Eir has been a waste of money to everybody – customers, gov.ie, s'holders.. planet

Impetus · 08-01-2019 10:20pm #1

Eir is just the current brand name. The lineage goes back to the Dept of P & T. And that culture largely remains in their system, AFAICS.

M. Neil (current largest shareholder in Eir) started off FREE dial-up internet which matured into FTTH company in France years ago to compete with Orange (used to be called France Telecom, until they (FT) took over the failing British company (Orange) and used the brand name – which worked in French, German and English).

M Neil bought Orange in Switzerland and promptly re-named it Salt. Two fingers to the French company (still called Orange) perhaps – his former monopoly competitor in the dim and distant past. He sprayed fiber (to the premises – not fake fibre as used by many Irish ISPs in their mis-branded services), including Virgin Media all over France. He then moved to Switzerland and bought Orange mobile CH, and promptly re-named it Salt.

Salt started out as a mobile company, and then went into 10 GB/sec broadband (and other services), after Neil’s arrival. While Swisscom is an excellent company, Neil far exceeded Swisscom in terms of FTTH (fiber to the home) – which runs at up to10 times the speed of Google Fiber’s much hyped service, in theory. I know of none of my friends in CH that get 10GB – might be the fault of the servers providing the content. Most get 2 to 4 GBits/sec – and those that do obviously have a network card in their PC to support this and don’t use WiFi. But this is a lot better than victims of the Irish telecom industry can receive.

Points arising: M Neil probably works best when he is the underdog in market share terms. Eir has a large market share because Ireland is largely an island of internet ‘ejits’ where one can get away with high charges and delivering poor services to the majority. Eir needs to be investigated from a competition perspective by the authorities… going up to EU level if necessary.

The main fiber infrastructure is done by ‘ESB networks vans’ + unbranded outsourcers (in terms of SIRO/FTTP) which vans do not carry advertising for the FTTP offering and the companies to contact to use the service – which would stick out a mile when they are installing FTTH on a road or street. Usual clueless marketing ejit stuff. An Irish specialty.

It seems to me that there is little point in laying two or more FTTP network infrastructures to the same geo area. No point in eir duplicating an existing platform.

The existing FTTP operators do not offer TV. While the cable TV monopoly ‘Virgin Media’ does, the picture quality is mediocre on a good quality TV (OLED display) and the range of channels is almost totally Anglo Saxon monocultural crap. The easiest way for children to learn other languages is watching TV programmes that relate to them (events they are interested in and understand to some extent) and hear in the news in their languages of choice. I might be over-simplifying things but Ireland needs the 12.5% corporate income tax rate because nobody speaks other than English or Irish fluently. Compare and contrast with Luxembourg where virtually all people of any age can typically speak six languages. And the GDP is 2x Ireland’s per capita.

Siro.ie needs more TV content providers and ISP choice to offer customers over a common fiber platform to their home or place of business. And it needs better marketing. This will at a minimum increase the platform's marketing effort by increasing the 'outsourcing' of this task.

Links: siro.ie
http://www.iliad.fr/en (Neil's starting point)
salt.ch (his Swiss company)

eir.ie

tsue921i8wljb3 · 08-01-2019 10:30pm

gctest50 · 08-01-2019 10:36pm

Impetus wrote: »

. I know of none of my friends in CH that get 10GB – might be the fault of the servers providing the content. Most get 2 to 4 GBits/sec – and those that do obviously have a network card in their PC to support this

If all you have if the worlds wonkiest anecdote, why bother ?

What are the make/model computers they have precisely ?

Anyway he is our Neil now and we are going to have loads of internets !

Marlow · 09-01-2019 8:22pm

Of course they don't get 10 Gbit/s ...

The technology is not there yet.

It's X-GPon or the likes ... and it's 10 GBit/s down and maybe 2.5 Gbit/s up or if they're lucky 10 Gbit/s up.

Thats then shared between all premises in the cluster. Nobody said, it's uncontended. And most PCs can't even run a speedtest at 1 Gbit/s CPU wise. Nevermind more. You need specialised test equipment both ends to gets 10 Gbit/s properly at the moment.

Cop on. It's just a willy waving product. Like who's got the fastest fanciest sportscar. Doesn't matter if you can't afford the petrol that needs to be put in the tank or the servicing.

/M

EdgeCase · 09-01-2019 8:40pm

I'm a bit baffled by this post.

First of all there isn't widespread 10GB/s internet anywhere in Europe at this stage and the technology isn't even standardised yet. Siro has trialled the technology and has future proofed for it. AFAIK so has OpenEir.

There isn't a monopoly by Virgin on TV here. Both Vodafone and Eir offer IPTV and Sky is also now on Siro which probably offers one of the most highly developed TV platforms anywhere in the world. Also over the top TV services like Netflix and so on are becoming far more relevant than ISP controlled IPTV offerings.

