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NBP part II

oscarBravo

The old NBP thread had hit the 10,000-post threshold that makes the boards.ie hamsters cry, so here's a shiny new one.

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allanpkr

To say i disagree with what he says is slightly off, as im still not sure what he says.

Orebro

If the WISPs were even capable of delivering what they already say they can then there wouldn’t be any noise coming from rural areas looking for broadband. Fact is that whatever is spouted about what is technically possible for WISPs to do the reality on the ground is that they simply cannot deliver. I for one am looking forward to the day I call my WISP and cancel the service because a lovely fibre cable has been pulled outside my house. I don’t care if it takes 3 or 4 years, so long as a contract is signed and a rollout is happening I’m happy.

Marlow

allanpkr wrote: »

I wil. Take your word he isnt a troll. But then he must have a vested interest that ffth nbp is something he doesnt want. Cause to say other solutions are better for future communication in irelands future without stating any, seems a tad misleading , at best.

No .. i have no problem with a NBP that delivers FTTH if the consultation is all inclusive and conduct is maintained. None of which the current consultation can boast.

Even worse, this is the third time they are doing it this way and tackling the problem from the wrong side of the stick.

In the meanwhile they are risking of destroying irish businesses and irish jobs.

I am even more amazed, how people blindly trust the government to get this right given their track record and just let them plow on with what clearly is a massive spend for the tax payer. The country does not even own the infrastructure afterwards and has to compensate the NBP Co for lack of takeup. Something that is bound to be happen because the providers that are serving these areas are not going to sit around and do nothing. It's their livelyhood.

I have listed the points in time, when this should have been reworked instead of just plowing on blindly. There is a reason that Eircom went over the head of the department with the 300k and that is because the department can't be trusted to make the right judgement. That be acceptable, if it happens once. But it happens every time.

Just look at the 3.5 Ghz licenses disaster where one operating is hogging the spectrum and the government has now to pay earnings back incrementally until they can fix it.

/M

Marlow

Oh . And that whole 3.5Ghz debacle is even funnier. Because it shows how bad the departments track record is.

Under the GBS grants were given out for local networks to be build. Some succesful, some not. But that is neither here or there. Some of these networks utilized localised 3.5 Ghz licenses.

When the 3.5 Ghz spectrum was auctioned off nationwide, these licenses were revoked/expired making the original GBS investment a waste of money.

Some of these regional operators even bid in the process but as with the pricing that these licenses reached, obviously were outbid.

Now the department and Comreg are refunding these moneys partially as they can not make the spectrum available in due time.

Shows how much they can be trusted to make the right decision and get the contracts right.

It was pointed out to them, that the model they chose for the NBP only worked effectively if there was more than one bidder. They plowed on.

/M

allanpkr

So your complaint is that thhe firm that gets this contract will own the fibre. He will have to maintain it ,upgrade it etc etc.isp will be open to provide the home owner..with broadband. Thank god eir pulled out .they hated the strict rules ghe govn put on the contract..hence their disgusting attempt to say they could do it for 1 billion, yes if they changed almost evry condition to suit them . So they could once again rip off more unsuspecting customers with sub standard broadband.

allanpkr

As i see you think eir is a saviour . as far as im concerned this proves your naivity towards eirs real commitment to provide the service they advertise or eir is something you have a vested interest in. If anyone tninks eir applied for 300k cause they felt it was not being handled right, you are day dreaming , eir saw the easy pick .eir has never ,never done anything unless it was for eir , and thats i ncluding their customers.

allanpkr

Also you go on about that you think everything about nnbp is wrong.including ending up with only 1 bidder??? Yet if we accepted all your coments and followed your advice , we would end up with nothing..nothing many parts of ireland with no broadband that is in anyway usable.21st century and a country that will have many parts with no usable broadband. I can only say thank god you are not running the country.as we would end up with no investment.. and a ..im alright jack ... mentality. That sounds like . Ftth is not a luxury, it is as needed as electric was needed in 1950,s ..you make out that ftth is nice , but not needed. For ireland to compete , for ireland to grow, its most definately a must. Otherwise ireland will be left behind every other country. In future gb will be needed, fibre will provide this. Not wireless, not sat.

