News

IrelandOffline welcomes the recently published Innovation Taskforce report

The recently published report by the Innovation Taskforce1 has singled out Ireland’s broadband situation as a critical priority in need of investment if innovation is to be enabled and exploited. The authors of the report identify a number of sectors for innovative opportunities and all of them are communications sensitive. IrelandOffline has been campaigning for many years for improved broadband services and has welcomed the suggestions made by the high-level group. Amongst the suggestions that IrelandOffline considers essential is that all public infrastructure include provision for shared ducting for communications services. The Innovation Taskforce includes the following recommendation “provision of...

Ireland Has the Highest Percentage of Slow Internet Connections in Europe

Ireland Has the Highest Percentage of Slow Internet Connections in Europe. The quarterly speed survey released today by Akamai1, the company that actually delivers windows patches to your computer every month, has found that Ireland has: 1. The Highest percentage of SLOW connections in Europe at 3.4%2. 2. The 4th lowest percentage of FAST connections over 5mbits in Europe at 9.4%3 Commenting on the results IrelandOffline Chairman Eamonn Wallace said: “This is utterly unsurprising to us given the sheer number of Dialup and Midband 3G mobile connections in Ireland. The leading countries in this survey all have wide scale fibre...

IrelandOffline question the commitment of the Minister to Irish broadband consumers

IrelandOffline question the commitment of the Minister to Irish broadband consumers IrelandOffline recently did some research on the Irish governments website http://www.broadband.gov.ie and particularly on the supplier list.(1) We ask Minister Ryan to explain the grossly inaccurate and out of date website his department runs. This shows how low Broadband Provision to Irish People is on the Minister’s priority list. This shoddy and grossly out of date website is beyond a joke in 2010. 75% of the listed suppliers no longer exist. Many went out of business before the end of 2008. About 1/4 of the suppliers actually exist, many...

Why mobile internet access is not broadband

Introduction We hear a lot of advertising for mobile “broadband” in the media these days, so with that in mind we in IrelandOffline did some research into this new and wondrous type of internet access. Frankly we were shocked by what we found out… It’s patently obvious that this method of internet access is really only “dialup with better advertising“. For the reasons outlined below we have christened this type of mobile internet access as “midband“. Some facts on mobile midband * Broadband is Always on. Mobile attempts to connect on demand and may or may not connect at depending...

IrelandOffline Response To Consultation 09/86 On Large Scale Wholesale and Retail National Circuits Above 155mbits

IrelandOffline Response To Consultation 09/86 On Large Scale Wholesale and Retail National Circuits Above 155mbits In reponse to http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0986.pdf (Non Confidential) Introduction We would like to take this opportunity to thank Comreg, in advance, for allowing us to respond to this consultation. We hope that this document will allow for proper discussion and release of the relevant details and documentation into the public domain so that a thorough examination of all the details can be undertaken. Competition issues We, in IrelandOffline, are of the opinion that this consultation is a window-dressing exercise and that the market is clearly not as...