Watty Stuff » Broadband

Irish Broadband Progress

Watty — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 09:03:30 +0000

UPC are making progress:

30Mbps available in many areas. More upgrades to come adding Broadband to TV only areas.

120Mbps DOCSIS 3 on the way.

UPC bought a pile of junk from NTL and Chorus. But it should not have been like that.

NTL and Chorus had no money eventually. They both did minimal investment. What UPC is doing could have been done 8 years ago.

Chorus and NTL could have had Broadband on Cable before eircom or Esat launched DSL.
Chorus had Fixed Wireless Broadband (I think in 2000 or 2002) but lost licence due to lack of rollout.
Chorus and NTL could have had Digital on MMDS and Cable before Sky Digital launched.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_Ireland

Quote:

BROADBAND SERVICE

Work on a further expansion of the town’s services will commence this week with the laying of the new fibre-optic cable to provide broadband service to those areas of town where the biggest potential users are presently located.

The route the cable-laying – which will inevitably cause further traffic disruption – will take in the industrial estates at Shandon and the businesses on the Youghal Road / By-pass, as well as Grattan Square, Bridge Street, Davitt‚s Quay and Mary Street.

This will complement the Casey Cablevision service which has been providing a high quality broadband network, as well as a comprehensive TV network for the whole town for the last five years and which also covers outlying areas such as the fastgrowing Ballinroad.

From http://archives.tcm.ie/waterfordnews…story12080.asp October 2003

Goverment did belatedly make it a condition of cable TV licence to provide Broadband but it was years too late and they kept the bar too low and also were not perpared to withdraw licence so kept extending compliance dates.

Eircom privatisation was exactly at wrong time and with no enforceable conditions and without prior separation of Network and Retail.

Ultimately lack of enforcement of regulations and lack of will of Government to implement their own recommendations was at fault. Not the companies.
The Oireachtas 24th March 2004:

Quote:

Define broadband as a service that provides at least 512Kbs connectivity and set a target of the widespread availability of 5Mps connections by 2006 and with a further suggested target of 10Mps connections by 2008.

http://broadband.oireachtas.ie/Chapter02.htm
and
http://broadband.oireachtas.ie/Chairmans_Preface.htm

Quote:

The Joint Committee has concluded, for the Irish market, that speeds of anything less than 512kbs is not broadband but is in fact in a class known as 'mid-band'. This would include such services as ISDN connections and 124 and 256kbs DSL connections. In this respect the Joint Committee's definition of broadband differs from that in use by other groups and significantly differs from the definition currently to be found in Section 8 of the Finance Bill 2004. The Joint Committee believes that all connections at speeds of less than 124kbs, currently the majority in the Irish economy, have to be regarded as narrowband connections.

We are sadly at about 1/2 the speed of the 2006 recommendation.

Do Analysys Mason have anyone that Understands Mobile?

Watty — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:51:56 +0000

I seriously begin to wonder if Mobile Wireless Vendors have shares in these guys.

The spectrum to give everyone even 10Mbps Broadband via wireless doesn't exist unless there is a Wireless base station in every street.

Or if they are part of the iPhad cult, how do they think Apple TV will work without FTTH.?

Have they been mesmerised by Intel's buy out of Infineon's Wireless to have GSM/3G/LTE tech?

Do these guys have ANYONE on staff that actually understands Mobile Wireless technology and performance issues or do they just analyse share prices?

Operators should trial fibre to the home (FTTH) while also focusing on less expensive copper-based technologies

London

6 September 2010

Operators should reconsider costly plans for fibre to the home (FTTH) and focus on copper-based technologies, according to global telecoms, media and IT adviser Analysys Mason’s latest report FTTx roll-out and capex in developed economies: forecasts 2010–2015.

Wireless devices and services will continue to capture new consumer telecoms spend (whether this is incremental or substitutive) because this area has the greatest rate of innovation. This growth makes it more difficult for fixed operators because overall consumer spend on telecoms has long since ceased to grow in developed economies. Many cable operators have been offering superfast fixed broadband connectivity for some time in Europe and North America, but take-up remains troublingly low.

“FTTH is often said to be ‘future-proof’, but the future appears to have veered off in a different direction,” says Rupert Wood, Principal Analyst at Analysys Mason and author of the report.

Press release on Analysys Mason

Comment

It's true that operators (ISPs) don't want to make the mistake that 3G operators made. They dreamed of all kinds of services. There turned out to be only three:

Voice calls.
SMS.
Pipe for Data.

There is of course VOD / IPTV which is possible on Fibre. That however is really being a Cable TV company (with all the costs) on fibre instead of Coax. You compete with existing Pay TV.

What people want is a connection. No cap or FUP. Reliability. TV is a service that has to be provided separately and most people that want pay-Tv already have it. It's not possible to provide free TV or free VOD on fibre, the costs are higher than a connection only broadband subscription.

It's also true that if the cabinet or curb is near your house or business then VDSL2 or even 1G CAT5e Ethernet (copper) from the fibre fed cabinet can deliver 20Mbps to 100Mbps on Cat3 and 100Mbps to 1Gbps on Cat5e up to 100m. But is that much of roll out saving?

NBS is a kick in the Teeth for two kinds of users.

Watty — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 21:01:33 +0000

German LTE: Not a solution to missing Rural Broadband

Quote:

the tariffs announced by Vodafone Germany, which will be asking €40 a month (around £33) for 7.2Mb/s, with a 10GB cap, rising to €70 (almost £60) for 50Mb/s speed capped at 30GB. Bust the cap and you're reduced to 3G speeds until the end of the month.

via http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/06/german_lte/
As predicted. To "work" (and not lose money) LTE needs

No Fixed users: There isn't the capacity. 50Mbps would become 1Mbps to 5Mbps
To be more expensive than Fixed Broadband (3G/HSPA is voice subsidized).
Low cap to keep off fixed users and lower congestion

LTE isn't a solution for Missing Rural Broadband. The Clue is in the Name. It is for people on the Move. Mobile Users. Just like 3G /HSPA should be.
True Mobile / "on the go" users (business or pleasure) in Ireland would find Mobile giving 2 to 4 times better performance if there were not so many Fixed users on it (because it's artificially cheaper than DSL and Fixed Broadband availability is poor). Giving the NBS to Mobile Infrastructure is a double "kick in the teeth". To Buisness on the Go, Mobile users and to people that need reliable fixed Broadband at home and work.

Get out of jail Free

Watty — Sun, 16 May 2010 20:16:08 +0000

See

http://www.three.ie/terms/customer_notification.htm

and

Boards Midband

Ireland Offline

What is Techtír about?

Watty — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:14:02 +0000

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