Irish not interested in broadband

Dangger

Nua story

Oct 08 2002: A recent survey from the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR) indicates that a large number of Irish adults have little or no interest in subscribing to broadband services.

According to the study, only 14 percent of adults in Ireland say they are ‘very’ likely to subscribe to broadband services, while 32 percent claim they are ‘fairly’ likely to sign-up.

However, 14 percent of Irish adults report that they are ‘not very’ likely to subscribe to broadband services, while 25 percent say they are ‘not at all’ likely to sign-up for high-speed broadband Internet.

The ODTR study indicates that 86 percent of Irish adults current log on to the Internet via a narrowband connection, while nine percent use ISDN.

Currently, broadband access is not widely available in Ireland, however, 37 percent of Irish adults say that the most appealing benefit of high-speed Internet is unlimited Internet access for the same fee paid for dial-up access.

A further 29 percent of adults in Ireland claim ‘high-speed’ is the most appealing benefit of broadband, while 18 percent of adults cited the ‘always on’ nature of the technology.

BigEejit

A recent survey from the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR) indicates that a large number of Irish adults have little or no interest in subscribing to broadband services.

Those flipping twits ... they focus on the minority (39% of ppl in the survey are negative and 46% are positive) ... how can we hope to get broadband throughout the country (er ... at exchanges throughout the country) when eejits (small eejits of course, not big eejits like me ) in positions of infleunce are making comments like the above.....:rolleyes:

Mr E

The same apathy existed in the UK years ago. Once broadband was introduced, more and more people subscribed to it. Did I read somewhere recently that there are 1,000,000 broadband users in the UK now?

People here aren't used to broadband (or have never experienced it). How can you want what you've never tried? Alas, this is more spin for those dinosaurs in Eircom.

Question - of the people surveyed, did they all have a computer? :rolleyes: Get the ODTR to survey computer users (or more specifically, people who want/need to go onto the internet every day) and see what the response is. Those figures would tell a whole different story.

- Dave.

GoneShootin

while nine percent use ISDN. gee, i wonder why this is true

is it because of the stupid price for old tech ?? :mad:

Meh

Hey, I'm ‘not at all likely' to sign up for broadband while it costs €100+ a month...

Shoddy journalism not to pick up on that.

MDR

appartentily they didn't bother their arse reading the rest of that report ....

LoBo

heh, isn't it something like 1-2% of irish people could currently GET broadband? As said above, your average joe doesn't think they 'are likely to sign up' to said broadband - because they cannot!

The odd thing here is - we are so far behind with our broadband rollout and takeup that we have the slight advantage of being able to look at more forward countries to see how it all worked out. So, ODTR: look at what happened in the rest of the world with takeup of broadband. Its massive now in the UK, and is going to grow even more with the big marketing its getting.

[As usual, Eircom: go to your room.]

Nobody

Anyone got a link to this survey carried out by the ODTR, and mentions in the NUA article?

dahamsta

I imagine 90% of the people, when asked if they'd like broadband, said "Wha?"

adam

flamegrill

Originally posted by TmB
The same apathy existed in the UK years ago. Once broadband was introduced, more and more people subscribed to it. Did I read somewhere recently that there are 1,000,000 broadband users in the UK now?

I read on the Reg sometime back that in the UK they were signing up at a rate of 10,000 broadbands users per week in the second quater of 2002 AFAIR

rymus

broadband, pffff!

give me a bag of penny sweets over a 1meg line anyday! No, I'm not in the slightest bit interested in broadband*

*above statement may not be accurate

Canadian

"If they don't have bread, Let the Eat Cake" was said in France a long time ago.

My point being the OTDR is clearly so far out of touch with what is going on in the world that they are the Irish version of Marie Antoinette.

Of course that lead to a rebellion in France.

=======================
Free News from the Irish Times*
*Purchase of Paper Required

Dun

Originally posted by Dangger
Oct 08 2002: A recent survey from the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR) indicates that a large number of Irish adults have little or no interest in subscribing to broadband services.

