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

ED E · 05-08-2015 01:38AM

billyduk wrote: »

How would connecting to looped fibre half a K away not improve my copper to the exchange speeds? Genuine question as I thought that running copper 500M to a fibre point instead of 1500M to a fibre point would make a marked difference.

Oh, it'd give you nice and fast VDSL alright. It just wouldnt change eircoms copper infrastructure, costs would be the same. They cant retire that until they empty the main cables entirely, thats a lonnng way off.

billyduk · 05-08-2015 01:14PM

ED E wrote: »

Oh, it'd give you nice and fast VDSL alright. It just wouldnt change eircoms copper infrastructure, costs would be the same. They cant retire that until they empty the main cables entirely, thats a lonnng way off.

Thanks for the explanation. I thought direct fed meant i was outside the POTS loop and instead piped directly to the exchange. There is a cab at the beginning and end of my road, yet only half the houses are connected to the cabs and the other half direct fed to the exchange. Just seems like they could connect the other half to the FTTC units on either end of the road and be done with the remaining 1K of what seems like redundant cabling.

I am in an area for the first round of the FTTH rollout and am a little reluctant to switch to DTX eFibre until Eircom A.) confirm (as I fully expect them to) that I will not get FTTH and B.) That my current ADSL speeds will not suffer from connecting to eFibre (which I fear they might looking at the max speed quoted of 7Mbps).

They've been surprising me lately with the FTTC rollout (except for my own DTX issue) so I hope they surprise me with the FTTH rollout.

ED E · 05-08-2015 01:35PM

What you'll have is say:
Main cable A to cabinet nearby, 500pair
Main cable B along road, not hitting cab, 200pair

So redirecting your line leads to a load of work, but that 200pair still stays there. You're the highest hanging fruit essentially.

Do not get eVDSL at 7Mb. If you have problems there's no lower profile so the line couldnt be stabilised. Stick with ADSL.

billyduk · 05-08-2015 01:43PM

ED E wrote: »

What you'll have is say:
Main cable A to cabinet nearby, 500pair
Main cable B along road, not hitting cab, 200pair

So redirecting your line leads to a load of work, but that 200pair still stays there. You're the highest hanging fruit essentially.

Do not get eVDSL at 7Mb. If you have problems there's no lower profile so the line couldnt be stabilised. Stick with ADSL.

That was my thinking alright. I am in the Douglas area which will be rolling out FTTH in round one. Although I am on a quiet enough road of mostly one-off houses, there is a medium sized estate at the start of it. My hope is that they will include my house in this. I've registered interest but don't hold much hope.

kaerobe · 05-08-2015 06:37PM

billyduk wrote: »

That was my thinking alright. I am in the Douglas area which will be rolling out FTTH in round one. Although I am on a quiet enough road of mostly one-off houses, there is a medium sized estate at the start of it. My hope is that they will include my house in this. I've registered interest but don't hold much hope.

My dad just got 7mb efibre installed last week. No improvement really. Before we got up to 12mb down. Now its 6.7mb. 1mb up. I hope his house in Carrigaline gets FTTH. Surely, houses that are currently direct fed/lower speed should be a priority?

ED E · 06-08-2015 01:02AM

kaerobe wrote: »

My dad just got 7mb efibre installed last week. No improvement really. Before we got up to 12mb down. Now its 6.7mb. 1mb up. I hope his house in Carrigaline gets FTTH. Surely, houses that are currently direct fed/lower speed should be a priority?

No.

Premises that the ESB might take are the priority. And those that are easy to upgrade. Its a land grab.

PeadarB · 06-08-2015 01:57AM

ED E wrote: »

No.

Premises that the ESB might take are the priority. And those that are easy to upgrade. Its a land grab.

It will be interesting to see this pan out. I suspect eircom are not ready to provide FTTH to those premises fed via the standard pole drops. SIRO will cover those that have ESB mini pillars which in the case of Letterkenny could be 40 to 50% of properties. There is absolutely no sign that I've seen of any ESB activity around Letterkenny, though there seems to be a lot of their vehicles around the town of late. MCS seem to have wrapped up and the presence of KN and eircom vehicles has increased. Not long now, one way or another.

