Subsidise broadband or nationalise Eircom?

[Ed Dantes]

Nationalising eircom sounds fine but we need to get rid of the crap staff who still think they work for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs.

Sack them and ComReg tossers!

[jmcc]

I don't see why NTL arent trying to sell me broadband. They've been promising it into my area for the last 10 years .

I think that its main product at the moment is pitching digital television services.

They'd be guaranteed customers if they bothered to invest in it and they already have the coaxial cable going into peoples' houses with an existing customer base.

They are competing with Sky for digital TV customers and with Eircom/Esat/Digiweb/IBB etc for broadband customers. Eircom and the others have a business/consumer mix. Up until recently, NTL only had a consumer product. They've launched a business product recently and it seems to be good. (I was thinking of getting it as it offers 20Mb for a reasonable price.)

So how much additional investment would they really need? The cable is already there to exploit. Whats their problem ? why dont they just do it and do it now and provide some competition?

It really depends on the state of the cable network in the area. You can't take a whole cable network as a single entity when it comes to signal levels. Telecoms is a very complex field and mere theatre critics like Tintin haven't a clue about it. But then when you get mere school teachers with no specialist knowledge like Mary O'Rourke making stupid decisions, it is no wonder that this country's communications infrastructure suffers.

Regards...jmcc

[KingKane]

The only logical means to provide broadband is to follow the same process as with electrification and that means concentrating on the higher density areas for fibre first, make accessible and adequately portioned ducting a legal requirement of all new developments. Most other suggestions are the usual 'I want it all now!' nonsense so beloved of those with no technical clue of anything can be done rather than simply wishing it were so.

[BluntGuy]

The only logical means to provide broadband is to follow the same process as with electrification and that means concentrating on the higher density areas for fibre first, make accessible and adequately portioned ducting a legal requirement of all new developments. Most other suggestions are the usual 'I want it all now!' nonsense so beloved of those with no technical clue of anything can be done rather than simply wishing it were so.

Yes, that's certainly one of the best potential plans of action.

I'm sure there are many other potential strategies...

But ANYTHING would be preferable to the current broadband rollout scheme... we're going absolutely no-where at an incredibly slow pace.

[patslatt]

Don't worry - copper wire landlines are on the way out anyhow. Within five to ten years all our telephone and broadband traffic will be wireless and Eircom's nice little earner of ridiculous line rental charges will be a thing of the past!

Be crazy for the government to buy out the private investors now.

If copper wire is about to become redundant,why did the American cable networks invest so heavily in it?

How will wireless be supplied to homes at reasonable costs? What will bring the costs down from very high levels?