Reuters Article

jwt

Reuters


By Paul Hoskins

DUBLIN (Reuters) - High-speed access to Ireland's information superhighway is being denied to many because their telephone lines are simply not up to the task, critics claim.

"There's no stopping you," promises one advert for Eircom's (EIR.I: Quote, Profile, Research) broadband Internet service, but rivals say that over half the country could be excluded, thanks to the state of the network left behind by the former state telecoms operator.

Although Eircom says 70 percent of Ireland's phone lines have been enabled and that the number is growing, BT Group's (BT.L: Quote, Profile, Research) Esat BT unit believes that in practice many of those lines either fail broadband tests or are too far from exchanges. "When you factor in business users who cannot get broadband, it works out that on an overall, countrywide basis, 45 percent of the country can get broadband, whilst 55 percent cannot," Esat BT director of products, Peter Evans, was quoted as saying in a recent interview with Irish Web Site www.siliconrepublic.com. An Eircom spokeswoman declined to give any numbers for line failures, pointing out that they change every week thanks to a "significant network upgrade plan" which will cost the company 200 million euros ($245 million) this year alone.

LAGGARD

But critics say Ireland still has a long way to go before it attains the standards seen in other European countries.

"What's out there at the moment is not able to sustain broadband," says John Timmons of lobby group IrelandOffline, which wants telecoms watchdog ComReg to set minimum standards for Internet access speed, as in other parts of Europe.

"In Holland, telephone lines have to support ISDN (upgraded phone lines) at the very least," Timmons points out. "Even if we managed to get half that far, it would be something people could work with."

Many telephone lines in Ireland are simply too old, too remote or else hampered by the once widespread practice of line splitting, whereby households share capacity with neighbors.

"Given the implications of this for broadband growth, we need the regulator to step in and carry out a review," says Iarla Flynn of Alto, which represents the interests of new entrants into the country's telecoms market.

For its part, Eircom (EIR.L: Quote, Profile, Research) points out that having signed up 73,000 broadband customers by late August, it expects the tally will have hit 100,000 by the end of this year.

As for the network as a whole: "We have a commitment to get to every town in Ireland with a population of over 1,500 by March next year," says Eircom's spokeswoman.

But despite recent initiatives, government scientists believe more needs to be done to make Ireland competitive, including investment in telecoms infrastructure.

"Ireland remains significantly behind leading countries with respect to the rollout of broadband," Forfas, the body which advises government on enterprise, trade, science, technology and innovation said in a report earlier this year.

($1=.8169 Euro)

damien

Well done John. Forfas is the crowd that McDermot quoted today. I'm loving it. Well done to ALTO as well.

dahamsta

jwt wrote:

An Eircom spokeswoman declined to give any numbers for line failures, pointing out that they change every week...

Ah that Eircom spokeswoman cracks me up, truth-twisting maggot that she is.

Seriously though, excellent work on this John, well done; and thanks to Paul for picking the story up too. I hope it hits the wires so we see an improvement on the current five hits on Google News. (Which is amazing in and of itself! )

adam

Paddy20

Reuters, Eh !. Me like's very mucho, Compadre; Say no more ...