IrelandOffline to appear on Morning Ireland on Tue 14th

damien

IrelandOffline did an interview with Morning Ireland which will go out tomorrow tuesday the 14th. The segment is about broadband and business. Not sure what time exactly it'll be on at. Will get more information later.

fletch

damien.m wrote:

IrelandOffline did an interview with Morning Ireland which will go out tomorrow tuesday the 13th...

I presume you mean Tuesday the 14th as the next Tuesday the 13th is September 2005

Paddy20

Well, Here we go, here we go, here we go.

Poor Eircom, Oh I am soooooooo sad for you :rolleyes:

damien

Changed the date.

mike65

The business news is broadcast at about 7.20 and 7.50 I think (open to correction)

Mike.

vinnyfitz

"In the can" pre recorded business pieces are normally broadcast immediately after "what it says in the papers" - about 7.12 or 7.15. Just when Dermot Aherne is tucking into his weetabix.

Mike's right the 2nd chunk of business news comes at about 7.50.

(Of course if some major business story breaks this evening the whole piece may be deferred - you just never know.)

damien

Hmmm. It may get moved to Wedn now as they were interviewing an IrelandOffline member today and said something to that effect. I'll have more news this evening.


Damien.

damien

It looks like it will go out between 7.30am and 8am tomorrow the 14th.

dahamsta

Sure only freaks get up at that time.

sceptre

There's a 7am now?

maxheadroom

Very interesting piece this morning - congrats to Damien, Andrew (I think that was his name) and Jamie Smyth for really pushing the message. The interviewer sounded well up on the facts too. Would love to see that guy interviewing an eircom spokesperson.

eircomtribunal

Just listened to it (quarter to eight am).
Well done Damien and also well done Jamie Smyth from the Irish Times.
P.

DonegalMan

Very good piece, one of the best I've heard.

Well done Damien in getting key points across.

Jamie Smyth certainly laid in on the line about Eircom's financial approach.

Wonder why no-one from Eircom took part - did they refuse or were they not invited?

dahamsta

If anyone recorded this, please send an MP3 to adam AT beecher DOT net and I'll put it up on the IrelandOffline website. I was actually up at 7:15am (sorry) but forgot about the interview (don't fire on all cylinders until after noon) and wouldn't mind hearing it asap.

adam

damien

Thanks guys. I just got woken by the sound of text messages coming in telling me it sounded good.

We can probably get a follow-up piece to this if the members mail and let their feelings be known to Morning Ireland. Journalists rarely get the feedback on good stories, they only hear from people when they're nitpicking.

So email morningireland@rte.ie and let them know that they did a good job if you believe this to be the case. A follow-up piece about where Ireland goes from here would be good, again only if you think this is a good idea.

Just so you know, we are already getting emails in the IrelandOffline inbox about the story.

cgarvey

I tried to record it (using sndrec32) but failed (because I was using sndrec32), sorry .. I don't see any link to "Listen to latest show" so I don't know if that means there are no RAMs available for Morning Ireland, or that they have just removed the link until later today when the RAM is available. If there is a RAM, I'll happily reencode it as soon as I see the link.

Edit: OK, found the link, will reencode when its up.

.cg

cgarvey

damien.m wrote:

So email morningireland@rte.ie and let them know that they did a good job if you believe this to be the case.

Good point, we're all too quick to criticise! I've emailed a warm fuzzy congrats email

.cg

jwt

If someone can get an MP3 of the interview I'll get a transcript posted here or at IOFFL

John

dahamsta

BTW if you do send me an MP3, please notify me in a separate email, my filters trap everything over 100k so I won't see it for hours otherwise.

adam

bealtine

It seems eircom will be "responding" to the points raised on tomorrows program...That should be a laugh a minute.

I see from todays Irish Times that they have asked for permission from
Comreg to roll out ADSL2, but as is usual in these cases they, the PR bunnies,
get their facts wrong or deliberately misinform. Who knows?

Anyway the problem here isn't speed as such, although that is very important,
it's the appalling quality of the copper in the ground as outlined in the super secret "Project Pittsburgh". You can roll out ADSL50, but if 60% of the countries lines can't carry it then what's the point?
If they won't fix up the copper then that 60% of the country will be stuck on 33.6k (or thereabouts) on awful lines, the lines with plastic bags littered about and temporary fixes to temporary fixes...The string and chewing gum network.

cgarvey

cgarvey wrote:

Good point, we're all too quick to criticise! I've emailed a warm fuzzy congrats email

.cg

Got the reply

Thanks for the comments , we will be having Eircom on
the programme tomorrow to answer the points made.

