Sale of local exchanges to public-private partnership may lead to cheaper broadband

Nuno

Hi Folks

Karlin from the IT seems to be working overtime this week with yet another article on the Broadband issue.

Here's the link

I don't think €ircom would ever sell it's exchanges to public/private partnerships, mainly due to the fact that it would create increased competition for them.

Nuno

jmcc

Originally posted by Nuno
Hi Folks

Karlin from the IT seems to be working overtime this week with yet another article on the Broadband issue.

I don't think €ircom would ever sell it's exchanges to public/private partnerships, mainly due to the fact that it would create increased competition for them.

I don't rate Karlin's work on anything to do with technology to be in any way clueful. She is at her best when writing about social/people issues of technology. Most of the real stuff in the Irish Times on technology aspects now seems to be the work of Jamie Smyth.

Broadband is now a good topic for the newspapers with the announcement of various grants. Eircom is effectively a private organisation and the theory with a lot of these broadband ring venture areas is a number of Baby Bells though seemingly without the telco voice traffic issues. The new move is not designed to bring connectivity to Dublin and its hinterlands.

Partial sale and or partial routing through Eircom exchanges is an option but most of the people connected with these operations would be loathe to deal with an organisation so incompetent as Eircom. Perhaps now that the useless bunch of tossers that were managing it have been eliminated, it may turn into a good company though the market will probably have hammered it into the ground by then.

Regards...jmcc

dahamsta

As I've said before John, I disagree with you, but I don't have time to go into why right now, beyond saying that I think Karlin is just a different type of Technology writer. Perhaps I'll ride manfully to Karlin's defense later when I have more time.

Anyway, Eircom are having a wonderful branding day. Or not:

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/finance/2002/0308/3003305178BWTELECOMS.html

adam

jmcc

Originally posted by dahamsta
As I've said before John, I disagree with you, but I don't have time to go into why right now, beyond saying that I think Karlin is just a different type of Technology writer.

She's a technology journalist Adam. A technology writer is someone who has written books about technology.

I really like Eircom's defence of their incompetence in that article. Just because they are bigger they seem to think that they are entitled to provide a shoddier service.

Regards...jmcc

SkepticOne

Originally posted by jmcc
Partial sale and or partial routing through Eircom exchanges is an option but most of the people connected with these operations would be loathe to deal with an organisation so incompetent as Eircom. Perhaps now that the useless bunch of tossers that were managing it have been eliminated, it may turn into a good company though the market will probably have hammered it into the ground by then.

Are you talking about home broadband here or corporate conectivity? Eircom may lose out at the higher end of corporate leased lines as other operators and the governemnt put alternative fibre networks in place but the home user and small business will continue to connect via eircom exchanges using whatever technology eircom deem is appropriate. Basically no one wants to deal with Eircom but they are forced to.

If the market is going to hammer Eircom into the ground, then as far as the home user is concerned, it will have to build alternative infrastructure. This is not happening.

Gunn4r

She's a technology journalist Adam. A technology writer is someone who has written books about technology

*groan*

jmcc

Originally posted by SkepticOne

If the market is going to hammer Eircom into the ground, then as far as the home user is concerned, it will have to build alternative infrastructure. This is not happening.

Some of these small city/town fibre operations are concerned with getting home connectivity. They will also be pitching for leased line connectivity from what I have heard. Basically they will use Eircom connectivity if they have to but they want to promote the use of broadband. The most obvious way of doing that at the moment will be to push the take-up of WiFi. This is the alternative (future) infrastructure. The move may also act as a trigger for Eircom to try and implement its own wireless based broadband.

So far Eircom has stopped broadband growth in this country. The move to fund an alternative infrastructure seems to be long over due. It will effectively promote alternative access avenues. In doing so, Eircom's stranglehold will be loosened.

