Broadband availability and economic viability

Ripwave

Originally posted by wexfordman
Right Ripwave, lets see where we agree and disagree on this so.

"Some Rural broadband is not, and will never be, economically viable. Calling for broadband availability in 100% of the land area is calling for money to be poured down the drain, and undermines calls for reasonable and effective investment by the Government to support the deployment of Broadband where it makes most sense."

Where exactly did I say 100% availability Ripwave, and who's putting words in who's mouth now ?

The whole damn argument started over Mucks cage rattling about 100% geographical coverage. If you want your own private threads, you'll have to start them yourself.

In the old days of P&T it was not economically viable to run copper all over the country just so people could have the convenience of having a phone line in the house. While many people regard it as essential infrastructure, it was'nt then and still is'nt. We could all share a public phone box 10 miles down the rd or in the nearest village, but we dont. We could have taken your argument then and ensured we only had 01 prefix's, shoved everyone up to dublin and left the rest of the country digging fields with their hands. Thankfully we chose not to and the government heavily subidised the building of a NATIONAL telecoms network, not a Dublin only one. Where would we be if we had gone the other way ?

Nice one, Wexfordman - redefine the phone infrastructure as non-essential, and then pretend that it it's a good model for the rollout of broadband, as though the phone system was extended to the whole country within 5 or 6 years of telephony being introduced to the country.

The Phone system was extended to the whole country precisely because it _WAS_ considered essential - Garda stations, post offices, doctors and hospitals justified the roll-out. For years, there were only one or two truck lines linking many towns and villages, and any additional phones within the town would have to share a line. If you remember, there were waiting lists of 5 or 6 years at times to get a telephone installed. If that's your recipe for the deployment of Broadband........

Also where did you get your figure that 50% of people in areas with BB dont bother to use narrowband ? And what are the reasons behind it ?

The CSO recently published statistics to the effect that only 42.3% of households even have computers, and only 33.6% of households have computers with an internet connection. The highest rates of computer and internet usage were in the Mid-East region (57% of households have computers, and 46.7% are connected to the internet).

wexfordman

This is Fun!!!!



Nice one, Wexfordman - redefine the phone infrastructure as non-essential, and then pretend that it it's a good model for the rollout of broadband, as though the phone system was extended to the whole country within 5 or 6 years of telephony being introduced to the country.

Again you are putting words into my mouth ripwave. Firstly I never said it was a good model for the rollout of BB. And if you read previous posts, I dont think there was any mention of building a network, more of utilising existing infrastructure to roll out rural BB, most of it wireless. I never once mentioned building a new network, I and others spoke of using infrastucture in an effecient way to provide what is to be an essential service.

With regards as re-defining the phone infrastructre as non-essential. Once again you are mis quoting me, I said it was not essential to have it in everyhousold back then (and if you want to be pedantic about it, it still is'nt essential to have it in everyhoushold), but it is and it should be a right and a convenience for everybody to have it. I never questioned the essential needs of a phone infrastructure for garda, hospitals doctors etc. We could have applied a similar solution to what you are saying for BB and provide it only to essential services etc, and let everyone else walk to the nearest payphone to call auntie!!!

Also, when comparing the rollout of a bb network as to the initial rollout of the old p&t, well I should hope we have come a lot further since then, and we have. Wirelss networks to cover the majority of the geographioc country have been built in very short periods of time in this country (9-12months), take digifone as an example. 9 months from grant of licence to a live NATIONAL service.

As to your CSO statistics, very interesting... And to my mind gives even higher priority to the rollout of BB infrastructure. If we have such a low usage of the internet at home, we are obviously behind and something needs to be done to encourage the take up of it, so that we have are seen to have a good e-literate population, and not some backwater country still stuck in the dark ages.

If you want to educate your population to be e-literate, you have to be pro-active, educatiive, and more importantly, you have to ensure that people have the facilities, and by facilites, I mean people have to have access, 28k dial up connection is not access, and does not allow people to use the internet to its full potential, and as such does not allow the growth of e-commerce etc.

Using the CSO statistics as a reason for not providing infrastructure is like saying we did'nt need to build schools, cos only 1/2 the population ever went to "hedge schools" so no one is going to go to a proper school. Lets not bother with investing and building universities or colleges, cos only a few people go to the ones we have so far.

Wexfordman

Moriarty

Split from Minster Ahern responds to Eircom's call for rural broadband funding diversion thread as its off topic.

wexfordman

This thread is more about rural bb availability rather than bb economics!!