European TV is available by satellite and online if people want to watch it. We happen to speak the largest language in the media world and that's why we have so much content in English. You can't really compare Ireland to a Luxembourg or Switzerland which are naturally sandwiched in between multiple languages and multilingualism is the norm.

Also attacking Ireland's corporate tax rate from either a Luxembourg or Swiss perspective, both countries are quasi tax and regulatory havens, is frankly ridiculous.

The main challenges in Ireland are rural and quasi rural broadband and and low housing density. That's being addressed at present with FTTH.

The existing FTTC rollout by OpenEir isn't too bad by international standards in even small villages and FTTH is coming. Virgin also offers pretty widespread HFC cable internet which is 300mbit/s and comparable to most of the European cable operators and faster than most of what's available in the UK.

Meanwhile Siro is being rolled out quite quickly and providing a 3rd access medium.

So basically we have two fully open access networks OpenEir and Siro and a cable network. It's not exactly dismal.

Very rural areas are going to continue to be challenging to reach and the only thing that will change that is subsidies. You can't run several km of fibre to reach a couple of customers and expect it to be profitable. It's just not possible regardless of who the CEO is. It's all about very low density.

Also while I wouldn't defend Eir, they are not a monopoly anymore and they're losing their access network control quite rapidly.

As for their ownership, they're just investors. It'll be interesting to see if the new owner, who has never owned an incumbent before will be able to make any impact.

Eir aren't in the position of any of his other companies. In some ways it's like Ryanair taking over British Airways or Lidl buying out Carrefour in terms of culture and and market position.

tsue921i8wljb3 · 09-01-2019 8:43pm

You're all worse for indulging the xenophobic ranting of the OP. It deserves mocking or ignoring.

EdgeCase · 09-01-2019 8:47pm

Not only that but Free didn't roll out fibre all over France. They largely use Orange's access network lol.

They were a cheap and cheerful ISP and then mobile provider.

The big fibre pushes into homes in France were done by Orange and Numéricable, not Illiad.

Nothing wrong with that but let's try posting facts rather than rhetoric. It's a technical forum.

EdgeCase · 09-01-2019 8:57pm

Anastasia Sweet Cocaine wrote: »

You're all worse for indulging the xenophobic ranting of the OP. It deserves mocking or ignoring.

You sometimes have to write responses to stuff like this as it ends up sitting online for years and being regurgitated as non-factual fact.

I know most of us know what the reality actually is, but I'm always conscious that someone stumbling into a thread won't.

Regardless of what the topic is, I'm increasingly not ignoring stuff like this as it's how fake news starts.

Marlow · 09-01-2019 9:12pm

Mjaeh .. muppets will always be muppets ... that's a fact.

But even Waldorf and Statler had more reason that the above rant from somebody who's not even affected by what he's writing about.

/M

ED E · 09-01-2019 9:22pm

Stop

Feeding

The

Troll

Impetus · 09-01-2019 9:25pm

gctest50 wrote: »

If all you have if the worlds wonkiest anecdote, why bother ?

What are the make/model computers they have precisely ?

Anyway he is our Neil now and we are going to have loads of internets !

I have several iMac Pros with 10GB cards in various countries. eg https://www.apple.com/ie/imac-pro/specs/ Vega 64 graphics and big memory. Works fine in other countries with download speeds around 990 GB/sec. My portable is a Dell workstation 7510 - which cost about six grand in terms of options and memory. Any all the premises have fiber 1 GB internet wired, aside from Ireland where one is suffering with VM 'best'. No wifi.

I divide my time between various countries and always take the best fiber service available.

Johnboy1951 · 09-01-2019 9:42pm

Works fine in other countries with download speeds around 990 GB/sec

Nice!

Where might that be?

Impetus · 09-01-2019 9:56pm

EdgeCase wrote: »

I'm a bit baffled by this post.

First of all there isn't a widespread 10GB/s internet anywhere in Europe at this stage and the technology isn't even standardised yet. Siro has trialled the technology and has future proofed for it. AFAIK so has OpenEir.

There isn't a monopoly by Virgin on TV here. Both Vodafone and Eir offer IPTV and Sky is also now on Siro which probably offers one of the most highly developed TV platforms anywhere in the world. Also over the top TV services like Netflix and so on are becoming far more relevant than ISP controlled IPTV offerings.

European TV is available by satellite and online if people want to watch it. We happen to speak the largest language in the media world and that's why we have so much content in English. You can't really compare Ireland to a Luxembourg or Switzerland which are naturally sandwiched in between multiple languages and multilingualism is the norm.

Also attacking Ireland's corporate tax rate from either a Luxembourg or Swiss perspective, both countries are quasi tax and regulatory havens, is frankly ridiculous.

The main challenges in Ireland is rural and quasi rural broadband and and low housing density. That's being addressed at present with FTTH.

The existing FTTC rollout by OpenEir isn't too bad by international standards in even small villages and FTTH is coming. Virgin also offers pretty widespread HFC cable internet which is 300mbit/s and comparable to most of the European cable operators and faster than most of what's available in the UK.