Regards...jmcc

Typedef

My problem with all the talk of creating an 'internet hub' in Ireland or making some kind of state available boradband is that 1. The state paid to make eircom into the bohemoth it is now and it seems like a foolish waste of money to simply allow the state's assests which the taxpayer provided to simply be stripped from it by some rabid ultra-radical PD's notions about the virtues of en-masse privitisation. 2. That said why should the tax payer have to pay to rectify the mistake the government made in selling eircom to make yet more fast pstn networks? It's the state's assests that have been sold off and rather than making the taxpayer pay yet again for another pstn something similar to what the British did with Railtrack should happen (ie) an unofficial renationalisation 3. The government is prone to waffeling on about making Ireland into some pie in the sky techie broadband haven but the government is totally inept, unable or uninterested in actually providing it. For years now the governmnet have been announcing schemes that are being discussed to do x or y and not only do the schemes never happen, but after whichever election it is the government are trying to win you never hear this waffle again until the next election.

Really I wonder what criteria of ilogic would make people think that buying back the local loop and have it run by effectively another Telecom Eireann is an acceptable outcome as this would imply.
Taxpayer pays to enunciate and support Telecom Eireann, the state sells Telecom Eireann and then buys back 'some' of the states former assests to provide a service that it sold off anyway. For some people this would mean that your tax punts would have gone to pay to make Telecom Eireann, then you might have invested in Eircom and lost money (on government advice) and then the government would buy back (with your tax Euro) parts of the state assests you paid for to begin with.
Hello, do you know when you are getting fleeced?

dahamsta

She's a technology journalist Adam. A technology writer is someone who has written books about technology.

As Niall would say: Neah. Pffff. (Etc.)

I really like Eircom's defence of their incompetence in that article. Just because they are bigger they seem to think that they are entitled to provide a shoddier service.

Actually, I think they we're even more disingenuous than you give them credit for John, and I reckon most IT readers will pick up on it. Me, I thought it was hilarious. Let's examine their response:

An Eircom spokeswoman said the comparisons were not proportionate as Eircom had a much greater market share than Esat.

And there was me going along in life thinking that percentages were a way of representing proportions!

She said the firm had delivered 20,000 of 27,000 orders on time.

Which works out to about what? About 74%? As quoted in the article?

It's a typical Eircom response, but seemingly a very half-hearted attempt at the usual figure-twisting dexterity. It sounds to me like the "spokeswoman" is ready to throw in the towel in the face of adversary. You could hardly blame her, with people like us ready to go in a twist the knife as soon as we see a chink in Eircom's rapidly weakening battle armour.

To come back to dear old Karlin, I really do think you're a bit hard on her John. I'll concede that she quite often gets her facts and figures wrong, but it's obvious that she's passionate about the topics she writes on, and she certainly understands them better than most. The fact that she simplifies technical issues to address readerships most likely made up of a majority of technically-inept Joe Soaps, shouldn't be automatically viewed as a lack of understanding of those issues. In fact, if anything, her understanding of her readership could well be applauded.

I'll admit that there are problems with her writing though, that could (and should) easily be corrected. Her main flaw is that she mixes factual reporting with opinion - which is perfectly acceptable in my view - but she doesn't delineate between the two very well. She also seems to skimp on research far too often, which is inexcusable when quoting facts. For example, her recent article on Eircom's i-Stream pricing said that the bitstream process was being held up by a legal challenge; and she detailed pricing; and both of these were factually incorrect.

In her defense (Karlin did respond to my "complaint" in detail, which is more than can be expected from many journalists), as I said above, Karlin said that she tries to simplify the technical details because she's addressing a mostly non-technical audience. Personally I don't see that as a valid excuse. Karlin is of course quite probably right in her roundabout and unspoken suggestion that the bitstream process is being held up by the LLU legal challenge, but she provides no proof of that (she couldn't), so it should have been made clear that her assertions were opinion (even widely held opinion) and nothing more.

The pricing error was inexcusable though. Karlin said that she asked a few people for pricing, but I don't think that's good enough. It's her name over the article, it's her responsibility to ensure that quoted facts are exactly that, facts. This wouldn't have annoyed me so much if researching pricing wasn't so easy -- i-Stream pricing is just two clicks away from the Eircom homepage; and UK pricing is all over The Reg at the moment. If she had put a few extra minutes into research, the article would have been even more hard-hitting, and would have served both herself and her readership much better.

