Archive for the ‘irishblogs’ Category

Broadband in Ireland – IrelandOffline’s view

Friday, February 3rd, 2006

Forfas asked IrelandOffline to give our views on their recent Broadband Benchmarking Report. They asked a few specific questions and we gave quite a lot of detailed replies.

Increasing Broadband Availability

Given Ireland’s spatial patterns, what are the most effective ways to accelerate the rollout of broadband services to all?

Spatial Pattern Excuse/Myth
Just to be clear – Ireland’s spatial patterns are not unique in the developed world. Northern Ireland has 100% broadband availability and a much better penetration rate than the Republic and all with the same spatial pattern. Apart from the very large cities in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, the spatial patterns of these countries are also akin to Ireland and these are some of the leading broadband countries in the world. Spatial patterns are a minor obstacle when phonelines are going
into almost every home in the country already and so therefore can avail of a DSL service if it was provided.

Previous Reports
We believe the best way to accelerate rollout of broadband is for the Government to read previous reports created by Forfas, the Information Society Commission, the Oireachtas Report on broadband and so many more. They have all suggested methods on how to roll out broadband but their recommendations remain unexecuted. This is probably the biggest obstacle for broadband roll out.

Regulation
Additionally the quality of regulation in Ireland is not on-par with other EU countries such as the UK and Denmark. A strong regulator not afraid to take on telecom giants and who does not capitulate during court actions would create a better environment to provide broadband for all.

C/GBS
We believe that the Group and County Broadband schemes created by the DCMNR are a great way of providing broadband to towns and villages who cannot get broadband through any other means but these projects ideally should only be addressing “blackspots” where there is patchy coverage. Instead it appears that 30% of the country would need to set up GBSs if they want to get broadband.

National Wireless Broadband License
We believe that the National Wireless Broadband license that eircom owns should be taken from them and reauctioned to local ISPs who can use the spectrum to provide wireless broadband to rural areas. This 3.5ghz license that eircom owns remains largely unused and is unadvertised and if you try and enquire how to avail of it, you will be told it is not available in your area. We have highlighted this repeatedly to the National Regulatory Authority and we have brought it to the attention of the DCMNR.

Flatrate Internet
We believe that per minute dialup Internet access should be banned and replaced with flatrate bands of dialup. Circa 80% of people still go online using dialup and according to ComReg the average monthly bill for Internet access is around €36. Given that many broadband products are now €20-€30 a month, it means dialup users are paying more for a far inferior product. eircom noted in their SEC filings in 2005 that they sell billions of minutes of dialup Internet. This is a cash cow and an incentive to only rollout broadband at a leisurely pace. The incentive for massive profits from dialup needs to be removed.

Additionally those who cannot get broadband over their phoneline or through wireless should be given the option to be provided with true flatrate broadband where for a price of €30 a month they can avail of 24/7 flatrate.

To implement flatrate bands, the wholesale cost of flatrate needs to be reduced drastically. IrelandOffline has requested that the National Regulatory Authority reexamine the wholesale costs of this service but as per our requests about the National Wireless Broadband license, they have not looked into it, to the best of our knowledge. IrelandOffline question how 180 hours of dialup Internet costs €26.99 when a 1mb always on dsl connection now costs €20. Those suffering on slow dialup should not also have to suffer extortionate costs.

Line Failure Rate
The failure rate of lines connected to broadband exchanges is atrociously high in Ireland with rates of 20-25%. The current enabled exchanges are in mainly urban areas and we believe that as more rural exchanges come online, the line failure rate will increase.

We believe that a mandatory directive should be put in place so that if a line fails the broadband test then it will have to be
investigated by an engineer and replaced if necessary so that it does pass the broadband test. If doing this costs an unreasonable amount then the customer should be provided with a subsidised full flatrate dialup product.

Functional Internet Access
Currently lines in this country must be able to carry a dialup speed of 28.8k. However the regulations for this allow multiple loopholes so many will not even gets 28.8k. We believe that FIA should be once again reexamined so that a line should be able to carry a speed of 42k. This will result in a faster dialup experience for those on dialup but it will also ensure that the quality of the line will also allow it to carry a broadband signal, so that if the exchange the line is on is enabled, then it is guaranteed to pass the broadband line test.

