CCI criticise inaction on broadband takeup

Over-promising and empty rhetoric is hindering the provision of cheaper broadband services in the State, according to the Chamber of Commerce of Ireland.

The business representative group has blamed both the Government and telecommunications companies for the poor uptake of broadband facilities particularly by small to medium size enterprises.

CCI Chief Executive John Dunne questioned why business had been so slow to sign up to broadband technology despite it being critical to ensuring Ireland's competitiveness and its status as a leading business location.

Latest figures show that fewer than 12,000 companies have signed up for broadband since its introduction despite research indicating that 65,000 companies would save money by using DSL.

The CCI believes that Irish businesses have become skeptical of what they term 'false promises' by the telecom companies, the relative lack of power of Comreg and the Government's inertia on driving web-based public services forward.

Citing Singapore as an example, Dunne said: "For a country about the size of Ireland, it has saved exporters €100m a year by providing all trade documentation on an integrated data warehousing system and having studied the system, we would estimate that the savings in Ireland would be almost twice that."

"If the Government does not introduce services such as this, Irish businesses will continue to inch along the Luddite road of dial-up networking," he added.

Dunne was speaking at the national conference of the Commission for Communication Regulation (ComReg) held in Dublin today.