A survey conducted by the IBEC's Telecommunications User Group (TUG) shows that small businesses in Ireland are dissatisfied with standards of telecommunications provision in Ireland.
The survey of 190 Irish businesses entitled "Evaluation of Business User Demand for Telecommunications in Ireland", shows that 30 per cent of users believe the telecommunications infrastructure in Ireland is "inadequate."
Within the services sector, the level of dissatisfaction is even higher with 41 per cent of respondents stating that the current infras tructure is slow, delays in installations are too long and the quality of lines is poor.
The areas of most dissatisfaction amongst business with their service provider are lead times to obtain a service, price, complaint handling and time-scales for repair and delivery of new services.
Smaller companies also stated that they have to give up their phone lines to use the internet because of the unavailability of broadband or ISDN in their particular regions.
Mobile communications service was found to be uneven and inconsistent even within the Dublin Region.
Seventy-five per cent of businesses said that they experienced coverage problems in non-urban areas and 66 per cent in urban areas of which many stated that these problems were a daily occurrence.
Up to two thirds of businesses found it "difficult" or "very difficult" to compare tariffs of the different service providers in order to get the best deal.
Companies also said that the infrastructural deficit is impacting on eBusiness with only 24 per cent of businesses engaging in eCommerce, although 83 per cent of businesses stated that they have a website.
"International experience tells us that a greater choice of technology will eventually come to Ireland, but that the speed at which it arrives is crucial to Ireland's competitiveness, Nickey Brennan, TUG Chairman said
"However, organisations in Ireland continue to suffer from a lack of basic services such as time-scales for repair, delivery of new services, complaint handling and redress.
"The report confirms that despite a slowdown in the economy, demand for telecommunications products and services will continue to rise sharply, as organisations become increasingly reliant on modern and fast communications to operate effectively".