Irish broadband uptake low - survey

A survey on telecoms expenditure in Ireland showed that not only is broadband uptake slow, but also basic understanding of the term is low.

The telecoms market intelligence company IDC carried out the survey which revealed that 20% of organisations that use dial-up for internet access in Ireland and 23% of those that use ISDN consider these to be "broadband" technologies.

"As well as the obvious infrastructural and price barriers in the market, there is clearly work to be done in terms of education around broadband technologies and how they can benefit Irish enterprises," said John Gilsenan, author of the report - Telecoms Trends and Expenditure in Ireland 2003.

According to end-user organisations, telecommunications expenditure continues to rise and expenditure on voice telephony is growing fastest, with more organisations expecting the voice proportion of their spend to increase than those that expect a decrease.

The study findings show that eircom is the primary telecommunications supplier to 91% of Government organisations. This number has increased from 67% when compared with last year's study.

IDC has conducted the survey for many years and this year 327 interviews were completed.