Forfás today published its report, Benchmarking Ireland’s Broadband Performance, which assesses Ireland’s competitiveness in terms of broadband availability, take-up, quality and choice.
For those of us in the south still struggling to get decent connections with decent speeds it is not surprising that comparatively Rep. of Ireland is still underperforming with regard to broadband. Availability is still a key issue.
Key Findings of the report are:
* Broadband Availability
At the end of Q2 2005, Ireland ranked 25th out of the 32 countries for broadband take-up. When the comparator group is limited to the 21 countries benchmarked in the 2004 study, Ireland’s position has actually deteriorated, from 18th out of 21 in 2004 to 19th out of 21 in 2005.
* Broadband Costs
The cost of entry-level DSL in Ireland has decreased significantly since the launch of services in 2002. Based on the amortised monthly costs for 1Mbit/s DSL, Ireland currently ranks 7th cheapest of 32 countries benchmarked.
* SME Broadband take-up
In terms of broadband take-up by SMEs, out of 20 EU countries included, Ireland ranks 17th out of 20 for take-up by companies with a workforce of between 10-49 employees and 19th out of 20 for take-up by companies employing 50-249 people.
* Broadband Availability Notwithstanding significant improvements in DSL availability in Ireland since its launch in 2002, DSL coverage in Ireland based, on population, stands at 72%, making it the second lowest of the EU-15 countries.
* Quality of Service (bandwidth capacity/choice of advanced products)
A broadband innovation index, used to measure quality of service (bandwidth capacity/choice of advanced products) performance across the benchmark countries, ranks Ireland 21st out of 30 countries on this important indictor.
Read the press release: http://www.forfas.ie/news.asp?page_id=361
Download the report: http://www.forfas.ie/publications/forfas051205/index.html