Broadband Statistics and selective reporting

thebman

This is just something that irritates me TBH and it isn't the first time this has happened be it RTE/Comreg/Department of Comms. or whoever.

RTE (http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1214/broadband-business.html):
Ireland catching up with EU on broadband

New figures today show that Ireland falls broadly in line with EU averages on broadband connections.

Just 13% of homes in Ireland had a broadband connection in 2006, well below the EU average of 30%. This has now risen to stand at 58% in 2010, close to this year's EU average of 61%.

Figures from Eurostat show that 70% of households across the European Union had access to the internet in the first quarter of 2010. This compares with 49% in the first quarter of 2006.

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SiliconRepublic/IrelandOffline(http://siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/19629-ireland-broadband-speeds/):

Ireland broadband speeds continue decline – IrelandOffline

According to the group, in this quarter, Ireland has been overtaken by Vietnam and Macedonia for average download speeds. They also noted that Albania has overtaken Ireland for upload speeds.

They say that download speeds are less than half the EU average, which is 11.37mbits, and upload speeds are only over one-third of the EU average of 2.82mbits.

Since May, IrelandOffline states that Irish download speeds have declined from 5.94mbits to 5.51mbits. Upload speeds have held at 0.97mbits from 0.94mbits since the summer.

This places Ireland as 55th in the world for download speeds, down from 51st in September and 41st in May.

The group also notes that Ireland is now 75th for upload speeds, down from 70th in September and from 63rd in May.

However, Ireland ranks 56th for broadband quality, which is up from 59th in September and 63rd in May.

“This continues to show that the policy of relying on unreliable mobile ‘midband’ products does nothing for the consumers of Ireland,” said Eamonn Qallace of IrelandOffline.

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So my question is why doesn't our unbiased and neutral state broadcaster mention that our speeds are below average? Both articles published the same day!

Apparently only good news is important on broadband statistics and there is no point in telling the people the real situation.

Irritating and misleading reporting from RTE yet again.

ei.sdraob

Yeh I think we had threads here before with stats from speedtest who have the largest sample size of tests of line speeds and qualities

placing Ireland in embracingly low place in several metrics

Sponge Bob

The speeds are dropping. RAPIDLY and RELATIVELY ...BOTH

http://irelandoffline.org/2010/12/irish-broadband-speeds-continue-their-decline/

Average Irish DOWNLOAD speeds have declined from 5.94mbits to 5.51mbits since May 2010.

It is probable that if the Cable Broadband subscribers in the larger towns are subtracted, that average download speeds are closer to 3Mbps across the rest of the country. The average UPC Cable customer can download 3 times faster than the average eircom Next Generation customer. 12.21mbits versus 4.01mbits and with mobile broadband customers getting under 2mbits.

Upload speeds have held steady at 0.97mbits from 0.94mbits in May 2010.

The Quality Metric has shown a slight improvement since May 2010

We were 41st in the World for download speeds in May 2010. The country NOW occupying 41st position in the world, Malta, has an average Broadband speed almost 2mbits higher than Ireland does today.

In order to stand still in 41st place in the world we in Ireland should have increased our average download speed by just over 1.5mbits where it declined instead by nearly 0.5mbits.

Rebelheart

Will one, or more than one, of you who are familiar with this topic make a complaint to RTÉ, ComReg and challenge the Minister directly in, perhaps, the 'Letters' section of The Irish Times?

You'd do us all a favour. There is huge ignorance of this and it appears the government is being allowed to fill the void with more ignorance.

The broadband service is much better than it was eight years ago - competition has actually improved Eircom's service. But 8 years ago is was atrocious, utterly unacceptable. Yet it beggars belief that across Ireland broadband is non-existent. Anytime I go beyond the Pale this absence of service is astounding. They still use something called 'dial-up' which I vaguely remember having to use around 1997 when it took an hour to get online between 6pm and 8pm (Mirc and ICQ was all the rage then!) every evening (at the same time as Mary O Rourke, the unrelenting traitor of the Irish people, was telling everybody to buy Eircom shares)

thebman

Been there done that and all you get is waffle as they know they won't get your vote if its an issue important to you a they have already messed it up and the regulators always post back that this isn't their area and try to pass you off to some other department.

The other reason you'll get ignored or it won't matter if it is in a newspaper is that people simply don't understand what the hell those speed figures mean or what is good/bad or in many cases why it is important.

In fact, many of the people that vote are elderly anyway and it simply isn't an issue for them. The ignorance on this issue is quite frankly astounding considering we are trying to pimp ourselves as a knowledge economy.

Rebelheart

thebman wrote: »

Been there done that and all you get is waffle as they know they won't get your vote if its an issue important to you a they have already messed it up and the regulators always post back that this isn't their area and try to pass you off to some other department.

The other reason you'll get ignored or it won't matter if it is in a newspaper is that people simply don't understand what the hell those speed figures mean or what is good/bad or in many cases why it is important.

In fact, many of the people that vote are elderly anyway and it simply isn't an issue for them. The ignorance on this issue is quite frankly astounding considering we are trying to pimp ourselves as a knowledge economy.

OK, very fair points. However, take speed figures. Is there a way you can use some source and translate those speed figures into an economic figure - e.g. loss to our economy by having such slow figures; companies choosing other countries because of our underdeveloped broadband infrastructure (it must be relatively easy to get a company executive mentioning this as a factor in their decision making)?

