Beam us up, like Scotland
Broadband facilities are needed for the e-mail, electronic data interchange (EDI) or the Internet, which were used to generate 20 billion of business, or about one fifth of their turnover, by 5,000 Irish companies which took part in a Central Statistics Office survey in 2002.
These methods cannot be used by at least 50% of the Irish population, because they live in areas still served by old eircom phone lines which cannot carry heavy volumes of electronic information. The figure is much higher than 50% in rural Ireland, and likely to stay high for some time, because we are rated third last in a list of 21 developed countries, in the race to put fast broadband electronic communication in place throughout the country.
Although the Celtic Tiger economic boom is due in large part to our emergence as a world centre for the information technology industries, information technology does not extend beyond our main cities and towns.
Even in areas supposedly served with the broadband facility, 20 to 25% of telephone lines fail a quality test used by eircom.
Rural Ireland is fast becoming a broadband blackspot. Just over the border the breakthrough to 100% broadband coverage in Northern Ireland was claimed last February, thanks to a large State aid payment to British Telecom to help wire-up commercially unviable exchanges.
Across the Irish Sea, a E45 million deal between the Scottish Executive and British Telecom will bring access to affordable broadband to the whole of Scotland by the end of this year.
Even the remote Western Isles will be broadband-enabled, via a publicly-funded wireless broadband project. Without broadband, rural Ireland is effectively ruled out of the economic boom.
In modern "knowledge based" economies like the US, 20% of the workforce operates through their computers.
In Ireland, it could be the key to ending the commuting which blights life for much of our workforce. Instead of spending an hour a day commuting from home to the office, a worker with access to broadband can operate effectively from home.
Only a handful of rural companies have access to Ireland's fibre optic network, but SWS in Bandon, Co Cork has shown how to build business around good communication links.
The high-speed connectivity it brings is vital for the data processing divisions of SWS (employing up to 400). They need broadband to send huge amounts of information over the wires, processing all the data arising from the National Penalty Points System, National Animal Registration, Cattle Movement Monitoring, and several other Government and private business contracts.
Tens of thousands work in Ireland's 200 call centres, used by internationally renowned companies to handle billions of customers' calls each year.
But none of them are located beyond the fringes of our large towns. Although one in 30 of Dublin's workforce are employed by call centres, this is one of the industries banned from rural Ireland by the lack of broadband.
Meanwhile, broadband provider Smart Telecom accuses Eircom of blocking customers from switching to their service just the latest of many squabbles to delay improvements to Ireland's Third World standard communication network.
With a huge volume of complaints over availability and pricing of broadband services, IBEC, the business and employers organisation, is encouraging rural companies to seriously explore initiatives such as Group Broadband Schemes, urging rural entrepreneurs to "help themselves, because nobody else is going to do it for them."
IBEC sources have quoted a World Economic Forum report which showed that it is easier to avail of broadband in Botswana in Africa than in Ireland.
More and more country people are becoming aware of how broadband can help them. Meetings are being held up and down the country in community halls, and the Department of Communications invites members of the public to visit their site and vote for local broadband. The sooner you do that, the sooner the Government's County and Group Broadband Schemes will reach you, if you live in a rural community of less than 1,500 people.
And if enough people vote, the Government might be forced to shake up the broadband providers and give rural Ireland the same economic chance as Scotland's Western Isles, or Botswana.