...

Am doing the MP3 now

.cg

jwt

If someone can get an MP3 of the interview I'll get a transcript posted here or at IOFFL

It seems Damien has beaten me too it and has a transcript already

It seems eircom will be "responding" to the points raised on tomorrows program...That should be a laugh a minute.

Dr Phil's interview will probably be the tone, will we be allowed to repond? on air preferably.

John :cool:

dahamsta

bealtine wrote:

It seems eircom will be "responding" to the points raised on tomorrows program

IrelandOffline should try to break Eircom's long-running success at appearing in public unchallenged by making an extra effort to get on tomorrow. Of course it's members should do the same, but it wouldn't be the same.

adam

seamus

bealtine wrote:

Anyway the problem here isn't speed as such, although that is very important,
it's the appalling quality of the copper in the ground as outlined in the super secret "Project Pittsburgh". You can roll out ADSL50, but if 60% of the countries lines can't carry it then what's the point?

I think that's one of the key points that needs to be driven home. The main problem is the failing of lines and the unwillingness to do anything about it. No matter how the PR ferrets go one about developing the technology, and giving it time, push on the fact that they have had the time, and that there's no point, for example, in rolling out a 64-bit application when most of your customers are still on 16 bit processors.

damien

Transcript:


PRESENTER – RICHARD DOWNES

Today the Minister for Communications, Dermot Ahern, will open the Midland Region Broadband Network in Mullingar; it’s expected to go live in about four weeks. The government has high hopes for broadband and wants the country to be in the OECD’s top league for broadband by next year. It says that in order for Ireland to compete on an international stage in the so-called “information age”, this is an imperative. Our reporter, Emma McNamara found out about some of the barriers that remain in the way of our success.

REPORTER – EMMA McNAMARA

The sound of a dial up connection is likely to stay fresh in this country’s memory. The rollout of broadband is plagued by problems. Currently in Ireland there are about seventy-five thousand broadband connections, per head of population this about three years behind the European average.

I asked Damien Mulley, Chairman of lobby group, Ireland Off Line, why we’re falling behind.

DAMIEN MULLEY – CHAIRMAN – IRELAND OFF LINE

There is numerous reasons, the fact I think that thirty percent of what are classed as broadband lines in this country are actually failing. So there are a lot of people that when they apply for broadband they actually can’t get it due to poor quality lines. As well as that there is… not every exchange in this country is enabled for DSL. Until all exchanges are enabled not everyone in this country can get access to broadband.

EMMA McNAMARA

Broadband provides access to the internet at a higher speed than normal phone lines. It’s an always on connection and the user pays a standard price for a whole month’s use.

DAMIEN MULLEY

It was recognised back in the nineties that Ireland had one of the best phone systems in the world, but it appears that investment in the network since then has slowed or even stopped. There needs to be serious reinvestment in the network. Everyone is affected, from people in the middle of Dublin to people in the country and the thirty percent failure rate is thirty times higher than the UK, where BT has brought failure rate almost to zero. The reasons for failure can be poor quality lines, internal wiring of a house, distance from the exchange, but most of these can be rectified if an engineer calls to your house.

EMMA McNAMARA

DCU Economics Professor, David Jacobson is on sabbatical and made initially enquiries about getting a broadband connection in his Dublin home last September.

DAVID JACOBSON – ECONOMICS PROFESSOR – DCU

What they’re saying is that I can’t get access because when they were testing my line, and I have two lines and both are showing red, when I say, “please explain why my line is showing red? What’s happening? What’s the answer”? It’s either your house or it’s the area, we aren’t sure which. Now this began in September last year. In the meantime I have discovered that it’s not my area, because I have a next door neighbour who can get broadband, but I’ve spent literally hours… add it all up days, trying to get correct answers to these kind of questions.

EMMA McNAMARA

Why it is so important for you to have broadband?


DAVID JACOBSON

Well I’m an academic and… in the last year I’ve been on sabbatical and I’ve been working a lot from home, so broadband would give me almost immediate access. It’s very important for me to have broadband.

EMMA McNAMARA

Not only can it be difficult to get a broadband connection, sometimes getting over the initial hurdle of even having a land line is the problem. Andrew McCarthy is doing a PhD in computer science in UCD’s Belfield campus. He moved into a house in Athy, County Kildare last March and has been waiting for a land line to be installed since then.

