Who's stopping broadband?

Thorbar

I'm just curious what groups or companies are blocking or slowing down the development of cheap unmeteried broadband in ireland and for what reason? I'm sorry if this has been meationed before or if its on irelandoffline.com but I can't seem to find anything about it.

chernobyl

greed.
and thats all.

Thorbar

Anything a bit more specific? I was having a conversation with someone about this over the weekend, and they seemed to feel that "big busness" was holding broadband back not only in Ireland but in other countries too. America is having a lot of trouble with its broadband companies and the telcos fighting.

Fergus

You might like this article:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/may1999/tele-m03.shtml

Thorbar

Thanks fergus interesting article.

On the same day as the abolition of its state monopoly, TE announced it would be investing £100 million to develop its broadband infrastructure. (Broadband communications allow the high-speed transmission of voice, video or data information along a cable carrying several channels at once.) This would form part of a £350 million capital investment in infrastructure for 1999 and will lead to an 80 percent increase in high-speed fibre-optic availability on the network from 55,000 kilometres to 95,000 over the next year. As part of this investment TE would begin trading in Northern Ireland.

Does anyone know if this actually occured?

Manic

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=33948&highlight=IStream

Sorry about the huge link if anyone can shorten it then please do

Thorbar

Err I remember reading that a while ago, only really covers the court case. I know eircom are the main offenders when it comes to slow roll out of broadband but I was wondering if anyone else was guilty of trying to delay broadband for their own advantage. The entertainment industry for example to stop people downloading large movie files or 100s of mp3s.

Xian

You might read http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11361-2002Jan7.html and the discussion on it today at http://slashdot.org today for the bigger picture. There's a more general complacency in the rollout of broadband that Ûircom is more than willing to follow the example of.
"...But piracy is not the most important reason copyright holders have been slow to embrace the net. A bigger reason is the threat the Internet presents to their relatively comfortable ways of doing business. "Major copyright holders" have enjoyed the benefits of a relatively concentrated industry. The Internet threatens this comfortable existence. The low cost of digital production and distribution could mean much greater competition in the production of content."
(I didn't think much of the analogy "when the player piano made it possible for "recordings" of music to be made without payment to sheet music publishers, Congress changed the law to require that subsequent recordings compensate the original artist" - not much copyright law in the 18th century, was there)

Thorbar

Thanks xian nice bit of information in that article.

dahamsta

I've been avoiding posting in this thread for a few days, because it's a particularly difficult question to answer, and I wanted to have a wee think about it. I'm speaking personally in the following, and not as the IO PRO. Let's say I'm voicing my opinion as a member.

I have to say that although it's possible that the entertainment industry - and possibly other industries - may have had some part in stalling the broadband process, by lobbying politicians for example, I doubt very much that they would have had any appreciable affect on it. The delay in the rollout of broadband products in Ireland was primarily caused by foot-dragging on Eircom's part (the OLO's have a lot to answer for here too); and a lack of interest, and in particular a tangible lack of understanding on the Governments part.

Eircom have proved time and time again that they would only rollout (or allow to be rolled out) broadband products on their terms. This was initially made obvious when Eircom were prevented from providing video over their proposed xDSL links a couple of years ago. When the Regulator ruled that Eircom would not be allowed do this, because of protests by cable companies over licensing, they simply pulled out of xDSL provision altogether. Strike one for Eircom's "My Way Or The Highway" pitching strategy.

As it happens, this has been a mixed blessing for all concerned, at least in the medium term. Considering Eircom's track record, as well as resultant farcical situations in other countries (@Home being a perfect example), I think it highly likely that the service would have failed terribly, and that Eircom would have lost millions in the process. And although it's very likely that Ireland would have had rapid broadband rollouts and heavy take-up, I think it also likely that we would now be in the same position U.S. service providers are faced with - huge losses and genuine consumer fear.

This strategy has been demonstrated once again in 2001, albeit more subtly. Both the Local Loop Unbundling and bitstream processes have suffered from delays and more delays caused quite simply by Eircom's greed for high-profit pricing. Eircom have stalled when submitting documents, commentary, and responses to ODTR Decisions time and time again throughout the year, all the time hypocritically accusing the ODTR of the same misdeed[1]. Eircom's motive for this? High-profit pricing of xDSL and loop provision. Scandalously high. Impossibly high, at least impossible for the ODTR and OLO's to accept.

