Eircom to roll out 1Gb/s FTTH to 66 towns

Nollog · 28-04-2015 01:06PM

damienirel wrote: »

Can you explain how it's "healthier"?

I'd imagine she meant healthier in that there's on-going works and competition here in Ireland, whereas in the US, they're busy fighting local communities in court, rather than improving their services and reacting to competition in a "healthy" way.
ie, expanding gpon, speeds, quality, etc.

bk · 28-04-2015 02:21PM

/\/ollog wrote: »

I'd imagine she meant healthier in that there's on-going works and competition here in Ireland, whereas in the US, they're busy fighting local communities in court, rather than improving their services and reacting to competition in a "healthy" way.
ie, expanding gpon, speeds, quality, etc.

That is exactly what I meant. Broadband in the US costs vastly more then here in Ireland and there is very little real competition between companies, with most areas being a monopoly or at best a cossy duopoly.

- Comcast is the largest broadband provider in the US, with 21% of the market (56% of the market for the new FCC definition of broadband being minimum 25Mb/s!)

Most people are on Comcast at about 25Mb/s which costs about €70 per month!

The highest speed Comcast offers is 150Mb/s and it costs about €100 per month!

Comcast has a 300GB cap in most of its markets!!

TWC (12.1%) and the other small cable operators offer similar packages and products.

All very unimpressive compared to the 240Mb/s for €44 offered by UPC on cable here in Ireland.

- The next largest operator is AT&T (17.2%)

They use ADSL2+ and VDSL1 FTTC similar to Eircom but it maxes out at just 45Mb/s!! And that 45Mb/s is only in selected areas, otherwise it maxes out at 18Mb/s!!! Again this comes with a 250GB cap.

That all compares very unfavourably with Eircom VDSL2 that operates at up to 100Mb/s and no cap.

- Really the only bright spot in the US broadband market is Verizon FiOS and Goggle Fiber. Verizon however only represents 9% of the US broadband market and as I pointed out earlier it is extremely expensive compared to Ireland.

Also Verizon has stopped it's FTTH rollout.

So in summary, the vast majority of people in the US are stuck on Comcast, TWC and At&T with speeds at best half what we get here in Ireland, paying at least twice what we do here in Ireland and stuck on crappy 250 to 300GB caps!

By comparison the Irish market is VERY competitive. You have UPC and Eircom competing aggressively with one another. Both UPC and Eircom have rolled out best in class technologies (Vectorised VDSL2 and EuroDOCSIS 3.0), which are much better then their equivalent companies in the US (mostly still stuck on ADSL2+/VDSL1 and DOCSIS 2.0).

You have both the ESB and Eircom about to rollout significant new FTTH networks and UPC likely poised to push DOCSIS 3.0 to it's limits, quickly followed by Gigabit DOCSIS 3.1.

And don't forget the US has no wholesale (bitsream) broadband market and LLU (Vodafone, Sky, etc.).

With the exception of rural Ireland (and rural US is no better off, I can assure you), Ireland's broadband market is much healthier.

The US broadband market is very sick, for the most part there is little competition, far too high prices and severely lagging in modern technology deployment and network investment.

This is the reason Google launched it's Google Fiber service. Google doesn't really have any interest in being a teleco, but it saw that the US broadband market was stagnating badly and has started introducing it's Gigabit fiber product to try and spur the rest of the market into action to compete with it.

bk · 28-04-2015 02:28PM

ED E wrote: »

With EuroDocsis 3.1 they really dont need to move to FTTH yet, they can do Gig on coax first. The HFC nodes area even more dense than VDSL cabs though, so if the fiber is there (have they overprovisioned as much as eircom?) then rolling out the last 100m will be easy.

I expect there will be an intermediary step where they can get more out of DOCSIS 3.0 with relatively little difficulty and investment (comparatively).

I think they can push D3.0 to at least 500Mb/s, maybe even as high 800Mb/s, by simply increasing the number of channels they use. This would require new modems for speeds over 240Mb/s, but not a massive change.

