Do you feel sorry for people living in the sticks..

mickzer

It's not an "entitlement complex"......

I AM entitled to the same service as you.
Doesn't matter who you are or where ever you live.QED.

OK.
mickzer

CuLT

mickzer wrote: »

It's not an "entitlement complex"......

I AM entitled to the same service as you.
Doesn't matter who you are or where ever you live.QED.

OK.
mickzer

You're not really helping discussion here, I say it does matter and have cited reasons. Can you give me any counter-argument?

Edit: I'm not ruling out the possiblity that my opinion is uninformed here, but I would like to have more than "NO YOU'RE JUST WRONG AND I'M RIGHT :mad:", if you would be so good. It's far too easy to shrug people off in a huff and say they're wrong.

I believe the reasons I have given are very good reasons, but if you can tell me why you think they're poor I will hear you out.

cornbb

CuLT wrote: »

I could pay €350,000 for a one bed apartment in Dublin city centre (that would be a livable middle-class residence). I am not paying for the materials, I am paying for the location; the proximity to a large variety of services. I would be able to walk to work and would be within reasonable walking distance to all forms of public transport.

Or I can pay the same price for a 4 bed detached house in Limerick's suburbs, with stable electricity, water, gas and telephone services. I'd have to drive to work.

Maybe 512k - 1Mbit broadband, maybe none.

Would you expect such people to live without stable and adequate electricity, water, gas and telephone services? If not then why would you expect them to go without a good broadband service? It is becoming a basic necessary utility, like these others. I for one would sooner go without, e.g., gas, TV and a telephone service than without my broadband connection. Its fine to expect people to go without a commuter rail service or not be within walking distance of a concert hall, those are reasonable trade-offs for living outside a city. But go without what is rapidly becoming a basic staple of modern living? Not a chance.

mickzer

What I'm TRYING to say is where you're born or brought up is a "Throw of the dice" and you could be in my position and I in yours . But more to the point is we are all entitled to a decent service,where-ever we live or how much taxes we pay. Remember there are plusses and minuses to living in the country /city.Some you win.........some I win.

Edit: Sorry CuLT ,you edited while I was typing.I suppose the core of my argument is that I believe that democracy is all about doing what is right for the majority of the people. I know most people live in urban areas but if everything is spread out it wouldn't matter where you live. Therefore you wouldn't have this townie versus culchie philosophy.
To recap:
Townies are entitled to decent broadband......
Culchies are entitled to decent broadband......

mickzer.

CuLT

cornbb wrote: »

Would you expect such people to live without stable and adequate electricity, water, gas and telephone services? If not then why would you expect them to go without a good broadband service? It is becoming a basic necessary utility, like these others. I for one would sooner go without, e.g., gas, TV and a telephone service than without my broadband connection. Its fine to expect people to go without a commuter rail service or not be within walking distance of a concert hall, those are reasonable trade-offs for living outside a city. But go without what is rapidly becoming a basic staple of modern living? Not a chance.

Broadband is a very useful luxury; now I am choosing my words carefully here, because I would argue that there's nothing vital that you can't do without broadband.

The argument I'm used to hearing is that it's terribly useful as an educational resource, and I agree, but you have access to the Internet without broadband. You're moving slower alright, but you get there eventually. You might pay more for a satellite service or something, but again, tradeoff.

Right now, my family's house in France doesn't have a working water supply (have to run a pipe up some time this year), certainly no gas supply, barely any mobile reception, no chance of a phone line ; yet these things are all considered "basic staples of modern living".

For the lack of these services, we have a quarter acre of spare land in addition to the house, all for a third of a one bed apartment in Dublin city centre.

CuLT

mickzer wrote: »

What I'm TRYING to say is where you're born or brought up is a "Throw of the dice" and you could be in my position and I in yours . But more to the point is we are all entitled to a decent service,where-ever we live or how much taxes we pay. Remember there are plusses and minuses to living in the country /city.Some you win.........some I win.

mickzer.