ANDREW McCARTHY – UCD

I moved down to Athy in March and I expected it to take two or three weeks to get a telephone line and after that I’d be able to telecommute two or three days a week at least, because I knew the commute to be fairly long, but after delay after delay the latest, which is their fifth estimate, is that Eircom might have a phone line for me early next year. So I’ve been waiting six months to date and it could be another six months before I get a broadband connection or even a phone line. They also couldn’t guarantee that even when they do install all this equipment that it’ll even be DSL capable.

At the moment now nobody on my street has a phone. Nobody on the street behind or perpendicular I would imagine has a phone since they’re even newer than our house, and I think half of the street in front of me doesn’t have a phone line either. So there’s actually quite a large number of people who can’t even get a phone let alone broadband. I mean we’re just working on the first step here.

EMMA McNAMARA

You’re at UCD and you’re doing a PhD in computer science, how much time do you realistically need to spend in UCD every week?

ANDREW McCARTHY

Very little, if any at all. I have the occasional meeting with my supervisor and it’s handy to talk to people face to face when you’re trying to interact on a project that we were working on. But apart from that everything I do based on a computer it’s all useable over the internet, there’s absolutely no technical reason, apart from meetings, that I’d actually need to be on campus at all.

EMMA McNAMARA

And how long do you commute?

ANDREW McCARTHY

It’s two and a quarter hours each way. I mean I never imaged that in 2004 I’d be waiting at least six months, possibly even a year to get a phone line, it’s just… it’s not something you’d even expect to have to think about.

RICHARD DOWNES

And that report from Emma McNamara. The time now coming up to ten minutes to eight. Now Jamie Smyth is a technology reporter with the Irish Times and he’s here to talk about broadband. Jamie we’re supposed to be heading into this… you know, digital economy, knowledge-based industries, it doesn’t sound like it from that report. What are the problems?

JAMIE SMYTH – TECHNOLOGY REPORTER – IRISH TIMES

Yeah I think there are three major problems here. The first one is that there has been a lack of competition in the Irish broadband market over the past three and a half years, so in many countries across the world the broadband leaders there are cable television networks which also provide broadband…


RICHARD DOWNES

Which they don’t do here.

JAMIE SMYTH

… which NTL said it was going to in 2000, but then pulled out of that market…?

RICHARD DOWNES

And anybody who has an NTL connection knows you can’t get a broadband connection from them now… they’re changing it, but you can’t get it at the moment.

JAMIE SMYTH

Sure, they’re only starting now to roll out this, so that lack of competition really hurt the Irish market. What it did was it allowed Eircom to pull back from its own broadband plans it had set in 2000, it was going to rollout DSL, this digital subscriber line technology, which… which enables houses for broadband, but when NTL dropped out of the market it pulled back from its investment.

This also happened at a time when Eircom was going through a large amount of financial re-engineering. The company was…was sold to venture capitalists who had… had probably a different… a different view of what they wanted from the company at this stage. So rather than perhaps focusing on their customers over the last three years, I would argue that the company’s been more interested in trying to boost profits and to… to pay… to pay for executive pay for example, which has gone up a lot, and also to pay corporate financiers. If you could add up the amount of money that’s been paid to lawyers and corporate financiers over the last three years you could probably build a DSL network…


RICHARD DOWNES

And they also got a huge dividend didn’t they out of the company, which the minister I know has been critical of. Meanwhile there are lots of exchanges around the country which are not digitally enabled and lots of lines, people who want to get onto broadband, who want this new frontier of technology and they just can’t get it?

JAMIE SMYTH

Sure what… I think there are… there’s a poor quality network in places throughout Ireland and I think there is a lot of investment which is required to actually get the… the lines ready for broadband, get them up to… up to speed. One of the interesting figures, which I picked out was, that in 2001 the capital expenditure on Eircom’s fixed line network was five hundred million euro. In 2004 this’ll drop to two hundred million euro.

RICHARD DOWNES

So they’re not even investing now?

JAMIE SMYTH

They are investing a minimal amount I would say to sort of “sweat the assets”, keep them going. One of the problems here is the company faces huge… huge debt levels, about two billion euro, so it has to service this debt and it doesn’t have the flexibility to actually invest in its network to the same extent as other European telecom’s operators.

RICHARD DOWNES

And it has also promised a very high level of dividend to its shareholders in the future, which would also seem to go against the business of investing in its network and in its customers?