D3.1 is actually a much bigger change, the .1 is deceiving, it is more like DOCSIS 4.0 or even 10, it is such a radical change.

Certainly it would require switching off the analogue TV channels and perhaps even changing to a switched digital video (SDV) or even fully IPTV platform to get the most out of D3.1. It will be a big investment and UPC and all cable operators will need decide if they want to make this investment or jump over to FTTH.

ED E · 28-04-2015 02:41PM

They can certainly push 400-440 without any changes now. Thats what they're drip feeding to at the minute (VDSL doesnt cause any pressure to go faster). Sure business are already running 500 no?

Im aware that 3.1 is a name to try and not scare the cable ops as they got burned before. But really its not a HUGE upgrade. Ship out new CPE then swap out the CMTS over night. It can be done on a localized rolling basis.

People dont like their walls being drilled, thats a big plus for maintaining the copper.

bk · 28-04-2015 05:07PM

ED E wrote: »

They can certainly push 400-440 without any changes now. Thats what they're drip feeding to at the minute (VDSL doesnt cause any pressure to go faster). Sure business are already running 500 no?

The current DOCSIS 3.0 modems (CPE's) support 8 channels and I believe 240Mb/s is about the limit of 8 channels. Actually it is 440Mb/s in bandwidth for 8 channels, but that is shared with your neighbours, so they don't realistically advertise it as that.

I've read elsewhere that in order to do 500Mb/s in Poland, they built a new custom modem that had two chipsets in it, so it could handle 16 channels, in order to get to 500Mb/s (advertised, 880Mb/s total bandwidth shared).

Virgin Medias new Super Hub in the UK now supports 16x4 channels, so I expect UPC will eventually get the same here.

I've also read elsewhere that 24x8 channels chipsets and modems are starting to hit the market and looking at UPC's current frequency allocation, it looks like they can just about squeeze 24 channels in there. Which is why I think they can do up to 750Mb/s to 800Mb/s with D3.0.

I've even read about 32x8 channel chipsets and modems becoming available, which would get them up to 1Gb/s, but I don't think they have enough space for 32 channels, without first switching off some of the analogue channels.

ED E wrote: »

Im aware that 3.1 is a name to try and not scare the cable ops as they got burned before. But really its not a HUGE upgrade. Ship out new CPE then swap out the CMTS over night. It can be done on a localized rolling basis.

Oh it is way, way more complicated then that!

D3.1 can be phased:

Phased 1: You would at least need to switch off the analogue TV channels to give the extra space needed, D3.1 can then use this space + the D3.0 channels + new improved QAM to get speeds in the region of 1 to 2Gb/s

It would be a business decision to switch off the analogue TV channels or not.

Phase 2: You would need to switch the digital TV service to either a SDV or IPTV TV service using MPEG 4 or better for all channels. This would then free up lots more space for broadband. However doing so would entail replacing almost all the UPC TV boxes out there with new ones that could support SDV/IPTV like the Horizon boxes.

That would obviously involve a big expense.

Phase 3: Replace the coax cable and all the filters, etc. with ones that support 1.3Ghz frequencies.

That gives lots more space for bandwidth. But obviously involves massive expense of replacing cables, etc.

I can certainly see UPC going to at least D3.0 16x4 channel modems, seems like a no brainer relatively easy upgrade.

They might also push into D3.0 32x8 and/or hybrid (phase 1) D3.1 modems and switch off some or all of the analogue channels to make space for 1 to 2 Gb/s services.

However D3.1 phase 2 and 3 quickly becomes expensive and maybe the point where it starts to make more sense to start changing over to FTTH.

As for them not wanting to drill into peoples homes, another alternative that is emerging technologies, Distributed CMTS and Distributed CCAP. The idea is to basically take the CMTS/CCAP out of the headend and instead put them in the building basements and street cabinets feed by fiber. Similar to FTTC or even FTTDp, but with the benefit of much higher bandwidth available on coax. Multi giagbit speeds should be easily doable with this sort of technology, without needing to replace the cable entering peoples homes. Our friends Huawei have been developing this technology.

damienirel · 28-04-2015 07:46PM

bk wrote: »

This is the reason Google launched it's Google Fiber service. Google doesn't really have any interest in being a teleco, but it saw that the US broadband market was stagnating badly and has started introducing it's Gigabit fiber product to try and spur the rest of the market into action to compete with it.

