IrelandOffline

Opinion

The story of a broadband seeker in rural Ireland

The story of a broadband seeker in rural Ireland and the steps he had to take to get reliable broadband:   Well firstly here at home we had an ISDN line and then we got Fixed Wireless Access but the company had a terrible service, I then moved onto 3G dongle power which was fine at first for basic web surfing and email but for gaming the packet loss was unbearable. Then a second FWA provider came along and they provided a top class service for a year or so but sadly the service got worse and worse and after...

Opinion

IrelandOffline signs “Declaration of Internet Freedom”

IrelandOffline agree with the concept of a free Internet as outlined by  http://www.internetdeclaration.org/freedom which states that the Internet remain free, open, uncensored, private, affordable and innovative. Our main reason for signing this declaration is point 2 “Promote universal access to fast and affordable networks” but we agree with the other points of the declaration too. The Preamble to the Declaration explains: “We believe that a free and open Internet can bring about a better world. To keep the Internet free and open, we call on communities, industries and countries to recognize these principles. We believe that they will help to bring about more creativity,...

News

Quarterly Report Q2 2012 PR

Ireland’s position in the broadband stakes deteriorates yet again.Ireland is now at its lowest ever position in the Global Table for Download Speeds and also for Upload Speeds. Ireland dropped five places to 56th position in the World for download speeds. Bandwidth in Ireland, the self proclaimed “Internet Capital of Europe”, costs 188% of the average EU cost and 238% of the Median EU Cost. These figures were 184% and 211% in Q1 2012. Bandwidth costs are rising relative to our European peers with a 10% cost hike relative to the  Median EU Cost in this quarter alone. Ireland relies...

News

Quarterly Report Q2 2012

IrelandOffline Quarterly Report Q2 2012 This is the latest IrelandOffline Quarterly report, based as always on Ookla Netindex Data. The situation Internationally Ireland dropped 5 places to 56th place in the World for Download Speeds during Q1 2012, our lowest ever position since the IrelandOffline Quarterly Report was launched two years ago. . We passed Vietnam again in this quarter for download speeds (as we did in the last quarter when we were briefly higher than Vietnam) but this time we passed them on the way down. While we just avoided being passed by nearby Laos for Upload speeds in...

News

Comreg and 70% population coverage

Thousands of rural dwellers may lose coverage in the next licensing round from Comreg. Comreg propose that only 70% of the population of the country needs to be covered,this is approximately 10% of the landmass, which equates to mostly the east coast and a few hot spots around major cities/towns. Inevitably this will lead to a decline in current coverage levels as telecommunications providers struggle with the recession and the inevitable rolling back of their networks as there is no longer a regulatory necessity to invest or maintain the networks in more rural areas. This is a decision driven by...