2FM's Gareth O'Callaghan on the case

Dangger

Did any one else catch the Net slot today (2fm 3:50pm) ? Gareth read out an excellent synopsis of the Internet situation in Ireland, contributed by "Aidan". He then challenged Eircom to answer to it. IOFFL have contacted him also.

I realise many of you contacted him this week, he says the response has been very big. Nice work!! But he has now put it to Eircom, asking if they would come on air and talk. I'll be making sure he's not fobbed off with today's announcements!

Ruu_Old

i caught a bit about it yesterday bout 3ishpm...it told how eircom have been digging in their heals and that Ireland is the only European country left in the rollout of broadband..among those were the key points..

Ruu_Old

Excellent..lets see Eircom squirm out of this one!!

I remember on the radio too..yesterday whomever did that article...apparently Eircoms DSL department have decreased from a force of 14 to 3 representitives....

Bateman

I agree that its a scandal that Ireland is indeed being left behind as far as broadband is concerned.
Here in Span a brand new PC costs around €800-€900 for more or less the best you can get, and ISDN is standard connection.
PC prices, as well as he price and speed of internet access are among the problems. However, as has been said, eircom will dig in their heels and come up with the usual excuses.

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by Dangger
Did any one else catch the Net slot today (2fm 3:50pm) ? Gareth read out an excellent synopsis of the Internet situation in Ireland, contributed by "Aidan". He then challenged Eircom to answer to it. IOFFL have contacted him also.

I realise many of you contacted him this week, he says the response has been very big. Nice work!! But he has now put it to Eircom, asking if they would come on air and talk. I'll be making sure he's not fobbed off with today's announcements!

Well, in case anyone was wondering, it was my e-mail to him that he read out today (blowing my own trumpet a bit, I know, but...... lol!).

He read out most of my e-mail but had to cut out some bits by necessity to keep it within the time slot.

As I said, he read out most of my e-mail but I was a bit disappointed that he didn't read out the bit I really wanted him to read out, i.e. a plug I gave for Ireland Offline at the end of my e-mail. Oh well........

By the way, here's the full e-mail I sent him if you all want to have a read of it. I think I'm wrong on a couple of points, such as the €1,500 penalty (was that punts or euros?) but I think most of the other points I made were correct. Anyway, have a read and tell me what you think......

Dear Gareth,

I'm replying to an e-mail you read out on your "Net News" part of the show on Tuesday, 16th April. It was concerning the lack of broadband internet access in this country.

Basically, the person who sent you the e-mail got most of it correct. Eircom and the government are both to blame for the terrible situation we are in here in Ireland regarding internet access. Last September, Eircom tried to launch an ADSL product but priced it ridiculously high and the ODTR stopped them from releasing it until they reduced the price to a more reasonable level. In addition to this, the wholesale price that Eircom was planning to sell the product to the other telecoms operators at was so high that no other company would even consider taking it up, thus leaving internet users in this country up the creek without a paddle. Eircom's excuse for charging such high prices was that they had to recover the massive amounts of money they spent on putting the necessary infrastructure in place. However, this argument really doesn't really hold any water as it has been proven in other countries that lower pricing means a bigger take-up of the service and the cost of the initial investment is quickly recovered anyway.

Also, unlike all the other European countries, we do not have a flat-rate internet package in this country yet. It has been shown that in countries which have flat-rate to begin with, the take up of broadband when it is launched is massive and rapid. Flat-rate is a very good stepping stone to begin with but we do not even have this in Ireland. In fact, the only package which came close to a flat-rate service was Esat's No Limits which allowed users to access the net at off-peak times without having to pay call costs. However, Esat stopped taking orders for this service a year ago and the whole service currently hangs in the balance for the remaining users due to the high call costs Eircom charge Esat.

I'm sure that you and your listeners are fed up seeing ads on some of the English television stations of various companies offering flat-rate internet access for £15-£20 per month when they are paying sometimes hundreds of euros per month in internet call costs here in the Republic. It's amazing to think that if you were living a mile across the border in the North you could get internet access for £15 per month but here we are, as I said, paying hundreds. I know I certainly am fed up with that.

