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SIRO - ESB/Vodafone Fibre To The Home

12467…159

Comments

  • #152
    Grab All Association
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,921 ✭✭✭Grab All Association


    Holycross is getting efibre and its a village with 700 people.


  • #153
    irishpancake
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,481 ✭✭✭irishpancake


    bk wrote: »
    I'm sure they would trial it. Rumour has it they are even trailing it at the moment.

    However if you are paying for it yourself, expect the bill to be thousands, not hundreds!

    Just going through the thread, not sure if this has been mentioned, but what do folks think will be the impact of whatever is planned on those unfortunates, like me, who live in one of the designated so-called NBS areas.....

    which of course, I don't use at all, preferring the relative assurance of ADSL from Voda/eircom, (I get around 1.6Mbps, steady, all the time, and even Netflix streams fine, without buffering, on my TV App).

    If this could be provided to my rural, North Westmeath Village, [not far from Cavan]..... however, by wireless, with the fibre backhaul, or whatever, it would be fantastic....

    We live in a black-spot here, as far as BB or even Mobile masts, you don't have to be in Kerry!!!

    There are so many places like this in Ireland, villages of 200-500, who are being told, use the NBS....what a joke.

    who do I need to bribe???

    Who do I send the Brown Envelope to??


  • #154
    football_lover
    Registered Users Posts: 109 ✭✭football_lover


    ted1 wrote: »
    But really why should others subsidise the added cost if supplying connections to people who chose to live in remote areas. A block of apartments in Dublin can contain 650 people and probably involve a run if 100m where's as the one in Clare would involve running a cable several km along with the added infrastructure needed to cover this distance



    Well that game can go two directions. Why should people in the country allow food to be sold cheap to the towns.

    We can always raise the price of food. But people in the country side or coast do not do this.

    There are many things we could do in the country side that would make life very difficult for the cities.

    We could also stop water being pumped from the country side to the cities and also block the power stations in the country side.

    Ireland is a socialist country were it is expected that when people in the country side pay into the system there would be a return.

    Trust me food is a lot tastier than fiber optics.


  • #155
    bealtine
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,051 ✭✭✭bealtine


    irishpancake wrote: »

    We live in a black-spot here, as far as BB or even Mobile masts, you don't have to be in Kerry!!!

    There are so many places like this in Ireland, villages of 200-500, who are being told, use the NBS....what a joke.

    Wait didn't you get the memo? Everybody in Ireland now has access to basic broadband...that's the official line nowadays...


  • #156
    Chris The Hacker
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 149 ✭✭Chris The Hacker


    football_lover wrote: »
    Ireland is a socialist country were it is expected that when people in the country side pay into the system there would be a return.

    A socialist country where the means of production are mostly owned by private owners?


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  • #157
    football_lover
    Registered Users Posts: 109 ✭✭football_lover


    Chris The Hacker wrote: »
    A socialist country where the means of production are mostly owned by private owners?



    If you use the dictionary definition then Ireland is not a socialist country not that I am a fan of socialism just being realistic.

    What you are referring to is a socialist economy.

    Ireland as a country is managed mostly from the center and that comes down right to the setting of wage standards.

    My point to the original comment was to do with the fact that rural have a right to this as they are producing most of the countries food and they are also paying taxes to support the system but they get very little return for this.


  • #158
    norrie rugger
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,656 ✭✭✭norrie rugger


    ted1 wrote: »
    But really why should others subsidise the added cost if supplying connections to people who chose to live in remote areas. A block of apartments in Dublin can contain 650 people and probably involve a run if 100m where's as the one in Clare would involve running a cable several km along with the added infrastructure needed to cover this distance

    So they should not be hooked up to the water/electricity networks then either?


  • #159
    MrO
    Registered Users Posts: 193 ✭✭MrO


    Cheerful Spring wrote: »

    Eircom, is willing to do it why not the ESB!

    Villages with lots of houses and small town villages i bet is what ESB will be targeting first.


    Eircom is not bringing fibre to the home.


  • #160
    Mr. G
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 4,621 Mod ✭✭✭✭Mr. G


    MrO wrote: »
    Eircom is not bringing fibre to the home.

    Not yet. There is no evidence to say they won't, they are only trialling it in a small number of places. So technically they already do FTTH, just not on a mass scale.


  • #161
    MrO
    Registered Users Posts: 193 ✭✭MrO


    football_lover wrote: »
    Well that game can go two directions. Why should people in the country allow food to be sold cheap to the towns.

