I run an online retail business, http://www.sleek.ie . My business is DIRECTLY affected by poor broadband infrastructure. I am competitive with pricing, offer free postal and am stock holding, so I don’t rely on any 3rd party company, therefore my service is 2nd to none. The biggest draw backs for me are in the areas of site updates, backups, image uploads, browsing competitor sites for price comparisons etc. At times, I have a 128k connection right down to no connection at all… I live in a relatively rural area but only 3 miles from a well serviced town (Westport)… I have had to go to cafes with web access at times just to carry out site changes… It make a business that is tough, VERY tough and needlessly so IMHO….

Paul, I can imagine that your situation is difficult.

You make a good point: There are companies in Ireland that offer good products and good prices. I more referred to the ’40-foot containers full of on-line purchases arriving in Ireland’ as per the statement of the ISME official when I was talking about competitive prices.

Your situation is different, though. In your case it is the regional availability not the availability in general. Interestingly, with Westport only 3miles away broadband services could be delivered to you, but it would cost a handsome amount of money. So the problem is not that it is can’t be made available, the problem is how much would you be able or prepared to pay.

You live in a village with approx. 900 inhabitants a little off the main roads and I am sure you would never expect a motorway to be built to your home. The rural access roads will probably be sufficient to get to the next bigger regional road and from there to a national road and then to a motorway. Your “broadband” situation is similar: You are on a rural access “road” – that is not of very good quality. But building a higher category road (i.e. broadband) would be very difficult to justify economically. So, unless a social component is added of the type “Every house in Ireland has the right to be connected via a motorway!” it will be unlikely that high-bandwidth or high-quality Internet services will make it to sparsely populated rural areas.

Chrissy, the government would have been able to do that when Eircom was sold many years ago, but at the time the government – in their wisdom – didn’t consider anything like that. If Eircom now was separated from the infrastructure, I expect Eircom would fight tooth and nail to keep it and there is a good chance that they would win. The opportunity for the government has gone.
Access to Eircom exchanges is possible now, but the question is if it makes economic sense for other operators to provide services in less populated areas.

The only option the government now has is to finance/subsidise the delivery of broadband in rural areas. This would mean that taxpayers will have to pay for it and in proportion it would be the people in cities and towns that would pay for what could be perceived as the life-style choice of others in rural areas. And if you like it or not the question about broadband vs A&E (or similar) could easily come up as well. (E.g. If the money was only there for one of the two, which one should it be?)

I laugh at the People who complain about broadband speeds.. any form of broadband at all in my area would be great too!