Marlow

Allanpkr:

You only read half of what I post, make suggestions based on that half you read, make accusations, call me dishonest and you have already admitted, that you don't know or understand, what I am talking about.

It might be time to take a step back and and take a less aggressive approach. You react like a child, that feels it's potential xmas toy is going to be taken away from and then revert to bullying tactics to silence those that are not of your opinion. And you continue so, after others have told you, that you may be a tad off.

I am only expressing an opinion here and tell what I see. Nothing more, nothing less. This opinion is based on working in the industry for over 25 years and in 5 countries. Also, your conclusions based on this half reading are pretty radical. So you don't seem to be able to want nor can see alternative approaches.

And no, i have never worked for eircom, nor would I like seeing them being awarded with the contract. I can not even see, how you possibly could come up with that notion from my posts. They are not an irish business any longer. They are actually incorporated in Jersey.

/M

BarryM

It might be helpful if those with opinions/experience would provide a set of bullet points on what can or should be done NOW to implement a nation wide broadband infrastructure.

Less slagging, more proposals.

Orebro

BarryM wrote: »

It might be helpful if those with opinions/experience would provide a set of bullet points on what can or should be done NOW to implement a nation wide broadband infrastructure.

Less slagging, more proposals.

http://broadband.gov.ie

user1842

Q2 2019 stats out on Eir's 300,000 rural deployment:

6.1% left, looks like to hell or to Connaught as Mayo still has the most, by far, work left to be done, 4268 left

https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/communications/topics/Broadband/national-broadband-plan/commercial-investment/Pages/Rural-Deployment-Progress.aspx

ArrBee

As I understand things from following this thread for some time....
Is the "NOW" part that causes the most issue for anyone with an alternative.

If "we" can agree that broadband needs to be supplied to all, and that that broadband needs to be and stay equal* for all, then I don't think there is an alternative.

If it wasn't going to take years to "start again", I wouldn't mind exploring ways to keep the infrastructure public - but I don't see it as a critical requirement.

*equal to the point that rural customers receive the same service as urban as well as the same upgrades going forward to prevent a divide across the country.

Yes there are alternatives that will provide "current needs" across the country, or that build just enough infrastructure to (hopefully) spur the market to fill the gaps that they are currently ignoring, or to wait until emerging technologies become available and solve the problem for us without tax payers money.... etc.
But they are not alternative solutions to the problem that has been declared. They solve a slightly different problem while saving money.
If I want to buy a race horse and then someone convinces me that all I need is a donkey because it also has 4 legs and eats grass but is cheaper, then I'd be a fool.

allanpkr

Your rant at me is confusing. As all im asking as your so against the nbp, is what you would replace it with. That is all i want to know .you may have a better way . So im only asking once again what you would replace it with .as you kindly point out you have 25 yrs of experience in the industry.

Orebro

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/rural-ireland-at-risk-without-broadband-microsoft-boss-warns-38520378.html

user1842

In my opinion the biggest issue with the NBP procurement process was the stubbornness of the Department to insist that Eir setup a separate wholesale division and that they could not use OpenEir. This was the main reason Eir left the process. If the department allowed OpenEir to run the intervention area, we would not be in this mess. Contracts would have been signed a year ago and the roll-out would have began already. Just give Comreg the proper enforcement powers to regulate them.

I agree with Marlow, this mess it totally the departments fault.

allanpkr

Eir did not, i repeat did not leave the process cause of having to set up a wholesale division.eir left cause they believed the conditions were to stringent and would cost them more with their existing customers.if they would havr to put ALL their customers on even footing.
Just for my info. Setting aside the time it has taken, also the cost of nbp, can someone please tell me what problems are fault of dept.

user1842

allanpkr wrote: »

Eir did not, i repeat did not leave the process cause of having to set up a wholesale division.eir left cause they believed the conditions were to stringent and would cost them more with their existing customers.if they would havr to put ALL their customers on even footing.
Just for my info. Setting aside the time it has taken, also the cost of nbp, can someone please tell me what problems are fault of dept.

