Countryside Alliance Ireland - love the countryside

Digital Divide Must Be Downloaded
6th June 2008

Is your connection sluggish, unreliable and far from predictable?

Is your connection sluggish, unreliable and far from predictable? Are you happy with the speed you can download large emails at? Broadband Internet is revolutionising the way people view and use the Internet. For those in the countryside, it can mean access to a whole range of services and transform the way in which a rural business operates.

Currently there is inadequate investment in rural IT infrastructure -- especially broadband -- in comparison with urban populations. Government should be forcing the telecommunications companies to make provision for serious investment in IT-infrastructure in rural areas. Access to affordable Broadband services in rural parts of the country are regenerating local areas, allowing remote communities to benefit from instant access to the huge resource of the Internet - opening up e-learning facilities, access to e-Government services, teleworking opportunities and greater advantages for local business.

If like me, you're not clued into all the latest technologies, don"t worry. There"s nothing too technical about broadband. It doesn"t take a rocket scientist to understand how it works and the benefits that flow from it.

The Benefits
So, what are the benefits? Well, first of all, if you have broadband it means you have a dedicated line always connected to the Internet. It doesn"t take over your telephone line like the normal dial up connection. And because you are always connected you don"t have to wait for the modem to dial up to the Internet. You have instant access. No waiting.

Obviously it is so much faster " but how fast is fast. Well to give you an idea, you can download a 1MB video clip in approximately 20 seconds with BT Broadband. With a 56k modem, which is standard nowadays, it would take 3 minutes. It is up to 10 times faster than a 56k modem or higher depending on your need/budget.

Broadband technology is a vital component in the recovery of the rural economy and the Government must increase its commitment to achieving full broadband coverage throughout Northern Ireland. At the moment we are disadvantaged by our European competitors. Indeed, Sweden is spending 10bn Swedish Krona (£700m) on achieving 98% broadband coverage. Currently Britain only has 66% coverage.

For businesses, users can now work remotely from home and can use VPN (Virtual Private Networking) to link to their office. The rural business office will have much better access to information and services, thus creating job opportunities for the area. Could this approach not be adopted throughout Ireland? If anything, such technology is comparatively more vital for those in the more geographically inaccessible areas of the country if they are going to be able to compete on equal terms with urban-based businesses.

Broadband in Your Area
In order for your local area to be able to receive broadband, the telephone exchange needs upgrading. Unfortunately BT and Eircom will only upgrade the telephone exchange and install broadband if enough people pre-register their interest. To determine the amount of interest they have set what is called a "trigger level". The trigger level is the number of pre-registrations needed before they consider it to be viable to upgrade the exchange and it can be different for each area. Once the number of people registering an interest in broadband reaches the trigger level, then they will automatically review their broadband service for that specific area and decide if they will offer faster broadband Internet.