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IrelandOffline is a voluntary organisation campaigning for universal high-speed broadband for all

Opinion

Universal Gigabit by 2028 is not believable

‘The policy is the policy until the policy changes’ The Government’s Digital Connectivity Strategy dates from 2022 and contains three targets. We can dispense with target number three, the BCPs and schools, which was met some time ago, and number two, the 5g target, is worth a post of its own. The question here is whether the Government credibly can cling to the claim of ubiquitous gigabit coverage by 2028. The strategy was supposed to “evolve“. In 2023 the Department committed to an update no later than 2025. That didn’t happen, but last December we were advised the strategy would...

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The GIA’s Irish Road Trip

The Plan The Gigabit Infrastructure Act is the EU’s latest attempt to get network utilities and public bodies to share their existing physical infrastructure (PI); poles, towers, ducts, cabinets etc., with telecoms networks. It does so by a presumptive right to access, a Single Information Point (SIP) – to discover the PI, and a dispute resolution body. The net objectives are to accelerate deployment of Very High Capacity Networks (VHCNs), and to reduce environmental and financial costs. It also provides for coordination of new PI developments between telecoms and other networks, and requires the SIP to act also as a portal...

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Are Virgin Media becoming irrelevant?

For many years Virgin Media provided broadband and TV services over coaxial cable and charged handsomely for the service. Admittedly the service was quite stable and probably worth the premium price being charged for the service in comparison to XDSL services (broadband over the phone line service) of that time. We’ve been contacted by a number of Virgin customers who are being charged up to 100€ for basic services whereas the norm for these services now is in the range of 30/40€ and they’ve been wondering why. With the advent of FIBRE to the home services that are becoming common...

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Virgin media upgrades to ftth

https://www.analysysmason.com/research/content/articles/vmo2-fttp-upgrade-rdfi0   Virgin Media O2 is the largest cableco to announce a full FTTP upgrade 03 August 2021 | Research Rupert Wood Article | PDF (4 pages) | Fibre Infrastructure Strategies “Broadband is shifting to FTTP and disaggregated wholesale and retail; cablecos cannot afford to hang about.” Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) announced, in July 2021, that it will upgrade all 14.3 million homes that are currently passed by HFC to FTTP by 2028, adding to the 1.2 million recently built homes passed. The technology used will be XGS-PON. This is the largest HFC-to-FTTP network migration to have been announced anywhere in the world....

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ComReg Report May 2020 on MANs

Please find easy access to the Comreg report on the MANs project. ComReg Report May 2020 and the covering letter: Covering letter to Minister from ComReg A number of FOIs requesting access to this document were refused, yet there seems to be nothing particularly “sensitive” in the document. Draw your own conclusions on the refusals… This document was prepared only for the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) on behalf of Department of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment (DCCAE)   This report was prepared for the purpose of determining enet progress in relation to the implementation of the recommendations as...