Google make phones and tablets too have built a mobile OS they talk about driverless cars google glasses etc. Google do this as a distraction - the only business they are really in is search and advertising - I'm pretty sure the fibre product is the same as many of their distractions a way of finding out what people are searching for and trying to advertise to them.

ED E · 28-04-2015 11:53PM

Always the wealth of information BK. Will have to educate myself more on HFC once I've finished my current reading on another topic.

lucernarian · 29-04-2015 01:19AM

A little slightly off-topic point

http://snapon.lab.bufferbloat.net/~d/Presos/Cambridge_The_State_of_the_art_in_congestion_control.pdf

http://www.cablelabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Active_Queue_Management_Algorithms_DOCSIS_3_0.pdf

In the gigabit range, this is less of a priority but it's good to see a more thorough rethink on the latency issue taking root. Hopefully more ISPs take a leaf out of free.fr's book and implement the likes of FQ Codel in their routers. I've had problems with this especially on modems and routers that followed after the old Zyxel usb modems or the netopia 2247 and after much looking, getting a router that's flashable with an alternative firmware seems the main option for now.

KOR101 · 02-05-2015 10:33AM

I don't remember anyone posting this news.

Fitch Ratings has upgraded eircom Holdings (Ireland) Limited's (eircom) Long-term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to 'B' from 'B-' and assigned a Stable Outlook. At the same time the agency has upgraded the company's secured bank debt and the 9.25% senior secured bonds due 2020 to 'B+' from 'B'.

The rating upgrade reflects our view that eircom has delivered the planned transformation of its operations; that revenues look increasingly likely to stabilise and that cost initiatives will improve operating cash flows. While eircom's leveraged balance sheet is unusual for an incumbent telecom, the business transformation and stabilising revenue outlook is a significant achievement in a sector where top-line declines and margin pressure remain a risk. Plans to increase its fibre investment moderate the potential to generate positive free cash flow (FCF) and reduce leverage in the near term. Fitch now expects funds from operations (FFO) net adjusted leverage to remain flat at 5.0x-5.1x between 2015 and 2016, compared with previous expectations that deleveraging would begin in 2016. This ratio is nonetheless consistent with the leveraged telecom peer group at the 'B' rating level.

KEY RATING DRIVERS

Operational Transformation Advanced Management have, in Fitch's view, delivered on plans to transform the company's business profile. Investment in fibre is advanced with its VDSL network passing 1.1 million homes and on track to reach 1.6 million by mid-2016; more than 70% of Ireland's homes. LTE spectrum has been acquired and coverage achieved compares well with competitors The launch of its TV product in 2013 has shown good early signs of take-up and eircom remains the only operator in the market with a viable quad-play offer at present, although this will change with the launch of cable operator UPC's MVNO mobile business. While market competition - in both fixed and mobile - is high, it will, in Fitch's view, remain rational. The consolidation of Three and O2 Ireland reduces the mobile market to a three-player market and could moderate competitive pressures.