    We can always raise the price of food. But people in the country side or coast do not do this.

    There are many things we could do in the country side that would make life very difficult for the cities.

    We could also stop water being pumped from the country side to the cities and also block the power stations in the country side.

    Ireland is a socialist country were it is expected that when people in the country side pay into the system there would be a return.

    Trust me food is a lot tastier than fiber optics.

    This makes absolutely no sense...at all.

    People in the country *allow* food to be sold cheap? This is nonsense, food producers like any business try to get the best possible rate they can for their products - they don't allow food to be sold cheap so that the slickers can eat well.

    Stop water? I don't know where to start with this one.

    'Block' power stations? Again...where to start, have you any idea what that would mean? Have you actually thought about it?

    You're certainly not speaking for rural Ireland.


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  • #162
    irishpancake
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,481 ✭✭✭irishpancake


    ED E wrote: »
    It would appear you have an axe to grind here, I wasnt moaning. Eircom Field Techs get paid crazy money too. Thats ireland for you. Simply pointing out that it makes no sense for ESB to use their own staff for a more trivial role. They're heavily trained and follow very strict procedures, rightly so, and should be left to maintaining the grid.

    I worked for eircom, as a Field Force Tech, up to 4 years ago, when I retired due to ill-health.

    I dispute your allegation here....there was no crazy money paid to eircom staff, quite then contrary.

    Wages there were quite low, comparatively speaking, and there was a policy of non-payment for extra time worked, this was given as time-off in lieu, on a 50/50 basis....you only got paid for 50% of the time worked, if you worked outside normal hours.

    We were, as you know, the subject of a crazy privatisation policy, and were sold and re-sold again, in deals which were designed to give the maximum return to those buying the crippled company, with debt raised by the Company, leaving it totally over-burdened with debt, which was then asset stripped and left to the Vulture Capitalists, and I include the ESOP in this, who did manage to acquire a significant shareholding for the Employees, which is now gone.

    I sincerely hope that ESB is not being lined up to receive the eircom treatment, as in this Country, making the same mistakes over and over seems to be the norm.


  • #163
    norrie rugger
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,656 ✭✭✭norrie rugger


    For the greater good of the economy country needs a rural population, it's as simple as that. To get people to live rurally and do business there then the country needs to subsidise.

    The water and electricity points (although badly made) have merit. Power lines and water pipes need to be constructed and maintained into cities. Why should people living near to the source have to pay the same as those in cities, given water loss and substation requirements?
    Because the country needs as much utility coverage as possible to allow for business to thrive, wherever that may be.


  • #164
    irishpancake
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,481 ✭✭✭irishpancake


    SpaceTime wrote: »
    Regardless of the internal machinations of ESB's union politics and pay rates, the fact remains it has a history of actually getting big, complicated infrastructure rolled out rather effectively and efficiently.

    I would have quite a bit of confidence that ESB could get this network rolled out rather effectively and rapidly once they sign off on a design.

    I was impressed with the speed of Eircom's FTTC rollout once they got rolling. It's the first time I've seen Eircom doing anything on that scale so quickly and effectively. The last time that they were doing something as large as that was probably as a semi-state in the 1980s when they pretty much rebuilt the voice network. Since then, most of the infrastructure just saw incremental updates.

    You are on the button here my friend, if you only knew just how correct that is, bolded above. We, Telecom/eircom had a very good reputation, as a semi-state company, and we did deliver a state-of -the art digital voice network, and then, everyone knows what happened...

    the vultures descended, investment dried up, the debt was ramped up, so the vultures could be fed, including those home-grown vultures we bred ourselves.

    A salutary lesson for all, including this Government and ESB....don't do it again.


  • #165
    norrie rugger
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,656 ✭✭✭norrie rugger


    Sell the licences to run the networks but never the networks.

    Infrastructure will only ever be upgraded based on profit, if privately owned.
    If state owned, the upgrades are based on the needs of the country.

    That is the lesson that I hope will be learned, from the Telecom Eireann sale.


  • #166
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    There really needs to be some kind of legislation put in place at EU level to prevent what happened to eircom happening to any company really. It's ridiculous to allow investors to do those kinds of 'leveraged buy outs'.

    Privatisation is one thing, but that kind of speculative activity isn't healthy and really needs much tighter regulation to prevent further problems in future.

    The financial sector really needs to be brought very firmly into line. Between this kind of thing and the bailouts of banks due to their business models etc.. It's just all gone way too far.
    The whole sector needs to be brought firmly back into line.