ED E · 06-08-2015 09:54AM

PeadarB wrote: »

It will be interesting to see this pan out. I suspect eircom are not ready to provide FTTH to those premises fed via the standard pole drops. SIRO will cover those that have ESB mini pillars which in the case of Letterkenny could be 40 to 50% of properties. There is absolutely no sign that I've seen of any ESB activity around Letterkenny, though there seems to be a lot of their vehicles around the town of late. MCS seem to have wrapped up and the presence of KN and eircom vehicles has increased. Not long now, one way or another.

That I've seen and reported here it would appear eircom are a good few months ahead of SIRO in beginning their rollout. Having 9000x20 GPON cores laid at the access level helps there.

Whatever happens, I expect things to really kick off soon when both sides get going.

Nollog · 06-08-2015 11:04AM

PeadarB wrote: »

It will be interesting to see this pan out. I suspect eircom are not ready to provide FTTH to those premises fed via the standard pole drops. SIRO will cover those that have ESB mini pillars which in the case of Letterkenny could be 40 to 50% of properties. There is absolutely no sign that I've seen of any ESB activity around Letterkenny, though there seems to be a lot of their vehicles around the town of late. MCS seem to have wrapped up and the presence of KN and eircom vehicles has increased. Not long now, one way or another.

mhm, not a day goes by where I don't see an esb or kn/eircom van around.

TheDoc · 06-08-2015 11:23AM

While it's interesting to see Eircom doing this, can only imagine UPC will rock up shortly with another free upgrade, or get those speeds quickly enough themselves.

Am I wrong in their infrastructure being able to go WAY beyond their current profiles? There was work been done on the exchange(which just so happens to be opposite side of the road to me) a while back, and ran a speedtest for the craic and was getting in excess of 600mbps. Dno if it was a speedtest.net glitch, or if UPc can just up the ante when they see fit.

Don't think any speed from Eircom could get me back to them after all the horrible experiences I've had, not to mention their robbery pricing for areas they just can't be arsed to enable good broadband into, on top of their buckling to court orders and their three strike rule.

Will follow with interest, but moreso just to see if it kicks UPC into giving a free bump or offering a mega package.

ED E · 06-08-2015 11:55AM

TheDoc wrote: »

While it's interesting to see Eircom doing this, can only imagine UPC will rock up shortly with another free upgrade, or get those speeds quickly enough themselves.

Am I wrong in their infrastructure being able to go WAY beyond their current profiles? There was work been done on the exchange(which just so happens to be opposite side of the road to me) a while back, and ran a speedtest for the craic and was getting in excess of 600mbps. Dno if it was a speedtest.net glitch, or if UPc can just up the ante when they see fit.

Don't think any speed from Eircom could get me back to them after all the horrible experiences I've had, not to mention their robbery pricing for areas they just can't be arsed to enable good broadband into, on top of their buckling to court orders and their three strike rule.

Will follow with interest, but moreso just to see if it kicks UPC into giving a free bump or offering a mega package.

UPC can do ~400Mbps per modem with current tech. If they swap modems out and change the units in local nodes (CMTS) to EURODOCSIS3.1 then they can do 1Gbps per modem. UPC wins in areas they're in, only customers they dont get are ones theyve scorned and those with Sky TV.

These rollouts arent really to compete with UPC though, their footprint is only ~800k premises of over ~2Mil IIRC. Its all the users currently on ADSL/VDSL/FWA/3&4G that the FTTH rollouts will be mopping up.

Geuze · 06-08-2015 12:55PM

I haven't read all this thread, but I wish to make a comment that probably has already been said.

I see signs in my town asking people to register interest for FTTH, up to 1,000 mb speeds mentioned on billboard.

Great.

However, what I would prefer is cheaper FTTC / VDSL broadband.

