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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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Marlow

Let me point out the Devil in the detail: One thing to keep in mind that exactly these rural remote premises that are going to be covered using wireless may overlap with existing rural providers. Who may very well have invested in the technology to achieve NGA compliant speeds.

So if data exists, that proves that these regional providers already provide NGA compliant speeds in these areas, then the NBP becomes EU and government funded competition to these regional providers and that is against the rules of the EU funding. It's actually not legal full stop.

Should the data be ignored even though it was submitted, the entire NBP is put into question and the funding may be withdrawn. That leaves the irish government with legal retributions from the EU, the irish taxpayer with the entire bill and the NBP under legal challenge by these providers.

Alone that little bit of the contract can kill it all. And that is one more reason the consultation has not been all inclusive. When the department decided to roll a subset .. no matter how small .. out using wireless, it would have had to include and consult all operators registered with Comreg, that use these technologies. And they know who they are. However, they excluded them from the get go.

/M

Johnboy1951

So we have about 50 wisps around the country. Have they banded together and proposed they all operate as a single entity for the sake of providing the service specified by the NBP (National is important in this respect).

What were the details of the proposal from that group (if it existed)?

Orebro

Marlow wrote: »

And that is exactly where for example the likes of Imagine are attacking the NBP.

/M

No they’re attacking it by telling lies that would make a criminal blush. In an ideal world they’d be done for false advertising as their product does not in reality provide what they say it does. 5G ready my ass.

tsue921i8wljb3

Any premises served by wireless in the NBP is going to be remote, likely isolated and one off. Therefore they can use point to point wireless connections which are well capable of gigabit speeds if required. Point to point wireless products are very different to point to multipoint that a commercial WISP would be deploying. So to say that all forms of wireless are equal because they specified some amount of wireless in the plan is demonstrably false.

heavydawson

KOR101 wrote: »

The EU will judge any intervention in terms of whether their goals are already being met (or proposed and committed to) by commercial companies. A goal of 100mbit speeds by 2025 cannot be met by Imagine, and it's simply stupid to talk about potential speeds off peak. @Marlow is out on a limb on this and I have to say it's no wonder the WISPs were shown the door.

The 100Mbits by 2025 isn't strictly speaking true. As Marlow has pointed out, the technology is there today for up to 250mbps on the 3.5ghz band under certain circumstances. There's no reason to believe that the encoding won't improve over time to allow higher bitrates on the same frequency allocation. We've been using 2.4Ghz/5Ghz for Wifi forever, and we've gone from 1mbps -> 9608 mpbs.

The problem isn't the technology per-se, it's the implementation, as many of you are aware. The ironic thing about using wireless for those last few hard-to-reach premises in the intervention area is that in them being remote, it means the masts will likely sparsely subscribed, and could very likely exceed what the WISPs would provide in their existing areas in terms of throughput

Another way to look at it is that WISPs will presumably place their masts where there is a good chance of filling the commercial subscription they'd need for a sustainable basis (with due regard to the limits on where those masts can be placed). On the other hand, the NBP will likely be placing masts to reach specific (and likely non-commercial) premises. So they're not looking to maximise mast subscription in that circumstance.

I'm not for Wireless as the NBP solution, but we shouldn't rush to dismiss its possibilities outside of the NBP context. I do think it's important that we draw a line between the wireless as it's currently being deployed by the WISPs and the likely wireless deployment we'll see within the NBP. I've no evidence to suggest what I describe above will come to pass, but it's worth consideration.

user1842

Emmanuel Lemon Louse wrote: »

I fully expect the Department to ignore all wireless submissions. Marlow has inferred that legal action will then follow. This again has the potential to severely delay if not end the project.

It is not the WISPs im worried about. Could the department ignore EIR?

Although EIR said they would not increase their rural FTTH roll-out, do you really trust them.

They could very easily propose that they will cover 100,000 more premises (although without a binding commitment on time-frame). This could not be ignored and would decimate any business case for the NBP. If I was in EIR this is what I would be suggesting.

KOR101

Emmanuel Lemon Louse wrote: »

If Marlow is correct in what he is saying, there will be no NBP. The business case cannot stand another several thousand premises being removed.

