Teleworking agencies dropping the ball?

dahamsta

I'm constantly surprised at the lack of noise from Irish telework agencies about the lack of connectivity in Ireland. Take this example on ENN, where problems with telework are discussed by several telework agencies, but not one of them mentions the comms problem. Why? Do they not see the problem, or do they not believe it's important enough to highlight, or do they perhaps have access to some magical source of broadband they've been keeping from us? Bizarre.

adam

Aladinpain

Agreed, few official teleworking agencies have dared say a word about bband & teleworking. However, in fairness, Telework Ireland has consistently mentioned lack of broadband as a factor in low take-up of teleworking in the country.

neverhappen

Should IOFFL contact these groups (if they haven't already) ?

If presented with the IOFFL case/stats for affordable flat-rate etc., they may see the lack of it as a contributory reason for the lack of e-working and add more voices to the clamour.

DC

'eWorkers' have a stronger case for broadband than anyone else. They are likely to be listened to more than Joe Soap.

I would not be able to eWork without DSL. Plain and simple. It has revolutionised my working life and by extension my personal life.

MDR

they did a very good job at ignoring me ...
might try again ....

vinnyfitz

Here is the link

http://www.telework.ie/newsite/About_TWI/The_Board/the_board.htm

If you could make an introduction to any of them I guess the best thing would be to PM Ray.

De Rebel

had some contact there before. bunch of nice pleasent well intentioned folk.

unlikely to rock boats or cause waves or even make little ripples.

Dangger

they did a very good job at ignoring me ...

Not sure, but they may receive telecom funding in some shape or form. Could be the problem.

yellum

Ones a Cork man. Hmmmm... maybe ..

vinnyfitz

Originally posted by Dangger
Not sure, but they may receive telecom funding in some shape or form. Could be the problem.

Could be alright - I see they are hooked in to the Small Firms Association which is heavily "supported" by Eircom.

No evidence of credit to Eircom on their site, however - in fact the recent conference was sponsored by amongst others ESAT...

It really would be interesting to know why they are not more vocal on connectivity - is anyone here a member?

acid

have a look at this from the e-work.ie FAQ page

Don't you need broadband connections? They're not widely available in Ireland.

Many activities can be carried out offline and then emailed to the office. Broadband is an advantage but it's only vital for a small proportion of eWorkable tasks. Self-assessment forms to help prospective eWorkers identify what these might be can be found on the eWork website. ISDN, which is widely available, can be the answer to providing the required speed and security for people who need to be online to the company network.

depressing.........

Nana

Hi All,

Nana Luke here, chairperson of Telework Ireland.
Peter from eircomtribunal.com let me know about this thread - thanks! I had hours of fun on his site

Telework Ireland supports the need for nationwide broadband 100%, it's essential, both to teleworking development and to business competitiveness, and I certainly mention this where ever I get the opportunity. It's also called for in the last report of the eWork Action Forum, and heavily featured in the ICT @ eWork conference - http://conference.telework.ie
The presentation by Trish Jones from BT especially is well worth looking at, as are details of the SEISS/SERPANT project, one of the major reasons why we co-hosted the conference with SERA.

Regarding the eWork FAQ on broadband - they - and us - are trying to promote the growth of eWorking. Broadband will enable eWorking in a totally different way - always on, fixed costs, high bandwidth, richer ways of communicating remotely - BUT in the current environment, some eWork can already take place via ISDN. It's more expensive, large files are boring, but lack of broadband shouldn't be seen as a complete barrier to eWorking.

Apologies to any Ireland Offline members who have been in touch about this - we'd be delighted to work with you, please contact me at nana@esatclear.ie or telework@bealtaine.ie

Also - I'd love to hear more from the lucky eWorker who has DSL - by the way, would you like to join TWI?


All the best,

Nana

www.telework.ie
www.bealtaine.ie

Nana

Compared to the rest of the world, pricing for DSL in Ireland (Rep. of Banana) is ludicrous.
Much worse than that, however, is the lack of availability of DSL or other broadband.
Lack of availability is seriously affecting uptake of eWorking in my opinion - it's also a disaster in terms of competitiveness for business in Ireland.

For wide uptake of DSL, pricing has to be at the 30 to 40 euro level - BT have realised this in England and are now very active in pushing DSL, as they have also realised DSL is part of the future. I wish eircom would also see this - instead to trying to flog ISDN.

In a business scenario, however, the pricing is not the biggest barrier. Fixed cost high speed always on for connecting eWorkers would be more affordable and feature rich than anything currently on the market. Even for eLancers and heavy home users, it would be miles better than dial-up.

As an example, in my own eWork business, which is based in East Clare, we rely very heavily on the Internet - couldn't exist without it. The ISDN bill is about EUR 250 a month for calls, so we would jump on DSL even at the current price - instead, as the likelyhood of us getting DSL any time soon are remote, we are looking at satellite.

dahamsta

Welcome to the IrelandOffline members forum Nana, and thanks for taking the time to come here and talk to us. I hope you'll hang around for a little while to talk to us a little more about your agencies concerns and policies. Hopefully we'll be able to flesh them (the policies) out a little for you, and maybe even point you in the right direction towards impoving your members lot.

adam

MDR

Thank you for the swift response Nana, may I take this opportunity to apologise both for the cold undertone of previous post and my failure to welcome you to the forum properily (thanks for reminding me of the my manners Adam ). I'll try not to be so much of a grouch in future ....

Me thinks though, that Nana's most pressing concerns will be addressed very soon via ISDN and FRIACO. I wonder thought let us say that person Y works for company X.
In order for company X to gove person Y access to the company network so that they can work from home must they

A. buy a telco license in order to get flat-rate dialup direct into the companies network (ie have to become a quasi-telco inorder to get flat-rate into their own network)

B. would they be forced to subscribe to an ISPs FRIACO deal and access the network via a VPN ... ?