JAMIE SMYTH

That’s right. I think if you look over to the UK, British Telecom recently came out and said it was going to spend three billion pounds every year on its network to create a twenty-first century infrastructure. That means that all their consumers should be connected to broadband by 2008.

RICHARD DOWNES

When would we all be connected do you think? On the current…

JAMIE SMYTH

At this stage it’s very difficult to tell, but I would say certainly not before 2010 and beyond.

RICHARD DOWNES

Okay. Jamie we’ll have to leave it there. Jamie Smyth, technology reporter with the Irish Times, thanks for that.

cgarvey

MP3 is up here or on IoffL website shortly. (8K .. 520K or 16K 1.1M)
.cg

dahamsta

Thanks again cgarvey.

http://www.irelandoffline.org/files/media/mp3/040914-rte1-morningireland-mulley.mp3

adam

jwt

seamus wrote:

I think that's one of the key points that needs to be driven home. The main problem is the failing of lines and the unwillingness to do anything about it. No matter how the PR ferrets go one about developing the technology, and giving it time, push on the fact that they have had the time, and that there's no point, for example, in rolling out a 64-bit application when most of your customers are still on 16 bit processors.

See my other post here

John

damien

Can I just give a quick shout out to the people in Eircom reading this thread ? Hi guys ! IrelandOffline is looking forward to going head to head with your boss real soon now, and even if you are reading here what we are going to say about you there will be no way of spinning it.

Don't worry though. It'll be over soon enough and won't hurt you that much.

jwt

damien.m wrote:

Can I just give a quick shout out to the people in Eircom reading this thread ? Hi guys ! IrelandOffline is looking forward to going head to head with your boss real soon now, and even if you are reading here what we are going to say about you there will be no way of spinning it.

Don't worry though. It'll be over soon enough and won't hurt you that much.

What happened to not taunting them Damien

Its like a game of chess, you can see the other guys pieces, exactly where they are but there is still nothing you can do. You know it's coming, you can either move pices around in a frustrated attempt to postpone the inevitable, or you can give us your King

John

eircomtribunal

It is important to try to cut through the lies and misinformation Eircom has been able to put out. They are very good in doing it.

Let us as well not forget the big picture. Comreg and the DCMNR should stand in the dock with Eircom.

When Minister Dermot Ahern now cries that he had told Eircom all along that they should invest in the network, but they would not listen, it makes me cringe.
How can he give our cow into the hands of a beast and believe the beast's promise we would still be getting our milk?
The beast gnaws off the cows tail. "Don't worry, I needed that against my hunger. It'll make no difference for the milk yield." He watches in horror as the beast bites off one leg, but accepts the same explanation and the same promise. In the end the beast walks away leaving only the udder saying "thanks and you still can have the milk".

P.

Paddy20

Who exactly is Eircom's real boss. I would love to know, as I am sure would many of the staff working for Eircom's multitude of seperate companie's.

Eircom has become a money game for capitalist's using every trick in the corporate business guide. For gaining most financial benefit's for it's Director's, while still obtaining grant aid from a hapless government, trapped in to supporting a fiasco, simply because it is supposed to be supplying a vital 'range of telecommunication's' service's for the citizen's of Ireland.

It has clearly failed all sector's of the Irish community, and no one could really consider it a real service industry anymore. When it has literally kicked it's own customer's in the teeth, once too often.

Bertie, should now take step's to bring back a state owned Telecom's organisation along the line's of the old P&T which belonged to the people, and supplied a service to all, to the best of it's ability and it's mandate.

DonegalMan

eircomtribunal wrote:

Let us as well not forget the big picture. Comreg and the DCMNR should stand in the dock with Eircom.

I emailed Morning Ireland and pointed out that whilst it was an excellent and welcome piece, they did not cover the role of Comreg in all this.

Tom Dunne

Just e-mailed morning Ireland, congratulating them on the piece and asking for a debate bewteen Damien, Jamie Smyth and Dr. Phil. I also mentioned that Eircom seem to shy away from debates such as this and that it would open peoples eyes to the real state of broadband.

mike65

What struck me most was that ppl are still waiting months for a flippin' phone line never mind DSL!

God, its takes me back to the p&t era before Albert Reynolds got hold it.

Mike.