  • #167
    irishpancake
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,481 ✭✭✭irishpancake


    norrie rugger wrote: »
    So they should not be hooked up to the water/electricity networks then either?

    Yeah, everyone should live in high-rise apartment blocks, it's so much more socially progressive :eek:

    Lovely East-German style workers and peasant dwellings, last forever they will....

    just like Ballymun Towers....

    wasn't it Rural, lot's of fields and pheck all else.....just name them after the "heroes of the revolution"...that'll make it OK!!!


  • #168
    ted1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,649 ✭✭✭✭ted1


    Cheerful Spring wrote: »
    Not true. I just checked this last night. A town close to were i live is going live with EFibre this June. Population 1100

    I live in a village close by around 8km away and Eircom has planned for my village to get Efibre by July 2016.

    Population of my village 676 people. I thought it was more, but i was wrong.

    Eircom, is willing to do it why not the ESB!

    Villages with lots of houses and small town villages i bet is what ESB will be targeting first.
    Haha come back to me in 2016...,,


  • #169
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    In theory efibre is modular. Once you've fibres running to the village or group of houses you can install a cabinet.

    Bear in mind eircom has many, many tiny exchanges that are really about as significant as one e fibre cabinet anyway. Many of them are actually housed in cabinets. The voice network uses remote exchanges linked (usually by fibre) to a parent exchange. It's like a 1980s/90s version of efibre. Similar layout. The ADSL services are similarly distributed and can be located in a small cabinet connected back to the main exchange in an area.

    All they need to do is upgrade the fibre links and add one or two VDSL2 cabinets and a village has e-fibre. They'd be hosted at a major exchange not at the local tiny one.

    The system is totally modular.

    It can't address the problem in ribbon developments and scattered housing though. The technology isn't suitable.

    Again, I think we need to urgently look at very good wireless services to serve those kinds of homes.


  • #170
    football_lover
    Registered Users Posts: 109 ✭✭football_lover


    MrO wrote: »
    This makes absolutely no sense...at all.

    People in the country *allow* food to be sold cheap? This is nonsense, food producers like any business try to get the best possible rate they can for their products - they don't allow food to be sold cheap so that the slickers can eat well.

    Stop water? I don't know where to start with this one.

    'Block' power stations? Again...where to start, have you any idea what that would mean? Have you actually thought about it?

    You're certainly not speaking for rural Ireland.

    The original poster said it makes no sense to supply fiber to the rural communities because people in the urban area's are subsidizing rural systems.

    And I pointed out that this works in two direction. Food is produced in the country side and then shipped to the urban area's.

    I have also said that people in the countryside and coasts would not raise prices but they could if they so desired if the urban area people start mess with us such as blocking modern communications systems.

    If we want the best food standards then a modern fiber optics based rural system is the answer combined with a good wireless system such as LTE.

    There is no point people in the countryside paying taxes and getting very little in return for there taxes.

    Any national fiber optics system should start with the area's that are white spots and build infrastructure there.

    Even if it costs more. You mention water by the way then maybe people in the countryside should consider blocking the Shannon water to Dublin plan.


  • #171
    football_lover
    Registered Users Posts: 109 ✭✭football_lover


    SpaceTime wrote: »
    There really needs to be some kind of legislation put in place at EU level to prevent what happened to eircom happening to any company really. It's ridiculous to allow investors to do those kinds of 'leveraged buy outs'.

    Privatisation is one thing, but that kind of speculative activity isn't healthy and really needs much tighter regulation to prevent further problems in future.

    The financial sector really needs to be brought very firmly into line. Between this kind of thing and the bailouts of banks due to their business models etc.. It's just all gone way too far.
    The whole sector needs to be brought firmly back into line.


    I am not a fan of regulating the market place because it always has unintended consequences such as raising prices or making it difficult for new players to enter the market place and as such protecting existing monopoly's.

    On the other hand Eircom is based on an infrastructure that was started by tax payers money so there is a common national interest in Eircom.


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  • #172
    football_lover
    Registered Users Posts: 109 ✭✭football_lover


    irishpancake wrote: »
    I worked for eircom, as a Field Force Tech, up to 4 years ago, when I retired due to ill-health.

    I dispute your allegation here....there was no crazy money paid to eircom staff, quite then contrary.

    Wages there were quite low, comparatively speaking, and there was a policy of non-payment for extra time worked, this was given as time-off in lieu, on a 50/50 basis....you only got paid for 50% of the time worked, if you worked outside normal hours.