Any excuse to not have to do anything..

Dustaz

Err, stone me if needs be but that report sounds right to me. In fact im suprised that the figures are that high.

Not everyone wants or needs broadband. THis is especially true of people who have not had the chance to find thier 'special' place on the internet thru fear of huge phone bills, boredom and frustration due to slow connections etc.

What suprises me is that the ODTR didnt mention that 10% of americans have broadband. This is a country where broadband is much more widely available. Neraly everyone in a large town can get it if they want it. The fact that 32% of people who live in a country where there is close to zero% broadband availability are "fairly" likely to get it is quite telling.

OHP

What a load of Old Rubbish! Anyone can do a survey like that!!. Who do they think they are kidding? I honestly think that if you sat both young and old people down at a computer that had ADSL and showed them what was on offer from the Internet. (whild keeping away from the Dark Side) that they would love it! and want it! I firmely beleive that becaouse of the price of it most people are not even bothered checking it out. I have asked ll the people that work for me about it and the responce I have gotten is "Ohh the Internet. Does that not make you have huge phone bills?" "We cannot afford the luxury of the Internet" " My kids used to use it all the time, untill we got the phonebill" "I cant afford the Internet right now" " I tried using the internet with a 56k modem and everything took solong to load I ran up huge phonebills so I just gave it up" BAH!

Survay my BUTT!!

OHP

Paddy20

OHP,

Very well stated.

Most people should know that a survey can be specifically designed by way of subtle questioning and targettiing to produce the results that you want too hear, rather than reflecting the truth.

Ireland is one Country that seems to have a plethora of so called marketing/public research organisations that have even convinced the establishment that the enourmous fees charged by them to carry out these surveys are a justified use of taxpayers money? What a joke, it is now so old that it is not even slightly amusing any more.

Hard to beat ordinary common sense, or a fair open marketplace for ensuring that consumers of services will get a fairly priced offering and a selection to choose from, depending on individual needs.

Yours,

paddy20;)

Canadian

From personal experience I can tell you that people don't want broadband (or even the internet) until they have it.

My 70 year old mother in Vancouver was forced by ME to get WebTV* Four years ago. She fought tooth and nail but within a month she told me she couldn't live without it.

Two years ago, I bought her a laptop and one year of cable internet access. Again, "Don't need it, don't want it" was the initial rant. Again, within a month, she couldn't live without it.

Being an older woman, she still complains about the €25 euro she has to pay per month for the service (3Mb/s in Canada), but just try to suggest that she give it up.....


=======================
*WebTV was an internet appliance in North America that used the television as the video screen and came with a wireless keyboard. It was an excellent interface for individuals who were comfortable with a Television and were possibly scared by a computer (such as the elderly).

crawler

Annoyed.

OK so the sad little selective survey claims there is no interest in Broadband.....well even if that IS the case - what needs to change to encourage people to consider Broadband.

Simple ; education and personal experience.....and what is needed for that? FRIACO - true, sweet , sweet FRIACO.

The ODTR can not sit back and be content by saying "there is no interest , therefore we do need to do anything" - do they not see the massive conflict between statements like this and the governments stance on the E-hub , Digital hub etc etc etc....?

It is the job of the ODTR to promote these services and open up the entire market.

Enough of this sad justification of existance from the ODTR - get it sorted - TRUE FRIACO , Broadband interest will soon follow. It's a tried and tested formula.

Pathetic & so Irish.

highlight

has anyone actually read the report?

I mean, enn NEVER get things a little wrong, do they?

seamus

Well, of course people have no interest in Broadband!! The internet is only porn and gambling anyway*
*statements made above may not reflect actual opinion of author.

