Comments on: Minister Eamon Ryan’s Broadband Promises

By: Damien Mulley » Blog Archive » A follow-up Eamon Ryan’s Broadband Promises….

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:13:10 +0000

[...] If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my site using a feedreader or email. Thanks for visiting – Damien.More light has been shed by Eamon Ryan on his Broadband Promises: [...]

By: Audi

Audi — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:43:42 +0000

I certainly don’t think Ryan can be taken to account for whatever the state of Broadband here is, it’s rather the lack of regulator teeth in the absence of proper competition to drive down prices and facilities up or if it’s worth going back to the beginning when Eircom was turned into a cash cow for Babcock & Brown, ultimately.

Can the MANs be a competitor for the Eircom network at all? Along with other media like wireless, maybe there is scope for an alternative infrastructure to appear which could compete with the Eircom wires. Making it obligatory for builders to put fibre to the home into new builds might be some way along the way, although maybe the Greens have done enough so far with obliging new houses to be built with higher energy standards.

Eircom rang today offering me 2Mb broadband for â‚¬5 more per month. I told her that it was fast enough (good contention ratio down the country) and that it was my opinion that I should have at least 3Mb for the current price with a higher monthly cap too.

Not to mention the O2 network causing Apple iPhone customers consternation yesterday when their overpriced 3G service crashed. Truly are the Irish the “blacks of Europe”.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/network-failure-hits-apple-iphone-owners-1432441.html

By: The Green Capitalist.

The Green Capitalist. — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:31:26 +0000

You may be are too hard on the man Ryan.At least some semblance of vision and understanding seems to be emerging.

I find the discussion above interesting, but there’s one point I haven’t seen mentioned.It is this: we already have ducting in most urban areas.

Can anyone explain why we shouldn’t use the sewers to distribute fibre? It is already being done in the UK. I saw a clip on the BBC.

By: Audi

Audi — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:50:21 +0000

We’re trying to put some facts, stats and data together on the Machine Nation forum on this topic among other infrastructural subjects. Can anyone recommend some links on this site or others which would show a good clear picture of what broadband infrastructure there is here now and some charts and stuff as to how it compares to the set ups of other countries – maps, charts, tables etc. etc.

Also is there a program which we can run that will show us the speed of our connections and the infrastructure which the signals go through and so on? Like the traceroute program it might be possible to see which types of networks are out there – is it really true that so many schools use satellite for example?

It seems to be true that fibre is ‘future proofing’ the network here but how much of it is out there and where do the MANs fit in and how much ftth should builders be obliged to install and so on. Recently the comreg pressured Eircom to lower rates they charge operators – is Eircom itself a problem or is this Eamon Ryan plan largely independent of them?

Is there a singular vision out there of what broadband and comms should be in Ireland and how it should be achieved?

By: Declan

Declan — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:57:38 +0000

I’d bet the first and probably only item on that list which will be completed successfully will be number 10. In fact I’d be surprised if Eamo hasnt already handed out the spots on that fact finding committee. Until the government stops counting mobile broadband and admits how slowly things are actually progressing then all we can expect from this minister, the next one and several more after that is more press releases.

By: barry

barry — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:18:21 +0000

The ‘lobby group’ Damien is referring to is Ireland Offline, a former activity close to Damien. I did try to get things going again, but since I wasn’t involved in the mechanics of IoffL in its previous incarnation I couldn’t re-activate the various websites etc. There is a group trying to get it up an running, afaik, but there hasn’t been much progress, that I’ve seen. Complacency anyone??

By: Azi Raphale

Azi Raphale — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:57:26 +0000

This proposal is pretty much c&p’d from Simon Coveney’s June(?) policy paper. Piracy is theft, eh?

By: Evert

Evert — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:42:13 +0000

Ennis Information Age town anyone?

By: Damien

Damien — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:11:20 +0000

The sooner you get your lobby group going the sooner I can play a new record and move on to something new. C’mon Barry.

By: barry

barry — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:09:51 +0000

I was going to (mildly) protest that what ever it might mean in practise it is something, better than nothing, but then I read this –

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/10960/

just one of the many ridiculous Ryan quotes -

â€œItâ€™s better to build something from the design stage than to retrofit and that applies to communications as much as it applies to energy. They go together. With a fibre connected house it may be easy to get smart heating, which starts to use devices in a house in a much more interactive, flexible way.â€

That is grade one waffle….is he proposing we design a new tlecomms infrastructure….

OMG….