Cork Broadband

Ireland is still trailing behind other countries in household broadband access

The latest data ranked Ireland at 20 out of a table 30 countries for households with broadband access in 2008, with almost 43 per cent using the high-speed internet connection.

Businesses fare slightly better, with more than 95 per cent of companies with between 10 and 49 employees with high speed broadband access, and from 99.2 per cent upwards for larger firms.

Ireland has a total of 950,082 broadband subscribers, as of June this year, according to the report.

While on a cost basis:

Average prices for broadband access in Ireland remain among the highest in the OECD area, while advertised speeds were among the slowest at the time the survey was carried out, the report found.

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According to Silicon Republic:

The company yesterday revealed three new speeds and price points – a 30Mbps service that will cost €42 per month, a 15Mbps service that will cost €32 per month and a 5Mbps service that will cost €22 per month.

This is a great boost to the broadband networks in Ireland. UPC plans to invest even more in the Irish broadband network.

Cable operator UPC yesterday confirmed it has so far invested US$1 billion in Ireland – of which US$400 million went into its network upgrade. As the company revealed new services of up to 30Mbps, it said its capital spend in 2010 will reach US$90 million.

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A large mulitmillion euro project is underway to provide 15 towns in Cork with broadband internet access.

Cork County Council is currently completing a 16 million euro contract to construct 110 kms of fibre optic cable in 15 towns throughout the County of Cork.

The Network is now open for business and Magnum Opus have been appointed on an interim basis to manage the network on behalf of Cork County Council. Their local manager is Brendan O’Sullivan who can be contacted at 01 6114061

The following locations have been selected:

• Bantry
• Blarney
• Carrigaline
• Charleville
• Cobh
• Dunmanway
• Kanturk
• Kinsale
• Fermoy
• Mitchelstown
• Ringaskiddy
• Skibbereen
• Youghal
• Midleton
• Passage West

This is a great step towards providing the entire County of Cork with affordable, high speed internet.

For more information click here: Broadband Introduction in Cork

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The broadband speed advertised by different broadband providers and the actual speeds you get can vary dramatically from provider to provider. Most do give a max broadband speed and an average broadband speed.

However for those of us who want to see for ourselves the people at Blacknight have a handy tool for checking your real time speeds. The tool also allows you to check how good your broadband is for those all important VOIP calls. So even before you pick up the virtual receiver you can check whether or not it’s worth it.

Check out the tool here: Irish ISP speed test

For the record, with Clearwire Wireless at the moment I’m currently only getting:

• 43kB Download
• 47kB Upload

Check out the screen shots below:

VOIP Test

ISP Speed Test Summary

ISP Speed Summary

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