INTERNET
Mobile coverage highlights digital divide
05-07-2004
by Craig Liddell
Seventy percent of businesses have problems with mobile phone coverage in regional Ireland, according to a report released on Monday.
Broadband coverage is also criticised in the third national survey from the Telelcommunications User Group (TUG), an IBEC organisation. More than half of Irish companies cannot get broadband services at all their office locations, the report indicated.
Generally speaking, around one in two (47 percent) of companies based outside of Dublin feel inadequately served by their current telecommunications infrastructure. This leaves them lagging significantly behind companies in Dublin, where 22 percent feel their infrastructure is inadequate.
The digital divide is most starkly highlighted in mobile coverage. Only 29 percent of business users have experienced problems in urban areas compared to 70 percent who have experienced problems in urban areas.
"Businesses in Dublin are now reasonably well catered for," Liz Clear, TUG executive, said. "They have a greater choice of service provider and technology than was the case even two or three years ago. The reality is, however, that in rural areas or even on the periphery of large towns such as Kilkenny, high speed communications services simply are not available."
On a positive note, the findings show increased satisfaction with some services, most notably mobile coverage in urban areas and the ease of transfer between competing service providers. Seventy-seven percent of respondents agreed that number portability within the local loop is a crucial issue and encouraged them to change service providers.
The report summarises the results of a survey of 180 end user businesses throughout Ireland during April 2004. Conducted by the telecom division of industry representative body, the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC), the report follows two others in 2001 and 2003.
Alongside mobile services, the survey indicates a level of dissatisfaction with broadband service providers. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said that broadband services were not available to their company in all locations. When asked to rate service providers, the area of most dissatisfaction for business was price.
The results led the Telecommunications User Group to recommend the government encourage the take-up of Group Broadband Schemes, which places the burden on companies to solve the infrastructure deficit in their area. Service providers will therefore have the incentive to supply high-speed communications services.
"It's time for these companies to begin helping themselves meet their telecomms needs as it is evident that nobody else is going to do it for them," TUG Chairman, Paul McSweeney, said.
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