It was the way eircom was privatised, not the privatisation that was the fault. You keep the network in public ownership and sell the retail arm. Fgs idea is sound.

Wasn't a deal inked to provide mobile broadband to rural areas?

We seem to have decent enough coverage according to this map:

http://www.yourtechstuff.com/techwir...or_ireland.jpg

Blame Eircom, they were the body supposed to "roll-out" broadband, then pulled out of the idea.
Often enough, I heard some Eircon spokesman state that people didn't want BB as a reason to drop the "roll-out". At the same time, I knew a lot of people who were screaming for broadband access.

The attitude I heard up was "yerrah, who needs it, we didn't have it before so why should we need it now."

I nearly got sick laughing when I first heard the "boast" of our new high-speed connection rates, 3MB/s. How grand. 3MB/s will not give Ireland any ability to deal quickly via internet.

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The enemy of my enemy is the enemy of my enemy. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.

There are lies, damn lies and debatable points. "I'm not shouting, I'm making an assertive point." M. Martin

Oh yeah, there's mobile coverage in most areas but not all. Then there's the point that with mobile, voice and text have priority over internet connection. When I had a mobile connection I could tell when it was about 4pm, my connection dropped through the floor as every student in the country started texting and calling their friends (who they had been sitting beside all day).
And the best connection I had was never broadband (3G) just GPRS, when I was paying for 3G.

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The enemy of my enemy is the enemy of my enemy. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.

There are lies, damn lies and debatable points. "I'm not shouting, I'm making an assertive point." M. Martin

The real problem apart from coverage is speed. We are supposed to be an Island of technology. A country with great resources in student education and a hub for any multi national wishing to have a euopean base.

Our Broadband speed in some areas is 24mb (BT limited to mainly dublin) but the rest of the country is 4mb. Where Japan has GigaBit Broadband and has it since at least 2007.

What ever about coverage when we finally do get broadband it's still p!ss poor in terms of quality and speed. Why would any company realistically set up here if they depend on the Internet at all, even for email.

What FF should have done in the boom times is pump a load of money into the infrastructure around the country to get a good quality backbone running through it. Then improving the speed of the network would have been simple. This would have also made decentralisation a possiblity. New companies coming into Ireland would have had one less thing to worry about when choosing a location in Ireland. Not be stuck to the major cities.


Instead they relied on a private company who can afford to sit back and do nothing because they are guareenteed profits from the exisitng infrastucture as there is no alternative.

More Waste as Usual, wasted time and wasted money.

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Thats a home user opinion and one that misses where the investment did go. I'm not a FF supporter, but i think they've gotten an unfair beating on this.

I dont belive the gov should be involved in the area BUT DCMNR have put 200m into fibre optic networks in 100 towns around Ireland, the MANs, which e-NET have been managing for some years. It was slow to start due to bedding problems with the connection prices, but in the last year I hear there has been much bigger take up.

They also part funded the ESB-T 'figure of 8' fibre wrap and 80m into the global crossing international connectivity in 1999.

The last leg should always be for the providers to provide, but the Gov have been patching together an alternative carriers network, and one that roots down big business.

What I'd like to see happen is a strong wireless baystation added to the MANs kiosks, so providers could wirelessly link to the stations and provide smaller than fibre local services. Individual connection prices are still dear.

Ok a home business in Donegal. When can they expect to receive a broadband connection?

An increase in speed to 24mb for the rest of the country?

The withdrawing of download limits?

What use is a man to some living 5 miles out side the town?

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Ní thuigeann an sách an seang.

We are 39th in the world in terms of speed. Ranked behind Tajikistan. Where the fùck is that.

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You miss my point. The Gov has provided the capacity for networks to deliver services, inc eircom, bt, digiweb etc. Its not the Governments job to bring broadband to the door and be a service provider. Gov funding went into Donegal town, letterkenny, buncrana and some of the towns in the Slgio to LK spine - as well as the ESB-T spur from Sligo to LK.

Aside from being incredibly anti competitive, its against State Aids rules, and the Gov had enough problems getting the MANs past the EU

Your problem is that you expect the Gov to deliver a service - THAT IS NOT THEIR JOB. If it was economically viable to do so, a provider would be providing you with a service.

A home business can get satellite broadband from anywhere if they are willing to pay the price - the state shouldnt subsidise it. You set up away froma choice of services then thats you're own fault. Move location if essential, thats what businesses do if they need to be closer to a resource. You will forever struggle to get DSL in a rural area, the exchanges would need multi billion investment and most of the lines to homes replaced (split lines etc).

An utter waste of money. Wireless is going to make copper obsolete shortly and from there its fibre to the hubs.

Guess which country is about to become the first in the world to provide free broadband for all its citizens and give 40,000 free laptops to primary school children?


Answer: Rwanda.


It puts us to shame.


Couldn't agree more. There are already wireless networks that give up to 30 MG. It's predicted that in 5 - 10 years, wireless will reach speeds of 100+ MG. That's impressive even by South Korean standards. Wireless is the future.