Broadband deficit - Service must be improved dramatically

INFORMATION technology was one of the centre planks of Ireland’s recent economic expansion and it will be central to any recovery.

Indeed, it is impossible to envisage a recovery of any substance unless we continually develop and deepen our IT and communications capabilities.

Without the great advances in electronic communications security and speed it would have been impossible to entice so many stellar financial service firms to the Irish Financial Services Centre, one of the jewels in the crown of modern Ireland.

Attractive tax rates had a huge part to play in the success of the IFSC but without effective communications even very competitive tax rates would have stood for very little.

American IT multinationals such as Microsoft, Intel – 4,500 Irish employees – and Dell provided the energy and opportunity behind so many of these ventures.

The impact of the closure of Dell on Limerick and the whole of the Shannon region was tremendous, it is suggested that up to 10,000 jobs were lost when the plant was moved to Poland. This catastrophe underlined our vulnerability in a changing world and how we must continually work to be at the forefront of development, innovation and IT production. Broadband is central to this.

That is why it is so very disconcerting to be reminded of our failure to make high-end broadband services available right across the country.

We are so desperate to get watertight broadband that we have tacitly turned, for the moment at least, a blind eye to the fact that we are being charged multiples of the rates charged on mainland Europe.

In spite of this a study carried out in 66 countries and released yesterday confirms that the quality of broadband services in Ireland lags well behind many developed countries.

The study ranks Ireland in 37th place, a drop of one position on a similar survey in 2008. It suggests that our broadband services are just about adequate for today’s needs but hopelessly inadequate for the challenges of the future.

We have the 12th highest rate of penetration with 82% of households able to access broadband. However, we are out on a limb if we are to benefit from next-generation web applications and services because of poor fixed and mobile broadband quality.

Under a scoring system devised by the researchers – Oxford University’s Said Business School and the University of Oviedo, Spain – Dublin was ranked 123rd out of 240 cities.

This cannot offer much comfort to those of us who have been convinced that our future depends on establishing and sustaining a knowledge based economy.

Running parallel to this broadband survey is the by now annual reduction in students taking science or higher level maths at leaving cert level.

There have been, in recent times, a growing murmur that we should take broadband service back into State ownership. This is not guaranteed to have the desired affect and might even dissuade investors from considering other projects in this country.

One thing is certain though, we cannot hope to secure our place in the world when the recovery begins unless we improve our service dramatically.

The funds diverted to NAMA to try to rescue our imploding banks would be more than enough to complete this project.