Today with Philip Bouchier Hayes on Radio 1 getting interested

vinnyfitz

PBH just read out an email from a listener frustrated with his inability to get high speed internet connectivity at home. This follows on comments yesterday from people saying they only commute 'cos they can't get the bandwith to work from home.

Anyway this emailer suggested that the show was ducking this important issue and urged PBH to drag in the Telcos, put them on air and ask them why they were not offering good internet access.

Want to back up this suggestion?

The contact details:
When: Monday - Friday, 10.30am
Series Producer: Conor Kavanagh
Presenter: Philip Boucher Hayes
On-air Phone: 1850 715 900
UK & N. Ireland: 0345 85 7777
Fax: 01 2082634
Email: today@rte.ie



Philip Boucher Hayes will present the Today programme from 10.30am-12 noon on RTÉ Radio 1 replacing Pat Kenny for the next few weeks.

Dangger

I just spoke to Kay on the "on air phone" and left her all the details about IrelandOffline. She did tell me I was speaking too fast though (I told her its cos I have broadband! ) But seriously, she was typing everything I said into a database for a researcher. She told me to wait and see!

Dangger

Okay.... I got my call back, and it looks likely that I'll be gracing the airwaves tomorrow. More information later.

Dustaz

Spi'h on me dave!

Dangger

Alrighty I stand corrected. Thursday is the day.

BoneCollector

Okay.... I got my call back, and it looks likely that I'll be gracing the airwaves tomorrow. More information later.

Looks like those longs mails i sent them this morning done well )


No! Seriously!
No cutting corners tomorrow.. Real hard facts even if they dont want to hear them (and dont forget to blame! ercom not forgetting the gov as well!)
maybe you will mp3 it and put it up for downloading as some off us will be in work

good Luck

NeMiSiS

A woman rang in and explained that eircom tell you you can have faster internet access with isdn but kindly fail to mention that the speeds achievable as in 128kbs are only attainable with by making 2 calls..

Mention

1.that alot more people could work at home,that takes cars off the roads.

2.A stay at home parent could work from home a few hours a day earning more money for the family and keep an eye on the kids

3.Disabeld people who find it hard to get to and from work everyday could work from home also.

4. A person unable to attend school or coolege could have say 'virtaul lessons' from their home

5. Kids wouldnt be deprieved of the internet in their homes beacuse of the high costs..im sure a alot of us remeber when the first 'internet bill ' arrivied and comments were pass round like 'im throwing that computer out !'

6.Businness could work more easily day to day and not have to allocate the large budgets they do to internet access,and not have to wait stupid amounts of time for large files to download in 'no time at all' i think service pack 3 for win 2k is about 65mb's that according to the ASAI would take in and around 65 minutes ish to download on 'hi-speed'.

7. remind them that eircom had to change their 'hi-speed' adds hell if im around ill ring in and explain why i complained about it and how the ASAI's view on 'large files' is still dross

8.remind them that companies arent coming here because of the state of net access.

any of those points valid or useful ?
*shrug* i dunno

good luck tomoro anyways

nem

timod

FWIW, todays show is available at http://www.rte.ie/rams/ecs/radio_weekly/tue/pkenny2.ram (Real Player)

The interesting bit is in the first 5 minutes (not sure if there's more, only listening now)

Best of luck on Thursday Dave.

tuxy

Originally posted by NeMiSiS

6.Businness could work more easily day to day and not have to allocate the large budgets they do to internet access,and not have to wait stupid amounts of time for large files to download in 'no time at all' i think service pack 3 for win 2k is about 65mb's that according to the ASAI would take in and around 65 minutes ish to download on 'hi-speed'.

win 2k service pack 3 is 124mb i downloaded it last week using esat nolimits it took me 12 hrs ;/

byte

Originally posted by Dangger
Alrighty I stand corrected. Thursday is the day.

Any idea on what time roughly?

I'm off work Thursday, so hopefully, I will be listening to R1.

Good luck, Dangger!

LoBo

Originally posted by tuxx
win 2k service pack 3 is 124mb i downloaded it last week using esat nolimits it took me 12 hrs ;/

abuser! abuser!

I never did huge downloads and STILL got kicked off the service

sceptre

Originally posted by tuxx
win 2k service pack 3 is 124mb i downloaded it last week using esat nolimits it took me 12 hrs ;/

Took me 6 on nolimits - might be worth having a look at your connection tuxx

Hairy Homer

Probably need to bone up on your responses to the inevitable pants wetters who will blame the Internet for all the evils of the world.