Really :rolleyes:

He said key factors were the Government’s stipulations that funding for the project be ring-fenced, that Eir create a separate wholesale division for the scheme, and that its existing wholesale division, Open Eir, be restricted from operating in scheme areas.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/eir-warned-naughten-of-deep-flaws-before-quitting-broadband-scheme-1.3395020

clohamon

allanpkr wrote: »

Setting aside the time it has taken, also the cost of nbp, can someone please tell me what problems are fault of dept.

IrelandOffline had a go at explaining the delays up to March 2017.
https://irelandoffline.org/2017/03/1073/

I would add that the Department should have insisted that planned private deployments would cover areas rather than individual premises (ie a minimum number of contiguous electoral divisions for each area, with guaranteed eligibility) . And they should have reserved the right to apply a reasoned public interest test to those plans also. Those elements are still missing from the current consultation.

The mistakes above are not all the fault of the department and they pre-date the main mistake, which was to let the naive Denis Naughten run amok.

IMO the department, at least since mid 2014, has been doing a reasonable job under very difficult circumstances. The stamina of the officials in pursuing the overall policy objective deserves a lot of credit.

allanpkr

??whatever eir said reason was i politely suggest its taken with a pinch of salt. But also if i understsnd you correctly about stipulalation of ring fencing, which i may not. It makes perfect sense for funds to be ringfenced , so as eir cannot use public money for other than it wzs intended for. As i say i might have not understood the term ringfenced . But if im understanding correctly , then this shows that as a company eir thought it was a cash cow under their control and once they realised the dept had protected themselves so tightly , it pulled out.

allanpkr

Marlow just in case you didnt see my reply simply asking you to explain what system you wish to see instead of nbp. You state loss of irish jobs, why cause of nbp sticking to ftth. Sureely you dont mean that. The nbp was all inclusive, if you had the ability to produce what plan stipulated in its conditions. Just cause players dropped out after realising the conditions were airtight and it wasnt the cash cow they thought it was.. but mainly all im interested in , is your proposed altenative to nbp, in this very late stage of process.

Marlow

allanpkr wrote: »

Marlow just in case you didnt see my reply simply asking you to explain what system you wish to see instead of nbp. You state loss of irish jobs, why cause of nbp sticking to ftth. Sureely you dont mean that. The nbp was all inclusive, if you had the ability to produce what plan stipulated in its conditions. Just cause players dropped out after realising the conditions were airtight and it wasnt the cash cow they thought it was.. but mainly all im interested in , is your proposed altenative to nbp, in this very late stage of process.

The NBP was not all inclusive. You clearly don't know enough about it.

And I have no further comments to any of your posts after the abuse by you and you not even being able to see this abuse.

Consider yourself blocked.

/M

KOR101

There isn't even a hint of a challenge to the NBP in this.

With the expectation that it would take years to deliver high-speed broadband in rural areas, and with phase one of the Imagine national broadband roll-out plan complete, the company is launching a country-wide awareness campaign to inform consumers of the areas where Imagine’s high-speed broadband is already available as well as additional areas that will be covered by the end of 2019.

https://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/110337/imagine-delivers-on-rural-high-speed-broadband-promise-for-galway

allanpkr

There wzs no abuse. There was questioning of your motives . But now we come down to it when i try to pin you down , for your answer , to a simple question ie. What if not nbp do you propose, lo snd behold you refuse to answer . Im not surprised. And it was all inclusive , just cause you say it wasnt doesnt make it so. Consider you have been found out.

smelly sock

allanpkr wrote: »

Your rant at me is confusing. As all im asking as your so against the nbp, is what you would replace it with. That is all i want to know .you may have a better way . So im only asking once again what you would replace it with .as you kindly point out you have 25 yrs of experience in the industry.

Nothing? Its a political voting stunt starting to go wrong at this stage. We cant afford the original plan of running fibre optic cable down every boreen in the country. Sure bigger urban towns and villages should be serviced but not one off houses or housing clusters miles from anywhere. They really need to pay for that themsleves.

allanpkr

I beg to differ , i dont think we can afford not to do it. Also i dont live miles from anywhere, but i do believe everyone should be on an even footing. I mean everyone is going on about 3 billion being to expensive. I think not , not for whole of ireland to get ftth. Future proofed for many decades to come. Once it is signed in 5 yrs we wont even have noticed it. Every citizen must and should be treated evenly. I agree that once this is agreed and signd off and finished ,any knew building developement must take into acc the broadband service to said area. But as broadband will be as important as electricity i wouldnt buy a house unless it had ftth broadband in the future.

The Cush

From the Dáil last week

Deputy Catherine Murphy: Before the recess, when I asked the Taoiseach to set out the up-to-date position in regard to the national broadband plan, he told me a decision was imminent.

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment held sittings to discuss the matter and produced a report highlighting quite a bit of duplication. How much attention will the Taoiseach pay to that report and those deliberations? What is the up-to-date position regarding the national broadband plan and any contract? Will he bring it back to the Dáil for discussion and debate in advance of signing?

Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment (Deputy Richard Bruton): The position regarding the broadband contract is that the Government has chosen a preferred bidder. Work is now ongoing with that preferred bidder to move to a position where contracts can be signed. We are assessing the report of the Oireachtas committee. I have made it clear that while I will look at the committee's recommendations, I will not consider restarting the whole process, as some have advocated in the recommendations they have made. It would not be fair to rural Ireland to ask people to wait a further five years for another tender process to be carried out. I am proceeding with all haste to try to ensure that all the due diligence that the Deputy would rightly expect me to undertake is undertaken in order that I am in a position to recommend to Government the signing of a contract.

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2019-09-17/speech/93/

The Taoiseach: … We have restored the local improvement scheme and we intend, by the end of the year, to sign the national broadband contract, which will result in a €3 billion investment in rural Ireland, perhaps the greatest investment in rural Ireland since the investment in rural electrification.

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2019-09-18/speech/240/

heavydawson

smelly sock wrote: »

Nothing? It's a political voting stunt starting to go wrong at this stage. We cant afford the original plan of running fibre optic cable down every boreen in the country. Sure bigger urban towns and villages should be serviced but not one-off houses or housing clusters miles from anywhere. They really need to pay for that themsleves.

If we took a cost-effectiveness _only_ approach to determining whether or not we invest in infrastructure like this, we'd probably still be living without electricity in the countryside. We wouldn't bother doing anything for the unemployed or the homeless unless we could determine the payback. You could argue that educating children is a risky business because we cannot estimate the net benefit each child will bring to the state. Never mind funding the hospitals. Cheaper to let 'em die at home I say! (For those literal-minded folks, I'm kidding)

The guff over the last few posts is dispiriting. Undoubtedly people have particularly strong feelings over 2 points:
1. The cost of the NBP
2. The fact that it's favouring a capital build-out for a specific subset of the population

I'm pro-NBP. I live in the country and have dual ISPs, one regional WISP and Vodafone 4G broadband. I work for a Dublin based cloud computing company, but I work from home 2-3 days a week.
I built a one-off house. Why? Because that's where my wives family is, and we wanted our kids to grow up near family. It made our lives logistically more complicated in terms of work, but it has benefitted the children enormously.
I fully appreciate the arguments that Marlow and many others have against the NBP, but the character-bashing, and baseless accusations being slung around the forum are occupying far too much of the content.

Do people have a viable alternative to the NBP? Probably not, no. Does there _need_ to be a viable alternative to the NBP for Marlow & Co. to make their point about the NBP itself? NO
There is no question that rural Ireland is lacking for a proper base level of internet connectivity, but that doesn't automatically qualify the idea that we need a single, national solution to solve that problem for every household in the country. So for all the people asking Marlow what the alternative is, he doesn't need one.

The forum members will always disagree over the two points I mentioned above (amongst others), but let's keep it civil.
For my final two cents:
1. I believe NBP is expensive
2. I believe the state should retain control of the infrastructure if at all possible
3 .I believe running fibre to as many points as possible is the best technical solution for now and the short-medium term future
4. I believe the project should never be looked at in term of pure cost/benefit analysis.
4.1 We never question the benefit of educating our children with respect to cost
4.2 We never question the benefit of taking care of our ill with respect to cost (for the most part)
4.3.We provide grants to business' all over the country without looking for equity in said companies
4.4 We're spending 4.4 billion this year along on illness, disability and carers from the Social Protection budget.

Anyone care to show me the cost/benefit analysis for point 4.4? We don't do any of the things above because they make for sound fiscal logic. We do them because that's the the type of society we are. We look after our ill (with _MUCH_ room for improvement), we educate our children well, we try and stimulate economic growth.

The NBP is much of the above writ large. It encompasses things like internet access for schools, telemedicine, providing rural business with access to the world, etc. It also reflects us a society. No more than we decided (at admittedly very less cost), that we as a society would repeal the 8th, the NBP is about us saying that we as a country want every person on this island to have access to all the information the internet provides (for better or worse) on an even playing field.

It's about as risky an investment as granting free secondary level education to all children. I didn't know until recently that Donogh O Malley announced it without authorization. Who knows what would have happened if they'd had time to run a cost-benefit on that one eh?

The Cush

heavydawson wrote: »

I didn't know until recently that Donogh O Malley announced it without authorization. Who knows what would have happened if they'd had time to run a cost-benefit on that one eh?

And if I recall correctly the then head of the Dept of Finance, TK Whittaker, wasn't a happy bunny to put it mildly.

Jump forward 50 years and the head of the Dept of Public Ex Robert Watt would have a similar opinion regarding the NBP.

Often the greater good tops the opinions of learned civil servants

fieldofsheep

I'm in agreement with heavydawson on this - on the face of it, the NBP is uneconomical for what we're getting. Most academic submissions regarding the viability of the scheme seem to concentrate on this, but I've yet to see an economist come out with some research on what the cost to the country of not rolling it out would be - it's a case of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.

A few points I'd make about criticisms of the scheme, along with acknowledgements of the some of its shortcomings:

The cost - the NBP is unfortunate that it's arriving at the same time and at close to the same cost as the National Children's Hospital, but here I think the comparisons end. Complaints about the initial costs bloating from €500 million to €3 billion fail the mention the expansion in scope of the project (FTTH instead to Fibre to the Village), while the children's hospital costs have ballooned (due to lack of proper specification) to deliver essentially the same infrastructure. The €3 billion is also spread over 25-30 years - is €100 million a year really that much?
The scope - The standard complaint is 'running fibre up every boreen', or to put it more bluntly, 'Pornhub for farmers'. While the vast majority of it will be FTTH, it's also recognised that a different mix of technologies will be needed for the even more uneconomical outliers. I would agree that this acts an incentive for ribbon and one-off developments, which we're trying to move on from - but the horse has long bolted on that one. My own opinion is that any new builds after the NBP identification process is complete should pay much closer to the full economic costs for connectivity (similar to electricity)
The tender process - Let's face it, this was Eir's to lose - they had the people, the experience, the technology. Bolstered by the success of seeing off SIRO by cherry picking the rural 300,000, I think they overextended their hand in pulling out of the process, gambling that the tender process would collapse and reform with more favourable conditions. IMO Eir still operate like they're still the national telecoms provider, so I welcome the government's steadfastness in continuing on with the NBP.
The technology - I really can't understand why this is still an argument. FTTH (GPON and XGS-PON) is the fastest, most future-proof technology for delivering home broadband currently available. Those arguing for a mix of technologies can look to Australia's NBN for what happens when you gut a FTTH rollout to save on costs: https://www.michaelwest.com.au/nbn-myths-inside-the-independent-models-which-failed-a-nation/

allanpkr

Im in agreement with heavydawson and field of sheep, but on one point. When someone or anyone keeps posting saying nbp is faulty , corrupt, and wrong . 1 i would like to know gheir agenda. Especially as i was asked to be honest, in my replys then i expect honesty back. However just cause w isp didnt get involved in the procsss doesnt mean it wasnt all inclusive. Saying irish jobs will be lost is not the fault of nbp. We would then have to say we cannot allow any progress as this might effect existing jobs. Where would ireland be if that was done in ireland but not rest of world. Is it unfortunate yes of course, but progress must be allowed to move on. My w isp i use has adapted and if you have ftth they will provide the broadband, and i will use them . If you have an agenda which he obviously has then i feel you should in all honesty say what connection you have to broadband. If you say this is not the way go nbp then yes i think you should say what your alt is.