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THE PRICE FOR broadband between the lowest and highest-costing EU country can be as much as 400 per cent, with Ireland being one of the most expensive.
Four separate studies published today show that broadband services and speeds are inconsistent across the EU, with consumers left confused over varying information provided by operators.
Alongside the difference in pricing, 66 per cent of people don’t know what internet speed they’ve signed up for while consumers only get 75 per cent of the broadband speed they signed up for.
The most expensive broadband connection is in Cyprus, which amounted to €46.20 per month while Spain and Ireland followed with €38.70 and €31.40 per month respectively. The cheapest advertised broadband costs came from Lithuania (€10.30 per month), Romania (€11.20 per month) and Latvia (€13.40 per month).
The greatest domestic price range was found in Poland – which has offers ranging from €20 up to €140 per month – and Croatia – from €30 up to €121 per month.
A graph showing the difference in broadband retail price across all the EU member states per month including VAT. The cost of broadband in Ireland ranges from €31 to just over €60 (Image: europa.eu).
The European Commission (EC) Vice-President Neelie Kroes said that such a system had to change as “there is no good reason” for such a price difference for the same service across different countries.
The findings came from the Broadband Internet Access Costs (BIAC), SamKnows, Eurobarometer and Communications Committee (COCOM). The reports were part of the EU’s Connected Continent initiative, which aims to provide consumers with more transparency, rights and better services. The EC will vote on it next week.
Back in December, a separate report from Eurostat found that the number of Irish households with access to a broadband connection was 67 per cent, below the EU average of 76 per cent.
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As some one who has tried to implement something like it will be interesting to see how he does it . I managed to get it some facial recognition working with a raspberry pi behind a two wave mirror which has a screen behind it in top corner. If it recognize me it displays my calendar while not displaying to others( the rest of the mirror looks like a mirror). Although it is very dependent on the quality of lighting in the room which will be interesting to see how Zuckenberg deals that that. (Seems christmas lights are very useful for me.) As for voice recognition the tricky thing is getting to start listening to you, and sound quality at a distance.
Also I tried building a voice activated recipe display, seems the only thing the google speech recognition API can understand of a Tipperary accent is Baked Alaska.
I’m still waiting for the cheque in the post he was sending out to me. It said it on Facebook so I presume that’s where he got my address?
Its probably built already.
And if there’s one thing zuckerberg is good at, it’s developing other people’s ideas.
Wonder if it will as much harm as Facebook has…
Starts out as Jarvis ends up like Proteus out of Demon Seed.
have your say