5 points

MDR

Its election time, as you may have noticed. I think we should finalise a list of five simple points about our cause, that we can brow beat the politicans with, who will be canvassing for our vote in the next few weeks.

I am going down to bug Deridre Delaney (she is a FF dail hopeful canvassing heavily in my area) on saturday morning and I need to know extactily what to sell her. I may go bug Ivor calley afterwards, the only way to get these guys to do anything is to bug them ... so ... what are my five points ?

Here are my rough suggestions, whats worng with them ?

1. Lack of flat rate internet access in Ireland is stiffling business growth.

2. All of our European Neighbours enjoy a much better quality of service at lower cost (around €30 per month), even Russia and Iran have better services. In Ireland we pay €720 per month.

3. We cannot sell Ireland as a country at the cutting edge of technology when our citizens can't even avail of these services.

4. Eircom's is targetting ISDN for a business solution until the advent of ADSL. It then targets ISDN for home, and ADSL for business. The home user in Ireland always ends up paying more for a older service , than our European Neighbours.

5. Eircoms ADSL is ridiculousily priced and their is no real alternative.

timod

If you're putting these on paper or whatever, it might be worth running it through a spell checker...
Other than that, points seems to sum things up quite nicely.

I think the €720 V's €30 is a great point that everybody should be talking about.

Tim

MDR

Not enough Tim, I need to be able to say hi say 'Hello Mr/Ms TD,
are you aware,

1. The €720 V's €30 point ... bham
2. Another great point ... bham
3. bham
4. bham
5. bham '

I need to make an impression on her, one v.good point won't do it. I want to stick out in her memory. I need another four points ... come'on peeps !!!

I blame the Christain Bro's for my crappy spelling.

vinnyfitz

1. 720 v 30
2. Don't be confused by all this DSL stuff you are reading about. The cheapest version will cost 2,000 Euro a year so its not for the plain people.
3. That means the cost of access hurts those who need it worst most: those with no office to get internet access, those tied to the home, those trying to improve their or their kids education, those with no hope of getting the VAT back or writing the costs off against tax.
4. Ireland will become a more unequal society unless something is done about it.
5. Relying on competition in the marketplace is a joke - did you not see BT/Esat is thinking of pulling out of the consumer market in Ireland. We need legislation to mandate flat rate access.

Then ask them a the question "Do you use the web much yourself? and build on their answer - whatever they say will give you the chance to illustrate the points you have just made.


Improvements welcomed

spongebob

1. Iran has a better telecoms system that
Ireland, who are we fooling. (price is much better = system is much better)

2. Ireland has lost more technology related jobs per capita than ANY other country in the developed world (excepting maybe Singapore) in the past 2 years. This is because of infrastructure, Telecoms infrastructure is top of that list. Enterprise Ireland knows this.

3. Dublin has lost more datacentres than any other city in the world, of 25 planned in 2000 only 5 will exist by the end of 2002, that is an 80% failure rate. This is because of crap telecoms infrastructure. Enterprise Ireland knows this too.

4. No data intensive multinational operation has set up in Ireland since 1999, that is because of crap and expensive infrastructure. Enterprise Ireland knows this to their cost, I challenge them to show a greenfield scheme that can be described as data intensive, callcentres are NOT data intensive, you can run 200 agents over a 2Mb line. I know teenager with 2Mb lines in their bedrooms, but not in this country!

5. In 35% of Ireland , by area, the fastest always on connection available in less than 3 month after request is 64k, not even 256k is available. ADSL will be rolled out to the 65% who have this mangy service and not to the 35% who already have **** all.

Celtic Tiger me arse, more like the mangy toothless tomcat of western europe.

M

MDR

'I like the cut of your jib' -- Mr Burns

vinnyfitz,

These are some great suggestions, point 1,2,4,5 are fine. Point 3 doesn't seem clear enough to me. I would put it like like this.

3. As i have demonstrated, other member states enjoy cheap flat rate 56k access, other member states enjoy cheap DSL access, in Ireland both of these internet solutions are very expensively priced. Meaning that the average paddy has no cost effective way to connect to the net in Ireland. We then are ultimately consigning our citizens and businesses to becoming the intellectual poor of Europe, and damaging our compeditiveness as a nation.

What do you think ?

dahamsta

I'm a big advocate of transparency, truth and clarity. I don't see why we should have to stoop to our, uh, opponents level of misdirection and deceit to make a point. So I have a problem with this...

All of our European Neighbours enjoy a much better quality of service at lower cost (around €30 per month), even Russia and Iran have better services. In Ireland we pay €720 per month.

...because...

a) it's arguable that QoS is better for our European neighbours (The Register had some right horror stories from UK users);

b) Russia and Iran aren't our European neighbours;

c) I doubt there is anyone in Ireland using dialup full-time.

I would be more inclined to say that many other countries have a much better /range/ of services; either stick with Europe or go worlwide, and say that in Ireland we would pay as much as €blah for equivalent connectivity.

But that's just me.

adam

gandalf

Another point to add to that is eGovernment. All the parties are commited to offering/moving Government information services to the net, how do they expect their citizens to access this information when that are been overcharged quite dramatically for connecting to the internet.

There has been a flyer prepared but I don't know if the committee has OK'd it.

Gandalf.

Xian

All well and good, but what if the politico has done a bit of homework? Retorts with talk of communications bills and fibre rings and the like? Me, I like to keep a can of DahamstaRant at the ready. You should too.

DahamstaRant. Kills all known guff. Dead.

dahamsta

Heh, I've been immortalised. And I nearly came off as coherent too!

Four years, boys and girls, four years...

adam

vinnyfitz

MDR said:

"vinnyfitz, ...

point 1,2,4,5 are fine. Point 3 doesn't seem clear enough to me." My point 3 should have read"3. That means the cost of access hurts those who need it most: those with no office to get internet access, those tied to the home, those trying to improve their or their kids education, those with no hope of getting the VAT back or writing the costs off against tax.
"

Well check out what the politicians emphasised in their speeches in the Dail last Thursday once we started lobbying. For politicians every voter is equal - technology and business issues cut no ice.
Over the next four weeks when you are talking to politicians focus on the other side of the argument:

Get them to grasp that no carer in the home, most parents no matter how much they wants their kids to learn, etc etc etc are going to shell out 2000 euro a year just to use this internet thing that they have barely tasted. If politicians are going to take the ball and run with it they are much more likely to talk about the importance of the internet to those on the other side of the digital divide.

There ain't no votes in pandering to business lobbies. This is our biggest mistake when it comes to politicians (when it comes to Forfas, OLOs, and many civil servants [depending on where they sit] its not the same sort of issue.)

On the hustings its all about connecting to people with families and friends and other voters who might benefit from affordable flat rate. .
Sorry if I sound cynical here but I'm not actually. I think flat rate is primarliy an issue of civic rights and equality. If you can't get on line you are doomed to the political slow lane.

spongebob

In the 'European regulatory framework' thread here there is some more on the civil right aspect of internet access.

It is not Irish law yet but it may as well be.

M

J@ck Chri5tie

Hi folks,

Perhaps THE BIG QUESTION is how extra much is Eircom raking by not making ADSL freely available. It all adds up to a lot of gravy.

If it were possible to total all the income for ISDN and dial up charges, and subtract say ?30 a month for user (Euro' avg ADSL price), wouldn't that be a useful figure to throw back at them.

Now all I have to do is find the stats....

JC