Ireland falls to lowest position yet on global broadband rankings

Cheerful Spring

New figures from Ookla Net index show Ireland has fallen to 56th position in the world for download speeds, its worst showing yet, and a clear indication as any that as the nations of the world accelerate towards faster speeds Ireland is falling behind.

According to the Index, Ireland is 56th in the world for download speeds and 24th out of 27 in the EU (51st/24th Q1 2012).

Ireland is 80th in the world for upload speeds and 23rd out of 27 in the EU (74th/24th Q1 2012). Ireland is 25th in the world for quality and 12th of 22 in the EU (23rd/12th Q1 2012). Ireland is 43rd in the world in terms of cost per Mbps and 25th out of 27 in the EU (43rd/26th Q1 2012).

According to lobby group IrelandOffline, bandwidth in Ireland costs 188pc of the average EU cost and 238pc of the median EU cost. These figures were 184pc and 211pc in the first quarter of 2012.

IrelandOffline’s chairman Eamonn Wallace warned that as speeds fail to keep pace, bandwidth costs are rising relative to EU peers, with costs up 10pc relative to the EU median.

Ireland’s broadband performance mirrors Euro 2012
Wallace lashed out at Ireland’s heavy reliance on mobile broadband, with typical delivery speeds of only 2Mbps for which the average customer pays US$25 per month.

“This divide is growing at a huge rate and those sentenced to use mobile midband and satellite are feeling the pain,” Wallace railed.

“Third-world solutions are not suitable for the so-called ‘Internet capital of Europe’. Satellite has its place but not at the heart of a broadband policy, think 1000km out on the Atlantic, perhaps?”

“Estonia, for instance, has rolled out fibre throughout its country and is pitching on the world stage to be the real internet capital of Europe, leaving us in the last century,” he warned.

He said Ireland’s broadband performance to date mirrors the nation’s performance at the recent Euro 2012 matches.

“Like the Irish football team at the 2012 Euros, everybody is willing Ireland on but nobody wants to take charge of the situation and put a realistic plan in place, we generate excuse after excuse as reasons for doing nothing.

“Meanwhile, Estonia has stolen our ‘Internet Capital’ crown by actually rolling out fibre across their country. This, too, is a country that has suffered greatly in the ‘economic crash’ yet they have the foresight and political will to see that ubiquitous fibre is a building block in the search for economic growth.

“As is outlined in our report, many countries are passing us out, we need action now,” Wallace said.

A damning verdict
Despite repeated warnings in the last few years, Ireland now finds itself on the losing side of a digital divide.

Official Ireland and communications ministers of various political hue failed to spot the danger or the opportunity or just wouldn’t listen because quite honestly, I doubt they understood the importance of broadband technology in the first place or it wasn’t populist enough an issue.

Meanwhile, various telecoms companies and broadband providers would venture from behind their corporate PR stockades occasionally to make roaring noises or soothing sounds depending on what their P&L required at the time.

Already Irish citizens who could be eligible for some of the latest job opportunities of the 21st century are finding themselves eliminated before they land the first job interview. Is this not enough of a populist issue now that hundreds of thousands are out of work?

Let’s hope that the final report and action plan of the Next Generation Broadband Taskforce due out any week now from Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte’s department will endeavour to try fixing a problem that could have long ago been avoided.

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/27942-digital-divide-ireland/

Ranicand

Eircom should be disbanded and somebody like the ESB should be given the job to roll out fiber alongside all the power lines.

PogMoThoin

Ranicand wrote: »

Eircom should be disbanded and somebody like the ESB should be given the job to roll out fiber alongside all the power lines.

Hold on, Eircom is a private company. Who said we need them, their network is almost obsolete. We need a new fibre network, owned by the people and made available to every provider, including Eircom. To do this we need a long term plan, our politicians don't care beyond the 4 years they're in power.

wexie

PogMoThoin wrote: »

our politicians don't care beyond the 4 years they're in power.

If they even cared quite that far into the future our infrastructure wouldn't be in such a shambles. Most politicians seem to only think ahead as far as their next expenses check.

On top of that most of them seem to have only the vaguest of notions as to how the 'interweb' might possibly be related to a fiber network or employment.