    We were, as you know, the subject of a crazy privatisation policy, and were sold and re-sold again, in deals which were designed to give the maximum return to those buying the crippled company, with debt raised by the Company, leaving it totally over-burdened with debt, which was then asset stripped and left to the Vulture Capitalists, and I include the ESOP in this, who did manage to acquire a significant shareholding for the Employees, which is now gone.

    I sincerely hope that ESB is not being lined up to receive the eircom treatment, as in this Country, making the same mistakes over and over seems to be the norm.

    There is nothing wrong with privatization when it is done properly. There is a big issue with state assets being Privatized as they have been set up with taxation based funds.

    There there is also the issue of the infrastructure at present having an unfair advantage in the market place and no competitor can enter.


  • #173
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,984 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    norrie rugger wrote: »
    For the greater good of the economy country needs a rural population, it's as simple as that. To get people to live rurally and do business there then the country needs to subsidise.

    Yes Ireland needs a rural population.

    What Ireland does NOT need is a rural population living in one off houses dispersed all over the countryside.

    What Ireland needs is a rural population living in sustainable towns and villages. Just like is normal in most of rural Europe, where services like Broadband, Electricity, Water, Sewage, etc. can be delivered in an economically sustainable manner.

    Irish planning law has failed us completely.
    football_lover wrote: »
    The original poster said it makes no sense to supply fiber to the rural communities because people in the urban area's are subsidizing rural systems.

    Your post was totally ridiculous.

    Cut off food supply and people in urban areas will simply buy it from Holland (we already are, see the 5c vegetables at Lidl/Aldi).

    And then when the farmers of rural Ireland are out of work, how are they going to pay their wages and rent and bills, etc.?

    As for power, it is almost all generated in or very near to the cities, electricity doesn't travel very well. Actually electricity generated near cities is usually then transferred to rural Ireland. Cut off the power and it is actually rural areas that would suffer brown outs.

    Dublin currently doesn't get it's water from the Shannon. There is a plan to do it, but at the moment Dublin gets it's water from it's own region and supplies.

    And if you are really going to go down this road, then it would mean Dublin would have far more tax money available to it, so it could use that money to build de-salination plants and become completely self sufficient.

    Strictly speaking urban Ireland doesn't actually need rural Ireland. Now I'm not suggesting for a moment that we do anything like all I described above. But I'm only pointing out the economic reality of the situation. People in rural Ireland need to be realistic about the services that can be delivered economically to them.


  • #174
    R P McMurphy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭R P McMurphy


    Thread has descended into farce. Depressing.


  • #175
    garroff
    Registered Users Posts: 518 ✭✭✭garroff


    Please.....this discussion has gone astray. Could we just stick to BB and ESB job of getting this vital resource to rural areas?


  • #176
    ED E
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,169 ✭✭✭✭ED E


    BK and spacetime are totally on topic. What they're explaining is exactly why rural dwellers dont have good services.


  • #177
    murphaph
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,031 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    irishpancake wrote: »
    Lovely East-German style workers and peasant dwellings, last forever they will....

    just like Ballymun Towers....
    Except in the case of the former GDR those tower blocks are still there doing what they were built to do.....and mostly all with VDSL or cable broadband ;)

    Nobody is suggesting that there should be no rural dwelling, but the Irish definition of rural living invariably means one off housing, rather than small clusters of houses that can at least share a group water scheme, waste water treatment and of course utilities including broadband.


  • #178
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    Nobody is suggesting soviet blocks.
    The 'village' is actually not a radically new concept. Scatter housing is!

    It's also contributing to extreme isolation when people become elderly.

    Ireland didn't have this pattern of scattered development until the 1960s either. It's not 'traditional'.

    The issue now is how to get broadband to ultra low density housing.

    As for suggesting some kind of urban vs rural mutual boycotting each other that is ridiculous. You'd end up with a very poor rural Ireland and two wealthy city states in Dublin and Cork as they're economically big enough to be self sustainable.

    You can't carve countries up like that. What would be next? Split Dublin into 24, tiny independent statelets


  • #179
    football_lover
    Registered Users Posts: 109 ✭✭football_lover


    bk wrote: »
    Yes Ireland needs a rural population.

    What Ireland does NOT need is a rural population living in one off houses dispersed all over the countryside.

    What Ireland needs is a rural population living in sustainable towns and villages. Just like is normal in most of rural Europe, where services like Broadband, Electricity, Water, Sewage, etc. can be delivered in an economically sustainable manner.

    Irish planning law has failed us completely.



    Your post was totally ridiculous.

