New Oireachtas Report to back up claim of "lack of demand" excuse

damien

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2006/0302/3358929727HMBROADBAND.html

The Government's delivery of high-speed broadband internet over the last two years has been criticised as a failure by an Oireachtas committee headed by a Fianna Fáil TD. The hard-hitting report from the Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources is due to be published in a fortnight.

In March 2004, the committee, chaired by Fianna Fáil Cork North Central TD Noel O'Flynn proposed a list of measures to accelerate broadband delivery, including the appointment of a minister of state to lead the effort.

Two years on, progress has been "almost non-existent", a draft copy of the report seen by The Irish Times has charged. Ireland, it said, was at the top of a league of European countries in information and communications technology but had now fallen to where it is one of the lowest.

The document will lead to another clash between Mr O'Flynn and Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources Noel Dempsey, following their recent clash over the Sea Fisheries Bill, which was strongly opposed by trawler fishermen. The committee is now set to call Mr Dempsey before it to explain the Government's performance, along with representatives from the independent telecommunications regulator, ComReg and Eircom.

Affordable broadband is "a key economic imperative" for Ireland's efforts to compete in a knowledge-led economy and demands "the concentrated attention" of the Government, TDs and Senators feel. Eircom's opposition to local line unbundling - where the last stretch of a telephone line into homes and offices are opened to competitors - will be strongly criticised during the upcoming hearings.

According to statistics prepared in October 2005 by experts recruited by the committee, up to 95 per cent of the population should be able to access an affordable service by the end of this year. "At present only one in 10 households has broadband," said the report. "It appears that as many as six in 10 consumers could subscribe to broadband today but choose not to do so."

Broadband penetration in the EU is rising rapidly and now stands in excess of 40 million connections. However, Ireland has the worst performance of any of the 15 older EU countries, while three of the new member states are also managing to do better.

By last September there were more than 208,000 broadband subscribers in Ireland. This number is believed to have risen to 250,000 by Christmas, according to figures from the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources.

How convenient that this report comes just after the DCMNR used their latest bull**** excuse about lack of demand and this report too says people don't want broadband. I'll tell the people that email and ring us every day that their suffering from some kind of mental disease if they think they can't get broadband and that they have it, they just don't want it. Even goddamned eircom admitted the other day that only 75% of people will get broadband AFTER the latest upgrades. Is GBS going to cover the additional 20% or will it be the MANs. They afterall have gotten us all fibre to the curb already.

BendiBus

That's not my interpretation of the article. The way I read it, people choose not to sign up for broadband for reasons other than lack of interest. The 2 paragraphs previous to the one you highlight suggest the reason people choose not to sign up is due to factors other than lack of interest (quality competitive products being few and far between for example).

DonegalMan

One thing that amuses me about this 'lack of demand' argument is the lack of publicity when Broadband is available.

The exchange in my village - Castlefinn, Co. Donegal - has just been enabled. There has been no notification about this whatsoever. I only know about this because I am actively involved through IOFFL in campaigning, I knew from this forum that Castlefinn was on the list for this year but nobody has been ever able to tell me when. I've been checking my lin every week or so for the last few months and lo and behold, my line is passing tonight for the first time ever.

Although Castlefinn is a small village, I know quite a few people who have been extremely anxious to get Broadband - they now can but nobody has bothered to tell them.

The marketing strategy seems to be to make Broadband available but don't bother telling the people who want it.

Just about sums up the Eircom approach!

jwt

Damien and I have been invited to the grand unveiling of the Oireachtas report on Tuesday 7th.

We are currently deciding whether one of us should go or both.

Probably both of us, and armed with as much info about the report as we can.

John

viking

DonegalMan wrote:

One thing that amuses me about this 'lack of demand' argument is the lack of publicity when Broadband is available.

...

The marketing strategy seems to be to make Broadband available but don't bother telling the people who want it.

Ditto in Kinnegad when the exchange got enabled just before Xmas, no mention from eircom whatsoever that I've seen.

Sponge Bob

In 1979 there was no demand for telephones because the waiting list was 6 years in many areas so lots of people never applied.

In 1980 the number of lines was 17 per 100 people with 3.5M people (and no ISDN in those days ). Thats 595000 lines or so. and the number of new lines connected was max 40,000 per annum.

By 1988 the basic telephone was universally available in a reasonable timeframe so people did apply ....funny that . By then the number of customers was up 33% if not more over 8 years . Install period typically 6-8 weeks by then as you may have noted in that link and no more 6 year waits .

In the past 18 years the increase in lines and customers has not been as dramatic as in 1980-88 and now we have to have a new regulation that entitles us to a line within a year, are we not fab ???

bealtine

Sponge Bob wrote:

In the past 18 years the increase in lines and customers has not been as dramatic as in 1980-88 and now we have to have a new regulation that entitles us to a line within a year, are we not fab ???

Two bits of string and some chewing gum (and a bucket of excuses) passes for a line here.