The Big Lie: Broadband Availability

Dear Noel,

this "postcard" currently makes the round amongst our staff. Don't be offended, it's just a bit of fun.

The background to our office joke is not a laughing matter though:
We at ComReg were under the Department's policy direction to do all to bring Ireland to at least the EU-15 average with end-user broadband take-up and end-user broadband availability by mid 2005, i.e. now.

We know, you know, and you've said publicly that we did not manage to get there with our broadband take-up (penetration). In fact we stagnated at a dismal second last place with the EU-15, only Greece being worse 0ff.

What is less known and less said: Even our broadband growth rate, which we tout as fantastic, is below the OECD average. (See Resources 1) At this rate your new 500 000 Broadband user goal by end 2006 will never be achievable!

But here comes the real reason why we grinned at you when you came visiting:
We've lied to the Department about the broadband end-user availability in our reports. We deliberately misinformed the Department in Sept. 2004 that Irish broadband availability was in line with Europe at 70% (see Resources 2)

And now we've upped our misinformation about our failure to reach the EU-15 Broadband availability with a really big lie in our latest "Strategy" document:

We publish a chart doctored from an OECD chart which we know was done in error, to make the claim that Irish dsl availability is above the OECD average, when in fact we know for certain that it is at one of the lowest ranks in the OECD – and in the EU-15.

But look at our big lie yourself:
Here is the false claim we make in our document and here is the chart we doctored (page 11 from the official ComReg document, which can be downloaded from their website):



The green column for Ireland should be lower than the Hungarian. We gave Ireland a 78% coverage column for 2003/2004, when we know that in 2003 and 2004, the year of the chart data, Irish dsl coverage was below 50%.

But it comes worse: Even now, when most the EU-15 countries have 90% – 100% dsl coverage, we are at below 60% dsl line coverage.
From Eircom's latest SEC filing (that is the one where they don't dare to lie, as it would have consequences!) we know that in 2005 Eircom has only 1.56 million lines originating from dsl enabled exchanges and due to the 23% failure rate only 1.17 millions out of 2 million telephone access paths are currently dsl enabled. [See Resources 3] With these figures Eircom has a dsl line coverage of around 58% of lines, which means the end-user coverage is still lower, probably at around 50%!

While it is sadly "natural" for the McRedmond's and O'Reilly's of this company to misinform the Irish public about this figure (falsely claiming a 80% dsl coverage), isn't it amazing that we, the independent regulator do the same?
Funny world.

Regards
John, with greetings from Isolde and Mike

P.S.:
The School Broadband scheme, where all our schools will get broadband connections through tender, also flash-lights our miserable broadband availability:

Of the 3,925 schools the connections will be as follows (from the Department's press release 15th July 2005):
1,577 by satellite – or 40.2% will have a satellite connection
1,507 by Wireless – or 38.4 % will have a wireless connection
and only 841 schools will be connected by fixed line (e.g. DSL) – or 21.4% will get a dls connection.

Now, what does that tell you about dsl availability in Ireland?
Above the OECD average?
In line with Europe?
Whom are we kidding?

Resources:

1.
Despite wishful thinking and misleading speak by ComReg and the DCMNR we are not catching up. Our real broadband growth rate, while high in percentage terms (because we are at such a low base) is below the OECD growth average:




2.
ComReg deliberately and blatantly lied to the DCMNR about Broadband availability in Ireland in its reporting back it had been ordered in the March 2004 DCMNR policy directive, when it stated:"Overall coverage levels for access to Broadband now exceed 75% and are in line with the European average as outlined in the March 2004 Policy Direction."
[Quote from the ComReg report, accessed under FOI]ComReg knows that Broadband availability in Ireland is not in line with the European average and not at all at 75%, but at below 60% of lines and still lower for end-users. This is a serious, deliberate and substantial misinformation which the DCMNR should not tolerate.


3.
On page 56 of Eircom's 2005 filing with the "Securities and Exchange Commission" (SEC) they admit that they have currently merely 1.17 million lines capable of carrying dsl, that is less than 60% of Eircom's current approx 2 million access paths:
"ADSL network
We have also undertaken rollout of ADSL. As of 31 March 2005, we had 240 Alcatel ADSL sites commissioned, covering approximately 1.52 million working paths.
Approximately 77% of paths (1.17 million) connected to these sites would be capable of carrying ADSL at speeds from 256 kbit/s to512 kbit/s."

Even without looking at the SEC filing it is clear that there is currently a less than 60% dsl coverage in Ireland, as the incumbent has only dsl enabled the exchanges of towns where less than 60% of the Irish population lives.

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