Fergus Finlay: We’ve got the fibre, but have still made a meal of our connections

Trying to get to talk to someone in Open Eir is a recipe for a complete emotional meltdown, writes Fergus Finlay

Our poor basic internet infrastructure sees many people use the hotspot on their phones to connect rather than use their wifi broadband network.

Think of me as a case history. I know the experience I’ve been having is by no means unique, but it’s driving me nuts. It’s the outworking of the craziest public policy decision ever made in the history of our country, and everything that flowed from that.

When I was newly married, you dealt with a civil servant, an officer of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, if you needed a phone in your house. It could take years, and you always had a sense that they didn’t give a damn. We were more than two years in the first house we bought before the phone arrived.