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Eir rural FTTH thread III
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If they are just installing fibre, you likely do not have any distribution points installed yet. There is a fixed chain of events.
Prep work on chambers or poles > ducting > fibre cable > splicing/DP installation.
The KN guy showed you a map. Unless you saw the DP in the chamber or on a pole assume it is not there yet. You could be a few weeks to a few months away from going live at this stage.
Do any of the parts above have to be done BEFORE they blow in the fibre? Because that's what they were doing today - blowing fibre into the estate.0 -
Duncan Thoughtless Quota wrote: »Do any of the parts above have to be done BEFORE they blow in the fibre? Because that's what they were doing today - blowing fibre into the estate.
Yes, the list I gave is chronological. So prep before duct before fibre. From the image you posted though it looks like a relatively recent development so chambers are likely fine and need no remedial work. Ducting may have been done previously or is being done today with the fibre.
Did they tell you they are blowing fibre or are you assuming it? Is there a large black reel of cable the are using?0 -
Yes, the list I gave is chronological. So prep before duct before fibre. From the image you posted though it looks like a relatively recent development so chambers are likely fine and need no remedial work. Ducting may have been done previously or is being done today with the fibre.
Did they tell you they are blowing fibre or are you assuming it? Is there a large black reel of cable the are using?
I saw some KN guys with a black reel of wire up in the village itself but didn't see it with the 2 (different guys) at the end of our estate.
I stopped and asked the ones in our estate if they were installing fibre to the home and they said "we're blowing the fibre, it'll have to be spliced next so you're looking at 6 weeks until you can buy it".
A friend of mine was down talking to them in the estate as well, said he saw and checked that there was a distribution point underground so that's good. Although he did say that the engineer said it would only do 6 houses. I can't imagine a situation where they don't install enough DPs to service the whole estate?0 -
Duncan Thoughtless Quota wrote: »I saw some KN guys with a black reel of wire up in the village itself but didn't see it with the 2 (different guys) at the end of our estate.
I stopped and asked the ones in our estate if they were installing fibre to the home and they said "we're blowing the fibre, it'll have to be spliced next so you're looking at 6 weeks until you can buy it".
A friend of mine was down talking to them in the estate as well, said he saw and checked that there was a distribution point underground so that's good. Although he did say that the engineer said it would only do 6 houses. I can't imagine a situation where they don't install enough DPs to service the whole estate?
There would be more than one distribution point in various chambers around the estate. The whole estate should be covered.
I'd take the six weeks with a pinch of salt though the exchange area you are in, Headford, is already live so that may be in your favour for a timely connection.0 -
If they are just installing fibre, you likely do not have any distribution points installed yet. There is a fixed chain of events.
Prep work on chambers or poles > ducting > fibre cable > splicing/DP installation.
The KN guy showed you a map. Unless you saw the DP in the chamber or on a pole assume it is not there yet. You could be a few weeks to a few months away from going live at this stage.
if there is black cable with yellow writing on it spooled against a pole does it mean the fiber is inside that ready for splicing/dp?0 -
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if there is black cable with yellow writing on it spooled against a pole does it mean the fiber is inside that ready for splicing/dp?
Black "cable" with yellow writing sounds like duct although I'd need to see a close picture to be sure. If it is duct there would obviously need to be cable (about 8mm diameter) emerging from it before splicing could take place. Fibre cable will usually be marked as such along its length. OpenEir was using Acome cable. I'm not sure if they still are.0 -
Black "cable" with yellow writing sounds like duct although I'd need to see a close picture to be sure. If it is duct there would obviously need to be cable (about 8mm diameter) emerging from it before splicing could take place. Fibre cable will usually be marked as such along its length. OpenEir was using Acome cable. I'm not sure if they still are.
its the black/yellow cable in this pic thats spooled on several poles near me, i assume the blue cable is straw duct but still wondering if fiber is inside this black/yellow cable hanging off the pole or does it still need to be blown into it0 -
There would be more than one distribution point in various chambers around the estate. The whole estate should be covered.
I'd take the six weeks with a pinch of salt though the exchange area you are in, Headford, is already live so that may be in your favour for a timely connection.
Yeah fingers crossed!
Taking everything with a pinch of salt until I see a modem in my house and a speed test of close to 1gb...
