Republic risks becoming the dark horse of Europe if telecoms network not upgraded

The Republic, its businesses and its researchers risk becoming the also-rans of technological innovation if telecommunications networks are not upgraded.

While some major improvements have been undertaken and others are planned, the research network, as it stands, could relegate the State to the lower end of European research competitiveness, just when financial and policy commitment to vibrant research is most crucial.

Mix in the continuing high cost of broadband access for companies that need such bandwidth for business activities, much less for those that might want to undertake a serious programme of research and development - and the lack of broadband service for consumers - and the Republic is headed towards having only small, disconnected islets of broadband activity.

The State's research, business and social image will suffer unless all these areas are amplified and integrated.

Nearly a year ago, during former US President Clinton's Dublin visit, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, pledged to improve research networks. He also said that the State's research institutions would become members of the elite, cutting-edge US research networks known as Internet 2 and NextGeneration Internet.

This was an exciting and important announcement, especially as research has been grossly underfunded and ignored by the State for decades.

Arguably, the last significant pure research initiative by the State was Eamon de Valera's establishment of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in 1940.

But the Republic's participation in these US projects will be minimal on the current outdated network. While much improved over what existed at the time of the Taoiseach's announcement - at which time the Republic would have been arriving at the US's 12-lane research superhighway with a horse and cart - the network still has far to go.

The Government says it has cranked up the performance and capacity of the State's research networks enormously in the past year, and this is commendably true. Then, maximum capacity on the network was only 10 megabits per second. Now, it has leapt to 155MB, the capacity of an STM-1 fibre line.

But according to an EU illustration accompanying a contract signed by carrier Colt to upgrade the pan-European research network called GEANT, only Luxembourg and Portugal among the members of the EU will have research networks with capacity as limited as ours.

Even Greece and the Czech Republic's networks would far surpass the State's in quality, according to Colt's contract.

The Government claims GEANT has outdated information. It says it can increase capacity on Irish networks at any time by drawing from a pool of STM-1s available to the State's research network, HEAnet.

These 16 STM-1s come from the deal the Government made with Global Crossing. But any State on the GEANT network could theoretically add capacity - the question is whether it will, and within what kind of time frame.

From the start, we should be on this network at gigabit speed. This will be standard for nearly every other EU state and even many of the eastern European EU postulants - those we often think of as "emerging" economies.

For example, Hungary and Poland will have 2.5G connections to the network - more than 13 times faster than ours.

And the backbone of Britain, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, France, Austria, Italy and yes, the Czech Republic, will connect at 10G.

How can we possibly put Irish universities and research institutions forward as competitive, much less innovative, with 155MB connectivity? Without a network that links to GEANT at speeds of at least 2.5G, we are doomed to be excluded from primary research and as partners on broadband projects with our EU neighbours.

If the State is committed to greater capacity for third-level research, why is that not clearly understood, and a firm gigabit target cited?

Researchers don't seem aware of this intention, nor does GEANT, which published the 155MB figure on July 5th.

Presumably, many potential investors, economists and others would rely on GEANT figures rather than Government's when seeking an unbiased snapshot of European networks.

If the Irish network far surpasses GEANT and Colt's current understanding of it, it is unfortunate that an entirely different picture has been conveyed - at the expense of the Republic's international image.

Another concern with our existing network is the fact that while we do have fibre-optic networks, we are not using fibre capabilities.

Nearly a year after Mr Ahern promised that Irish research facilities would be linked on high-speed fibre ring networks within 18 months, data is only being transferred using old-style ATM (asynchronous transfer mode).

It's digital, yes, but without the clarity, speed and power of optical transfer.

As its name implies, optical transfer uses light, which is the whole point of having fibre networks. But we're not using any of these capabilities, and are cutting off our researchers and businesses from doing work in this area.

The Government says it is committed to moving towards optical connectivity, but has no deadline or structured plan for doing so.

Worryingly, MediaLabEurope's (MLE) links to both HEAnet and the US are also unresolved. How can MLE - or the digital district - conduct leading-edge research without an adequate broadband link to the US or the State's other research institutes?

In contrast, the Netherlands has an exemplary initiative called Gigaport, a joint project of the Dutch government, trade and industry, educational institutions and research institutes. Gigaport turns the entire Netherlands into the kind of digital district proposed for the Liberties. It will have 10G optical connections to GEANT and a 2.5G connection into Abilene, the Chicago gateway to Internet 2 (upgradeable to 10G by next year).

This will give the Netherlands the leading European broadband research network. To achieve this, the Dutch government went out and bought the expensive fibre network it needed.

With Irish prices for internal fibre links among the highest in the world, this is extremely difficult for the State to do here. Thus, the Global Crossing deal was an extremely innovative and creative move by the Department of Public Enterprise to circumvent the prices demanded by our duopoly of telecoms carriers, Esat and Eircom. But that network is only a start, not an end.

The Department of Public Enterprise says it eventually intends to match the Dutch project's capacity. But when will that be? And is the rest of Government committed to this essential task? And why was the small nation of the Netherlands able to draw up such a comprehensive project, leaving us to play catch-up, despite our digital aspirations?

Gigaport shows exactly why the Government, at all levels and not just within the Department of Public Enterprise, must commit funding, vision and leadership to the development of our broadband network, the flagship digital district project, and new research initiatives at all the State's universities.

This is not a luxury to be put on the back burner until the current "economic uncertainty" sorts itself out, but a crucial investment for a successful economic future.

The Government has stated: "If Ireland is to become a key European and global centre for advanced internet applications and international collaboration, as well as advanced network-based research, Ireland's broadband research infrastructure links to the US and the rest of the world must be second to none."

At the moment, even just being second-best looks unlikely unless coherent action to bolster our broadband capacity - for research, business and consumers - is taken immediately.

klillington@irish-times.ie