Tracking down presidential candidates, mob killers and Hollywood stars is a walk in the park compared with getting broadband in the Irish countryside, writes Robbyn Swan
As I write this, a young man is crawling about under my desk. A thrill, a life-changer. Don't get me wrong, though. The man is a computer engineer and he's making the final connections to bring us broadband internet access - after I spent five months stalking every company claiming to be "bringing broadband" to our area.
Countrywide, some 40 companies offer a version of broadband. In March, however, the European Commission said that only some 10 per cent of Irish homes and businesses have such a service. Even Eircom, which dominates the field, puts the "broadband penetration" rate at just 14 per cent. In a crucial habitat, the Celtic Tiger is limping.
My husband and I are non-fiction authors living in rural Co Waterford. Our current project - an investigation of 9/11 - requires access to myriad online documents, video clips and databases, and fast. With only a cranky dial-up connection, which was all we had until today, we couldn't do our job.
Eircom's ordinary broadband facility (via the fixed phone lines) has yet to reach us. A few people in our area, however, are serviced by companies that offer a fixed wireless service. I began my search, last August, with calls to them. No joy.
By early December my technophobic but take-charge husband - a man prone to editing my postcards to my mother - decided he had to lend a hand and write to Eircom. His letter, a model of decorum of the "Dear Sir or Madam" type, painted a bleak portrait of our plight. He slipped in a reference to our long history of vast Eircom bills - on the principle that good customers might receive prompt service.
On the eve of Christmas, while stringing the lights, said husband received a call from a young man from Eircom - "Hi, Anthony!" - responding to the letter. Our area, he said, didn't have a snowball's chance (seasonal translation) of getting broadband any time soon. When my husband asked for a fuller, written response, the young man got huffy and rang off. The husband decided to let me handle it after all.
I consulted the government's broadband website ( www.broadband.gov.ie) and opened a page called "Find Broadband in your area". It invited me to "click on the Identify Providers" button for a list of local providers. Eureka. Up popped a list of some 13 companies that supposedly serve our nearest village. Other than the one offering fixed wireless service, one of the non-starters I'd already tried, the remaining 12 were satellite. Checking the "How is Broadband provided?" page, I noted the claim that satellite is "the only broadband service available everywhere in Ireland". Knowing next to nothing about satellite broadband, I decided it was time to call Moss McCarthy, from LED Technology, in Midleton,Co Cork. He has been doing our IT work for years. He comes over all computer geek - ponytail, heavy-soled black shoes - but he's one of the few heroes of this tale.
Moss explained that satellite is slower than other broadband systems. A two-way satellite link, moreover, is really pricey - more than €1,200 to install and some €150 a month forever after. At last, though, we'd be able to pull down and view large document files, scanned images (like those pesky Acrobat files), photos and video. With satellite we'd be able to watch YouTube, though not use Skype or play online games. Satellite was the only option, Moss said, adding that Eircom could fix us up, through a subcontractor.
I phoned Eircom that very day. Several wearying, mind-bending weeks of broken promises later, though, I was driven to complain in writing to Eircom CEO Rex Comb. Perhaps he'd like to read my letter of March 16th again, here.
"On February 7th, I made the first of many calls to Eircom's broadband sales department. I dealt with 'Richard'. His telephone manner could only be likened to a character out of Father Ted, rather than to a trained member of staff of a modern telecommunications company. Nevertheless, at the end of our call he assured me that my order had been placed and 'No worries', I would hear from an installation technician within a week.
"When no call materialised, I called the sales department again. This time I dealt with a courteous, articulate gentleman named 'Jason'. He took all our details again, and assured me that the installation would occur by March 8th.
"Given my previous experience, I decided to ring at the end of February to ensure that all systems were 'go' for the March 8th installation, only to be informed by Eircom's Ruth McGuire that 'Jason' had been incorrect - installation would not occur until March 16th.
"Since that date I have phoned Eircom three times to check that the installation would occur on schedule - today. No such installation has taken place. I've spent most of today - from about 11am until now, 4pm - being passed from one office to another by staff who do little more than parrot their lines. Finally, I was given the phone number for MediaSat, a contractor who, I am told today, will actually be installing the service.
"Lisa, the agent at MediaSat, tells me that we were never scheduled for an installation today. Lisa hopes to be able to supply me with a date for the installation when her colleagues return from the holiday weekend on Tuesday, March 20th."
Come Tuesday afternoon, though, there had still been no call from anyone at MediaSat. Or from Eircom. Chivvying calls got no satisfaction from MediaSat, so I asked for the name of their contact at Eircom. I got through (eventually), and told my story all over again. "Morgan" assured me that MediaSat would now be getting a technician to me without further delay. The day ended with no call from MediaSat. Same on Wednesday. On Thursday, when I rang, MediaSat offered only a litany of excuses. So I rang Eircom's Morgan back. He did not remember me.
If the higher powers at Eircom are monitoring calls "for quality of service", as its recording tells us, they should listen to this one. For at that point I finally lost it. "Morgan," I said as politely as I could, "I don't mean to be rude, but I think there's something wrong with you. We spoke two days ago for nearly 20 minutes. Please give me the name of your supervisor and ask him or her to take my call." Catherine Moore, of Eircom's broadband department, got back to me in the afternoon. She listened, apologised - hooray! - and said a MediaSat technician would be with me "tomorrow, by 10am". Hooray again, except that someone gave the technician mission: impossible. He was sent to us, in west Waterford, via Sneem, Co Kerry - and did not arrive until the following day.
The satellites used for broadband apparently sit low in the Irish sky where hills and trees can obscure the necessary line of sight. MediaSat's technician could find no spot on our property suitable for the vital connection between dish and satellite. My husband stepped in again, dragging the MediaSat man around our place, satellite dish on his back. In vain.
A month on, however, thanks to our perseverance, our computer guy's inventiveness, and our local electrician Brian, we do finally have a broadband connection. It was supplied not by Eircom but by one of their competitors, Digiweb. A satellite dish and its box of tricks now stand in lone state, on a hill, in a wood, linked to our office by more than a hundred yards of buried cable.
The government and our leading telecommunications company should wake up - and now. They've got to stop treating those of us who live and work outside major cities as dead weight who don't need or deserve the same infrastructure as the rest of modern Ireland.
The problem goes beyond technology. As I said in my March letter to Eircom boss Rex Comb: "Everywhere I turned today I was met with ignorance and apathy. Phones went unanswered, calls were misdirected and the 'customer complaints' line was answered by a machine saying that the line was temporarily unavailable. There is no excuse for this kind of inefficiency."
I've interviewed presidential candidates, company presidents, mob killers and Hollywood stars. None has proved as elusive as the customer-support team at Eircom. Their attitude evidently begins at the top. My letter to Eircom boss Comb, initially sent by e-mail, got only an automated response. I followed up with a copy through the post. Yet even now, after 10 weeks, Comb is silent. Perhaps that highly paid gentleman is out there in space somewhere, manning the satellite. I hope not, for all our sakes.