Until then I'm just telling myself it will all fall through.0 -
There would be more than one distribution point in various chambers around the estate. The whole estate should be covered.
I'd take the six weeks with a pinch of salt though the exchange area you are in, Headford, is already live so that may be in your favour for a timely connection.
Just spotted this, I'm also based in Headford although a different estate the other side of the town.
How do you know/mean by that Headford is already live? Word has got round my own estate that Fibre is being installed in the other estate so I think more people are asking "what about us" now with a local TD also involved. As far as I know, only the first few houses at the top of our estate receive speeds of "max 30Mb" while everyone else is below 15Mb. So VDSL but too far from the exchange to get any proper speed.For what its worth, both estates were/still are in the NBI intervention scheme.
As far as I know, there is no work done at all in our estate, but im wondering what are the chances we will get some progress on this now that another estate in the town has been sorted?
I have a kindling of hope Eir might just decide to do ours while they are at it?0 -
its the black/yellow cable in this pic thats spooled on several poles near me, i assume the blue cable is straw duct but still wondering if fiber is inside this black/yellow cable hanging off the pole or does it still need to be blown into it
They are both types of duct. There is no fibre cable in either of those images. When fibre is installed in the black/yellow duct you'll notice new galvanised covers on the poles that will cover the duct. Then DPs are then installed and you wait for a live date.0 -
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Just spotted this, I'm also based in Headford although a different estate the other side of the town.
How do you know/mean by that Headford is already live? Word has got round my own estate that Fibre is being installed in the other estate so I think more people are asking "what about us" now with a local TD also involved. As far as I know, only the first few houses at the top of our estate receive speeds of "max 30Mb" while everyone else is below 15Mb. So VDSL but too far from the exchange to get any proper speed.For what its worth, both estates were/still are in the NBI intervention scheme.
As far as I know, there is no work done at all in our estate, but im wondering what are the chances we will get some progress on this now that another estate in the town has been sorted?
I have a kindling of hope Eir might just decide to do ours while they are at it?
I don't know the area at all. I just looked at the NBP map and there are several hundred premises in the exchange area live. I assumed, perhaps mistakenly, that bananasoup was along one of these routes. I can't tell you what Eir's plans for your estate are, unfortunately.0 -
I don't know the area at all. I just looked at the NBP map and there are several hundred premises in the exchange area live. I assumed, perhaps mistakenly, that bananasoup was along one of these routes. I can't tell you what Eir's plans for your estate are, unfortunately.
A lot of the red marked places in the town are on FTTC and have 30mb+
The rest of us are stuck too far from the exchange to get any decent speed.
Some of the red marked places outside of town are already on FTTH.
We were kind of stuck somewhere in between, no FTTC and no FTTH but for whatever reason we had DPs in the estate already which must have been installed months ago but for whatever reason never used until now/soonish...0 -
Yeah what Bananasoup said. There is FTTC available in the middle of the town (houses marked red on the NBI map). A couple of smaller estates around this area can get FTTC speeds of 50, 60, 70 Mb.
The two main estates of the town are on the edges of this, my own afaik is connected to this cabinet but due to distance, speeds are showing as max 15Mb on availability checkers such as Airwire and Vodafone so it worthless. Vodafone even refused to switch me over to VDSL as they said there is no difference in speeds from what im currently getting.
Now that one estate is getting Fibre rolled out off the back of chasing it up with TD's etc, I'm hoping my own estate will follow route.
FTTH on the main road is available 500M outside of the town, but pretty sure there is zero work done to have my estate ready hence my lack of optimism. Another worry I have is that the entrance to my estate is relatively old. Newer houses came along at a later date so initial entry may need additional work.
I was told by a KN engineer who recently fixed an issue I had, that Headford is an easy install if they ever bother to go ahead with it. Seems like he was right so far with the quick turn around on Bananasoups estate. Literally within days KN were installing DP's for them.0 -
Hopefully my parents will be connected to the Eir rural fibre rollout soon. My Dad will probably go with Vodafone. Can anyone here confirm that Vodafone will give a personal IPv4 address (dynamic is perfectly fine) or do they now just give IPv6 addresses?0
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Hopefully my parents will be connected to the Eir rural fibre rollout soon. My Dad will probably go with Vodafone. Can anyone here confirm that Vodafone will give a personal IPv4 address (dynamic is perfectly fine) or do they now just give IPv6 addresses?
