On Tuesday the 10th of February 2009, Irish Rural Link (IRL), the national organisation campaigning for sustainable rural communities, published its comprehensive analysis of the National Broadband Scheme (NBS) concluding that while welcome in principle the Scheme can only be considered a first step towards the provision of efficient, future proofed, equitably priced broadband to rural Ireland.
The executive summary of their evaluation, “The Good, the Bad and the Inadequate: Irish Rural Link’s evaluation of the National Broadband Scheme”, states that:
- IRL accepts that the combination of a large, dispersed rural population, the sale of Eircom’s fixed line business and EU rules on competition and Government interference in the marketplace presented a unique set of challenging circumstances for Government to address the broadband situation in rural areas.
- Irish Rural Link has a real concern that the proposed broadband solution is based almost solely on mobile broadband with ComReg questioning the reliability and capacity of mobile broadband technologies.
- Mobile broadband may be unable to support some of the tasks expected of it by rural dwellers including VoIP and gaming. Contention ratios are a known problem with the technology chosen.
- Up to 12,000 houses and business premises that cannot access any broadband are excluded from the NBS. According to the Department the NBS cannot serve these premises as they are already substantially served areas. To try to serve them would give rise to an unacceptable level of market distortion.
- Despite the Press Release stating “100% broadband coverage of the country by September 2010” this is not case. In reality the NBS will not ensure 100% of Irish people have access to broadband. Instead it means 100% of Ireland’s geographical area will have theoretically some sort of broadband coverage but there are no guarantees that a household or business will have broadband of a certain speed or quality or at a reasonable price.
- The NBS will not provide the quality of internet to allow rural SMEs and tourism developments to participate in the web economy. The business customer will need faster speeds and more reliable technology.
- Contingency plans must be in place in the event of delays relating to planning permission for 160 required telecommunications masts.
- There must be a mechanism to ensure that broadband provision in rural areas is future proofed and of the highest possible standard to stem the widening of the digital divide between rural Ireland and both urban Ireland and the rest of the world.
- The NBS does not provide rural dwellers with the best possible access to broadband and representing the NBS as creating “100% coverage” that allows rural communities and business to breach the digital divide is misleading. The solution proposed by the NBS can only be considered as ‘midband’ and an interim solution towards the provision of true, high speed broadband to rural Ireland.
The evaluation is available on their web site, www.irishrurallink.ie, or by clicking here.
My Company is based in Donadea Co. Kildare and we have no access to broadband whatsoever. Tried the “3″ mobile device and it doesn’t work. On eircom dial up package for years and takes 10 mins at least to download 1MB. It is affecting our business.
Paying more per month for a terrible service than others who are offered great broadband speeds at one third the price we pay.
I want to make sure we are included in any government rural broadband scheme.
We are discriminated against by lesser or the complete lack of services in many other areas. No mains water or sewerage,lack of road maintenance and lighting,no public transport. I even think we pay a higher standing charge to the ESB. This is ridiculous when you consider we get more power outages than average and they take much longer to be fixed than in a town. Pay more for poorer service is what it seems.
Philip,
I am happy to tell you that there now is a solution for this.
It is called the WiBE (Wireless Broadband Enabler). Basically, this is an intelligent antenna with 360 degree reception. It searches for the best THROUGHPUT of DATA and when it finds this it locks on to the 3G providers mast. This antenna continuously scans the ether and picks the “best in class” at all times. The antenna, approx 180mm high x 130mm diameter sits internally on a window-sill and provides coverage within the house or office. It accepts the normal SIM card as used by any of the 3G providers.
It is particularly valuable when used in areas that may be on the periphery of a coverage area and WiFi routers or Dongles do not perform satisfactorily. The WiBE has been proven to give up to thirty times the broadband speed of other products. This is achieved through the WiBE searching for THROUGHPUT of DATA rather than signal strength like the current products. This means that any mast within a radius of up to approx 15km can be pulled in, extending its range to about five times that of a Dongle.
For more information you could look at http://www.cetag.ie or indeed just google WiBE.ie where you will see some comment including a mention in Ireland’s technology news service Silicon Republic.
I would appreciate an opportunity to demonstrate the WiBE and what it might offer you and the people in your community. If you are interested please let me know and we can arrange a visit.
Thanking you in anticipation,
Danny Brady
Cetag Ltd.
Unit 13, Ashbourne Business Centre, Ashbourne, Co. Meath
01 8357187
087 6794729
I have never had the minimum NBS broadband satellite service since it was installed last month and have now waited five days for a promised call back from 3’s “satellite team” despite repeated calls to tech support.
Is 3 conning the government and its subscribers? It seems that they have not even recruited enough staff to man a support desk.
Anyone else with any experience of this? Please email at colinhaynes@eircom.net and I’ll try to agitate for a solution.