I pay 48 pm for eFibre + line rental + free off-peak landline calls + 30mins to mobiles.

I see deals advertised abroad much cheaper.

I'd prefer to pay 30-35 pm, probably not going to happen, but just thought I'd make that point.

Geuze · 06-08-2015 12:57PM

Also, if you give me a Ferrari, I am still limited to 120 kph on an Irish motorway.

At the moment, I am faster than the broadband, i.e. I can open and switch between multiple tabs in browser, but I must pause to wait for screens to load. I have 40-50mb eFibre.

So it might be the case that it's the computer that's the bottleneck, not the broadband.

bk · 06-08-2015 01:26PM

TheDoc wrote: »

While it's interesting to see Eircom doing this, can only imagine UPC will rock up shortly with another free upgrade, or get those speeds quickly enough themselves.

UPC already offer 500Mb/s in Poland, just as a pointer.

Geuze wrote: »

However, what I would prefer is cheaper FTTC / VDSL broadband.

I totally understand and agree that there is a place for cheaper products in the market.

However, it is in the various companies interest to keep prices up around €50 rather then see the prices drop and thus cut into their margins.

That is why they tend to try and justify keeping prices up by giving "free" speed upgrades, etc.

It isn't all bad news, while I expect prices to continue to stay around the €40 to 50 mark, we will increasingly get more included in that, faster speeds, free TV, mobile phone service bundled in, etc.

What would change that is competition between Eircom, UPC and Siro. I think at the moment they are all more interested in investing in new FTTH technology, but when that settles down, then I expect we will see some cheaper prices.

One thing to consider is that FTTC isn't necessarily cheaper then FTTH in the long term! The cost of maintaining copper plant is vastly higher then FTTH. So over a 10 year period FTTH actually works out cheaper. Therefore there would be little appetite from Eircom to offer FTTC/VDSL as a cheaper option. Quiet the opposite, they will want to move as many customers possible from it as quickly as possible and remove the copper plant, so that they have to only maintain one network rather then two!

bk · 06-08-2015 02:02PM

I would say that the prices we pay here in Ireland are roughly in line with other EU countries.

That is a big improvement compared to where we were just 5 years ago. 5 years ago we paid absolutely horrendous prices for very slow and inadequate broadband. Today, at least in urban Ireland, we now have better then the EU average (but not the best) broadband available to most people, at prices that are roughly average (but again not the best) compared to the rest of Europe.

Above average speeds and average prices might not sound great, but it is a revolution compared to what we had just 5 years ago and unimaginable then.

Looking are at the pricing in Europe, you will find that in Poland they pay roughly half of what we pay, but then you have to consider that they own roughly 3 to 4 times less then what we earn, so as a percentage of their income it is much more expensive then us.

Likewise you will see some good deals around €30 in countries like Spain and France, but again, while not as extreme as the Polish example, they also tend to earn less then we do, so taking that into account, I'd guess the prices as a percentage of earnings would be about the same.

Better to compare us with the UK and other Northern European companies with more similar earnings and from that perspective we are looking pretty good, for example:

- UPC Ireland, 240Mb/s €45
- UPC Holland (Ziggo), 200Mb/s €54
- Virgin Media UK (owned by UPC), 158Mb/s, €58.50
- UPC Austria, 250Mb/s, €60
- UPC Switzerland, 200Mb/s, €83 !!!!

So as you see above we really aren't doing too badly. Roughly middle of the field when you include countries like France and Spain.

Of course it could be better, I would like to see some more "good enough" products around the €30 mark. But to be honest, I think there is a higher priority first, to get high quality broadband to rural Ireland.

Geuze · 06-08-2015 02:34PM

bk wrote: »

I would say that the prices we pay here in Ireland are roughly in line with other EU countries.

http://www.uswitch.com/broadband/compare/broadband_and_home_phone/

UK deals, e.g. Virgin 50mb bb + phone for 21stg pm for 8 months, then 34.50 for 4 months

So 25.50 stg pm across 12 months, or under 37 euro. I pay 48 here.

