Damien Mulley

The Department of Communications invited me along to the launch of the National Broadband Scheme yesterday after I emailed them and asked them to invite me. Like the people who nominated themselves for blog awards, I was shocked and surprised at getting invited.

And the scheme? Lovely use of numbers to talk about this major investment. Minister Eamon Ryan talked about how all these new people on broadband will lift the whole economy in these dark days

He talked about his own web company he ran from his bedroom on dialup 10 years ago and I thought that’s exactly the speed some people are getting now and will still get with a mobile dongle at the edge of a broadband scheme area. Working from home is great though, pants being optional is fantastic. Wearing suits all day must be a killer for the Minister.

Anyway, if the vision of a nation of small businesses operating online is to come true then they’ll need something a damned sight better than a 3G dongle. I know some businesses do operate using one but they can basically handle email and very light web surfing. An office with 5-6 computers though? And only allowed one connection? Or do they pay for 1 per computer? 100 euros a month for a connection that a business in Dublin can get for 20 euros.

If you can’t get a 3G signal then they’ll give you a satellite dish and you still pay €19.99 per month for about 1Mbps down and a 15 Gig download limit. 8% of those under the scheme will get this and I’m sure given the cost of it, Three and the Department will do their best to give you a dongle when a satellite dish might be better.

This is the reality of rural life and broadband. Let’s see what Dave’s story is like in a year or two years or three years.

And for those in areas that the Department said are already covered? Yesterday the tone was polite but they were still saying “tough shit”. The Department said that they can’t subsidise people where there are line of sight issues with Irish Broadband or Digiweb or line failure issues with eircom. These apparently are technical issues and are up to the providers to sort out. The Department said the EU won’t let them subsidise, which again I’d argue is not correct. Once a statement from said ISP says they can’t supply to that person, then they can be subsidised. That’s what I read in the docs the EU sent to the Department.

So, for those who will still be shafted, one way of getting broadband is to find a friend who is in an NBS area and will be getting a dish not a dongle. Then have this friend either order another connection for the barn next door or get your friend’s neighbours not interested in a broadband connection to order one. A satellite installer will happily move it and reinstall it to your place.

Read more about NBS here.

Longwinded piece but the gist is: The National Dialup Tender will use Three Mobile Dongles, no fixed line, no fixed wireless connections. 1Mb download, 200k upload. Or a Satellite dish!

From question time with Eamo today:

Deputy Eamon Ryan:

As regards the timeframe for completion, the ITT requires that all houses and business premises must be provided with a broadband service within 22 months of the signing of the contract. 3’s response to the ITT meets that requirement. The finer details are being worked out at present and will be finalised at contract signing which is expected to take place on 11 December 2008. As regards the bandwidth and download speeds, 3 will extend its network to provide mobile broadband services into the NBS area.

In recognition of the fact that some areas will be very difficult to reach using standard infrastructure, 3 will make available a satellite product. The specific details are being discussed with 3 at present and will be finalised at contract signing. In order to protect the integrity of the procurement process, I do not propose to release details of the value of the NBS contract at this time.

Liz McManus asked this of Eamo then:

Does the Minister accept that, in fact, there are people who are not in the broadband scheme and are unable to access it even though their area might be described as having such access within the indicative map? We are going to end up with the anomalous position where people cannot access, for example, the 3 service, but because they are described as having access, they will not be able to avail of opportunities under the broadband scheme. Could he, perhaps, give us details of the technology platform, the guarantees in terms of speed, the penalties if the target of 1 megabyte is not met, as well as the coverage targets? Cost seems to me to be the only reason 3 got the contract, but how do I know, since I am not getting the information. The Minister is not willing to give us the cost, but he should at least give us the information about safeguards.

And here Eamon admits that the scheme is just a whole load of mobile dongles:

Deputy Eamon Ryan:

I am reluctant to give this information until the contracts are signed, which will be within the week.
…

The service that will be provided will meet with widespread public support. There have been concerns with regard to the start of the roll-out of certain mobile broadband services over the past year. We should recognise those services have just started and there are naturally teething difficulties. That said, we now have approximately 250,000 people who have signed up for such mobile broadband services. We must also recognise that because 40% of our houses are one-off houses in the countryside, we will always be a country where mobile broadband services are in higher demand than in other countries. We may develop a benefit from this, particularly where we can get new evolving mobile, wireless and other connections onto fibre quickly and provide good high quality services.

Simon Coveney needled him then on the mobile:

Deputy Simon Coveney: However, the Minister seems to suggest that part of the solution will be provided via a mobile product, but one can get a mobile broadband service in a number of these grey areas already, whether on top of a mountain or wherever. The issue with regard to broadband connectivity is not about mobile services. Is the Minister suggesting that 3G or 3 will put up mobile masts in these areas to provide for broadband via a mobile phone?

…
That may be a useful service for people who want to access the Internet on their mobile phones, but it is not a consistent enough solution for people opening businesses in parts of rural Ireland that cannot get broadband currently.

Go Simon!

This resulted in:

Deputy Eamon Ryan: I used the term “mobile” in the way it is commonly used, as in “not fixed” line.

Deputy Simon Coveney: We want clarity.

(Very Tom Cruise in a Few Good Men!)

Deputy Eamon Ryan: This means it is connected to one’s computer or to whatever hand-held device one wants.

Deputy Simon Coveney: It is not mobile then.

Deputy Eamon Ryan: I am not restricting people in terms of how they access the Internet. However, we need broadband access. In this case, we will have speeds of over 1 megabit download and over 200 kilobits on the upload. There is also provision for those speeds in the services to be improved in the five-year period the contract will cover.

