High speed internet plan ‘a disaster’

The National Broadband Scheme is a disaster area, according to a leading lobby group.

The €80m project was supposed to ensure everyone had access to high-speed internet. Consumers availing of the scheme are supposed to receive a minimal speed of 2.3Mbps but some rural areas have speeds as low as an unusable 0.2Mbps — while others cannot get broadband at all.

It also emerged Irish customers are paying up to five times more for mobile calls than the cheapest EU rate.

Lobby group Ireland Offline is writing to the EU over the broadband programme’s management.

The group’s chairman, Eamon Wallace, said: “The National Broadband Scheme is a disaster, a technical disaster. When I say it’s a disaster area, I can technically back that up.”

Meanwhile, research by the European Commission has highlighted the high cost of making domestic calls with mobile phones here.

In Ireland, the average cost of such calls is 10.2c per minute compared to 1.9c in Lithuania — the cheapest of the 28 EU member states.

The statistics reveal that while Irish consumers are some of Europe’s biggest mobile users, this country is ranked as the ninth most expensive country to make a mobile phone call.

Mobile phone costs are more expensive here than in Britain, Germany, Sweden, Italy and Finland and most of the newer EU member states, but cheaper than in Belgium, Spain, France and the Netherlands.

EU commission vice president and commissioner for the EU’s digital agenda, Neelie Kroes, said: “The 28 national telecoms markets in Europe today are not benefiting consumers like a single market would. It is critical for the whole EU to move quickly to build a real single market to achieve a truly connected continent.”

Ms Kroes, a Dutch politician who has campaigned for greater transparency and standardisation in the cost of phone services, also expressed concern about wide differences in the cost of international mobile phone calls for different operators.

For example, Vodafone charges its customers in Portugal €0.465 per minute for international mobile phone calls, but its customers in Britain are charged the equivalent of €1.19 per minute.

She pointed out that there were much smaller price differences between the EU member states in other categories of basic goods and services.

Ms Kroes said a litre of milk can be bought for between €0.69 and €0.99 throughout the EU — a price difference of 43%, while the price difference for an occasional purchase like an iPad was just 11%.

Mobile phone operators were criticised by Fine Gael’s Seanad spokesperson on European Affairs, Catherine Noone for unfairly charging their Irish customers.

“Given that we are a small, open and competitive economy and that we feature among the most prolific talkers and texters in Europe, these figures highlight how far we have to go in terms of value for money for mobile consumers.”

She claimed the proposed elimination of roaming charges from next year should help competition and create a true single market for telecoms.