Revenue & EBITDA Increasingly Stable While year-on-year revenue trends remain negative but improving, sequential trends show increasing signs of stabilising, evident in both the fixed and mobile businesses. While market competition remains high and eircom continues to lose retail fixed accesses, it benefits from a growing wholesale business, capitalising on the depth and scope of its incumbent network, along with an improving mobile subscriber mix, ongoing cost rationalisation and improving margin trend. While the Vodafone/ESB JV's announced fibre-to-the home (FTTH) plans present medium- term risks, both in terms of Vodafone's own convergent offer and potential for an alternative wholesale offer, eircom has reacted with a similarly dimensioned FTTH target and, in our view, is likely to deliver its plan sooner than the JV. Capex Remains High, FCF Constrained Eircom has announced plans for an FTTH network covering 500,000 homes - in Fitch's view a defensive reaction to the Vodafone/ESB JV. The advanced stage of eircom's fibre to the cabinet build - already passing 1.1 million homes - and the use of a single network supplier suggest that eircom is in a good position to install deep levels of fibre more rapidly than the JV; the latter is only expected to start network construction in 2H15. Eircom conversely expects to launch FTTH commercially in August 2015. Increased investment will, however, impact eircom's FCF in both 2015 and 2016 at least, and likely to result in higher levels of spend than we had previously assumed. Our base case now does not envisage a mid-to-high single FCF margin till 2017, one year later than previously expected. Medium-term Deleveraging Higher capex spend over the next two to three years will constrain FCF with modest deleveraging now not expected in our base case till 2017. Higher capex is nonetheless in Fitch's view a necessary defensive action, which under eircom's previous private equity ownership it was unable to do. In a fairly small but competitive market we feel that network investment, which should ultimately lead to a better customer experience (and wholesale offer), is important. Fitch does not view a potentially flat leverage profile between 2015 and 2016, as an impediment to the upgrade given the business and operational transformation that has been delivered.

KEY ASSUMPTIONS -Stabilisation of revenues in 2016 - a combination of flat fixed line and low single-digit growth in mobile -EBITDA margin stable to moderately improving, benefitting from an extensive headcount rationalisation and ongoing focus on efficiency; mobile to benefit from shift in the post-paid mix -Capex to remain high through 2017, driven by FTTH investment plans - EUR290m in 2015; remaining above EUR250m in 2016, before trending down to 15% of revenues over the longer term -Voluntary leaver and restructuring costs largely complete in 2015 -Zero dividends; IPO possible over a two-year horizon but not built into assumptions -Liquidity largely provided by cash - EUR173m at end-December 2014; company expected to be modestly FCF-positive from 2016

RATING SENSITIVITIES Positive: Future developments that could lead to positive rating action include: -FFO net adjusted leverage approaching 4.5x and expected to remain at or below this level on a sustained basis -FCF margin in the mid-to-high single digit range on a sustained basis -Ongoing revenue stability and EBITDA improvement - most likely achieved through a stabilisation of fixed key performance indicators (KPIs) and improving mobile trends Negative: Future developments that could lead to negative rating action include: -FFO net adjusted leverage approaching 5.5x with an ongoing deteriorating trend accompanied by negative FCF, which would lead to a downgrade. This would imply the stabilisation so far achieved is not sustained and/or that competition is continuing to force higher levels of capex than envisaged in our base case. Deteriorating operating trends would be a greater risk. -A material reversal in operating KPI trends - key measures being fixed access losses, overall broadband accesses and the mix in pre- and post-paid mobile customers. In our view it is important that momentum in overall (combined direct and wholesale) broadband access continues, while the shift in the post-paid mix will support further mobile margin expansion.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/04/27/idINFit92081020150427

Johnboy1951 · 02-05-2015 11:20AM

Reasonably positive and a good base to get their loans restructured ...... which should see them forge ahead with FTTH as soon as they can in order to get as much ahead of ESB/Vodafone as they can.

mobil 222 · 02-05-2015 02:15PM

http://www.mccanncablingsolutions.com/

these lads are doing lots of work down in Mayo the last 2 weeks

godskitchen · 02-05-2015 04:08PM

mobil 222 wrote: »

http://www.mccanncablingsolutions.com/

these lads are doing lots of work down in Mayo the last 2 weeks

Where abouts in mayo?

yuloni · 02-05-2015 04:44PM

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bk · 02-05-2015 05:00PM

yuloni wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Haha, yes :P

Realistically I expect it is too early to start pulling copper out of the ducts between the FTTC cabs and exchanges.

They first need to get far more people on VDSL and also probably enable voice and ADSL2+ from the cabs for those stuck on these technologies first. They are probably still a few years from decommissioning this copper.

However it absolutely makes sense to decommission trunk fiber running between exchanges when the exchange has been upgraded to fiber backhaul.

yuloni · 02-05-2015 07:09PM

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SpaceTime · 04-05-2015 12:54AM

Fibre aggregation nodes are actually quite bulky. The buildings and sites are very useful assets. It would be crazy to sell them off.