    Cut off food supply and people in urban areas will simply buy it from Holland (we already are, see the 5c vegetables at Lidl/Aldi).

    And then when the farmers of rural Ireland are out of work, how are they going to pay their wages and rent and bills, etc.?

    As for power, it is almost all generated in or very near to the cities, electricity doesn't travel very well. Actually electricity generated near cities is usually then transferred to rural Ireland. Cut off the power and it is actually rural areas that would suffer brown outs.

    Dublin currently doesn't get it's water from the Shannon. There is a plan to do it, but at the moment Dublin gets it's water from it's own region and supplies.

    And if you are really going to go down this road, then it would mean Dublin would have far more tax money available to it, so it could use that money to build de-salination plants and become completely self sufficient.

    Strictly speaking urban Ireland doesn't actually need rural Ireland. Now I'm not suggesting for a moment that we do anything like all I described above. But I'm only pointing out the economic reality of the situation. People in rural Ireland need to be realistic about the services that can be delivered economically to them.


    I am sorry to burst your little independent urban bubble but the majority of food in Ireland is produced in Ireland in rural areas.

    Yes there are shops selling certain items at below cost but do not assume that this would apply to the whole food market because it does not.

    My point is not that people in the countryside/coast are actually going to cut food off but that the countryside actually does matter.

    Irish food is worth about 13 Billion to the Irish economy so it is only fair that the places that produce this get a fair share of the economy.

    You say electricity does not travel well go and tell that to the government who are sponsoring a massive wind energy system in the rural areas which at present creates a capacity of over 1000MW.

    People keep talking about sustainable urban living where in the hell do you think us farmers are actually go to live.

    Do you actually think we are going to move away from our farms that our ancestors have worked for centuries.

    Food is produced in the countryside that is a fact and we who produce that food need a functioning communications system.

    Farming is on the cusp of a technology revolution and it will require communications system that will enable this technology. The world has a food shortage that the Irish economy could massively take advantage of.

    Yet people like you imply that we are not worth it. Where do you think the extra water supply is going to come from for Dublin.


  • #180
    football_lover
    Registered Users Posts: 109 ✭✭football_lover


    SpaceTime wrote: »
    Nobody is suggesting soviet blocks.
    The 'village' is actually not a radically new concept. Scatter housing is!

    It's also contributing to extreme isolation when people become elderly.

    Ireland didn't have this pattern of scattered development until the 1960s either. It's not 'traditional'.

    The issue now is how to get broadband to ultra low density housing.

    As for suggesting some kind of urban vs rural mutual boycotting each other that is ridiculous. You'd end up with a very poor rural Ireland and two wealthy city states in Dublin and Cork as they're economically big enough to be self sustainable.

    You can't carve countries up like that. What would be next? Split Dublin into 24, tiny independent statelets

    I do not think traditional has anything to do with it. It is the economic situation that our country is in.

    The boycotting is already underway rural communication systems are not being developed.

    And people who are under some type of impression that the countryside/rural does not matter are living in a bubble.

    A good communications system and creation of the right tools may help with rural isolation.

    But there is also rural where there are large clusters of houses or even small cluster of say 10 to 15 house that are about average 50 yards apart and maybe 200 at maximum.

    The state was able to get copper cables there so fiber optics on top of that existing infrastructure is not as big a task as some people are making out.

    Yes it will be very expensive to do but so will doing nothing. Countries who embrace embedded systems networks are going to flourish and those like Ireland who do no will get left behind.


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  • #181
    football_lover
    Registered Users Posts: 109 ✭✭football_lover


    murphaph wrote: »
    Except in the case of the former GDR those tower blocks are still there doing what they were built to do.....and mostly all with VDSL or cable broadband ;)

    Nobody is suggesting that there should be no rural dwelling, but the Irish definition of rural living invariably means one off housing, rather than small clusters of houses that can at least share a group water scheme, waste water treatment and of course utilities including broadband.

    There is not that many one of houses out there.

    Most rural is based around clusters. But there is also the issue of farms requiring communications systems as well that may well be isolated.

    There also might be coastal situations where communication systems are required.


  • #182
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    The boycotting of rural communications networks is not underway.

    There is actually a VDSL2 (e-fibre) service in a whole load of very small towns and it will reach even quite tiny towns by 2015/16.

    Getting one-off housing and ribbon development covered with some kind of technology is a very different issue and really needs to be addressed with very high speed radio systems, backed by local fibre feeding the masts/towers. (As I have said repeatedly on the thread)

    The reality is that you can't realistically provide some of these hardwired services in really low density scattered housing. You can absolutely provide them in small villages right down to under 30 homes.