Last week Kevin Myers wrote in An Irishman’s Diary in the Times, in a piece inspired by Soham, that we have arrived in a cyberworld of evil paederasts who are now in every house in Ireland, and in every child’s bedroom which has a computer. (not exact quote but pretty close)

He went on to say that we mustn’t let our children into their friends’ houses if there is known to be a computer there which might be operated out of sight of a responsible adult. And why oh why didn’t the geeks who invented these things make it impossible for them to be used by paedophiles?

But rule number 1 should be: Do not let a kid have in their bedroom a computer with an Internet connection.

Now, I reckon the number of Irish kids who surf the net from a PC in their bedroom is about zero. Largely because of the crap infrastructure we have here which limits domestic access for the most part to dial up lines. So you’ll probaly have someone saying let’s keep it that way for the sake of our children’s innocence.

The gas thing is their kids probably have TVs in their bedroom and spend the late nights jerking off to whatever uncensored smut is on Sky One at two o’clock in the morning.

I know I do. :-)

Knock 'em dead.

spongebob

my rereading of KM's total oevre on the morality and insidiousness of that technological soup in which we now float, carried out with great meticulousness since that last post in this thread, proves to me beyond all reasonable doubt that K knows as much about tachnology as a dog about his father.

M

sceptre

Originally posted by Hairy Homer
He went on to say that we mustn’t let our children into their friends’ houses if there is known to be a computer there which might be operated out of sight of a responsible adult.

I had this conversation with herself the other night (keep in mind we've no kids and no plans)

I'd happily let my kids browse away to their hearts content on their own. Provided that I had an industrial strength piece of software on a nice secure machine that would only allow them to access sites considered safe by me. None of your NetNanny rubbish , thank you - something that they couldn't fool and couldn't crash (something like a working version of SurfControl).

Anyone who lets their child browse the Internet on their own, unsupervised, with no control over what they're looking at is doing a disservice to the child.

My brother tells me that one of our cousins (who's about 13/14) is browsing an unbelievable amount of smut on their family PC (which is kept in a public place). No control from the parents on what he's browsing - no interest and no idea. Due to parents splitting up our side of the family is in a persona non grata type position eith that family wing so we wouldn't even be listened to if the topic was brought up. It's a failing on the part of those parents though.

I'd happily ask a parent of any friends my child might have what controls they have on their Internet access. I'd feel like a fool if I didn't.

Those Oprah shows are a little scaremongering imho but they're still tackling a fairly serious risk.

(note: this is an OT reply to Hairy Homers (OT) post - if people want to discuss this in any way I'll happily split the thread and move it somewhere more appropriate)

spongebob

Well put sceptre.

As a parent I must make and enforce decisions.....its my job. It does not matter what the other kids are allowed to do ...or not.

Because I CAN and because I MUST it will always include the family firewalling and content filtering rules.

If Kevin Myers cannot do so he should hire someone who CAN to implement the family Content filter and the family firewall and the different rules for the different subnets in the family zone together with sufficient pysical security to ensure that bypassing this system is not an option.

Alternatively he should simply admit his total ignorance of all these and .....consequent to all of this..... not offer his facile useless advice on the matter. He has admitted he is a bad parent because he advocated avoidance of issues rather than the enforcement of rules in the family home. By the same logic he will teach driving to his sprogs by not giving them a car ...and banging on about it in the IT.

M

ressem

And that is just the basic download,
has anyone here started to download development stuff on anything slower than a leased line?

Microsoft MSDN Visual Studio .NET download
1.8 GB
Oracle Developer Kit
1.5 and 1.3 GB for Linux and Windows
A retail Linux distribution? ....

You probably already have enough to work with but
A "case study" if you want it Dangger ...

I'm within spitting distance of a large exchange and telecom boxes. To get a connection faster than ISDN (i.e. 256K) costs us well over £8000p.a. in old money through a reseller.
(Eircoms quote for the same product was £11,000+ btw and wouldn't bargain)
To double the speed, double the cost.
For 1Meg, sack a director or 2 employees.

This cost makes broadband absolutely inaccessible to the home user/home office within a sixty mile radius of my residence.