Meanwhile Siro is being rolled out quite quickly and providing a 3rd access medium.

So basically we have two fully open access networks OpenEir and Siro and a cable network. It's not exactly dismal.

Very rural areas are going to continue to be challenging to reach and the only thing that will change that is subsidies. You can't run several km of fibre to reach a couple of customers and expect it to be profitable. It's just not possible regardless of who the CEO is. It's all about very low density.

Also while I wouldn't defend Eir, they are not a monopoly anymore and they're losing their access network control quite rapidly.

As for their ownership, they're just investors. It'll be interesting to see if the new owner, who has never owned an incumbent before will be able to make any impact.

Eir aren't in the position of any of his other companies. In some ways it's like Ryanair taking over British Airways or Lidl buying out Carrefour in terms of culture and and market position.

So it appears if you are contented with the Irish status quo. You do not really wish to watch a wide spectrum (language terms) of content.

I agree with the matter of rural areas being difficult. But they are also struggling with eir old fashioned DSL. I happen to be in a city at the moment in IE, and I see ESB networks installing FTTH using ESB networks branded vans. With no advertising of where to go to buy their product. Irish dumb or what? They are complaining of the low take-up of FTTH. If you go to the siro.ie website and enter your postcode and chances are the site will say 1GB is not available in your area. It is way out of date, and has no precision on when to expect service. The people in the street think when they see ESB it has something to do with electric power. And move on. How many people can look up at an ESB pole and recognise PON fiber optic cable?

As for housing density, that is a planning appalling issue. But fiber is cheaper to install and maintain to these 'culchies' than anything else.

There is a lot of old fungal crap in the Irish telecommunications network. Which has to be maintained. eg phone line, coax cable tv, fiber, perhaps others. It is far cheaper to run a single fiber net with 10G capability, on an ongoing basis, even if the subscriber is a 90 year old person who wants a POTS phone. High time to stop maintaining 2, 3, 4 or 5 networks to the door. The system needs to be shared. Eir and every other entity need to use Siro as a platform. Fiber is far more reliable than copper. Not impacted by lightning or flooding. Andorra and Monaco have proven this. And both of these countries have some of the cheapest and fastest systems in the world. And while Monaco is dense, Andorra has one off homes 2000+ meters in the Pyrenees altitude some 10 km from the nearest 'exchange' to use Oirish lingo. The internet is as fast up as it is down there.

I have a place in Malta, and 1 GB internet with a ping time of 4ms is EUR 25 per month. And the sun shines in more ways than one. Ireland is being ripped off not just by weather.....

Impetus · 09-01-2019 10:00pm

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Nice!

Where might that be?

Read my lips. But 1GB is also widely available in most of mainland EU. (990 GB = typo)

Impetus · 09-01-2019 10:19pm

ED E wrote: »

Stop

Feeding

The

Troll

Who do you work for? Or perhaps you are longing to back to dial-up speeds?

Ultimanemo · 09-01-2019 10:22pm

I think eir inherited the culture of "employed by the state" they didn't work hard to improve the service they provide and the result is what we see today,

turbbo · 09-01-2019 10:33pm

Coming on boards and telling people you're an Eir employee you need to be either brave or stupid. I don't think many people believe we have a state of the art fibre network in ireland, certainly not around my neck of the woods anyways. Eir have become a joke as far as i can tell but they are the only joke in a lot of areas sadly.

ED E · 09-01-2019 10:47pm

Ultimanemo wrote: »

Eir I guess

I don't work for any ISP. I'm also the first to give Eir a bollocking when they deserve it.

Every few months Impy comes along and posts a thread about how "OMFG Ireland is soo bad for broadband and [X] is so much better lololol" or something to that effect but worded in such a way as to not be instabanned.

https://www.boards.ie/search/submit/?user=662785&title=1&sort=newest&date_to=&date_from=&query=%2A%3A%2A&forum=259

^ Check out those search results.
EG:

Spain: MoviStar/Telefonica 300 Mbits/sec fiber for €26,90/mth

Which a mod had to correct with "(MOD: No really €58.50)" because it was a truckload of BS.

We know Ireland has BB issues but his little tirades are of no use to anyone. Sh1tstirring plain and simple. Meanwhile we have 4 NBP and related threads that have proactive discussion based in the real world.

EdgeCase · 09-01-2019 10:49pm

Impetus wrote: »

I have a place in Malta, and 1 GB internet with a ping time of 4ms is EUR 25 per month. And the sun shines in more ways than one. Ireland is being ripped off not just by weather.....

Care to provide a link to the ISP in question and the price plan?

I'd be curious as I know Malta very and would be delighted to subscribe to this package.

I'm also delighted to see Malta has made such remarkable progress since 2017:

https://www.timesofmalta.com/mobile/articles/view/20170808/local/malta-has-eus-third-slowest-broadband-study-finds.655191

I'd also add that about 13% of households in Ireland are multilingual (mine included) meaning they speak more than English or Irish at home and I would reckon quite a significant % of the population speak more than just English or Irish.

