[IIU] Re: [ILUG] OT But esat unlimited has been scrapped

[Adrian Wooster]

A committee of regulators sounds to me like a belt and braces approach to
ensure no decisions are ever made.

I have to disagree about the level of investment needed for this. The
expensive bit -copper and fibre - is in the ground and paid for (we paid for
it before it TE was sold back to us). DSLAM's are not expensive, and DIY
client kits are very cheap and would be paid for by the user anyway. The
Irish backbone is underused, and the CLEC's certainly have backbone
capacity. If the Governments view of Ireland being the eCommerce hub of the
galaxy is to be believed then international peering will not be a problem
either.

Agreed, it is a small market, so running fibre to small businesses and
houses is no an option - making the most of the existing infrastructure
should be the market prerogative. Helsinki Telecom has a smaller market but
doesn't have these problems, and Kingston Telecom in the UK have managed
very well until they hit LLU problems.

And to go back to some of the earlier comments from others - this is very
much a Linux issue. Linux is a living part of the Internet. The Internet and
Linux cannot grow or develop if the infrastructure is not there. If the
Government taxed hard disks I'm sure this group would be raging - why is it
so different if the means of communication is restricted by those with
inflated pension funds!

If anyone wants to take this off-line and meet up for beers and strategy -
mail me!



-----Original Message-----
From: Alex French [mailto:alex at evilal.com]
Sent: 28 March 2001 15:04
To: iiu at taint.org
Cc: Fergus McDonald; iiu at taint.org; Chris Higgins; irish linux users
group
Subject: RE: [IIU] Re: [ILUG] OT But esat unlimited has been scrapped


At 13:59 28/03/2001, Adrian Wooster wrote:
>The regulator will not step in - I defy anyone to say otherwise. Court
cases
>and multinationals haven't managed and the ODTR, like Eircom, doesn't care
>about bad publicity. The best strategy here is to push her incompetence in
>the face of her bosses (the Dail) and get her replaced.

I agree that she won't step in -- it must be difficult for her to breath
given the location of her head relative to the Eircom board. However, she's
already been essentially reprimanded by the government over her handling of
the 3rd mobile license. She will no longer be the sole regulator, but
rather the chairman on a board of three. This is as far as they are likely
to go.

You have to remember that Ireland is a very small market, and the
investment necessary for us to have broadband is pretty big. Given the
current state of the capital markets, I wouldn't bet on anyone putting in
the infrastructure, no matter what Etain does.

Alex.