Train Of Thought

at

Here’s hundreds we made earlier.

Paul Anthony McDermott tweetz:

Irish Rail could get into broadband provision by using the existing & disused rail network, fibre could be laid underground along lines without digging up the whole country, might be a nice little income stream for them for the old network (above left)…

Anyone?

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23 thoughts on “Train Of Thought

  1. Al

    This assumes that all of the old network is still in Irish rails hands, I know that a lot of the old network down to cahersiveen for example has been converted into farmland, I can imagine its similar in other parts of the country where the lines are closed in excess of 50 years

    1. The Dude

      Alas, even some of the lines shown in the more recent map have since been closed and lifted; Waterford – New Ross and the line to Youghal for example
      :-(

  2. cian

    I’m sure they already do this – or at least allow the various networks to lay cables along the tracks.

    1. b

      the replies to the tweet already confirm this

      it’s being done already – it’s very much the low hanging fruit of getting broadband to rural areas

    1. 3stella

      Sometimes the original permission/purchase for the railway contained a sell back clause at a nominal rate to the original owners. In any case, it is often in the railway’s interest to dispose of a redundant railway route as quickly as possible, firstly to stymie any possible reopening and secondly they are liable to maintain bridges, tunnels, embankments, fencing etc… along a route as long as the land is in their possession.

    1. ineverthoughtidenduphere

      Yep, That’s white plastic conduit on left side that runs along the Dublin – Cork mainline.

  3. Increasing_Displacement

    The thing to do would be not wire every home and waste vast amounts of time and money with lines to individual homes in sparsely populated areas but to wire to LTE towers which provide to 300-400 homes.
    30-40mb/s is enough at the moment for the vast majority of homes. Obviously some types of business would require more.
    Then you just upgrade each tower as and when needed to increase capability if experiencing more load due to expanding demand or from 4G to 5G when available which will increase bandwidth dramatically

    Just an idea.

    1. cian

      What is the range of a LTE tower? How many would you need across the country to provide each group of 300-400 houses?

  4. 3stella

    Bord Na Mona apparently has one of the best internal high speed broadband networks across the midlands.

  5. Cian

    They own only very few closed lines and the majority of those they still own have fibre conduits under them already (North Kerry line for instance)

    Some of the 1906 map was closed before there was even the Great Southern/Great Northern duopoly and large amounts never made it to state ownership.

  6. Paddy at the Howth Summit

    What? And have cyclists tripping over the wires? Did we learn nothing about the LUAS bike hate? Terrible idea.

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