Re: Broadband Access in Ireland

donaloconnor

An email i recieved:



Re: Broadband Access in Ireland


Dear Donal,

I refer to your recent e-mail to the office of An Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern.

The Government liberalised the Irish telecommunications market in 1998 and this has resulted in over 70 licensed telecommunications operators competing for business in the Irish market. The provision of broadband infrastructure and services is now a matter in the first instance for the companies who now operate in the fully liberalised market. The role of regulating the pricing models of communications operators and cost of access to telecommunications services is primarily the responsibility of the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR).

The Department of Public Enterprise is responsible for the development of public policy for the telecommunications sector within which communications companies operate. The widest possible availability of competitive services has traditionally been an important objective of Irish telecommunications policy. I have, in recent years, put in place a number of initiatives, which seek to address gaps in communications infrastructure in Ireland, particularly those in rural areas in order that Ireland may reap the benefits of the Information Society.

My Department has responsibility for the Communications and E-Commerce Measure of the National Development Plan. Under the National Development Plan 1994-1999, €26 million was made available to support the rollout of broadband to the regions. This figure has been significantly increased under the National Development Plan, 2000-2006, to €190 million. This funding will be utilised to leverage and accelerate investment in competitive advanced broadband infrastructure and services in the regions.

The first call for proposals under the National Development 2000-2006 issued in July 2000 and had a closing date of September 2000. Under this call €55 million will be used to facilitate the rollout of advanced communications infrastructure throughout the less developed areas of the country. The competition criteria specifically awarded points for the provision of services in deficit areas and the removal of regional barriers to development. Earlier this year I announced the successful projects. It is by increasing the levels of competition in the Irish telecommunications market and improving the country’s infrastructure that the cost of Internet access will become more competitive and that the range of services will improve.

Time is of the essence in the development of the country’s infrastructure and at the beginning of August 2001 I announced the second call for proposals. The deadline for receipts of proposals was the 19th of October.

31 submissions were received under the second Call for Proposals on the 19 October 2002. These submissions were independently evaluated and the results of evaluation were finalised at the beginning of this year.

On foot of the evaluation a number of Local Authorities have been asked to enter procurement to establish firm prices for their proposals. Once procurement is completed, and subject to satisfactory pricing, contracts will be offered for these projects. It is anticipated that this will take place over the next 2 months. These proposals involve the construction of metro area fibre optic networks in 19 towns around the country. Networks in other towns are under discussion with the relevant Local Authorities.

Arising from The Government Strategy which I announced on March 8th last a second phase of 48 additional towns will be pursued through a Public Private Partnership model. Phase 1 and Phase 2 , encompasses 67 towns throughout the country, 37 of which are in the South and East region.

Phase three will involve rolling out the programme to cover 123 towns in the state.

Further information is available on the Internet at www.ndpcomms.gov.ie

With best wishes

Yours sincerely



Mary O’Rourke
Minister for Public Enterprise

Re: Broadband Access in Ireland

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by donaloconnor
Under the National Development Plan 1994-1999, €26 million was made available to support the rollout of broadband to the regions.

So why isn't there broadband in "the regions" yet? I live in Portlaoise, which isn't exactly the back ar$e of the middle of nowhere, yet I'm not surfing the net on a fancy ADSL connection and, from the looks of things, won't be for at least another five years. In fact, it's hard enough to get ISDN in this area, let alone anything higher.

Originally posted by donaloconnor
This figure has been significantly increased under the National Development Plan, 2000-2006, to €190 million. This funding will be utilised to leverage and accelerate investment in competitive advanced broadband infrastructure and services in the regions.

This is all well and good but, just like the €26 million spent between 1994 and 1999 under the NDP, all this money will be invested in broadband for big business. SME's and the residential user will be shafted again. It's another example of the government pandering and bending over backwards for big business and leaving the rest of us high and dry.

Originally posted by donaloconnor
Time is of the essence in the development of the country’s infrastructure.....

