From top: Minister for Communications Richard Bruton; Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and junior minister with responsibility for rural digital development Seán Canney ;Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe, Minister for Rural & Community Development Michael Ring; Mr Canney; Mr Vardkay, Mr Canney and Mr Bruton
The estimated cost to the Exchequer of the National Broadband Plan increased from €1 billion to €3 billion between December 2015 and April 2018, according to new information about the tendering process from the Department of Communications.
Under the revised plan passed by Cabinet today, connecting high-speed broadband to more than one million people in rural Ireland will cost, on average, €12,000 per house; €7,000 per farm; and €15,000 per business.
The total cost to the taxpayer, which is less than half of the cost of the total plan, is capped at €2.97 billion – a figure which includes €545 million for contingencies….
If you tolerate this, etc.
National Broadband Plan to cost €12,000 per home – Govt (RTÉ)
Earlier: When It Rains
“The Cabinet has decided to award preferred bidder status for the National Broadband Plan to the sole remaining bidder in the competition, the national Broadband Ireland consortium led by the US businessman David McCourt [and in which Denis O’Brien’s Siteserv was belatedly added last August, just ahead of the planned contract award]. The decision, made after a lengthy cabinet discussion today, is expected to be announced by ministers and the Taoiseach shortly.” says the Irish Times
Also, RTE appears to have removed the “€12,000 per house; €7,000 per farm; and €15,000 per business” which are presumably based on the assumption that 100% of potential premises sign up. The public accounts committee reckon it could be €40,000 per premises based on a more realistic assumption of take-up.
Very destructive politics. Everyone can see through this.
+ €6,000,000,000
+1
Corrosive and dangerous.
And running a business I was told there is a charge to access that rapid broadband
And lets start to realise there is more cod in this announcement than in the Irish waters around our coast
Could 5G replace this?
5G could possibly replace some of this.
One of the downsides of 5G is that it is (relatively) short distance. So you need a lot more base stations to cover the country-side with 5G than 4G. (and the most rural areas probably don’t even have 4G at the moment).
And you still need to bring fibre to each of the base stations (which is easier than to every rural house).
I still think this project should be canned, and new plan to bring fibre to all towns and villages of Ireland (not each isolated house).
It could cost (according to these figures) €12K to wire a house with fibre… but then the occupant won’t want to sign up to broadband to pay towards it? bonkers!
If you think 5G has short range try wifi. Which is all the govt have to offer with this fking useless plan.
Maybe, but i’m with Vodafone on 4g, and coverage is pretty good in most areas I go to around the countryside in Ireland. To put in the additional towers to cover the outliers somehow i doubt wouldn’t cost €3000,000,000. Three thousand million.
One door is closing for the FG friend in the Phillipines, and another one opens in Ireland, courtesy of your money and my money.
Maybe a good idea would be to run the Tribunal for it at the same time as it’s being put in place.
FFG are just laughing at us.
All new hosuing estates built in wexford have phone broadband, nobody cares though because as soon as they leave the house there is no 4g or 3g. and since theyre mostly holiday homes why would you pay twice for broadband (once for your phone and for the landline) thats only useable in a house you spend a month or two in a year anyway. WE COULD HAVE HAD COAST TO COAST 5G FOR A FRACTION OF THIS
Thats codswallop to be honest. Vodafone 4g is accessible all over Wexford town 50+down and 30up, minimum.Out in the sticks there’s a lot of 4g available, and in 3g areas the download is between 5 and 8g down and 2up.
People do live full time in Wexford by the way. Mostly.
You might think during the summer that it’s Little Dublin, but the Dublin folk are only after our strawberries and to find somewhere to strut their stuff :-)
This clarifies the issue.
https://coveragemap.comreg.ie/map
For the average punter, what does 5G give that 4 or 3 doesn’t?
Wel,l according to the ones trying to sell the equipment, we’ll need it for the VR headsets and 3D movies we are all going to be using.
Cloud computing so- you rent storage space without any real data guarantee of security- and then the rent keeps increasing.
It is faster – both lower latency and much wider bandwidth. So you can move a lot more data a bit more quickly.
Basically you can get wi-fi speed to your phone while roaming.
I asked a boffin and he said that the promise of greater speeds is good advertising fodder but near enough useless in practice for mobile devices. The real benefit, if it can be described as such, is that it allows an awful lot more devices to connect to the internet in a given transmitter’s coverage area. Service providers anticipate that this will be needed for all the odds and ends that will be fitted with a sim card as a matter of course in the future (dishwasher, toaster, baby’s dolly etc etc.)
@The Old Boy. Yes and No.
Each transmitter can support more bandwidth. So you either have more connections – each with the same speed, or the same number of connections with more speed each.
The second thing to remember is that 5G will need more transmitters – each covering a smaller area – so an area that had one 4G transmitter (with say 1GB of bandwidth) will be upgraded with four 5G transmitters (with 20GB each) leading to an eighty-fold increase in available bandwidth. [ignore the numbers here – they aren’t accurate]
Lastly, I don’t think that home appliances would connect directly to 5G – the whole point of 5G is mobility. You’ll still use Wi-Fi in the house which the devices will connect to. (although the Wi-Fi box may be connected to the internet wirelessly using 5G)
Is the tribunal priced into the €3bn ?
