Prepare yourselves.

clohamon

Oxford Business School has published a report based on 24 million speedtests and Ireland comes 16th in the world in their "Broadband Quality Score" and 6th as an "Innovation economy"

I doubt the Minister will let this one pass without comment.

http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/news/media/Press+Releases/Cisco+BQS+2009.htm

bealtine

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8282839.stm
A study of the global state of broadband has put the UK 25th out of 66 countries in terms of the quality and reach of its networks.

The research for Cisco found that countries such as Latvia and Bulgaria were better prepared than the UK for next-generation net applications.

The UK was listed among countries whose broadband is "meeting needs for today".

South Korea and Japan continue to dominate the league table, largely due to their commitment to fast networks.

In South Korea, for example, the government has promised universal speeds of up to 1Gbps (gigabit per second) by 2012.

Despite not being ready for future applications, the UK was well placed to cope with today's network demands, the study found.


LEADERS IN BROADBAND QUALITY
South Korea
Japan
Hong Kong
Sweden
Switzerland
Netherlands
Singapore
Luxembourg
Denmark
Norway

"It can be a bit misleading to look at the rankings. The important thing is whether the broadband quality of a country is good enough for today's needs and the UK falls well within this category," said Joanne Hughes, Cisco's communication manager.

She expects the UK to improve dramatically next year.

"We forecast the UK will improve because of things such as cable networks being upgraded and the Digital Britain report focusing on next generation access," she said.

The study was conducted jointly by Oxford University's Said Business School and Spain's University of Oviedo's Department of Applied Economics.

It found that the average download speed globally was 4.75Mbps (megabits per second), while average upload speed was 1.3Mbps.

Future demands

Researchers worked out how fit countries were to cope with the demands of today's users based on a set of applications consumers are likely to use.

These included sharing photos, using video on Skype, watching YouTube and standard definition BBC iPlayer content.

It found that two-thirds of the 66 countries met the criteria for today's requirements.

But only nine countries, including Japan, Sweden and Latvia, were ready for future demands, such as watching high-definition video.

This is a big improvement on last year's study, which found only Japan was ready for the future.

Researchers estimated that countries would need an average download speed of 11.25Mbps and an upload speed of 5Mbps in order to be comfortably placed for future applications.

'Real speeds'

The research was based on 24 million speed tests done in 66 countries via speedtest.net.

The test focused on download speeds, upload speeds and latency - the delay that happens as information is routed around the net.

Researchers combined these results with the broadband penetration in individual countries to create its quality index.

"Most studies are based just on broadband penetration or, if they look at speed they look at advertised speeds rather than real speeds," said Ms Hughes.

"We wanted to look at the issue of broadband quality which is vital as new applications come along," she added.

"We also looked at broadband penetration because there is no point having good quality networks if they are not widely available," she said.

Sponge Bob

The top Irish city in that report is Dublin . It is at 87th in the World (page 19) . No other Irish city is counted , too small in the main .

That puts Dublin behind Ankara and Salvador and with the likes of Ljublana Bratislava Budapest Bilbao and Tallinn comfortably ensconced in the top 100 ( page 19) that is who we need to catch up on .

Of course the Dublin figures are skewed massively by Data Centres pimping their wares through speedtest.net by pretending to be ISPs . Reality is a lot more dismal .

No consumer or small business ISP appears in the top 10 on Speedtest except for Magnet in 9th Place ( when excluding colleges)

http://www.speedtest.net/global.php ( europe > dublin) tick and untick hide schools to see how that distorts matters.

If you take a city with no hosting facilities ....Limerick ....you will see UPC in top spot at 12mbits and Magnet and Smart on 6mbits. eircom are not even in the top 10 in Limerick which ends at 2.66mbits and yet eircom are the biggest ISP in Limerick .

The top ISP in Cork is "Local Ethernet" FFS , ( that would be Adam proxying 127.0.0.1 ) but excluding that ridiculous result it is about the same as Limerick .

UPC top on 10mbits , Magnet 7 and Smart and Digiweb 5. eircom not in top 10 again .

If you go to Blarney the top ISP is eircom @ 1.27mbits

UPC is worse in Galway , just under 10mbits there . Smart 8 and Magnet 5 .

