Report slams Irish broadband prices: ThePost.ie


TCH Archives > Sunday Business Post > 2005/03/06 > Report slams Irish broadband prices

Report slams Irish broadband prices
Sunday, March 06, 2005 - By Louise McBride
Ireland has the third most expensive broadband prices in the EU and internet connections are 16 times slower than the rest of Europe, according to a draft report by a broadband lobby group.

The report by Ireland Offline, to be published in the next two weeks, compares the cost and speed of standard ADSL and cable broadband products across the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Broadband ADSL runs through a phone line and cable broadband runs over television lines.

The draft report - seen by The Sunday Business Post - shows that Denmark and Luxembourg are the only EU countries with higher broadband prices than Ireland.

In Denmark, a standard broadband package for a home user costs €47 a month compared to €46 in Luxembourg. This compares with between €35 and €40 a month in Ireland.

The report found that the cheapest monthly broadband fees were in France at €15, the Netherlands at €20 and Germany at €26.

In Italy, basic broadband packages cost €29 monthly, while packages in Sweden and Poland cost €30 a month.

“Greece, generally the worst in the EU for broadband, charges €36 monthly, which beats some of the packages in Ireland,” said Damien Mulley, chairman of Ireland Offline.

“Norway, the most expensive country in Europe, has broadband prices which are about €6 less than ours.”

The report also found that standard broadband products in the Republic are substantially slower than the rest of Europe. Broadband download and upload speeds are measured in kilobits per second (kbps).The higher the number of kbps in a broadband package, the faster the connection.

“It is very difficult to compare like-for-like in the EU with Ireland so far behind everyone else,” said Mulley.

“The most common broadband connections in Ireland are 512 kbps connections for €40 a month when 8,192 kbps connections are common throughout Europe. Most broadband providers in Europe won't even consider offering a 512 kbps connection to consumers.” The fastest broadband connections are available in Sweden with speeds of up to 102,400 kbps, and France, which has speeds of up to 20,480 kbps.

A government report published earlier this year found that Ireland had fallen seriously behind its global competitors in terms of broadband connectivity. There are only six broadband connections per 100 households in the state, which is 20 per cent the level of average competitor countries.