Geuze · 06-08-2015 02:39PM

bk wrote: »

I totally understand and agree that there is a place for cheaper products in the market.

However, it is in the various companies interest to keep prices up around €50 rather then see the prices drop and thus cut into their margins.

That is why they tend to try and justify keeping prices up by giving "free" speed upgrades, etc.

It isn't all bad news, while I expect prices to continue to stay around the €40 to 50 mark, we will increasingly get more included in that, faster speeds, free TV, mobile phone service bundled in, etc.

What would change that is competition between Eircom, UPC and Siro. I think at the moment they are all more interested in investing in new FTTH technology, but when that settles down, then I expect we will see some cheaper prices.

One thing to consider is that FTTC isn't necessarily cheaper then FTTH in the long term! The cost of maintaining copper plant is vastly higher then FTTH. So over a 10 year period FTTH actually works out cheaper. Therefore there would be little appetite from Eircom to offer FTTC/VDSL as a cheaper option. Quiet the opposite, they will want to move as many customers possible from it as quickly as possible and remove the copper plant, so that they have to only maintain one network rather then two!

I accept your points.

A question, with full FTTH, you suggest that the existing copper lines will eventually be pulled out of the ground altogether?

So a whole estate or district could be served by new fibre from cabinets to each house, with all copper gone?

bk · 06-08-2015 02:52PM

Geuze wrote: »

http://www.uswitch.com/broadband/compare/broadband_and_home_phone/

UK deals, e.g. Virgin 50mb bb + phone for 21stg pm for 8 months, then 34.50 for 4 months

So 25.50 stg pm across 12 months, or under 37 euro. I pay 48 here.

But that is only an introductory offer, you aren't comparing like with like.

The ongoing cost is £34.50, which is €49 and it only gives you 50Mb/s BB and free calls at the weekend.

If you want to compare introductory offers:

- Virgin, 50Mb/s BB + weekend calls, £25.50 or €37 per month over 12 months
- UPC, 240Mb/s BB + unlimited anytime calls, €35 per month over 12 months *

* ((25 × 6) + (45 × 6)) / 12 = 35

After the 12 months, ongoing costs are

- Virgin, 50Mb/s BB + weekend calls, €49
- UPC, 240Mb/s BB + unlimited anytime calls, €45

So no matter what way you look at it, UPC Ireland gives you broadband which is 5 times faster and free antyime calls and 400 international minutes and is still €2 to €4 per month cheaper!!!

I'll take UPC Ireland any day.

ED E · 06-08-2015 03:02PM

Don't let Impetus see that or he'll have a heart attack.

bk · 06-08-2015 03:03PM

Geuze wrote: »

A question, with full FTTH, you suggest that the existing copper lines will eventually be pulled out of the ground altogether?

So a whole estate or district could be served by new fibre from cabinets to each house, with all copper gone?

Yes, that is correct. I'm certain the long term plan would be to switch everyone over to fiber and actually remove the copper where it is easy to do so.

Recycled copper is actually very valuable, so removing it can actually help with paying for rolling out the FTTH.

Rolling out FTTH has a high upfront cost (but no higher then rolling out new copper), but the ongoing maintenance costs are incredibly low compared to copper. FTTH doesn't require any active electrical devices in the field, as it is passive, which greatly reduces maintenance costs. Also FTTH cable tends to handle extreme weather, water, etc. much better then copper.

I've seen reports that say you pay back the cost of rolling out FTTH in just 10 years due to the lower operating and maintenance costs. Both note you only gain this benefit if you switch off the copper network as quickly as possible.

So once Eircom decide to rollout a FTTH network, then it is in their interest to get as many people on it as fast as possible and switch off the copper network as fast as possible.

ED E · 06-08-2015 03:07PM

@BK: Does a VOIP ATA with geographic numbers qualify for the USO? Could eircom wholesale force end users off PSTN loops to an optical based VOIP line?

The Cush · 06-08-2015 03:17PM

Geuze wrote: »

A question, with full FTTH, you suggest that the existing copper lines will eventually be pulled out of the ground altogether?