You can easily access non English speaking TV if you want it. If there's a demand, someone will supply it.

Marlow · 09-01-2019 11:50pm

ED E wrote: »

We know Ireland has BB issues but his little tirades are of no use to anyone. Sh1tstirring plain and simple. Meanwhile we have 4 NBP and related threads that have proactive discussion based in the real world.

Ireland may have broadband issues .. and that is, what it is.

But in regards to FTTH rollout Ireland is what in the rankings ? It's listed 6 countries behind Switzerland .. (Switzerland 8%, Ireland 1.7%) in the September 2017 European rankings of the FTTH Council .... want to check ?? .... https://www.ftthcouncil.eu/documents/FTTH%20GR%2020180212_FINAL.2.pdf

Ireland is even listed in the Global rankings .. and neither there is Switzerland very far up the list.

And then there's the fact, that between SIRO and OpenEIR, A LOT has happened since.

Currently approx 400k premises in Ireland can get FTTH. 1.1M premises can get either FTTH or FTTC, that are identified by Eircode. Supposedly another 900k+ premises can avail of FTTC, that can't be identified by precise address coding.

Look at that in the big picture, that Ireland only has what ? ... 4.7M people living in Ireland .. that's not bad at all.

Sure .. the situation for those falling outside of that scope is poor. But for those that are inside the scope, a lot are doing better than most of the world.

So feck off with headline speeds that nobody needs .... I'm looking forward to the next FTTH Council stats, when Switzerland suddenly has been left behind.

Oh .. and Luxembourg is also not even half way up the list. Latvia or Norway would be something to talk about. But that's about it.

/M

Ultimanemo · 10-01-2019 6:46am

Marlow wrote: »

Ireland may have broadband issues .. and that is, what it is.

But in regards to FTTH rollout Ireland is what in the rankings ? It's listed 6 countries behind Switzerland .. (Switzerland 8%, Ireland 1.7%) in the September 2017 European rankings of the FTTH Council .... want to check ?? .... https://www.ftthcouncil.eu/documents/FTTH%20GR%2020180212_FINAL.2.pdf

Ireland is even listed in the Global rankings .. and neither there is Switzerland very far up the list.

And then there's the fact, that between SIRO and OpenEIR, A LOT has happened since.

Currently approx 400k premises in Ireland can get FTTH. 1.1M premises can get either FTTH or FTTC, that are identified by Eircode. Supposedly another 900k+ premises can avail of FTTC, that can't be identified by precise address coding.

Look at that in the big picture, that Ireland only has what ? ... 4.7M people living in Ireland .. that's not bad at all.

Sure .. the situation for those falling outside of that scope is poor. But for those that are inside the scope, a lot are doing better than most of the world.

So feck off with headline speeds that nobody needs .... I'm looking forward to the next FTTH Council stats, when Switzerland suddenly has been left behind.

Oh .. and Luxembourg is also not even half way up the list. Latvia or Norway would be something to talk about. But that's about it.

/M

Hopefully one day Ireland will be as good as Mauritius, Romania or Vietnam,6 months ago I was using 4G, Now I am using 3G as Three told me to do so because 4G became so congested, getting there, looking forward to 2G.

Wanderer78 · 10-01-2019 6:54am

Ultimanemo wrote:

I think eir inherited the culture of "employed by the state" they didn't work hard to improve the service they provide and the result is what we see today,

Or has it become a wealth extractor since privitisation?

turbbo · 10-01-2019 11:04am

Marlow wrote: »

Ireland may have broadband issues .. and that is, what it is.

But in regards to FTTH rollout Ireland is what in the rankings ? It's listed 6 countries behind Switzerland .. (Switzerland 8%, Ireland 1.7%) in the September 2017 European rankings of the FTTH Council .... want to check ?? .... https://www.ftthcouncil.eu/documents/FTTH%20GR%2020180212_FINAL.2.pdf

Ireland is even listed in the Global rankings .. and neither there is Switzerland very far up the list.

And then there's the fact, that between SIRO and OpenEIR, A LOT has happened since.

Currently approx 400k premises in Ireland can get FTTH. 1.1M premises can get either FTTH or FTTC, that are identified by Eircode. Supposedly another 900k+ premises can avail of FTTC, that can't be identified by precise address coding.

Look at that in the big picture, that Ireland only has what ? ... 4.7M people living in Ireland .. that's not bad at all.

Sure .. the situation for those falling outside of that scope is poor. But for those that are inside the scope, a lot are doing better than most of the world.

So feck off with headline speeds that nobody needs .... I'm looking forward to the next FTTH Council stats, when Switzerland suddenly has been left behind.

Oh .. and Luxembourg is also not even half way up the list. Latvia or Norway would be something to talk about. But that's about it.

