IOFFL to make presentation to the Telecommunications Strategy Group

Dangger

IrelandOffline will be meeting with and presenting to the Telecommunications Strategy Group (TSG) this Wednesday the 11th of June.

The TSG was established earlier this year by Dermot Ahern, T.D., Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, to advise on a broadband development strategy.

Questions we will be answering on the day include.......

a) What incentives could be used to stimulate greater awareness and use of online government services?

b) Would training/education schemes about the use of internet/email result in more people buying broadband internet?

c) How can the affordability of equipment/services (e.g. PCs, internet subscriptions, etc.) be addressed?

d) Are there any incentives for local communities or business groups to organize themselves into “networks”, in order to attract broadband service provision, e.g. in rural or remote areas?

e) How would a nationwide awareness campaigns assist the development of user demand?

f) Who are the specific user-groups that would be very enthusiastic to use broadband services, and why?

DeVore

Originally posted by Dangger
IrelandOffline will be meeting with and presenting to the Telecommunications Strategy Group (TSG) this Wednesday the 11th of June.

d) Are there any incentives for local communities or business groups to organize themselves into “networks”, in order to attract broadband service provision, e.g. in rural or remote areas?


f) Who are the specific user-groups that would be very enthusiastic to use broadband services, and why?

Both of these are questions very dear to my heart at the moment!

Local communities, as ever, will have to fend for themselves and unless someone is willing to connect them out it becomes very hard for them to escape the corporate disinterest in them.


Regarding the second question: I think I can think of a few user-groups who'd happily knife the minister in his bed if they thought it would get them BB

DeV.

Paddy20

This is a great start, to what should pan out to be a very interesting week.

However, the questions posed by the Stategy Group certainly do not fill me with confidence, re: their grasp of the true picture. Still, I suppose they are trying?.. God help us!.

Paddy20.

MDR

a) What incentives could be used to stimulate greater awareness and use of online government services?

Advertising is all that is really needed, the more aware people become of what information is available/services the more likely they are to try and access them. For instance most people i know first heard of oasis.gov.ie when pigsback.com offered piggy points for subscribing to the service.

This is a good example of innovative thinking to get people to use the service. Government bodies, like the post office, the revenue commissioner etc, should be pushing their online services much harder, they should be front and centre all the time, they should be their flagship customer interaction tool. Get the word out their tell people whats available and they will come.

b) Would training/education schemes about the use of internet/email result in more people buying broadband internet?

Flat-rate dailup internet is the only training and education scheme required. Obviousily their is always going to be a place for IT training in the community, but a large proporition of people are already quite computer literate (MRBI computer ownership stats) but don't go online.

David Smith, Free Lunch (Easily Digestible Economics)
Well the whole point of a market system is supposed to be that it serves consumer, providing us with what we want and thereby maximising our collective welfare. But the history of English food suggests that, even on so basic a matter as eating, a free market economy can get trapped for an extended period in a bad equilibrium in which good things are not demanded because they have never been supplied, and are not supplied because they have not enought people demand them.

Therefore there is no deman ford the internet in Ireland, indeed there is no demand for the broadband in Ireland, because it has never been supplied (at an attainable cost).

Flat-rate dialup internet will break this cycle, and MRBI statistics support this. It will provide the freedom, the large proportion of already IT skilled Irish people need to access the internet, to get the tastier they need, without the fear of the phone bill. Later as they begin to place more value on the internet, their spending on it will increase and they will (provided prices come down from the current unaffordable high, again see MRBI) upgrade to broadband.

c) How can the affordability of equipment/services (e.g. PCs, internet subscriptions, etc.) be addressed?

We already enjoy proportional quite a high ownership levels for PCs so no futher action IMHO needs to be taken at this point to increase ownership.

The cost of internet access is the problem we always end up coming back to. We need more proactive regulation of the market place, dsl prices need to come down by another €10 - €20 before they are going to be attractive to the average IT literate home user.

Tax relief on the installation of wireless internet system, the basic cost of the equipment used is approx €400. Again unaffordable for the average user, ithough the per month bill is likely to be affordable.

Similarily tax relief for satellite internet installations.

How would a nationwide awareness campaigns assist the development of user demand?

Telecommunications companies are always harping on about the need for killer applications for internet to take off, they lament the fact they don't exist. The simple fact is they do exist but people have been discouraged from using them because of the high costs and uncertainty associated with going on online.

Give people flat-rate internet, give people security, that they will only ever have to pay a small flat fee for going online, no matter how long they choose to stay online.