So a whole estate or district could be served by new fibre from cabinets to each house, with all copper gone?

bk wrote: »

Yes, that is correct. I'm certain the long term plan would be to switch everyone over to fiber and actually remove the copper where it is easy to do so.

Comreg plan to publish a consultation, in the second half of 2015, to consider the dual operation of copper and fibre platforms as well as a potential transition from copper to fibre access networks.

http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg1557.pdf (sec. 2.4 Transition from copper to fibre access networks)

bk · 06-08-2015 03:18PM

ED E wrote: »

@BK: Does a VOIP ATA with geographic numbers qualify for the USO? Could eircom wholesale force end users off PSTN loops to an optical based VOIP line?

That is the million dollar question!

I'm not sure if the current USO rules would allow them to switch off the PSTN network, even with VOIP.

However I expect that Comreg will review the USO requirements and that as long as Eircom makes the necessary steps to mitigate inconvenience to their customers and continues to offer FTTH wholesale in the same way they do ADSL, then I'd expect Comreg will be pretty quick to change the rules, as really it would benefit everyone.

The only ones who might throw a spanner in this are BT, and other LLU operators, who probably want to continue to milk their ADSL2+ LLU customers.

But I expect in the short term with the success of VDSL, that they won't have many of those customers left and it will likely hit a point where it wouldn't be worth objecting. I certainly expect they would try and slow it down, in particular Vodafone, who would want to give SIRO a leg up, but in the long term it won't matter.

ED E · 06-08-2015 03:28PM

The one thing I could see really holding it up is medi-alert units/providers. PSTN operates just fine during a power outage but an ONT will drop offline. Not that many of them out there, but they are life saving.

Avada · 06-08-2015 03:37PM

ED E wrote: »

The one thing I could see really holding it up is medi-alert units/providers. PSTN operates just fine during a power outage but an ONT will drop offline. Not that many of them out there, but they are life saving.

Surely including a gsm back up could alleviate that problem in 99% of cases.

ED E · 06-08-2015 03:43PM

Avada wrote: »

Surely including a gsm back up could alleviate that problem in 99% of cases.

You'd be surprised how many blackspots there are in rural areas. These kind of services like the reliability of the PSTN network.

Avada · 06-08-2015 03:46PM

ED E wrote: »

You'd be surprised how many blackspots there are in rural areas. These kind of services like the reliability of the PSTN network.

That is true, would battery back up in the router keep voice services up on a fibre line in the event of a power outage? Obviously an outage affecting the exchange or cabinet would cause it to go down anyway, but that can happen with PSTN.

ED E · 06-08-2015 03:49PM

Avada wrote: »

That is true, would battery back up in the router keep voice services up on a fibre line in the event of a power outage? Obviously an outage affecting the exchange or cabinet would cause it to go down anyway, but that can happen with PSTN.

Exchanges have telecoms batteries, gives them 6hrs+ of uptime AFAIK.

Could do it for ONTs and Routers, but it'd be a messier setup to add a UPS there. Suppose it could be done ad-hoc though.

Avada · 06-08-2015 03:54PM

ED E wrote: »

Exchanges have telecoms batteries, gives them 6hrs+ of uptime AFAIK.

Could do it for ONTs and Routers, but it'd be a messier setup to add a UPS there. Suppose it could be done ad-hoc though.

Battery back up provided if customer has medical pendant or something? Same way that customer is prioritised for repair if they have a medical pendant and have a voice fault on their line.

bk · 06-08-2015 03:56PM

ED E wrote: »

Exchanges have telecoms batteries, gives them 6hrs+ of uptime AFAIK.

Could do it for ONTs and Routers, but it'd be a messier setup to add a UPS there. Suppose it could be done ad-hoc though.

Verizon have battery backup for their FTTH service (FiOS) in the US. 8 hours standby, 4 hours talk time.

As you say, probably best just to supply a UPS for the relatively small number of people who use such services.

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

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