Of course, as I've mentioned, Eircom aren't the only guilty parties on the operator front, but they do hold a large portion of the responsibility. That they are a commercial organisation has very little bearing on the situation in my opinion - they control the national communications infrastructure of Ireland, built by the Irish Government on behalf of their citizens, and paid for with Irish taxes. That, and their literal monopoly on loop provision, gives them a large amount of responsibility, and they quite simply haven't acted responsibly.

But, again, the OLO's should have a burden of blame to shoulder too. Although there can be no doubt that the OLO's have battled on behalf of the consumer and the small business - ultimately to their own ends of course, but that's neither here nor there - it's absolutely my opinion that they simply didn't do enough. The larger OLO's in particular have large coffers of cash that could and should have been used to highlight the situation to the public, and more powerfully to government. This could quite easily have been done without breaching non-disclosure agreements. I have yet to see anyone defend this.

As to the Government, we can see even today that the Irish Government, and representative organisation in general, still have a serious problem understanding even the basic definition of broadband as we have come to understand it. To a degree that's understandable, because if you look up the word in the dictionary, it's not particularly clear what we mean by the term, i.e. flat-rate high-speed Internet services. Understandable perhaps, but not forgivable, since this has gone on for so long. Yet it continues. When broadband is mentioned in debate, the discussion almost immediately turns to "broadband in the regions", and tracks inevitably onto fibre and leased line provision.

I'm heading back into PRO mode now, so bear with me while I slip into my suit and tie, and switch on my "careful now" warning mechanism. *koff* "Down with this sort of thing!" nono *mutter* "Careful now!" That's got it, here we go...

To people like me, that is utterly maddening, especially when IrelandOffline gets a mention in these debates[2]. People like you and me can see the possibilities, the end-result of rapid rollouts of affordable Internet access services, including broadband. When it continues like this, it can feel almost like a personal affront. There can no longer be an excuse though. We know that certain politicians understand now, because we taught them. If they don't stand up in debate and explain it to others now, if they don't direct the debate to the real issues, we will be waiting outside to ask why[3].

But it's important to point out that the situation has changed, and that debate has to change accordingly. Broadband, or at least xDSL, is very much on the table now, and it's only a matter of time before broadband becomes widely available. Local Loop Unbundling is progressing very rapidly and powerfully in the background. You're not hearing about it in the press because it's not "interesting news", but it is happening. Esat are motoring ahead in fifth gear with their LLU program, with rollouts coming in just a few months now. Other operators are starting to sit up and take notice, and even request surveys.

That means it's only a matter of time before alternatives become available. The obvious competition is Eircom, with their bitstream program, and you can bet that if another operator requests co-location space in Dublin exchanges, Eircom will be very quick to settle the bitstream pricing disagreement with the ODTR so they can start banging their own service out commercially. Of course that will put Eircom on the back foot, and the ODTR very much in control, so we should be keeping our fingers crossed for this, because it will mean viable wholesale bitstream pricing, and /more/ competition on the xDSL front.

But xDSL isn't the only answer, and all of this is going to drive even more competition. NTL and Chorus simply won't be able to afford /not/ to attempt to compete with the xDSL providers, and that means ramped-up cable Internet rollout programs. Wireless operators will start appearing to try and pick off the areas not yet upgraded for xDSL and cable. Satellite operators will be forced to drop their process drastically to compete. So whether Eircom like it or not, broadband is coming, and it's coming pretty damn quick, at least relatively speaking.

Of course all of the above is simply projection. None of it is guaranteed by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it's quite likely. My point is made though - broadband is on the table and it's getting there, slowly but surely. IrelandOffline may or may not have had something to do with that - I like to think we did - but it is on the right path. That means that although we still have to, and will, keep a watchful eye on xDSL, in particular on pricing and rollout issues, it's time to start concentrating on more pressing issues.

And the biggest pressing issue at this moment in time is FRIACO, precisely because it isn't on the table. It's not on the table, it's not in the cupboard waiting to be moved closer to the table, it simply doesn't exist in Ireland at the moment. That's just not acceptable, and as a pressure group with flat-rate services as our primary aim, we have to realign and regroup to tackle that. That's why, in the coming weeks and months, you're going to hear more and more about this from us. Broadband is coming, so it's time to realign and regroup. We have to force FRIACO onto the market.

And you know we will.

adam


[1] I suppose it is obvious that I would be more inclined to believe the ODTR on this topic, but to be fair, the ODTR have been far more communicative with me than Eircom. Who would you believe?

[2] If you search the Oireachtas website, you'll find that at least one instance of IrelandOffline being mentioned, and the debate taking this exact route almost immediately.

[3] We know where you live.