IIA Event: The Real Digital Divide - Dublin to Europe

Dangger

The Irish Internet Association of Ireland are holding an event on Thursday the 18th of July at The Central Hotel, Exchequer Street, Dublin 2.

The title is "The Real Digital Divide: Dublin to Europe" , 6.00pm registration for 6.30pm start.


You must register for this event, and as a special offer the IIA have agreed to waive the €20 fee for IrelandOffline members.

Instructions on how to register are available here . Remember to metion your IOFFL membership to avail of the offer.

Brief:
A European Commission report in December 2001 compared ADSL prices across Europe - Ireland was not included on the chart. Ireland ranked 27th out of 30 in OECD for Broadband penetration. This event will explore these issues through presentations and discussion/debate between audience and panel members. Refreshments will be served at the event.


Panelists:
Paul Conway, ODTR
Mark Crockett, COLT Telecom
Maurice Mortell, Data Electronics
Iarla Flynn, ALTO
A representative from the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources
A representative from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment

BoneCollector

You must register for this event, and as a special offer the IIA have agreed to waive the €20 fee for IrelandOffline members.

maybe this €20 could be donated back to Ireland offline from all who attend.

We should all! definitley Attend! (heres your chance Guys!)

Lemming

Just registered my interest .. I await their response

BoneCollector

Okay i attended this meeting.
My impression was that it was pushing e-business infrastructure and not internet access as we percieve it.

They talked about e-gov Uuhg!:rolleyes:
Most was about the provision of electronic data services from gov dpt and other services to be provided between business`s.

Internet access and flat rate where not a real consideration.
it was brought up once or twice, but the importance was not realised.

What was realised was the fuetility towards eircom that both business, ODTR are facing and it is recognised it is a problem.
I did express my own concerns and mentioned the obvious! regarding flat rate and non existant evoiroment for competition against eircom. it was quickly passed over with no responce and taking another question from some one else.

It concluded with them knowing the issues including pricing etc..
but no real plan of action was percieved other than, building a new network apart from eircom to facilitate e-business in what ever form it takes. (again.. no real mention of internet access)
Hmm....
Oh Well:rolleyes:

dahamsta

I think this is a perfect example of the wider problem: Businesses are simply disproportionately represented in Ireland, and this is hurting consumers. Of course, in capitalist states, this will invariably be the case, but I would go so far as to say that we're probably worse off than America, the global capital of business lobbying. They've got the ACLU, the EFF, and tons of other representative bodies, all of whom are willing to fight, and fight hard, for the ordinary citizen.

In Ireland, the bodies that represent us only do so when the pressure is more than they can bear; or the war is lost, and all that's left is battles that may, or may not, win us some small concessions. Take the recent outrage on prices in Ireland as an example -- they're only noticing now, when we are (arguably) the most expensive place to live in Europe? Where was the data when we were becoming the most expensive place? Why wasn't the problem tackled earlier, why wasn't the brake put on?

Ireland needs better consumer representation. Unfortunately, it's pretty much a thankless job - as we're only too well aware - and for the most part, people interested in politics in Ireland are only in it for the power and the money. I've said this about modern business before: What happened to pride? What happened to the people who ran businesses because they loved what they do? I could say the same thing about politicians, but I'm not sure we ever had a politician who took pride in representing the people who voted for them. It seems like a chore to them.

adam

SkepticOne

Just back from the meeting. Apparently about nine IrelandOffline members regestered for the meeting. I was there with David Long (dangger) and Justin Mason. Lemming was also there and raised some good points from the floor along with a number of others.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by BoneCollector Internet access and flat rate where not a real consideration.
it was brought up once or twice, but the importance was not realised.

What was realised was the fuetility towards eircom that both business, ODTR are facing and it is recognised it is a problem.

Paul Conway did say that the ODTR would be doing everything they could to facilitate the negotiations about flat rate between the Esat (and others) and Eircom, but the thing that made me most hopeful was the comments from the floor. These will have had an impact on some of the panelists.

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by SkepticOne
but the thing that made me most hopeful was the comments from the floor. These will have had an impact on some of the panelists.

Yeah, with members of Ireland Offline turning up at so many of these things now and continuing to ask questions about flat-rate and broadband, they're bound to realise that Ireland Offline is not just going to "go away." I felt that after the group was set up initially there was definitely an air of "don't mind them, they're just a bunch of nerds who'll go away after a while" with the ODTR, Esat and, in particular, Eircom. I hope that they now realise that Ireland Offline will not go away until it meets it's objectives and that we mean business.

Keep this kind of thing up, folks, and I'm sure that we'll have Eircom and the rest saying "Oh Christ, not them again. Okay, okay, let's give them what they want just to get them off our backs" in the near future (I hope!). Let's just keep plugging away, plugging away and we'll annoy them into submission!