Minister announces “Broadband for All” and then total silence
Minister announces “Broadband for All” and then total silence
*Summary of Press release*
* NBS will not deliver anything
* Waste of taxpayer money
* Unfair subsidy
* Briefing document available
* Silence from Minister
* Meeting requested with Minister
On the 22nd January 2009 Minister Eamonn Ryan formally announced the National Broadband Scheme.
We in IrelandOffline feel this scheme cannot possibly deliver on any of its promises as outlined by the DECNR.
We have termed this solution “Midband” as we think this is a more appropriate description than “Broadband”
Spokesperson Eamonn Wallace explained:
“We initially welcomed the announcement as being imaginative, however, we have now concluded that the NBS will deliver nothing like the promised headline speeds outlined in documents from the DENCR. Nor will it deliver anything at all for 10s of 1000’s of Irish homes deemed to be covered already by the DCENR .
In fact, this is a total waste of taxpayer money, this money could be spent
on more appropriate technologies. This is a proprietary system based around one supplier and does nothing to enhance the spread of broadband, in fact it actually amounts to an unfair subsidy to one corporate entity to build out their network”.
After extensive consultations with our Expert RF Engineering Panel, familiar with mobile “broadband”,we have concluded that the system will be totally unsatisfactory, in fact most users will get dial-up speeds especially when the system becomes well subscribed.
Our Expert RF Engineering Panel are currently drawing up a plan that could deliver 5 times the promised speeds at half the cost. Neither Mobile WiMax nor Mobile LTE can deliver on these speeds, only a Fixed Wireless soultion.
However the bandwidth required for LTE will not become available until 2014 at the earliest, when MMDS is finally switched off” explained Wallace. “even then thousands of 2.6GHz LTE base stations,not 160, would be required to get close to 1Mbps DSL performance.”
IrelandOffline have published a more comprehensive document outlining the technical issues and our reasoning for this scheme being considered unwelcome and contrary to the public good.
Link to briefing document
We have urgently requested a meeting with the Minister to outline our concerns and have also discovered during our extensive research and consultations that no questions put to the Department have been answered, despite numerous requests for information and clarification having been submitted from a number of interested parties.
We are calling on the Minister to prioritise answering these questions as a matter of courtesy, if nothing else.
We still urgently need solutions not promises.