/M

Marlow - I remember a post where you said you moved to an area that you ensured was already fibre enabled - it's very easy to say everything is rosy when you are covered.
Meanwhile there is a whole swarth of this country still not covered. Who is too blame? - I believe the problem was created when that genius Mary O'Rourke sold TE.

Eircom milked dsl for all it could as the infrastructure crumbled around them - the only reason they're spending a penny now is because if they don't they will have no reason to exist.
Mobile/wireless has killed any need for landline and rubbish dsl.
I believe Eir are already being pushed out of urban areas with Virgin and Siro.

Marlow · 10-01-2019 11:19am

turbbo wrote: »

Marlow - I remember a post where you said you moved to an area that you ensured was already fibre enabled - it's very easy to say everything is rosy when you are covered.
Meanwhile there is a whole swarth of this country still not covered. Who is too blame? - I believe the problem was created when that genius Mary O'Rourke sold TE.

I moved to an area, where I ensured, I was covered yes. But I had fibre before that. Just at a premium of over 400 EUR+VAT per month for 10 Mbit/s. OpenEIR can deliver fibre pretty much everywhere in Ireland .. if you're prepared to pay NGN / Carrier pricing.

/M

turbbo · 10-01-2019 11:29am

Marlow wrote: »

I moved to an area, where I ensured, I was covered yes. But I had fibre before that. Just at a premium of over 400 EUR+VAT per month for 10 Mbit/s. OpenEIR can deliver fibre pretty much everywhere in Ireland .. if you're prepared to pay NGN / Carrier pricing.

/M

Not where I am in Limerick. And I'm about 4 miles from the city centre.

Marlow · 10-01-2019 11:36am

turbbo wrote: »

Not where I am in Limerick. And I'm about 4 miles from the city centre.

Yes you can .. guaranteed. But you won't like the pricing. Read my post again.

/M

turbbo · 10-01-2019 11:59am

Marlow wrote: »

Yes you can .. guaranteed. But you won't like the pricing. Read my post again.

/M

Okay - I trust you're telling the truth - haven't seen any dodgy post from you before! :-)
I wasn't aware that it was available like that(it ain't advertised at all) - also if it was fibre why was it 10mbit/s seems a bit throttled to say the least.
Also €400 - you would need to be pretty desperate to have to fork out that much for what seems like a still crap service.

Johnboy1951 · 10-01-2019 12:02pm

Marlow wrote: »

Yes you can .. guaranteed. But you won't like the pricing. Read my post again.

/M

Do they provide this to individuals rather than registered companies?
I had the impression that this was a 'commercial-only' service.

Marlow · 10-01-2019 12:02pm

turbbo wrote: »

Okay - I trust you're telling the truth - haven't seen any dodgy post from you before! :-)
I wasn't aware that it was available like that(it ain't advertised at all) - also if it was fibre why was it 10mbit/s seems a bit throttled to say the least.
Also €400 - you would need to be pretty desperate to have to fork out that much for what seems like a still crap service.

It's a business product. It's build and priced to order.

And 100 Mbit/s would have been 3 times that.

It's not about speed. It never is. Its about service level, latency and upload speed. And those 10 Mbit/s were symmetric and full duplex. 10 Mbit/s down, 10 Mbit/s up. It's basically a fast leased line.

And of course an individual can buy it .. if you want to pay the money. 3-5k+ to install and a premium per month. Oh .. and it's uncontended.

/M

turbbo · 10-01-2019 12:13pm

Marlow wrote: »

It's a business product. It's build and priced to order.

And 100 Mbit/s would have been 3 times that.

It's not about speed. It never is. Its about service level, latency and upload speed. And those 10 Mbit/s were symmetric and full duplex. 10 Mbit/s down, 10 Mbit/s up. It's basically a fast leased line.

And of course an individual can buy it .. if you want to pay the money. 3-5k+ to install and a premium per month. Oh .. and it's uncontended.

/M

Okay it's "fibre" technically. But you chose to avoid having to sign up to that nonsense again - it's hardly an argument that we're onto something great here with Eir?

Marlow · 10-01-2019 12:17pm

turbbo wrote: »

Okay it's "fibre" technically. But you chose to avoid having to sign up to that nonsense again - it's hardly an argument that we're onto something great here with Eir?

I'm just saying fibre connectivity is available. It will cost you. And of course, it's mostly businesses that can afford it.

So in my case, I needed to be able to do my work. You have to spend some money to make some money. And this was also in an Urban area.

However .. since I was moving anyhow, I sure made it a requirement that I would be able to get FTTH at the new place. Alone for the fact of greater speeds and less cost.

I'm just saying ... it's available and it can be done. But it's not an off the shelf product.

/M

turbbo · 10-01-2019 12:32pm

Marlow wrote: »

I'm just saying fibre connectivity is available. It will cost you. And of course, it's mostly businesses that can afford it.

So in my case, I needed to be able to do my work. You have to spend some money to make some money. And this was also in an Urban area.

However .. since I was moving anyhow, I sure made it a requirement that I would be able to get FTTH at the new place. Alone for the fact of greater speeds and less cost.