    FTTC technology's effectively completely useless for ribbon development and will never be a solution to it. Fibre's probably uneconomic to rollout along very long runs to individual homes unless there's some kind of agreement by the homeowner to pay for it much like power lines at present.

    The best solution is a mix of fibre / FTTC for small towns and villages and radio systems for their hinterlands and really rural areas.
    football_lover wrote: »
    There is not that many one of houses out there.

    Most rural is based around clusters. But there is also the issue of farms requiring communications systems as well that may well be isolated.

    There also might be coastal situations where communication systems are required.

    Over 40% of rural homes are one-off houses (I've seen plenty of stats on this) and it's highly unusual by any comparison in Europe. There are a few similar US and Canadian examples and they also struggle with this kind of technology.

    The problem is they're not clustered, they're often built spread along miles upon miles of roads between towns and villages. That's probably the worst possible kind of spread for communications technology as it's a ribbon not a cluster.


  • #183
    football_lover
    Registered Users Posts: 109 ✭✭football_lover


    garroff wrote: »
    Please.....this discussion has gone astray. Could we just stick to BB and ESB job of getting this vital resource to rural areas?



    The reason why there is not modern communications systems in rural area's is down in factor to a large proportion of urban dwellers assuming that the rural communities do not matter.

    You can even see the attitude on these forums existing.

    This ESB bill will not bring fiber optics to rural dwellings. I really wish it would but it will not.

    It will get blocked on the issue of cost. Until people in rural area's stand up and demand that they get communications sorted out nothing will happen.

    The issue of rural economics needs to be brought to this table. People in the countryside contributed to the Irish economy at a conservative estimate of about 20 billion.

    Yet a few billion in communications investment is considered to be too much. And some people who response is move to the urban area's.


  • #184
    dubrov
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,609 ✭✭✭dubrov


    football_lover wrote: »
    The reason why there is not modern communications systems in rural area's is down in factor to a large proportion of urban dwellers assuming that the rural communities do not matter.

    Urban people aren't that different from rural people. Maybe you should get to know some.
    football_lover wrote: »
    It will get blocked on the issue of cost.

    Now you are getting there.

    It just costs more to get services to rural dwellings.
    There has to be a balance and there is only so much cost that can be levied on urban dwellers.


  • #185
    iPhone.
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,104 ✭✭✭iPhone.


    dubrov wrote: »
    There has to be a balance and there is only so much cost that can be levied on urban dwellers.

    The construction cost is levied on everyone universally, not just on urban dwellers.

    But then again as far as I know don't rural folk pay a larger standing charge for electricity than urban dwellers? Yet you have this recent trend of huge wind farms springing up in rural areas with miles of cables bringing the generated power to cities where people there pay a lesser standing charge than the people in the area the power is being generated.

    Its not an us or them situation, we're a small island and depend on each other to keep the economy moving.


  • #186
    norrie rugger
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,656 ✭✭✭norrie rugger


    murphaph wrote: »
    rather than small clusters of houses that can at least share a group water scheme, waste water treatment and of course utilities including broadband.

    I live in an area such as this and can only get Eircom's 8Mb (at a max) and they have no plans for an area upgrade


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  • #187
    murphaph
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,031 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    football_lover wrote: »
    There is not that many one of houses out there.
    You may make some good points (farms need to be able to avail of quality broadband as well as farming is becoming more and more high tech) but to be honest you ruin any valid points you have by pretending that rural one off housing is not even a problem/issue.

    The vast vast majority of people living in one off housing do not work on the land and don't even work in associated sectors (vets etc.). We all know the majority of rural one off dwellers could just as well live in clusters.

    Your definition of "cluster" (houses up to 200 metres apart strung along a road) is actually one off housing and not a sustainable cluster type development at all.

    Here is what rural Ireland looks like and here is what rural Germany looks like (same scale!). Can you not see why provision of utilities including broadband is so much more difficult in rural Ireland because we have chosen this one off development pattern? It is actually an American import. It is not how our forefathers settled rural Ireland.


  • #188
    murphaph
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,031 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    norrie rugger wrote: »
    I live in an area such as this and can only get Eircom's 8Mb (at a max) and they have no plans for an area upgrade
    Perhaps the ESB will bring you faster speeds then. It sounds like your cluster (it is a cluster and not a ribbon, right?) would be what the ESB will be going after.