Dangger

I'm sure Richard Downes will be able to handle this, but it's a sure thing that ADSL2plus which was nicely heralded in the press today will be thrown into the dialogue tomorrow morning from Eircom just to blur things as usual. However the facts as put across by Mr. Downes himself speak volumes regardless of what is around the corner technology wise.

Eircom's ADSL was around the corner since 1998, but took almost 5 years to turn it.

Ciaran500

I emailed morning Ireland saying that it was good that there are people finally taking attention at the problems of Eircom.

And I said they should set up a debate between Damien and an Eircom rep.

dahamsta

Ciaran500 wrote:

And I said they should set up a debate between Damien and an Eircom rep.

I mentioned that Eircom has effectively refused to debate with IrelandOffline for two years now, and if they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear. But of course they have plenty to hide, and plenty to fear. It's a pity the media don't take advantage of that and tear them apart. It's politics, pure and simple, they're afraid of losing their advertiser, and getting a slap on the wrist from all those in power that still support Eircom by the back door. Typical Oirland.

adam

dahamsta

See what I mean? From Morning Ireland:

Mr McRedmond and Minister Dermot Ahern are on the programme tomorrow morning(seperately). If you've anything you feel we need to be putting to either or both men, feel free to e-mail us.

He's chicken, they're chicken, everyone's bucking chicken.

adam /makes chicken noises

dahamsta

Ah well, they asked...

Thanks for the reply.

You could start by asking David McRedmond the question I just asked: Why will he only talk to the media alone? Would he be willing to prove his willingness to debate the situation by staying on the air while IrelandOffline committee member(s) ring in? I can get you their numbers in readiness.

You could ask David to provide the line failure data to Morning Ireland, since a spokesperson from his company refuted the figures stated by SiliconRepublic and EsatBT recently. They say 20%, but if they're going to call SR, IOFFL and EsatBT /liars/, shouldn't they prove it?

http://snipurl.com/92fe
http://snipurl.com/92f7

Here's another one for David: When an Eircom customer that is using another provider for telephony changes /any/ detail on their Eircom account, the calls revert back to Eircom. Why does this still happen 5+ years after the introduction of CPS (Carrier PreSelection)? Isn't it /fraud/?

Here's several questions for Dermot Ahern, based on his lunchtime appearance on RTE News today, where he effectively told us that sure and begorrah we should just shop around, sure isn't dere plenty of udder tings we could be doin like!?

1) Does he realise in how few areas wireless is available?
2) Does he know how much satellite costs?
2a) Does he know what "latency" means? (If you're telecommuting, latency can be a big, big usability problem).
3) Why do I need a community scheme in a town of 6000-7000 people? Moreso, why would you need a community scheme in the middle of Dublin?
4) If you're renting a flat (where you've no permission to affix things to the building), how does he propose you get either wireless or satellite?

http://snipurl.com/92ff

You could drop ComReg Chairman John Doherty a line while you're at it, and ask him why ComReg is just "expressing concern" about line failure rates (which is /exactly/ what they did /last year/) instead of actually doing something about it -- forcing Eircom to fix the network?

http://snipurl.com/92fl
http://snipurl.com/92fc

I'm sure you'll find plenty more questions to ask both David and Dermot on the IrelandOffline forum if you spend a few minutes browsing the threads. There's no shortage of people out there asking. I'll try and come up with a few more of my own this evening.

http://snipurl.com/92fx

Thanks

(Apologies for ripping off the Ahern questions.)

adam

damien

I have heard that Doherty got interviewed for Morning Ireland and will be on this morning.

Hearing conflicting reports that McRedmond is on after 8 or 9. Stay tuned ! He gatecrashed First Tuesday last night and turned into an Eircom press conference.

eircomtribunal

damien.m wrote:

Hearing conflicting reports that McRedmond is on after 8 or 9.

From the intro it seems McRedmond is going to argue with one of the statistical tricks, that Comreg have published in some of their Quarterly Reports: As Broadband came magically some three years late to these shores – no mention of course why and caused by whom and by means of which trickery – we statistically turn Irish broadband growth curves three years back, and voila, our current growth curves look better than the curves of others three years ago.
It would be serious if they would not, but it is not at all an indication that we are doing good.
The serious issue is of course that we are three years late with broadband development and no stats game should let anyone detract from that fact.
P.

damien

McRedmond is smooth. Summary of what he said later.

remember to keep emailing morningireland@rte.ie to refute all his claims.