They're also useful for housing mobile network equipment, routers etc etc

It would have been a Renault transporter from Bandon ... The eircom exchanges up that way were / are all Alcatel gear.

The switching systems for a major node were like a data centre. Still are.

The eircom network will still need somewhere to connect all the fibre to. You're just replacing a copper MDF with a fibre equivalent.

yuloni · 04-05-2015 01:07AM

This post has been deleted.

SpaceTime · 04-05-2015 05:38AM

All of those networks were upgraded bit by bit over the years. There is likely older iterations of various equipment that was replaced and may never have been removed.

The idea of selling off buildings that are basically solid, secure data centres built at the centre of an underground duct network would be completely crazy though.

Hopefully we are over the insane property boom era nonsense.

Many of those buildings were built decades ago, some even almost a century ago at this stage (especially in city centres).

Outside of many central Dublin and maybe the other cities, most of them would be relatively worthless too. Certainly rural / small town exchange buildings would be totally worthless. There are loads of far more saleable buildings around!

They've been through many generations of networking equipment and will definitely be very useful for fibre.

I've seen large FTTH installations elsewhere and you most definitely do need the exchange building as in most cases they basically duplicate the old copper network with fibre. It means a lot fewer fibres but You still need somewhere to bring all the fibre back to, to funnel it into the core network, hand over data to other operators etc etc

Eircom is also stuck with copper for a long time to come too. Comreg won't let them just abandon it while it's still hosting competitive services. One of the biggest holdup on FTTC was coming up with an acceptable solution to allow multiple operations to continue to exist. One or two actually delayed the rollout or attempted to because they'd spent a lot of money on LLU.
At least with FTTH we can basically just repeat the model being used for Efibre wholesale.

Unbundling fibre services is difficult because of the network topology. It would become a lot more difficult again without exchange buildings.

Unbundling a UPC style network for example is probably nearly impossible.

That being said, LLU was a bit of a disaster in Ireland anyway because even the traditional POTS network is high distributed (lots of small local exchanges). It even runs on equipment in street cabinets in some places. More like an old-school version of Efibre cabinets.

The existing voice network will inevitably disappear though. The big shift to being a data company instead of a phone company is well underway at this stage.

Interesting few years ahead though as this stuff really starts to take off!

bk · 04-05-2015 11:07AM

I agree with SpaceTime, I don't think they will sell off most of their exchanges.

Perhaps they won't be able to resist selling off one or two exchanges in very high property value areas, like Crown Alley in Temple Bar, assuming the close by exchanges in Ship Street and the GPO can handle all the Fibre gear.

They might also be able to do deals with property developers where they continue to have exchange space in the new building, but reduced to just what they need for Fibre and with the developer using the rest of the building. For instance at Crown Alley, Eircom could use the top floor while the ground floors are redeveloped into valuable bar space.

lucernarian · 04-05-2015 03:22PM

bk wrote: »

I agree with SpaceTime, I don't think they will sell off most of their exchanges.

Perhaps they won't be able to resist selling off one or two exchanges in very high property value areas, like Crown Alley in Temple Bar, assuming the close by exchanges in Ship Street and the GPO can handle all the Fibre gear.

They might also be able to do deals with property developers where they continue to have exchange space in the new building, but reduced to just what they need for Fibre and with the developer using the rest of the building. For instance at Crown Alley, Eircom could use the top floor while the ground floors are redeveloped into valuable bar space.

Just an FYI but there's no exchange in the GPO, the North Main exchange is not far off O'Connell St. but near the pro-cathedral. I reckon the Beggar's Bush exchange could also sell for a pretty penny but it's quite a small site in comparison to even Crown Alley.

mobil 222 · 06-05-2015 08:50PM

godskitchen wrote: »

Where abouts in mayo?

