The Irish connection

Broadband in Ireland is regulated by the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR). In 1999, after a hotly contested application process, the ODTR granted licences to just four companies to provide people in this State with broadband services.

Unfortunately, two years later, one of the most interesting developments that has happened in this area is that one of the companies has already gone out of business. Broadband is certainly not yet the money-spinner that was hoped for in 1999.

Formus Broadband was an Irish subsidiary of an American company, Formus Communications. The Irish company employed 71 people in Dublin, and offered broadband connectivity to small and medium-sized businesses. But it seems businesses here weren't sufficiently bothered about broadband, and the American parent company had its own problems and couldn't keep paying the bills.

Formus Broadband shut down in March, before high-tech failures began hitting the headlines here. However, times were already tough in information technology (IT). There has been quite a turn-around in fortunes for companies like this: just last year, Formus Broadband was planning to be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. But that was when the IT companies were seeing their values rise and rise; this year they're falling fast.

And the surviving Irish broadband companies are moving only slowly toward the goal of a connected country.