Ciaran500

Is it true that he was disinvited to yesterdays talk.

eircomtribunal

Oh stupid us! Now we know:
Our network is as good as any other, we'll pass out most of our European neighbours, probably getting better than most European neighbours,
phenomenal 5% broadband usage (75 000 out of 4 000 000 is 5% then - a lot of students failed the ordinary maths today, I've heard).

Can anybody make a transcript?

P.

damien

Working on getting a transcript this morning.

Once it's up I take it everyone will be emailing Morning Ireland again to refute his claims. Don't leave it up to anyone else to email on your behalf. The more people that contact Morning Ireland the better.

Mr_Man

after listening to the Eircom response this morning. Firstly McRedmond mentioned that he would look at the complaints that RTE had received from people who had been unable to get BB. I'd suggest that people who have a problem getting BB pass their details on to RTE and ask them to forward them to Mc Redmond. The followup to see what kind of resolution they get.

Secondly, suggest to RTE that it might be, in the interest of fairness to Eircom, worthwhile to get Eircom to-gether with their critics so they make their points face to face ?

M.

cgarvey

Will rip, once link is up.
.cg

AndrewMc

dahamsta wrote:

(Apologies for ripping off the Ahern questions.)

adam

No problem - Sure I e-mailed them to RTE, too. Got a nice reply (after I had to leave for my commute) saying he'd pass my questions onto Morning Ireland for this morning. Missed it though... Will have to dig out the programme and see what's said.

I'm encouraged that people seem to be listening *properly* now. Keep it coming!

dahamsta

I dunno guys, if it's true that The Fibber is running around trying to save grace, it seems to suggest that we've put the little weasel into a tizzy. How bad? Kepp hammering away at him, break his spirit.

Love and kisses Davey! Mah mah!

adam

damien

Part 1:

PRESENTER – RICHARD DOWNES

Now many in the technology sector are furious at what they see as the slow rate of rollout of the network of broadband connections to the internet across this country. Yesterday we heard about concerns that many people are digital dinosaurs, literally using 1980’s, maybe even 1990’s style dial-up connections to the internet, while our European partners and indeed now our competitors, are flying high with high-speed access from home, work and everywhere else.

The finger of blame is being pointed squarely at the man opposite me here, who’s been waiting very patiently in our studio here to talk about this, this is David McRedmond of course, the Commercial Director of Eircom. Eircom of course operates ninety percent of our telecom’s infrastructure and David the accusation that people have been making in e-mails to us and in conversations with us, is that you’re milking Eircom for dividends; you’re not investing in the network in a way that would allow us to compete with our European neighbours. How do you respond to that?

DAVID McREDMOND – COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR – EIRCOM

Well two years ago there was no mass market broadband available in Ireland. Today seventy percent of the country is covered with broadband, in those areas eight out of ten people can get broadband. A year ago the price was twice the price it is now, we’ve halved the price in a year and we’re very proud of that. We had five thousand broadband customers a year ago and we set a target then to say we’d get to a hundred thousand customers, which many commentators at the time thought was over ambitious. We now have seventy-five thousand broadband customers, yesterday we signed up six hundred and thirty-five, that’s the rate it’s going at, so we’ve huge momentum behind broadband. We are catching up very fast with our European neighbours.


RICHARD DOWNES

We’ve an awful long way to go though…

DAVID McREDMOND

Well no we believe that very soon we’ll be up there with… we’re already… we’re passed Greece, we’re passed Luxembourg, we’re catching up with the UK and Germany and we see ourselves moving up that table very fast. Forfas have said that this is the fastest take-up rate in Europe. So actually we’re very pleased and we see real momentum behind broadband.

RICHARD DOWNES

You may be but you know that people are very annoyed… you know… they look at things like the failure rate for people who are living in relatively build-up areas, quite close to… say the city of Dublin, city of Cork, and they’re trying to get on to the network and they say their lines are failing and… they say the failure rate is about twenty percent. That’s very high isn’t it?