The estimated cost is now €2,970,000,000, I poo you not, it’s that precise, €2.97bn. You might get away with €30m for a basic tribunal which would bring it up to a nice round €3bn.
There was a story in one of the papers over the past few days saying that one of the main reasons that Leo was pushing for this to get across the line was that it would be politically damaging for them to cancel it at this point. Another clear example showing politicians’ prioritizing party’s interests over country.
Have you drove on the roads in Cavan or Donegal recently?
‘driven’ Driving on crooked rural boreens is a pleasant summer adventure if you are a foreign tourist on a mountain bike.
Yeah yeah. Try being sick in Monaghan- then getting to Cavan hospital.
A bit like trying to rush a very sick child to the fabulously designed, light filled and spacious, NCH in… the most densely populated area of the Island.
Stupid putting a hospital in a densely populated area. It should go in the least populated area – say the middle of the burren?
Yikes! Is this a class as Béarla? Tá SOQ ionntach Gaeilge – tá sé go bréa.
Whatever about a tribunal, there’s the makings of a blockbuster movie. Terry Mc to direct.
Ed Harris is nailed on to play McCourt.
Dunno about Varadkar though.
Kermit? given his experience as the main muppet, no?
Sorry if this is too simple of a solution and please correct me if I am wrong.
Is the ESB not a semi state company? (If your answer is yes please proceed to the next question)
Does every property in Ireland not have access to electricity? (If yes…. you know the drill)
Could the ESB not supply broadband to every house in the country using their current infrastructure and pathways that are in place already? (If the answer is no please let me know, so long as it is not some excuse because some tax avoiding company needs to make a buck or two)
yes
yes
…and yes, possibly ESB could supply broadband – but they would need to use a separate infrastructure. electricity is different to internet. So they would need to run a separate set of cables to every house. The phone companies would be better placed to do this.
Thanks for the reply Cian, I don’t mean that the cables would be on the same pillions or polls and I’d imagine the fiber cables would need to be a certain distance from electric cables as there would be a possibility of interference. When it comes to crossing mountains and other inaccessible ground the ESB already has routes through and around these.
funny enough fiber isn’t affected by leccy
easily laid on HT pylons etc. & already is
it’s the local “last mile” where the fun begins
Yes. The last mile is the problem.
Yes optical isn’t affected by high-powered electricity.
However from a safety perspective you wouldn’t run unnecessary cables anywhere near a 275KVolt line.
@cian there’s actually a couple of ways but mostly it’s done like this with a robot, see example here:
https://youtu.be/Skrp2XNgZBM
there’s even octocopter drones to do it but these core runs are the relatively easy bit however it’s done…..like we’ve both been sayin here….. it’s all about the last mile
it’s a fair question but ESB aren’t stupid enough to touch this for several reasons, nobody is. it’s commercial nonsense.
what needs to be done here for these remaining rural dwellers cannot be done easily (realistically if at all) the technical difficulty in achieving this is off scale. imagine what it would be like delivering a gas network connection into every rural premises & you are halfway there.
to put it in some kind of equivalent terms, FG may have well just announced they’re going to fund a moonshot. it’s bonkers.
clear as day this is a just vehicle for something else entirely grimy, a big dirty money trick.
the only upside I can see is in any of this is if FG think this is how to go about running a country, especially doing something for rural Ireland & notwithstanding all the other flashing red lights on the country’s control panel they’ve just signed their own death warrant & will be easily clipped at the next GE
(oh & btw regarding “rural” there are still plenty of places in Dublin suburbia trapped into hanging off a piece of string for various reasons)
this is a big fat SCAM
I don’t know about it being the FG death warrant they are still promoted by MMS as being great with our money and kept in ‘power’ by FF, realistically even if they are ousted the only likely alternative is FF with an outside shot of SF if they can stay out of the negative headlines long enough.
Who knows maybe Gemma and her band of merry racists will take over.
negotiation powers and business acumen, another two strings FG can’t add to their Bow. Which is ironic as their party ideology would be to run the country like a business. these guys aren’t just useless, they’re dangerously wreckless.
This just doesn’t make sense- technically or financially. Is there EU funding available I wonder.
Anyone know?
There was but I imagine given the lack of progress this may not have been drawn down. All the more so since the scope of the plan has changed.
https://eufunds.gov.ie/objectives/ict-access/
The European Investment Bank (EIB) are financing the NBP to the tune of €500m.
There is so. Tnx. Have we forgot about water now? Is connectivity the new sexy after roads and clean drinking water will still keep pi$$ing away?
With our record on omissions?
per house; per farm; and per business , cable is cable …..
I would have thought so alright.
I cannot understand the distinction.
