
…
The Department of Communications did not confirm the delay, but said "work to award the NBP State intervention contract is subject to contract close, including finalisation of financial and legal documents".

Proceeding as planned

the Fine Gael parliamentary party unanimously passed a motion last Friday which stated that the Government should proceed as planned.

Mr Bruton said he will not be reassessing the tender process but is determined to ensure that the contract is robust.

Mr Bruton said his department is working "at maximum speed" to get the deal finalised but declined to set a new deadline.

Asked when the project would be shovel-ready, Mr Bruton said: "I'm determined that we move as quickly as possible to that point. But, equally, I'm very much aware that I have a responsibility to the people of Ireland to conduct the due diligence to see that this is a robust contract."

consideration will be given to the Communications Committee report

The Oireachtas Communications Committee has compiled a report which calls on the Government to review the process of awarding the contract. Just one bidder remained in what was supposed to be a competitive tender by the time the contract was awarded.
…
He said he will compile a "detailed response" to the committee which will be considered by Cabinet before the contract is signed.

Mr Bruton said there are some "very practical" suggestions from TDs that will be considered.

One the ideas under consideration is Green Party leader Eamon Ryan's proposal that new houses built within the intervention area should have to pay a fee towards the installation of the high-speed broadband.

"But we will look through all of the detail and I will go back to Government with the detailed response. We're determined to do this. And we will do it as quickly as possible," Mr Bruton said.

Mr Bruton said he will not be reassessing the tender process but is determined to ensure that the contract is robust. "We don't envisage any initiative that would require restarting the process. And, unfortunately, some of the proposals made would involve completely restarting the processes. That would add five years to the project and this simply could not be countenanced," the minister said.

no new deadline for contract completion now that the Ploughing Championship date has passed

Mr Bruton said his department is working "at maximum speed" to get the deal finalised but declined to set a new deadline.

The deferral is a blow to the Government as it believed the symbolism of finally getting the project off the ground during the Ploughing Championships would play well with rural voters.

The Cush · 15-09-2019 08:24AM

Minister Richard Bruton on RTÉ's This Week programme at 1.00pm today, discussion includes the NBP.

ussjtrunks · 15-09-2019 11:06AM

I wonder how the bidder for the contract feels about all this faffing about

dashoonage · 15-09-2019 11:09AM

ussjtrunks wrote: »

I wonder how the bidder for the contract feels about all this faffing about

I'd say when he gets a little down he walks into his spare room and jumps into his pile of money.

NBP part II

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