On Tuesday the 10th of February 2009, Irish Rural Link (IRL), the national organisation campaigning for sustainable rural communities,  published its comprehensive analysis of the National Broadband Scheme (NBS) concluding that while welcome in principle the Scheme can only be considered a first step towards the provision of efficient, future proofed, equitably priced broadband to rural Ireland.

The executive summary of their evaluation, “The Good, the Bad and the Inadequate: Irish Rural Link’s evaluation of the National Broadband Scheme”, states that:

• IRL accepts that the combination of a large, dispersed rural population, the sale of Eircom’s fixed line business and EU rules on competition and Government interference in the marketplace presented a unique set of challenging circumstances for Government to address the broadband situation in rural areas.
• Irish Rural Link has a real concern that the proposed broadband solution is based almost solely on mobile broadband with ComReg questioning the reliability and capacity of mobile broadband technologies.
• Mobile broadband may be unable to support some of the tasks expected of it by rural dwellers including VoIP and gaming. Contention ratios are a known problem with the technology chosen.
• Up to 12,000 houses and business premises that cannot access any broadband are excluded from the NBS. According to the Department the NBS cannot serve these premises as they are already substantially served areas. To try to serve them would give rise to an unacceptable level of market distortion.
• Despite the Press Release stating “100% broadband coverage of the country by September 2010” this is not case. In reality the NBS will not ensure 100% of Irish people have access to broadband. Instead it means 100% of Ireland’s geographical area will have theoretically some sort of broadband coverage but there are no guarantees that a household or business will have broadband of a certain speed or quality or at a reasonable price.
• The NBS will not provide the quality of internet to allow rural SMEs and tourism developments to participate in the web economy. The business customer will need faster speeds and more reliable technology.
• Contingency plans must be in place in the event of delays relating to planning permission for 160 required telecommunications masts.
• There must be a mechanism to ensure that broadband provision in rural areas is future proofed and of the highest possible standard to stem the widening of the digital divide between rural Ireland and both urban Ireland and the rest of the world.
• The NBS does not provide rural dwellers with the best possible access to broadband and representing the NBS as creating “100% coverage” that allows rural communities and business to breach the digital divide is misleading. The solution proposed by the NBS can only be considered as ‘midband’ and an interim solution towards the provision of true, high speed broadband to rural Ireland.

The evaluation is available on their web site, www.irishrurallink.ie, or by clicking here.