NET RESULTS:As broadband rollout slowly moves forward in the Republic, and as the signing of the Communications Regulations Act raises hopes for local loop unbundling, I was surprised to read that some 10 per cent of the US population relies on satellite connections for internet access.

A satellite connection is much slower than DSL or cable, more expensive, and definitely not the access method of choice for most who use it, but in remote or rural areas, satellite connectivity is often the only alternative to dial-up. The fact that so many Americans opt for it indicates how broadband-focused the US is.

We have satellite services in Ireland as well, but many seem to just stick it out with the screechy modem routine of dial-up.

In the meantime, Ice Broadband is vowing to get broadband to the dial-up regions using Wimax technology. Then there's broadband from the mobile telephony folks. Small modems and cards enable people to pick up broadband right off the increasingly robust bandwidth of your mobile network.

Will these technologies solve Ireland's broadband deficit?

They'll certainly help relieve some of the problem, as will true local loop unbundling.

Yet the broadband problem is, and always has been, broader (if you will).

Even in areas where broadband was available long ago, such as much of Dublin, take-up was relatively modest in comparison with other urban centres worldwide.

Much of the blame has been placed on cost, but that simply cannot account for the issue. A broadband connection in the Republic was not that much more expensive than other countries - in many cases only €5 to €10 more than some locations and pretty much the same as many others.

Irish people have no issues with the cost of other products or services they value. For example, we routinely spend more than any other country in the EU on a per capita basis on mobiles - about €50 monthly. Most readers of this column probably spend considerably more.

We will also spend an exorbitant amount in the pub buying a round of drinks. For the equivalent of a round for a handful of friends on a single night, you would have paid for your broadband bill for an entire month.

So I just do not buy the argument that Irish people don't sign up for broadband because of cost. I think it is more down to the unfortunate development of the overall internet environment here.

We sat as outside observers during much of the internet's early growth, when it went through some distinct phases in the US and, slightly later, in Britain.

First we had dial-up access, which gave much of the population internet access, but take-up was very low compared to other countries. Why? Initially it was because access was costly, putting up a division between those who really wanted access (generally those who worked in internet-enabled environments and who immediately found the internet useful, and graduating students who had internet access at university and dreaded being thrown out into the real world without it), and those who couldn't see that much reason for actually paying for it.

Then along came what is known as "all you can eat", or flat-rate internet packages - pioneered (rather disastrously at first) by America Online (AOL) in the US.

You paid one monthly price and could stay online all you wanted. It took a while for networks to come up to par for this, but once they did, people flocked to this service in the US, then eventually in the UK, and then in Europe. And we waited. And waited. And waited.

We finally got always-on internet here around the time that we also got broadband. So always-on dial-up went immediately into competition with broadband, just as the rest of the world was moving from always-on to broadband, because they got the always-on concept. Now they wanted fast always-on access.

We just didn't get that concept at all. We still don't get it in huge areas of the State, even though the exchanges are enabled. Sure, the Government and the industry could do more to make getting online compelling. However, large numbers of people clearly see chatting on their mobiles or a night of drinking as worthwhile, but not broadband.

That's changing, but our problem is that we never had the chance to go naturally through the access transitions that made internet access desirable to large numbers of people elsewhere.

Well, at least we've learned how not to seed a market.

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