You're only realising this now? Jesus Christ, people have been telling the government for years that we are slipping further and further behind the rest of the world in this area but they continued to just sit on their collective ar$es doing nothing about it. And now you tell us that "time is of the essence"! We are f**ked, severely f**ked because the government left it too late to do anything. We probably won't be able to catch up in the IT services sector at this stage.

Originally posted by donaloconnor
These proposals involve the construction of metro area fibre optic networks in 19 towns around the country.....

Which will be left lying around unlit like all the fibre that is there already or we will have all these seperate fibre rings around towns and cities but none of them will be connected to one another, rendering them effectively useless.

Originally posted by donaloconnor
With best wishes

Yours sincerely

Mary O’Rourke
Minister for Public Enterprise

Not any more you're not, Mary, and thank f**k for that. Let's hope the next Minister for Public Enterprise is a damn sight more effective than you were!

longword

Originally posted by aidan_dunne
So why isn't there broadband in "the regions" yet?

By "the regions" they mean "big places outside Dublin". That's where ESAT's DSL rollout comes into play. They've already done Limerick, with Ballina, Galway, and Cork due by July AFAIK, and more to come after that.

I live in Portlaoise, which isn't exactly the back ar$e of the middle of nowhere, yet I'm not surfing the net on a fancy ADSL connection

It's hard to cover people beyond the reach of the technology. Doesn't matter how much money they spend they can't stretch out the reach of an ADSL line. What they should be looking to do is start rolling out IDSL (144kbps both ways, using ISDN technology).

donaloconnor

Esat com'on and save us ,

For those of you that want DSL, how bout try the satellite solution, http://www.netsystem.com/eng/index.htm

longword

Originally posted by donaloconnor
For those of you that want DSL, how bout try the satellite solution, http://www.netsystem.com/eng/index.htm

If you want to play games, you're 10 times better off with dialup.

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by longword
By "the regions" they mean "big places outside Dublin". That's where ESAT's DSL rollout comes into play. They've already done Limerick, with Ballina, Galway, and Cork due by July AFAIK, and more to come after that.

I was of the understanding that "the regions" meant places outside of urban areas and, in particular, areas such as the West which are the real backwaters.

Originally posted by longword
It's hard to cover people beyond the reach of the technology. Doesn't matter how much money they spend they can't stretch out the reach of an ADSL line. What they should be looking to do is start rolling out IDSL (144kbps both ways, using ISDN technology).

I think you misunderstand me. I'm not actually talking about the physical limits of ADSL itself, I'm talking about the fact that hardly any exchanges outside of the big, urban areas have been upgraded for ADSL and the fact that ADSL and other forms of broadband are always concentrated within large urban centres. As I said, Portlaoise is a fairly big town but there have been no attempts by any company, Eircom or Esat, to upgrade exchanges for ADSL. There are lots of moderate-sized towns like Portlaoise around the country and we will all have to wait until the cities and larger towns are upgraded before they start looking at the likes of us, which will take years. Then the work will have to start on some of the smaller towns and villages and then the rural areas. At the rate things are going it's going to take at least 15 years before it's complete and, by then, ADSL will be considered "old" technology in much the same way that ISDN is today. We will still be way behind the rest of the world. That is why we will always be planning catch up with everybody else unless things are speeded up considerably.

BoneCollector

If you want to play games, you're 10 times better off with dialup.

For **** sake! im a bit Narfed! @ gammers justifying there comments for such a meanial task! :rolleyes:
everytime its the gammer that throws the boot in..

There is More to Playing games.
The internet is not just a gammers paradise and neither is broadband..

If you wanna be productive in using the internet then any one way system will do as long as its cheap enough. (especialy when there is no other alternative to fast internet usage)

Hell! if all you wanna do is play games on the internet (you realy should get a life!) some of us want a little bit more variety.

Anyway.. each to there own..
:cool:
dont knock it just cuz you dont want it
There are more advantages than None

timod

Originally posted by BoneCollector


For **** sake! im a bit Narfed! @ gammers justifying there comments for such a meanial task! :rolleyes:
everytime its the gammer that throws the boot in..

There is More to Playing games.
The internet is not just a gammers paradise and neither is broadband..

