National Broadband Ireland : implementation and progress

When did you receive the eircode for your house? My new build has an eircode since spring of last year. We're 1 of 3 houses side by side on a boreen. The 2 next door went live last week while I'm still at review stage. The guys running the fibre said the black box which was put up only a few months ago is only capable of serving two homes. Emails to NBI are just met with generic bullshit. I'm ready to blow a gasket with the crap communication.

24 hour time frame to fixing here too. Went down on Saturday afternoon, back by early evening yesterday.

That's quite possible.

NBI contractors working on cable about 2 miles from me. Only problem is I'm fairly sure my fiber when it comes will be coming from the other direction. There just aren't enough new poles on that side to connect to me.

it’s nothing to do with laziness. Open Eir have chosen to rollout to places that are commercially viable.

It is not clear that NBI are using any Eircom exchange buildings. In fact they seem to be actively avoiding them, preferring instead to construct cabins to house OLTs. Your own DA Newport is due to get one. It was to be located in the GAA pitch in Newport but there was some issue there so it is now to be housed in the grounds of the soccer club in Newport. I don't know if construction has started on it yet, perhaps you could check? Here are a couple of examples of what you are looking for.

No the provider does not handle the install it’s entirely down to NBI so difficulty installing or surveys required wouldn’t impact your ability to place an order.

It is correct that Eircodes are flagged by NBI if they require complicated installations to advise the customer at point of sale what to expect and set expectations.

For example in my experience I’ve ran into three types of install so far (and I suspect this to be the long and short)

1. Simple enough will take no more than half a day to complete
2. Involves a potential for hardship and will take a full day most likely
3. May require multiple visits advise customer the likelihood of being connected day 1 is slim

that’s about all we get when we check an address. Other than that it’s “existing NBI” or “NBI not available”, I’ve never ran into any issues with pre sign ups where it’s been a case that we can’t pre order because of potential installations difficulties

Coincidentally yes, I passed the Newport soccer club grounds this week and I saw a crew outside working on what appeared to be fibre ducting. I was wondering what was it was for but now you appear to have answered the question. Good info thanks.

Our local exchange, Murroe, beside the Garda station, appears to have ducting run from the eircom exchange to all NBI routes out of village in the last few months.

The exchange to the best of my knowledge is connected via eircom backhaul fibre to the main Castletroy exchange. Within the last year I saw contractors working on behalf of enet doing work on the same route as the eircom backhaul fibre.

When I saw this my assumption was they were running enet backhaul fibre to the Murroe exchange for the NBI rollout to the surrounding area. I haven't seen anything enet or cabinet related happening in the area.

Even though in the same DA Newport and Murroe are separate exchange areas and not easy to run the same backhaul fibre to both areas. Murroe is closer to Limerick city and connected to the Castletroy exchange via eircom fibre which was run at the start of the eir rural fibre rollout. Newport had fibre long before Murroe.

Enet contractors were doing fibre work to the village earlier this year.

Gutted, third cancelled Circet appointment now without anyone actually calling for an install in south KK, earliest they can now do is mid-January. Storm damage apparently.

Concerned now about NBI's general SLA when it comes to line repairs - we get storms all the time and I imagine repairs like this will need to be commonplace. Imagine being out for a month every time some orange warning storm hits! Guess I'll be keeping the 5g backup.

Repairs may be quicker at the moment, as lots of NBI contractors on the ground doing the roll-out. Once the bulk of the network is in place most of these contractors will be off to other projects overseas so time to repair may could be longer, certainly after extensive storm damage.

They are separate eir exchange areas which isn't really relevant in relation to NBI. All traffic for the DA goes to and comes from the OLT which will be in the grounds of the soccer club. The OLT is backhauled to the POH in Limerick. The backhaul fibre and distribution cable are one and the same. The cable passing your home servicing you and your neighbours could be carrying the entire traffic for your DA if you happen to live on the route that NBI have chosen the cable to get back to Limerick.

Vodafone contacted me saying they can connect me...

I asked how long before I'd have it..rep said about 5 or 6 weeks

Is there any advantage to going with them? Can I just look at everything else that's available and pick a better deal or do they have some sort of advantage?

No advantage, check with providers available at your location and see who offers the best option regarding package and cost.

I don't know tbh....if that's the case then I should probably consider another alternative I suppose

What providers are generally well regarded

It's around 35 per month for 500mb (more than sufficient coming from around 4mb or lower at times) from all of them afaics and most have a 12 month contract......