Then sell killer applications to them (and the government fair play to them, has built plenty), online shopping, gaming, entertainment, government information, education, research etc etc, and obviousily the responsibility would therefore be on the online services to advertise and get the word out there. If you make it afordable and you give them reason, they will come.

Who are the specific user-groups that would be very enthusiastic to use broadband services, and why?

At the earily stages (i.e. now) only very few people, MRBI describes as enthusiasts, are going to be interested, but as flat-rate dialup internet causes people to spend more and more time online, their dependancy will increase as the internet becomes and intergral part of their lives, but again I re-iterate they will only be enthusastic if its affordable.

Hey I like pizza, but not for €50 a slice I don't.

shinzon

is basically those that really really really want the damn thing but cant get it because the infrastructure is just not there to support it

Its sub junction boxes inferior cable wetness corrosion, inferior materials, pair gain splitter boxes ETC ETC ETC

Regards

Shin

spongebob

Originally posted by Dangger
IrelandOffline will be meeting with and presenting to the Telecommunications Strategy Group (TSG) this Wednesday the 11th of June.

The TSG was established earlier this year by Dermot Ahern, T.D., Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, to advise on a broadband development strategy.

Questions we will be answering on the day include.......


a) What incentives could be used to stimulate greater awareness and use of online government services?


Time and Money! The government has done quite well on electronic service provision. Why not guarantee a faster turnaround for EVERY electronic form submitted online. The companies office will deal with an electronic form in 33% of the time that it takes to deal with a paper form that they must type in. that is an example.



b) Would training/education schemes about the use of internet/email result in more people buying broadband internet?


No. They must get off their own arses. Plenty of people train themselves, my uncle started using computers after he retired. He had time to get cheap flights and an incentive to use a PC for the first time ever. 40-50% of persons have mailed or got someone to mail for /collect a mail for . They know what email is.


c) How can the affordability of equipment/services (e.g. PCs, internet subscriptions, etc.) be addressed?


The big barf is at the CPE end . DSL/Cable costs €200 while Wireless costs €750 and VSAT costs €1500 . There should be a designated carrier and designated user procedure.

If a user cannot get DSL/Cable , with the refusal coming on headed Eircom notepaper of course, they then qualify for a TAX BREAK on Wireless/VSAT because their premise has been refused DSL and Cable. Tax break should be for 3 years at the standard rate. They must sign up to a wireless carrier to get it. Run this break @ 20% maybe only for those who sign up in 2004 to kickstart wireless in areas with no DSL/Cable. The CPE should fall a lot in price over the next few years anyway so the tax break can be closed down for new users.

A side effect of the letters from Eircom is that we will know from the Revenue computer how bad Eircoms lines are. Deprivation is not just a rural thing.


d) Are there any incentives for local communities or business groups to organize themselves into “networks”, in order to attract broadband service provision, e.g. in rural or remote areas?


No, see above, the extra cost of the CPE is a DISINCENTIVE . The ferocious cost of 155Mbit STM1 pipes outside Dublin is a massive disincentive.


e) How would a nationwide awareness campaigns assist the development of user demand?


Let Eircom pay for that themselves. Can the government ask them to bring in a cute chickie in BB ads instead of a
Fat Rat as the Fat Rat it makes BB uncool. The fat rat is past its sellby date as an ident and we need a cute chickie instead. Maybe bring in 3 cute chickies and do a spoof on charmed

NB Chickies like the chickies in the current Danone ad are not cute chickies, find cuter ones.


f) Who are the specific user-groups that would be very enthusiastic to use broadband services, and why?

Universal and Pernicious BB is the requirement. BY end 2004 .

No crap from McCreevy either.

M

dahamsta

Originally posted by MDR
Flat-rate dailup internet...

Pardon the pun?

adam

oscarBravo

Originally posted by Dangger
d) Are there any incentives for local communities or business groups to organize themselves into “networks”, in order to attract broadband service provision, e.g. in rural or remote areas?

This really, really needs to be pushed. A few bob made available to community wireless groups could really get this country rolling in a way that chucking money at telcos hasn't been able to.

Just think: every village in the country with its own government-subsidised MeshWAN, backhauled through government-supplied MANs to DeV's new ISP! Heaven!!

De Rebel

This stuff is complete utter bollix, a shocking waste of taxpayers money and has nothing whatsoever to do with expediting the roll out of broadband. It contributes nothing. Absolutely nothing.