All that being said, I still think Karlin is a pretty good technology journalist, precisely /because/ she can dumb it down, and /because/ she opines. On issues like the ones we are faced with, I prefer Karlin's writing style to Jamie's (more factual manner), because opinion and outrage are precisely what is needed at the moment. Of course I have a natural bias because of that; because she is just bolstering my own opinions; but I've read more of Karlin's work on other issues, and those just serve to bolster my opinion /of Karlin/. For example, her article on ICANN in The Guardian a few months back was the best non-technical description of the problems in the DNS I've seen yet.

To be fair John, there's no such thing as a perfect journalist. You all have your flaws, you all have beliefs and opinions that don't quite match up with the opinions and beliefs of your readers, but I feel that branding a journalist as "not rated" because they do things a different way is unfair. I mean, take that John McCormac fella as an example. I agree with most of what he says, but his cutting demeanour gets on my wick at times, and tends to damage his credibility. But I don't go round saying he's crap, now do I? Or do I?

adam

jmcc

Originally posted by dahamsta

I'll admit that there are problems with her writing though, that could (and should) easily be corrected. Her main flaw is that she mixes factual reporting with opinion - which is perfectly acceptable in my view - but she doesn't delineate between the two very well. She also seems to skimp on research far too often, which is inexcusable when quoting facts.

This is what irritates me about her work. Having all that passion about what she writes about is no use when she gets the facts wrong. The "dumbing down technical arguments" only works from a position of knowledge.

...branding a journalist as "not rated" because they do things a different way is unfair.

Not rated on technology issues. Facts are facts and when dealing with technology issues, there is no getting away from that. Op-ed journalism only works well with the facts. When you start to drift away from the facts it makes it easier for companies like Eircom or Amazon to dismiss your work.

The best way to hit Eircom is with the facts. It is easy for Eircom to dismiss op-ed pieces that are not based on fact.

The worst thing for any journalist is a complete lack of reaction to what he or she writes. Of course that McCormac guy can be a right BOFH at times or so people tell me.

Regards...jmcc

dahamsta

This is what irritates me about her work. Having all that passion about what she writes about is no use when she gets the facts wrong. The "dumbing down technical arguments" only works from a position of knowledge.

Again, I agree that she should be more meticulous with her research, but I don't think it's fair to diss her knowledge automatically. I haven't actually sat down and talked to Karlin, but her writings give me a palpable impression of understanding. I'm no expert on any one field of technology myself, but I understand it better than most, so I reckon I'm qualified to comment.

Not rated on technology issues. Facts are facts and when dealing with technology issues, there is no getting away from that. Op-ed journalism only works well with the facts. When you start to drift away from the facts it makes it easier for companies like Eircom or Amazon to dismiss your work. The best way to hit Eircom is with the facts. It is easy for Eircom to dismiss op-ed pieces that are not based on fact.

I take your point, but you know just as well as I or Karlin that getting the facts right in these circumstances can be very, very difficult. Facts are very hard to verify in this particular field, because of the secretive nature of comms companies and their counterparts in Government. They're out there, but they're spread out, hard to find, and even harder to organise into something worthy of an argument. This is precisely why IrelandOffline created a Research Working Group -- we were unable to manage the process on our own; and that was a group of people, not one person working to a deadline.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Karlin 100%. The pricing discrepencies were just plain wrong, for example, but that's an extreme example. The reason I tend to leap to Karlin's defense[1], is that you seem to feel the need to jump in and diss her every time her name is mentioned. I think that runs the risk of misleading some users into discounting Karlin unjustly; and that as a journalist yourself, you should either step off and let the readership judge for themselves, or at least be objective in your criticism.

You seem to have a wee chip on your shoulder John. She knock you back at some fancy awards dinner, eh? But sure how could she, you're just a figment of someone's imagination.

The worst thing for any journalist is a complete lack of reaction to what he or she writes.

