Lillington: State's broadband failings highlighted in a new report.

SkepticOne

Karlin Lillington in today's Irish Times picks up on the World Economic Forum findings:

The Republic has sunk to 51st place on the World Economic Forum's global index of broadband availability according to a new report.

The Repuplic trails many many developing world countries, scoring lower than Tunisia, El Salvador, Namibia, Peru, Nicaragua, Botswana, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatamal, Brazil, and Romania. Broadband availability refers to the high speed cable modem or digital subscriber line (DSL) connections available to the public.

The calculations are included in the WEF's annual World Information Technology report released last week, which considers statistics from 82 countries across a wide range of areas.

The lowest marks come in the area of high speed and public internet access, with the Republic coming in at only 31st for public availability of internet access through libraries, telecenters, post offices, and other locations. This trails Peru, Estonia and Argentina. The State ranks 24th in the availability of mobile internet access.

The broadband ranking will come as an embarassment to the State, though the Government has recently begun the rollout of 19 fibre networks in Irish cities and towns. The report indicates that other nations, especially many of those expected to challenge the Republic for foreign investment, sped ahead with the public internet projects while the Government debated investments and strategies here.

While the Government has given much emphasis to the high quality quality of education within the State, the report reveals that the Republic comes in at only 37th for the number of secondary school age students actually enrolled in school - only 77 per cent of the population of school-going age remains in class through secondary school. The illiteracy rate of those over 15 remains high, with the Republic at 28th place.

The report also reveals that the Republic is a relatively costly place for both owning a telephone and making a mobile phone call. The State ranks 41st for the monthly cost of having a telephone subscription, and 39th for the cost of a three minute local phone call from a landline.

The Republic's overall scorecard for a much broader range of factors - an evaluation the report refers to as a nation's network-readiness - places it 21st among the 82 countries considered.

BKtje

says it all really doesnt it

Hannibal_12

Originally posted by B-K-DzR
says it all really doesnt it

Yep it certainly does. When its all broken down into cold hard figures that anyone can intrepret it makes for sad reading.

I especially found this part entertaining:

The report indicates that other nations, especially many of those expected to challenge the Republic for foreign investment, sped ahead with the public internet projects while the Government debated investments and strategies here.

BBBBertie spends too much time talking and not actually doing.
"Nothing done, less to do" I believe was the slogan for his electoral poster.

SkepticOne

Link to original report here: http://www.irelandoffline.org/home/article.php?story=20030220202811905

yellum

karlins a babe. She has a brain, knows what shes talking about, researches her story and gives a flying f.cuk about some issues like the privacy debacle. Well done to her for highlighting this.

Actually, IrelandOffline gets loads of diff awards and things, why not have them give an award or awards out to Journalists who have a clue.

Have a newspaper journo and radio journo/show award.

MadsL

Good coverage of how Ireland is slipping (tumbling?) behind. Shame the Irish Times tucked this away on the business pages (and that their new look is so naff)

De Rebel

Its a good article, but this bit surprised me coming form Karlin -

The broadband ranking will come as an embarassment to the State, though the Government has recently begun the rollout of 19 fibre networks in Irish cities and towns.

The 19 (or whatever number of the moment is) fibre networks are nothing more than strands of fibre in a hole in the ground, which ireland is not short of anyway. On their own they will not change the broadband availibility one whit. Touting them as the solution to our problems is to completly misunderstand the real problem which is the availibility of affordable broadband to the end user. Ten thousand million fibre rings on their own won't fix that that problem, without proper carrier independent management and last mile connectivity.

Its the overall broadband package (availibility of the technology to a significant % of the population at a realistic price) that counts, not lumps of technology burried in holes in the ground.

Krouc

Says it all YET AGAIN. One thing for sure is that the government cant say it wasnt warned.

Told ya so :P

Krouc