Right, and my point would be that broadband service is one of these "pluses/minuses". People don't die for want of broadband. They don't get the full benefit of the Internet, undoubtedly, which is an excellent education resource, but then if you're living away from a major city you're depriving your kids of a higher density of schools/universities, which, if I assign a high value to information resources on the Internet, is roughly the same thing.

It's a roll of the dice where you're born in a first world country, but being in a first world country, it's not a roll of the dice where you end up.

Edit: missed your own edit there mickzer, might take a minute for me to respond to the rest!

Edit: Sorry CuLT ,you edited while I was typing.I suppose the core of my argument is that I believe that democracy is all about doing what is right for the majority of the people. I know most people live in urban areas but if everything is spread out it wouldn't matter where you live. Therefore you wouldn't have this townie versus culchie philosophy.
To recap:
Townies are entitled to decent broadband......
Culchies are entitled to decent broadband......

Edit 2: Right, after a recap I don't think it makes any difference to my argument, apart from perhaps adding to the mix that I would have fairly strong capitalist leaning, I think your philosophy would be a little more towards the socialist leaning, which would explain why we may not see eye-to-eye on this

No reason not to keep it civil of course!

mickzer

CuLT wrote: »

Edit 2: Right, after a recap I don't think it makes any difference to my argument, apart from perhaps adding to the mix that I would have fairly strong capitalist leaning, I think your philosophy would be a little more towards the socialist leaning, which would explain why we may not see eye-to-eye on this

No reason not to keep it civil of course!

Ok! We may have to agree to differ.(Which is what democracy is all about:))
mickzer.

cornbb

CuLT wrote: »

Broadband is a very useful luxury; now I am choosing my words carefully here, because I would argue that there's nothing vital that you can't do without broadband.

The argument I'm used to hearing is that it's terribly useful as an educational resource, and I agree, but you have access to the Internet without broadband. You're moving slower alright, but you get there eventually. You might pay more for a satellite service or something, but again, tradeoff.

Right now, my family's house in France doesn't have a working water supply (have to run a pipe up some time this year), certainly no gas supply, barely any mobile reception, no chance of a phone line ; yet these things are all considered "basic staples of modern living".

For the lack of these services, we have a quarter acre of spare land in addition to the house, all for a third of a one bed apartment in Dublin city centre.

Broadband is not a luxury for people who need it for work. It is a communication, educational, entertainment and social tool all rolled into one. I'm aware of a tiny majority of remote households (I say remote, not merely rural) need to provide their own water and electricity, but I'm talking about the vast majority of rural Ireland which isn't as sparsely populated as some people would imagine.

As an analogy, take the rural electrification of Ireland from the 1930s-50s which effectively brought the country into the 20th century. The introduction of sporadic pockets of electricity supply to densely populated areas prior to that did not have anywhere near the same effect. We now need near-universal and equal access to good broadband for the whole country to bring us up to par with most of the rest of Europe. This will be vital to Ireland for both social and economic reasons.

CuLT

cornbb wrote: »

Broadband is not a luxury for people who need it for work. It is a communication, educational, entertainment and social tool all rolled into one. I'm aware of a tiny majority of remote households (I say remote, not merely rural) need to provide their own water and electricity, but I'm talking about the vast majority of rural Ireland which isn't as sparsely populated as some people would imagine.

As an analogy, take the rural electrification of Ireland from the 1930s-50s which effectively brought the country into the 20th century. The introduction of sporadic pockets of electricity supply to densely populated areas prior to that did not have anywhere near the same effect. We now need near-universal and equal access to good broadband for the whole country to bring us up to par with most of the rest of Europe. This will be vital to Ireland for both social and economic reasons.

Ack I've been tricked into the old "Broadband or Not" argument again, my own fault. I got a little carried away; what I had intended to put across was about the speed issue, not the availability of broadband in general.

