IBEC attempt to mug the taxpayer for €5Bn

Sponge Bob

...their monopolists section of IBEC , the TIF, (eircom/voda/o2) has been quiet for a while until they broke ranks earlier today and demanded 5Bn of taxpayers money to roll out satellite broadband .

The Telecommunications and Internet Federation (TIF) believes that this level of investment will help Ireland towards a "first-rate, nationwide broadband service" that provides 100 percent high-speed broadband access to all houses and businesses using a mixture of fixed-line, wireless and satellite technologies.

If we are to spend even 1Bn I would take it as a given that satellite is out of the question, never mind 5Bn, Imagine the headline, Ireland invests 5Bn in rolling out 3rd world technology. . We would be a laughing stick....except we already are a laughing stock. Satellite is not first rate...period.

The fact that o2 Voda and eircom have sucked 5Bn out of the economy in recent years is of no relevance of course

The federation also mentioned the establishment of the TIF Broadband Task Force, which will look for consensus among operators with network infrastructure to increase the take-up of broadband in Ireland. The task force is expected to publish its recommendations in mid-2006.

a task force begod, shame nobody known and respected in here was even asked to join it. shame on the task force for demanding 5Bn of taxpayers money without detailing how they would spend it .

even that Emma one in RTE business news had a go at them earlier....what a shower, 5Bn for gods sake

more here

http://www.enn.ie/news.html?code=9669891

watty

Compare that with what it cost for wireless and asdl to cover N.I.

Do they think the Governement are idiots?

DonegalMan

Heard Tommy McCabe being interviewed about this on RTE Radio One news this evening- <.cg snip, as per charter>!

He started off by trying to dismiss claims that we are badly behind the rest of Europe and the great progress we have made in recent years.

Fair play to Emma, she gave him a hard time about this, asking if he was disputing the Comreg and Forfas figures; he started to waffle about the knock on effect of the "bubble bursting in Telecoms."

She also tackled him about them blaming lack of demand on poor PC penetration and pointed out that Ireland has the highest rate of gaming consoles per capita after Japan, Irish people have no problem texting and we have 107% mobile phone penetration. He started to waffle about mobile phones being a good example that it's not price that's the real issue, it's all about "applications".

The only thing that pleased me about the interview was that Emma clearly showed how knowledgeable interviewers have become and that they are no longer prepared to accept the spin that people like McCabe try to put on our dire situation.


If you want to give yourself a severe dose of indigestion, you can listen to the interview here
http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/0215/broadband.html

Sponge Bob

Never liked Emma until tonight but she had done the research and would not let him spin for eircom as he usually does , 200% more respect I now has for that woman .

damien

This has been one of the only times Tommy was challenged by the press. Nice one Emma and 5-7 live.

DonegalMan

Sponge Bob wrote:

Never liked Emma until tonight but she had done the research

I think the single biggest thing IrelandOffline has achieved is helping journalists generally to get much sharper about these things

cgarvey

They're deliberately vague on what the money could/could be used on. The report mentions "the most authoritative studies have suggested that an investment of €8 billion will be required in order to achieve the objectives" .. so that's an extra €3 billion!!

Part of their solution is to use satellite. a) I don't see how that'll achieve 5Mbps (one of their objectives), and b) I fail to see if that's an OK solution how the situation will be different from now. If satellite is indeed BB, then Ireland has as close to 100% BB as it's ever going to get (bar maybe lower freq/bandwidth coverage to fill the gaps). I don't know of anyone that thinks Ireland has 100% availability, primarily because satellite is not considered BB by most parties.

So what'll the money be spent on? Who knows, but I bet it's anticipated that eircom get the majority of the funds. How does that make Magnet & Digiweb feel (as members of TIF)?

Fair play Emma, if you're reading!

Sponge Bob

And the quality control would be under the supervision of Comreg who think the Internet is "Functional" at 0k. You would have to be utterly mad to let that shower supervise the disbursal of so much money .

5bn would pay for a full Telecom Eireann mark 2 network bypassing the pigopolists entirely , nothing short of that would be acceptable for €5Bn (or is that €8Bn cg. ???) .

But then again its Tommys job to demand subsidies for his members even though they have sent c.€1Bn out of the country each year for the past 5 years , remitted to their foreign owners who care as little about the Irish economy as Tommy evidently does ......which all amounts to ...emmm .... ummm €5Bn is it ???

Capt'n Midnight

watty wrote:

pigopolists: Supporters of Internet by exclusively owned Pigeon Post. 10 Baud with 3 hour pings.

Wi-Fly gives up to 160Kb !

If the Govt are going to invest €5Bn then why hand it over to a third party ?

Since most of the cost would have to be paid back by the taxpayer/customer it would work out the same if everyone had a connection. Think of all the genuine eGovement value added if almost everyone had the option of connecting for a nominal fee. Since a lot of the cost is running the cable/fiber along the houses it's not going to be substantially greater to connect up all dwellings and businesses. I still reckon that anything that can reduce traffic by encouraging homeworking / eCommuting is better than pumping money into roads that are mainly of benefit to the richer half of the population. ( Public transport uses a low % of our roads relative to the % of people carried. )

Could cut down on travel too, all leading to savings on our Koyoto fine.

A total pipe dream but the €5Bn will be spent anyway on commuting, comms costs , by NRA / customers etc.

OfflerCrocGod

watty wrote:

Do they think the Governement are idiots?

Why shouldn't they? I mean look at all these years of Comwreck lying and various Ministers happily accepting whatever was put in front of them; the very definition of an idiot tbh.