In each case they are the top 3 ISPs in those cities and Digiweb is consistently fourth with metro mixed in .

bk

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The top ISP in Cork is "Local Ethernet" FFS , ( that would be Adam proxying 127.0.0.1 )

LOL

Sponge Bob

Watch the 6 o clock news as well .

http://irelandoffline.org/2009/10/international-broadband-quality-survey-blasts-dublin/

International Broadband Quality Survey blasts Dublin.
IrelandOffline today received their copy of the “Oxford University Said Business School Global Broadband Quality Study” which is issued annually.
Commenting on the results of the study Eamonn Wallace of IrelandOffline said:

“We are not quite sure whether this is Salvador in Brazil or Salvador in El Salvador but this city is now ranked as the 86th City in the world
for the quality of its Broadband Infrastructure and is one place ahead of Dublin in 87th place for the Quality of its Broadband”

bealtine

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Watch the 6 o clock news as well .

http://irelandoffline.org/2009/10/international-broadband-quality-survey-blasts-dublin/

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/14005/comms/ireland-trails-in-global-cisco-broadband-study

http://www.businessworld.ie/livenews.htm?a=2487202

Late night news on RTE2, I was told, not the 6 o'clock:(

bk

Excellent pres release guys and very depressing.

croo

Researchers worked out how fit countries were to cope with the demands of today's users... using video on Skype,

I wonder how they can determine fitness for something like skype based on download speeds? I've been using various 3g services for a few years and while download speeds can be acceptable, the inconsistency means using something like skype is not something that can be relied upon. So in this country in particular, where 3g has proved the only option for so many, I would be very skeptical of any pronouncement based purely on download speedtests.

rob808

bealtine wrote: »

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/14005/comms/ireland-trails-in-global-cisco-broadband-study

http://www.businessworld.ie/livenews.htm?a=2487202

Late night news on RTE2, I was told, not the 6 o'clock:(

how many years do u think we have crap broadband 10 years 20years?.I wonder will we be still on 3mb
& 7mb broadband till 2020 O the future. I hate having rubbish broadband
:mad:

clohamon

.......meanwhile, in a parallel universe.......

"I welcome the “Broadband Quality Score” report published jointly by the Universities of Oxford (England) and Oviedo (Spain) on October 1st last. The report is the second annual global study on the quality of broadband connections which provides useful comparisons of quality and penetration indicators between the countries studied in each year and a measurement of progress achieved in the period between the two reports.
The 2009 report highlights significant progress in Ireland’s broadband performance across a range of headings. In particular it reflects the significant improvements in the roll out, penetration and quality of Ireland’s broadband over the past year. The report highlights the improved broadband quality of service in Ireland moving the State into the group of countries that are recognised as “Meeting the needs of today’s applications”. In the previous report, published in 2008, Ireland was in the lower ranked group of countries that were classified as “Below today’s applications threshold”.
Ireland’s overall ranking of 16th out of the 66 countries in the Broadband Leadership table, measuring broadband quality and penetration by households, is commendable and shows due recognition for our increased penetration and quality over recent years. Ireland is also credited for its performance in terms of “Broadband Leadership Movers 2008–2009 Innovation Economies”. Only 11 of the 66 countries are credited as leaders in this “innovation economies” class. Dublin is ranked at 87, from a Broadband Quality Score perspective, of more than 240 cities surveyed bringing it within the top 100 cities in the 66 countries surveyed and is classified as meeting the needs of today’s applications. It is my understanding that major enterprises already located in, or who wish to locate in Ireland can contract with service providers who can provide world class broadband speeds if required. Our significant improvement in broadband availability over recent years is recognised in the table “penetration 2009” where we occupy 12th place in the table of 66 countries and were the 5th best country in terms of improvements in penetration between 2008 and 2009.
I fully recognise the need to further improve access and the speed of broadband available in Ireland. I am determine to ensure that targeted Government action, the proper regulatory regime and a spirit of competitive collaboration within industry will address the issues. The high level recommendations for policy makers contained in the plan referred to in the Deputy’s question are already embedded in my recently published policy paper “Next Generation Broadband – Gateway to a Knowledge Ireland”. It is also important to note that the report underpins recent OECD, ECTA and ComReg reports, which confirm improvements in Ireland’s roll out and speed of broadband.

Eamon Ryan (Minister, Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources; Dublin South, Green Party)

http://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2009-10-13.241.0&s=%22Telecommunications+Services.%22

clohamon

Great campaign by the way. Shows the importance of getting out of the blocks early. Even those silences on Morning Ireland were strangely effective.

bealtine

http://www.fiberevolution.com/2009/11/broadband-in-bulgaria.html