Bertie Broadband

Dr. Nick

This time last year he gave some guff about broadband being available country-wide.

This year, he launched a website http://www.thenextsteps.ie/steps.php

No mention of broadband.

pfft.

Sponge Bob

no money in National Development Plan either which means nothing before 2013 .

Dr. Nick

I can't wait for that door-bell to ring.........

Sponge Bob

He gave a big speech to the not very well washed FF ard fheis today and did not mention broadband , see here

He had some vague idea about doing something in December . In 2003 the government launched a €25, kitty for Group Broadband schemes. They spend €4m and canned it.

In december Bertie seemed to think we would be grand if Dempsey put together a plan to spend €10m in total

http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/index.asp?locID=200&docID=3101

However, the Government is aware that there are still issues around the provision of broadband for public offices, businesses and citizens living in under-served areas and remote rural areas. In order to address this, my colleague, the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Noel Dempsey will implement a Nationwide Broadband Scheme during 2007/2008 to target this deficit. This

€10 million initiative will involve funding coverage in those areas where it is not commercially viable for the private sector to do so. This will bring us closer to our goal of having every reasonable request for broadband met at a reasonable price.

€10m is peanuts and would not bypass Ballinasloe

Dr. Nick

I'm very surprised FF have ignored this, it's gonna cost them.........

legs11

bertie is a wa****, when will everyone realise this?

he doesn even have a degree or any decent education.

just full of total and utter bs.

get rid of him please before the year is out

Dr. Nick

legs11 wrote:

bertie is a wa****, when will everyone realise this?

he doesn even have a degree or any decent education.

just full of total and utter bs.

get rid of him please before the year is out

Your sig is both offensive and untrue

kaizersoze

Sponge Bob wrote:

€10m is peanuts and would not bypass Ballinasloe

It would if we didn't have a river to cross..and a dump...and a bog.:p

Good to see you back Sponge. Hope the rest did you good.:)

galwayrush

Sponge Bob wrote:

no money in National Development Plan either which means nothing before 2013 .

And FF and PD's are always telling us how well the country is doing......:eek:
Time to get them off the stage.:mad:

netwhizkid

It is a disgrace and I was sure it would get a mention not that a mention would do anything anyway. Fianna Fail are responsible entirely for the mess that is Ireland's Broadband situation.

Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats sold (privatised) Telecom Eireann (Eircom) on the basis of promoting competition and how the market would do more for Telecommunication than the state ever could. Mary O'Rourke was so arrogant with the way the whole thing was done, not alone did it condemn many Irish people to the situation we as the citizens are faced with now; but to add insult to injury half a million people lost lots of money in the IPO, Eircom shares.... threepence a dozen?

Many people were ripped off with the shares and a rape of wallets continued to this day with multiple price hikes of line-rental something you can't avoid even with a different provider as Eircom owns the essential copper network; which should have been retained by the state, the state need not even run any telephony services only maintain and upgrade the network.

Instead the network has been pulverised with minimum maintanance, occasional upgrades and asset stripping of real-estate, depots etc.
While the privatisation left the network in tatters it did not deliver the competition that was another big part of the pro-privatisation arguement, while there is other telephony operators they are at the whim of Eircom and only reselling time bought of eircom and this has reduced prices in some regards.

This however was not a Fianna Fail Decision but a directive that came from the EU to open up the telephony market to competition. Fine Gael with Michael Lowry (controversial as he was) as Minister for Communications saw to it that this EU legislation was enacted upon in Ireland and Telecom Eireann's monopoly was broken and East Digifone (mobile now O2) and Esat Clear (now BT Ireland), you then had in essence the state owned Telecom Eireann behemoth competing against new private companies not very fair.

Fast forward to 1999 with the Irish people once again blinded by emissions of hot wind from Bertie Ahern's rearend, Fianna Fail with the EU breathing down the neck on the unfair situation that existed took the big plan to privatise Telecom Eireann and it was sold off and renamed Eircom. The Monopoly still exists basically and things now in 2007 are much or less the same as they were in 1999 in the competition side of things, with the exceptions of Wireless Internet and some LLU.

Please people don't vote Fianna Fail or the PD's if you have the itch to vote for them please abstain from voting as a vote for FF will make the Broadband situation worse and is bad for Democracy. Be free to use my signature and please remember every time a vote is cast for Fianna Fail God kills a kitten, do it for the kittens if nothing else.

dub45

netwhizkid wrote:

It is a disgrace and I was sure it would get a mention not that a mention would do anything anyway. Fianna Fail are responsible entirely for the mess that is Ireland's Broadband situation.

Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats sold (privatised) Telecom Eireann (Eircom) on the basis of promoting competition and how the market would do more for Telecommunication than the state ever could. Mary O'Rourke was so arrogant with the way the whole thing was done, not alone did it condemn many Irish people to the situation we as the citizens are faced with now; but to add insult to injury half a million people lost lots of money in the IPO, Eircom shares.... threepence a dozen?

Many people were ripped off with the shares and a rape of wallets continued to this day with multiple price hikes of line-rental something you can't avoid even with a different provider as Eircom owns the essential copper network; which should have been retained by the state, the state need not even run any telephony services only maintain and upgrade the network.

Instead the network has been pulverised with minimum maintanance, occasional upgrades and asset stripping of real-estate, depots etc.
While the privatisation left the network in tatters it did not deliver the competition that was another big part of the pro-privatisation arguement, while there is other telephony operators they are at the whim of Eircom and only reselling time bought of eircom and this has reduced prices in some regards.

