News

The National Broadband Plan Irelandoffline would like to give the DCENR team who built the http://broadband.gov.ie/ mapping site that was launched yesterday some kudos for a job well done. By the standards of the output produced by DCENR over the years this is an astonishingly complete and accurate piece of work. We were extremely worried when a frankly incoherent list was quickly announced by Minister Rabbitte just before the local elections but as it turns out we need not have been. Some opportunities have been missed. The ability to send a geolocated query direct from the map, perhaps with a...

There were thirty two submissions to the DCENR’s public consultation on to the National Broadband Plan – the ‘Call-for-Input’. Of those, six believed that what they had to say was so commercially sensitive, dangerous or controversial that the general public should not be allowed to see it – any of it. Perhaps the security of the state is at risk. Three of them are monopolies owned by the public. They are: An Post Aurora Telecom (subsidiary of Ervia) Coillte We shall now be seeking the submissions from the Department under the Freedom of Information Act 2014.

IrelandOffline has recently been examining documents emanating from Comreg and have spotted a worrying trend and the certain likelihood of large price increases for ALL users and not just rural users. Much has been made in the media of a probable “price hike” for rural broadband users, the spin helpfully put on this is that urban dwellers are subsidising rural users leading to the conclusion that eircom may be allowed to charge correspondingly higher prices outside of urban areas(1). This is a very worrying development as consumers with bad and rotten connections will now have the privilege of paying more...