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About LinkBacksCopper wire.Originally Posted by CookieMonster
Copper wire.
The enemy of my enemy is the enemy of my enemy. There are lies, damn lies and Fine Gael confusions. "I don't understand." Alan "it's only 79 punts" Shatter
I've long advocated the MANs baystations and the RTE transmission network (amongst other state assets) be merged into a more cohesive national transmission network for wireless and digital services. A national stock of transmission bases is the logical follow on from the MANs and would bridge the final mile for everyone from Vodafone/02/meteor to RTE and others (assuming wireless technologies continue to evolve at a sufficent pace)
I am always horrified at how little the people who are supposed to know about our digital communications infrastructure actually know.
I find many of the TDs I've chatted with seem to think that broadband is DSL, and also seem to be under the impression that the massive upgrades that were done in the 1980s, when Telecom switched over to digital infrastructure, are still somehow relevant today!
Ireland actually has quite a lot of broadband backbone infrastructure, there are heaps of fibre networks in place, the fundamental problem is the lack of access infrastructure to make use of all that fibre for anyone who isn't a big business user.
Yet, every time the state seems to do anything about broadband it seems to involve digging up roads and laying vast amounts of fibre for MANs and other networks, which nobody can access!!
Many of the problems also stem from poor planning over a long period of time which has created a situation where much of the 'urban' development is actually low density scatter in rural areas, which is almost impossible to serve with DSL, cable or any wireline technologies. This is one of the problems that comes about from unsustainable development. (Incidently, it also tends to lead to things like human effluent ending up in lakes and rivers etc etc.)
Most of our continental European cousins, and even the UK tend to be a LOT more urbanised, and rural areas are concentrated on village developments. Thus provision of services from power, to communications to sewage and water is a LOT easier and more economically viable.
These access infrastructure problems can be overcome though.
I think what we need to do is seriously look at wireless last mile technologies to cover most of the rural / quasi-rural (i.e. the greater Pale area).
It might be time to actually forget about trying to get coverage with DSL, it's just not cost effective or reliable over long lines served from tiny exchanges.
Countries like Finland, for example, have decided to begin to abandon wireline technologies in low density areas and to use wireless for everything, including the delivery of traditional voice services. This has allowed the telecommunications providers to make enormous savings which can be be used to upgrade wireline services in urban areas.
When the correct wireless technologies are used, with serious infrastructure to back them up i.e. enough base stations with fibre connections directly into the backbone, the services provided are actually fantastically good, it also can provide access to a much wider range of providers.
They tend to not work so well in urban areas as there is too much traffic all fighting for the same bandwidth on air, so DSL and cable technologies tend to be far more appropriate in those environments.
What we need to do is actually draw up a serious plan for broadband and how it's going to be delivered. So far, I haven't really seen any viable strategy to achieve this other than a lot of talk and hot air and buzz-words (many of which aren't even used correctly!)
We need to be looking at creating shared access point sites all over the country i.e. a mast, with housing for equipment and a large fibre optic connection that can be used to backhaul data as well as the usual power and aircon facilities that you would expect to find in any telephone exchange or data centre building.
These can be done quite tastefully e.g. using fake trees as masts etc etc.. Reusing RTE, local radio, GSM/3G sites etc too. If there's any argument, just make it a condition of the existing operators license that they share!
Then any licensed telecommunications operator should be allowed to locate their equipment there.
Money for this kind of thing could be levied as a % charge on licensed operators and direct state aid.
I just think with some seriously good planning, we could overcome this digital quagmire that we find ourselves in at the moment.
In urban areas, we need to push fibre-to-kerb, that could mean providing shared facilities at the kerb side, taking ownership of eircom's duct and overhead networks, and/or UPCs too!
It also means forcing the situation with local loop unbundling to be resolved. At present, for whatever reasons, very few exchanges are unbundled (i.e. other operators being allowed to install their own equipment in them).
Those issues quite simply need to be addressed, if necessary by ministerial order / legislation to force the situation.
We missed a massive opportunity to have pre-ducted all of the new build housing for various technologies including fibre-to-kerb. It just defies belief that legislation wasn't brought into place that required neutral ducts for use by any telecommunications operator etc in new housing estates and apartment buildings.
Instead, the Government actually allowed developers to hand entire housing developments over to a single telecommunications provider, so many people are stuck with shoddy, poorly implemented services provided by a local monopoly, which is often controlled by, or pays a kick back to the developer!
There are times when I actually wonder if replacing the Government with a few sacks of potatoes would actually provide better legislation and planning!
Last edited by slx; 27th July 2009 at 01:03 PM.
http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/NR/rdonlyres...08Part2328.pdf
Suggestion 9, page 119.
Damn, I thought it was a suggestion to replace the cabinet with sacks of spuds!
Great to see that open access infrastructure was suggested, but in fact the exact opposite occurred! Developers locked residents into exclusive deals with unheard of 'cable' companies and excluded eircom and UPC (NTL/Chorus) and even banned satellite dishes and external antennae, thus totally precluding the use of wireless technologies to bypass their mini-monopoly.
I suppose that report sat on a shelf somewhere since 2005 ?
lol, here's a review of it and a fairly accurate opinion from Damien...
Broadband Demand Report – Results unburied Damien Mulley
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