This however was not a Fianna Fail Decision but a directive that came from the EU to open up the telephony market to competition. Fine Gael with Michael Lowry (controversial as he was) as Minister for Communications saw to it that this EU legislation was enacted upon in Ireland and Telecom Eireann's monopoly was broken and East Digifone (mobile now O2) and Esat Clear (now BT Ireland), you then had in essence the state owned Telecom Eireann behemoth competing against new private companies not very fair.

Fast forward to 1999 with the Irish people once again blinded by emissions of hot wind from Bertie Ahern's rearend, Fianna Fail with the EU breathing down the neck on the unfair situation that existed took the big plan to privatise Telecom Eireann and it was sold off and renamed Eircom. The Monopoly still exists basically and things now in 2007 are much or less the same as they were in 1999 in the competition side of things, with the exceptions of Wireless Internet and some LLU.

Please people don't vote Fianna Fail or the PD's if you have the itch to vote for them please abstain from voting as a vote for FF will make the Broadband situation worse and is bad for Democracy. Be free to use my signature and please remember every time a vote is cast for Fianna Fail God kills a kitten, do it for the kittens if nothing else.

Absolutely nobody was forced to buy shares when Eircom went public it was your own choice to do so and some people actually made money on it when the sold on their allocation immediately.

Sponge Bob

eircom is actually irrelevant and has been for years and so is the utterly pathetic Comreg who should be sent off en masse to regulate rutting lobsters on the Kish Bank.

The simple fact is that everybody in Ireland could have access to broadband at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer to deliver the project.

On a national basis something useful could be done for The Cost of Bypassing Cavan = €50m

Nothing useful can be done for €10m , its an insult to EVERYBODY IN RURAL IRELAND to even hint that €10m will do anything . Thats what needs hammering into FF and PD canvassers on the doorstop.

Bertie has already spent 5 times more bypassing Cavan than he proposes to spend on rural Broadband which would take far more cars off the roads than his bypass took out of Cavan .

eircom have made a number of statements in the second half of last year to the effect that they will provide universal adsl OR wireless to EVERYBODY in the 5 big cities .

By saying that they have clearly set out that there will be no universal Broadband provision in the other 90% of the land area of the state and that is the scale of the problem we need to address namely 90% of the land area of the state where 70% of the population live. The other 30% lives in the 5 big towns which is where competition kinda exists and works nowadays ...and will going forward.

finally its worth noting one other fact. Pensioners get free line rental so eircom gets given over €3m a month by Bertie, each and every month , the universal carrier in a universal scheme should get that funding for their area instead. Thoughts ??

smellslikeshoes

dub45 wrote:

Absolutely nobody was forced to buy shares when Eircom went public it was your own choice to do so and some people actually made money on it when the sold on their allocation immediately.

Your right it was peoples own choice,and they should have known more about the possibility of loosing money but when the government were flogging them they were talking of them like they were a sure thing along the same lines as the ssia's. People were given the false impression that you buy them and stock goes up and you make loads of money and everyones happy.

Irish people once again blinded by emissions of hot wind from Bertie Ahern's rearend,

So eloquently put. Bertie and Dialup Dempsy have done nothing more than talk out of their arses and pick their noses in relation to broadband. People on this forum are always too quick to blame Eircom for Irelands problems but they are a company there to make money and can't be expected to do anything that won't benefit them.
Other countries have private companys in control of the phone lines and don't have the same problems as Ireland because they have politicians that can see past their noses and don't have a poodle for a regulator.

Comreg is not doing its job, and anyone with half a brain knows it. You only have to read a few of the horror stories on this forum to see that.
Im really looking forward to when the FF boyos come round here looking for votes.

Could someone do me a favour? If you're on dial-up, could you record how long it takes to open the website linked in the first post?

There seem to be a lot of images >30kb, which is why I'm wondering (i.e. that you need broadband to actually view the website )

Dr. Nick

Myth wrote:

Could someone do me a favour? If you're on dial-up, could you record how long it takes to open the website linked in the first post?

There seem to be a lot of images >30kb, which is why I'm wondering (i.e. that you need broadband to actually view the website )

72 seconds.

Ironic, eh? Good post.

rogue-entity

I am saying here and now, FF and PD are not getting my vote, and I have broadband. The simple reason is that I am merely fortunate to live in one of those 5 cities that Eircon have decided to provide some modicum of broadband service. But, I grew up in a rural area, most of my family live in areas unable to get broadband because of the status quo.

Who do I blame? I blame:
The government, for selling eircom in the manner they did, handing the most important infrastructure to a private company, idiots.

Comreg, for its inability to actualy do its supposed job, they regulate the market and force eircom to stop its anticompetitive behavior, just look at the Smart situation.

Eircon, for putting profit before quality of service. I suppose I cant be too hard on them, after all, monopolies dont have the incentive to be innovative and competitive, Micrsoft and Windows for example.

What will I do about it, nothing really, but I wont relect the current government. The current government has shown no inclination towards supporting any form of competition, regardless of the market. Be it Electricity, Telecoms, Television or Property. I want someone who will do something for me, and the working irish people, not just the OAPs.

Dr. Nick

Dr. Nick wrote:

72 seconds.

Ironic, eh? Good post.

If you or anyone else is bored, you could always write a letter to the Irish Times noting how you're still waiting for access to broadband as promised previously, and so are unable to view Fianna Fáil's new election website. If you can, include the line 'one step forward, two steps back'.

If you're bored, that is.