DAVID McREDMOND

The rate is… the rate is this… is eight out of ten people, where broadband is available, can get it automatically. That two out of ten people cannot get it is a limit to the technology, it is the exact same for…

RICHARD DOWNES

So the technology which you’re using…

DAVID McREDMOND

To the technology which Deutsche Telecom is using, which Telefonica’s using, which Telecom Italia is using… which all the major European telco’s are using and it’s because it’s a distance-based technology and it requires… it only works over certain distances and requires certain…

RICHARD DOWNES

Well also isn’t there an issue there of the type of technology you’re using, that it only enables you to go to four kilometres beyond an exchange, whereas in other countries they’re using technology which can go to six to eight kilometres from an exchange…

DAVID McREDMOND

Well I’m not…actually the technology we’re using is… is leading out technology which is the choice of every major telco in Europe. So we are… and as we are … are rolling this out where we say out of ten people can get it, one out of ten people can’t get it because the line quality isn’t right. There were seventeen thousand lines which didn’t qualify, we’ve replaced thirteen thousand. The final one out of ten is to do with distance and if … if any other European country can do it we can do it… and we will make sure we get there. So we’re achieving real success with this, huge momentum behind it, we’re right up there with our European neighbours and we’re passing most of them out.

RICHARD DOWNES

But there are many people who have been talking to us who say that that’s really not the case, that in Northern Ireland they say that by the end of this year one hundred percent of Northern Ireland and their exchanges will be… will be broadband-enabled…

DAVID McREDMOND

Well now there is an issue… there is an issue around…

RICHARD DOWNES

… that is not going to happen here ever, so it is an issue.


DAVID McREDMOND

Well no there is an issue around the exchanges. First of all we say we’ll get the eight out of ten up to nine out of ten and that will be by the way the exact same as in Northern Ireland, it’s the same technology, it’s the same issues, it’s the same distance limitations. Now there is one other area which is… we said we’d rollout broadband to every town in Ireland… by the end of this year and we will have done so.

Now it’s in exchanges in rural areas below that level, the thirty percent who can’t get it, which will soon be twenty-five percent. That’s what we are very interested in completing; now there’s a real issue there because it simple is uneconomic investment, we are obliged by law not to sell below cost, we have to recover our costs and that would put up the price of broadband. We’ve worked very hard to get down the price.

Now interestingly the government has managed to get thirty-six million euro, and I congratulate the minister and the Department of Communication for getting that, for a rural broadband scheme. Now we want to work with government and say, you know rather than doing this exchange by exchange, because we’re very frustrated we can’t get out there, why don’t you work with us and let’s see if together we can complete this job.

RICHARD DOWNES

There is the question though isn’t there about the level of investment from Eircom in its network in general, ‘cause it’s all related, broadband is related to the rest of the network, and there are those who say, and they’ve been writing to us and say that you are actually investing less in your network than you should be. You’re investing around two hundred million euros this year. Can I just ask you, it’s around two hundred million euros?

DAVID McREDMOND

Our investment is two hundred million euro this year.


RICHARD DOWNES

And how much is your… how much is your… how much is your stock up… capital falling by?

DAVID McREDMOND

Our investment, our investment is two hundred million euro, which is thirteen percent of sales. The average investment of telco’s throughout Europe is twelve point two percent of sales. We’re investing at a level above the level of other European telecom’s…

RICHARD DOWNES

Well that may be the case, but how much is your…how much is your asset depreciating by?

DAVID McREDMOND

… which is why… which is why… which is why we are catching up with and we are… and we are going to pass out most of European neighbours. The issue is the level of investment not the level of depreciation from the past, investment was made five or six years ago that caused the telecom’s crash globally because companies were over-investing in things like dot com companies, multi-media companies etc.

RICHARD DOWNES

Okay. Okay but…

DAVID McREDMOND

We’re investing now, very focused way, our line fault index has come down which shows the network is getting better and we have a network that is as good as any network in Europe.


RICHARD DOWNES

That’s disputed by many people and they say that what’s happening is you’re investing around two hundred and something million euro in the network, the network is depreciating, it’s getting poorer, if you like, by more than four hundred million, according to your accounts. So there’s a net shortfall of two hundred million euro which you’re not investing in the network, just to keep it as it is. How do you answer that?

DAVID McREDMOND

Well I answer that by saying that’s… you know that’s… that’s maths that you’re putting forward rather than the reality of a network and the amount of investment that a network requires. We are investing above the level of other European telco’s and they all have the same issues around the levels of depreciation and therefore we are succeeding in… in having a network that is constantly improving and is probably getting better than most of our European neighbours.

And I would say, you know, our job is to rollout broadband and to sign up people to broadband, we completely share the frustrations of people who can’t get it. You know there’s nothing… we’re advertising it hard and saying what a great product it is, and it is a fantastic product, people want it…

RICHARD DOWNES

But they don’t have ten people in those areas…in the areas which are enabled…

DAVID McREDMOND

Absolutely.