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THOUSANDS OF RURAL businesses are having their growth stunted and communities are being left isolated because they rely on decade-old internet technology.
And despite the government talking up its technology credentials, those in many country regions say they have seen little real commitment to bring them into the digital age.
Only 67% of all Irish households had access to broadband connections last year and that figure has barely increased since 2011.
The broadband-penetration rate is lower here than in virtually any highly-developed economy and in Europe it lags behind countries including Latvia, Hungary and Poland.
In the nation with the highest broadband-access rate in Europe, Iceland, 95% of households had the technology last year, according to the latest Eurostat figures.
A government taskforce was set up look at the problem and in its 2012 report it recognised the “transformative impact” high-speed broadband could have on society.
The flow-on benefits would lead to more economic growth and jobs, and come as a boost to business, particular the small- and medium-enterprise (SME) sector.
But the report identified that, if the situation was left to purely commercial interest, anywhere up to 30% of Ireland’s population would still only have access to the basic services currently available by 2020.
The small business
Aisling Hurley runs her digital-marketing training operation, The Small Business Fairy, from her home near Vicarstown in rural Co Laois. Her enterprise relies on a slow and intermittent satellite signal.
“It’s a huge issue – you have the government pushing that we are a technology country, but then we don’t have the infrastructure there to come with it,” she told TheJournal.ie.
Hurley said she was used to losing her broadband connection altogether due to bad weather or other problems, which meant she often had to call off conference calls or delay important business on short notice.
“It’s the sort of stuff that makes you look really unprofessional – and the other thing, of course, is the cost,” she said.
Hurley said it wasn’t a viable option for businesses like hers to simply relocate to a town with fixed-line broadband access, while there were also many farm-based operations that were becoming increasingly dependent on the internet.
“There are quite a lot of businesses in rural Ireland that are a reasonable size, but then you hear stories about how a cow kicked out their satellite dish and they have completely lost their internet connections,” she said.
Seriously, you wouldn’t see this on Father Ted.”
Ireland should be ‘reaping the benefit’ of digital economy
Another report, delivered by then-communications minister Pat Rabbitte on the government’s National Broadband Plan, said about 90% of surveyed small and medium enterprises (SMEs) saw the positive benefits of internet for their business.
Provision of quality high speed broadband across Ireland should ensure that such opportunities are fully harnessed and that Ireland reaps the benefits of a truly digital economy,” it said.
Between 2008 and this year Three Ireland was paid €80 million to fix internet blackspots under the earlier National Broadband Scheme before government funding was pulled from the program in August.
Once the scheme ended, Three didn’t have to maintain the services it had agreed under the contract despite the provider being handed a near monopoly in large swathes of the country.
The government has since announced it would be spending €500 million on the new plan and for over a year it has been mapping potential locations in about 1,000 small towns and villages for high-speed fibre connections.
The village centre
On of those on that list of “target areas” is the village of Kilmovee, population about 600, in Co Mayo, home to the annual Kilmovee 10K run.
It was also on the list for Three’s mobile broadband rollout, but Rupert Davis, who runs the Kilmovee.info community website said once the government contract ended it was like the provider “just turned the dials down”.
It’s quite shocking – it’s extremely unreliable; sometime it drops off completely and it can be a couple of hours before it’s back of a level where you can continue doing the banking, for example,” he said.
(A spokeswoman for Three told us the telecoms company had “met all contractual obligations” under the broadband scheme and it continued providing that service. She said it would have to look at any customers’ service problems on a case-by-case basis.)
Davis is also a voluntary directory at Kilmovee’s community centre, where pay-point and internet services have been set up for the region’s elderly residents – although during frequent outages, locals have to travel to larger, nearby towns to get things like financial transfers done.
“All we want is for the local exchange to be upgraded to be able to offer fixed-line broadband to the people of Kilmovee and the surrounding area,” he said.
We are a rural area – to deprive us of that it ludicrous, especially when we pride ourselves (as a country) on technology.”
The village was too small to be chosen for commercial ventures recently announced from either Eircom or the joint enterprise from Vodafone and ESB as they roll out fibre-to-the-home networks across Ireland.
Instead, Davis signed the centre up for a satellite connection, although the added cost was significant for a community-run facility, while they wait on the finalised list for the National Broadband Plan and to learn when it would finally be delivered.
