80% of Rural Ireland has no Broadband according to IFA

Sponge Bob

http://www.claneire.com/ifa/Press/DisplayFullArticlenew.asp?ID=1348

1/18/2007
LESS THAN 20% OF FARM HOMES HAVE ACCESS TO LESS THAN 20% OF FARM HOMES HAVE ACCESS TO EIRCOM'S BROADBAND NETWORK
Over 80% of farm homes cannot get access to Eircom’s DSL Broadband following a detailed analysis of IFA Telecom’s 35,000-strong rural customer base.
IFA Director of Organisation Pat Smith said “access to affordable broadband is essential in rural Ireland. Hundreds of thousands of rural homes and businesses need the issue addressed now by the Government.”
Mr Smith said the approach to date has not worked and there is nothing being done that would address the problem. “An alternative, more radical approach, is now required by the Government,” he added.
IFA have submitted concrete proposals to Government that would deliver an affordable, sustainable wireless broadband service quickly to homes and businesses in rural areas.
He said “the solution is to level the pitch on the cost of installing an alternative wireless solution where DSL Broadband is not available because of the cost and technology restrictions with the existing network.”
Mr Smith said the quickest and most cost effective way of delivering rural broadband was to drive demand by providing an installation grant of at least €250 to every rural home and business that cannot get Eircom’s DSL Broadband.
“This in conjunction with a tax credit of at least €75 for three years to ensure that the cost of Wireless Broadband is no more expensive than Eircom’s DSL option in large towns and cities will solve the problem. Commercial wireless operators would be in a much stronger position to drive their network into rural areas.”
Through its telecoms arm, IFA Telecom, IFA has invested a significant amount of money developing an alternative wireless solution that can be delivered to remote communities and are confident that its proposal will work.
Pat Smith said “IFA believe that if this proposal is implemented immediately, the demand- driven approach will incentivise the existing service providers to deliver broadband much quicker and in a more sustainable and cost effective way than any other approach. In addition, it will focus Eircom on getting as many exchanges DSL enabled if it wishes to compete in the rural areas.”

Not a penny on the €180bn NDP today, get out while ye still can lads

That tax credit plan was proposed in 2003 and got nowhere then either.

godskitchen

I am sick and tired of this now, there are ways of getting BB to EVERY part of this small island (1/10 the size of texas) I dont understand how the government cant see how true 100% BB would give this country an economic boost..........The main problem is the public dont seem to know either.

mickoneill30

Two questions about this article.

"LESS THAN 20% OF FARM HOMES HAVE ACCESS TO EIRCOM'S BROADBAND NETWORK" - Do they have access to any other broadband network? I know people who can't get ADSL with Eircom but who can get broadband from other providers.

Next question. 20% of farm homes means what? 20% of what. 1000, 10000, 100000?

Sponge Bob

They have no wired or wireless BB from eircom , you may assume their neighbours who have no farms are in the exact same boat but there is no association of rural dwellers who are not farmers to represent these people.

There are those who can get 3G or Fixed wireless in rural areas but eircoms claim to cover over 85% of the population , and that fool Dempsey repeats what eircom tells him . This is complete BS in rural areas where its more like 85% NOT available and will continue to be so.

mickoneill30

Yeah but 20% of Farm homes could be less than 15% of the population so Eircons figures might be correct at 85% of the population.

I'm not arguing, I'm just saying, that saying percentages without saying the numbers involved is meaningless.

40% of the people I know are women. That could mean I know 4 women or 400. The first statistic would show I'm sad. The second a legend but having just the percentage doesn't give you the full picture. You see these kind of statistics a lot in our papers. It helps sensationalise certain storys.

kaizersoze

mickoneill30 wrote:

20% of farm homes means what?

The figures are in the first post. It's 80% of "35000 strong rural customer base" cannot access Eircoms DSL network. 35000 is a huge sample size for any survey so I'd say it's a fair reflection of the situation.

BTW, which is it 4 or 400?:)

Sponge Bob

mickoneill30 wrote:

You see these kind of statistics a lot in our papers. It helps sensationalise certain storys.

Of course we do Mick. This is why eircom claimed 70% ( sometimes 80%) BB coverage once they had enabled the first tranche of exchanges in 2004 What eircom lied about was that over 70% of their lines were in these large towns where the census showed in 2002 that only 59% of the population lived in the main towns.

How does one reconcile over 70% with 59% ???? Some simply highlight the Big lie.

