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Ireland's "digital divide" and its lack of high-speed Internet services continue to be major concerns to businesses as the first month of 2002 comes to an end.
"Unless we stop talking about developing a modern, up-to-date telecommunications infrastructure and start to doing something about making it a reality we could seriously fall behind the rest the world," said Professor Frank Bradley, president of the Institute of International Trade of Ireland (IITI).
Last week Bradley launched a study by the organisation entitled "Profile and Assessment of the Current and Future e-Business ICT Requirements of Exports in the Republic of Ireland," which was conducted by the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business at UCD.
According to the study, SMEs are concerned about the state of Ireland's infrastructure. It said that half of SMEs in the software and services, financial services and high-tech manufacturing sectors believe they could increase export sales by 80 percent with an improvement in the ICT infrastructure.
Another 50 percent of small to medium sized enterprises claimed that they would be likely to gain new customers with full broadband access at low costs. "That is one of the crunch findings of the survey," John Whelan, director, Institute of International Trade of Ireland, told ElectricNews.Net. "It is certainly something that we are concerned about."
"A lot of the small companies don't appreciate what they are missing," said Whelan, who is also the chief executive of the Irish Exporters Association. He went on to say that in order to rectify these issues IITI planed to begin a series of seminars, hopefully with the assistance of the government's Information Society Commission, to educate SMEs of how beneficial broadband could be.
Eighty percent of SMEs in the survey said that the speed of connection to the Internet was important to their business; yet 22 percent still use analogue dial up access instead of the high-speed options. Two percent of that group said that analogue is their preferred connection. Thirty-two percent said that their service provider currently does not offer services they need. Finally, the cost of an Internet connection was also cited as a major deterrent among SMEs.
The "digital divide," a term used to describe the difficulties that non-urban companies experience in accessing broadband services was identified as a concern, the survey said. "Perhaps the most damaging finding is the belief that the reality of the situation does not live up to the image that government has tried to portray," the IITI said. The group quoted an OECD survey on broadband access that placed Ireland 27 out of 30 OECD countries.
Along with its citation of the problems, Whelan explained that IITI made a number of recommendations to the government. These include full co-operation between the government and the ICT sector on all projects or ventures regarding ICT development achieved through a programme to assist SMEs in technology uptake. Another recommendation was the establishment of a single body, with "absolute authority," to oversee and regulate the development of ICT. IITI also said the ODTR should have power to impose sanctions on those not adhering to guidelines.
"These recommendations are within their immediate power to do," Whelan said.
Moreover there were recommendations for industry in the survey, including a more proportionate roll out of infrastructure, regional infrastructure development, as well as more co-operation from Eircom in competition and deregulation efforts.
The fact is IIAI's concerns are not unique. A wide range of organisations and companies throughout Ireland have expressed similar worries about the potential consequences of the Republic's lack of broadband and with an election looming in the next six months, the intensity of concern is increasing.
ALTO, the ODTR, the European Commission, the South East Information Society Strategy, Ireland Offline, Chambers of Commerce of Ireland and IBEC's ICT Ireland, along with companies like Worldcom, Esat, KPNQuest and Global Crossing, all have expressed serious worries and complaints over Ireland's lack of infrastructure. Some of these groups have made calls for an "E-Tsar" or "E-minister" to look after these concerns.
Meanwhile the row between the ODTR and Eircom continues over the proposed price of Eircom's wholesale DSL product. The difference of opinion has put a hold on Eircom's launch of its consumer DSL service, i-stream, leaving Ireland with no DSL services at all.
Post.Trust, ESAT Business, IBM and Microsoft all assisted IITI with the study. IITI is at http://www.irishexporters.ie
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