More bored band...

Over the bank holiday weekend, the Irish government released their latest report of progress. This included, according to Irish media and apart from LUAS, things like broadband. I absolutely do not believe it! Just the other day, I surfed to the Irish government web site regarding broadband. Answering all their questions and at the end of the session, after entering where I'm living, I was advised that I can get mediocre broadband via satellite at a cost of over 200 euro per month! This is unreal! I'm living 2.1 miles from the nearest optical fibre. I'm about 4 miles from the National Technological Park and the University. I can only see one reason for things being so bad:

1. The Irish government haven't a clue what broadband is.

2. The Irish government love the monopoly of Eircom and will protect it until
the end of their lives.

3. Total utterly incompetence by all Irish ISPs.

4. F*****ng capitalistic bastards trying to make as much money as possible from Paddy O'Everyone.

This is NOT acceptable. I'm considering buying some optical fibre and lay it out in the ditches and dykes between my house and the university. Then I'll be on a fairly good VPN and the Internet, at (relatively) full speed at almost
no cost.

So, what's acceptable cost for a real broadband connection? Well, In most parts of the world, people pay between 20 and 30 euros per month for 512k to 2 Mbps. In some cases, like mine, you need some kind of symmetry as you might want to put up a Home Server (or proxy) that you can access from your office (or anywhere!). Some of us are net contributors to the content of the Net, hence we need reasonable upload speeds as well. Anyhow, I suggest that anybody doing business, having shares, or anything with Eircom STOP today. Just STOP. Leave them in Ballygobackwards. Let's move on. If we ever going to have an information economy, it won't be given to us by a government or semi-state company. We have to claim it. So, Ladies and Gentlemen, roll out and interconnect your optical fibre;. It's cheaper and more reliable.