Broadband ‘among most expensive’
Internet lobby group Ireland Offline said Ireland was near the bottom of the table in its survey of the 30 members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the world’s leading industrialised nations.
The report claimed Ireland was 27th of the 30 for value for money. Ireland Offline chairman Damien Mulley said the survey was “the clearest evidence yet” of the true state of broadband availability in Ireland. “No talking-up, side-stepping or clever marketing can distract from the evidence: 26 other countries in the league of 30 score better value for money.”
The group said Irish consumers were paying more than those in other countries for a lower-quality service. Although Eircom announced plans last week to upgrade the basic broadband package available to most Irish homes, doubling connection speeds from 512 kilobytes to 1 megabyte per second, Ireland Offline said typical packages in other EU countries were up to 8 megabytes per second.
Eircom, however, said its improved offering meant Ireland was now at the top of the table for the quality of its standard offering and that the entry-level product available here was better than most EU countries.
Ireland Offline spokesman Aidan Whyte said Ireland would miss out on foreign investment and jobs unless recommendations by an Oireachtas committee and state research agency Forfás were implemented.
The group said the situation south of the border compared unfavourably with Northern Ireland, where broadband is available to the entire population and has fewer line failures. Northern Ireland has almost the same number of broadband connections despite having half the population of the Republic.
“Ireland Offline now calls on all consumers to write to their elected representatives and the Minister for Communications and express their total dissatisfaction that Irish people’s prosperity once again suffers as a result of a telecommunications market in Ireland that fails to address their needs,” said Mr Mulley.
