Let the subscriber beware

Last week, Eircom announced proudly that it has 73,000 customers for its broadband services and expects to have 100,000 by the end of the year.

I assume that I form a part of one or other of these figures, since I am undoubtedly on Eircom's books as a broadband subscriber. I have in fact subscribed three times. I have been sold the service by cold-calling salespeople and by door-to-door marketing.

I am a classic target. I live within three miles of Dublin city centre and I work from home. My work involves extensive use of e-mail and the Internet. The only problem is that I have repeatedly failed to get broadband installed.

I first subscribed over a year ago. All my details were taken. I was told that the service was available in my area. And then nothing whatsoever happened. Eventually when I made enquiries, I was told that there was no record of my having subscribed.

The whole rigmarole started again. This time I got a date for installation. A few days before the date, Eircom called to say that my area was in fact not eligible for broadband. Why? "Either because you're too far from an exchange or because the quality of the line is too poor." Which was it? "Um, we don't know."

I was just getting my head around the idea that the inner suburbs of Dublin are too remote for broadband when a nice woman from Eircom called to the door.

Had I ever thought of getting broadband? I told her that I had indeed but explained that she was wasting her time here because the area had been declared technically out-of-bounds. She informed me that, on the contrary, the area was being specifically targeted by the company because it was suitable for broadband.

So I subscribed again, filled out the forms and waited for the call. When it came, I made the appointment, changed my plans so I could be there at the right time and waited. No one came.

When I rang to find out what was going on, no one in the phone company could tell me why a phone call to say they weren't coming was beyond their capacity. I was assured, however, that someone would call the next morning to explain what had happened and set another appointment.

That was a month ago, and I've still heard nothing. Anecdotal evidence suggests that my experience is fairly typical. It is immensely difficult, in the so-called free market, to buy this particular service.

The point of all of this, beyond the pleasures of whingeing about yet another dismal experience of customer service in Ireland, is that broadband is supposedly a major national priority. The Government has a special website extolling the virtues of this new technology and urging citizens to embrace its advantages.

It has been official policy since the Information Society Action Plan in the late 1990s to ensure that Ireland is in the top 10 per cent of OECD countries for broadband connectivity by 2005. We're supposed to have 8 per cent of homes connected by the end of this year, and 100 per cent of schools and libraries connected by next year.

Yet even while the State was setting out these goals as vital to Ireland's position as a global centre for high-tech industry, it was also flogging off the only vehicle it had for achieving them: Eircom.

The idea, of course, was that a privatised company would be more efficient, more market-driven, more responsive to consumer demand. What's actually happened is a shining example of the ideological delusions that bedevil the privatisation of public utilities. Eircom, in its various manifestations, has given us a lesson in what works and what doesn't.

When the phone service was a monopoly run directly by the civil service, it was a sluggish, demoralised operation with no interest in customer demands. For nearly two decades, when it was a commercial State company with a decent level of investment, it actually achieved an important national goal, establishing a telecommunication system that enabled economic and social development. Now, as a private company with its eye always on the short-term fluctuations of the stock market, it's as bad, from the point-of-view of customer service, as it was in the 1970s.

One of the reasons for this is surely that, in its fixation on short-term profits, the stock market likes job losses. By the end of this year, Eircom will employ over 1,000 fewer people than it did last year, and this kind of cost reduction undoubtedly boosts the share price. But it also leads to a worse service for customers.

The lean, stripped-down company makes sense in the private sector where the only motive is profit. When other motives - such as the meeting of important public policy goals - are in play, the calculations have to be more complicated.

It makes no sense, from a public point-of-view, to have a national airline that doesn't carry cargo or a national phone company that can't deliver a broadband service to households.

Yet with Aer Lingus being prepared for privatisation and Eircom already without a public remit, that's what we are getting.

And if you want public policy that's more than airy aspirations, just hang on the line for 20 minutes, press star, tear your hair out, press hash and we'll get back to you.