Good man, Pat. Another task force.

But are they talking only fixed line broadband or any broadband, parts of wexford have absolutely no fixed line access, patchy mobile broadband coverage and only real option is expensive satellite or aerial broadband which can be effected by weather, are areas like this to be included or ignored?

Only in Ireland would you have people boasting about full broadband coverage by 2012, where most of the other countries we’re competing with have had this for almost a decade.

Are we still at the bottom of the OECD along with Mexico?

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/ireland-boasts-europes-worst-broadband-speeds-119423.html

P.

I thought this had to be done by the end of 2010? Ireland is in the 56th place in the world by average internet speed (6.06 Mb), with much poorer countries like Trinidad & Tobago, Ghana or Moldova ahead of Ireland. So where’s all the money going then? Improve the speeds and stop talking that nonsense ‘National Broadband Scheme’. It’s not a big deal, it’s nothing magical here as people would expect to have broadband access all over the country, it’s part of the service that should be provided. They just keep highlighting their failures as this should have been done years ago!

Privacy and access to world media are not mutually exclusive- it is unusual for individuals in most European and I assumed many developed countries to pay national lines solo(phones as well as internet) unless they seek something outside national provision. The only thing that surprises me is that the country is undertaking this well-belated task in the current economic climate-but it CAN be seen as encouraging competition and lowering costs among service providers, and this will benefit most customers in the country…hopefully!

All the crappy (slow) broadband in the Ireland already and not ONE decent law in this country to stop people being ripped off by service providers.

“Up to seven megs a second” so the adverts say – and you’d be damn lucky to get it in reality in a lot of cases!
Listen up politicians – upgrade the consumer laws as regards broadband and actually do something much as needed too in this area!

P.S. The BIGGEST farce of them all is Wimax broadband but don’t tale my word for it – read the public reviews: http://ratemyisp.ie/ratings/imagine/ or http://www.unitedpeople.ie/buyer.html

Much new legislating is needed and the Irish people that are being conned – and there is many of them – are crying out for change in this area of consumer law!

6 mb? I’d love to have 6mb………mostly I get 1.4 (ish) and it’s patchy at best. We need to have better phone infrastructure to be able to get better broadband speeds. Another example of the failure of. The Eircom privatisation – money that should have been used to upgrade the phone lines etc was siphoned off by the parent company. I believe this is why we’re lagging so far behind our neighbours in this regard.

A national full broadband coverage policy in Ireland is a mistake.

People who choose to live in isolated areas, presumably do so because they place a higher value on their personal privacy than others. This is a perfectly valid opinion to have. However, it is unreasonable for those that have chosen to live amongst their neighbours in a village, town or city to have to subsidise the lifestyle choices of those who choose to live apart from their neighbours.

I would rather the money spent on this wasteful and indulgent government programme be spent on upgrading existing broadband infrastructure so that we can have 100 Mbit/s for both residential and commercial customers.

Yet again my earlier comments deleted.