€10m extra to support 100% nationwide broadband coverage;

damien

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2006/11/16/story285411.html?rss=yes

Ministers Noel Dempsey and John Browne today announced major funding increases for key policy areas in the Department of Communications, Marine & Natural Resources in the 2007 Estimates.

"The estimates for 2007 represent an 8% increase on the funding provided to the Department in the 2006 estimates. These increases support this Government's record of sustained investment in our key infrastructure and public services," said Mr Dempsey on the publication of the estimates.

Key proposed funding increases for 2007 include:

:: An additional €10m for energy research;

:: €10m extra to support 100% nationwide broadband coverage;

:: €5m for the new National Digital Research Centre;

:: €10.7m for the establishment of the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority and

:: €2.5m boost for TG4.

crawler

Communications

A total of €45.7 million is provided for Information & Communications Technology Programmes (Broadband) in 2007. €10 million of this funding is being provided for the provision of 100% nationwide broadband coverage. This will involve funding coverage in those areas where it is not commercially viable for the private sector to do so. The 2007 funding will also provide for continued investment in a number of other important Government initiatives in this area.


“Almost 30% of households in Ireland now have broadband and broadband services are available to nearly 85% of households. However I want to see a situation where every reasonable request for broadband will be met at a reasonable price and with the funding boost provided for Communications in 2007 I believe we can achieve this,” Minister Dempsey said.

watty

I think his 85% is suspect
Only 69% of folks (people or households?) have fixed phone line
Eircom counts ISDN as 2 lines and Pri ISDN to an office as 30 or 31
The 85% is number of LINES on exchanges, which MIGHT include unused lines and also pair gained lines as multiple lines.

But 100% sounds good if it doesn't involve satellites

cgarvey

10m extra? Is that in addition to left over GBS money, or are we to forget about that now?

Foxwood

The Department of Social and Family Affairs is paying the better part of €100 million a year to eircom for the "free telephones" scheme.

If that business was put out to tender, so exchanges that have a couple of hundred DFSA lines could be unbundled, the Department would get much better value for OUR money, unbundling could reach exchanges that aren't economic at the moment, and the Government might finally begin to understand why unbundling matters. There have been murmurings that they might extend the scheme to cover mobiles, but an imaginative minister, or even senior civil servant, could do an awful lot with €100 million a year.

crawler

CG - Total is about €45m - 10m + leftovers

To be fair, I tihnk this is a sensible number. There were some crazy numbers of 100's of millions being touted and that level of funding could negatively skew the market - in particular if an incumbent got hold of the majority of it.

€45m, if well applied, under a simple and fair structure can easily provide for 100% broadband.

Will be interesting to see the reactions over the next few days.

(Fell free to bash me over this!! )

bminish

Foxwood wrote:

The Department of Social and Family Affairs is paying the better part of €100 million a year to eircom for the "free telephones" scheme.

A Friend of mine recently had a hell of a time convincing the The Department of Social and Family Affairs that he could in fact avail of BT instead of Eircom. It took them a long time and quite a bit of arguing to find out that in fact, yes this was possible.
end result
BT + online billing = broadband for an extra fiver a month

But quite apart from the problems associated with changing operators the was the hassle involved with The Department of Social and Family Affairs in making the changeover.
.brendan

damien

I'm surprised BT and the other players don't try and market this to those on the scheme. Brendan, can you get that person to document the steps involved in getting sthe Dept to pay for BT? Might be worth putting on the IrelandOffline website.

Back on topic, it might be worth an FOI to see who has submitted plans to enable 100% broadband coverage and what they submitted.

Altreab

bminish wrote:

A Friend of mine recently had a hell of a time convincing the The Department of Social and Family Affairs that he could in fact avail of BT instead of Eircom. It took them a long time and quite a bit of arguing to find out that in fact, yes this was possible.
end result
BT + online billing = broadband for an extra fiver a month

But quite apart from the problems associated with changing operators the was the hassle involved with The Department of Social and Family Affairs in making the changeover.
.brendan

There is no need for anyone to contact the Dept of Family and Social affairs about changing over the line rental.
Its automatic when you tell your supplier to change it over. The actual transfer takes about 2 weeks to put through. The Dept. dont care who is supplying your fone service. works out the same for them either way.

