What do you make of Eamon Ryan's latest broadband paper?

[greengoose]

Ryan is just another waffler among the myriad of wafflers in Leinster House.

Saying that we will match and maybe even pass out our European neighbours is rather foolish. Our neighbours are constantly progressing and we are playing catch up and poorly at that. Gawd, small villages in Switzerland had BB years ago. We'll be waiting for that for a long time but in the meantime Ryan and Co. should keep us amused with their fairy tales.

[KingKane]

[quote=joel]

It's the standard load of bluster, spoofery, empty rhetoric, re-heated old broken promises and lies.

South Korea and Singapore are almost finished rolling out 100 Mbps fibre to every house in the country. That's the current world benchmark, the target to aim for....but of course if we start aiming for that now, by the time we deliver it it will be seen as slow and antiquated.

Ireland needs to be at the bleeding edge of broadband rollout if our economy is to have any hope of surviving, not starting 6 miles back from the starting line of a 100 yard sprint wearing a blindfold with a broken ankle!

Our political class and civil service just don't understand technology.

Er, South Korea has made itself one of the foremost technological economies in the world through state-direction - Ireland sold off its telecoms!

That and having a military government for a good period.

What has that to do with the point I was making?

Not a lot but it was intended as a semi humorous retort, I was also going to suggest a link with them having fine looking women over there but ye know my weaknesses at this stage.

Well, why don't you address how state-direction has put Korea to the forefront - embarassing?[/quote:1k0mrd96]

If you're going to be like that about it how about addressing the fact that their form of state direction derives from having had a military lead government for a few decades and also the population density issues I pointed out earlier?

[joel]

[quote=KingKane][quote=joel]

It's the standard load of bluster, spoofery, empty rhetoric, re-heated old broken promises and lies.

South Korea and Singapore are almost finished rolling out 100 Mbps fibre to every house in the country. That's the current world benchmark, the target to aim for....but of course if we start aiming for that now, by the time we deliver it it will be seen as slow and antiquated.

Ireland needs to be at the bleeding edge of broadband rollout if our economy is to have any hope of surviving, not starting 6 miles back from the starting line of a 100 yard sprint wearing a blindfold with a broken ankle!

Our political class and civil service just don't understand technology.

Er, South Korea has made itself one of the foremost technological economies in the world through state-direction - Ireland sold off its telecoms!

That and having a military government for a good period.

What has that to do with the point I was making?

Not a lot but it was intended as a semi humorous retort, I was also going to suggest a link with them having fine looking women over there but ye know my weaknesses at this stage.

Well, why don't you address how state-direction has put Korea to the forefront - embarassing?[/quote:3krmlu66]

If you're going to be like that about it how about addressing the fact that their form of state direction derives from having had a military lead government for a few decades and also the population density issues I pointed out earlier?[/quote:3krmlu66]


I don't know about it - I DO know the Guardian had a piece about it, saod there was a concious decision to put South Korea at the forefront of technology - not merely reliant on outside firms to use it for cheap labour.

Without directed state investment that would not have been possible - and I think the EU would preclude Ireland from doing similar.

[KingKane]

[quote=joel][quote=KingKane][quote=joel]

It's the standard load of bluster, spoofery, empty rhetoric, re-heated old broken promises and lies.

South Korea and Singapore are almost finished rolling out 100 Mbps fibre to every house in the country. That's the current world benchmark, the target to aim for....but of course if we start aiming for that now, by the time we deliver it it will be seen as slow and antiquated.

Ireland needs to be at the bleeding edge of broadband rollout if our economy is to have any hope of surviving, not starting 6 miles back from the starting line of a 100 yard sprint wearing a blindfold with a broken ankle!

Our political class and civil service just don't understand technology.

Er, South Korea has made itself one of the foremost technological economies in the world through state-direction - Ireland sold off its telecoms!

That and having a military government for a good period.

What has that to do with the point I was making?

Not a lot but it was intended as a semi humorous retort, I was also going to suggest a link with them having fine looking women over there but ye know my weaknesses at this stage.

Well, why don't you address how state-direction has put Korea to the forefront - embarassing?[/quote:g4fxkwe9]

If you're going to be like that about it how about addressing the fact that their form of state direction derives from having had a military lead government for a few decades and also the population density issues I pointed out earlier?[/quote:g4fxkwe9]


I don't know about it - I DO know the Guardian had a piece about it, saod there was a concious decision to put South Korea at the forefront of technology - not merely reliant on outside firms to use it for cheap labour.

Without directed state investment that would not have been possible - and I think the EU would preclude Ireland from doing similar.[/quote:g4fxkwe9]

What do you mean you don't know about it? Why make the comparison so? because you read it in the Guardian? The EU would not prevent the government acting if it did so in an even handed manner and wasn't interfering with the market.

[myksav]

More balderdash from the mouth of the government. We were promised broadband roll-out years ago, they privatised Eircom and the roll-out stoped. I only got "broadband" recently after years of asking. If my house was another 100 metres down-line, I wouldn't have it. And what I have is a supposed 1 megabit line that provides at best 750kb connection on a good day. And that is the fastest any provider could give me.

