Predictions for the Future?

Hannibal_12

Now that €ircon have deigned to provide us with broadband and put us just slightly ahead of the slovak republic, what more do you think will happen?
I would say from reading various articles that they will maintain that ludicrously high price for the forseeable future until they are making equally ludicrous amounts of money and then they may just lower it slightly but not by much.
NTL seem to be a non entity when it comes to broadband most likely due to their terrible financial state. Not holding my breath for anything from them.
Those two seem to be the most likely as I dont put much credence in anyone else I have heard of offering any alternative broadband.
Maybe I'm just pessimistic?

dahamsta

Basically it's up to IrelandOffline to drive the prices down, since it is the only organisation that genuinely understands the issues -- not just the direct issues like pricing, availability and caps, but also how they affect economic stability and growth. IrelandOffline cannot do this on it's own, so one of our key goals should be to tie up with other consumer and small business advocacy groups, in particular assisting with education of those groups and their leaders. IrelandOffline the committee will need assistance from IrelandOffline the membership to achieve this. The membership will /have/ to be expanded, and - I mean this respectfully - the membership will need to work closer with the organisation on future initiatives. That means continuing to write to TD's, Ministers, etc, but co-ordinating more directly with the committee and their appointees. As Damien (yellum) has alluded to in another thread, lone ranger action is all well and good in the short term, but it needs to be bolstered by organisation and co-ordination in the long-term. And 'organisation' and 'co-ordination' do not necessarily have to mean meetings every day and votes on every niggle.

adam

BoneCollector

What we need is to pressure the powers that be to implement directives to provide use with affordable flatrate then axpand to broadband. we also need support from the general public who also need to be made aware of the dire staits we are in to force government to listen and act NOW! not tomoorow next month or next year.

We need to campaign localy in small pockets to make your local community aware of the problem to get there support to expand the awareness process to allow us as a group to grow stronger and have a larger voice.

Unfortunatley i find this board not as interactive as we need to be to get these ideas going. we need at least quarterly meetings to allow all members and activists to get together at the same time to co ordinate campaigns etc... and get direct confirmation of who what and where it is happening...

Canadian

My predictions for the future:

1. Ireland's new government will do very little to improve infrastructure in this country. Kickbacks will continue, beer prices will be kept under control, and most of the public will be kept drunk & happy.

2. The 0.02% of the population that is concerned about ADSL will slowly move to more modern countries as their jobs are relocated to places with modern infrastructure. No more complaining.

3. The standard of living gap between Ireland and the EU will continue to diverge (along with Greece), but the Irish ADSL users living in the UK and France won't care.

4. Littering will be made an official Irish sport and will be played at Croke Park. Amateur leagues will pop up all over the country.

Call me cynical, but the ADSL situation isn't a problem ... it's a symptom.

Dangger

Dahamsta, I agree thoroughly. An example of what you are saying should happen is apparent in how the members of IOFFL have taken it upon themselves to mail TD's and raise awareness themselves.

The committee simply do not have the resources to educate all of the TD's and although I feel we could have done better to educate (arm) our members, they have contributed immensely to the campaign by mailing and informing their TD's.

The committee has focused in the top level, the departments and the people who will are drawing up the briefs for the next four years for the next government. When these TD's come into contact with the civil servants in the departments both will be aware of the campaign and to a certain extent the issues involved, and we can only hope that things improve!!!

We are drawing up a survey to get a information relating to georaphical spread and true demand of flat rate and "affordable" broadband. We need EVERY Internet user in the country to answer the five or six simple questions we will be asking, I will begin a thread shortly to ask for what we should cover is such a survey. Gotta go, something in my back garden has just been struck by lightning and the power is gone!!!

dahamsta

We need EVERY Internet user in the country to answer the five or six simple questions we will be asking

As I've said before, it'd be handy if we could get answers from the offline people too. The figures in the UK tell us that half of those people - 1.5 million of them - would go online if they were given the means and the opportunity. We know what's stopping them, and we know what will get them started, but it would be handy to find out the level at which people will start moving online. We also have to tackle advocacy.

Gotta go, something in my back garden has just been struck by lightning and the power is gone!!!

Eircom have sent the Gods to strike you down, heathen!

adam

BoneCollector

We need EVERY Internet user in the country to answer the five or six simple questions we will be asking

What about getting local and national pappers to sponsor the questionare with a link to the Ireland offline site which could host the questionare

it could be organised with the top 10 most important questions for the purpose of getting the informaiton we need to show hi-interest in the internet and then probably about 20 optional questions that would be helpfull but not as important as the 1st 10.
this could probably also serve as a way to give exposure of ireland offline to masses.