BB is an essential service in this day and age for a person not for a line. People need BB to learn and communicate and those who suffer from lack of BB are people. Not exchanges and not lines and not eircom but people.

If it takes a tax credit tied to a contract with a supplier before they roll it out to get the service into rural Ireland then so be it.

If Vodafone will ONLY put a 3g cell into Ballymagoo because 30 people signed up for it in advance then Vodafone should be allowed to lock them into a longer term contract and there should be a tax credit for the durationof the contract. By all means make it a 2 year contract and take their PPS number and send it into the revenue like mortgage relief at source.

It costs the state nothing to provide as the tax credit only kicks in if the service is there. GBS funded the provision of the service in the first place but has now been abolished.

What we must no longer do is pretend we are the technologcally advanced Celtic Tiger. We are a ****ing backward mess across most of our territory and we have esentially abandoned rural Ireland to its pre techological fate as a matter of government policy.

The emperor has no clothes . Period. This is what we had in 2005



So what if that pimply coverage has improved a bit since. That was over 70% coverage according to eircom and Dempsey.

NOW look at what the Swiss had in 2003 .....and that included ADSL up on the tops of mountains, the green bits are covered.

pm.

thats a shocking reminder as to how far behine europe we are.

qwertplaywert

reminder?everybody[including me]has been giving out about it for years!

mcaul

People must realise that eircom is not the only provider of BB in Ireland.

Currently both three & vodafone are rolling out high speed wireless BB that will cover 85% of the country (geographical) & 95% of population within the next few weeks - Three say they will have their network complete by end of Feb.

Certainly where I am (5miles outside Kidare town away from any sort of population centre, both 3 & vodafone have coverage on 3G at about 250 - 300 kbs Three has a better signal.

It also works all around Stradbally, Kildoon, Nurney and other sparse areas of Kildare -

By end of Feb I expect 3mb download with voip phone for 39.99 a month and will never need eircom service for anything -saving €24 line rental!

Sponge Bob

mcaul wrote:

Currently both three & vodafone are rolling out high speed wireless BB that will cover 85% of the country (geographical) & 95% of population within the next few weeks -

will they **** .

80% of the population lives in red/orange bits on the map here which is nowhere near 85% geographic coverage. that map is voda coverage. Its very good in the pale so fair play Voda like I have been saying for ages .

nesf

80% of farms not having access to broadband most definitely does not equate to 80% of rural Ireland not having access to broadband. Please don't sensationalise unnecessarily. Rural Ireland is composed of much more than just farmers.

smellslikeshoes

80% of farmers not getting broadband does not equate to 80% of rural users not being able to get dsl but it does show what sort of ballpark figures rural areas have. Farmers not being able to get broadband shows the short minded attitude of the government and eircom, We all know how important agriculture is to the Irish economy, and we know the advantages a decent priced broadband service would provide farmers with.

kaizersoze

nesf wrote:

80% of farms not having access to broadband most definitely does not equate to 80% of rural Ireland not having access to broadband. Please don't sensationalise unnecessarily. Rural Ireland is composed of much more than just farmers.

Where's the sensationalisation? 35,000 rural dwellers were surveyed and 80%of them can't access the Eircom BB network. They live in rural Ireland and they'll have neighbours in the same position. The fact that they're farmers is irrelivent.

Ardent

While it's obviously true to say that not all rural dwellings are located on farms, it should not be disputed that a majority of rural households cannot access broadband over their phoneline (or over any other channel in many cases). You'd know if you ever lived in rural Ireland at any stage.

Where I'm from originally (only 12 miles from Galway city), our phone line isn't even good enough for dialup. I imagine if Eircom do finally upgrade our exchange to make it broadband-capable, we still won't be able to join the technological age because of our distance from the exchange. And I've no doubt that this situation is replicated all over the country. It's a modern day disgrace.

You can't imagine how frustrating and vexing the whole situation is, how powerless and excluded folks living in rural Ireland feel. I just hope the general public make themselves heard in the upcoming election.

NDP my ass.

thebman

mcaul wrote:

People must realise that eircom is not the only provider of BB in Ireland.

Currently both three & vodafone are rolling out high speed wireless BB that will cover 85% of the country (geographical) & 95% of population within the next few weeks - Three say they will have their network complete by end of Feb.

In a lot of rural areas there is not even wireless coverage and where there is, it is usually one operator, ripping them off and not delivering on the speeds they say they'll offer.

