Calling all multi-national workers

Tom Dunne

I work for,er, a large microprocessor manufacturing multi-national in North Kildare. As part of their programme to balance an employees work and personal life, we are allowed to work form home on an ad-hoc basis, business needs permitting.

Today, it suited me to work from home, so I did. Falling out of bed at 7:55am, no traffic and working in my boxers (hold that image) contributed to me getting a great day's work done before 1:00pm. But, like most people who work from home, I had to dial in to work every so often using the laptop and we all know how much of a pain that is.

Over the course of the day, I had been thinking how it was previously mentioned on this forum how we should lobby the likes of Supeqruinn and others who would benefit if more consumers had affordable high-speed internet access. I know that my fellow employees in the US have high speed internet access paid for them by the company so they can connect to the company's network over a VPN.

Instead of sitting here moaning, I decided to get onto the PR people in my company asking them to add their voice to the growing calls for affordable high speed internet access. I put forward a business reason why Ireland needs affordable high speed internet access (i.e. all the benefits of employees working from home, fixed costs, happier/more productive employees). Given the size of the company, I would think that their voice would add some weight to the argument.

So, I am sure there are many readers of this forum who work for large mutli-nationals. Perhaps if we had a co-ordinated effort to get these companies to throw their weight behind the argument, maybe, just maybe, it will help things along a little faster.

Just a thought.

MrPudding

This is something we have been looking at. We are trying to get support from employees and business. Increased teleworking is good for Dublin and this is something we are trying to get the companies, the workers and the government to realise. The more people who say it the more likely it will be listened to.

Nice work by the way.

sceptre

This is what Feargal Quinn said in the Seanad about ecommerce (and Ireland's lack of it) two years ago.

By the looks of it, he's prime for contact. Anyone who says

The idea of making Ireland the European e-commerce hub is now a political catch-cry and there is a danger in that

and

I argued for a more interventionist regulator. I think history has borne me out and I make the same argument now.

has to be on the same wavelength to us.

BigEejit

But, like most people who work from home, I had to dial in to work every so often using the laptop and we all know how much of a pain that is.

I gave up dialing into work from home, it is just incredibly slow .. the crowd I work for will get you to jump through some hoops and take several months to get ISDN approval but over in Europe they can get approval in minutes to get decent broadband (1mb +) ... its just the Oirish mentality "Ah shure, it'll do grand".

yellum

Its definetly a good way to go. Lobbying the big companies to lobby the government. They pay attention to this lot a good deal more than the mere taxpayers unfortunately.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

pork99

The wide availability of affordable broadband access to the Internet is a touchstone in all this. By now we should be one of the European leaders in broadband access. Instead, incredibly, we are almost at the bottom of the league. That is today's reality, despite all the Government's promises, plans and schemes in this regard. The reality is that we are at the back of the pack, not at the front where we need to be.

http://www.feargalquinn.ie/st/digital.htm

definately

on the same wavelength to us

surely theres some way of enlisting people at that level?

yellum

I'll see will my company like to comment on this. They're getting in a 34mb line at the moment and are really pissed off with the lack of competition in the market. The service is **** too.

They'd carry a bit of weight I would think and other multinationals would also listen to their comments.