  • #189
    norrie rugger
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,656 ✭✭✭norrie rugger


    bit of column a and bit of c. Plenty of ribboning along the road but houses tend to be about 50 metres apart max, then there are plenty of 'mini clusters' with ten-twenty houses on private lanes.
    All told it would be a somewhat dispersed village were there a centre spot with shop and stuff. Being located between Naas and Newbridge with Carragh and Kilmegue about removes that need.
    My nearest neighbour is about 30 to 50 metres away.


  • #190
    murphaph
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,031 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    To be honest if your nearest neighbour is 30 metres away and that is typical spacing then it's more ribbon/one off than cluster. You can see from the German (but could pick England or France etc. just as well) map I linked to that clustering means that. In a 30m radius you'd have maybe 4 or 5 houses, not 1 or 2. You can run fibre to the centre of the cluster and serve VDSL. In Ireland it's a much harder proposition.

    To be honest you're probably lucky to have 8MB.

    I grew up in Newcastle, Co. Dublin and the "old" houses (1970s) can (at best) get ADSL from the Rathcoole exchange. My mother gets around 2MB on ADSL there in such a house. The new houses in the village all have UPC of course and Eircom plans to roll out VDSL to the village this year but up until this year you will have had much better BB than my mother (and her neighbours) who lives 2 metres from her neighbour on one side and 0 metres from her neighbour on the other. Until places like Newcastle are up and running with VDSL it would be unfair to expect your area to be sorted with houses spread out so far from each other. There are even parts of cities with no broadband, which is really not acceptable at all. You shouldn't be denied quality BB but you must realise that there are lots of places that "should" have it already and don't and they need fixing first.


  • #191
    Hank Scorpio
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,631 ✭✭✭✭Hank Scorpio


    Is there any projected coverage for this or are things at an too early stage?


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  • #192
    The Cush
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,636 ✭✭✭✭The Cush


    nuxxx wrote: »
    Is there any projected coverage for this or are things at an too early stage?

    We probably won't see this in the public domain until the ESB (Electronic Communications Networks) Bill 2013 completes its passage through the Oireachtas.


  • #193
    norrie rugger
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,656 ✭✭✭norrie rugger


    murphaph wrote: »
    To be honest if your nearest neighbour is 30 metres away and that is typical spacing then it's more ribbon/one off than cluster. You can see from the German (but could pick England or France etc. just as well) map I linked to that clustering means that. In a 30m radius you'd have maybe 4 or 5 houses, not 1 or 2. You can run fibre to the centre of the cluster and serve VDSL. In Ireland it's a much harder proposition.

    To be honest you're probably lucky to have 8MB.

    I grew up in Newcastle, Co. Dublin and the "old" houses (1970s) can (at best) get ADSL from the Rathcoole exchange. My mother gets around 2MB on ADSL there in such a house. The new houses in the village all have UPC of course and Eircom plans to roll out VDSL to the village this year but up until this year you will have had much better BB than my mother (and her neighbours) who lives 2 metres from her neighbour on one side and 0 metres from her neighbour on the other. Until places like Newcastle are up and running with VDSL it would be unfair to expect your area to be sorted with houses spread out so far from each other. There are even parts of cities with no broadband, which is really not acceptable at all. You shouldn't be denied quality BB but you must realise that there are lots of places that "should" have it already and don't and they need fixing first.


    There are several houses much closer together, my lane is the spread out one. The reason that it bugs me is that the cabinet, that is doing the fibre roll out for the surrounding areas is 700 metres away and is not even located in the mapped region that the upgrade is occuring


  • #194
    lucernarian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,235 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    The GPON architecture is more suited to small clusters of housing than many other technologies or types of rollout. Whether urban or rural, a given MV to LV transformer can only support so many houses and they also tend to serve multiple houses that are located near to each other. The economics of this rollout are changed radically by the use of ESB infrastructure and the trial will be exceptionally useful, even on an international scale, of investigating this particular kind of rural fibre rollout.

    Certainly, whatever can be said about France vs ribbon strip development a la Dromiskin, Co. Louth and many other examples, the ESB seem to be treating this as a serious prospect.


  • #195
    swoofer
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,557 ✭✭✭swoofer


    if the esb are conducting a so called trial why is it not mentioned anywhere on their websites???? I think this is all baloney. At least with eircom they said where the tests were and so on.


  • #196
    Nonoperational
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,401 ✭✭✭Nonoperational


    GBCULLEN wrote: »
    if the esb are conducting a so called trial why is it not mentioned anywhere on their websites???? I think this is all baloney. At least with eircom they said where the tests were and so on.

