What is Digg?40 Comments
- eddyc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Thats great but broadband uptake in Ireland is second last in the E.U. Its great that there is loads of hotspots, but hardly anyone is using them ,
- Gottschalk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5That is a common thing?
And before this turns into some idiot international pissing contest let's just say that both are obviously great nations. God why do people have to post this sort of stupid crap. - emanpa68, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4mesh networks need to be further developed... then we can all walk about the day connected
- allenb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Sorry, but you make no sense.
In a densely-populated country, like the UK, you'd expect fewer hotspots per capita - since more people should be in-range of any arbitrary hotspot.
In countries like the US where the population is more dispersed, you'd expect more hotspots per capita since fewer people would be in-range of a given hotspot.
In fact, the inverse is true.
I suspect it's down to the number of ISPs that give away wireless broadband routers over here. I don't know what it's like in the rest of the world, but in light of these statistics it wouldn't surprise me if it isn't as prevalent as it is in the UK. - morticelock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3oh yeah we got loadsa hotspots. It doesn't say how many of 'em actually work though. hotspot me bollicks.
www.irelandoffline.com - saerbhreathach, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Hey, I LIVE in Ireland and I can tell you that our broadband distribution sux ass! We've one single Comm's regulator and they're dragging their knuckles about getting it to all parts of the country. Simple equation: Dublin=Broadband (where a 2MB line is about the standard these days), rest of country=yip-dee-do 56K land :-(
Welcome to the stone age...........
(P.S:@tont0r: you hit the nail right on the head with that statement) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I hope that the next American president makes one of his top priorities to deploy a WiMax/Wi Fi/ Wi-mesh whatever program in every major city and lots of wildernesses. so more people will be encouraged to get off their fat asses, climb up a mountain, and sit down to check their email with high speed.
i hope the next president will bend the Telco companies over his knee and give them a good slapping, and give more power over internet content companies to control the future of the internet.
i wish that the next president would say "look, we blew half a trillion dollars + in iraq" so "i am going to take that 500 billion out of the budget of the department of defense over the course of my administration ( 4 plus years), and disperse it to the technology and science sector and get this country back where it belongs as a super power.
nothing makes me more sick than watching America lose ground in the "real" world of tech, science, innovation, schools and such while we blow all our budget fighting a culture war that we could very well fight for the next thousand years if we wanted to. - dattaway, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've noticed the number of open routers has x4 each year in my neighborhood. With my notebook's stock antenna, I'm picking up 20 routers with most open. I could go for miles and stay connected.
- Desolite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2uh, i'm irish.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2maybe because most dsl packs give wireless routers for free that transmit by default (without a password usually).
- biomechanism, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The situation in Wexford was pretty piss poor, it's only in the last 4 - 5 months that the area where I'm from has had broadband access, and this is due to other companies setting up wireless base stations. Wexford town itself has maybe had it for 2 or 3 years IIRC. I'd been talking to an Eircom engineer one day when he came around to fix the line, had he was pretty unhappy with one of the politicians, as Wexford has apparently been ***** over with the laying of fibre there a few years ago. He was one of the people involved in laying it, and said that this politician made a load of noise about getting EU funding for the laying of fibre. They layed it... in a loop with no possibility for actually lighting it up, and again a pretty much similar situation around Johnstown Castle area.
- bigtomrodney, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree the situation is bad for a lot of the country, but Wexford and Waterford are fine for broadband. In fact the fastest services in the country are avaialble here, and 5Mb fibre was tested in Waterford 3 years ago!
By the way, why would you need more than one regulator? - aidanr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2don't need more than one regulator, just one that isn't eircoms bitch
- bigtomrodney, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6You racist *****.
- andyrobo60, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I am in the UK and can only pick up 4 on my notebook. Only 1 is encrypted (mine) and 2 of them have not changed the default config passwords.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2the network will soon be as important as roads, bridges, stop signs, and everything else we pay for in the future. besides its not like that really would even cost that much money. if phased in over years, ramping up the current number of Wifi experiments we have wouldn't really sot anymore than a few trips to the moon. why should you pay for a couple of people to get to enjoy the luxury of going to the moon? because along the way NASA has created a lot of non-space related technology that has exponentially added to the initial investment. Cell phones, radar. Im just saying. internet technology is more important right now than spending that money on future wars the could be prevented with a little...gasp...talking to our enemies.
imagine. we could have saved a half trillion dollars if we just found a diplomatic solution to Iraq. anyways.back to the point i was making. i think that improving the way we communicate electronically with each other, actually gives back to the economy by means of more productive workers, happier workers (telecommuting), . just think when IPv6 rolls around, and every device known to man is connected to the internet, and we need to develop a ubiquitous web connection. Our Tubes are going to be clogged and Ted Stevens wont be able to check his email if we don't. but thats just my two cents. what do i know.
i know its not you that should be paying for my internet connection. but, i think that our country does deserve a public web connection, just as much as we need public schools and public libraries. what do others think? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1per capita means nothing in this case... userful info would be wireless hotpots per square mile (or other area measurement).