This more-or-less confirms what we have been arguing about here for a long time. FRIACO is needed to show people what broadband can accomplish. Most answers I've got from the "I don't want broadband" crew, are along the lines of "I don't use internet enough, a dial-up line suits me fine." Why don't they use the internet enough? Shock! It costs too much!
IMO, the most important section of that article is:

Currently, broadband access is not widely available in Ireland, however, 37 percent of Irish adults say that the most appealing benefit of high-speed Internet is unlimited Internet access for the same fee paid for dial-up access.

Well, spank my ass, people are interested in the internet if it's cost-effective!! What a surprise! I think this ties in nicely with the resultsof the IOFFL survey.

I don't think this article is a failure, but rather further ammo to shove in people's faces.

1. Most Irish people use dial-up.

2. Ireland has no flat-rate dial-up.

3. People say they aren't interested in broadband.

4. But people say the most appealing part of broadband is it's flatrate nature.......

ergo, people are interested in FRIACO. And we know that FRIACO leads people to broadband.....huzzahh!!

bettyboo

Originally posted by Meh
Hey, I'm ‘not at all likely' to sign up for broadband while it costs €100+ a month...

Shoddy journalism not to pick up on that.

shoddy journalism??? While the cost of broadband is obviously a factor, I think you're wrong to assume that it's the main reason why broadband adoption is low in Ireland.

Check this out from eMarketer (who also reported on the study)

'Considering basic internet usage numbers in Ireland, it is no wonder that broadband interest is not more prolific. Amárach Consulting found that the internet penetration rate in the country was only 38% in Q2 2002. Amárach predicts that by Q2 2004, the penetration rate will still be below 50%. '


it's worth noting that a lot of people simply aren't interested in 'high-speed' Internet access. I have a leased line in the place I work, so I use that all the time. However, when I'm at home all I want to do is check my mail and read the news, so why would I want to bother with broadband???

Not everyone wants or needs broadband - look at the US where adoption is still pretty low.... It's time to face the fact that even if the cost of it comes down there will still be a large number of Internet users who just won't bother with it.....

crawler

Reports must NOT be read in isolation - neither should government policy / ODTR statements.

FRIACO is the way forward - once people start teleworking on FRIACO and get pi**ed off at the slow speeds they will demand higher speeds - ya da ya da ya da.

Takeup may not be amazing initially - it will all depend on Companies adoption of home working and IDA plans for attracting investment in this type of sector.

Fallschirmjager

Oh come on now, surely you are not suggesting that the O D T R is wrong...didnt our national phone company recently tell us that only 1000 people, sorry 999 people including me wanted the big BBand. Are you suggesting that they dont know how to run their business?

Also i would like to add,
if you add that us 39 % of the irish population equals 1000 people
who want BBand, 1+1000+2+19%,+ tax rate (Falls murmurs a bit as he adds)

so sweet baby jesus...does that mean that the population of ireland is just over 2000 people....sweet christ


get on the phone to the government, red alert, red alert only just above 2000 people live in ireland....sweet lord what have we done with the EU grants....


Lets just assume what we know. UTV cant keep up with the subscriptions...for flat rate...that must be the 1000 of us all logging onto that 1 single allocated 386 server UTV got on hire purchase. TROLLS TROLLS everywhere and not a 256k connection.


it must be the same 1000 people here annoying the O D T R as she types these vital documents that are driving the irish economy onto higher things...and focussing on the web future. why doesnt she just phone the entire population of ireland (all 2000+ of us) and let us know. it would save her writing and us attempting to download her word documents at anything near 56k..

cmon people do you really need anything over 56k....i think if you listen to your O D T R and EIRCON you know the answer

remember
eir reich ein volk ein ODTR ein eircon


* please note -- the sarcasm scale is scoring a 9.8 at the moment

Meh

Originally posted by bettyboo
shoddy journalism??? While the cost of broadband is obviously a factor, I think you're wrong to assume that it's the main reason why broadband adoption is low in Ireland.

Just pointing out that "Would you like a broadband connection?" and "Are you likely to sign up for a broadband connection?" are two very different questions, and that the journalist who wrote the article should have spotted this.

