Bad Broadband and Cobh

Have you heard the government constantly saying that they are fully committed to upgrade over 500,000 homes in Ireland to high speed broadband which is considered to provide a minimum of 30Mbps upload speeds.?

Did you know that broadband in large parts of Urban Cobh is worse than in Angola and Zimbabwe with average speeds of only 6.5 Mbps and that the town is not included in the government plan currently being announced on a daily basis?

One way to deliver high speed broadband is through fibre optic cable (100Mbps) in special cabinets linked with the telephone network system. Per head of population, Cobh only has half the cabinets that Midleton has.

Another delivery method is through the ESB electric poles in a system referred to as SIRO. While Cobh was listed in the original SIRO plan it has been dropped and re-inserted on occasion without notice. In the absence of any commitment to Cobh its impossible to know whether we will ever get it or when

The decisions to roll out the infrastructure for broadband and provide the resources to do so are political ones taken by the government. The question is why is Cobh faring so badly?

We are asking everybody in the town to take a few simple measures:

1. Check and know your broadband speed by going to www.speedtest.net

2. Send your findings to: badbroadbandcobh@gmail.com

3. Make every politician of any party (or independents) aware that you are not happy that Cobh is being left behind.

4. If you are on twitter, tweet every television and radio programme where the Taoiseach or any government Minister is being interviewed to tell that programme that Cobh has been downgraded and left worse off than any rural community.

5. Ask your local public representative to raise this matter at County, National and Govt. level.

6. Contact Broadband@DCCAE.gov.ie and let them know that you cannot get 30Mbps speeds from any supplier even though you are in an urban area and its marked as an area with Fibre.

7. If you are in business and struggling with broadband speeds please send us details.

We are a collection of local interested persons and business and would appreciate any assistance from any members of the public or local business community. Please email us at badbroadbandcobh@gmail.com to help.

Dr Michael Martin BA PhD
Author and Creator Titanic Trail