Well, ok, how about Jamie then? I don't mean any disrespect to Jamie, he's a good writer and I read all of his articles, but he doesn't exactly raise a reaction out of me very often.

Of course that McCormac guy can be a right BOFH at times or so people tell me.

Well, most people I know use another word. Begins in 'w'. Ends in 'r'. Got 'anke' in the middle.

I wonder where I should split this thread to. Do we have a Karlin Lillington forum yet? It's only a matter of time, the way Boards.ie is going.

adam


[1] Of course I shouldn't really, she reads this herself. I guess I'm just an old softy.

jmcc

Originally posted by dahamsta
I haven't actually sat down and talked to Karlin, but her writings give me a palpable impression of understanding.

This is the problem with most of the stuff from technology journalists. While it may give an impression of understanding, getting the facts wrong leads the readers astray. This is perhaps the reason for my comments on some of the URLs. Confusing fact and error allows companies like Eircom to get off free. In fact, Eircom has really taken advantage of the relatively low clue factor in the technology coverage of the Irish press to market ISDN as high speed connectivity and spin every almost negative story to oblivion. It is very easy for Eircom to point to one of those error riddled articles and dismiss it.

I take your point, but you know just as well as I or Karlin that getting the facts right in these circumstances can be very, very difficult. Facts are very hard to verify in this particular field, because of the secretive nature of comms companies and their counterparts in Government.

When technology journalists get beyond the rehashing of press releases, they enter the realm of real journalism and there is a duty to get the facts. Most of the bubble technology journalism suffers from the lack of facts. It may be hard to verify the facts but that is what journos have to do.

The reason I tend to leap to Karlin's defense[1], is that you seem to feel the need to jump in and diss her every time her name is mentioned.

See previous comments about facts. It is ok to extrapolate from the facts when writing an OpEd piece. Your gallantry is noted.

You seem to have a wee chip on your shoulder John.

Yeah - I tend to hold the truth in high regard and I get pissed off when I see truth being compromised for the sake of a deadline. I don't attend awards dinners - my brand of journalism rarely gets awards and people do conspire to prevent it getting awards .

The problem is that the rubbish in that passes for tech journalism in the Irish press, specifically the Irish Times of the last few years owed more to people rewriting press releases and passing it off as journalism.

Then there is the fact that for a time Karlin was being used, probably unwittingly, as an agent of influence by Eircom. Every time that Eircom got some bad press, Karlin would run an "ADSL Real Soon" article in the Irish Times. Actually this level of sophistication was very rare for Eircom and I was impressed.

To see your whole industry damned and nearly driven on to the rocks by bubble journalism is tough. To see the technology journalism that led the lemmings' rush still being taken seriously is irritating.

The worst thing for any journalist is a complete lack of reaction to what he or she writes.

Well, ok, how about Jamie then? I don't mean any disrespect to Jamie, he's a good writer and I read all of his articles, but he doesn't exactly raise a reaction out of me very often.

It seems that he has to do much of the real reporting. That probably makes him a working journo rather than a columnist. The IT uses columnists for the simple reason that they can be marketed more effectively. This is a peculiar weakness of the IT's tech coverage. The CompuTimes pages were left to die while Sociology In Business survived.

Well, most people I know use another word. Begins in 'w'. Ends in 'r'. Got 'anke' in the middle.

Like I actually give a damn! I'll just keep writing the stuff I write and hunting facts enve though sometimes I wonder why I even bother. Just remember who broke the story of Eircom/TE's secret ADSL test program. It seems like a lifetime ago and Eircom are still running trials. The technology journalists have no vested interest in seeing our business sector succeed. If it fails, they will move on to the next bubble journalism fad. It is the ham and eggs equation. While the hen is involved, the pig is committed.

Regards...jmcc

Xian

Originally posted by dahamsta
This is precisely why IrelandOffline created a Research Working Group -- we were unable to manage the process on our own; and that was a group of people, not one person working to a deadline.

Never pass on the opportunity to crack the whip on us poor folk down at the coalface adam, do ye?