The minister
Meanwhile, Communications Minister Alex White, who replaced Rabbitte in the job in July, has stated that getting better broadband services into rural Ireland was his first priority.
More than 2 years after the National Broadband Plan was first flagged, he will announce its next phase in just over a week when a full map of the rollout is released.
This … will show the locations across Ireland that will have access to commercially-provided high speed, high-quality broadband by the end of 2016, and the remaining locations, which will require state intervention to provide access to high speed, high-quality broadband,” White’s spokesman told us.
He said there had been a “welcome acceleration” in commercial services being expanded, although the government still needed to intervene for some areas. Tendering for this part of the plan was expected to start next year.
But that news comes as little comfort for small business owners like Hurley, whose region hasn’t even made the provisional list for the broadband plan.
“You get excited when you read about these things, but in reality there is not going to be thousands of towns and villages chosen,” she said.
We keep referring to (the ones that are) as ‘the chosen ones’.”
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The national broadband scheme roll out by Three has been nothing short of a joke. Government pulled plant a few weeks ago so customer monthly bills have gone up while service gets worse. Then you call them and are put through to some lad in India who can’t understand you.
still have to go outside to make/receive a mobile call, Galway – that’s progress! and we’re now being asked to pay (again) for water?
Eircom are the biggest waste of space in this Island. 6 months to put a line in for 1 meg broadband when I’m in the fibre area. Useless bunch of sorry rant over
Eircom has been sold and resold so many times that no one knows who owns it.
Contracts are given for reasons other than achieving a good service. It doesn’t matter who owns them, it is what people vote for, Timmy from FG or FF is a fierce nice fellow and sure we always voted that way and still they call shock when they do f all.
I’ve cast off my shackles, time for others to do the same
Ireland a “technology country”??
A tax haven for technology companies would be more accurate.
We are quickly being left behind by former Eastern blocks Hungary, Poland, Latvia and the remote and former buster than bust Iceland?
Says it all really.
Well what do we really expect when our government consists of a pack backward yokels?
The village idiots of Europe.
E, you sound like an ill informed half wit. The population of Iceland is about 320k about 35% live in the capital and the bulk in towns confined to a relatively small area. Ireland has the largest amount of unique once-off addresses in the EU. In other words we have a very dispersed population. You will find similar broadband issues in the UK and other countries. Compare like with like. How do you propose that the Govt give everyone broadband? What technology would you use? How would you deploy it? How would you pay for it? How would you maintain it given the dispersal of our rural population? If you haven’t a clue I suggest that you shut up until you read up. I know one thing. You want broadband but you don’t want to pay the commercial cost. You want someone else to subsidise you and you don’t want to pay for that either. Get real and suggest solutions rather than blaming someone else for not having a solution to a problem you don’t even understand.
Down with that sort of thing!!!!! :D
Oh Sorry John.
Our Government are not Yokels or the village idiots of Europe.
Our Country is not being used by tech multinationals as a tax haven.
Poland, Latvia and Hungary are not former eastern block countries.
Iceland was never bust.
Is that a more accurate account for you?
And less of the half wit rubbish.
This aint ask.fm.
Roz, neither the mobile companies or the government can be held accountable for the way your house was built.
More importantly if you can’t grasp how being asked to specifically pay for water would free up current government funding to pay for other things that you might like (or maybe even borrow less to actually keep the country ticking over) then that’s your issue!
Roz. You might try changing mobile providers. Worked for me.
@ steve m
Steve i can definitely echo your sentiments. From crap service that went even worse to increased bills when they dropped their data allowance. The last straw for me was when they tried to bill me 66 quid for 1&1/2 gigabytes over. Absolute crap service ur dead right. I could go on but id better stop now
We, people, we’re not bust at all.
It was the banks messing up and not yes.
We pay their debts, hand them high salaries, even bonuses to add insult to injury.
We have been robbed of millions and it continues.
Lets face it lads the country’s a joke. People in charge can’t seem to get anything right be it broadband, water, 1916 commemorations, best small country in the world to do business my arse. Best small country in the world to rob it citizens blind that’s more like the truth. The saying ah sure it will be grand is the country’s motto.
The Govt. here have always been super efficient, at sorting out favourable contracts, over paying friends, blocking competition in certain areas, keeping things they way they are.
It was all a deliberate choice.
