Still on 56k...

Thinking about why we can’t get broadband (boredband) where I live, just about 10 minutes drive from the University of Limerick (which is connected to the HEA-net) and 4 minutes from the village of Annacotty. Last autumn Shannon Broadband dug up the roads through our nearest village, Annacotty. They buried a bundle of dark fibre, i.e., optical fibre for telecommunications and data communication that is not yet in use.
It is 3.3 km from that optical fibre to my house. Good olde Eircom is out here on our road every other day. I’ve had a few nice chats with their workers. One major reason their out fiddling around with the copper-cables is that THEY DON’T KNOW who’s connected to what! This, of course is part of the problem as they now have to unbundle, to allow other, more competent, operators to provide the entire service – both connectivity and traffic.
Just to get the bigger picture, I did a quick surf to ITU’s server (International Telecommunications Union), and found a report from last year. This shows that Ireland is currently number 26 on the list in terms of digital access. People, that is I, you, my neighbours, are screaming, phoning, spending hours in voice-mail systems to ask for good connectivity, but they won’t give it to us! Instead we hear that government ministers are worried about the low uptake of broadband in Ireland. WHAT BOREDBAND? Get real!

Digital Access Index value, by access level, 2002 (Source: WORLD TELECOMMUNICATION DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2003, ITU)

1. Sweden 0.85
2. Denmark 0.83
3. Iceland 0.82
4. Korea (Rep.) 0.82
5. Norway 0.79
6. Netherlands 0.79
7. Hong Kong, China 0.79
8. Finland 0.79
9. Taiwan, China 0.79
10. Canada 0.78
11. United States 0.78
12. United Kingdom 0.77
13. Switzerland 0.76
14. Singapore 0.75
15. Japan 0.75
16. Luxembourg 0.75
17. Austria 0.75
18. Germany 0.74
19. Australia 0.74
20. Belgium 0.74
21. New Zealand 0.72
22. Italy 0.72
23. France 0.72
24. Slovenia 0.72
25. Israel 0.70
26. Ireland 0.69
27. Cyprus 0.68
28. Estonia 0.67
29. Spain 0.67
30. Malta 0.67
31. Czech Republic 0.66
32. Greece 0.66
33. Portugal 0.65
34. United Arab Emirates 0.64
35. Macao, China 0.64
36. Hungary 0.63
37. Bahamas 0.62
38. St. Kitts and Nevis 0.60
39. Poland 0.59
40. Slovak Republic 0.59
41. Croatia 0.59

… the list goes on. 178 counties are included in the full report.

Hey, Janis – sing us a song!
Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Gigabit link!