5 ms·

Man, I do wonder how they decide which rural areas get fiber, do they throw darts at a map?

CalRobert 3y ago
There were strategic rural routes along roads between towns, etc. It got 300k homes hooked up. Ironically people in turns got fttc, rural people ftth.
donalhunt 3y ago
Based on my experience... yes! In the end, the Irish government decided to bankroll the rollout of fiber to "commercially unviable" areas (under the guide of a National Broadband Scheme). That prompted one of the unsuccessful telcos to suddenly find ~ 300k of those homes commercially viable! Trying to understand why some properties have been hooked up and others not is a fruitless exercise. During the COVID lockdown, I discovered that most churches (which had a strong interest in broadcasting masses to their congregations) has either been deemed commercially unviable or not indexed at all. Many hoops were jumped through.
rsynnott 3y ago
So the theory is that they'll roll it out to 569,000 premises which are considered unlikely to be connected to fibre via the commercial providers; it's fairly extensive. In principle, it should go virtually everywhere that the commercial providers don't. We'll see how it works out in practice, of course. They're at about 150k premises 'passed' (ie they can be connected on demand); of these 45k are actually connected. EDIT: Actually, from context they may be talking about a prior rollout. But the idea's the same.
- CalRobert 3y ago
  Rob!!! It's been a while. Hope you're doing well. I was referring to this (from 2018) for the 300k number - https://www.openeir.ie/open-eir-passes-170k-rural-homes-businesses-with-fibre-to-the-home-ftth/ https://www.openeir.ie/open-eir-passes-170k-rural-homes-busi...
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    Oh, small world! Yeah, this was OpenEir (which is now just Eir’s standard commercial offering, though I think the rural buildout was subsidised). I was thinking of NBI, a separate network which is supposed to fill in what OpenEir didn’t. Meanwhile I’m on coax; that’s the price you pay to live in the city center. (For whatever reason, Dublin city center tends to be behind on this stuff; my old apartment, beside Trinity, didn’t even get _VDSL_ until 2016 or so).

There were strategic rural routes along roads between towns, etc. It got 300k homes hooked up. Ironically people in turns got fttc, rural people ftth.

donalhunt 3y ago

Based on my experience... yes! In the end, the Irish government decided to bankroll the rollout of fiber to "commercially unviable" areas (under the guide of a National Broadband Scheme). That prompted one of the unsuccessful telcos to suddenly find ~ 300k of those homes commercially viable! Trying to understand why some properties have been hooked up and others not is a fruitless exercise. During the COVID lockdown, I discovered that most churches (which had a strong interest in broadcasting masses to their congregations) has either been deemed commercially unviable or not indexed at all. Many hoops were jumped through.

rsynnott 3y ago

So the theory is that they'll roll it out to 569,000 premises which are considered unlikely to be connected to fibre via the commercial providers; it's fairly extensive. In principle, it should go virtually everywhere that the commercial providers don't. We'll see how it works out in practice, of course. They're at about 150k premises 'passed' (ie they can be connected on demand); of these 45k are actually connected. EDIT: Actually, from context they may be talking about a prior rollout. But the idea's the same.

CalRobert 3y ago
Rob!!! It's been a while. Hope you're doing well. I was referring to this (from 2018) for the 300k number - https://www.openeir.ie/open-eir-passes-170k-rural-homes-businesses-with-fibre-to-the-home-ftth/ https://www.openeir.ie/open-eir-passes-170k-rural-homes-busi...
- rsynnott 3y ago
  Oh, small world! Yeah, this was OpenEir (which is now just Eir’s standard commercial offering, though I think the rural buildout was subsidised). I was thinking of NBI, a separate network which is supposed to fill in what OpenEir didn’t. Meanwhile I’m on coax; that’s the price you pay to live in the city center. (For whatever reason, Dublin city center tends to be behind on this stuff; my old apartment, beside Trinity, didn’t even get _VDSL_ until 2016 or so).