SeanW

Fighting Irish wrote: »

He use to get 3mb for €40 and now all he can get is 1mb for €40 and its up and down the whole time. He complains about how the whole country can't get a good 3mb for €40ish.
All i'm saying is what does he expect.

He has a right to complain if he can only get an expensive, crappy, slow and unreliable connection.

"What does he expect?" That in 21st century Ireland, he can get a relatively stable broadband connection at a sane price. Unless he's in someplace really remote like a mountain countryside 5+km from his exchange or one of the islands, that doesn't seem unreasonable.

Broadband is quickly becoming a staple of modern life in the same way that electricity did in the last century. I wonder what your (grand)parents thought of the Rural Electrification Scheme? "What do those culchies expect?" "I don't want to pay for it" etc. I'm thinking.

People NATIONWIDE are entitled to demand a better broadband service - with speeds that don't max out at 3000/384 and cost an arm and a leg - and with limited availability as lines fail, exchanges are not enabled or multiple houses are connected on pairgains.

These problems affect people both in rural areas and in towns and cities, and getting involved with your pathetic "screw the culchies" trolling will not help with that.

thebman

CuLT wrote: »

Ack I've been tricked into the old "Broadband or Not" argument again, my own fault. I got a little carried away; what I had intended to put across was about the speed issue, not the availability of broadband in general.

There are plenty of businesses in rural areas that need high speed connections.

You can say what you like about people in rural areas but businesses require high speed connections in many areas and just can't get them.

People do deserve high speeds however and more importantly a quality service. The 1Mbps for 40 Euro is grand argument is bollocks because in most cases that is contended at 40:1 with contention kicking in fully at peak times which is completely unacceptable.

We should have high speed networks nationwide because it allows investment in all areas by businesses. This isn't an absolutely remote areas broadband proposal but a large percentage of the country would greatly benefit from it and it could promote growth in these areas so it becomes commercially viable for companies to roll out broadband in these areas.

The biggest argument in favor of broadband for all is that the government is increasingly looking towards putting information for citizens online and government services online. If these services are online they have to be accessible by every citizen regardless of location same as post offices back in the day had to be everywhere to allow for sufficient communication. To say dial up should do is nonsense because as technology increases, we will always need increasing bandwidth, same as we need faster processors and people deserve to be able to get access to government services in a reasonable amount of time. You can throw in education too but I won't bother debating it as broadband benefits to education are obvious to everyone who is educated. To say satellite is a viable alternative is nonsense. It is insanely expensive and the not able to support things like VOIP or anything that requires fast response times.

Another reason the governments owes rural people broadband is they put rural people in the situation they are currently in. Rural Ireland pays the highest line rental in the world and flat rate fees to actually be able to use 56K at reasonable cost (20 Euro a month lets say as it depends on the package). The price should not be this high but is due to an ineffective regulator which is the governments fault and the a monopoly which the government created.

There are other arguments but I'll probably post them tomorrow as I couldn't be arsed at the moment.

CuLT

Hmm, sound arguments all, a lot I hadn't really given consideration to actually. Living in Dublin and having never worked outside the Telco & IT sector, I might be a little sheltered

I'm still coming up short on any non-IT companies that rely on fast broadband connectivity though. I say non-IT because I imagine most IT companies would want to base themselves where they're most likely to have a large customer base.

I'm going to sound like an awful jackeen here but, Massey Fergusson don't have a sales office on Grafton street for the same reason Google don't have an office in Ballymoreen.

cornbb

CuLT wrote: »

I'm still coming up short on any non-IT companies that rely on fast broadband connectivity though. I say non-IT because I imagine most IT companies would want to base themselves where they're most likely to have a large customer base.

I work in a small software company based in the countryside, but not very far from Galway city. Location is irrelevant for us as all communication with our customers is done via our website. The installer for our main product weighs in at over 3GB. We have a reliable broadband connection but our speeds are so abysmal that we must upload our product to our website via a contact in a university whenever we wish to update it! This is obviously a ludicrous scenario. Moving our operation to Dublin would hardly be productive - fewer jobs for rural areas and increased congestion for Dublin.