Eircom for years have been getting away with not investing in infrastructure by lazy and blissfully ignorant politicians and we're now in a position where countries we've been looking down upon are happily passing us by and it wont be long until companies such as Microsoft, HP, Intell etc etc will decide that the local infrastructure and work force warrant the huge investment to up sticks here and move to Poland, or Estonia, Czech Republic.

And they won't even have to go looking for staff too far as there are multitudes of trained, english speaking staff right under their noses who would be only too willing to leave this country.

And we'll all be back in the 80's, but I guess then at least we'll have an infrastructure to match.

Ranicand

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Hold on, Eircom is a private company. Who said we need them, their network is almost obsolete. We need a new fibre network, owned by the people and made available to every provider, including Eircom. To do this we need a long term plan, our politicians don't care beyond the 4 years they're in power.

Your correct.

However the job of rolling out fiber should not be given to a crowd who have already messed up in every way possible.

lockup35

What is the most cost-effective way of rolling out decent broadband to areas outside of urban centres? Eircom seem to have abandoned the NGB rollout so is fixed wireless the next best option?
Do the government need to go on a jolly to Eastern Europe/Balkans to see how to rollout broadband properly..

Sponge Bob

The recent UPC speed bump has shown up in the Netindex stats. UPC were 4.4 times faster than eircom in the Report and are now nearer 4.7 times faster. They have added a megabit to the national download speed and moved us to 51st in the World. Course if you don't have UPC ( like most of the country) it is no use.

lockup35

Some interesting information in the link below on Europe's vision for future broadband direction. You can click on each country to see how well they have rolled out broadband and compare it to Ireland.
It's amazing how this government and previous governments have let Ireland slip so far behind. Nevermind the shambolic rollout programme that Eircom would have us believe is Next Gen..

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/digital-agenda/scoreboard/countries/index_en.htm

starviewadams

If the Govt were to basically tell Eircom to go and shíte just set up there own state broadband company to bring fiber to major rural towns at the beginning,potentially how much would it cost?into the billions?

They surely have to do something pretty soon (and investing in satelite,3g etc doesn't count!)otherwise we will be left even further behind.

KIERAN1

Eircom NGB is just a repackaging of the same old DSL service they've been offering since 2004. This product claims to make your line uncongested, with no other customers on the same line as you, which is obviously bull**** from the get go, and no upgrade with speeds been offered least in most rural areas.

Completely useless service and this clearly shows the lack of interest Eircom has in upgrading their copper lines for the future. Also the congestion troubles that happened around two years ago, was caused by Eircom, and their refusal to upgrade their lines to a better product.

akajackson

I think both Imagine and Eircom should be eliminated from the Internet Service providing they should be Illegal and it should be sold on the black market in Africa

Sponge Bob

The UPC speed bump continues in the stats.

http://www.netindex.com/download/2,49/Ireland/

1. We just passed VIETNAM. Wheee.
2. UPC customers get 5 times the speed of eircom customers, up from 4.4 times faster a week ago.
3. Upload speeds have improved slightly, nothing like the download speeds though!

washman3

We are now looking at the results of many years of gombeenism and cronyism by successive governments in this country. The fact that we are virtually on par with Vietnam says it all really.:mad:

akajackson

Washman thats true but the biggest problem of all is that no one in Ireland cares, If this was the case in any other European country there would be protests here in Ireland for an example. The College prices went up to €2050(not sure the exact price) we protested 1 day.

Do Irish people think that 1 day protest is enough? Especially to change anything really 1 day? if this case happened in any other country no one would go to school until(Not 1 Pathetic day) the prices return to what it was.

I believe the Irish people failed more than the governments

washman3

akajackson wrote: »

Washman thats true but the biggest problem of all is that no one in Ireland cares, If this was the case in any other European country there would be protests here in Ireland for an example. The College prices went up to €2050(not sure the exact price) we protested 1 day.

Do Irish people think that 1 day protest is enough? Especially to change anything really 1 day? if this case happened in any other country no one would go to school until(Not 1 Pathetic day) the prices return to what it was.

I believe the Irish people failed more than the governments

Yes, quite true. we seem to have little or no appetite for protest, therefore we get exactly what we deserve. we have no problem placing trust in what we know are failed politicans. mind boggling really..

akajackson

The Faster the Irish people learn that they can't just sit on their asses and claim the dole money and expect things to be all right the better it will be for them.