Faster faster [article]

mike65

When Thomas Edison perfected the light bulb, he imagined a time when the average middle class household might find a use for two or three of them, and he was considered a visionary. In 2005 purveyors — and regulators — of broadband services foresee an Ireland that is as dependent on an ultra-high-speed wireless internet as it already is on electricity. And they cannot be accused of falling prey to sci-fi fantasy: this dependency, with users rightly seeing it more as a great enabler, already exists. In South Korea and Japan, entire cities have already been hooked up to broadband service providers that pour data, sound and top-quality television pictures into myriad devices at up to 50 times the speed of the average Irish broadband connection. While we wrestle with outdated services and infrastructure, the technological revolution promised in the dot-com boom has finally arrived in the Far East, and its social and economic implications are clear. These will be more active, more creative and better-informed societies. Their businesses will have an unfair advantage and their people will gain a better understanding of the world around them.

The very word “broadband” is misleading. It is used to describe everything from a single internet connection via a telephone line, suitable for sending e-mails and browsing the web, to a fibre-optic link that could be used to replace entire CD and video libraries and power a dynamic, dispersed business into the bargain.

Ireland languishes at the primitive end of this scale. Most subscribers buy their broadband service either direct from Eircom or from a retailer leasing its lines. Because Eircoms network is extensive, “penetration” is good, giving more households the option of broadband access than in the US, whether they use it or not. But by international standards, prices are high, customer service is poor and the speed of most connections — one megabit per second — miserably slow. In France, the second-largest service provider offers speeds of 15 to 20 megabits per second. Japan boasts networks five times as fast again.

Speed matters. It determines broadband’s purpose. Film students could use it to search through hundreds of hours of archive documentary footage. Businesses could shrink their travel budgets by using internet videoconferencing instead. Parents could use it for instant messaging between broadband-enabled mobile phones and splash-proof screens mounted on fridge doors. But will they? Not while broadband serves, for many, as a byword for unfulfilled hype and unhelpful call centres.

Most of Broadband Irelands woes can be traced back to Eircoms long struggle to prevent its rivals gaining access to its exchanges in order to rip out and replace obsolete hardware, a process known as Local Loop Unbundling (LLU). It is costly but essential for future competitiveness. So far just 0.3 per cent of Eircoms lines have been unbundled. That figure should start rising quickly after the recent deal struck between Comreg and Eircom to speed up unbundling. But much still depends on investors and consumers embracing broadband’s full potential. Where they have already done so, the results are unmistakeable. Britain cannot afford to be a broadband laggard.

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Mike.

Sarsfield

Last sentence needs changing

mike65

Gah! My proof reading is carp!

Mike.

dahamsta

No it's nit.