I'm using Vodafone ftth and speed test shows an ip4 external IP address. Haven't checked to see how often it changes but AFAIK it's dynamic.0 -
So just contacted eir because contract is up this week.. they quoted me 72 euro for a 24 month contract for 1gig
66 euro for 500 meg also 24 month contract.... pretty sure i'm gonna be leaving eir... scandalous pricing and it's available to others for 55 a month but only new customers.0 -
So just contacted eir because contract is up this week.. they quoted me 72 euro for a 24 month contract for 1gig
66 euro for 500 meg also 24 month contract.... pretty sure i'm gonna be leaving eir... scandalous pricing and it's available to others for 55 a month but only new customers.
What's scandalous, their business plan is very transparent.0 -
So just contacted eir because contract is up this week.. they quoted me 72 euro for a 24 month contract for 1gig
66 euro for 500 meg also 24 month contract.... pretty sure i'm gonna be leaving eir... scandalous pricing and it's available to others for 55 a month but only new customers.
How did you contact them?
We have been hours on the phone only to be cut off when the rep answers.
We will be looking to leave ASAP.0 -
So just contacted eir because contract is up this week.. they quoted me 72 euro for a 24 month contract for 1gig
66 euro for 500 meg also 24 month contract.... pretty sure i'm gonna be leaving eir... scandalous pricing and it's available to others for 55 a month but only new customers.
Continue to request cancellation. The retentions team were able to offer me 1gb and phone for 39 today as my contract was up.0 -
Kencollins wrote: »Continue to request cancellation. The retentions team were able to offer me 1gb and phone for 39 today as my contract was up.
Did you have to ask for the 'retention' team or were you put through from someone else?0 -
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How did you contact them?
We have been hours on the phone only to be cut off when the rep answers.
We will be looking to leave ASAP.
Spent 1 full hour on hold and got throughKencollins wrote: »Continue to request cancellation. The retentions team were able to offer me 1gb and phone for 39 today as my contract was up.
never tried this , might give it a go, although i'll have to spend at least another hour on hold0 -
I think questions need to be asked of Airwire as to why they are giving misleading information to customers, blaming the OpenEir network when the issue is likely to be the interconnect that Airwire has into the OpenEir network.
Shoddy behaviour.
I had reached out to Martin a month ago with a link to the discussion and I have PM'd him a few times and no reply.
I understand boards is not the Airwire support fora, but I think as the fora is used it would have been nice to have some feedback and explanation on this.0 -
Kencollins wrote: »Continue to request cancellation. The retentions team were able to offer me 1gb and phone for 39 today as my contract was up.
Thats very good. How long did you have to agree to contract for and for now long will it stay at €39 before increasing?0 -
I think questions need to be asked of Airwire as to why they are giving misleading information to customers, blaming the OpenEir network when the issue is likely to be the interconnect that Airwire has into the OpenEir network.
Shoddy behaviour.
We have 5 geographically diverse interconnects with OpenEIR and none of them are even half loaded nor is our backbone network.
The issues with not achieving Gbit/s speeds are limited to 3 exchanges, we have seen it on so far and are a problem within OpenEIRs infrastructure. So either with the exchange itself or with the bandwidth out. As it isn't an uncontended product, this can't be contested with them.
You have to understand, that different operators also connect differently with OpenEIR. Wherever a operator has a direct connection to the exchange and it's sub-exchanges, the only place contention could happen is within the distribution cluster.
But if the connection is delivered via bitstream, so it traverses a good portion of OpenEIRs network, then the only thing we can do, is to try and move the traffic from said exchange to another interconnect and see, if that sorts out the bandwidth issues. Something that we have done on regular basis both to mitigate contention issues, but also improve latency in some cases. It also allows us to deal with network breakages within OpenEIRs network.
For a provider for that for example entirely relies on bitstream and only lets say picks up their connections from OpenEIR in Dublin, that wouldn't be possible.
And with the start of the lock down, traffic volumes have gone from 3-10 fold.
Either way, that's just a bit insight into how things work from our side. We wouldn't say, that it's contention at the exchange, if we hadn't done plenty of testing first and seen a common denominator. And yes, if you go with a provider, that has their interconnect directly to that exchange, then that problem may get solved.0 -
Airwire: MartinL wrote: »We have 5 geographically diverse interconnects with OpenEIR and none of them are even half loaded nor is our backbone network.