The EU will judge any intervention in terms of whether their goals are already being met (or proposed and committed to) by commercial companies. A goal of 100mbit speeds by 2025 cannot be met by Imagine, and it's simply stupid to talk about potential speeds off peak. @Marlow is out on a limb on this and I have to say it's no wonder the WISPs were shown the door.

tsue921i8wljb3

user1842 wrote: »

Let's see the results of the consultation.

I fully expect the Department to ignore all wireless submissions. Marlow has inferred that legal action will then follow. This again has the potential to severely delay if not end the project.

user1842

Emmanuel Lemon Louse wrote: »

If Marlow is correct in what he is saying, there will be no NBP. The business case cannot stand another several thousand premises being removed.

Let's see the results of the consultation.

tsue921i8wljb3

Gonzo wrote: »

If the NBP ends up being FTTH then no worries past 2025, the speeds can be upgraded with different and faster standards of FTTH without having to replace any lines in the ground.
e.g. the current 300k rural rollout is GPON, this can be upgraded to XGS-PON at any stage by OpenEir allowing for speeds for
10gbps DOWN, 10gbps UP.

If the NBP goes with wireless, something like Imagine, it is already outdated and not fit for purpose.

If Marlow is correct in what he is saying, there will be no NBP. The business case cannot stand another several thousand premises being removed.

Marlow

Gonzo wrote: »

If the NBP goes with wireless, something like Imagine, it is already outdated and not fit for purpose.

But this is one of the problems. In that case, the department should not even have considered 1% of having to be connected by wireless. By saying, that part of the NBP will be rolled out using wireless technologies, they diluted the NBP from the get go and made them open to challenge. They literally accepted, that wireless is NGA compliant under certain circumstances.

And that is exactly where for example the likes of Imagine are attacking the NBP.

/M

Marlow

Orebro wrote: »

So we only plan this until 2025? Then what, another NBP?

As I pointed out in a previous post. The investment in the GBS that was ran around 2004-2006 (can't remember the correct dates) which heavily relied on 3.5 GHz spectrum, where available, was completely invalidated in 2017 ... less than 15 years later, by them taking all licenses back and auctioning them off nationwide.

Generally, the political part of the department only thinks as far as the next election.

/M

BandMember

Marlow wrote: »

The talk in the pubs is that this whole NBP thing is going to give rural Ireland free fibre broadband (i kid you not !)

That is absolute bullshít and well you know it!!

You have a vested interest in this because of who you work for and are biased in your views because of this, but to go around spreading blatant lies like that is infuriating.

Then again, it's probably your cronies with similar vested interests that are fuelling that kind of alleged pub talk....

ArrBee

Marlow wrote: »

Actually it does. Not in the sense of never. But in the sense of it will take a whole generation, before a connection may or may not happen.

/M

lol.

So you are saying that "never" actually now means "during the current generation"
Even that is disingenuous in my opinion.
It is the technology generation that will drive adoption. but yes, it might be slow.

As there becomes a compelling reason to adopted, it will happen:
-stage one. the compelling reason exists for those without internet which meets their current need. You claim that this is small, I'd agree.
-stage two. as the usecase for connectivity evolves driving higher bandwidth and/or lower latency, or even more stable connections more people will find themselves without a connection "that meets their needs" and therefore take up a connection that does.
-stage 3, 4, 5..... stage 2 keeps happening until the only connections not made are by those who purposefully choose no connection at all.

This is what I mean by viewing it as an infrastructure.
The content or usecases can't exist before the infrastructure does. sure, technology PoCs might but no business can survive selling a service that requires a non-existent infrastructure and it is those commercial service offerings which will drive uptake.

heavydawson

Orebro wrote: »

So we only plan this until 2025? Then what, another NBP?

No, at that point the infrastructure will be in place, and hopefully we'll have a healthy level of competition from the existing (currently urban) incumbents.
If the revenue stream from the wholesale operation is sustainable, then it will in their best interests to ensure they continue to provide the end-user retailers (VF/SKy,etc) with continual improvements to the underlying network.
The optical transmission technology will likely have evolved at that point from 10G UP/DOWN to 40G (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NG-PON2) or better

It's 500k new or added-revenue (say if already a VF customer) customers up for grabs. Which ISP wouldn't want a piece of that?

