Campaigning For Affordable, Unmetered And Broadband Internet Access In Ireland
IrelandOffline today welcomed the National Broadband Tender and described the tender as very encouraging but the group still has reservations about it.
Damien Mulley, Chairman of IrelandOffline stated “We very much commend the Minister and his Department for bringing out this tender to give many more people broadband but we do wish it had happened a few years ago and not three weeks before an election. There is still many years left before the results of this are felt.”
IrelandOffline pointed out positive aspects of the tender and stated that the tender makes sure that people will be able to pay a fair price for a fair service in areas that so far have not been able to get broadband but they did point out some major flaws in the tender.
Mulley added “We have strong reservations about the geographic locations that the Department selected as these areas do not cover every location where broadband is currently unavailable. If what the provided map shows is correct, many thousands of consumers and businesses are still going to go without broadband.”
Even in areas where a broadband provider operates, it does not mean everyone in the area can get broadband. Many factors such as poor line quality and split lines mean that even people within the 4.5km DSL threshold cannot get broadband. The Department also thinks that if a wireless operator is in your area then you can get broadband. This is far from the case and many people will testify to failing broadband tests due to trees, houses and hills being in the way. No provider guarantees 100% coverage, yet the DCMNR tender seems to think this is the case.
IrelandOffline also pointed out that this tender does not cover areas where eircom have recently promised to roll their service out to. The main area of contention with this from IrelandOffline’s perspective is that eircom has not said when they are going to roll out to their areas and a promise of “real soon now” is not comforting to the 25% of the country still trying to get broadband..
Mulley also said “While many will now be able to get broadband, many thousands more are still being overlooked by this broadband tender. We are quite concerned that all the fanfare about this before the election will turn into disappointment for businesses and consumers when the sobering facts come to light about the tender.”