Irish technology students angry at broadband denial

bealtine

Irish technology students angry at broadband denial
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single%2010791

21.04.2008 - Two Sligo IT college students will be representing Ireland at this year’s Imagine Cup, a well-renowned, international technology competition sponsored by Microsoft, and imagination is what they need when it comes to broadband availability in their home county, said team captain, Kieran Stafford.
“Christina Luminea and I are two students who have won the Imagine Cup and we are about to represent Ireland in the world finals and neither of us have broadband,” said Stafford.

Stafford lives 20 miles from Sligo town and said he has no choice but to use mobile broadband because there is no wireless or fixed-line option available: “Wireless broadband here constantly fails. At night it stops – I can’t use it.

“Minister Eamon Ryan is in denial. He is telling the world we have the fastest take-up of mobile broadband in Europe but that is because none of us have access to decent DSL!”

Stafford said the fact that he and Luminea are flying the flag for Ireland in a well-renowned technology competition while neither have broadband is “absolutely scandalous”.

Many people do not have fixed-line broadband so they are all trying to cram onto a mobile broadband network that falls down because of the sheer weight of users, said Stafford. “I am paying €40 per month for mobile broadband that doesn’t work,” he added.

What angers software engineering student Stafford most of all is Minister Eamon Ryan’s aspiration to get the entire nation on a 1Mbps broadband connection.

“1Mbps is 10 years ago! In Japan, they are trialling 100Mbps – using the internet to do live audio recordings across the world so musicians can collaborate in real-time over the web and they are doing this for US$10 a month.”

Stafford’s team will be bringing its ParkIT project to the Imagine Cup world final in France later this year. ParkIT works by taking live feeds from cameras in a car park and digitally analysing this to determine how many free car parking spaces are available.

This information is stored on a server and can be fed into a mobile device such as a motorists’ SatNav or mobile handset, telling them in real-time if there are spaces available with the aim of reducing time spent driving in circles to find parking.

Stafford said this data could potentially be further used and moulded into a premium service to estimate the nearest car park with the most ideal parking spot for an individual motorist.

By Marie Boran

BarryM

and from todays Silicon Rep -

"Call for schools’ broadband to benefit communities
21.04.2008 - The Schools Broadband Service should be expanded to enable communities to avail of high-quality broadband cheaply, the incoming president of Chambers Ireland has suggested.
Dr Chris Coughlan remarked: “One way to equip communities with the skill sets needed in the global economy is to extend the Schools Broadband Service to enable all community stakeholders to enjoy the benefits of technology out-of-hours, thereby extending the footprint of broadband services throughout the country in a cost-effective manner.” .....

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single10799



Well now - a while back when Dempsey was the Min of Comm I happened across him at a meeting and asked him why rural communities couldn't piggy back on schools bb, which is available in all sorts of obscure locations where there are schools (see my other post on satellite access for the details). He said he was 'surprised' that the schools access wasn't more available, and said he would speak to Minister Hannafin..... the rest is silence.....

The schools bb is considered, by the schools concerned, as a private network, for 'security reasons'
I know that members of the schools governing board are allowed to use the facility using their own laptops out of school hours, in schools of my acquaintance, I suppose they are secure users......

Bye, Barry

damien

The same Chambers who told the EU that rural people should be punished for living in the country while the city dwellers have to subsidise their line rental. What a ****ing retarded idea.

BarryM

damien.m wrote: »

The same Chambers who told the EU that rural people should be punished for living in the country while the city dwellers have to subsidise their line rental. What a ****ing retarded idea.

I presume you don't mean the idea of co-ordinating taxpayers expenditure to improve bb is retarded....?? I accept the Chambers don't think like that, but in effect what he is suggesting is a better use of the money. Unfortunately it is already too late... the schools bb money is gone, the court case could kill the latest expansion attempt, retarded as it is, and anyway the new taoiseach will can any expenditure that isn't already committed. Top that with the ****e that will surround the Lisbon fiasco for the next few months and we're into 2009, a 'tough year'

Bye, Barry

damien

BarryM wrote: »

what he is suggesting is a better use of the money.

