Eamonn Coghlan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will approach this from both a personal and a professional perspective, professional because of the representations I get regularly from people. I have done a test on the upload and download speeds. The upload is 25 Mb, the download is 5.3 Mb and the ping is 116. I would like the delegates to explain what that really means. We talk about frustration but, to put it really mildly, people where I live are more than frustrated. They are ready to move out of the area.

We talk about the rural and the urban divide with regard the delivery of fibre optic cable. I live in an urban area where there is a population of more than 125,000 people. If a person goes on Eircom's mapping, it says fibre optic is available in the area.

I am approaching this from two points of view. The first concerns mobile phone coverage. I am lucky at times if I get mobile coverage in my home. My wife will definitely have to go out onto the street to receive or make a call. My son, who is with another operator will say we have to change operators because he has no problem getting coverage. Will the witnesses explain why he can and we cannot.?

The second point of view concerns broadband, which is really frustrating. Mr. Denihan stated the basic service should be 3 Mb per second for coverage in Ireland. I live on a street in west Dublin where there are 20 homes. At the top of the street, there are many thousands of homes that have been built since the early 1990s, receiving full fibre optic coverage. There is a hotel about 400 m away with full fibre optic. The golf course on the other side has full fibre optic. In these 20 homes, we have people from highly qualified, professional backgrounds who might like to work from their homes, but they cannot. The best speed ever that we have received there, according to my chart, is 0.79 Mb per second and perhaps an upload of 0.1 Mb per second. I have made representations to Eircom, UPC, and Sky, who are selling their services, and they say it is not commercially viable. Why is it commercially viable 150 m away and it is not commercially viable on this street? The response I am getting back is that the cabinet for this particular street is too far away and therefore they are not going to do it. I have asked this question a number of times and I still am not getting the answer to it. Who is responsible for the upgrade? Why can we not use for fibre optic the ducting that is used for the copper wiring that is feeding the telephone lines system? Can somebody present please give me answers to whether it will it be done and, perhaps, if it will ever be done?