I'm just saying ... it's available and it can be done. But it's not an off the shelf product.

/M

All very fair - but I thought we were gonna use this thread to $hit on Eir.

heffo500 · 10-01-2019 12:35pm

Is there every a chance the state will buy Eir back? Was the network not one of the most modern in the world prior to privatization, I wonder would still be the case if the state still owned it.

Marlow · 10-01-2019 12:38pm

The Government will do nothing as can be seen with the NBP ... they're just pushing the issue around.

And this thread is pointless

/M

turbbo · 10-01-2019 12:39pm

heffo500 wrote: »

Was the network not one of the most modern in the world prior to privatization

Well we could pick up a phone and ring a number and it usually worked even if you lived in the stix. I guess it was fit for purpose. Unlike today's service. Not sure it was bleeding edge tech - but definitely a well maintained copper network - line noise wasn't a thing where we lived when I was a kid until many years later when Eircom were in charge, assume that was down to lack of investment and splitting lines as more customers signed up for phones.

turbbo · 10-01-2019 12:41pm

Marlow wrote: »

The Government will do nothing as can be seen with the NBP ... they're just pushing the issue around.

And this thread is pointless

/M

Think of it a venting or rant thread - it is what it is.;)

turbbo · 10-01-2019 12:43pm

We had pulse dialing in the 90's remember my cousin visiting from the US thinking it was very backward.

9726_9726 · 10-01-2019 2:02pm

I have absolutely no interest in the OPs points, but just would like to point out that the ESB vans (with the branding that uspet him into his "Ireland is shameful compared to the greener pastures I have found" state of mind) working at the SIRO poles were probably doing make-safe works which are compulsory before the SIRO guys are allowed to connect customers.

Over and out.

EdgeCase · 10-01-2019 2:41pm

turbbo wrote: »

We had pulse dialing in the 90's remember my cousin visiting from the US thinking it was very backward.

They had plenty of pulse dialling in parts of the US in 1990 too. If you were unlucky enough to have been in an area that was updated to what was the latest crossbar (analogue) technology in the 1970s, your 25 year old local exchange wasn't fully upgraded until into the 1990s.
These things cost serious money (millions of Euro each in modern terms) and worked very effectively to provide phone services, so they lived out their planned live spans in all of the developed world. Digital local switching rolled out here from 1980 onwards in Ireland and from about 1983 in the US. On average Ireland in 1990 would have had a lot more digital phone service than the US because most rural areas went straight to digital, whereas the US would have seen much more deployment of older tech.

Marlow · 10-01-2019 2:42pm

The US is the wild west, when it comes to telephony.

And vastly more backwards than Ireland.

That's for sure.

turbbo's cousin was just lucky, that he was in an area, where his telco was a bit more modern. But it's lottery over there ... at best.

/M

turbbo · 10-01-2019 3:03pm

Marlow wrote: »

The US is the wild west, when it comes to telephony.

And vastly more backwards than Ireland.

That's for sure.

turbbo's cousin was just lucky, that he was in an area, where his telco was a bit more modern. But it's lottery over there ... at best.

/M

It's a real life example is all lads jeeze!!

EdgeCase · 10-01-2019 3:13pm

Siro has actually been ramping up publicity in line with rollout.

Vodafone (the ESB's partner in Siro) has been doing extensive TV advertising for Gigabit broadband and Sky has begun to advertise too.

The availability will go way up as Siro rolls out. For example the Cork City deployment is the biggest rollout of FTTH in the state thus far and is proceeding pretty fast.

I would assume Eir and Virgin will respond to this as they'll be loosing customers otherwise.

The notion that Siro isn't well branded is frankly absolute b/s. Their website is also very straight forward and you can query any Eircode.

I'm all for constructive criticism of Ireland's broadband infrastructure, but I just prefer to deal with facts.

turbbo · 10-01-2019 3:54pm

EdgeCase wrote: »

Siro has actually been ramping up publicity in line with rollout.

Vodafone (the ESB's partner in Siro) has been doing extensive TV advertising for Gigabit broadband and Sky has begun to advertise too.

The availability will go way up as Siro rolls out. For example the Cork City deployment is the biggest rollout of FTTH in the state thus far and is proceeding pretty fast.

I would assume Eir and Virgin will respond to this as they'll be loosing customers otherwise.

The notion that Siro isn't well branded is frankly absolute b/s. Their website is also very straight forward and you can query any Eircode.

I'm all for constructive criticism of Ireland's broadband infrastructure, but I just prefer to deal with facts.

Pity Siro wouldn't rollout everywhere - seems to ramping up which is good. Esb and vodafone at least have a clean sheet with this - Eir have burnt their bridges everywhere.

EdgeCase · 10-01-2019 8:43pm

turbbo wrote: »

Pity Siro wouldn't rollout everywhere - seems to ramping up which is good. Esb and vodafone at least have a clean sheet with this - Eir have burnt their bridges everywhere.