Example: I would like a new Ferrari very much, but I'm "not at all likely" to buy one in the foreseeable future.

seamus

Actually, I only clicked the link now, and it's kind of depressing, but at the same time, screams out "Irish people should be interested in the net - why aren't they!!?".

That is, look at the links for 'Related Stories'.

Related Stories (Infrastructures)
Oct 08 2002: ADSL dominates Asian broadband market
Oct 04 2002: One million broadband subscribers in UK
Oct 02 2002: Spanish broadband costs to fall next year
Sep 24 2002: High-speed access costs too high for US users
Sep 20 2002: More broadband subscribers in Europe


Related Stories (IT/Computer Industry)
Oct 09 2002: Over four million DSL subscribers in Japan
Oct 09 2002: Web services catching on in Europe
Oct 09 2002: IT spending on the rise in 2002
Oct 08 2002: UK has one million broadband connections
Oct 08 2002: ADSL dominates Asian broadband market


Related Stories (Telecommunications)
Oct 09 2002: Over four million DSL subscribers in Japan
Oct 08 2002: UK has one million broadband connections
Oct 08 2002: ADSL dominates Asian broadband market
Oct 04 2002: One million broadband subscribers in UK
Sep 20 2002: More broadband subscribers in Europe

It's kind of funny and depressing at the same. But it blatantly shows that this is not a 'blip' - there is something very wrong that is preventing Irish people from becoming interested in using the net. After all, we're not special. Etain, nothing is hunky dory in Ireland. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.....

bettyboo

Originally posted by Meh
Just pointing out that "Would you like a broadband connection?" and "Are you likely to sign up for a broadband connection?" are two very different questions, and that the journalist who wrote the article should have spotted this.

Example: I would like a new Ferrari very much, but I'm "not at all likely" to buy one in the foreseeable future.

I agree with what you're saying, but surely the job of the journo is to report on the findings and as the report didn't ask whether people would like a broadband connection, then it ain't his/her job to comment on it.

This is especially true given that we'd all like broadband, just as we'd all like digital tv, a ferrari and world peace. To ask people if they'd like broadband wouldn't really answer anything. You'd expect 99 % of people to say they'd like it, just as you'd expect the same percentage to say they want world peace etc.

Among the other questions the study asked was what was the main reason why Irish people didn't use the Net more often at home. The main reason given was that people didn't need too. The second reason cited was that people had no interest.

As Seamus suggests, this is more than simply just about broadband pricing.....

lara

it's worth noting that a lot of people simply aren't interested in 'high-speed' Internet access. I have a leased line in the place I work, so I use that all the time. However, when I'm at home all I want to do is check my mail and read the news, so why would I want to bother with broadband???

will fully agree with that - why bother paying the astronomical rates for ADSL when you really aren't going to use it? Have a pretty decent connection in work, so I check all my email etc in work. I find dial-up too painful and expensive to use, and ADSL prices are a bit of a joke. I live in an area covered by NTL's cable access, but I'm not bothered getting it in, because frankly, I wouldn't use it - and neither would any of my family.

To accuse the Nua writer of 'shoddy journalism' is a little unfair. The article was on the findings of the report - which were laid out in the article. Getting in to why the results of the report showed up like that is moving away from reporting fact and into speculation, which to me would be shoddy journalism.

Just my opinion.

Canadian

The government / government agencies would have you believe the following:

1. Ireland is the E Hub of europe, with a well educated population and full of world class hardware and software companies.

2. Ireland is not the least bit interested in flat rate internet or broadband internet - people don't want it.

Suspicous, isn't it....

Of course people don't NEED to use the internet. They don't NEED to use mobile phones either. I would imagine that a survey of mobile phone use here would yield 'NOT THAT INTERESTED' either if they were priced out of reach or not available to 99.95% of the population.