I'm going to sound like an awful jackeen here but, Massey Fergusson don't have a sales office on Grafton street for the same reason Google don't have an office in Ballymoreen.

Well no-one is expecting any massive server farms to spring up out in the sticks. Its not really a fair analogy. Tractors are not required for city living. Broadband is equally important for business and households whether they are in the city or countryside.

CuLT

Fair points, yours is a situation I am painfully ignorant of, so I'll have to apologise for coming across as such a jackass. Consider me informed.

Edit: I may have some more to waffle about this tomorrow.

cornbb

You haven't come across as a jackass at all.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that rural people and businesses need good broadband no less than towns or cities do, and the attitude (expressed by some) of "well you should move to Dublin if you want it that badly" is fundamentally unfair.

Firetrap

The fundamental problem is that the powers that be think broadband is a luxury rather than a necessity. That is why the infrastructure is abysmal and why certain ISPs are allowed to get away with ripping off their customers. I'm unfortunate enough to be a customer of 3's so-called broadband and the last 8 months has been a learning experience for me. I've discovered that the likes of Comreg and the National Consumer Agency are about as useful as a chocolate fireguard. In other words, no matter how bad a broadband service is, nobody is going to do anything about it. ISPs can provide an abysmally bad service and get away with it with impunity. That in my book is a disgrace, regardless of whether you think boggers deserve broadband.

If the ESB only supplied certain parts of the country and in the evening times in rural areas your cooker couldn't heat up properly or your TV only worked intermittently, it wouldn't be long before someone stepped in and did something about it. Or if you couldn't rely on a steady supply of gas or know when your mobile phone was going to pick up a signal, there'd be an uproar. And quite rightly too.

mike65

Weather Balloons to the rescue?

Mike.

Liam Byrne

Fighting Irish wrote: »

Not trolling, and i am not talking about people with no broadband. I am talking about the people who can only use crap broadband services i.e. most of the wireless ones

Did you ever consider the fact that most people who sign up for the wireless ones only do so because there is nothing else available ?

And where would you consider as "the sticks", anyway ? The other cities ? The major towns ? Villages ? A few miles from villages ? Up the mountains ?

Fact is that broadband coverage is crap in this country; I tried the wireless option trial from Vodafone, and it couldn't even connect - it defaulted to GPRS at 56K!!!! :mad: And that's 1.5 miles from Limerick City suburbs / 3.5 miles city centre !!!

Would you consider THAT the sticks ??? :mad:

Plus, since there are people complaining about supposedly "subsidising" rural Ireland, maybe Dublin should keep its waste, drink Liffey water, while rural Ireland should keep its taxes and let Dublin raise its own cash for the M50 and the Luas and the Metro and every OTHER worthwhile infrastructural project that seems to go on in this country.... :mad:

ghostdancer

not really, but then again, i live in out in the sticks surrounded by fields and fresh air, with no scumbags or noise, a Tesco 5 mins drive away, and have great broadband, so it's the best of both worlds.


great thread.

Marlow

cornbb wrote: »

I work in a small software company based in the countryside, but not very far from Galway city. Location is irrelevant for us as all communication with our customers is done via our website. The installer for our main product weighs in at over 3GB. We have a reliable broadband connection but our speeds are so abysmal that we must upload our product to our website via a contact in a university whenever we wish to update it! This is obviously a ludicrous scenario. Moving our operation to Dublin would hardly be productive - fewer jobs for rural areas and increased congestion for Dublin.

There are plenty of businesses like that on the westcoast, IT or non-IT and even the availability of DSL wouldn't help your cause, as the upstream is too low.

Fortunatly, specificly the westcoast offers dense coverage by wireless providers, that can give you reliable and symmetric broadband. I know of at least 2 and I'm partner one of them. There's various reasons for having a business in rural Ireland and certainly the infrastructure should be there.

/Martin