Eircom were supposed to unbundle it's local loops, i.e. it's exchanges, last year in order to let other telecoms companies access to the network and, therefore, allow other companies to launch competitively priced ADSL. So far, only a couple of exchanges in Limerick have been unbundled to allow Esat to locate it's equipment in and it took so much negotiation and so long to achieve this that it's likely it would take several years, if not another decade or more, to achieve full local loop unbundling in this country. Therefore, this dire situation would continue for a long time to come.

But why won't the government intervene in all this, you may ask? Well, simply put, when the ODTR was set up by the government they failed to give the ODTR the necessary powers to properly regulate the telecoms industry in Ireland. The penalty for non-compliance with ODTR regulations is a ridiculously low 1,500 euro and, as you can see, this is a drop in the ocean for a large, multi-million euro operation like Eircom.

We are, as the e-mail you read out the other day explains, the last country in Europe without proper flat-rate and broadband internet access. In fact, we are now the laughing stock of Europe when it comes to internet services. The government continues to push the vision of Ireland being the "E-hub of Europe" when in fact we are far from this. We are, in fact, the "E-bog of Europe" and are falling so far behind other countries and at such a rapid pace that we may never be able to compete competitively in the international IT services sector shortly.

I would like to refer yourself and your listeners to a fantastic internet pressure group, Ireland Offline, and their website which is www.irelandoffline.org. It currently consists of over 2,000 members who are fed up with the state of internet services in Ireland and who are campaigning to try and do something about it. Please check out their website and see some of the things they are trying to do to move things along in this sector in Ireland. It has full details of meetings it has had with the various players in the Irish market, as well as audio clips from various radio programmes they have been on and seminars it has held.

Anyway Gareth, thanks for taking the time to read this e-mail and keep up the good work on the show.

Regards,

Aidan Dunne.

By the way, here's the response I got from G O' C himself:

Dear Aidan,
Many thanks for this info, and the huge amount of
attention you've obviously given this e-mail. It's most
appreciated, and I know the listeners will benefit.
Thanks again for writing.
Regards,
Gareth

Nice to know that someone else in the media now knows about IOFFL, eh?

Ruu_Old

well done aidan fine job

Frank Grimes

Originally posted by Ruu
I remember on the radio too..yesterday whomever did that article...apparently Eircoms DSL department have decreased from a force of 14 to 3 representitives....

What's the article? also, they're hardly going to be reducing staff this close to it actually being launched

sceptre

He did mention at around 3:40 that he's had an interesting email from "Aidan Dunne" rather than the just "Aidan" later.

Giggled like a schoolgirl* when I heard the full name, knowing what was coming next.

Nice one Aidan - just goes to show it isn't just our committee that are taking on the fight.

Odds of Eircom making a statement? Hope they do, there will be a knife to put in wrt to any statement they might make (or other companies that could be named)


(edit)
Aaaagh, accidentally left out one word above that totally changed what I meant.

The line was of course

"...it isn't just our committee that are taking on the fight"

(which meant compliments both to Aidan and the comittee)

(not what I wrote - I accidentally left out the "just" - totally different meaning)






*please note, this is a metaphor - I giggled the same way I always do, be that like a schoolgirl or otherwise

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by sceptre
He did mention at around 3:40 that he's had an interesting email from "Aidan Dunne" rather than the just "Aidan" later.

Giggled like a schoolgirl* when I heard the full name, knowing what was coming next.

Nice one Aidan - just goes to show it isn't our committee that are taking on the fight.

To be honest, I was just doing my bit to help out. As far as I'm concerned, it shouldn't be left to just the Ireland Offline committee to do something about all this. We all have a part to play in this.

Come on, people. We should all be chipping in to help and not just leaving all the hard work to the Ireland Offline committee.

Ruu_Old

hes right...we have a big music fesitival coming up Le Cheile not jus music...but arts and technology...we have an internet cafe there too..maybe i can think of something....and lots of visitors are coming to town..expected over 15,000...so i could always put up some boards around town and on the website ..or do something at least..:) i'll look more into u..since i know the committee and they owe me for doing that website the old site is there at the moment..i have to get rid of that

dahamsta

Excellent work Aidan, well done. If all our members put this amount of effort into achieving our ends, we'd be able to spend a hell of a lot more time online curing other evils.

adam

Dangger

I reckoned it was you all right Aidan. Thanks very much, we all really appreciate it.

aidan_dunne

No problem. Any time, folks!