Ireland’s best kept secret
Ireland’s best kept secret
The Rural broadband Scheme was sneaked out in a Press Release and an announcement on the Department’s website on the 9th of May. We have to wonder at the absurdity of this step…surely the people without broadband will not be able to read the website in the first place as the scheme is supposedly designed to deliver a basic broadband service to those people. As it stands now they do not have broadband and therefore cannot access the website. Sir Humphrey (Yes Minister) himself would be proud of the administrative elegance displayed by the announcement.
The Department has been accepting applications from 9 May 2011 and will continue to do so until Friday 29 July 2011. Those with dialup will have to struggle through their graphics heavy website to make an application for the service. There seems to be no other way to apply for the service except through the website.
There will be a number of phases in the Scheme.
The first phase involves inviting and processing applications from potential end customers. The second Phase of the Scheme is supposed be completed by January 2012 by that stage most applicants will be offered an existing services and services under the scheme.
Users that are expecting a decent broadband service from this scheme will be sorely disappointed to find out this scheme is yet another stopgap measure and an excuse to rollout inferior and mostly useless satellite service to areas that currently cannot receive any form of service. Some, as we know, are within 10 miles of cities like Dublin Galway and Limerick
A scheme that delivers before it’s tendered
This is a scheme, although not even out to tender yet, is currently delivering according to the Minister in written statements and speeches. Again more absurdity. How can something be delivering broadband BEFORE people have a chance to apply and most especially where it is generally delivered by third world satellite technology located some 30,000 kilometers away from the Ministers office.
There are other ways to apply for. Download (yes, unfortunately) application form, print, fill in and send back by snail mail. But there are also phone numbers to call. Anyway – it’s obviously ridiculous to announce such a possibility only on the internet, where potential applicants have no access at all.