Is rural broadband a real issue?

The Sidewards Man · 14-05-2016 12:17AM #1

All this jazz about rural broadband and no one seems to be complaining of lack of phone coverage. How much speed do ye want, gone of the days of a 5 speed box its 6 speed now and 7 if it were available.
Can this be explained, is it for porn or major Facebook/twitter machine updates it is needed?

maudgonner · 14-05-2016 12:24AM

It's not just homes. It's businesses too.

I work in an office in a reasonably rural location, but there are a number of other businesses around, one big one. We've been promised fibre since September and we're still waiting for it.

I had to download a file a couple of weeks ago - it was going to take 6.5 hours. I sent one of the lads into his flat in the city, 45 mins away and got him to download the file and bring it out to me on a flash drive. It took him 6 minutes to download it.

It's fúcking ridiculous.

The Sidewards Man · 14-05-2016 12:28AM

Why dont you move your business to the city, leave the country side for milking cows?

maudgonner · 14-05-2016 12:36AM

The Sidewards Man wrote: »

Why dont you move your business to the city, leave the country side for milking cows?

It's not my business. The company own the building, so they're unlikely to up sticks. And we're a mile away from our biggest client.

And the countryside doesn't have to just be for cows. If we all move to the cities you'll be moaning about traffic or house prices or something else.

Pagliuca · 14-05-2016 12:38AM

The Sidewards Man wrote: »

Why dont you move your business to the city, leave the country side for milking cows?

What an incredibly ignorant comment.

The country doesn't revolve around Dublin.

The Sidewards Man · 14-05-2016 12:39AM

maudgonner wrote: »

It's not my business. The company own the building, so they're unlikely to up sticks. And we're a mile away from our biggest client.

If ye are only a mile from yer biggest clients why not buy walkie talkies?

Mycroft H · 14-05-2016 12:40AM

The folks at home have been stuck on ADSL 1mb for the last 5 years. As websites become ever heavier, it's only become worse. This isn't up the side of a mountain, it's rural Kildare! I could drive for an hour and be hitting the quays in Dublin.

We've been promised FTTH recently but I'll only believe it when I see it.

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000 · 14-05-2016 12:40AM

Keep insulting the country folk, it'll be a week before they can load this page.

The Sidewards Man · 14-05-2016 12:40AM

Pagliuca wrote: »

What an incredibly ignorant comment.

The country doesn't revolve around Dublin.

Not from Dublin, what an incredibly ignorant post.

benjamin d · 14-05-2016 12:40AM

Pagliuca wrote: »

What an incredibly ignorant comment.

The country doesn't revolve around Dublin.

Who said it was Dublin?

#mindfúck

maudgonner · 14-05-2016 12:42AM

The Sidewards Man wrote: »

If ye are only a mile from yer biggest clients why not buy walkie talkies?

No, we've invested in a couple of tin cans and a long piece of string, it's fine.

Water John · 14-05-2016 12:43AM

Not sure the OP is interested in a rational conversation on this.

It is a serious issue. It is now a key access point for business.

Atlantic Dawn · 14-05-2016 12:43AM

It's not sustainable to wire every shack in the country to the good internet.

Water John · 14-05-2016 12:46AM

Atlantic, I suspect if we were now working on rural electrification there would be many saying it is not cost effective. Don't bother doing it.
We seem to have a strange attitude nowadays.

The Sidewards Man · 14-05-2016 12:47AM

Water John wrote: »

Not sure the OP is interested in a rational conversation on this.

It is a serious issue. It is now a key access point for business.

Are you of the thinking that I am extracting the urine Sir water john?

benjamin d · 14-05-2016 12:49AM

Water John wrote: »

Atlantic, I suspect if we were now working on rural electrification there would be many saying it is not cost effective. Don't bother doing it.
We seem to have a strange attitude nowadays.

Obviously existing buildings need to have internet connections but planning regulations in rural areas should be massively tightened to stop the need to extend every service beyond the arse end of nowhere for the sake of an individual house in future.

Water John · 14-05-2016 12:54AM

Rural planning is quite tight at this point.
You will need to have a very specific housing need in that area to now get planning.

For years they were telling rural people they could not have multi channel TV until the deflector guys, operating outside the law showed it could be done.
That looks silly today.

Gonzo · 14-05-2016 01:00AM

in this day and age to say that people in rural Ireland don't need good internet is like saying people in general don't need electricity except for maybe emergency situations.

it's getting to the stage now where if you want to look for a job, book a flight, pay a bill, banking exchange, play a game, connect with someone beyond the next room, submit your college assignment, work report, book concert tickets, read a review, research anything that you have to have a working internet connection faster than 3/4 megs to do anything.

yet 1/3 of this country do not have a usable internet connection and are expected to perform all the above tasks. Absolute shame.

I also forgot about those with families:
what about children trying to access information for their school work
expectations from school/colleges/teachers/lecturers that every pupil/student has fiber broadband when in reality that some still are on dial up and cant even connect or have to monitor every kb of data transmitted as they are connected to a satellite provider with tiny download allowance.
what about those who have signed up to certain companies like Bord Gais who only like customers to pay their bills online....