Vodafone and other HSDPA are expensive for home users too and what areas do you think won't be covered in that 95% population coverage? It is designed for mobile business users and it is priced for them too. Not to mention it is not good enough for VOIP or gaming or P2P or are you suggesting that rural people don't deserve these services because of where they live?

Certainly where I am (5miles outside Kidare town away from any sort of population centre, both 3 & vodafone have coverage on 3G at about 250 - 300 kbs Three has a better signal.

It also works all around Stradbally, Kildoon, Nurney and other sparse areas of Kildare -

By end of Feb I expect 3mb download with voip phone for 39.99 a month and will never need eircom service for anything -saving €24 line rental!

[/quote]

Hurray for you! Meanwhile Europe has about 4 times that speed for about half the price. We pay the second highest line rental in the world!

Sponge Bob

In a tail end of an article on the NDP the sunday independent confims there is no rural BB plan or funding in the ndp , the department of finance contributes the following.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial] Last week, the bizarre idea of laying broadband across one of the most thinly- populated countries in Europe again ran into the sand. Apart from Dublin, Ireland can support only three, at most four, serious urban centres. The rest of us have got to get used to the idea that we live in greater Cork, greater Limerick etc, and that is where the jobs, hospitals, colleges - and broadband - will be.[/FONT]

Thanks Noel.

oscarBravo

Next thing you know, those peskie culchies will get uppity enough to come looking for electricity and running water.

I mean, seriously: no other European countries have broadband outside the major cities - who do we think we are?

mcaul

A lot of moaning here without foundation.

Gov has stopped the rural BB rollout because only 7500 out of a possible 400,000 signed up to schemes already in place.

Wireless BB will cover 85% of the country (not population) by the end of Feb through three. Digiweb are also expanding greatly and can cover 15km radius from any of their transmitters.

I have tried the three service in many rural areas over the past week including Camross, Co. Laois, Ahascragh, Co. Galway & The ass end of Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny and each area was giving 250 - 350 kbs on speedtest.ie all on three irl transmitters and three say they will all be upgraded to 3.6mb by end of feb.

Digiweb have a new transmiter in Ballylynan Co. Laois (near Athy) so BB can now be got by all within 15km of this. My guess is all but a few remote areas will be covered within 3-4 months.

Sponge Bob

while I have no doubt that 3g data will be part of the mix the fact remains that

1. no county in ireland has universal bb coverage if you count quality fixed wireless / 3 g / AND dsl . Thats no county. , not even Louth or Longford. I am sceptical about 3g as a primary coverage method given its horrible latency but this is Ireland and beggars cannot be choosers .

2. Phe pale could be completed easily (bar wickila) including "remote areas" as you quaintly put it. the rest of the country is far more difficult as is wickila itself .

3. in the rest of the country 3g tends to follow main roads . An intelligent approach to mast provisioning would be required to incentivise better mast coverage from which follows better wireless coverage of all sort .

4. I have often said that there should be a tax break for provisioning masts as there is one for car parks and one for creches.

A 2 or 3 year open window to avail of this tax scheme would work wonders in my opinion .

Gregor Samsa

smellslikeshoes wrote:

We all know how important agriculture is to the Irish economy, and we know the advantages a decent priced broadband service would provide farmers with.

Agriculture accounts for just 3.5% of our GDP. From an economic point of view, I'd be much more concerned about broadband connectivity for our tourism and services industries. These are now the economic mainstays of rural Ireland, and increasingly depend on information technology to survive and compete.

This isn't to say that a country with the small size and and relatively tame topography or Ireland shouldn't have almost 100% of the population covered for broadband between the various technologies available.

Dean820

Sponge Bob wrote:

http://www.claneire.com/ifa/Press/DisplayFullArticlenew.asp?ID=1348



Not a penny on the €180bn NDP today, get out while ye still can lads

That tax credit plan was proposed in 2003 and got nowhere then either.

I'm shocked it doesn't say more then 80 percent.

What a disgrace.

BeerWolf

godskitchen wrote:

I am sick and tired of this now, there are ways of getting BB to EVERY part of this small island (1/10 the size of texas) I dont understand how the government cant see how true 100% BB would give this country an economic boost..........The main problem is the public dont seem to know either.

Yeah, you can get broadband anywhere via Satellite - oh yes I can see paying 180 Euros or w/e a month being a very good idea!

/sarcasm...

