The Internet revolution that never was

Dangger

Opinion article by Ralph Averbuch of Electric News Net.

With all the talk of wireless Internet, broadband and e-commerce you'd think that Ireland was at the forefront of the digital revolution.

Sadly, Ireland appears to have hamstrung itself with three different government bodies partially representing consumer interest as it impacts Internet connectivity. We have the Director of Consumer Affairs, the Competition Authority and the ODTR, with the last insisting it lacks sufficient powers to force through change of the current telcoms environment.

Full article available here.

MDR

pity it the same article wasn't on the front page of a national paper ....

Well done ENN, perhaps we could tea leaf aload of the concepts and quotes from the article and stick it in a press release ...

dahamsta

[ Nice to see a bit of Op/Ed on ENN. Makes up a bit for the satellite article earlier. ]

With reference to your quote Dave, let's not forget about everyone else that's involved:

There's the Department of Communications, which is responsible for the MAN grant initiative that deadlines on Friday; there's the Department of Transport(!), which is responsible for CAIT; there's the Department of the Taoiseach, which is ultimately responsible for the Kellogg's Rings; and of course there's our old friend Mary Hanafin, who's a little bit of everything. (Like a cockney. Any old iron!?) And there's Forfás, and and...

These people are running our country?

adam

wormhole

These people are running our country

almost right just add an i and presto

These people are ruinning our country

wormhole

pork99

These people are running our country

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/devo/24059.htm

gurramok

Is it a bit of co-incidence that eircon's advert has disappeared from ENN and this article appears criticising the incumbent ???

jmcc

Originally posted by gurramok
Is it a bit of co-incidence that eircon's advert has disappeared from ENN and this article appears criticising the incumbent ???

Actually this seems to be the first bit of real journalism that I have seen for a while in ENN. Good work Ralph.

Eircom seems to be cutting back on advertising all around. From a business point of view, it would have been dodgy for ENN to have run anything visibly anti-Eircom when it was generating advertising revenue. This is the kind of stranglehold that Eircom has over various publications. Indeed Eircom seemed to be funding WebIreland magazine when it was on its last legs with full page adverts for Indigo/Eircom/Local.ie.

In a way, Eircom bought a level of respectability, or at least had a big stick to wave at advertising dependent publications like ENN. I would not think that Ralph's article was directly related to the lack of Eircom advertising. Indeed, ENN would have directly suffered from Eircom's policy of deterring internet usage - if the readers find it too expensive to read online, then they will not waste time on the site. If readers don't spend time on the site then the site is not attractive to online advertisers.

Regards...jmcc

SkepticOne

Today anyone, anywhere in the UK, can pay as little as STG14.99 a month for an 'unlimited use' account. This means that no matter how many times they call or how long they stay connected their total Internet costs are fixed, including the cost of dialling up. Better still is the cheapest high-speed Internet offerings, which are available at about STG24.99, offering 24/7 connections at, what to anyone used to dialling up with a modem over here, would seem like rocket speed.

That STG 14.99 is for 24/7 dial-up (you are cut off if you stay online for more than 12 hours at a single sitting). The off-peak (equivalent of nolimits) is a lot less.