The issues with not achieving Gbit/s speeds are limited to 3 exchanges, we have seen it on so far and are a problem within OpenEIRs infrastructure. So either with the exchange itself or with the bandwidth out. As it isn't an uncontended product, this can't be contested with them.
You have to understand, that different operators also connect differently with OpenEIR. Wherever a operator has a direct connection to the exchange and it's sub-exchanges, the only place contention could happen is within the distribution cluster.
But if the connection is delivered via bitstream, so it traverses a good portion of OpenEIRs network, then the only thing we can do, is to try and move the traffic from said exchange to another interconnect and see, if that sorts out the bandwidth issues. Something that we have done on regular basis both to mitigate contention issues, but also improve latency in some cases. It also allows us to deal with network breakages within OpenEIRs network.
For a provider for that for example entirely relies on bitstream and only lets say picks up their connections from OpenEIR in Dublin, that wouldn't be possible.
And with the start of the lock down, traffic volumes have gone from 3-10 fold.
Either way, that's just a bit insight into how things work from our side. We wouldn't say, that it's contention at the exchange, if we hadn't done plenty of testing first and seen a common denominator. And yes, if you go with a provider, that has their interconnect directly to that exchange, then that problem may get solved.
Can you name the three exchanges where you claim there are issues?
Why are you accepting orders for a gigabit service in exchanges where you know there may be issues in delivering the full bandwidth of the product?
Will you allow the user limnam, if they so wish, to break their contract with you without penalty so that they could move to an ISP that can provide a gigabit service?0 -
Can you name the three exchanges where you claim there are issues?
Castleconnell is one of them. I'd need to check with the support guys, which the other ones are.Why are you accepting orders for a gigabit service in exchanges where you know there may be issues in delivering the full bandwidth of the product?
We are very CLEARLY stating, that it's a potentially contended product. Something most of the other providers don't do. Please go to http://www.airwire.ie/ftth and check. It says "All our packages are at a maximum of 16:1 contention."Will you allow the user limnam, if they so wish, to break their contract with you without penalty so that they could move to an ISP that can provide a gigabit service?
We are also bound by a contract term with OpenEIR for each and every connection we order for our customers, which incurs a penalty for the full term, even if the customer goes to another provider on the same line. And we have already paid openeir more for the installation and our supplier for the router, than the customer pays us for the installation fee.
So would that be fair to us, when we are extremely honest and upfront about the product, that we sell ?
We do permit customers though to downgrade their package within their contract term. No problems there.0 -
Have to say Martin, it's really refreshing to see an ISP being honest with customers and having such good customer care.
Not many ISP's would be so active on a forum and answering customer questions, fair dues0 -
Martin and airwire were able to get my address added to the fibre network database after it was removed when the area went live.
No other provided was even bothered to try.
Airwire will get the business of my friends and family wherever they provide a service.
Keep up the great work0 -
Airwire: MartinL wrote: »Castleconnell is one of them. I'd need to check with the support guys, which the other ones are.
Please post the others when you manage to find out their identities.We are very CLEARLY stating, that it's a potentially contended product. Something most of the other providers don't do. Please go to http://www.airwire.ie/ftth and check. It says "All our packages are at a maximum of 16:1 contention."
Perhaps other operators don't use contention ratios because in the words of another senior forum member who, I believe, runs his own ISPoscarBravo wrote: »No. Contention ratio is a meaningless number. Nobody in the industry ever talks about it. Networks are designed and managed (by decent ISPs) to avoid congestion.
The wholesale provider monitors the DSLAMs and OLTs to make sure that individual ports don't regularly exceed a given percentage of their capacity. Backhaul networks are similarly monitored, and any link that shows signs of reaching capacity is scheduled for upgrade.
At least, that's the theory. No competent ISP - wholesale or retail - lets congestion affect customer experience and just ignores it because it fits within the parameters of a notional contention ratio.We are also bound by a contract term with OpenEIR for each and every connection we order for our customers, which incurs a penalty for the full term, even if the customer goes to another provider on the same line. And we have already paid openeir more for the installation and our supplier for the router, than the customer pays us for the installation fee.
So would that be fair to us, when we are extremely honest and upfront about the product, that we sell ?
