Dempsey "I want 500,000 on broadand by end '06"

"Anyone who wants or needs broadband in Ireland should have it within the next three years." So says communications minister Noel Dempsey on his vision for Ireland's broadband infrastructure. "However, I am wary of targets and figures and comparisons with other European countries all the figures tend to be measured differently. What I want to see here is that broadband is available to anyone who needs it."

He points out that broadband is no longer an optional extra. "It has become an essential tool of industry, commerce, education, health care and social inclusion", he says. "It is essential to the future well being of the country. Ireland is at an inflexion point economically and socially. The Celtic Tiger has shown us how to tap the entrepreneurial wellsprings that abound in this country.

"Future economic development and wealth creation depends on our continuing enthusiasm for new skills, new technologies, new opportunities and new challenges." He is keenly aware of the implications of failure to keep pace with international competitors. "Broadband takes both time and distance out of communications, industry in Ireland must continue to take costs out as
well", says minister Dempsey. "Business contacts can be anywhere, anytime, and in a fraction of a second. The world is, literally, at your fingertips. In business, it also means that your competitor is on your heels, and where that is the case cost competitiveness and flexibility are even more important."

And here he comes to the issue of the apparent deficit which has emerged in recent years. "Although the provision of telecommunications services, including broadband, is a matter primarily for the fully-liberalised private sector, there has been in recent years a certain slowness to invest in the necessary infrastructure that will facilitate the provision of broadband services nationwide.

"I understand that companies are driven by commercial imperatives and the need ultimately to make a return on the resources invested in them by their shareholders. " "The immediacy of the need for this return may not always lend itself to investment for the long term. In such cases, government intervention is needed, justified, and let me stress, will continue to the end of the current National Development Plan."

And the government, through the National Development Plan, has been making significant progress in addressing this deficit. "If government intervenes in the market, it is because it considers it to be necessary", says the minister. " It is not a whim on its part. It is a considered response. Its
objective is to grow the market to the benefit of the economy as a whole and
in the long-term interests of Irish economic and social welfare.

Government is responding to the broader public good, that is its job. That is why €200m was set aside under the NDP for broadband infrastructure developments that will enable the sector to deliver. But Government alone cannot provide the service required, nor will the private sector. The way forward is partnership. "The government has co-invested with industry in the rollout of DSL, broadband wireless, hybrid fibre cable networks, satellite broadband and the Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) programme, and we will continue to do our broadband business in this way. "

"Investment in these future proof MANs is essential if we are to attract high end, digitally intensive industry to our country. "It is also essential as the demand for bandwidth grows in all sectors. Ireland cannot turn up at international inward investment opportunities with a broadband offer of 512 kilobits DSL at 50:1 contention ratios. That is akin to Eddie Jordan turning up at Monza with a wheelbarrow", he adds.

In this context he lays down a challenge for the industry. "Forget about 100,000 broadband subscribers as a target - forget about 200,000. I want to see an industry target of 500,000 broadband subscribers achieved by the end of 2006 - that's 35% of the customer base - if industry PR is accurate that must be a realisable challenge", he says.

The first phase of the Department of Communications' Broadband Rollout Programme is now almost completed. Investment of almost €80m over the past two years, in association with the local authorities, has provided 26 towns and cities with high-speed, high-capacity infrastructure, independently managed for the State on an open-access basis. Phases II and III of the Programme will see investment in broadband networks in over 90 additional towns with a population of 1,500 and more, under a three-year programme with a dedicated budget of almost €100m.

The Group Broadband Scheme offers funding assistance for smaller towns and rural communities to pool their needs and obtain broadband connectivity in association with the industry. The Group Broadband Scheme has its own separate budget of €25m, and will see up to 150 smaller communities obtaining broadband connectivity. "While the industry was slow to get the message initially all the signs are that the realisation is there that we need to get the infrastructure rolled out as fast as possible and real progress is now being made", he concludes. "I am very hopeful that between government and the industry we will meet the target of having broadband available to everyone who wants or needs it within the next three years.