It also means that a certain IT consultant in a tiny rural village in Cornwall pays €900 a year for an internet service that costs us well over ten times as much, in the middle of a large urban centre. That is an always-on, decent speed, internet connection.
For us, the always-on connection is required to provide rapid responses to customers enquiries and a decent centralised email system for managing and tracking correspondence.
Any attempt that I've seen to do this using dial-up isdn like eircom's "hispeed" has been an expensive fudge.

---

IOffL summary:

ADSL was being trialled 5 years by telco's in the states.
If I wanted to be snide (and I do), I'd wonder whether eircom were waiting to buy the stuff second hand.

The fees that Eircom impose on small to medium internet-dependent companies would be at risk if ADSL or better became widespread. Their reluctance to provide even slow cheap internet access to the majority of the population would suggest that they are in mortal fear of internet telephony cutting into their long distance call revenue.

As Eircom had as-close-as-possible to a monopoly market with subsidised infrastructure handed to them,
it is hardly unreasonable for the regulator to give fixed targets with penalties for stalling to Eircom.

Say, to have 70% of exchanges with DSL available within a year at a price within 30% of the UK or better. To make available always-on internet access at a low fixed monthly cost, comparable to Northern Ireland perhaps, to those that will not see a broadband connection in the next 5 years, regardless of what the government promised.

If Hispeed is so great, then why haven't Eircom been installing it as default for all new homes? Hispeed's technology is a decade old. It's main advantage is that maximizes Eircom revenue by charging for 2 lines and 2 calls.
This is probably good business practice by an accountant's measure.



Probably those who'll be in your audience will have no idea of how much modern software assumes that the user has cheap internet at their fingertips.
Art programs try to update clip art, music programs try to get you information on the CD that you are playing.
Many tools have done away with locally stored help so if you have trouble, you pay the eircom toll for your 10 second inquiry.
This ignores all the communication possibilities. email and the web need little introduction. Instant messaging via text, voice and video are common amongst those with the always-on infrastructure.

OT

I wonder whether our new "eminister" has ever gone to a IT centric University/ multinational IT business and had the internet roadmap highlighted a bit in terms of communication and broadcasting, services and entertainment.

Have the grants provided by government to pay for broadband infrastructure been for the benefit of multinationals only?
---
Good luck, may you be most eloquent, and nail the Eir rep to the wall.

Dustaz

Damn i wish we still had the kharma system here, Id award you a few points for that post ressem. nice one

Dangger

Sorry to report that I did not get my promised information call with the times I was required in RTE today from the researcher who moved me from Wednesday to Thursday. So I will not be on air today. I will contact the today show again today to determine if they have axed me (in favour of an open mic for the telco's) or moved the piece.

David

Dangger

Just got a call from the show. The are doing a piece at 11:30

Jamie Smyth will be in studio giving an overview, and Eircom will be phoning in. I will be speaking over the phone also at 11:30 in the slot.

I was reminded by the researcher that it is not a general interest piece as the audience is so big, but reminded them that it was their listeners who had broght it up in the first place.

stormkeeper

All I can say at this point is: "Good luck and give 'em hell"

Mr E

Eircom chickened out of the discussion ..... stunning surprise. :rolleyes:
Well done though, David. Good job. That discussion could easily have gone on for another half an hour.

- Dave.

Tippex

Good Job Dave Long.

Typical of the corporation to chicken out

Once again good show Dave.

yankinlk

you sounded very professional Dave, well done.

How did you keep from ripping your hair out when he started going on about ISDN being available?

Kevok

I think he illustrated a good point (if unintentional) when he kept on talking about ISDN. It shows just how succesful Eircoms marketing and advertising campaigns are. They have the average person in Ireland believing that ISDN is true broadband when we all know its not.

Probably unlikely but would it be possible to start an advertising fund for IrelandOffline, maybe through paypal. Maybe an ad in the Irish Times where the misconceptions created by Eircom are challenged? I'd happily donate some.

Dustaz

Dont suppose anyone has an MP3 of this?

pencil

Well done Dave, good points & well argued.

It's VERY easy to be a 'Back Seat Driver' (& my apologies for being one) but I though the conversation was a little bit technical for the average user - for my mum 'Unlit fiber' is a bad hair day.

I know the questions didn't steer you this way but there were 2 phases I was listening for:

'Eircom & Monopoly' - the public are increasing becoming aware of 'rip-off Ireland'.

'E-hub Ireland a fantasy/joke & economic future threatened'.

Again well done & it very easy for me to be critical, but I wouldn't have the balls to do it.

