[Article]3 preferred over eircom for broadband plan

[mike65]

from www.rte.ie/news

Communications Minister Eamon Ryan has announced that mobile company 3 has been selected as the preferred tenderer for the National Broadband Scheme.

The scheme is aimed at delivering broadband to those areas of the country currently unserved. 3 was up against Eircom for the contract.

The Department of Communications says that work will be finalised on the contract in the coming weeks, with a final announcement expected next month.
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'It is imperative that we have universal broadband coverage in Ireland, for foreign investment, for competitiveness and for our own businesses and householders,' said Minister Ryan.

The department estimates that about 10% of the country remains without a broadband service. It says the scheme, which involves a Government subsidy, will ensure that all reasonable requests for broadband in these areas are met.

3, owned by conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, launched on the Irish market in 2005. It operates one of Ireland's 3G mobile phone licences under the 3 brand and has 300,000 customers, including 105,000 mobile broadband users.

Eircom said it was 'extremely disappointed' not to be awarded the contract, but remained committed to delivering broadband to as many parts of the country as possible. It said it would continue to support the Government in whatever way it could to deliver broadband

Good, bad or indifferent?

Mike

[barnicles]

Absolutly total bullsh*t

[faoile@n]

Absolutely ridiculous

Eamon Ryan should be banned from this forum.

Edit: It might not be such a bad thing that Eircom didn't get it but 3 ffs.

[AlmightyCushion]

Complete and utter joke. I can't believe the goverment are going to be subsidising 3 for this shoddy "broadband" service.

[mike76]

http://m.cnet.com.au/broadband/339287846.htm

In Oz a crowd of micky mouse operators got it, couldn't do it and the new govt took it away;

When it happens here all of the top Com reg and dept guys have to go

For the love of god just look at the megathread you moron ryan - they can't provide a decent service in balbriggan, never mind bohola!

[Danno]

Three is NOT broadband. IDSN is just as fast. Thank God I have choice of DSL and FWA. Pity the poor hoors that will only get this glorified ISDN service. I feel sorry for you as I am only 3 years old in the broadband way of life. Rural Ireland has truely died a death today.

[Cabaal]

I'm actually shocked at this, given that Eamon is actually registered on boards.ie and has actually posted on the broadband forum I find it shocking that he allowed this to be awarded to Three over eircom or anyone else given the sheer bad service three have been showen to offer to many of its users.

In addition to this Three Mobile Broadband is NOT proper Broadband and is totally unsuitable for such uses as on-line gaming and VoIP which is what makes Broadband so much fun and makes it useable in both a home and business enviroment (VoIP, video chats, conferencing etc)

Given that Eamon has so nicely posted on this forum in the past looking for views on Next Gen Broadband I'd suggest some people might want to drop him a kinda e-mail about there views on the outcome of this, his details are here - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showp...39&postcount=1

I would remind everyone to remain civil however when dealing with Eamon or anyone else on this board, while I can understand that the inability to get Broadband can be VERY frustrating it helps nobody if you get irate with people, remain civil and use a logical argument

Given Eircom's history I would be curious if they'll somehow appeal this, as much as I personally dislike Eircom as a company (history of problems getting DSL/PSTN lines installed on 4 different occasions over the years) I would rather the people of Ireland get Broadband via dsl then "mobile broadband" for the reasons outlined above and as discussed in so many other threads here on the Broadband froum,.

Finally I remind everyone that general boards rules apply here, Eamon is a user on boards and atleast he took the time to post here I don;'t want to see people slinging personal abuse at him, you can still obviously dislike whats happened

[mike76]

enough lets be nice just cause he posts here....this is a TERRIBLE and APPALLING Decision,

if it was mobile bb by O2 or Vodafone i might understand but 3 Ireland?!?!?!

It's like awarding the contract for Metro North to O'Casey "No job too big or small" Construction Drumcondra.

[PogMoThoin]

Eamon Ryan............I'm awaiting your resignation

The people of Ireland need REAL broadband

[watty]

No HSDPA service can ever be Broadband.

Now we know the 8% max Sat users is CAP to limit costs. They'll be the ones with a better service, fixed 800ms latency and always connected, vs maybe connect and 120ms to 2000ms variable latency and possibly worse speed.

[Nick_oliveri]

"With this small piece of hardware you can get connected to a crap network, and if that crap network doesn't have a good signal it will automatically switch over to the many inferior sub networks that can be sometimes compared to 56k and yes my friends, we shall call it broadband!"

GWAN IRELAND!!!

[thebman]

Words cannot express my disappointment at this decision. It actually blows my mind that the government could award this to 3.

I will never be voting for the greens or FF after this much delayed NBS project that has proven to be seen as a joke by these political parties.

[Haddockman]

Jesus wept upon hearing the news.

[long_b]

I'm disgusted and very sickened by this decision.
I can't understand such a dreadful choice.
I would rather do without than to think that 3 will be being paid my hard earned tax money to deliver a woegeous service.

it's been all over the media -even the dog on the street can tell you how bad 3's service is.

Absolutely inept.

[barnicles]

Originally Posted by brim4brim

Words cannot express my disappointment at this decision. It actually blows my mind that the government could award this to 3.

I will never be voting for the greens or FF after this much delayed NBS project that has proven to be seen as a joke by these political parties.

Right, when are we going on Joe Duffy.
No, seriously this is one of the funniest jokes i've ever heard.