PA has picked the story up

hmmm

Good work by the PR people this sort of thing tends to shoot around the world

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2001/1111/breaking30.htm

Irish group calls for Internet boycott over cost

Internet users across the Republic of Ireland should boycott the World Wide Web in a protest at the lack of cheap services, a pressure group said today.

IrelandOffline has called on businesses, organisations and private users to join in a day of action to show their support for low-rate online connection charges.

The group, which represents more than 1,000 Internet users in Ireland, has appealed to users to lobby members of the Irish Parliament for cheaper Internet services.

And they have called on companies to change their websites to show a specially-designed protest page to anyone who logs on to the site.

Pressure will be stepped up on the Government and telecommunications companies, leading to the IrelandOffline Blackout on November 16, where people are being urged to boycott the Internet to show the level of support.

A group spokesman said the lack of low-price connection to the Internet in the Republic was making businesses less competitive within global markets.

"These services are widely available throughout Europe and the world and the IrelandOffline group contends that the lack of availability in Ireland has already pushed the country into a position where it is unable to compete on the global stage," the spokesman said.

"It believes that Ireland can be kick-started back into competitiveness but to do that these products and services have to be rolled out immediately."

He added: "The IrelandOffline Blackout is the vehicle the group has chosen to highlight this serious situation to the key parties involved."

Student groups, societies and consumer groups are also being called on to join the campaign. IrelandOffline has already held meetings with the Minister for Public Enterprise Mary O'Rourke, eircom and other Government groups and telecoms companies.

But so far there has been no action to provide cheap-rate online services, the group complains.

The spokesman said the blackout was not an attempt to hamper businesses.

"The primary aim of the blackout is to draw attention to the problems in the telecommunications industry in Ireland and to educate consumers and business people about these problems and how they can be fixed," he said.

"We are categorically not attempting to disrupt business in Ireland. In the long term, in fact, we are trying to improve it," he added.

PA

zenith

http://breaking.tcm.ie/story.asp?j=28213100&p=z8zy4x5x&n=28214087&x=

Also from PA.

ando

hiyas,

98Fm (Dublin) had the story of the blackout juring the 4 o'clock news !!! hmmm, they mentioned this blackout, but never mentioned the seminar, which I think was a tad bit more important ?? anyway,its great we're getting this much media attention, which I have to say, is a lot more than I taught we would get

Boston

i have to say this was a good idea, maybe it will be in tomrrows print version as well

dahamsta

Heh, I'm getting good mileage out of that last sentence, ain't I?

I'm presuming that PA is the Press Association wire, yeah? If we could get on AP and Reuters now, we'd be flying it.

Also of note, the Blackout is on TV3's Teletext service at the moment, "in association with The Examiner".

adam

Fergus

Is there any chance of Fusio (entertainment.ie, maybefriends, etc) maybe even putting a banner up or a link on the day, if not a blackout. I'd think they have a fair large internal audience. Just a thought.

dahamsta

Hi Fergus,

Drop 'em a line? I'll do it meself if I get a chance, but I have some writing to do tonight, plus a radio interview in the morning, plus...

Also, could you send me an email Fergus? I have your address here somewhere, but I'll forget to look it up. Again...

adam