Rolling out everywhere takes time. You can't just wire up the whole country in 12 months. You're talking about a couple of million premises.

Bear in mind rural electrification (at least the main bit of it) took from the end of WWII until 1973.

Fibre's a bit easier in the sense that it's hopping along existing poles and ducts and the cabling's very light, but it's no small project to wire up every home and business.

turbbo · 11-01-2019 11:45am

EdgeCase wrote: »

Rolling out everywhere takes time. You can't just wire up the whole country in 12 months. You're talking about a couple of million premises.

Bear in mind rural electrification (at least the main bit of it) took from the end of WWII until 1973.

Fibre's a bit easier in the sense that it's hopping along existing poles and ducts and the cabling's very light, but it's no small project to wire up every home and business.

True but Eir have been at it for 2.5 years already. They've shown how useless they are time and time again.

Marlow · 11-01-2019 1:49pm

turbbo wrote: »

Pity Siro wouldn't rollout everywhere - seems to ramping up which is good. Esb and vodafone at least have a clean sheet with this - Eir have burnt their bridges everywhere.

turbbo wrote: »

True but Eir have been at it for 2.5 years already. They've shown how useless they are time and time again.

SIRO is a business that was build from scratch. With limited experience. It's been a rocky path at times, but they've prevailed. And they are very brand protective and very good at marketing. That's for sure.

OpenEIR on the other side only did the rollout to maintain their monopoly. That's about it. That's also the reason, that they're now diverting back to Urban FTTH, once the 300k is finished.

/M

turbbo · 11-01-2019 2:41pm

The 300k is supposed to be finished. Yet they got an extension up to mid 2019 because of 2 storms.
Some bunch of clowns they can't even finish the 300k on time knowing that it's their only chance of survival. If they were well ran they'd have finished the 300k ahead of schedule to make sure they were grabbing as many customers as possible - but they've been too busy getting sold and bought again - i.e. focus has been everywhere but on their customer base. Meanwhile people are looking to move to any other provider in their droves. It's hard for them when management want to milk it dry.

MrO · 12-01-2019 1:33pm

Marlow wrote: »

And this thread is pointless

/M

Agreed the original post is a rant full of inaccuracy - but there is one interesting point that is worth considering. If overbuild is seriously being considered, there will be some homes in urban Ireland with 2 x FTTH providers (potentially 3 with VM) and a lot (rural) with nothing.

It's time for a serious network sharing discussion to happen between infrastructure providers/builders - there is precedence in mainland Europe (Portugal and Spain) for this. Surely it's not beyond possibility that some form of agreement could be achieved which in theory (gasp) could even extend to a good % of rural homes...wishful thinking maybe. I don't hold out much for a department led initiative here - but the 'industry' should attempt it. The waste involved in 2 or 3 companies overbuilding is crazy.

EdgeCase · 13-01-2019 10:31am

The problem with that in Ireland to date has been that were Eir was the only access platform they simply didn't innovate or drive speeds forward at all. You'd multiple ISPs and phone companies, but the access network assets were being sweated. The result was bog standard ADSL.

The cable companies here also did the same when they thought that access to UK terrestrial TV was all they needed. They only started seriously investing in their networks and delivering viable broadband when Sky launched BBC and their monopoly ended.

I think competition between platforms in urban areas where it's viable week will drive innovation and speeds.

In rural areas where densities are low they should be encouraged to cooperate. You can deliver any of their products over any fibre network. There's plenty of precedence for this in the mobile networks with mast sharing while maintaining separate networks.

Where you get into trying to minimise capital outlay by creating monopolies, you then need to have very intense regulation to ensure that the monopolist doesn't just abuse position or set the standards very low. That's where things start to get complicated.

You will likely see 3 systems in urban areas though. I could see them consolidating naturally. For example, Liberty/Virgin might opt to deliver service using Siro in areas it hasn't cabled. Or you might get more sharing of infrastructure further back etc

ComReg can facilitate network sharing but I'm loathed to ever see a single network provider end up with the monopoly power Eircom once had. Even in its state owned days TE was very expensive and didn't bother innovating either. I think we've a rose tinted glasses view of TE when it was state owned. Other than when it jumped ahead with digital telephony in the 80s, it wasn't a very impressive telco. They even dragged their feet with ISDN, not launching it early when the network equipment could have easily supported it. They had advanced digital switching and often didn't bother investing in the access layer (local switches) to provide ISDN - it literally just meant installing slightly more advanced line cards. Instead of being an early adopter and world leader in that, they launched it so late that it was nearly pointless when it could have been very useful for the 80s and early 90s had it been switched on.

They also went on and on and on about their digital switches which were very advanced for the 80s and early 90s, but they never bothered to implement their advanced data services so effectively they were super fancy telephone exchanges providing bog standard POTS and TDs and ministers who knew nothing about computers at the time were very impressed by it.

