Damien Mulley

The Green Party will:

• carry out a feasibility study into the State re-taking control of Eircom, divesting any commercial operation, and maintaining the fixed-line network as an open access infrastructure to all operators;

I dunno lads. Why buy junk? Might be better to build an alternative network and merge existing assets and then tell the Dept of Environment to bring out a universal planning regulation for carrier neutral ducting everywhere in Ireland. Every estate should have neutral ducting going to each home.

Set the mobile phone operators, cable companies and Eircom into direct competition to get cheaper, faster and more integrated broadband services;

Isn’t that what they are doing in Dublin without intervention? But how do you do that? Isn’t that what’s meant to be in a manifesto?

Review the Government’s rollout of metropolitan area networks to resolve the issues of the delivery of ‘back-haul’ connections and the ‘last mile’ connection to the consumer;

Yes. Definitely. Total waste of money so far.

Consolidate post offices into local community internet/broadband facilities;

Surely we should be aiming to have all households using broadband instead? But I like the idea. Not bad for people afraid of the Internet, maybe a good way of introducing them to it. Why not use Post Office property as drop centres for massive fibre hubs that locals can possibly dig to? Circumvent eircom exchanges, though with real and proper fibre, exchanges become obsolete.

Introduce a proper policing and monitoring system for the operation of mobile phone masts;

Oeeer. This must have been proposed by the same wing that Typhoid McKenna is in. No masts, no anti-biotics.

Establish a new unified broadcasting regulator and the similar reconstitution of the RTE Authority to ensure its future independence;

Regulators send shivers up my spine.

Develop an all-island digital ‘free to air’ broadcasting service carrying RTE 1 & 2, TG4, TV3 and the Northern Ireland BBC/ITV public service main channels.

Yes, and how about making them licence their content using creative commons licences?

Not as detailed as Labour, better than Fine Gael’s. I think we need something far more in-depth. No spectrum policy. Nothing about the sloppy telecoms regulator. Half arsed. Nothing abour future planning whatsoever. Nothing about making sure things can get worse, which they easily can. Nothing at all ambitious.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 at 5:57 pm and is filed under blogs, irishblogs, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.