Getting connected in remote areas

DO YOU want to be connected with the wider world through modern technology – even if it means putting up with occasionally obtrusive masts – or remain in splendid rural isolation?

That’s the question facing people living in some of our most beautiful and often remote landscapes, especially in mountainous areas. It could be all about getting a proper telephone service for the Black Valley, in Kerry, or broadband internet access for people living in the foothills of the Comeragh Mountains, in Co Waterford.

Up and down the country people have been objecting to the erection of telecommunications masts on grounds of possible risks to health. There are also environmental issues, with masts being a blot on pristine elevated areas for example.

Counties Kerry and Waterford are at the top of league in relation to objections to masts, while Cork is closer to the bottom of the league table.

One of the prices to be paid for living in remote areas has been isolation. But the internet and broadband, especially, is helping to remedy that and is bringing about a sea change in rural life. The PC has become yet another standard piece of equipment in many homes in such districts, much the same as a washing machine, or a TV set.

It always lifts the spirits to see people of advanced years using today’s communications gadgetry to do their banking and shopping online, or maintaining contact with children living far away from home through Skype.

For those living at the end of long boreens who have little face-to-face contact with other people, the cliché about the world becoming a smaller place has become the reality – all because of information technology.

At the end of October 3, the company charged with the task of rolling out the Government’s National Broadband Scheme (NBS) throughout Ireland, reported that it had brought service to the electoral districts chosen by the Department of Communications.

Such areas are now brought up to speed and connected, in broadband terms, with the most advanced mobile network in Europe, according to a 3 spokesman.

Bearing in mind the varied and sometimes hilly and mountainous terrain, in counties such as Cork, mobile broadband will realistically be the only way that vast tracts of the country will ever get broadband, he added.

“Wireless broadband is proving a success in remote areas of inaccessible parts of Scandinavia, which is generally ahead of the curve when it comes to technology deployment,” he went on.

Computer and online courses are being run regularly in Ballymacarbry Resource Centre, in west Waterford. Local man Andrew Butler, who is in the IT business, says people are now enjoying a service that could not be provided with the old dial-up connection.

“Two masts are being used, one in the village and the other in the middle of the valley. There were no objections to the masts as people saw the benefits and felt the advantages of having the service outweighed the risks,” he said.

“This is a low-cost system that especially suits areas of low population density. People of all ages are now doing courses, availing of the 10 computers in the resource centre.

“All this gives people more confidence and they feel less alienated from the world.

“Some people living in a very remote areas of the valley, right in the foothills of the Comeraghs, can now order their shopping and to lots of other business online. It’s a big change in their lives and they no longer feel as isolated as they once were,” he said.

Such is the rapidly evolving nature of modern wireless technology that faster broadband speeds will be trialled next year and may be available to all householders and small businesses by the end of 2011.

A continually improving broadband service will have enormous benefits for rural businesses, helping them to compete on an even pitch with urban competitors which already enjoy good broadband access.

It will enable small rural companies conduct business more efficiently with overseas suppliers and customers.

Importantly, a high quality broadband offering will make rural areas a more attractive location for small and medium-sized businesses, not to mention larger multinationals and other firms which need their executives to be connected.

The reality is that high speed and affordable broadband has become an essential business tool and can no longer be regarded as a luxury.

Broadband in the home also has huge benefits for all the family allowing working from home, online banking, booking holidays and airline tickets, online shopping as well as enabling online education and research for homework and school or college projects.