It was a bit like having bought a TGV, not buying the wheels and limiting it to doing 100km/h then giving ministers and the press endless looks at your lovely TGV.

Basically they lived off good PR from the 80s.

MrO · 13-01-2019 2:27pm

Great post!

Impetus · 16-01-2019 9:50pm

EdgeCase wrote: »

The problem with that in Ireland to date has been that were Eir was the only access platform they simply didn't innovate or drive speeds forward at all. You'd multiple ISPs and phone companies, but the access network assets were being sweated. The result was bog standard ADSL.

The cable companies here also did the same when they thought that access to UK terrestrial TV was all they needed. They only started seriously investing in their networks and delivering viable broadband when Sky launched BBC and their monopoly ended.

I think competition between platforms in urban areas where it's viable week will drive innovation and speeds.

In rural areas where densities are low they should be encouraged to cooperate. You can deliver any of their products over any fibre network. There's plenty of precedence for this in the mobile networks with mast sharing while maintaining separate networks.

Where you get into trying to minimise capital outlay by creating monopolies, you then need to have very intense regulation to ensure that the monopolist doesn't just abuse position or set the standards very low. That's where things start to get complicated.

You will likely see 3 systems in urban areas though. I could see them consolidating naturally. For example, Liberty/Virgin might opt to deliver service using Siro in areas it hasn't cabled. Or you might get more sharing of infrastructure further back etc

ComReg can facilitate network sharing but I'm loathed to ever see a single network provider end up with the monopoly power Eircom once had. Even in its state owned days TE was very expensive and didn't bother innovating either. I think we've a rose tinted glasses view of TE when it was state owned. Other than when it jumped ahead with digital telephony in the 80s, it wasn't a very impressive telco. They even dragged their feet with ISDN, not launching it early when the network equipment could have easily supported it. They had advanced digital switching and often didn't bother investing in the access layer (local switches) to provide ISDN - it literally just meant installing slightly more advanced line cards. Instead of being an early adopter and world leader in that, they launched it so late that it was nearly pointless when it could have been very useful for the 80s and early 90s had it been switched on.

They also went on and on and on about their digital switches which were very advanced for the 80s and early 90s, but they never bothered to implement their advanced data services so effectively they were super fancy telephone exchanges providing bog standard POTS and TDs and ministers who knew nothing about computers at the time were very impressed by it.

It was a bit like having bought a TGV, not buying the wheels and limiting it to doing 100km/h then giving ministers and the press endless looks at your lovely TGV.

Basically they lived off good PR from the 80s.

I know somebody who did everything in his power to get the political bots to move from electromechanical crossbar 'telephone exchanges' to AXE and E10B back in the day. Money was being squirted down the drain on old platforms at the time. Which brought us to the ISDN level - which was priced to death by the state monopoly. And still is. And while it has since (in tech terms) been replaced with IP (eg VoIP and 10GB internet), few have access to it and Ireland seems to be the most lethargic to GB broadband etc in the world (not just Europe). Switzerland has 10GB internet thanks to the same guy who controls most of Eir's share capital. Siro is sick. I don't live in Ireland, but have an inherited house there which I visit from time to time. After Christmas I noticed Siro (ie a non-Siro branded ESB truck platoon installing fiber on the road. Yet when I enter the 'postcode', there is no info on future availability. I called one of the service providers using the Siro platform and he predicted that it might take six months before the next bureaucratic thing happens - a form from ESB Networks for permission to connect fiber to your house. (The guys on the road were finished the job within a half an hour, as one of them told me). And fine, when I visit the house I have cable internet at the top speed they offer, which degrades in speed in the evenings - insufficient backhaul to cover demand. So some might call me a spoilt brat - especially those in rual areas waiting for 1 MBits/sec or whatever. We are all suffering from the same sick state set-up.

Many of these former gov operations (not to mention many current gov agencies) have total contempt for the customer, who they seem to treat like a victim to pay their salary/pension, sans innovation. There are exceptions.

Unfortunately the mentality is deep in the culture, pre/post privatisation ethos. And the 'legal system' in Ireland seems to be primed to protect them. Not that I am criticising the court system which provide a good service given resources allocated to them, and the poorly writen and antiquated statute and 'common laws' they preside over. However many employees of ex-state companies, to the highest level seem to be above regulation and legal control and can do what they like, irrespective of law, morals or the resources made available to them.

TV in Ireland is stuck in Anglo-Saxon land linguistically speaking, leaving many school leavers non-viable linguistic capable bots in a European business culture. Forcing IRL to import language speakers, who can't get a house or apartment unless they work for a financial organisation or similar to pay the high cost of same - again due to planning and public transport incompetence all governments have prosided over for decades.

It is a total mess. We are left with a society that goes from economic crash to boom to crash - zero sustainability. Almost zero broadband. Zero public transport *system* - and that includes high speed data, as well as trains, trams, buses, furnicular rail, water ferries, etc

Eir has been a waste of money to everybody – customers, gov.ie, s'holders.. planet

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