Rural areas losing out in digital divide

Job opportunities are being lost because of Ireland’s digital divide, it has emerged.

New jobs being rolled out by online retail giant Amazon and Apple for customer support agents to work from home preclude those who have broadband speeds of anything less than 5 megabits per second (Mbps) download speeds and 1Mbps upload speeds.

The situation means that many people living in rural areas cannot apply for certain jobs and experts predict that is likely to cause a big urban/rural divide over the next few years.