THE INTRODUCTION to Ireland of new technologies that can slash greenhouse emissions is being hampered because ubiquitous high-speed broadband is not available, Minister for Energy Eamon Ryan was told yesterday.
Cisco, one of the world’s leading network companies, is rolling out its “connected urban development” in five cities including San Francisco, Seoul, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Madrid, Birmingham and Hamburg.
Its purpose is to promote sustainable urban connectivity and create “smart work” cities by cutting down on commuting time by using advanced teleconferencing technology and other smart networking solutions.
Senior executives from Cisco gave Mr Ryan a demonstration of its own high-tech Telepresence system at its San Jose headquarters. Mr Ryan participated in a teleconference with executives in Herndon, Virginia and also in Galway, where Cisco has a centre of excellence and employs 200 people, mostly on the high-value RD side. Cisco says it has reduced travel by half in the company.
Speaking from Galway, Monique Mèche, who has responsibility for European government affairs, said Cisco would be happy to include Dublin in the project but it could not do so at the moment because the city did not have widespread high-speed broadband.
Mr Ryan said the upgrade of the quality of broadband in Dublin and in urban areas from DSL to vDSL was a huge priority for him and he would strive to encourage both cable and network providers to make sure it happens as much as possible.
Speaking from Herndon, Robert Pepper, Cisco’s head of government affairs said it was critical for Ireland to develop a high-speed broadband network. He said the current 3G scheme for outlying rural areas was not broadband. Mr Ryan said that this scheme is a “gap” measure.
Mr Pepper said Ireland was “not in an envious position” when it comes to benefiting from the very fast bandwidth that will form part of digital TV transmission. He said the rest of Europe would be in a position to avail of this in 2010 and 2011 but that Ireland depended on Great Britain for making it available, and Northern Ireland was at the end of the queue of UK regions.
“That would mean that Ireland could not move before 2102 but that at that stage Ireland should “pull the trigger” to get large blocks of spectrum available across the country.
Mr Ryan, speaking later, accepted that broadband has been behind in Ireland. “We have been catching up . . . There’s a variety of ways in which we can do that. Firstly what we want to see is the fixed line and the cable companies in particular investing in fibre and cable solutions that will provide very high quality broadband.
“And in rural areas we will continue the evolution from 3G to 4G to LTE that means that we have coverage in areas that we find it hard to get fibre to.
“The discussion today just shows how crucial that is for economic development and for reducing emissions,” he said.
Don Proctor of Cisco said the California technology giant (that employs 68,000 people) would reduce its carbon emissions by 20 per cent because of Telepresence and other smart-work initiatives that cut down on commuting and on air travel.
“We have reduced our travel in Cisco by 50 per cent compared to a year ago. [A total of] 100,000 metric tonnes [or greenhouse gas emissions] have been avoided just at Cisco,” he said.
Mr Pepper added: “If telepresence substituted for 10 per cent [of travel] it would reduce carbon emissions by 35 million tonnes annually in the US.”
Mr Ryan was at Cisco as part of his St Patrick’s Day visit to California, where he held meetings with some green tech developers.
Later yesterday, he visited Telsa, one of the world’s leading electric car companies.
Today he will be a guest of honour at the St Patrick’s Day Festival in downtown San Francisco. The Northern Californian city is home to the biggest Irish expatriate population on the west coast of the United States.