Mr E

Originally posted by Kevok
Probably unlikely but would it be possible to start an advertising fund for IrelandOffline, maybe through paypal. Maybe an ad in the Irish Times where the misconceptions created by Eircom are challenged? I'd happily donate some.

Thats a fantastic idea. Statistics about the rest of europe, plus some of ressem's points from earlier in this thread. Full page ad in the Irish Times or something..... Only problem is that Eircon would probably get an injunction before it even got a sniff of the printing press...

I'd gladly contribute if it was a runner, though!

- Dave.

spongebob

lets see if they will back their own Telecoms users groups with €£$$£$€

after all they are saying the same thing as IoffL

M

timod

Well done Dave.

Liked the way you turned the focus onto flat rate, and turned the ISDN discussion onto the fact that it's two phone calls, charged per minute.

Dustaz

Originally posted by TmB
Thats a fantastic idea. Statistics about the rest of europe, plus some of ressem's points from earlier in this thread. Full page ad in the Irish Times or something..... Only problem is that Eircon would probably get an injunction before it even got a sniff of the printing press...

I'd gladly contribute if it was a runner, though!

- Dave.

This has been discussed a number of times before. Unforutunatly, it costs too much money to make an impact

Lemming

I didn't hear the dicussion at all.

Does anyone want to give a quick overview of the event?

stormkeeper

I didn't get to hear it either, sadly
Is it going to be posted up on the website does anyone know?

vinnyfitz

Just follow this link http://www.radio1.ie/morning/patkenny/
and click on the head phones beside thursday.
RTE deserve complements for archiving this stuff pretty well.
Of course you could listen too the whole show but you might prefer to scroll through to 1 hour and 14 minutes before you start listening - it runs for about 12 minutes from then.

I really thought PBH's questions revealed he just did not get the point that this is a consumers issue - not a technology issue.

Anyway well done Dave.

kamobe

"Unable to establish connection to:

http://maillist.rte.ie/smiltest/eircomimg.rp"

That's what Pat Kenny's link is to
Not working at the moment,as ye can see...

vinnyfitz

I don't understand that Kamobe
- its working fine for me
try going in through rte.ie then radio then select programme "today with philip..."

Hannibal_12

Nope its not working. However you can download it via FTP from this link, unfortunately its quite big and those who have a well developed sense of irony will appreciate that it takes too long to download a recording of someone complaining about the speed of the net.

SkepticOne

http://www.rte.ie/audio/pkenny2.ra

Put that into the "open location" dialog.

Dustaz

christ do i HAVE to install bloatware onto my pc to listen to this?:(

I hate RP, dont suppose someone wants to convert it?

BKtje

im in the same boat as u Dustaz. I hate RP.

guess installing it and uninstalling it will have to be done

segadreamcast

"Unable to establish connection to:

http://maillist.rte.ie/smiltest/eircomimg.rp"

Have you turned any firewalls off? Always helps...

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

mike65

I listened with baited breath but turned the radio off with a
sigh, not Daves fault but a 10 min discussion without Errorcon
and with Philip Boucher-Hayes was never going to be very
enlightening. Too technical for the casual listener too dull for
sad net-vets like us here.

The only way to make an impact in such a chat is to go big on prices and state how the UK is so much cheaper, giving hard figues then linking that with Ireland Plc and the infomation economy. I'm sure many sat with thier cups of teas or with an Iron in one hand were left completely unmoved. Still 10 mins is better than nothing, its just a pity Pat Kenny is still on his hols.
Boucher-Hayes is strickly lightweight.

A phase I cooked up which I like to use sums it up.-

" The internet is the internal combustion engine of the 21st century!" That usually gets ppls attention. Then I explain what the hell I'm on about.

Mike.

Dangger

Too technical for the casual listener too dull for
sad net-vets like us here.

I agree mike65, it was difficult with the format they chose. Philip wanted to alternate between the two of us, which did not allow me to really get to the core. I tried to keep it simple, but at the end the "unlit fibre" comment was perhaps a little ott.

Originally I was told it was to be a head to head with Eircom and myself in the studio. In the end I did not get a call back until 8:45 this morning and I was somewhat surprised they were still going ahead with it. As you point out its not really a worthwhile excercise without some comment from Eircom. I was a little put off by the focus on ISDN hence my comment on it being somewhat old tech with the cost of two calls being imposed to get anywhere close to so called "Hi- Speed".