Killala,ballycastle

PeadarB · 11-05-2015 03:54PM

http://pressroom.eircom.net/press_releases/article/eircom_sets_out_1gigabit_vision_for_rural_ireland/

eircom, Ireland’s largest telecommunications provider, today launched its proposed solution to the upcoming National Broadband Plan to bring best in class high-speed broadband to rural Ireland, that will use more than 90,000km of fibre optic cable. Showcasing broadband speeds of 1Gb with Fibre to the Home (FTTH) technology, a series of events took place in the small, rural farming community of Belcarra, Co Mayo to demonstrate the transformative impact the service has had on the area.

19 of the 66 towns previously mentioned will be ready to go from the end of August. ESB/Vodafone must be spooking them!!!

Johnboy1951 · 11-05-2015 04:28PM

Is the fact that they used the Balla Livestock Mart as an example, an indication that the original promise to have FTTH for all rural dwellers (not just those in larger communities and villages) is still on the table?

It seems to me that over the past while there has been little mention of individual houses/farms/etc and mostly mention of towns & villages. It looked like (to me) a pull back from that promise.

Hopefully this can be taken as an indication that those hill farmers, and others, miles from any settlement will still be able to avail of FTTH (in the long term).

PeadarB · 11-05-2015 04:58PM

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Is the fact that they used the Balla Livestock Mart as an example, an indication that the original promise to have FTTH for all rural dwellers (not just those in larger communities and villages) is still on the table?

http://www.eircomwholesale.ie/belcarra-pilot/

The new Belcarra link on the eircom wholesale page shows the application of FTTH in a rural environment, mart, farms, community centre, school etc. They say they have 1.4million poles that they can use countrywide. If each current cab has the potential to serve 640 homes/businesses with FTTH/B it seems possible. This is their pitch at the National Broadband Plan and they seem keen to play a major role in it's implementation.

BandMember · 11-05-2015 06:04PM

mobil 222 wrote: »

Killala,ballycastle

You don't happen to know what they were up to, do you? I have no faith in those areas (or a lot of Mayo) being covered by Eircom as promised. I've a feeling that they will concentrate on the bigger towns elsewhere and then everything else will be scrapped or left to wait for the Government's new NBP....

Manc Red · 11-05-2015 07:13PM

Additional transatlantic capacity being added:

Microsoft Invests In 3 Undersea Cable Projects To Improve Its Data Center Connectivity - http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/11/microsoft-invests-in-3-undersea-cable-projects-to-improve-its-data-center-connectivity/

http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/05/11/microsoft-invests-in-subsea-cables-to-connect-datacenters-globally/

Microsoft also today announced deals with Hibernia to offer faster connectivity between Canada, Ireland and the U.K., and AcquaComms to use its upcoming AEConnect cable between Shirley, NY and the West Coast of Ireland (with backhaul connections to the U.K.).

The Hibernia Express cable, the first new transatlantic cable in twelve years, will launch in September. It’s partly optimized for very low-latency operations (the promise is under 60 milliseconds between New York and London) and will be able to handle up to 10 Tbps per cable pair once it is fully operational.

ED E · 11-05-2015 07:35PM

Meh, 10Tbps, theres another route in the works for 80Tbps to cork.

MajesticDonkey · 11-05-2015 08:52PM

ED E wrote: »

Meh, 10Tbps, theres another route in the works for 80Tbps to cork.

The new AEConnect one will be 130Tbps if I'm not mistaken...

mobil 222 · 11-05-2015 09:41PM

BandMember wrote: »

You don't happen to know what they were up to, do you? I have no faith in those areas (or a lot of Mayo) being covered by Eircom as promised. I've a feeling that they will concentrate on the bigger towns elsewhere and then everything else will be scrapped or left to wait for the Government's new NBP....

Mc Canns are working for KN so the work to these exchanges are for Eircom

BandMember · 11-05-2015 09:51PM

Interesting. They're hardly rolling it out already are they? I wonder if it means that they will have the service up sooner rather than July 2016, at the earliest? No point in asking the Eircom reps here as they won't tell you or be able to tell you and the maps are a disaster...

Eircom to roll out 1Gb/s FTTH to 66 towns

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