Suprise - make mobile phones affordable to 80% of the population and guess what. IRELAND HAS ONE OF THE HIGHEST MOBILE PHONE SATURATION LEVELS IN THE WORLD.

Who would like to do a correlation study between mobile phone use and broadband use?

=======================
Let them eat Cake.

crawler

lara - why are you here if you can have very affoardable broadband but you simply dont want it?

Not a dig , just a genuine question.....if I lived in west Dublin I'd have a CM in each room of the house , including the bathroom!

I'd even get one for the mice ( notice the sly but effective dig here )

Actually - nice 4 bed-semi in Meath if you fancy a swap!

lara

Crawler, don't take this the wrong way, but I wasn't aware that the board was restricted to those who didn't have access to broadband. I don't mean it as a dig either! Just because I have doesn't mean that I'm going to stop keeping up with things! Unfortunately, others aren't so lucky...

Three months ago, I would have given my left arm for broadband access, but now since my job has the high-speed line, I find I'm not using it as much at home. If however, I lost my job tomorrow, I'd be on to NTL straight away to get them to put in the line.

Besides which, I've only just been offered NTL's broadband in the last few weeks (they did a house to house sweep).

Unfortuantely, the house isn't mine - because I would gladly swap for a four bed semi - my current residence is three bed and getting pretty cramped

BKtje

Correct me if im wrong, but isnt that 46% of irish adults would probably get it if it was available. For a service that isnt widely available i find that quite a large number who would want it.

whats that? about 1.3million people ? i find that a huge number of people who dont have access to flat rate as it is to let them see the real benefits etc.

Im sure more would sign up once they saw their friends/relatives/work m8's with it and seeing what u can do with it etc.

(or did i mis-read something?)

crawler

Lara - I was just curious - the more friends we have the better! - It's all happy families!

One has to beware of the evil troll etc etc....

DeVore

I wonder how many people would have said "yes I want a fax" before they reached critical mass of ownership.

I wonder why they only asked Joe-in-the-streets and not businesses too.

DeV.

MDR

Our own suvery said about 70% of peeps would be interested in Broadband depending on its price and a further 20% said they would be interested in broadband regardless of price.

DonegalMan

Originally posted by DeVore
I wonder how many people would have said "yes I want a fax" before they reached critical mass of ownership.

Which is exactly why this type of survey is meaningless and misleading.

30 years ago I said I wouldn't been bothered with colour television.

10 years ago, I said I would never bother with the Internet.

5 years ago, I said I would never get a mobile phone.

Of course, in all cases I had never experienced them - the days when I was a 'late adapter', finally copped on and became an early one

Martin

sax0000

Originally posted by Dangger
Nua story

"A further 29 percent of adults in Ireland claim ‘high-speed’ is the most appealing benefit of broadband, while 18 percent of adults cited the ‘always on’ nature of the technology"

If 29 + 18% (47%) realise the benefits of broadband without being able to get it in their homes in 98% of cases, thanks to the best efforts of eircom/chorus/odtr/gov.ie and others, surely the heading to the Nua article is misleading in the extreme?

If you had the equivalent of mobile phone shops on every main street in Ireland trying to peddle DSL, and people could go in and have a play and see how brilliant broadband is, and if Nua stood outside these shops to interview people and found a majority of those who tried it claiming that they were "not interested" in broadband, they might have some basis in writing an article like this. This publication is obviously desparate for an audience and will try anything to get a few hits.

Sax0000

sceptre

There are a few interesting things about the survey that Nua failed to mention.

For a start, from the residential survey, 73% of respondents had never heard of broadband, 12% had heard the term but knew nothing about it. That's a hefty 85% that didn't know what broadband is.

Both surveys are available from
http://www.odtr.ie/docs/odtrmrbi.zip

(it's a zip file. Note to ODTR: Winzip isn't free. Then two powerpoint docs. Note to ODTR:...yeah, you've guessed it)

Pointless me poking holes in what either Nua or the ODTR had to say about the surveys - have fun and do it yourself. Besides, I have to learn c++ by Monday:D

sceptre

Originally posted by dahamsta
I imagine 90% of the people, when asked if they'd like broadband, said "Wha?"