Gonzo

Orebro wrote: »

So we only plan this until 2025? Then what, another NBP?

If the NBP ends up being FTTH then no worries past 2025, the speeds can be upgraded with different and faster standards of FTTH without having to replace any lines in the ground.
e.g. the current 300k rural rollout is GPON, this can be upgraded to XGS-PON at any stage by OpenEir allowing for speeds for
10gbps DOWN, 10gbps UP.

If the NBP goes with wireless, something like Imagine, it is already outdated and not fit for purpose.

Orebro

Marlow wrote: »

That is a choice. Not a requirement. And the entire OpenEir 300k which also was part of the NBP, until it got removed, is GPON.

Also .. even if it is XGS-PON, they could still have 128 subs per cluster. Which leaves you with the same 80 Mbit/s guaranteed per sub.

The requirement is still .. as it stands .. 30 Mbit/s now .. 100 Mbit/s by 2025.

/M

So we only plan this until 2025? Then what, another NBP?

heavydawson

Marlow wrote: »

That is a choice. Not a requirement. And the entire OpenEir 300k which also was part of the NBP, until it got removed, is GPON.

Also .. even if it is XGS-PON, they could still have 128 subs per cluster. Which leaves you with the same 80 Mbit/s guaranteed per sub.

The requirement is still .. as it stands .. 30 Mbit/s now .. 100 Mbit/s by 2025.

/M

My understanding is it's 30Mbits DOWN as a VERY minimum, but:
from:
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/2019-05-16/14/

The advantage of that model is being seen in that the minimum contract that we specified was a 30 Mbps service. This company will start on day one with 150 Mbps service and will, by year ten, deliver 500 Mbps of service. The private sector is recognising that if it is to operate this network successfully then the service will have to be future-proofed and it will have to deliver it to the highest standards that are required.

Also:
https://www.rte.ie/news/2019/0507/1048027-broadband-plan-what-next/

The original promise was that the NBP would deliver minimum download speeds of 30Mbps and minimum upload speeds of 6Mbps. But the winning bidder had committed to minimum download speeds of 150Mbps for homes in year one, rising to 500Mbps by year 11.

Businesses will be able to get 1Gbps from the very start. Upload speeds for residential properties will start at 30Mbps but rise over time, while businesses will get 1Gbps upload speeds from day one.

So my take on that is that the NBP spec is 30Mbps, but the final bidder has committed to 150mbps minimum. Happy to be corrected if wrong. Your point still stands Marlow BTW, its just that the final bidder has gone beyond the spec.

Marlow

heavydawson wrote: »

My understanding is that XGS-PON is the preferred deployment technology for NBP, which is 10gbps DOWN, 10gbps UP. (Symmetrical)

That is a choice. Not a requirement. And the entire OpenEir 300k which also was part of the NBP, until it got removed, is GPON.

Also .. even if it is XGS-PON, they could still have 128 subs per cluster. Which leaves you with the same 80 Mbit/s guaranteed per sub.

The requirement is still .. as it stands .. 30 Mbit/s now .. 100 Mbit/s by 2025.

/M

heavydawson

Marlow wrote: »

FTTH as rolled out currently only guarantees each subscriber 80 Mbit/s. (2.5 Gbit/s downstream total, 32 subs per cluster). By the same calculations, that you just went by. And you could actually run 128 premises per cluster, if you wanted, and it would be 20 Mbit/s guaranteed per premise. That's what the technology allows for. The advantage with the fibre is, that you can upgrade tech either end of the fibre and you get bigger speeds then. But that is actually the same for wireless .. just that wireless doesn't have much scope for increasing speeds anymore. On longer distances that is.

The same goes for the fixed wireless tech above. Just because you can connect 64 customers per sector, does not mean, that the provider does this. It is down to the quality standards of each provider, what saturation/quality they are contempt with.

You as a consumer then choose based on that. But for the excercise of the NBP and NGA compliance, those technologies are well within specification.

/M

My understanding is that XGS-PON is the preferred deployment technology for NBP, which is 10gbps DOWN, 10gbps UP. (Symmetrical)

Marlow

heavydawson wrote: »

That being said, I took an admittedly cursory glance at the Radwin solution you referenced. Their top-of-the-line subscriber (client-side SU-PRO) is 250mbps, and their base stations support 750mbps (or 2x750mbps for the DUO). The base station supports up to 64 subscribers, so with saturated usage by all 64 subscribers, you're talking ~ 11mbps.

So it's subjectively misleading to say they support NGA speeds. They do so only with an upper bound on the combination of subscribers and per-subscriber usage.

FTTH as rolled out currently only guarantees each subscriber 80 Mbit/s. (2.5 Gbit/s downstream total, 32 subs per cluster). By the same calculations, that you just went by. And you could actually run 128 premises per cluster, if you wanted, and it would be 20 Mbit/s guaranteed per premise. That's what the technology allows for. The advantage with the fibre is, that you can upgrade tech either end of the fibre and you get bigger speeds then. But that is actually the same for wireless .. just that wireless doesn't have much scope for increasing speeds anymore. On longer distances that is.

The same goes for the fixed wireless tech above. Just because you can connect 64 customers per sector, does not mean, that the provider does this. It is down to the quality standards of each provider, what saturation/quality they are contempt with.

You as a consumer then choose based on that. But for the excercise of the NBP and NGA compliance, those technologies are well within specification.

/M

Dero

Marlow wrote: »

You will have to take that up with Imagine and Ripplecom. Because if they both have NGA compliant infrastructure in place to cover your premise and they both submitted your premise to be removed, then that is exactly what can happen.

/M

Well Ripplecom certainly don't, which is why we moved in the first place.

I suppose though my main point of frustration is the thought that they can make an unverified claim that I have an NGA compliant service when in reality it is nowhere near.

Marlow

Dero wrote: »

Emphasis mine. Having the ability to achieve it and actually realising it are two very different things.

I'm an Imagine (and previously Ripplecom) customer in an intervention area. Surrounded by OE 300k fibre but none on my road.

I'll tell you this; if anyone tries to take me out of the intervention area without my consent, I'll happily rip off their arm an beat them to death with it*

You will have to take that up with Imagine and Ripplecom. Because if they both have NGA compliant infrastructure in place to cover your premise and they both submitted your premise to be removed, then that is exactly what can happen.

/M

heavydawson

Marlow wrote: »

It was not all inclusive, because the tender was structured in a way, where regional providers were excluded from the get go. They were not consulted either. One regional provider even attempted to partake. I leave it at that.

There is over 50 of those in Ireland in various sizes. Each with a different approach on how to cope with this. It's the 3rd time they get buttered under without being consulted. But imagine if the ones, that have NGA compliant infrastructure all submit data now ... there's over 20 of those, I believe. Both the latest Cambrium with GPS timing and Radwin Jet technologies are well capable of delivering NGA compliant speeds and exceed VDSL.

The department can't even argue that, because they were always prepared to deliver broadband under the NBP using wireless for 5-10% of the rollout. By stating that, they have declared fixed wireless a NGA compliant transport media. And this is where they have left themselves open to challenge.

/M

Thanks for referencing some concrete Wireless tech that one can actually do some homework on Marlow. There's too much "the latest wireless tech can do X,Y,Z", and I suspect only those in the industry are fully clued in.

That being said, I took an admittedly cursory glance at the Radwin solution you referenced. Their top-of-the-line subscriber (client-side SU-PRO) is 250mbps, and their base stations support 750mbps (or 2x750mbps for the DUO). The base station supports up to 64 subscribers, so with saturated usage by all 64 subscribers, you're talking ~ 11mbps.

So it's subjectively misleading to say they support NGA speeds. They do so only with an upper bound on the combination of subscribers and per-subscriber usage.

I appreciate the technical information, but it would be great if it could be complemented by some insight into how the WISP generally speaking provision capacity today. Obviously that's commercially sensitive, but you can see where people would be sceptical of claims like "NGA compliant speeds" and "exceeding VDSL" Both are only true in very particular circumstances, not generally.

Also WRT the NBP specs, I need to clarify the numbers you referenced:

30 Mbit/s now, 100 Mbit/s by 2025.

That is for UPLOADS
The download minimum specs are
150Mbps now, 500Mbps by year 11 (Both speeds are MINIMUM)

Marlow

ArrBee wrote: »

That lack of take up referred to is initial take up. It does not mean houses passed will never connect.

Actually it does. Not in the sense of never. But in the sense of it will take a whole generation, before a connection may or may not happen.

/M

Dero

Marlow wrote: »

30 Mbit/s now, 100 Mbit/s by 2025.

The technology that Imagine uses can achieve those speeds.

Emphasis mine. Having the ability to achieve it and actually realising it are two very different things.

I'm an Imagine (and previously Ripplecom) customer in an intervention area. Surrounded by OE 300k fibre but none on my road.

I'll tell you this; if anyone tries to take me out of the intervention area without my consent, I'll happily rip off their arm an beat them to death with it*

Imagine is the best we can get, but it's still terrible and not fit for purpose. I don't care how it performs at 5AM, if it can't do it between 6PM and midnight, it's not good enough.

* May not be entirely serious, but the sentiment is real

ArrBee

Whenever the mention of "take up" crops up I do a little internal groan. "here we go again" I say to myself.

The only valid argument that puts take up on the table as an issue is any financial penalties that might be applied.
This has been mentioned, and I don't fully understand what financial liability is involved or if it is capped so I won't try and defend that.

But this nonsense that suggests "due to lack of take up we shouldn't build an infrastructure" is ridiculous.
That lack of take up referred to is initial take up. It does not mean houses passed will never connect.

Marlow

KOR101 wrote: »

The problem is that it was indeed all inclusive.

Also, the budget has nothing to do with it anymore. The government has already decided.

The best legal case would be about Naughton's behaviour. He wasn't sacked for no reason. But, it's hard to see how the WISPs lost out because of what he did.

It was not all inclusive, because the tender was structured in a way, where regional providers were excluded from the get go. They were not consulted either. One regional provider even attempted to partake. I leave it at that.

There is over 50 of those in Ireland in various sizes. Each with a different approach on how to cope with this. It's the 3rd time they get buttered under without being consulted. But imagine if the ones, that have NGA compliant infrastructure all submit data now ... there's over 20 of those, I believe. Both the latest Cambrium with GPS timing and Radwin Jet technologies are well capable of delivering NGA compliant speeds and exceed VDSL.

The department can't even argue that, because they were always prepared to deliver broadband under the NBP using wireless for 5-10% of the rollout. By stating that, they have declared fixed wireless a NGA compliant transport media. And this is where they have left themselves open to challenge.

/M

Marlow

westyIrl wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance but what are these NGA requirements? What sort of specs?

30 Mbit/s now, 100 Mbit/s by 2025.

And may I point out, that any premise that has been excluded by the NBP because they are being serviced by Virgin can not avail of Gbit/s and is not fibre.

Any premise, that is covered by VDSL and hence has been excluded from the NBP can not avail of Gbit/s ... the good news for a majority of those is, that OpenEIR is now rolling fibre out for the majority of them, but that wasn't on the cards a year ago. It won't be all inclusive though. 1.7M premises are tagged VDSL. 1.4M premises are in the IFN. Of those 1.4M premises some are NBP. Meaning there will be 300-400k, that will be stuck with VDSL.

user1842 wrote: »

Indeed and what WISPs currently satisfy them?

I would wager Imagine dont even come close.

The technology that Imagine uses can achieve those speeds. Contention is a different matter, which would need (and should) be challenged with the Department. I don't believe, that it's a coincidence that Imagine all of a sudden published their full coverage on their website about 2-3 weeks ago. If they submit that, it will have a major impact.

ISPs that satisfy those speeds currently are for example: Net1, BBNet, Airwire .. if you're on their Radwin Jet platform.

/M

user1842

westyIrl wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance but what are these NGA requirements? What sort of specs?

Indeed and what WISPs currently satisfy them?

I would wager Imagine dont even come close.