‘A’ for effort

Several times in the past year or so this column has raised the notion of a new technical term (aka bit of jargon) that would shorthand that perennial ‘anywhere, anytime’ sales mantra for mobile ICT. We would of course add ‘any device’ and perhaps ‘anyone’ so that the solution might be ‘the four As’ or even ‘AAAA’ or ‘4A’ or ‘A^4’. Smart, definitely. The only snag is that time and technology have moved on, so detractors could argue that such a term no longer conveys the sheer ubiquity of ICT or our expectations of it. Not to mention the ambitions of Google.

So we need a handy term for ‘everything, everywhere, everyone, all the time’: ‘all and every’, ‘A&E’. Maybe not. It would be nice to think that such a term would be short-lived anyway because we will reach that everything everywhere Nirvana so soon. It is certainly the universally shared vision. Alas, right now, right here in Ireland (especially on the left hand side) the vision is severely impaired because neither broadband beyond ADSL nor 4G are even scheduled in many places. We’re not talking about isolated farms or islands either but villages big enough to have 500-pupil secondary schools. Satellite and 4G? Sometime, maybe, but satellite is congested down to below ADSL levels for consumers while national 4G is well down the line with universal coverage just not promised and best speeds not up to other broadband services.

As for business outside of our cities, setting up more than a few hundred yards from an eircom phone exchange is commercial Siberia, relieved only by a small but growing set of local fixed wireless entrepreneurs

 

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Yet the US Federal Communications Commission has just upped its definition of broadband (set in 2010 and now considered dated and inadequate) from 4Mb/s download and 1Mb/s upload to 25Mb/s down and 3Mb/s up. We have a nominal national target by Government of 30Mb/s for all households, but no realistic plans yet for its attainment. To be fair (dammit), about 20% of US rural dwellers do not even have that 4Mb/s Internet access.

Faulty vision
That’s not just a gripe (although it is certainly that). With any technology vision, as with any social or political or commercial one, a large part of the value is that it is open to or covers everyone, everywhere, all the time. Anything less than universal is only partially successful. The Digital Divide takes many forms but simple geography comes long before we start worrying about children’s education or third level STEM curricula or whether pensioners can use a computer. When a rural OAP has to take a twice-weekly bus to reach Internet coverage we are still Third World. There are also 21st century school children who only have Internet access while in school.

As for business outside of our cities, setting up more than a few hundred yards from an eircom phone exchange is commercial Siberia, relieved only by a small but growing set of local fixed wireless entrepreneurs. We have Metropolitan Area Networks [MANs] in towns of less than 2,000 population, yet we also have a disappointing level of dark fibre because there is often no ISP willing to link the users with the infrastructure. But those MANs do have an important role in providing backhaul for the fixed wireless providers – increasingly to customers which have the MAN passing their front door as well as to those outside its range. Another Irish solution…

Of course from one point of view, possibly common if quietly spoken, this digital dearth is just a problem for the little people. You know, over-50s and SMEs and rural backwoods – except for Kiltimagh, synonymous with ‘culchie’ and yet boasting its own MAN. So why should CIOs be concerned? Those who rejoice in the explicit C-suite title in this country tend to be employed in our largest enterprises, indigenous or FDI, or in state bodies. The humble IT director or even IT manager is generally down there in the medium-sized enterprises. We have several hundred of those.

But because the international definition breaks at 500 employees, Ireland’s active business base is 99.7% in the SME category, where 68% of our workforce is employed. We should really break down our enterprises into ‘small’ and ‘micro’, since the CSO figures referenced above also show that over 90% of that 99.7% employ less than 10 people.