Sir, - Seen from a distance of 8,000 miles, Ireland is indeed a land of blarney, make-believe and bullshit. I am sending this to you over my "always-on", broadband Internet connection from my home in southern California. For this service I pay about one quarter of what I paid in Dublin last year for a much inferior dial-up 56kps service from Indigo.
The Government has paid a great deal of lip service recently to the notion of Ireland becoming an information society. Not only was this late in the day compared with many of our European partners, but now it is clear that the minimal commitments entailed were just moonshine and are not being taken seriously.
Living in the US since last September we can see how the Internet is integrating seamlessly with all aspects of people's lives here. Not just e-mail, but medical diagnostics, educational and references works, online drugstores (where prescription medicines are 40 per cent the cost of those in the mall pharmacy), on-line shopping and entertainment services of all kinds. The US is rapidly becoming the Internet society that we only read about in Europe.
Now I read over the Irish Times Internet service that NTL is cutting back on its plans to roll out a fully comprehensive digital Internet service in Ireland. In effect a decision has been made not to invest in a State-wide fibre optic network, which would make digital broadband services available to all. In its stead we are being offered a Mickey Mouse plan to extend the fibre optic network on an as-needed basis only and then for selected areas only. NTL cites the necessity for cost-cutting as its rationale for this change of policy. As for Eircom, I am not holding my breath.
Is the Government satisfied that Ireland is hereby being consigned to the rank of societies with a third-rate Internet infrastructure? How do the folks in the MIT Media Lab feel about locating in Dublin now? Whither now Ireland's information society?
My family and I are all avid Internet users. We are dismayed at the prospect of returning to dial-up Internet service when we return to Ireland in August. It seems like a step back into the dark ages. In Ireland the national philosophy seems to be: let's not do it if it seems we can get away with it. This seems to have informed most public investment decisions over the past several decades. I don't think we should let them get away with it for much longer. - Yours, etc.,
Paul Stokes, Visiting Scholar, University of California at Santa Barbara, USA.