This is the 373 page thread of complaints about Three on boards.ie

This is a cataclysmic failure. eircom would have been better to give the tender to as they have way more experience in rolling out broadband, wireless and satellite. Of the two that were in it, eircom certainly could have offered more. Best of a bad lot for sure. Remember Three outsource everything with BT building the network for them and that network was a piece of shit for months after they first starting selling broadband.

People who use the Three service right now get dialup rates a lot of the time in Dublin, not broadband, so you can be sure those few people who can actually avail of broadband under this scheme will getting nothing close to event he loosest definition of broadband. A giant FAIL by Eamon Ryan and his Department over this.

There is also the huge, monstrous irony that some people will not be allowed to avail of broadband under the National Broadband Scheme in their area because they’d be classed as being in areas where they can already get Three Broadband, yet obviously they can’t.

Photo owned by gonzalemario (cc)

FAILorama.

Photo owned by suvodeb (cc)

Where’s the upgrade path to 10Mb Internet there? It’s worse than that though. Only 27% of schools get broadband via a wired service. 26% via wireless. There is no easy way for those schools to get fibre, now is there? I’m glad Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan is thinking about the children and their broadband connection but it seems like he’s considering their situation and then that’s it.

PQ via Liz McManus:

To the Minister for Education and Science
To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of schools in the broadband for schools initiative that have satellite internet, fibre, DSL and wireless; and if he will make a statement on the matter. – Liz McManus. (Nominated by: Liz McManus).

Go to the Oireachtas Website if you want to find the full record, I’m not going to hurt my eyes and hands going through it for you.

Minister of State, Barry Andrews

…

Of the 3,905 local connectivity installations, 27%, or 1,051 schools have fixed
line services, 26% or 1,028 schools have wireless services and 47% or 1,826
schools have satellite services. A further 72 schools have had broadband
access provided under the Hermes and Advanced Deployment programmes and are not
included in the 3,905 schools. The split of technology services across these
72 schools is 43 fixed line services, 25 wireless services and 4 satellite
services.

Not great at al now is it? No mention of fibre but that might come under fixed-line. I know there are some schools connected to fibre.

Having regard to the usage levels observed by HEAnet, my Department has
procured additional bandwidth from its two satellite providers to improve the
broadband connection speeds for schools on this portion of the Schools
Broadband Network. The situation continues to be monitored closely. In
addition, my Department has migrated schools to superior alternative
technologies, where feasible.

I’m unaware of any satellite systems that can increase their bandwidth to anything over 2Mb in this country due to our location on the edge of Europe.

My Department will shortly issue a Request for Tenders for the next round of
service. The priority for the new procurement process will be to ensure that
the broadband services to schools keep in line with national infrastructure
improvements. The RFT will seek tenders which at least maintain the existing
service that schools currently receive. Having regard to the general
developments in broadband availability nationally, improved service offerings
are expected to be received under the new tender process.

At least maintain the existing service that schools currently receive? Hello? This already sounds like a cop-out. You’ll read further down they talk about 100megs into schools and now they talk here about at least what the schools have now. For half that means crapalite.

My Department will also collaborate with the Department of Communications,
Energy and Natural Resources to pursue the Government objective of equipping
second-level schools with 100Mb per second of broadband connectivity and
installing local area networks, as outlined in the Consultation Paper on Next
Generation Broadband.

Got kids in schools? Depressed yet?

Photo owned by icherche (cc)

Eamon Ryan keeps telling this same boring story again and again about when he visited Korea and he couldn’t get his phone to work or Skype or upload files. He’s said it in the Senate, he’s said it in interviews, he told me this story on the phone, he told it at his broadband forum a while back.

(Aside: Joe asked me why I said nothing at the forum when journos and bloggers got a private audience with Ryan. My reason? I see no point arguing with a man that is so comfortable lying to anyone and everyone and happily swerves away from reality with such panache.)

Back to the rant 🙂 This Korean story to Eamon means Korea is in fact not as good for broadband. Great logic right? Take those Koreans down a peg or two and we’re looking a bit better. Step back into the swap there lads.

From his debate with Shane Ross the other day:

While it may be true to say that in Korea there is 100 Mb broadband connectivity to every home, it does not necessarily mean they have the applications or the benefits from that. Nor does it mean they have the economic strivers from it. These are some of the reasons we would be investing and we will invest in the development of our broadband future.

…
One of the problems I encountered at the conference was that my mobile telephone did not work.

…
I could not connect my mobile telephone to the network. I could not run Skype on the network. I could not send a single 5 Mb video file from the convention centre.

While it is useful to analyse and use international comparisons to determine what is happening in other countries and learn from them, we must remember that we have our own unique characteristics.

See, his argument is that his one experience of a shit connection at a conference means we shouldn’t trust dozens of studies and hundreds of news stories about just how good Korea is in terms of broadband. Which is fine because anyone that was at this Broadband Forum a few weeks back can now argue the same thing. By the power of Ministerial logic, because the WiFi in Dublin castle was shit, it means in fact that Ireland has no broadband at all.

Photo owned by [ v2milk ] (cc)

Eamon couldn’t of course leave it at that and went on and repeated the same lies of his and his Department which have been used nonstop:

In the past year and a half we have roughly doubled the number of broadband subscribers, which was the fastest rate of growth in the OECD. We have been particularly strong and fast growing in the mobile broadband sector, in the application of wireless hotspots and mobile broadband itself. We are also starting to see prices come down and speeds increase. In recent months operators have been increasing their standard packages from 2 Mb to 10 Mb or even 20 Mb. New companies are building fibre optic networks which are providing 50 Mb connectivity to the home. It is starting to happen and companies are starting to deliver.

Lying fucking Ryan.