Seanie and Angry Squirrel what is your broadband solution then for the nation? You’re both full of what the bull left in the gap. The Govt this, the Govt that. Christ get a life or do you expect the Govt to provide you with a soother as well? What technical solution would you both propose for broadband in Ireland and how would you pay for it? Finally, practically all rural areas in the EU experience broadband problems.
Our company employs 30 people and is an export-focused manufacturer of agricultural hardware and machinery. Our average broadband speed (using speedtest.net) is 0.2mbs (ZERO-POINT-TWO!).
For us to upload new content to our website, send a high-res logo to a distributor who wants to use it in their marketing material or generally browse for research purposes is an extreme chore. In practice, it involves myself, our managing director or another senior member of staff taking this work home with them where they may have better broadband.
These are real issues affecting small businesses who are trying to grow their turnover and staff numbers in a supposed export-led, high-tech economy. We have contacted all major providers (and indeed changed numerous times), explored satellite broadband, various wireless forms and even using 3G mobile coverage to power a server and 10 workstations, with little or no improvement. Ultimately, we need the local exchange upgraded, which we are located just 5 miles from.
It is vital the Government invest in rural areas so as to ensure we can compete.
Right okay so for a commercial company to provide rural broadband with no guaranteed land accesses for digging is around 10-30 grand per connection. I’m wondering how you think it’s fair for that level of subsidy to happen. It’s just not reasonable.
There is no reason why you can’t do it in your local community which overcomes the prohibitive cost of trenching along the roads through free land access by farmers to a local co-operative. It’s worked perfectly fine in rural areas in the UK and there is nothing stopping you. http://b4rn.org.uk/
What you are asking for is a free money on an unimaginable scale. How much is reasonable to expect other users to provide a subsidy for? 500 million? A billion? 2 billion? 4 billion?
Any reason satellite isn’t an option ? It’s not that expensive for a business.
David,
Thank you for that link. Our company is on a local group water scheme and it works very well for a small, fixed annual cost, so this idea is very interesting.
One point to note however is that the infrastructure is already there in terms of a connection, it’s just a matter of Eircom investing in an updated connection from the local exchange, not a significant cost I would argue.
In any case, your point is noted and that link is very helpful, thank you.
You live 5miles away from the exchange, the exchange could have unlimited capacity and you’d be in the same position. You’d need to dig up 5 miles of road with fibre to improve your situation, copper phone lines won’t carry a signal for 5 miles in towns UPC have the advantage of using coax.
Lack of decent broadband is one of the biggest areas of neglect of recent governments. The amount of commerce, communication and promotion that is done online is so important to the economy that it demonstrates how out of touch politicians are with the modern world. Its the epitomy of the fat cat Dennis o Brien greed that we cannot stream basic services or communicate reliably with voip in 2014. Take from the masses to benefit the few.
Look who I found.
I guess Joe would have rolled out rural electrification with 220v in cities, 100v in towns, 50v in villages and an occasional dart at 10v if you lived anywhere else
18 miles north of Cavan town. Relying on the mobile service that is expensive.As usual promises from the boys in leinster house…lies lies lies..as usual.
Joe.
It would be a waste of time to explain it to you
You live in a bubble, your choice.
Fine, the world still moves on though.
It is like arguing with some one from 1999.
Stop talking shite.
The farmers have always been the problem when it comes to rural broadband. They don’t want to provide land accesses to allow trenching for broadband and so it costs tens of thousands per connection. Rural broadband doesn’t exist because they couldn’t give a shit about anyone else.
It can be done on the cheap by locally owned cooperatives but it’s easier to blame someone else than do something.
David, I loled reading that comment.
The farmers are to blame??? Cabled broadband will never be rolled out to rural Ireland, as its not cost effective. The population is too small, and too dispersed. Even if they attempted to to install cable broadband, they would not have to go near any farmers land, the cables would be installed underground beside roads, just like phone and electricity lines.
The future of rural broadband is 4G.
All technologies have their limitations whether it be technical or prohibitive cost – providing services to rural Irish homes far more difficult than our rural European counterparts, whether it is refuse, bus, telephone, broadband, rural drinking or any other service. The problem is Irelands Planning Regulations and Enforcement and our desire to have bungalows close to few others is the problem.
Ireland is a small country, all of these can be worked through if someone in Govt. actually gave a toss.