Couldn't agree more... personally methinks playing games is just a huge waste of time...

but... Latency is a huge issue for people who use telnet or want to browse the web. Satellite is really only useful for downloading multimegabyte files, not for any real work.

donaloconnor

I totally aggree to, if you want to play games with others, SET up a Local Network and leave the internet out of it

longword

Originally posted by donaloconnor
I totally aggree to, if you want to play games with others, SET up a Local Network and leave the internet out of it

You need a good game of Return to Castle Wolfenstein on the mp_marketgarden map, with 40 decent internet players you've never met in your life. LAN just isn't the same.

Yes, gaming isn't everything. But between that and teleworking, which also typically requires low ping times for ssh/VNC/Citrix/WindowsTS, you're looking at a decently big portion of everything.

exiztone2k

My god... that had to be the stupidest letter I have ever read, and Mary O’Rourke... she has to be the stupidest person ever if she knew that it was going to be posted up here!

donaloconnor

lol, i belive the people on the board should have the right to view it

exiztone2k

Good work!
Not everyone born Irish buys bull**** as the corps seem to think!
>=(

It would be cool if you somehow got that in the Irish Times or something, quoting it down making a counter-remark making her look like an idiot
hahahah, yes, that would be sweet!

zAbbo

Originally posted by donaloconnor
lol, i belive the people on the board should have the right to view it

No-one said we didn`t.

You do a surpising amount of laughing out loud

Lol count - 8

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?postid=485053#post485053

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=53691&perpage=20&pagenumber=2

donaloconnor

Originally posted by pcirl.com




You do a surpising amount of laughing out loud

Lol count - 8

Yeah it's a habit, lets just get the count up to 10 and then i'll stop, lol lol

donaloconnor

I 'll show you what i sent them:

Dear Webmaster,

Can you please forward this important email to the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.

Dear Taoiseach,

I am 16 years old and I am disgusted with the level of broadband access in Ireland. Our Country is falling away behind the other European Countries. I, myself had to go to the bother of saving €235 Euros to pay for a Satellite Service from Luxembourg.

A lot of money is being foolishly spent on things that a pure waste. Other countries offer high speed DSL for as little as 30 a month. I am paying about €30 a month for a dial up service to IOL No Limits. DSL is about 30 times faster than a normal dial up connection. My mother is giving out mad about how the phone line is taken up with the internet, I can’t help this but if I had DSL this would sort out this problem and I would have a much faster connection to the internet and life will be a lot more happier. I am even lucky to be still on my Dial Up Connection, IOL No Limits. Ireland Online couldn’t afford to pay for the leased line from Eircom, the 1332103001235 special number. When you connect with this number you get unmetered access, meaning that you are not charged by the month. This applies from 6pm – 8am and weekends only.



Eircom are totally ripping there costumers with the prices for DSL.

Prices from site:

“eircom i-stream solo

For a single user, on a single computer

The product has both a USB port or ethernet option
Speeds are up to 512kbps downstream/128kbps upstream
Connection fee is 165 excl. VAT - Monthly fee is 89 excl. VAT
Additional equipment required: ADSL USB modem 145 excl. VAT or ADSL ethernet modem 200 excl. VAT
For solo the monthly allowance is 3GB.** “


Now these prices are beyond. Who can afford this, the rich maybe but not the average user. A lot of people from other countries are using DSL and are happy with prices. €89 Euro is just too much to charge compared to other countries that charge only 20 – 30 Euro. E

The internet is a very important part of the future. The internet valuable too people and must not cost too much.

You might be interested going to http://www.irelandoffline.org . This site will support my point of view and will give you all the info you need.

Please, I even beg you to think about this. I can assure you if you plan to invest in telecommunications in Ireland there will be a big response, and I mean a big response. If people knew that Broadband in Ireland would become a lot more cheaper, people will certainly be influenced to vote.

Thank you so much for reading this email and would be grateful if you could do something about broadband in Ireland. It would make such a difference in the country.


Kind Regards,

Donal

exiztone2k

Good work,
but I bet whoever reads it just laughs at it and says "You think some 16 year old punk is gonna make me get off my ass and do something hahah"
If you made a vast amount of people aware of the problem, then they would have to do something,
easier said than done though, right?

SkepticOne

Originally posted by exiztone2k
but I bet whoever reads it just laughs at it and says "You think some 16 year old punk is gonna make me get off my ass and do something hahah"
If you made a vast amount of people aware of the problem, then they would have to do something,
easier said than done though, right?

I disagree with this. There's a lot that can be built on here. One of the points raised by donaloconnor was that a lot of money was being wasted by the Government. A link was then sent back by the Dept. of Public Enterprise giving details of projects funded by the Government: www.ndpcomms.gov.ie . People might like follow this link and contact the project managers and find out details of these projects. These details can then be posted here and used to construct a reply to the DPE and the Dept of the Taoiseach. We have a right to know how our money is being spent. If only a small number of people are engaged in this sort of dialogue it will make a difference.

donaloconnor

How about guys if we all keep emailing them till we get answers, after a couple of 100 emails from all of us they might do something about it? But of course we would want to get a lot of people to do it, who is up, we could tryy and form our own protesting group..hehe. I don't know if you guys will laugh at me or not about what i just said but i believe that it can be done. Who's up for it?

maybe start emailing: adarker@norcontel.ie

exiztone2k

Hmm, well then you should write out the basic letter concerning your views (your probably alot more tech savvy than I am, so I wouldnt know what to say specificly)
then give us the basic letter, we copy and paste it then sign it and send it
and yeah, there bound to do something after a few hundred of them

donaloconnor

umm anyone else out there that will write the letter, because i'm only 15 achually, 16 july. (16 looked better on letter) and I amn't that well with writing letters. Can someone please write out a basic letter and we can add out comments and signatures on it. :cool:

SkepticOne

Originally posted by donaloconnor How about guys if we all keep emailing them till we get answers, after a couple of 100 emails from all of us they might do something about it? But of course we would want to get a lot of people to do it, who is up, we could tryy and form our own protesting group..hehe. I don't know if you guys will laugh at me or not about what i just said but i believe that it can be done. Who's up for it?

maybe start emailing: adarker@norcontel.ie

Communications to norcontel (a consultancy and project management company employed by the Government) should be about getting more information. For example the wireless local loop project: http://www.norcontel.ie/ndpcomms/007.html .

Who is this aimed at? Will it provide the sort of services available in Europe for 40-50 euros. Will it be aimed only at business users? How much will it cost? What are the technical specs? etc. You could also find out who in ESAT is in charge of this project and get further info from them.

The responses can be compiled here for everyone to see and then we can get back to the DPE facts. We shouldn't 'spam' them, though. This should be about gathering information so that we can all get a clear picture about what is going on.

Mike

SkepticOne

Originally posted by donaloconnor
umm anyone else out there that will write the letter, because i'm only 15 achually, 16 july. (16 looked better on letter) and I amn't that well with writing letters. Can someone please write out a basic letter and we can add out comments and signatures on it. :cool:

Form letters have their place, and I think one would be in order for the membership once the new Government is formed. This might be aimed at peoples' local TDs. In the meantime, it would be interesting to get some information about these projects which have been mentioned by the Dept of Public Enterprise. I believe that 10 people asking intelligent, probing questions has more effect than a thousand people sending the same form letter. Age does not matter here. Everyone has the same rights.

So can people do this? Pick a project (find out using the maps if there is a project in your area, for example), contact the person in charge and ask about the services that will be delivered.

Dustaz

Please read the rules at the top of the page. Maybe i should be more clear and point out that exams have nothing to do with this forum. Thread cleaned.

donaloconnor

oh ok cool, thanks for cleaning it. I never achually knew that it was against the rules to go off topic :P Anyway sorry

Dustaz

its not against the rules to go offtopic. Its just that theres off topic and theres "what the hell has this got to do with anything"

dahamsta

I like fish.*

adam

*example

donaloconnor

lol okay, lets get back on topic...