No he's not. What he's talking about is:

1. Actually helping to rig figures of those using broadband. If more people are using a connection then that's great for ComReg and DCENR to massage figures. They have a history, have you heard? You can just see them going "Well, factually they are a household who can get broadband, just not in their house. Ah that counts."

2. Telling those that can't broadband to head to a local school instead of addressing the actual issue of availability. This just creates some dumb and almost credible excuse for the Government not to put pressure on the telcos to roll out further. "Go to school and shut up. "

3. Further endorsing the use of pisspoor satellite as some viable form of broadband given that half the schools in the country use satellite.

4. Ignoring the fact that if a school can get DSL, wireless or fibre SO CAN EVERYONE ELSE AROUND THAT AREA.

5. Spending MORE taxypayers money not less and not making it more efficient. Who'll pay for extra insurance, who'll pay for the wear and tear on computers, who'll pay for out-of-hours supervision, who'll pay for the extra energy bills? Will there be software licensing issues now that the computers are used by the public?

watty

I'm with Damien on this one.

Good analysis. If anything too sympathetic.

4a) if the school isn't on satellite, then others can get Internet.
4b) if the school is on Satellite, that's only enough bandwidth for a couple of PCs.

I'm boggled. Does he think the Schools program involved a fibre to each school? Many schools have much less Network infrastructure and less connection speed than many home users with Routers and Metro/DSL/Cable.

Also ALL the school traffic goes via HeaNet. The schools BB program was very little money and no advice to schools what to do with it. Basically just a single Broadband or Satellite connection at normal home connection speed, isolated via Heanet. No equipment, networking, software, training or strategy for the Schools. A bit like fitting a phone socket and then leaving it up to schools to either plug in a phone, DECT handset, Multifunction Fax or PABX (which they have to get themselves).

damien

watty wrote: »

I'm with Damien on this one.

*points to the giant space-time rift*

Sponge Bob

BarryM wrote: »

Dr Chris Coughlan remarked: “One way to equip communities with the skill sets needed in the global economy is to extend the Schools Broadband Service to enable all community stakeholders to enjoy the benefits of technology out-of-hours, thereby extending the footprint of broadband services throughout the country in a cost-effective manner.” .....

This is about using a school as an IT Community Centre. Its very badly thought out given the fact that a 3rd party ( and there are feck all chambers in rural Ireland) would have to insure the school as an out of hours centre and then provide the service, eg the local library service for example.

The chambers did have an ambitious plan to fibre the big towns, they have sadly lost their ambition and vision and are not driving this project at all .

Tell Coughlan to get back on song there for starters.

BarryM

Sponge Bob wrote: »

This is about using a school as an IT Community Centre. Its very badly thought out given the fact that a 3rd party ( and there are feck all chambers in rural Ireland) would have to insure the school as an out of hours centre and then provide the service, eg the local library service for example.

Yea, sort of.

I hadn't expected quite such a diatribe Damien, you know what I feel about ComReg/Dept, etc.

I was only pointing out that Coughlan MAY have had a community agenda.... unlikely I know, but I, maybe naively, though it might be turned around.....

I stand corrected.

Bye, Barry

Sponge Bob

BarryM wrote: »

I was only pointing out that Coughlan MAY have had a community agenda.... unlikely I know, but I, maybe naively, though it might be turned around.....

You are right.

Coughlan said that he wanted schools used out of hours to educate adults in ICT. Thats all he said. Read the article again and thats STILL all he said .

Damien interpreted this statement as ( his points 1-4 I paraphrase approximately )

"Chris Coughlan Joins Giant Ryan DCENR Conspiracy to Cook BB Penetration figures by using zombie School Trojan Satellite Platform Scam Horror "

All of Damiens point 5 is correct and they are the real issues involved here.
He may or may not have taken the tinfoil hat off by then but I cannot tell from here
.

barrym wrote:

I stand corrected.

Why ???

SkepticOne

One thing to remember is that the schools broadband project was never really about general broadband availability. The idea was that if pupils were exposed to broadband at school they would pester their parents for it at home thereby bringing Ireland up a few rungs on the broadband take-up tables. At the time of the schemes conception, due to Eircom's lobbying, lack of demand, was seen as the big problem. Increase demand and Eircom and other operators, the reasoning went, would then start providing broadband to more areas.