    Why would you say that? It's still in the very very early stages.


  • #197
    Hank Scorpio
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,631 ✭✭✭✭Hank Scorpio


    I dont mind if it takes time , eircoms rollout has been a disaster


  • #198
    football_lover
    Registered Users Posts: 109 ✭✭football_lover


    dubrov wrote: »
    Urban people aren't that different from rural people. Maybe you should get to know some.



    Now you are getting there.

    It just costs more to get services to rural dwellings.
    There has to be a balance and there is only so much cost that can be levied on urban dwellers.


    Are you trying to imply that rural communities do not contribute to the Irish economy.

    This is part of the ignorance that seems to exist. As I have point out most of Ireland's food comes from the Irish countryside.

    And there is also the up coming plan for Dublin water to be diverted from the Shannon. That is going to cost a lot of money maybe that should be blocked just as broadband is going to blocked.

    I am sure there would be uproar in Dublin with their water cuts.

    The cost issue travels in two directions.


  • #199
    football_lover
    Registered Users Posts: 109 ✭✭football_lover


    SpaceTime wrote: »
    The boycotting of rural communications networks is not underway.

    There is actually a VDSL2 (e-fibre) service in a whole load of very small towns and it will reach even quite tiny towns by 2015/16.

    Getting one-off housing and ribbon development covered with some kind of technology is a very different issue and really needs to be addressed with very high speed radio systems, backed by local fibre feeding the masts/towers. (As I have said repeatedly on the thread)

    The reality is that you can't realistically provide some of these hardwired services in really low density scattered housing. You can absolutely provide them in small villages right down to under 30 homes.

    FTTC technology's effectively completely useless for ribbon development and will never be a solution to it. Fibre's probably uneconomic to rollout along very long runs to individual homes unless there's some kind of agreement by the homeowner to pay for it much like power lines at present.

    The best solution is a mix of fibre / FTTC for small towns and villages and radio systems for their hinterlands and really rural areas.



    Over 40% of rural homes are one-off houses (I've seen plenty of stats on this) and it's highly unusual by any comparison in Europe. There are a few similar US and Canadian examples and they also struggle with this kind of technology.

    The problem is they're not clustered, they're often built spread along miles upon miles of roads between towns and villages. That's probably the worst possible kind of spread for communications technology as it's a ribbon not a cluster.


    The vast majority of Irish housing in rural settings are clustered with other houses.

    Ireland is not Canada where there is some great wilderness. You will find that the vast majority of Irish rural houses are within clusters.

    There are some that are isolate like farms but they are few and far between and do not make up the vast majority of housing in the countryside.

    Most houses sit on less than 1 acre of land in the countryside. Telephone lines where installed to these houses and so can fiber optics.

    Will it be expense to do this yes very much so but that is only a fraction of agricultural GDP.

    The bigger picture must be looked at in regards to this. We do not allow rural roads to disappear because that would have an imediate impact on our food exports and the domestic food networks.

    Why people think it is acceptable for Ireland to have a terrible rural communications systems shows the actual lack of understanding in regards to agricultural GDP.

    For Irish agriculture to remain competitive at a global level it will require investment in fiber optics systems.

    Radio systems simply are not acceptable on their own as they have many limitations. Local level wireless networks could be employed on farms for sensor systems but they would still require a fiber optics system.

    Genetics will be a very important tool for agriculture of the future and fiber optics is the only realistic option for this. We are talking 100 mbps for these types of systems.


  • #200
    swoofer
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,557 ✭✭✭swoofer


    this was announced in July last year and it was said a decision would be made in Sept. Its now Feb 2014 ... and nothing.

    I rest my case.

    http://www.uswitch.ie/broadband/news/2013/07/22/esb-pursue-partnerships-for-new-super-fast-fibre-broadband-network/


  • #201
    Davy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,340 CMod ✭✭✭✭Davy


    GBCULLEN wrote: »
    this was announced in July last year and it was said a decision would be made in Sept. Its now Feb 2014 ... and nothing.

    I rest my case.

    http://www.uswitch.ie/broadband/news/2013/07/22/esb-pursue-partnerships-for-new-super-fast-fibre-broadband-network/

    Did you even read it?
    After the decision has been made, there is expected to be months of negotiations regarding the operation of the new company, and work is expected to start in the first quarter of 2014.

    We aren't even a month into 2014 yet. If its costing 400million surely it makes sense to get it right if it takes a few months longer.

    Also just because the trials weren't on there website doesn't mean they don't exist.


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