We do permit customers though to downgrade their package within their contract term. No problems there.
I think if the customer is happy to downgrade and stay in contract with you that is fine but if the customer wants to leave and source elsewhere the product that they had originally ordered from you, that you can no longer supply, then they should be let leave without penalty. None of this is the customer's fault.
If you wish to hide behind notional contention ratios that is your prerogative but others should be aware of the potential consequences of ordering gigabit products from your company.0 -
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Perhaps other operators don't use contention ratios because in the words of another senior forum member who, I believe, runs his own ISP
Other operators use "uncongested" or "unlimited", but then have a fair use policy in their terms, where they either specify the limit or not. And the fair use policy then allows them to deal with it.
At the end of the day, it's very simple: try to get a quote for the price of 1 Gbit/s uncontended carrier grade internet backhaul in a data centre. You will find, that unless you buy a lot of volume, one of the cheapest will come in around 900-1000 EUR/month + VAT. You then need to pay for the rack in the data centre, the cross-connects, the fibre from the data centre to your interconnect, if it is not in the same datacentre and for the last mile, which is OpenEIR and then the wholesale pricing plus traffic charges from OpenEIR to deliver that last mile.
Calculate based on that, how big the contention in fact is (for each provider), when you compare that retail price to the cost of delivering the connection.
And yes, in normal times, contention should not even be an issue. But that rapidly changed at the start of the lock down. So we are glad, that we did indeed specify it.I think if the customer is happy to downgrade and stay in contract with you that is fine but if the customer wants to leave and source elsewhere the product that they had originally ordered from you, that you can no longer supply, then they should be let leave without penalty. None of this is the customer's fault.
If you wish to hide behind notional contention ratios that is your prerogative but others should be aware of the potential consequences of ordering gigabit products from your company.
Again. Take my comment above. We deliver exactly, what we promise and have specified within our products web page. Nothing less.
So saying, this is a product, that we no longer supply is not correct.
You have expectations here, that are completely beyond of what the specification of the product promises.
If you wanted guaranteed contention free 1 Gbit/s internet, then you need to order an Option 1 NGN circuit and carrier grade internet connected to that. Pricing of that would be in the order of 3000 to 4000 EUR/month + VAT.
And show me, where we are hiding anything. It is all clearly laid out in one product page.
Gbit/s FTTH is a disaster for most internet providers. Most end users hardware can't even utilize it. Most services on the internet can not deliver the speeds to utilize the connection. None of that is the fault of the provider.
And the provider can not predict either, when OpenEIR is going to get contention issues at an exchange and what the timeframe is for them to remedy that. Most exchanges only have 1 or 2 x 10 Gbit/s uplink. If you have multiple clusters of 31 customers hanging of these exchanges, of which these clusters also each have less capacity than 31 x 1 Gbit/s FTTH would consume at full throttle, then make the maths. FTTH is not a contention free product. It is consumer grade internet, where top speeds may not be achieved at times or for periods. It is priced accordingly.
With the bandwidth usage, that we currently are seeing, contention is happening sooner than later. And for some internet providers worse. Especially for connections outside of Ireland and the UK. There is a reason that Netflix and Youtube had to downscale the streams, they are delivering.
We fortunately tend to overengineer our network, so we don't see a lot of it, but we can not fix contention that is outside of our network, be it caused by consumer hardware, last mile networks or upstream. So we specified it .. very clearly .. and not in some small print.
Yet, you find it acceptable and reasonable to ask an Internet Service Provider to take a loss, because you don't see the headline speeds all the time ? You also find it reasonable to call them "Shoddy", because you did not understand the product description or the way the internet works ?
In all honesty:
- I have spend a lot of time in the forum here
- We have put massive work into building an availability check, that is the most up to date and precise tool in Ireland (I believe) to check what's available, when it comes to OpenEIR and to SIRO (within our coverage).
- We have done so without requiring end users to enter any personal details whatsoever. And we know, that a lot of business actually goes elsewhere, while our checking tool is used.
- We provide an honest, tech savvy service and we are extremely upfront about, what we deliver.
- We even notify users here on the forum, when updates become available.
- We are also one of the few providers, that tell our customers directly and publicly about outages and times for fix. Which looks bad on us. But that's how we operate.
But with people like you, I sometimes doubt, if our presence on this forum is worthwhile.0
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