[Release] Ireland losing broadband battle

cgarvey

IrelandOffline press release

Report shows broadband growth slowdown in Ireland. Rest of EU continues to overtake.

Sponge Bob

Somebody is cooking the books here, remember these figures are end 2005

DSL total including LLU 238,991 , no issue
Cable BB 32,500 no issue
OTHER 51,000 .........WTF ?????

source

http://www.ectaportal.com/en/upload/File/Broadband%20Scorecards/Q106/FINAL%20BB%20Sc%20Q1%2006.xls

Foxwood

Sponge Bob wrote:

Somebody is cooking the books here, remember these figures are end 2005

DSL total including LLU 238,991 , no issue
Cable BB 32,500 no issue
OTHER 51,000 .........WTF ?????

source

http://www.ectaportal.com/en/upload/File/Broadband%20Scorecards/Q106/FINAL%20BB%20Sc%20Q1%2006.xls

It says that the 51,000 is made up of 47,5000 Wireless Local Loop lines! Are IBB Breeze, Digiweb Metro and other fixed wireless solutions considered "WLL"?

Of couse the column right next to WLL is for Satellite "broadband" and that's empty, and we all know how fond the Government is of Satellite, so maybe they just got the columns crossed.

Sponge Bob

I'd say they counted the 25000 ripwaves deployed as doorstops but seeing as 25000 is about 8% of all the BB in Ireland (allegedly) we would be nearer 7.4% BB penetration and just a whisker ahead of our technologically advanced cousins in Hungary.

lucernarian

The Digiweb equipment I am connected to is Airspan Wireless Local Loop stuff, but I'm pretty sure there are not 47,500 Digiweb FWA connections out there:rolleyes:

watty

There is a lot of "Metro" but it is comparable to adsl (it's really cable broadband) rather than Breeze / Ripwave or Airspan or even the Eircom 3.Ghz FWLL

Sponge Bob

not in december 2005 watty

damien

Sponge Bob wrote:

Somebody is cooking the books here]

Can't wait for your report to come out setting the record straight.

Sponge Bob

I have no idea where the 51000 'other' connections came from so hows can I report when I have no idea, I'm not bleddy Comreg am I .

I assume there were 26000 real other connections and removed 25000 from the overall figures and concluded we had c.7.4% penetration as a consequence.

Therefore my report simply says that we were more ****e in reality than that report said we were , so issue a press release pronto

bealtine

cgarvey wrote:

Report shows broadband growth slowdown in Ireland. Rest of EU continues to overtake.

EU broadband market grows 9% in Q1 to 64.3 mln users
Published: Thursday 14 September 2006 | 02:52 PM CET


The number of broadband users in the European Union rose 9 percent over the first quarter, to 64.3 million, according to the Broadband Scorecard kept by the European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA). Growth slowed from a rate of 13 percent in the previous quarter. Penetration across the region increased to 14.4 percent, with Denmark topping the league at nearly 30 percent, followed by the Netherlands at 26.8 percent and Finland at 24 percent. Greece ranked at the bottom of the table, with a penetration of just 2 percent.

The ECTA, a lobby group for alternative carriers, said the differences in penetration across the region were a result of varying competitive landscapes. Countries like the UK and France showed strong growth in broadband due to healthy competition on those markets, while broadband in Greece and Ireland has been stagnating due to continued dominance by incumbent operators. The former monopoly operators still hold 47 percent of the broadband market, including cable, down slightly from 49 percent at the end of 2005. The ECTA called on the European Regulators Group to work at its meeting in October on creating a more level playing field for operators across the EU.

watty

Sponge Bob wrote:

not in december 2005 watty

I yess, I was forgetting this is all 10months out of date in a fast changing market.

bealtine

watty wrote:

I yess, I was forgetting this is all 10months out of date in a fast changing market.

I take it the "fast changing market" quip was tounge in cheek?

How can the market be fast changing when there's really only one DSL supplier?
(apart from wisps obviously)

robinph

The Register

lucernarian

Ireland's broadband growth is not exactly stagnating. I can't think of the relevant statistics but growth in absolute terms is accelerating. Has the average this year been close to 4000 customers signed up per week?

Judge

To_be_confirmed wrote:

Ireland's broadband growth is not exactly stagnating. I can't think of the relevant statistics but growth in absolute terms is accelerating. Has the average this year been close to 4000 customers signed up per week?

Yes. This is just more spin from I-Offline. The growth rate "dropped" from 28% to 19% but this is still double the EU25 average which is 9%. I stuck dropped in inverted commas because broadband growth fell across the entire EU in the same quarter as well and by a higher rate. Funny how that didn't get mentioned in the one-sided ranting that goes on here. Ireland's broadband growth rate has been double the EU growth rate for over a year now. There are now more PC users in Ireland with access to broadband than there are dial-up-users. We will be at the EU average within 2 years.

juliuspret

Judge wrote:

We will be at the EU average within 2 years.