We're talking about affordable broadband - not bloody paying through our noses for midiscule services.

Sponge Bob

Shane Ross made an excellent spech in the Senate yesterday where he pointed out that in the absence of universal broadband there are whole swathes of the country (read rural or small towns) where no employer will consider setting up or expanding and namechecked the IDA in this regard.

Shane spoke at length on the same matter in September as well.

http://www.shane-ross.ie/Broadband/Broadband%20Debate%2027.9.06.html

7.9.06- In a two hour debate in the Seanad, I put the following motion before the House:

"That Seanad Éireann condemns the failure of the Government to ensure that broadband is available to every business and household in Ireland and calls on it to take immediate measures to remove us from the bottom of the European broadband league."

The issue of broadband provision is a hugely important one, and is being consistently ignored by the Government. I told the Seanad, “I move this motion on broadband in the full knowledge and with certain surprise that the number of column inches and the number of minutes devoted to broadband in this and the other House is painfully small... It seems to be one of the crying problems of the economy and desperately needs attention, particularly political attention. We only need to consider the statistics issued by various bodies to understand how badly Ireland is doing in the broadband stakes…”

The greatest danger regarding broadband is that we are falling behind our competitors. I told the Minister, “We may have a knowledge economy, but we cannot market it properly because we do not have sufficient broadband resources. I am staggered by the smugness and blindness of the Government side to this particular problem, which is staring us in the face and will come back and bite us in the near future.”

I succeeded in making progress on the issue. The Minister promised that the Government was in favour of supporting broadband where it was not commercially feasible. He told the Seanad: “Despite Ireland’s rapidly expanding broadband market I accept there are some areas of the country where the sector will be unable to justify the provision of broadband connectivity on a commercial basis. The time has come to address this issue. The Minister is currently examining options in this regard and he hopes to be in a position to bring proposals to Government shortly."

However, I will continue to press the Governmnet on this issue. It must address the three key issues with respect to broadband provision: We must have Access, Availability, and Adoption. The Government must overcome the lack of each of these before the issue of broadband can be put to rest!

One small quibble Shane, its already biting very hard outside the 5 main cities., otherwise spot on.

The government is also Ireland PLC . If Ireland PLC cannot deal with relatively simple and cheap universal broadband...at a cost of about 2 x full Cavan bypasses to get everybody a 512k service if they want it..... then the government cannot be taken seriously on any of roads/sewage/power/3 level education/upskilling of workforce . All of these are far costlier and more complex and will be slower to mainfest themselves .

Ireland had a massive presence in global ICT during the celtic tiger years , our peers know that Ireland has the intellectual and financial resources to plan and deliver Universal BB because it has not evaporated since 2000 when the .com crash occured .

Our peers and competitors now regard the delivery on this promise as a sort of test of our long term viability. If we cannot do it by the end of 2007 then they will not believe any other promises that we make and will make their long term investment decisions accordingly .

Regrettably vision is sadly lacking in most of (not quite all of) Fianna Fáil .

Vote for that man Ross if ye get the chance because he plainly and clearly speaks for the future of rural Ireland . If there are no people left out there then there will be no "knowledge" either . If I had a doomsday clock I would now have it at 3 minutes to midnight and on the 31st of December 2007 , in the continuing absence of 100% provision , I will push it to 1 minute to midnight

thebman

Has Ireland Offline gotten in contact with Shane to discuss the extent of the problem seeing as he is a politician actually willing to raise the issue?

I'm sure he wouldn't decline the information that IO can give him seeing as he is actually aware of how serious an issue this is.

Sponge Bob

brim4brim wrote:

Has Ireland Offline gotten in contact with Shane to discuss the extent of the problem seeing as he is a politician actually willing to raise the issue?

dunno, did you ask them ???

qwertplaywert

theres a forum for them on here,ya know

noelbadrian

We are not farmers and live only 4 miles from Tullamore our landline gives 24Kbps on a good day....
The exchange we are connected to IS BB enabled but was informed that the signal only reaches out to 3.5km so bad luck.
Well, Offaly is fairly flat so tried wireless from Lastmile - what a joke! (came on a foggy day and could not see where to point the preset aerial-no scanner) But what a surprise! rural areas have TREES so line of sight is a problem. (Wonders why the RTE mast cant be used?)
No Vodaphone 3G coverage as we are too far from the main-road corridor...
Only hope is that the 3G coverage will get better sometime.