OK…. so your day job requires you to sit in your car in a semi-seculded spot with your hands making darting gestures around your lap, always concious of passers-by.

Yup. I’ll be using that as my defence.

I’m training a pigeon to deliver my messages via the medium of interpetative dance as it would probably be quicker than sending it over my Voda 2.5g connection.

Today Pigeon dances Powerpoint… to the tune of Thriller. It’s a good presentation.

I’ve now taken to sitting in my car on the top of Forth mountain with a 3 dongle. I kid you not. This is to do my 9-5 job BTW…..

Spring has sprung and the birds and leaves have returned to the tree that lies on my line of sight.

Presence of nest apparently means that I’m paying through the nose to poach a few eggs in a tree midway between Castlebridge and Forth Mountain, while using a combination of dialup and Vodafone 2g (depending on the telecoms needs of the wifey).

We should have pints and a bitching session in The Crown Bar some weekend!

Thanks for your comment.

I think part of the problem is that many of the planners in telcos (and not just eircom) as well as in government live in urban areas that are well served by broadband and, bluntly, take it for granted that they can get 2mb+ in most urbanised areas and only have a vague abstract understanding of the impacts of weather, trees and the cycle of the moon on wireless services in rural areas.

This means that they often don’t see the real needs of people in more rural areas. That added to the ’silo’ thinking that we experience around capital investment in MANs etc. and we wind up with a cack handed situation where investment is duplicated in network but people still can’t get basic levels of service.

I do think that a small incremental investment on the MANS to implement technologies similar to the wifiber.ie example in my post (which looks good on paper but there is precious little detail on their website) to extend the reach of MANS to rural towns on the outer edge of the MAN’s reach would be a quick win.

Of course it would require some form of strategy for national broadband that isn’t based just on electoral boundary divisions (current plan) and actually looks at the issue in the context of national spatial strategy and population growth trends for the initial phases.

Mass switchovers to competitors of eircom would make a point to eircom, but they are only part of the problem here. Consistent Government policy (or the lack there of) around rural broadband and the role of MANs is another issue that needs to be addressed.

When questions can be raised about the hiring policies for the management of the national broadband scheme (http://www.mulley.net/2008/02/10/dept-of-communications-dodgy-hiring-policy-for-the-national-broadband-scheme-hurts-us-all/) and the Minister can’t keep the numbers of people on broadband straight in his head from one interview to another (http://www.mulley.net/2008/02/14/lying-ryan-on-prime-time/ and http://www.mulley.net/2008/02/13/more-from-broadband-bertie/) then we have a problem that is bigger than just one company.

We had an opportunity last summer to switch our governance over to another supplier and we failed to do so.

The ideal solution is to put everyone (eircom, comreg, other providers, the dept of comms, tech providers [who Micheal Martin thinks are only the dogs bollix it seems])in a room, bash out a solution involving everyone and then put necessary public and private capital behind it to make the bugger work. Of course the EU would have a problem with that as it could look like State support for incumbent operators.

Another alternative is the State buys the network back and invests in it as a national resource and puts local network provision in the hands of local authorities (like the bins, water supplies and non-national roads). Yup. That will work (particularly if you’re in Galway).

I live and work in what is in effect an ex-urb of Dublin, close to Naas. We’re within 3Km of a yet to be upgraded exchange with an ISDN capable connection, but for many of my neighbours even if the exchange is upgraded either distance or split-lines will ensure that wireless will continue to be their only alternative.

For large parts of the country fixed wireless offers the only hope of always-on broadband, yet its provision is being left to small and/or under-funded and/or amateur organisations.

Perhaps all of use who live in such areas should make a point by switching to use another telephone provider other than Eircom. I know they will continue to receive line rental from alternate suppliers, but it would send a very clear message, particularly if affected communities were to organise “mass switch overs”.