Broadband speeds lag OECD

Ireland is still lagging behind other countries in the roll-out of next generation networks, a new broadband benchmarking report said today.

The report, published by Forfás, said the country has made "significant progress" in improving broadband coverage in the past two years, with an average of 21.4 subscribers per 100 people compared with the OECD average of 22.4. This excludes mobile broadband, and countries such as the Netherlands, which has an average of 38.1, and Denmark (37).

However, while broadband accounts for 90 per cent of internet connections and speeds have improved, they remain below the fastest speeds available to customers in other OECD countries. Only 0.6 per cent of connections in Ireland are fibre connections, compared to an average of 11.3 per cent in OECD-28 countries.

The report says Ireland has fallen behind in the deployment of fibre infrastructure closer to the consumer for both wired and wireless networks.

"Advanced broadband services are essential to underpinning entrepreneurship and innovation and are needed to position Ireland for export led recovery," said Forfás chief executive Jane Williams.

"Greater investment in telecommunications infrastructure is required if Ireland is to converge towards leading countries in terms of high quality broadband availability. Ireland needs to be among the leaders in Europe in the provision of next generation telecommunications infrastructure, access and services by 2012."

The report made a number of recommendations including a review by the Department of Communications and the communications regulator of options to increase revenues and reduce costs and risks for private sector operators, such as potential infrastructure sharing , reducing costs of building access networks, and a stronger role for the wireless spectrum in the delivery of higher-speed broadband.

The report also suggested giving access to public ducting and other infrastructure that could be used for fibre deployment, extending the existing Metropolitan Area Networks to key IDA industrial sites in Cork and Waterford, and building more MANs in five National Spatial Strategy centre.

Operators in Ireland have criticised incumbent telecoms provider Eircom in the past over the state of the current infrastructure. Rival BT pulled out of the residential telecoms market last year, moving its customers to Vodafone under a joint venture with themobile operator, and has since accused Eircom of damaging the competitiveness of Irish telecommunications.

Eircom has challenged a number of ComReg's decisions in the past, with some in the past year relating to a decision that would force it to cut the wholesale price of broadband lines.

Singapore-based STT, which acquired Eircom's business earlier this month, has indicated it plans to invest in the firm's network infrastructure in the future.