[ILUG] ireland offline 'strike'

[Fergal Daly]

On Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 04:51:27PM +0000, Gavin Henrick wrote:
> Yes, and national rollout was funded by government. With Eircom Floated this
> causes a major problem. They have not got the money to make huge infrastructural
> investment, and it should come from the government, who have no intention of it.
> The company and the people it services were shafted in its floating.

BT were floated years ago, so that's no obstacle. Even if the government
were paying for it, I don't think Eircom want ADSL as it banjaxes so much of
their cushy leased line market. According to

http://ir.eircom.ie/eircom/ec_financialdata/2001-03-31/part5/

internet access accounts for 40% of their 10.6 Billion minutes. What's ADSL
going to do to that? And that wouldn't include the huge amount of minutes
clocked up by No Limits users who are champing at the bit to get ADSL.

> Perhaps, this doesnt remove the basic reasons that they havent got the money to
> support proper rollout, the government made the mistakes back when eircom was
> sold off to the now shareholders (sorry, maybe suckers is more apt)

The figures for local loop unbundling are also outlandish, this is where
anyone who does have the money can place a box in an exchange and start
plugging copper pairs into it. There is no massive up front cost or Eircom
here, they are just doing their best to stop anyone ruining their party.

But like I said in another email, that is exactly what commercial companies
are supposed to do, the government should have given the ODTR some real
power and put someone in who was going to stir things up a bit,

Fergal