Digital age business is stuck in Stone Age

Last week, Canadian company 360-Networks landed the Irish end of the cable for one of the two ongoing, big transatlantic cable projects for Internet connectivity. The other cable is going in through the Government-supported Global Crossing deal, and is supposed to begin delivering high-speed broadband connectivity at the end of this month, from a "telehouse" (exchange) in Citywest business park. The 360-Networks cable will be live next March.

Funny how you never hear much about the first project, while you hear plenty about the second. I'm sure this may have something to do with the Government pushing the PR machine on the Global Crossing deal - after all, the State is a partner in the project.

Then, there's the dullness factor. While a few of us sad souls get shivers of pleasure at the mention of full resiliency STM 1 lines and "dark fibre", most members of the press seem to find transatlantic cables a deeply unsexy story. Both of these major undertakings are extremely important because they will bring, at last, serious bandwidth to the State and will force prices for this level of connectivity steeply downwards.

While the Government promises to sell on capacity on the Global Crossing cable at just above cost, making the pricing deal particularly transparent when companies purchase bandwidth from an intermediate supplier, some extra competitive pressure in the form of a second cable project can only be a good thing.

These developments are a huge win for businesses that are already here and should open new doors and, potentially, new markets for them. In addition, reliable bandwidth, connections directly into the Internet backbone and competitive pricing are absolutely necessary to attract international companies, especially the e-business the Government wants to entice.

That's the good news. Now, let me put this in some perspective. As I saw the pictures in the papers last week of the 360-Networks cable landing, I could not help but think of the numerous telecommunications tales of woe I have heard from people in recent weeks. They have me wondering how in the world we are going to get the really big picture right when we cannot seem to get the small picture in focus - and the small picture is a much simpler project.

Here are some examples of what I have heard. First, I spent the weekend talking into my mobile phone and hearing everything I said echo back at me, every time I spoke with a friend who was staying on the executive floor of a Dublin hotel. The problem was not my mobile. It was the fact that the hotel uses high-speed ISDN lines for their phone system, at least into these pricey rooms, and they don't work properly. And this isn't an Eircom problem: Esat installed the lines. They're supposed to offer ultra-fast Internet connections and be able to handle both data (e.g., Internet) calls and voice calls.

Instead, they were incorrectly set up and throwing back echoes whenever my friend and I tried to talk - he had the same kind of echo coming back to him - which made a conversation absolutely infuriating.

In addition, he could not get an Internet connection over the ISDN line for his laptop. He struggled with this. He talked to the hotel staff. No one seemed any the wiser, and no one resolved the problem.

As a matter of fact, he says his complaint was taken down on the back of an envelope on which the guy at the front desk had scrawled various notes to himself - and this is one of Dublin's corporate-level hotels.

I felt embarrassed. This is a very high-level American businessman who works in the area of e-business - indeed, he actively encourages American companies to locate in Ireland.

Why does the hotel have ISDN if it cannot manage the connections properly and provide proper service to customers? Why did it not deal swiftly and directly with this problem? Why are the lines not operating correctly in the first place? As we all know when visiting places where call boxes don't work and lines are muddy or fail in mid-conversation, such problems on the small scale are seen as representative of inabilities on the large scale.

Then, there's the general problem of ISDN, and in this case, the problem is with Eircom. Everyone I know who has tried to have ISDN installed is told of a timeframe - already, a long one - in which they will get their lines.

Then they don't get them. They wait and wait and wait - in some cases, their business is structured around the need for high-speed Net access and the lines are crucial, so the business suffers.

Some of these people are ready to weep with exasperation. So much for the fast-paced e-business world; in this case, we seem to be operating in the "It'll be three months to get your phone installed, sir" mode of yore.

Finally there's Citywest which, you may recall, is supposed to be Ireland's cutting edge high-technology park. It has been heavily advertised as the place to be if you run a digital age business.

In particular, tenants were promised state-of-the-art telecommunications connections. High bandwidth! Fat Internet pipes!

Instead, the plain old phone lines seem to fail regularly, and some of the buildings seem to be networked improperly. Companies, some of them Internet-based, have been plagued by their data lines going down regularly as well.

For months, it was impossible to use an Esat Digifone mobile because it was a dead spot. It still has extremely poor reception and many of the companies have switched all their staff to Eircell as a result, to the undoubted delight of Eircom.

While we should justly be celebrating the arrival of the big bandwidth projects to the Republic, we need to start proving we can make the whole network actually function once all the pieces come together.

Right now, we're not making a particularly good showing. Let's hope it improves promptly.

Karlin Lillington is at klillington@irish-times.ie