Not giving a toss is the main problem here.
Well said Seanie, at the moment I have broadband in the kitchen , but if the wind changes I might have none. And I still have to go around the house out side for the mobile phone spot. And we are paying for this as well as sky tv. This too is weather controlled. Oh and I should mention we have no bus service and the nearest hospital is 30km away. But they cant treat a heart attack you have to travel another 50 miles. And we wont mention the roads, . Not great for modern ireland huh.
We are one and half hours from cork, all being well.
We know that when we have an emergency we just die, that us that.
Caring Ireland eh?
I was able to get WIFI in the back arse of Peru and Bolivia including in the Amazon and some towns over 4,000m above sea level yet we can’t get broadband to Mayo!
You make it sound so simple. Electrification in rural Ireland took decades and water was based on groups schemes and wells. Yet you expect billions of investment almost immediately for broadband which will most likely be used to watch Netflix and YouTube rather then ecommerce
Jesus Joe you really are a muppet aren’t you. I’m surprised you have the where with all to post off the device you have ya big puddin. God in heaven save us from these dinosaurs.
Jesus Joe, do you know how long the internet is around now! Its not like they’re just starting with the infrastructure now, they’ve been making a balls of data transmission for 20 years now! Do some research Joe and stop talking rubbish!
So everyone, EVERYONE, in the towns does some sort of commerce do they?
You are mistaken I think.
I don’t honestly think anyone in the government realises the potential return on investment here. The amount of rural, and in fact urban, businesses that could benefit from a decent online presence is incredible. For example, I have often bought stuff off amazon because I couldn’t find an Irish retailer doing the same thing, even though you can be fairly sure there is one.
It can open up a potentially global market to even small businesses.
At home in Dublin I get 110mbps downloads on UPC. When I visit my in-laws in Sligo, I get less than 0.5mbps. 220 times slower. 15 years ago, dial up in Dublin was faster than what passes for broadband in Sligo today. To say this is shockingly poor infrastructure is an understatement.
Think of money well spent on Internet cables underground instead of these needless water metres.
actually, installing underground cables would cost the country a huge amount of money, and if they wanted to get the money back, your broadband bill would be a few grand a year, and be waiting literally years for the project to be finished. It would be a lot cheaper, and faster for the government to subsidise 4G rollout through the country.
And how many could then afford to pay for that. It would go unused as the tv does since it changed. All for 150 for someone to get on the roof and a couple of bits. We have not seen even one programme.
What exactly do small businesses need high speed broadband for? In general there data needs are tiny, The exception would be hotels where the guests demand access
You must be a troll joe. Or are you just plain ignorant and exceptionally stupid.
give me an example of a business in rural Ireland that would require high speed broadband, google etc don’t set up in the middle of nowhere, broadband or not.
In the 21st century having high speed broadband should be as normal as having a kettle or toaster or television and radio service get off the stage will ya. Maybe the reason we don’t have that type of service is because the people in charge are like you with no forward thinking or vision for the future.
Joe.
There are SME’s that I deal with and the volumes of data that they send demand exceptionally high speed connections.
You live in the past, they are dealing with problems now.
Big difference, do you even understand the difference?
Here’s an example Joe, Randox the pharmaceutical company that recently announced 500 new jobs in my hometown Dungloe, they’d definitely need high speed broadband!!
Joe , have you ever failed online transactions due to slow unreliable speed… Or wait for a informational webpage to load for 5 min… Or try uploading a picture/ documents which times out due to slow speed… I can give many more…
Seriously Joe, regardless whether it’s for business or personal use, plain and simple there should be no barriers in having high quality and speedy broadband without any data limitation caps, regardless of whether they live in the centre of Dublin or a village in Kerry. Yes investment costs, however the benefit it makes in the long term to a fully digital nation far outweigh the costs.
Joe.
As well, your trash comment about Google not being in Rural Ireland.
There are more people employed in Rural Ireland in web and IT services than work in all of Google Ireland, ya Cabóg.
Have you even celebrated the millennium.
Have to say, Joe, that an island nation the size of Ireland has no excuse for not having high speed internet connections everywhere. It’s not as if there are high mountains to make the problem difficult. If there’s a road, fibre optic cabling is an option. I think the problem lies with the powers that be. Seems to me that Dublin has always been given preference whilst the rest of the country gets leftovers. Every business, these days, must have an Internet presence. Not to do so means loss of clients and customers.
