Grovel

Lovers of eighties’ TV will remember ‘Endurance’ the Japanese game show in which desperate students had their nipples seared with a magnifying glass, or had their heads powdered with fish food before being dunked in a river full of carp.

On a similar theme of desperation and humiliation, eir (the company formerly known as eircom) has launched a competition of its own that combines broadband-misery, special pleading, and queue-jumping. It’s called “FibrePower your Community”; we’ve called it “Grovel”.

Grovel hopefuls will submit details of their community in a written application accompanied by  “your own words, song, video or indeed a combination of all” to sing the benefits of Fibre-to the-Home – if so lucky. The audition is via the internet, and, assuming it gets uploaded in time for September 29th, the result will be announced in September ….or maybe October; they’re not really sure. The winning community (T&Cs) will receive Fibre-to-the-Home. When? we don’t know, but they get it before the losers, and it’s free for a year.

An Independent panel of judges will pick the winning community. It will be independent because one of the panelists is CEO of ‘open eir’ (formerly eircom wholesale) and she will make sure of it. They will pick a winner according to, among other criteria, how close it is to a town that already has NGA. Why is that a criterion? – we don’t know.

But the singing doesn’t end with the application. According to eir (formerly eircom) the “winning community must make themselves available for unpaid PR on the day of the announcement plus any additional unpaid PR engagement during the Trial.”

Cynics might say ‘Hey wait, isn’t this just a wheeze to hoover up marketing information for their retail division’.  To that we say ‘Shame! Shame on you, ordinary member of the public, to suggest that an impeccable corporate citizen such as eir (formerly eircom) would selfishly use the desperation of those, who, for unavoidable reasons, have no broadband.’

So, finally you ask, should your application be scrupulously truthful? Well eir, (formerly eircom), urge that ‘[as] well as the form filling we encourage as much creativity as you can muster’  We think you should take them at their word.

And remember folks, it’s just a game.