I know this since we had line rental with Eircom for ages and then we switched over to a BT Broadband Bundle.

bk

Altreab wrote:

There is no need for anyone to contact the Dept of Family and Social affairs about changing over the line rental.
Its automatic when you tell your supplier to change it over. The actual transfer takes about 2 weeks to put through. The Dept. dont care who is supplying your fone service. works out the same for them either way.

I know this since we had line rental with Eircom for ages and then we switched over to a BT Broadband Bundle.

To do this, must you tell BT?

I'm trying to move my parents over to BT, but I can't get through to BT sales (been on hold yesterday for over an hour) to ask them how this has to be handled.

RangeR

Altreab wrote:

There is no need for anyone to contact the Dept of Family and Social affairs about changing over the line rental.
Its automatic when you tell your supplier to change it over. The actual transfer takes about 2 weeks to put through. The Dept. dont care who is supplying your fone service. works out the same for them either way.

I know this since we had line rental with Eircom for ages and then we switched over to a BT Broadband Bundle.

To some extent that is pure rubbish and you shouldn't be telling that to people without KNOWING 100%. Only a few months ago I tried to change someone over from Eircom to Smart but couldn't as DSFA have no agreement in place with Smart for free line rental. I know that Smart were LLU and are no more for phone service but your incorrect, sweeping statement above needs to be put in check.

AFAIK, there are other providers that are not covered under the DSFA scheme, but I may be wrong on this one.

bk

IrishTLR wrote:

To some extent that is pure rubbish and you shouldn't be telling that to people without KNOWING 100%. Only a few months ago I tried to change someone over from Eircom to Smart but couldn't as DSFA have no agreement in place with Smart for free line rental. I know that Smart were LLU and are no more for phone service but your incorrect, sweeping statement above needs to be put in check.

AFAIK, there are other providers that are not covered under the DSFA scheme, but I may be wrong on this one.

You are right, LLU operators aren't included in the scheme however all operators who resell Eircoms products are in the scheme.

This is completely anti-competitive IMO, it should be available to all operators including LLU, wireless and cable who supply a phone service (inclunding VoIP).

BTW I just spoke to BT and they said that you just need to supply them with a copy of your last Eircom bill that includes the discount and they will apply it.

Altreab

bk wrote:

To do this, must you tell BT?

I'm trying to move my parents over to BT, but I can't get through to BT sales (been on hold yesterday for over an hour) to ask them how this has to be handled.

Yes when you decide to buy a bundle from them you have to transfer over your line rental as well ...painless as giveing them your fone number details and a copy of your last bill showing that your getting the social welfare payment. Within 2 weeks you will have been transfered over
As for getting through to sales ...its the same with accounts !!!!

watty

So if you are on this scheme port your eicom number to Wireless LL like chorus used to have or Wireless VOIP on Wireless BB, you arn't covered?

It seems basically skewed to eircom. Even with LLU eircom get 17 Euro per month out of the scheme?

Foxwood

bk wrote:

To do this, must you tell BT?

I'm trying to move my parents over to BT, but I can't get through to BT sales (been on hold yesterday for over an hour) to ask them how this has to be handled.

Go to www.btireland.com. click on the Support tab, and search for DSFA.

All you have to do is send a copy of an old eircom bill showing that the account qualified for the "free phone", and BT will apply the allowance to the account. You don't5 have to talk to the Department - BT handles all that.

(I haven't had to talk to BT myself in over a year, before the current complaints, so I've no idea whether the process is any more complicated than the FAQ says).

Foxwood

watty wrote:

So if you are on this scheme port your eicom number to Wireless LL like chorus used to have or Wireless VOIP on Wireless BB, you arn't covered?

It's not a "free telephone number" it's "free telephone rental". You get about a euros worth of calls on your "free telephone".

They still haven't around to making it work for mobile phones, so don't hold your breath waiting for it to be available for new fangled stuff like VoIP or LLU!!!