There are 5 essentials for the widespread take up of BroadBand. Availability, Availability, Availability, Availability and more Availability. That’s what we need. That’s all we need. Nothing else.

Stupid navel gazing with lots of PR bunnies generating slick slogans is fine so long as its paid for by Eircom, ESAT or any of the other outfits that TIF and ALTO represent. I can see no reason whatsoever why this should be done at the taxpayers expense. I just do NOT see the need to have anyone spend my money to tell me that “Broadband is Great”, “Broadband is Fast”, ““Broadband is Affordable”. I would much rather them tell me that “Broadband is Here”

I know at least 100 people who have ISDN, either in SME offices or at home. Did these people install it because of some "demand side initiative", or because of eircom's moronic rat on a scooter advertising? They did in my hole. They installed it because they needed faster/cheaper access and heard about ISDN from (1) me (2) their peers (3) trade associations (4) software vendors (5) their teenage sons/daughters.

The widespread adoption of Broadband is no different to any other technology. Uptake will go through a series of stages, starting with pioneers and early adopters on to the 5th stage: "Contagion". To get us there we need, more than anything else, Availability. (Obviously we also need affordability, but 120 people in Comreg working to ensure competition in the marketplace, affordability will not be an issue, obviously)

The press release announcing this initiative last February was a set-piece in muddled thinking - mixing the need for infrastructure with a lot of touchy feely demand stuff. The result is obviously going to be a classic civil service report recommending subsidies and grants for the telcos and local initiatives and a marketing budget for the promotion of Broadband. Perhaps it will even recommend establishing "An Bord Thoir Fios Follaiseach mBroadband in Eireann" Of course, Finance will soon sort that out and nothing will happen.

There are only two obstacles to the widespread adoption of broadband in this country, Eircom and ESAT. A report which highlights this fact and sets out ways to deal with these two obstructions would do far more to "really drive the Broadband revolution in Ireland"

There are already a number of bodies, not least the august Information Society Commission, who are looking at the Digital Divide and the associated issues and remedies. As for Oasis, Basis and all the other Delivery of Government Services over the Internet is concerned, if a worthwhile service is provided, and the users have an incentive, the service will be used. Look at ROS, for example. Otherwise these will be treated just like any other website.

DCMNR, ALTO, TIF et al should stick to their brief, DELIVER THE INFRASTRUCTURE. And then the demand will follow, as night follows day.

nahdoic

Ja, i fully agree De Rebel.

Could you go in and tell the committee their questions are utter rubbish. I'm not sure that would go down so well. With the exception of question d and c somewhat, the rest are irrelevant. We need one thing, low cost broadband available nationwide. Everything else is just pants.

The best way to do that, is as IOFFL is saying, create competition. To create competition allow local operators, get access to cheap backhaul and share it wirelessly to directly compete with the duopoly.

Not being able to get access to cheap backhaul, is the numero uno reason why these aren't springing up everywhere.

De Rebel

How we handle the meeting is a seperate issue. We first and foremost need to be clear in our own minds what message we want to impart. The mechanics of winning friends and influencing people is the second stage of the exercise.

You are absolutly right about the need for competition - I have siad it many times, competition based on infrastructure entirly independent of Eircom's is the key. How to package that is another argument, I think there is a need for a "Starter Package for MOM & POP ISPs" allowing them to plug into the ESB Backbone. The Government would be much better advised spending its time and effort working on that starter pack than on this nonsense.

However that is Supply Side (where the real actions needs to be) This thread is dealing with Demand Side - which is a red herring.

Dustaz

How did this go, any news?

Dangger

It went ahead. We are working on a report of it, but the last 2 weeks have been very hectic for the committee (why I'm even misdialling phone numbers ), so in due course it will appear.

But I will say that disagreement on several of the points was a major element on the day. This was welcomed and we conveyed our thoughts on a range of demand side issues.

There is to be a second hearing after the official report of this meeting is released by the TSG (end of July I think). The second hearing will investigate infrastructural issues. We were rigidly bound to discussion of demand side issues in the first hearing.

BoneCollector

Telecommunications companies are always harping on about the need for killer applications for internet to take off, they lament the fact they don't exist. The simple fact is they do exist but people have been discouraged from using them because of the high costs and uncertainty associated with going on online.

That KILLER APPLICATION has always existed, its called "THE INTERNET"

It multi-user, Multi-platform, Multi-functional, Multi-interactive, Multi-national, which to me makes the internet a whole lot more than the sum of its parts.

definition:
Killer application ="the internet"