I heard claims that we will soon have rates of 8 Mb. Oh glory, still behind everyone else in the EU, never mind the US or Asia.
Full coverage by 2010? haw haw haw, it is to laugh.
From past experience, I don't expect it to arrive by 2030, if they got off their arses and got their finger out.

[trekkypj]

At least there's SOME movement on this.

Next Gen Broadband?

I'd be happy to get plain ordinary DSL if they'd only sodding well upgrade the exchange.

[thebrom]

1. Government will target capital investment of €435m to address the digital divide

KK - key word here is target, out of the total sum of €435m to be spent on capital investment they will target some of that to address the digital divide. Others have noted this €435m comes from the NDP and is not specifically allocated to broadband alone and some of it has been spent already.

2. Universal broadband coverage in Ireland by late 2009 / early 2010

Broadband delivered by what means and define the speed of broadband? You could get something that would met current definitions of broadband by satellite at present, does that means we've already met this target? Fact is we should prioritise rollout to urban areas as part of because good planning practice, people forget that electrification took nearly 50 years to complete and telephony took longer. Demanding broadband everywhere for everyone right now is stupid and misses the point that many people in built up areas still can't get it so how could it be practical to be servicing places further out.

3. 100 Mbits per second broadband connectivity to be introduced to secondary schools on a phased basis

How long are the phases to be? And note this is 100 Mbits per second to a school, imagine how many pipes internally are going to be running off that and what the capacity per class/machine will be.

4. Future investment will be determined in accordance with value for money review of the Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs)

We're only going to be "value for money review of the Metropolitan Area Networks" now? Did we build because they were pretty?

5. Ensure Ireland’s continued high level of international connectivity

The presumption in this is that Ireland currently has a high level of international connectivity and that the state provided it.

6. Major public infrastructure projects will have to install ducting at the construction phase. Government will establish a one stop shop to provide service providers with flexible and open access to existing and future ducting infrastructure

Would be a lot more interesting and useful if it required that all new industrial, commercial, and residential developments have to provide ducting to the door/office as part of the granting of planning permission. Is it the public sector infrastructure that is really the bottleneck here?

7. New premises will be required to install open access fibre connections where practicable

"where practicable" who makes that call?

8. Maintenance of the regulatory framework necessary for fair and transparent competition across a range of platforms. Allocation of spectrum to encourage trialling and development of flexible new mobile technologies

Key word "Maintenance", comreg aren't they doing a grand job and everything is just fine.

9. Use of Government purchasing power in order to stimulate demand, create economies of scale and better public services

Is the government going to buy something and resell it?

10. Establishment of a specialised research programme to monitor developments

Good idea it seems on the surface but why monitor if there is nothing in place to take actions if developments aren't panning out as intended. Are we going to see reports that say, "it's all gone to hell, so let's twiddle our thumbs shall we?"

You can get an alternate viewpoint here
http://www.mulley.net/2008/07/03/minist ... d-promises

The fact is there has been practically no movement on broadband during the previous two Fianna Fail communications ministries. We are seeing rapid change at the minute. Just this year UPC (NTL-Chorus) has upgraded their top broadband speed from 6mb to 12mb to 20mb for just 40 quid!
-Huge investment is already being put into MANs and although I would expect cynicism from an opposition activist, I still find it disappointing.

Huh? wha? Practically no movement under the FF comm ministers but then with your next breath you're claiming credit for the MANs? where they done in the last year? Make up your mind. Digiweb upgraded my package from 3 to 6Megs in the last month, that's fine for me but feck all good for those who still don't have any broadband access at all in urban areas. We started late and are moving slower than our competitors.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Your own broadband had doublet in the last month and yet you are cynical that anything is changing. As already stated broadband penetration is currently 98% - it's just that some lines are unreliable/expensive. Therefore the idea is to bring up speeds using fibre optics and bring us up the international broadband league.
This is the league that high-tech businesses care about: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/10/53/39575086.xls
I guarantee that in the next report we will have moved up a considerable number of places. Fianna Fail have left us third last in the league - with only Mexico and Turkey having lower speeds than us.

[Ronanr]

More dispiriting news.

From the Irish Independent today:

"Consumers hoping for cheaper broadband internet access were dealt a blow yesterday after the telecoms regulator backtracked on a decision to impose price cuts on Eircom.

Comreg, the watchdog responsible for overseeing the telecoms industry here, has reversed a price cut it told the former State-owned company to introduce in June.

That price reduction would have seen the price Eircom is allowed to charge competitors for sharing its lines slashed from €8.41 a month to €2.94, and the savings could ultimately have been passed on to consumers."



And why did Comreg not pursue the issue?

"But Eircom challenged the move in the High Court and Comreg said yesterday it would be too expensive to defend the action. The watchdog described Eircom's actions as "very regrettable".


This seems amazing to me.

Surely, if Comreg beleive their actions are justified, they could pursue it!

Either Comreg are incompetent in this (they thought they could force Eircom to lower wholesale prices, but now they realise they cannot) or they are allowing themselves to be bullied by the very entities they are meant to be regulating!

Either way, they are a disgrace, and Eamonn Ryan sghould investigate this.