Coffee, Danish and 8MBytes Please

Apologies for the hiatus. I was travelling across Europe to my second home in Denmark. The wife is a Dane, don't you know. While talking over Xmas dinner my father in law dropped a casual remark that they were getting in fibre the following week and with 8MBytes as the lowest default for about 30 euro. I had to bite my tongue when he asked me what broadband is like in Ireland. I hmm'd and haww'd for a few moments, drank some coffee and asked him to show me his Xmas presents again.

Isn't it great as a travelling embassador of the Celtic Tiger that we we have to bow our heads in shame whenever broadband is mentioned. We are kings of the world on so many fronts, depending on what elements of David McWilliams creed you adhere to, but we are lowly laggards when internet connection speeds are mentioned.

I am publishing this blog at home via my satellite broadband link. I live in rural Wexford and this is the best I can get. Expensive and just tipping into the lowest technically allowable definition of the word broadband. I drink my coffee and hang my head in shame again.

Comments

[Helen Cousins]

There’s a bit of a recurring theme to this blog – broodband not broadband, it’s a nemesis of sorts. Not having it really does get in the way of 21st century living. You are not alone in your torment. I have spent the last few days talking to new Waterford participants of the mergo Tourism Network http://www.mergo.ie/ (as mentioned elsewhere in your blog.) Creaky, dodgey unreliable dial- up is all that is available to so many people trying to run businesses in Ireland. Tourism businesses, like so many other businesses, rely on the internet to generate income. For those on dial-up, even picking up their email is like trying to empty a reservoir with a leaky bucket. I fear that they mer- go out of their minds…..if not out of business….