This is a bigger scam than the childrens hospital. It will cost us 3 billion of our taxes and thats before you get to pay some company a fee to use it. And of course it wont do you any good as soon as you go outside your houses wifi range. And of course we dont even own the infrastructure that we will be paying for. THE RIGHT PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE VERY RICH OFF THIS
Maybe, but i’m with Vodafone on 4g, and coverage is pretty good in most areas I go to around the countryside in Ireland. To put in the additional towers to cover the outliers somehow i doubt wouldn’t cost €3000,000,000. Three thousand million.
One door is closing for the FG friend in the Phillipines, and another one opens in Ireland, courtesy of your money and my money.
Maybe a good idea would be to run the Tribunal for it at the same time as it’s being put in place.
FFG are just laughing at us.
+1.
I’m on a techno whore tour myself and 3G is near everywhere. We must have high speed, we MUST have high speed. Is it really going to make such a difference to your life if a page takes three seconds to load instead of one?
Really?
you need high speed for video and the myriad of uses that you can’t think of or being invented yet
there are lots of valid criticisms of this plan, but the idea that 3G will be grand in 20 years time is the worst
I’m not saying that 3G is grand, far from it. But, it connects the rural business community. Likewise, and more so, satellite.
I am certain that in 20 years time, the idea of digging tracks along road surfaces which are NOW no more than dirt tracks will not be considered progress.
Fix the friggen roads.
And the broadband requirements that myriad of things you speak about will have overtaken what Dinny and Co. produce for €3000,000,000. In 5-10 years
SpaceX are already putting in place satellites for high-speed internet for the whole planet, and they’re not the only company doing this: https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/how-spacex-aims-bring-high-speed-internet-whole-world-ncna853766
This could well be in place long before the National Broadband Plan’s projected timeline. No 5G required.
Two other companies doing similar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneWeb_satellite_constellation
https://spacenews.com/telesat-to-announce-manufacturing-plans-for-leo-constellation-in-coming-months/
VPN absolutely no problem to me right now?
With all satellite systems, its the upload speed which makes it a poor service.
Didn’t one of the Irish football team run a company selling sat services to the culchies, which went bang a few years ago?
Niall Quinn
Qsat went under and the service improved- go figure.
The space x and similar new proposals are very different from all the previous satellite broadband. They will be low latency, on a par with fibre. Mainly due to the vast number of tiny satellites in much lower orbit. Details further down the article here:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/02/spacexs-satellite-broadband-nears-fcc-approval-and-first-test-launch/
Redacted needs to make up the €450mil he lost at INM. Good old Fine Gael aren’t going to leave their leader swinging in the wind.
Don’t forget about his Digicel losses.
At least our politicians are having a go looking like an opposition
FF says “Fine Gael is now promising to deliver the National Broadband Plan to a third less homes, taking three times longer, and costing six times the original price. On top of that, the state will not own the network built and paid for by the taxpayer. One of the most striking facts from today’s announcement is the confirmation that the rollout time for the NBP has now tripled from three to ten years.”
SF says “We cannot continue to treat taxpayers’ money in this way. It is unacceptable, and we must get to the bottom of how this came about.”
Catherine Murphy is calling for answers.
Can FG really get away with this?
THERE HAS BEEN MOSTLY CRITICISM OF THIS PLAN FROM MANY DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES, VALID CRITICISM IN MY OPINION, CAN WE REALLY LET THE STATE SPEND €3 BILLION ON A NETWORK THAT IT WILL NOT EVEN OWN AFTER THE DUST SETTLES,REALLY?, FFS, HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING, THIS MUST BE STOPPED (shouting on purpose, infuriated at this madness, dodgy dealing with Min for Comms,deeply flawed tender process, Eir associations, DOB associations, no guarantees that the taxpayer/consumer will not be completely ripped off later on for the service that is meant to be the main focus of the project, this is a tribunal in the making and as we know when it’s got that far it’s way too late then, this must be stopped in its current format, continue to work on the plan and implement after GE)
Time to march.
Second picture. Next Phoenix magazine cover.
I already have broadband. Can I just have the 12 grand please?
How much are Eir paying Acome per mtr for the present cables, are 300 thousand
customers they are now hooking up costing over 10k a piece to hook up……?
not likely this is a re run of the water meter fiasco, and guess who is waiting in the
wings, and wait for it who is the top civil servant with links to the Irish Water mess
and now the broadband foray…….those in the Gov need running out of office, an effective
and cost economical fiber plan can be supplied and implemented at a fraction of
the cost…..this is a bale out for a so called entrepreneur who has got badly stung in
order to revive their financial credibility,
Lots of clueless dopes like Heather Humphrys, Michael Ring and Charlie Flanagan spinning this as a “game changer”for all its worth.
It is, but not in the way they think.
Has the Government revealed a target take-up rate for the €3bn investment. Provision isn’t the real issue for technology; adoption and use is.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh but your ALL forgetting something. With all the culcies getting the marginally slightly faster internets for a bargain price of just 3 billion . We will eventually inspire the next muck savage version of Steve Zukkerjobgates who will wow us with the next high tech e-gizmo blockchain based tech billionaire industry who in turn will move the business out of the country and use every tax trick so…they ….wont pay ..a..penny back to pay off the 3 billion investm……wait…what was my point again?