TELECOM Eireann executives admitted they were startled yesterday by a flood of applications from towns across the Republic volunteering to be information age pioneers.
In all, 46 communities said they wanted to become Ireland's "Information Age Town", and were ready to embrace the £15 million worth of high tech communications equipment that would propel their people into the future.
"There has been an extraordinary response to the competition," said Mr Gerry O'Sullivan, Telecom Eireann's head of corporate relations. "We have been overwhelmed by the number of applications, and by the enthusiasm and quality of the submissions."
The company plans to wire and equip all of the homes and businesses in a medium sized Irish town to the most advanced level, making the community a showcase, and a guinea pig, for the communications of the future.
Every home will have a state of the art telephone, with voice mail, a readout identifying in advance each call to the house, and other services. Each business will have a high speed ISDN connection to the Internet. Every child, from the age of five, will have access to a computer, and most households will be hooked up to the Internet. All public services will make optimum use of the latest technologies.
The experiment is inspired by a similar project in the United States, which began in 1993. In Blackburg, Virginia, population 36,000, old age pensioners now use the Internet for shopping, to avoid going out in bad weather, and people use computers to tell the police to keep an eye on their homes when they are away on holidays.
"I'd like to wish all the applicants the best of luck," said Dr Andrew Cohill in a video, screened for those who made sub missions yesterday. "I look forward to twinning our towns in the future. Send us a note - by email of course!"
Most of yesterday's applicants had clearly spent a great deal of time and money on their submissions. For example, Carlow town sent not just a glossy brochure but a video and a CD ROM version.
Many towns sent their representatives to the Telecom building in person. Of these, the Athlone group, which included a street theatre troupe, was the most colourful.
Mr Pat Quinn, a management consultant, said that a Massachusetts based academic and a nun in California, both with links to Longford, had been key members of the team.
"Longford and Leitrim are the two counties that still have declining populations. But because we've suffered more, we have more people out there," he said.
Mr John Keenan, from Malahide, said people in the Dublin suburb had united behind the bid: "At first they didn't really understand what it was about, then we pointed out that all our grandparents thought electricity would never catch on, and everyone got in behind it!"
. Communities must have between 5,000 and 30,000 people. Telecom Eireann has appointed five independent judges, and a final decision is expected by the end of June. The following communities made applications: Athlone, Athy, Arklow, Ballina, Ballinasloe, Bandon, Bray, Carrigaline, Castlebar, Carlow town, Carrick on Suir, Clonmel, Cobh, Drogheda, Dundalk,
Dungarvan, Ennis, Enniscorthy, Fermoy, Greystones, Kilkenny city, Killarney, Leixlip, Letterkenny, Longford town, Malahide, Mallow, Maynooth, Mullingar, Naas, Navan, New Ross, Portlaoise, Shannon, Skerries, Sligo town, Swords, Tallaght, Tipperary town, Thurles, Tralee, Tuam, Tullamore, Wexford town, Wicklow town, Youghal.