In particular, never mind old people but focus on businesses. I think there's huge scope for highlighting to businesses outside Dublin how they are losing through not having proper broadband and how businesses which do have it are doing much better. Ignorance of the benefits of broadband is much of the problem, but the chambers of commerce in rural towns need to be made aware of this loss. With them will come the local TDs.

Who do the regulators (COMREG?) usually try to pass it off on? Éamon Ryan's department?

bealtine

Rebelheart wrote: »

Who do the regulators (COMREG?) usually try to pass it off on? Éamon Ryan's department?

Mostly the public...Hey look the smart green knowledge economy is coming along just fine because we said so

jmayo

thebman wrote: »

This is just something that irritates me TBH and it isn't the first time this has happened be it RTE/Comreg/Department of Comms. or whoever.

RTE (http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1214/broadband-business.html):
Ireland catching up with EU on broadband

...
So my question is why doesn't our unbiased and neutral state broadcaster mention that our speeds are below average?
...

You see thebman your problem is right there in those words.
RTE is not unbiased and neutral.

Perhaps you have missed the fact that the flagship talkshow program, the Late Late Show has degenerated into a program offering feel good interviews to senior and sometimes disgraced ff party members including bertie, biffo, wille o'dea and mary o'rourke over the last year or so.

Then the very night before the worse budget in our history was to be announced, one of our primary current affairs shows with audience participation was given over to the future plight of the ff party. :rolleyes:

Now please tell me how either of those actions are unbiased and neutral.

Rebelheart wrote: »

The broadband service is much better than it was eight years ago - competition has actually improved Eircom's service. But 8 years ago is was atrocious, utterly unacceptable. Yet it beggars belief that across Ireland broadband is non-existent. Anytime I go beyond the Pale this absence of service is astounding.

I can show you pathetic broadband availability within 15 miles of the centre of Dublin city on a major national route ?
Now AFAIK the Pale extended farther than 15 miles from O'Connel street.

ei.sdraob

RTE are definitely biased and are incapable of asking hard questions, a waste of our taxmoney.

On last nights PrimeTime we had that grinning puppet, smiling ear to ear as usual and lying thru' his teeth, yet again.

kaiser sauze

ei.sdraob wrote: »

RTE are definitely biased and are incapable of asking hard questions, a waste of our taxmoney.

On last nights PrimeTime we had that grinning puppet, smiling ear to ear as usual and lying thru' his teeth, yet again.

This I agree with you on.

Ryan's lack of understanding of basic broadband infrastructure is embarrassing.

Sponge Bob

kaiser sauze wrote: »

Ryan's lack of understanding of basic broadband infrastructure is embarrassing.

Ryan has been a disaster of the highest order, an arrogant useless gob****e. But he is making the news in Vietnam :cool:

thebman

kaiser sauze wrote: »

This I agree with you on.

Ryan's lack of understanding of basic broadband infrastructure is embarrassing.

I think its worse than this, I think Ryan does understand broadband infrastructure enough to know what is necessary but is tied by the incompetence of his department. Just look at his statements when he was in opposition, he had some good ideas.

This is much worse as it is not something a change of government will easily sort out.

I mean just look at the track record of the Dept. Of Communications. Its a disaster in every area. I wouldn't be surprised if the people making the decisions had no qualifications in the area whatsoever.

At the end of the day if the Minister is handed a report that says Mobile comms is the way to go then he needs a damn good reason to turn on his department. Also the NBS was already on the cards before he took office and I imagine a lot of the prep reports and work had to be done and locked down (at least I hope so for his sake).

I believe his new broadband initiative could be much better that he is putting in before he leaves power as he knows he won't be back so he will be able to do the nasty to his department before he leaves it.

We will see though. Otherwise he has been yet another disastrous Comms Minister but at this stage, I find it hard to believe that this is simply a Minister problem, the department itself must shoulder the blame as the minister technically does not have expertise in the area even if he has an idea of what route to go or gets advice elsewhere.

ei.sdraob

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Ryan has been a disaster of the highest order, an arrogant useless gob****e. But he is making the news in Vietnam :cool:

This is just embarrassing now, someone forward this to all the DAIL email addresses (thats if they have the internet to check em )

kaiser sauze

thebman wrote: »

I think its worse than this, I think Ryan does understand broadband infrastructure enough to know what is necessary but is tied by the incompetence of his department. Just look at his statements when he was in opposition, he had some good ideas.

This is much worse as it is not something a change of government will easily sort out.

I mean just look at the track record of the Dept. Of Communications. Its a disaster in every area. I wouldn't be surprised if the people making the decisions had no qualifications in the area whatsoever.

At the end of the day if the Minister is handed a report that says Mobile comms is the way to go then he needs a damn good reason to turn on his department. Also the NBS was already on the cards before he took office and I imagine a lot of the prep reports and work had to be done and locked down (at least I hope so for his sake).

I believe his new broadband initiative could be much better that he is putting in before he leaves power as he knows he won't be back so he will be able to do the nasty to his department before he leaves it.

We will see though. Otherwise he has been yet another disastrous Comms Minister but at this stage, I find it hard to believe that this is simply a Minister problem, the department itself must shoulder the blame as the minister technically does not have expertise in the area even if he has an idea of what route to go or gets advice elsewhere.

I thought the Department of Communications was answerable to the Minister for Communications?