This FIA speed would also mean line splitters would need to be abolished or upgraded to line splitters that can carry a DSL signal. Currently as previously stated, a low speed FIA means the quality of phonelines can be substandard so that they cannot carry carry broadband signals and the dialup signals it does carry are slow enough that it could take twice as long to download something compared to another dialup user on a better line. This means that a telco will make more money from a dialup user on an inferior line. This incentive to profit by not investing in a high quality network must be removed.


National Broadband Authority

Much like the National Roads Authority has helped bring Ireland into the modern era with our road network, we would like to see a body charged with working on bringing about broadband for all. A body that is in charge of linking all the broadband assets together. Additionally the body could link with smaller ISPS and GBSs to provide Government assets for them to use to put up antennae and masts and possible space for data centres.

Planning/Ducting
We believe that the planning regulations for ducting differs from council to council. A standard regulation for ducting is needed and one that provides a cheaper and transparent rate than is available currently. To aid competition, providers should have the means to rollout alternative infrastructure like fibre at a cost that is reasonable.

Internet Usage
Internet usage in Ireland remains unchanged for the past 2-3 years with a usage rate of 37%. This seems to say that those online are moving from dialup to broadband. If this rate of transfer continues it will mean we will get more people on broadband but our overall Internet usage will not increase. The only way to match the rest of the EU and the developed world is to get more people online and bring the 37% figure up to 60% or more. It needs to be researched if those using broadband are just moving from dialup and see are there new Internet users who start off with broadband.

Increasing Competition in the Market Place

How can Ireland accelerate the effective implementation of local loop unbundling to provide competition in the DSL market?

LLU is a failure in Ireland through major incompetence by the NRA. LLU was directed by the EU over 4 years ago and is still not correctly implemented in Ireland. In Feb 2005 the NRA after months of discussions with the OLO sent directives to the incumbent which would have created an environment where LLU would have worked and thrived. After a court case over a point of law and NOT the directives themselves the NRA withdrew all these directives and agreed with the incumbent that the incumbent would created a Market Requirements Document. This was released in October and basically stated that it did not like the idea of LLU and would not make LLU provision an easy task.

It is now 12 months later and none of the issues which the OLOs have been complaining about for the past 4 years have been addressed. We would like to see the National Regulatory Authority reissue these directives.

Additionally we would like to see the DCMNR direct ComReg to bring the LLU rate on a par with the EU Average and to transparently report on Ireland’s ranking compared to the EU on a 3 monthly basis.

Further to that we would like to see an independent LLU adjudicator created, as OfCom did in the UK.

How can Ireland optimise the use of state-owned infrastructure to increase availability and choice of broadband services?

There have been numerous reports suggesting how to link up state-owned fibre and using it to link up MANs and fibre corridors. We’d support previous suggestions on this initiative.

We understand that a private company has been tasked by the Office of Public Works to engage with telcos to rent them roof space and property space. However it seems they will only work with large players like Meteor, o2 and Vodafone. We would like to see Government assets used so that Group Broadband Schemes and smaller ISPs providing broadband to those in less urban areas can use these resources to bring broadband to those that still cannot get it.

Creating Awareness to Increase Demand

How can Ireland best use experiences/initiatives in leading countries to create awareness and drive demand?

We should be looking at the regulatory model of the UK and of Denmark. The majority of countries in the EU have shown how to address the issues of broadband by regulating properly. Ireland needs to do the same. We should bring over the leading people from Estonia who made the country a success in terms of Internet usage.

Are there local initiatives that have been successful in some regions in Ireland that can be used as a template for other parts of the country?

Casey Cable in Dungarvan, Community broadband schemes done by the likes of WestNet. Look at the model in Northern Ireland. 100% broadband availability in a few short years.

Conferences – Any Irish people care to impart advice?

Thursday, February 2nd, 2006

Jeff Jarvis recently taked about creating a new model for conferences to which Robert Scoble shared his experiences. Jeff as usual has given some great advice and Robert added to that and clarified some of the matters. Previously I mentioned the idea of having unconferences in Ireland and now I’m asking the bloggers out there to share some of their advice from organising conferences in Ireland. Anything that Jeff and Robert have not covered? Fergal and Tom, you both have experience with events like these, got any advice?

