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what factors make a real world community a wired community?

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  • 11-12-2001 8:23am
    #1
    topgold
    Registered Users Posts: 179 ✭✭


    I am working with community and enterprise boards in Tipperary, trying to enhance internet access throughout North and South Riding. I want to document some baseline facts about how (un)wired the county is. I need some ideas.

    I'm looking at researching a simple matrix that includes the populations of several towns, the number of business and home phone lines in those dialing codes, the number of ISDN lines in homes and businesses.

    I'm also tracking the number of leased lines in selected towns.

    After that, I'm going to document the actual connection speeds possible in a cross-section of homes and businesses.

    Then I'm going to document the number of public access points to the internet.

    Would anyone here have other ideas on factors that I should measure that would give me a substantive documentation of a community's wired access?

    Ideas welcomed.

    Bernie Goldbach shoptalk AT togold.com


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    #2
    MarcusGarvey
    Closed Accounts Posts: 825 ✭✭✭MarcusGarvey


    Rate of new isdn lines being installed might be a good measurement of growth and interest in the net.


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    #3
    topgold
    Registered Users Posts: 179 ✭✭topgold


    I don't know if I'll be able to sustain a project where I track a rate of uptake on ISDN, hispeed or DSL. I'm going to tabulate the percentage of homes that have hispeed and the percentage of businesses connected to ISDN or leased lines.

    Other ideas appreciated.

    Bernie Goldbach


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    #4
    Son of Blam
    Closed Accounts Posts: 428 ✭✭Son of Blam


    Along with compiling a figure of how many residents and businesses have anlaogue/ISDN access, you should conduct interviews with these people asking them how much they use their internet access and ask them whether it is actually useful at all.

    This seems to be something that's always left out of these kind of surveys. Be it conducted by an ISP, newspaper or angry pressure group. *grin*

    -Son of Blam


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    #5
    topgold
    Registered Users Posts: 179 ✭✭topgold


    I think I'll borrow suggestions from surveys of online use that have been used before and post them here.


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    #6
    dahamsta
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 16,659 ✭✭✭✭dahamsta


    The price question has been left out of every survey I've seen in the past several years. That is, whether price has a part to play in decisions /not/ to get on the Internet; whether lower or higher prices will factor in future decisions (remember, certain organisations want caps removed); what price is deemed fair for internet access (tabulated to levels of service); etc.

    I also believe it's important to tabulate the *actual* broadband rollout level in Ireland. Recent surveys, most notably the SFA one, have respondents classing ISDN as broadband. IrelandOffline's definition of broadband is that broadband is a flat-rate (no per-second or per-packet charges, apart possibly from overages) high-speed (128K+/down, 64k+/up) internet access that is always-on (when the computer is turned on, the Internet is available).

    Although this doesn't tie in with the dictionary definition of broadband, it's what is understood of the term by the majority of people these days. Except, that is, in Ireland.

    adam


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