What are Green opinions on Ryan's rural broadband deal?

[paddygadget]

I know that starting a thread like this could be seen as trolling when it's my first post, but I honestly want to know how green party supporters feel about this, and I can't find any other forum to ask in.

Eamon Ryan signed off on a deal with 3 to provide broadband in rural areas of Ireland not yet serviced in the National Broadband Scheme:
RTÉ News: Ryan signs deal on rural broadband
Full broadband coverage by mid-2010, pledges Ryan - The Irish Times - Thu, Jan 22, 2009

On the face of it this is great - I strongly believe that broadband is an enormous enabler of business for certain industries, and personally I would find it almost painful to lose my broadband connection which gives me news, entertainment and communication with my friends and family around the world.

However there are serious technical problems with the tender by 3 which has been accepted by Minister Ryan.

Quite apart from the fact that 3 have a fairly dreadful reputation in terms of service delivery - see this enormous thread for examples of their absolute inability to deliver anything approaching consistent reliable broadband to existing customers - their proposed technical solution falls far short of being able to deliver what they claim it will, according to several telecomms engineers.

To quote from this thread

The speeds assume ONE user and perfect signals.

The WiFi, WiMax, Fixed Wireless and LTE that Ryan waffled about are nothing to do with NBS or 3.

HSPDA/HSUPA/HSPA+ are tweaks. LTE is a completely different system, different modems, different spectrum, different licences. What Mobile users experience today is what the NBS will do.

Minimum speeds of 150k down, 45k up. latency 120ms to 2000ms. Dropped connections, no connection. Lucky people where takeup is poor or use is intermittent will see the 5Mbps but 120ms, so still rubbish for VOIP, VPN, Remote Desktops, Gaming.

HSDPA is a fast mobile solution and an alternative to ISDN or dialup for many users. Even if EU passes a law, it won't make it be Broadband. HSDPA is Mobile "Midband" if we take Comreg's name of Dialup and basic ISDN, Narrowband. HSDPA is DESIGNED for intermittent Mobile Use

The problem is the technology and planning is designed for intermittent use like phone calls or brief data on a phone. It can't take the load of Fixed Internet Usage. ONE HOUSE could have a modem shared by router to five users. . As the Internet gets more popular and more people doing not just the odd online commerce but watching YouTube etc (TV is terrible these days), Social chat via Skype, Twitter, IRC, Boards etc they whould need about 3,600 masts for EXISTING user base.

If user base doubles over the next 3 years as they add NBS and new customers they would need nearly 6,000 masts to give ENTRY LEVEL broadband speeds.

In fairness the NBS is apparently not funded well enough to deliver anything more than this service can deliver, but claiming that the service this will deliver is broadband is extremely misleading. It is effectively going to be wireless dial-up.

The NBS can only afford to pay for HSDPA (data on a 3G Mobile Phone Network). This is NOTHING to do with how good 3 does it or how they invest. HSDPA simply can't deliver a Fixed Broadband Network. This is not a flaw, but by DESIGN. It's designed for MOBILE use by handheld portable devices for short periods of time. Not for reliable low latency Fixed Broadband via Routers & WiFi to PCs and Laptops. (Though there are WiFi Routers that work with 3G/HSDPA modems).

I'd be interested to see whether any green supporters have opinions on this and whether they made their opinions known to the Minister before, during or after the tender process. Was it something which was publicised within the party? Is the party line that this is going to be an acceptable 'broadband' solution?

[Eddiepops]

Moved to Economy, as it's not a topic about the Green Party, but rather the Department of Communications issue.

[John_C]

It seems sensible to me that broadband coming over the wireless won't be as good as if it came over a wire. Houses outside of towns and cities are unlikely to have the roads dug up to bring a new wire to them so they'll have to make do with what can be got over the wireless.

[galwaytt]

...not necessarily so.

I use what must probably one of the last standing GBS as my ISP, and with low contention ratios, reasonable bandwidth, it allows me to surf and VOIP to the US simultaneously.

Naturally, that model, proven to work, has been abandoned to the epitome of reliability and speed: mobile phone connection ??? FFS..........

[Mr Crowley]

I've been told that it is merely a matter of installing 'repeaters' on phone lines to boost broadband coverage beyond the normal range of exchanges.
This was told to a neighbour by a BT engineneer, he basically said that it wasn't that big a deal to vastly increase wired broadband coverage; it's just that the phone companies won't invest in the improved infrastructure.
Can anyone shed any light on this?