He’s got another idea – Oh no

Thursday, February 2nd, 2006

Kevin Breathnach mentions that both Fiona and Richard W are giving talks in colleges in the next while. He mentioned were they giving the talk at the same time, which is an interesting idea. There’s been some good debates on the Irish Blog O’Sphere in the past while and maybe we could have an actual in-person debate on certain subject matters?

Bring Bloggers together and have them debate Gay Marriage, Feminism, Iraq and Bush, Google in China, Open Source Vs Microsoft. One blogger on the for side and one on the against side. They will be allowed to prepare in advance and the subjectmatter would be topical. Host it in Dublin for now and maybe have this on once a month followed by some socialising after the event. Each event can be sponsored so it is free admission.

Thoughts?

EDIT:
Sinéad and Richard like the idea. Fiona does too and makes some suggestions. Simon in the comments has a good suggestion too.

In which he almost faints on reading a headline

Thursday, February 2nd, 2006

From the Examiner

A hotel yards from Government buildings was tonight at the centre of a major Garda investigation into IRA money laundering.

There goes my venue for the awards I thought. But then I exhaled.

The Earl of Kildare Hotel, which is less than 100 metres from the Dáil, was searched by detectives from the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) last week.

Not Buswells. Thank feck.

To the nomination spammer

Wednesday, February 1st, 2006

In the past 3 hours I have gotten 21 nominations all for the same blog for the best technology category. The reason the Blog Awards are not all about a public vote is for abuse like this. Emailing all your friends who don’t read Irish blogs so they can nominate you is not impressing me at all. I’m now going to set up a filter to autodelete anything that comes in with your blog name. One nomination will do.

As for everyone else, get nominating blogs you would like to see win, not blogs you were asked to vote for.

Fax Your TD – Need your help now

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

John Handelaar has created the Fax Your TD project but needs more volunteers. He needs 5 more people to volunteer to work on the project to move it along further. Sign up this evening or the project will die! Dramatic eh? 🙂

Torturing your Digital Rights

Monday, January 30th, 2006

Bernie comes up with the idea of Digital Rendition where our personal data is snatched by a third party, brought over to a detention centre in another country, is examined and “tortured” before the information is extracted and sent back to the authorities in Ireland. In a way, this is what IRMA does when they hire MediaSentry to spy on Irish people. I can’t seem to find the mp3 download link for this though.

Extraordinary name for torture flights

Monday, January 30th, 2006

Bernie talks about this experience with US flights and the difficulties trying to prove that those Shannon planes are torture flight planes. I wonder what the budget on PR and Spin is for the US Govt. because they have the sweetest sounding names for the most horrible of things.

Fiona pointed out this Irish Blog on Torture flights the other day. Worth a look.

Moral Test – Ireland’s Elderly and Ireland’s Children

Monday, January 30th, 2006

“The moral test of a government is how it treats those who are at the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadow of life, the sick and the needy, and the handicapped.” – Hubert H. Humphrey

The National Economic and Social Forum (NESF) said Irish spending on the elderly is the lowest in Europe, at almost €6,500 per person compared to €19,500 in Denmark. Course we’re the same country that was illegally taking money off the elderly, and when caught changed the law and tried to find a different method to judtify their robbery of money. Luckily our President got the Supreme Court to examine it and it was ruled unconstitutional.

The NESF would want to update their website though. Nothing on it about this press release which is printed in the Examiner. Also in the same paper is concerns from the Ombudsman for Children that not enough care/attention is being given to child abuse complaints and investigations.

The Ombudsman for Children has reportedly expressed concern that the health authorities may not be responding adequately to reports of child abuse.

2 More Blog Awards things

Monday, January 30th, 2006

A Best Technology Blog/Blogger category has been added to the awards so I have opened nominations for a week for this. Then public votes start.

I was also thinking about the iPod prize. Would it be a good idea to put a collection of all the recent Irish podcasts on to the iPod for the winner to listen to?