Speedwell · 14-05-2016 01:00AM

I lost a job with Google because I could not muster their minimum required upload/download speeds. They wanted me so badly they actually proposed I move house. Without a cash flow I was obviously not in a position to do that.

Two months afterward, I ran out of money (as a comparatively recent immigrant I didn't qualify for benefits; I'd been living on savings and redundancy from a US job) and got picked up by a friend with a small IT firm in another country who needed an Irish presence. Just as we were talking about it, my village FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY got fibre. It made the difference between him being able to hire me as work-from-home staff and not being able to hire me as someone who would need to rent office space.

bodhrandude · 14-05-2016 01:04AM

Well I never had a problem with the 3G Dongle in the outback of Leitrim.

LightsStillOn · 14-05-2016 01:06AM

bodhrandude wrote: »

Well I never had a problem with the 3G Dongle in the outback of Leitrim.

That's because you're the only person in Leitrim who knows how to work the Internet

gctest50 · 14-05-2016 01:26AM

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

It's not sustainable to wire every shack in the country to the good internet.

'tis

http://b4rn.org.uk/

B4RN is a professionally designed fibre optic broadband network, registered as a non-profit community benefit society, and run by a dedicated local team with the support of landowners and volunteers. We offer 1,000Mbps FTTH broadband to every property in our coverage area within North West England, costing households only £30 per month.

( within reason of course )

omahaid · 14-05-2016 09:22AM

You'd be tired of the culchies demanding stuff

"I want fibre to the door"
"Why doesn't this parish have a hospital?"
"We should have a special drivers licence for drink driving"
"I built my house on a flood plain, where are my flood defenses?"
"Wheres my motorway to the mart?"

If you live in the arse end of no where in a muck mansion then tough.

Speedwell · 14-05-2016 09:32AM

Yeah, how dare the culchies not stay in their place and be picturesque for the tourists.

smash · 14-05-2016 09:32AM

Gonzo wrote: »

yet 1/3 of this country do not have a usable internet connection and are expected to perform all the above tasks. Absolute shame.

Back up there gonzo... You can get 4G across most of the country now. A 4G dongle is perfectly capable of providing a very good internet connection. It might not be UPC 300mb but you can even stream Netflix HD on 4G

SEPT 23 1989 · 14-05-2016 09:34AM

Thr countryside is a place to switch off and get away from the Internet

galljga1 · 14-05-2016 09:44AM

omahaid wrote: »

You'd be tired of the culchies demanding stuff

"I want fibre to the door"
"Why doesn't this parish have a hospital?"
"We should have a special drivers licence for drink driving"
"I built my house on a flood plain, where are my flood defenses?"
"Wheres my motorway to the mart?"

If you live in the arse end of no where in a muck mansion then tough.

Ah but I like having 3000 sq ft to roam around along with three quarters of an acre for the dog.
I have only 4 mb broadband but will have FTTH before year end with a bit of luck.
25 mins from nearest hospital.
1 mile from nearest pub/hotel. 5 euro in local cab.
House on a height, if we flood, towns and cities will probably be gone before us.
3 mins from motorway.

My only problem is Dublin traffic but I am also 5 mins from train.

Nailz · 14-05-2016 10:41AM

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Thr countryside is a place to switch off and get away from the Internet

You say that as if it's only people from towns go to the country as a getaway. Folks live there on a full time basis, and there are businesses there too that require broadband to survive.

Bringing working fibre broadband to the country and countrysides is also important for the decentralisation of the country (and it certainly needs that).

Let's take Dublin for example; many large multinational companies setup there because it has an infrastructure that can cater for their needs as an organisation. In modern times, the most important component of that is high-speed internet: the ability to interact with international clients remotely, run VM's for software development, work as a virtual team without being hindered, and obviously just the general handling of large amounts of valuable data.

If rural areas began to tick that box, along with meeting the other criteria for such organisations, then not only would that be of benefit to the area itself, but it will also help the likes of Dublin in decentralising it's population. And all those things that Dubs moan about on a daily basis, such as the "housing crisis" (the big one), traffic, and stress on public transport would be given the ultra-fuck off; alleviated through lowering its population and giving people a choice where to live. As opposed to forcing people to move to a city because that's the only place where they can get a job.

stimpson · 14-05-2016 10:57AM

gctest50 wrote: »

'tis

( within reason of course )

Lancashire has a population density of 475/sqkm. The entire republic (including cities) has a density of 75/sqkm.

MRnotlob606 · 14-05-2016 11:01AM

The countryside is where you go to die

14-05-2016 11:07AM

It's a massive issue thousands and thousands of homes and businesses. In my home place it's either dial up or a 3G dongle which are not very fast and have very low usage caps.

It's simply unacceptable that proper broadband has not been supplied to all of rural Ireland. It's the perfect place to roll out the fibre network also as it's a blank canvas compared to a congested city.

The Sidewards Man wrote: »

Why dont you move your business to the city, leave the country side for milking cows?

Business and factories etc should be moving to the countryside not the other way around also new businesses should be heavily incentivised to set up in rural locations. It's far better for people working there to have no traffic, cheaper housing and just a more relaxing scenario. Also peope can stay living where they are from and not be forced to move to cities etc.

Is rural broadband a real issue?

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