Although exposure such as this may not get the populous of Ireland jumping up and down with rage, I was pleased by the response I got to the piece. With such heavy weight discussions on the show with the Minister for Health and John Simpson there was a good audience and new avenues for exploration have presented themselves . A little cryptic I know but we'll battle on!

skrobe

nice one for getting flatrate mentioned. I think it was backed up well by jamie ,pity pbh didnt question the (we're greedy and we can do what we want) eircom reply

Hannibal_12

Originally posted by Dangger


I agree mike65, it was difficult with the format they chose. Philip wanted to alternate between the two of us, which did not allow me to really get to the core. I tried to keep it simple, but at the end the "unlit fibre" comment was perhaps a little ott.

Originally I was told it was to be a head to head with Eircom and myself in the studio. In the end I did not get a call back until 8:45 this morning and I was somewhat surprised they were still going ahead with it. As you point out its not really a worthwhile excercise without some comment from Eircom. I was a little put off by the focus on ISDN hence my comment on it being somewhat old tech with the cost of two calls being imposed to get anywhere close to so called "Hi- Speed".

Although exposure such as this may not get the populous of Ireland jumping up and down with rage, I was pleased by the response I got to the piece. With such heavy weight discussions on the show with the Minister for Health and John Simpson there was a good audience and new avenues for exploration have presented themselves . A little cryptic I know but we'll battle on!

Well after eventually being able to listen I have to say you done excellently under the circumstances. It’s a very difficult line to walk between esoteric techno babble and open accessible discussion. In saying that though I was disappointed with the fact that it wasn’t you versus €ircon which would have been much better. In the end they displayed either their cowardice or contempt for the net users in Ireland by not even sending a representative. Instead they give a statement singing the same tired old song and don’t even mention DSL. As another poster stated it’s a testament to €ircon’s PR that people still see ISDcrappyN as a “hi-speed” solution. It pisses me off no end.
May I also make a suggestion that the website be given out so people can find out more about IOFFL, the louder the voice the harder it is to ignore.

Edit: I don’t know who that guy from the times was but I didn’t really appreciate his contribution much, i.e. “200,000” DSL customers in Dublin???? Or is this yet another theoretical figure. His comment about it being 3 -4 years before DSL was widely available sent shudders down my spine and if that really is the case then I’ll be making plans for emigration.

MrPudding

I think overall it was good. It was a bit annoying that ISDN kept being brought up but it was good in the sense that it allowed you to point out that even if it was to be considered as broadband (i know it's not but some people seem to think it is) it is still billed per minute.
And besides, some bloke said it best when he said "any publicity is good publicity."

Well done Dave.

MrP

stormkeeper

I found it annoying that ISDN was mentioned a lot also... At least, as someone said before, it's good publicity

I wonder if any more people will be contacting IOFFL or PBH in relation to that piece?

Edit: I forgot to mention, Well Done

kamobe

originally posted by Hannibal_12
Edit: I don’t know who that guy from the times was but I didn’t really appreciate his contribution much, i.e. “200,000” DSL customers in Dublin????

Careful now, he said 200,000 customers had ACCESS to dsl

I was very impressed with the interview. Joe Bloggs listening in, will understand that he pays by the minute for his internet usage. Joe Bloggs was informed that 49c for ISDN is rubbish, and that ISDN itself, is in fact rubbish (elderly technology). Eircom not showing up, bravo, no waffling defence from them, and their "friendly neighbourhood company" image will be tarnished as a result (there were two or three instances, where negative remarks about Eircom were made, with no disagreement. People notice these things...).

If only a number of these interviews could be aired within a short period of time, then the information will begin to sink in. Have RTE broadcasted anything on Six-1 with relation to IOFFL? I'm sure they pay through the teeth for net access too....

All said, excellent interview - well done!

Dustaz

Finally got to listen to the interview and just wanted to say fair play to you dave. All the main points were covered and covered as well as could be in the time/format allowed.

That interview is sure to have converted quite a lot of people. Again, well done

nahdoic

great interview. but the point about being too complicated for the normal joe bloggs is worth looking into.

what are the hard hitting simple facts that we want to get across?

- Broadband is 5 times more expensive to Irish users, and only available to 5% of the population.

- ISDN is a 10 year old slow technology that is provided as standard to German homes.

- A British net user pays €1.20 a day to use the internet for 10 hours during business hours. An irish net user, for the exact same service pays €12. It's 10 times more expensive.