Commentators do more damage to international reputation

eircomtribunal

ENN reports on yet another report Noel will not like:

Ireland is still in the slow lane when it comes to truly embracing the internet, a report claims.

According to the new 'State of the Net' quarterly bulletin on online activity in Ireland, the country lags far behind other nations for internet usage.

The report, which has been compiled by AMAS together with the Irish Internet Association, was launched at the IIA's annual congress on Thursday. The publication collates internet usage statistics in Ireland and it is aimed at businesses, researchers, the media and individual internet users.

Among the key online trends outlined in the study is Ireland's lowly position in terms of broadband adoption. The report includes figures from OECD which show that Irish broadband take-up is in the bottom quarter across 30 countries. According to the OECD's league table, Ireland's score of 6.7 per 100 inhabitants compares with an OECD average of 11.7 and an EU average of 11.8.

"We would argue that connectivity is the single biggest impediment to greater online use and a source of concern in terms of Ireland's competitiveness," said Aileen O'Toole, managing director of AMAS in the report.

This sentiment is reinforced by other statistics in the bulletin which show that despite a fall in the price of PCs, Irish citizens are still reluctant to use the internet.

According to figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), just 45.1 percent of households had internet connections by the end of 2005, up from 38.2 percent in 2004. Moreover, there is evidence of a digital divide emerging in the country with the 47.3 percent of households in the southern and eastern parts of the Ireland being online, compared to 38.8 percent of households in the border, midland and western areas.

In addition, the latest pan-European study from CSO shows that only 14 percent of Irish people had bought something online in the previous three months compared with 36 percent each for the UK and Sweden.

Not surprisingly, most Irish internet users that do purchase products and services online tend to opt for the usual commodities such as travel and accommodation, music and film and tickets.

eGovernment activity in Ireland is also behind that of other countries. Figures from both Eurostat and Accenture indicate that Ireland lies at 13 out of 22 countries surveyed around the world....

P.

Laguna

Wow, yet another scathing and damning report on the state of Ireland and broadband. The truth of the matter is I'm going to be reading these week in week out for the next ten years and still not be able to get broadband.

eircomtribunal

Interview with Paul Connell of "Pure Telecom" on ENN has some views worth reading:

ENN: What do you think are the main problems facing the nationwide rollout of broadband in Ireland?

Connell: Well we have a fundamental problem in this country -- the network is not up to speed. And until that network is up to speed and the quality is improved, there's very little we can do. Unfortunately the MANs network, even if it encircles towns, from a carrier's point of view it's one small part. It isn't a retail product, it's a wholesale product. This doesn't make much difference to the guy in the centre of Athlone for the MAN to be around the town there, what he wants is a low cost broadband product. Unfortunately, he's either in luck and he's living near a local exchange and quality of the copper going to his premises is good enough to carry broadband, or he's not in luck.

There are some cases where people are living too far away from exchanges, and they could be living in a dip, in which case wireless broadband is not an option. In these instances satellite is their only option, but it's twice as expensive as DSL and, to be honest, it would be only half as good.

The quality in the network is simply not there and here we are in a situation where Eircom is about to be sold on again, and I will eat my hat if Babcock & Brown start investing in the network in Ireland. From my point of view, I want Eircom to be a great company, I want them to have a strong network, because if they have a strong network, I have a strong network. Right now though, it's lose all round to be quite honest.

ENN: It all seems very pessimistic then; do you not see any high points in the future?

Connell: Well the only way around it that I see is to bring Eircom back in under the State wing and basically provide [broadband] as a universal service obligation and that's the only way. Because if I were Eircom, I wouldn't invest in the network and I think over the last 10 years the various owners have just put an elastoplast on the network just to keep it going.

In my opinion, Eircom shouldn't have bought Meteor and instead the money they used to buy Meteor should have been invested into the network. But unfortunately, they're a privately-owned company and as such they're only interested in making profits or getting a good price in a sale and that's what Eircom is doing.

P.