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Martin Harran, chairman of Ireland Offline, an Internet users group, told attendees at the organisation's "The Net Imperative" seminar on Wednesday that delays in moving things forward are "killing" Internet access in Ireland. "It is time for everyone to stop bickering and bleating about each other and get on with the job of providing affordable, high-speed Net access," he said.
Ireland Offline was founded in May 2001, in response to Esat's decision to remove 2,000 people from its off-peak flat-rate SurfNoLimits Internet access service. The group, which now has close to 1,000 members, initially came together on-line and before the seminar had had only two public meetings. Ireland Offline's three main objectives are to see the introduction of unmetered access, nationwide broadband services and effective local loop unbundling.
Derek Kickham, chief executive officer, Esat Fusion, agreed that Internet access in Ireland had stalled. "Since September, 2000, no innovative Net access products have been launched. It seems that we are stuck in a time warp," Kickham told the seminar.
Kickham added that Esat had "put its money where its mouth was" in introducing subscription free and off-peak flat-rate access. "Realistically, however, the only sustainable economic model for providing Internet access at the moment is to charge by the minute," he remarked. As such, he said the future was "grim" for the remaining 18,000 customers of SurfNoLimits unless leadership and vision was shown.
Kickham also said that discussions regarding access to the local loop had been taking place for some months between Esat and Eircom, but called for the introduction of a centralised timetable from the ODTR, as well as fines and penalties for companies that failed to meet deadlines.
The Director of Telecommunications Regulation, Etain Doyle, said that she had the power to mediate between two groups if their discussions appeared to have ground to a halt or reached an impasse. However, she said this was only possible if either organisation asked her for assistance. So far, neither Eircom nor Esat had made such an appeal, she said.
Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O'Rourke, told the crowd of around 200 that companies had so far shown "remarkable tardiness" since the loop local was unbundled on 23 December last year. "I had the ears burnt off me in 2000 with people calling for the unbundling of the local loop. However, since then telecom companies don't seem to have availed of it at any great speed," she commented.
While both Martin Harran and Derek Kickham pointed to statistics that showed Ireland was lagging behind the rest of Europe in terms of Internet usage and penetration, Soula Evans, Eircom's director of consumer and business markets, said that Ireland was "well positioned" in these areas within the EU.
"Ireland is nine percent above the European average of 31 percent in relation to regular Internet users and is in the top five countries for the percentage of users that shop on-line," commented Evans. "Also, Internet user numbers here have grown by 230 percent over the last two years."
Evans confirmed that Eircom was planning to launch its DSL service on 28 September, but said that it would initially only be rolled-out in Dublin with the aim of having the service available nationwide within the next to two to three years.
On the question of delays by Eircom in introducing broadband and flat-rate services, Evans said that "only commercially sustainable propositions from infrastructure to content will deliver long-terms benefits to Ireland."
Further information on IrelandOffline can be found at http://www.irelandoffline.com.
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