[SBP Article] The Great Broadband Ripoff

damien

http://www.thepost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=TECHNOLOGY-qqqm=nav-qqqid=3412-qqqx=1.asp

The great broadband rip-off
By Adrian Weckler

Last week, a report on broadband costs said that Ireland is rubbish. It said that broadband here is a rip-off compared to other OECD countries and pathetically underspecced. It said that Ireland is the fourth most expensive out of 30 countries. The report was prepared by Ireland Offline, a lobby group for cheaper broadband. Although Ireland Offline's conclusion is largely correct, its analysis is not quite as clear.

For example, at €40, broadband is more expensive in Ireland than Hungary [€28] . But that's hardly comparing like with like: the average industrial wage in Hungary is €14,000, less than half that of Ireland. Similarly, Poland, Turkey, Slovakia and the Czech Republic all have cheaper broadband packages than Ireland by €5 to €10. But they still drive Fiats and listen to Tatu.

Of course, one could employ the same reverse analysis to make Ireland look even dearer when compared to Holland (€20), Sweden (€21) and Germany (€26), all with higher average wages than Ireland.

“That report wasn't necessarily comparing apples with apples,” said John Doherty, a commissioner in Comreg. “For example, it's difficult to compare the specifications when infrastructure is different. Similarly, Ireland has a far higher population based in a rural environment than countries such as Korea or Japan.”

But that is skirting the issue. The problem, folks, is this: broadband will just never be as cheap in Ireland as it is in other countries. Blame it on overstaffing in Eircom. Blame legacy networks. Blame the capitalist shareholders-first system in which the largest telco operates. Blame it on whatever you like: broadband in Ireland is never going be among the cheapest in Europe. But everyone wants to blame somebody for Ireland's broadband situation.

Who does Ireland Offline blame?

“Eircom,” said John Timmons, a spokesman for the body. “There is a complete lack of competition at the moment. Every telco in Ireland has to go through Eircom to offer broadband over copper. “And it charges the most expensive line rental in Europe.”

Who does Alto blame?

Eircom. “It's one company's efforts to block greater choice and value for consumers,” according to the most recent statement from the organisation.

Who does ComReg blame?
Lack of demand. “We have 140,000 broadband connections in Ireland, which is only 10 per cent of the market,” said Doherty. “We need to stimulate demand for broadband more. Prices will come down. It's come down from €129 to €40 in a relatively short space of time already.”

Who does the Labour Party blame?

The government (as long as they're not it).

Who does Fintan O'Toole blame?

1. Eircom.
2. The government for privatising Eircom.
3. The capitalist shareholding system that now drives Eircom.

Who does Eircom blame?

No-one. There is no problem. Broadband is a great success story in Ireland.

“Eircom is making good money,” said Timmons. “They're paying themselves €500 or €600million a year in dividends. There's money being made. “Every day they can delay further roll-out is a day that suits them better. We're dealing with a monopoly here.”

Christ, is Doherty living on "Planet Real Fuking World" at all ?

nahdoic

Who do i blame?

Comreg pure and simple

Blaster99

Eircom is partly to blame, but ComReg and the Government are the real culprits for not regulating the market properly.

By the way, let's have a little look at the current competitors (and I don't mean the resellers). Apart from Smart, have they done anything to drive down prices? Now that Eircom is changing the specs of the products they're all scrambling like mad to come up with competing packages. To me it looks like Eircom is in fact driving competition, not the other way around. Which is a fairly sad state of affairs.

Praetorian

1. ComReg for not regulating
2. Eircom for ripping everyone off. Delay tactics etc
3. The government. The stupidity of selling Eircom and letting them have things like the local loop for free For letting a pathetic regulator get away with doing little or nothing.
4. EsatBT. For not offering real competition. For not kicking up a major storm in the press / with government about LLU years ago!

eircomtribunal

damien.m wrote:

Who does ComReg blame?
Lack of demand. “We have 140,000 broadband connections in Ireland, which is only 10 per cent of the market,” said Doherty.

Strange enough I would agree with John Doherty in his analysis: Lack of demand is the cause.
If we had more public demand to get us a proper regulator, Ireland would have a broadband take-up as good as the other small Northerly European countries have got.


It is unbearable to have one of the heads of ComReg still asking for demand stimulation.

As to "10% of the market": What bollocks. When will ComReg learn to use comparable figures that make sense? Doherty operates on the same level of misinformation as our friend McRedmond. With 140 000 broadband connections we stand at a dismal "3.5 broadband connections per 100 inhabitants". 140 000 is also not 10% of households (EU-15 average is currently at over 20% household penetration), because nearly half of our broadband connections are business connections.

Interesting the 140 000 figure. End of December we had 131 550 connections (according to ComReg's Quarterly Report). With 140 000 now we would have had only a growth of some 700 connections per week! I think SMART's Oisin Fanning mentioned Eircom admitting to only reaching some 600 per week.
At this rate of growth we'll "improve" by less than 40 000 per year!

P.

SkepticOne

An interesting article.

He states that broadband will never be cheaper than other countries. He gives a number things it might be blamed on but he dismisses those and simply reiterates that it will never be cheaper in Ireland than in other countries and that's it basically. Why?

He says that IrelandOffline blames it on Eircom, ALTO blames it on Eircom, ComReg blames it on lack of demand, Labour blames it on the Government, Fintan O'Toole blames it on...etc. Eircom doesn't blame anyone...great success etc.

Who (or what) does Weckler blame? Perhaps he feels that we simply have to accept the current price and start looking at other issues.

Perhaps it is the idea of blame itself that he is making a point about. If so, what point would that be?

Tom Dunne

I have never found Adrian Weckler to be a coherent journalist. I really don't think he fully understand the topics he writes about.

He seems to pick up on the buzz words and the general idea of something and then attempt to write articles with little substance, devoid of basic understanding.

Back on topic.

Who do I blame? Government incompetence and a spineless regulator.

Urban Weigl

tom dunne wrote:

Who do I blame? Government incompetence and a spineless regulator.

Indeed. The government handed our most important communications infrastructure to a bunch of venture capitalists and bankers, and proceeded to drag their feet on regulation. One has to ask: what did they expect would happen??

Who do Comreg blame? Japan and Korea... :rolleyes:

bealtine

Urban Weigl wrote:

Who do Comreg blame? Japan and Korea... :rolleyes:

Not really, Comreg blame "the plain people" of Ireland for not "wanting" broadband aka demand stimulation. These are the people who for so long
could not get any form of broadband. These are the people that Comreg were supposed to be regulating for:
they (Comreg) have left us with pretty much the highest line rental charges in Europe,
no minimum quality for the lines that are installed and a complete lack of interest in fixing up these line problems.

And now they want to blame us...