Fergus Cassidy

Dish is daft

TALBOTSTOWN national school is a haven of tranquillity these holidays. Nestled at the foot of Spinan's Hill in west Wicklow, the school is flanked by a compact church said to be linked back through history to St Brigid.

She is believed to have founded a church on the slopes of the hill in an area called Kilranelagh. This place now has few inhabitants, save that of the red deer, grey squirrels and intermittent foresters.

There are no signs or symbols of history, but modernity has erected a 30ft tower of galvanised steel, with dishes like giant eyes fixed on the vast valley below. A mobile phone tower, totem pole of Ireland's new economic direction, down the information highway of globalised economics.

Politics, however, is always local and sometime between now and September of next year, Talbotstown school will get a broadband connection to the internet. As part of a government and industry programme, almost 4,000 schools will be kitted out for access. The politics lie in the technology used.

Four out of every ten schools, including Talbotstown, will have to find a suitable spot to support a satellite dish pointed into space. Another 40% won't be bothering with the telephone lines and will be wirelessly connecting to the internet. The remaining 20% will use the existing telephone network.

There isn't a more vivid example of the dire state of broadband in Ireland. My apologies, there is: the Dail and Seanad tender for the supply of broadband to members. To "improve access from members' homes or constituency offices to data and services on servers in Leinster House". Up to now the TDs and senators have been "utilising ISDN circuits...", but these will now "become redundant".

This 'group broadband scheme' and the schools project reveal the true situation with broadband in Ireland. All schools are connected to the telephone network, yet 40% can't access the internet that way. TDs and senators shouldn't need a scheme either, as their homes and offices all have telephones.

And yet to listen to or read the advertising avalanche for broadband, a tourist would be convinced the country was doing okay. But the current crop of ads are trying to flog broadband to people who don't know yet if they want it, while the people who really do want it can't get it. Ad nauseum.

It would be misleading to refer to a digital divide emerging. And inaccurate because it ignores the great difficulty rural areas in Ireland have traditionally experienced in getting basic utilities like water, electricity and telephones. Any emerging divide is same as it ever was - rural/urban.

The reasons are manifold and here's the digested version: telephone exchanges haven't been upgraded; buildings are too far from the exchange; the telephone lines have been split to infinity; the lines themselves are in poor condition and haven't been upgraded; the wiring inside buildings is of poor quality. And on it goes.

The solutions equally require copious use of semi-colons, but most of them distillate to just one word - Eircom. In the absence of a competing delivery system such as cable and with the wireless industry a mere pup, the former state-owned telephone company is the alpha and omega of broadband in this country.

Eircom wants everyone to have broadband. Trouble is, the company is so indebted that it can't afford to meet the demand. To upgrade its network outside of the cities and large towns requires investment better spent on getting back into the mobile phone business. So be it.

The buck stops with the government yet it has seriously dropped the ball on broadband and seems content to sit it out on the sidelines. It's far too late for that carry on. The Dail privatised the national telephone system and now is not the time to be playing chicken. Or possum.

Market forces were supposed to arise and solve the situation. Yet there are over 400,000 people connecting to the internet using ISDN, a technology from the 1980s. Probably the same again are using pre-historic dial-up.

Someone at the cabinet table has to become Tsar-like, join up the dots and get a firm grip on connectivity. The satellite dish solution for Talbotstown school, for example, has been pencilled in at the same time as plans for a wireless scheme for the area are being submitted. This is happening across the country, yet nothing is being done about it.

Only one of the market forces supposed to appear arrived on schedule. The demand is ready and waiting but, alas, supply struggles to get out of bed.

It's time for a wake-up call.