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1because people like britney spears insists bringing idiots into the world
- adamkmccarthy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3thats astonishing considering Ireland is the last ranked country in europe for broadband connections per population.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's frigging *****. The only reason those countries have such a statistic is because their landmass is so small. If a place like Monaco had wifi hotspots, it would hold the record.
- tont0r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Im sure dublin is packed with wifi spots. and when you have 4.2 million living in ireland and roughly 1.6million in dublin alone, thats close to 38% of people have wifi available. :P
- miken32, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What's the point of going up a mountain if you're still in range of a cell tower?
- wheatln2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Outside of Dublin, wifi is a joke, hell even broadband is a joke for most!
But in terms of residential areas in Dublin, I have noticed much more in terms of wifi connection options, unprotected as mentioned above. - Saiing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The article was right about Japan. My cellphone is capable of 3.2Mbps. There's not much point in hotspots when you can get that kind of connectivity up a mountain, or on a train. You can just plug your laptop into your phone. I have an unlimited data transfer tariff as well.
- directedition, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There are more wifi hotspots per capita in my room than the whole rest of the world.
- Lynxpro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1
Uhm, wouldn't hotspot deployment be more important to folks if broadband deployment en masse was seriously lacking? Sounds like that explains why Ireland has so many public hotspots yet is trailing within the EU in actual broadband deployment to homes. - zetsurin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Provided you have the spare 5 minutes necessary to wait (and wait) for the pages to render... that is if you don't run out of that whopping 4MB RAM.
And people BUY this? - Po0py, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Shame we have to pay through the frickin nose to actually use them.
- BobbyOnions, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1It's per capita, not by land area, so population density doesn't come into it.
- dreadinc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0i went wardriving in dublin with my DS, and couldn't find a single one to connect to ! yes there was a good strength open signal wherever I went, but it sure as hell wasn't set up right !
London in that sense is alot better, with BTopenzone wherever u go ! - biomechanism, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0We're not all raging alcos. But you have just reminded me I have beer in the fridge... I'm off to grab a bottle of tasty Leffe. Mmm
- drjekelmrhyde, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4US leads the world in BullShyting teleco's and cableco's
Fact - dreadinc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0pay ? with a DS u can use openzone without paying. U only pay when u want to use a laptop to connect..... thats what makes the DS browser such an awesome buy
- Gottschalk, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2I don't know why you or I are being dugg down for stating the obvious.
- Gottschalk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Yea we should encourage the government to increase taxes to spend on a project that few people would use. Public Wifi in a town center, sure (already being done by private interests in a lot of areas for shoppers convenience). Wifi in the Rockies? Come on.
Why should the public foot the bill for a few people. If you want to stay connected you pay for it yourself. Why should I subsidize you? - nackerson, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2BS... not doubting this but U.S. is covered by more land mass where UK/Ireland have more densely populated areas. I hate these studies and their semi-accurate information.
I'm from the UK and visit quite regularly and in my opinion they are always 6 months behind when it comes to technology - OK, i give them mobile phone technology, but that's because of headway the E.U as a whole made, and the U.S. failure to adapt in the area of cell phone tech. - Gottschalk, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2How many times does this have to be gone over. Britain is a small island with many highly concentrated population centers which makes coverage easier. Asia has an incredibly high population spread over a large landmass as well as the United States does but with a smaller population.
Per capita doesn't mean anything if you don't take into account the pattern of dispersion of the people. Now that's not to say that the UK and Ireland aren't truly leading the world or that the US and Asia are behind. Just saying that you can't make a blanket statement like that.
Why would Japan need less hotspots per person? Maybe because one hotspot can serve more people. I mean this is just empty-headed journalism. - Desolite, on 10/12/2007, -15/+3Hooray for beer!
wait, an article on ireland that does not mention said beer? how can this be? i'm burying this as inaccurate!
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