Well you made this statement......please back it up with more detailed facts!

Blaster99

Even if the growth rate stays at 19%, it will take over 3 years to get to the current average penetration of 14.1% and going on trend, the growth rate is falling so that's optimistic. In 3 years time the average penetration will be 18% based on current average growth rates, so Ireland would still be 4% behind, as opposed to 6% today. It would then take another 6 years to reach the average. which would be 2015.

damien

To_be_confirmed wrote:

Ireland's broadband growth is not exactly stagnating. I can't think of the relevant statistics but growth in absolute terms is accelerating.

The Netherlands grew three times slower than us yet still moved away from us in the table and they weren't the only ones. You'd need people in the UK, Netherlands, Denmark, France, Italy and Estonia to get hatchets to their computers and phone lines before Ireland will get to an EU average by the end of the decade. Wow "acceleratng". Fantastic. Increasing growth by .0001% is accelerating, increasing it at a faster rate 3 months later is a ComReg "Best in Europe" press release. What we really need is for eirocm to decide on a new definition of the EU which ComReg will happily sign off on and we could be at the top of a table at long last.

eircomtribunal

Judge wrote:

Yes. This is just more spin from I-Offline. The growth rate "dropped" from 28% to 19% but this is still double the EU25 average which is 9%....We will be at the EU average within 2 years.

ComReg was directed by Minister Ahern to bring Ireland's broadband penetration up to at least the EU-15 average by mid 2005!

Our high growth rate, from a low base, is meaningless. Look at the highest growth rate countries: Greece at 40%, Poland at 29%, Slowakia at 21%, Ireland at 19%. Those high growth rates from low bases are the indicator of loosers. (The two other countries with high rates are Estonia at 19% and the UK at 15%; they both achieve those rates at a broadband penetration rate of now 15.8% and 18.9% respectively, which thus makes their high growth rates indicators of a remarkable success.)

BTW. Think some of the penetration rates on the IOFFL list are incorrect (or different from the ECTA figures: Denmark is now at 29.3%, Portugal 12.3%, Slovenia 10.7%. And also worth mentioning is the fact that ECTA had no new figures for Cyprus, Czech Rep and Luxembourg.
Luxembourg is a remarkable success. We all remember David McRedmond telling the public on RTE how we had now overtaken Luxembourg and would soon be doing so with Germany, France and the UK.
P.

juliuspret

eircomtribunal wrote:

Luxembourg is a remarkable success. We all remember David McRedmond telling the public on RTE how we had now overtaken Luxembourg and would soon be doing so with Germany, France and the UK.
P.

Hahahaha.....
Its so funny....it hurts!!!

Luxembourg, due to their geographic location must have massive broadband penetration by now.

lucernarian

Judge wrote:

Yes. This is just more spin from I-Offline. The growth rate "dropped" from 28% to 19% but this is still double the EU25 average which is 9%. I stuck dropped in inverted commas because broadband growth fell across the entire EU in the same quarter as well and by a higher rate. Funny how that didn't get mentioned in the one-sided ranting that goes on here. Ireland's broadband growth rate has been double the EU growth rate for over a year now. There are now more PC users in Ireland with access to broadband than there are dial-up-users. We will be at the EU average within 2 years.

Yes what?

It's a statement of reality, no more. It's not contradicting "spin" from IO. Using percentages as comparisons when you are talking about accelerating or decelerating growth is total crap to be honest.

All that matters is the bottom line of the amount of people being signed up per week. I think it's higher than the 3000 odd signups per week in mid 2004. It's belated progress, no more no less.

The current figures are irrelevant for making predictions anyway. The average will continue increasing as time goes on. We would have to double broadband connections to get to about the current EU average, there is no reason why some eastern european countries would not overtake us let alone Ireland catch up with its neighbours.

And as a reminder, look at 2004. We had about 3000 new connections a week. Was that sustained? Nope. People didn't lose interest in broadband all of a sudden. It was pathetic pricing and worse availability which caused it and there was no more 3 month free trial. Even now, a lot of factors could slash the connections per week number. Availability still has a long way to go and people would prefer better billing and less bueraucracy to €5 less per month for broadband.

To focus on growth rates is to lose sight of the problems. We have a regulator which has a TD concerned that they lied to a group of them. We have a regulator who has never fined a company for a breach of legislation in its remit (AFAIK). People can't keep their phone number if using LLU. Despite the sudden availability of the vapourware, GLUMP.

Why would late adopters enter a market which is a minefield if they leave the guarded (eircom) path??