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IrelandOffline has been campaigning for many years for improved, consistent, value based broadband services for all the citizens of Ireland. The published statistics on Internet access show that the service providers concentrate on densely populated areas. This is not surprising as the supply of telecommunications services has been privatised. However, there will always be areas where either distance from populated areas and/or low population density militates against service provision. The National Broadband Plan (NBP) was launched a number of years ago to deal with the issue of support for “disenfranchised” areas with respect to broadband. The published objective was to...

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...

Introduction We in IrelandOffline have been following the recent announcements about broadband delivery in Ireland with great interest and we have even attended some of the press events. Seemingly we will all have fibre to the home by 2020, well so says the government and they have even drawn up a plan to make this happen, this is called the National broadband Plan (NBP). We believe this to be a very good and aspirational plan, despite the long timescale. Current announcements In tandem with the announcement of the NBP we also have a number of companies jockeying to be overall...