Rural Broadband

Cllr Keith Martin has expressed his considerable concerns about the impact on broadband attainment in the west and in rural Ireland under the Government's new plans to provide rural broadband via wireless connection from a mobile phone company.

 

Cllr Keith Martin is a member of the Multi Agency Enterprise Group and is lobbying for a Metropolitan Area Network for Westport via a fibre optic cable which would give Westport super high speed broadband for industrial and business use.  Cllr Martin has also been very vocal on the need for copper-wire broadband to rolled out throught rural Mayo and has called for the Government to invest in enabling existing Eircom exchanges for broadband rather than rolling out a "hit and miss" wireless service.

 

Specifically, the Labour councillor refers to concerns raised in an evaluation report from Irish Rural Link (IRL) which highlights the inadequacy of focusing predominantly on mobile broadband.

 

Cllr Martin says "According to the regulator ComReg, mobile broadband is only suitable in limited circumstances; for people and businesses that do not require a high-end broadband service and for those who are not heavy Internet users.

"These two points raise alarm bells about the scope of the scheme. Are rural communities not entitled to a 'high-end service'? Similarly, who decided that rural users are not heavy Internet users? In Mayo I know of householders and businesses that bought mobile broadband packages only to find that their connections were essentially useless.

"I'm calling for an urgent review of the National Broadband scheme and would ask Green Party Minister Eamon Ryan to guarantee that rural communities would not be forced to accept a second class broadband system. It as an absolute national disgrace that only 13 per cent of households in rural communities have access to high-speed broadband."

 

 

 

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