Eannán Monaghan Dunloe town is already served with broadband is it not? and soon will have fibre in next few years. I wouldn’t class a large town as rural, it’s the villages and houses outside these towns that’s the problem that I’d class as rural.
Praneet Srivastav I’m on mobile in a very rural area and never had that problem, the more rural you are the better the connection as there’s less congestion. For uploading a picture/doc gprs,edge and 3g would do the job.
Ryan what businesses do you deal with in rural Ireland? how much data?
Smiley your a good laugh ” It’s not as if there are high mountains to make the problem difficult” have you ever been outside the pale.
You could do a mile of fibre in Dublin and connect 1000s of houses , do the same mile in the countryside you might connect a single house.
Large town? We don’t even have a functioning hotel? The fastest internet we get is 5mb/s hardly super is it? Also we are told we’ll have fibre optic broadband, but then again we were told we would have ‘fantastic road networks’ during the boom….
No talkin to this numpty lads.
Eannán Monaghan,5mb so you have broadband? then what are you complaining about and you’ll have fibre soon.”fantastic road networks”, are you expecting an M50 type road around Dungloe, where exactly do you want this road network built and to where? I’ve yet to hear of any traffic jams in Dungloe on Highland radio.
I’m not expecting any type of motorway Joe, just good good sustainable road networks, point I’m making is that we’ve been promised greater infrastructure before, and it hasn’t been delivered on, so I won’t hold my breath. Also, it’s pretty difficult trying to work on 5mb/s, when web pages are slow to load, videos buffer, and disconnects frequently.
Not only have I been outside the pale, I’ve been to numerous mountainous countries with excellent high speed internet connections, Switzerland and New Zealand to name but two. By comparison, Ireland has hills.
hi speed broadband in rural ireland.down with that sort of thing
In my country
We have broadband
Why not spend millions on more advisors and P.R.
according to upc it costs 100k per mile of cable to dig the road,install etc. not cost effective in rural ireland.
I dont understand the red thumbs here, Lee is spot on. However, I never understood when the motorway network was built during the boom, that fiberoptic cables were not installed too, which would have brought broadband to many small towns, and at a lower cost of installation.
It would make sense to do a large roadside pipe, it could hold various services ie electric (no pylons) water pipes, sewerage, gas, broadband etc.
I have seen many such, a person can stand up in them (access at intervals) and each company pays their way so it would be so much more economical for them and for us.
Services then cost more to provide than urban areas, while most services are priced nationally. If its available, its being subsidised by urban dwellers, who already swallowed the higher property cost of living in towns and cities.
I think it’s fair enough if you live in a remote region out of necessity (e.g. for farming) but I’m sure everyone knows at least one person who lives in the middle of nowhere for no other reason than the house was cheaper or they just like it there. If there were much stronger disincentives, finding solutions for the properties that have a genuine need to be in remote areas would be a much more manageable burden.
With national pricing, there’s no incentive to expand coverage. If you can’t engage in price discrimination, and customers already in the coverage area, with plenty of alternatives, will move to a competitor if you raise prices across the board, then there’s no way to make it profitable.
Eircom being a bankrupt disaster doesn’t exactly help the situation.
Correct, we did not want to live in a shop doorway.
We have barely managed ours and still have no bathroom.
Rural? I live less than 40 mins from Dublin and I barely get 1 meg. Feels like the old dial up most of the time. Bloody joke.
Rural homes should be first for once. We have nothing else.
No bus, no pavements, no lights.
Miles to go for library, bank, dentist, optician, doctor, pharmacy, shops etc..
Hard to organise rural transport.
It is not just business in the small towns bug isolated elderly, disabled that rely utterly on the old computer for everything.
Lessons should be guaranteed.
Electric should be guaranteed.
Web connections should be guaranteed.
One article postulated that by the time it reached us, in approximately 30 years time, a lot of us would be long gone.
We do not want to wait but have just one thing and heavily subsidised as we have so much money taken from us and allowances not far from gone.
Those other, younger wish to work a web job from home and the computer service must be reliable for them to maintain employment and to earn a living of some sort.
It seems that, yet again, the rurals might as well not exist.
Move to a city then and get over it
have your say