5% out on your guess Adam.

Close enough in my classroom.

If someone doesn't know what it is, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise when some chirpy person on the phone asks them if they want it and they get an "erm, no thanks"

OHP

Interesting. But did anyone think that the reason for lack of interest / uptake in bb was becaouse most people have just come to know that anything to do with the internet becaouse of Eircon will cost them loads of €'s and that they are just so used to Eircon bleeding every last € out of us that they just dont want to know about it in the first place? I know many people that just dont want anything to do with Eircon good or bad becaouse of this. Not even to mention Eircon shares and the now Gov that we have. I have 2 so called High-Speed lines but would gladly give them up for 1 ADSL without even thinking about it. But not if Eircon were supplying it! If there was some way to get away from Eircon and not give them a cent I would do it. IMHO is that most people if given the chance to experience ADSL / BB at a low cost and they did not have to pay Eircon a cent for it (not even line rental) would demand it. For what its worth ISDN is not worth what I pay for it and i would not have it in the first place if ADSL was available from anyone else in my area.

OHP

sax0000

Originally posted by sceptre
There are a few interesting things about the survey that Nua failed to mention.

For a start, from the residential survey, 73% of respondents had never heard of broadband, 12% had heard the term but knew nothing about it. That's a hefty 85% that didn't know what broadband is.

Both surveys are available from
http://www.odtr.ie/docs/odtrmrbi.zip

(it's a zip file. Note to ODTR: Winzip isn't free. Then two powerpoint docs. Note to ODTR:...yeah, you've guessed it)

Pointless me poking holes in what either Nua or the ODTR had to say about the surveys - have fun and do it yourself. Besides, I have to learn c++ by Monday:D

I suppose that the ODTR figure given the high price and slow speed of internet connections in Ireland they have to zip relatively tiny files like this, and it is cheaper for people to go out and buy this software than pay eircom by the second!

sax0000

pork99

I want broadband

I do not want broadband for 106 euro per month when everyone else in Europe gets it for half that or less.

I have contacted Irish Broadband to see if I can get wireless broadband. Luckily I'm in their service area. If I'm lucky I will get an internet connection over 10 times faster than I have now at less than half the price; 40 eur p.m. compared to an eircom bill of over 120 eur p.m. for a very inferior service.

They need to come to my house and do a LOS test and if that works I'm signing up, it will be goodbye and good riddance eircom. So far, dealing with Irish Broadband is a pleasure - they want my business, again stark contrast to eircom.

I think the lack of interest in broadband is down to eircom, its not in their monopolistic interest to promote it. If eircom was the only baker in the country a loaf of bread would cost a tenner and you would only be able to get white sliced pan. And most people would have very little interest in bread

sceptre

Originally posted by sax0000
I suppose that the ODTR figure given the high price and slow speed of internet connections in Ireland they have to zip relatively tiny files like this, and it is cheaper for people to go out and buy this software than pay eircom by the second!

SME survey: PPT - 606K; PDF - 224K
Residential: PPT - 741K; PDF - 218K
Total: PPT - 1347K; PDF - 442K; zipped powerpoint files - 594K

You're giving them too much credit. It's just "lethargy", not "caring"

If anyone who doesn't have powerpoint wishes to read the presentations, please contact me for the PDFs.

LoBo

interesting about the .pdfs sceptre. I get about 3KB/s when downloading from home on my 56k (never connect faster than 36k). So here's a couple calculations if I were to download those files during business hours (4c per second):
PDFs: 442KB / 3KB/s = 147.33s * €0.04/s = €5.89
Zipped PPT: 594KB / 3KB/s = 198s * €0.04/s = €7.92

(difference: €2.03)

So, to read their survey would cost me almost €8. Maybe if I had broadband I would download that.:rolleyes: