Purconn

Irish ISP Eircom will soon be disconnecting its broadband customers who are involved in files sharing of copyright material. This will be done after a warning has been issued to the user. This has major implications for other ISPs in the market as the will also have to be seen to be tough on copyright crime. The Internet generation who grew up with the expectation that they can download anything from the net are in for a rude awakening, as the say in the movie Casablanca “maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow , but soon..” the Rupert Murdock types and music industry are out to change the Internet as we know it

Eircom has announced that as of 01/09/2009 any of its subscribers attempting to access the Pirate Bay file sharing website will be blocked. This action is as a result of a High Court order.

I expect more sites to be added to the blocked list in the future, so if you have a tendency to frequent such sites if your broadband provider is Eircom you are being watched.

I’ll leave the comments on for this one so feel free to voice your opinion.

Apparently the Communications Workers of America aren’t happy about broadband speeds in America and how they are lagging behind 24 other countries in the speed stakes. They complain about pitiful average speeds of 5.1 mbps and look with envy at South Korea with average speeds of 20.4 mbps.

I struggle to update this post on Eircom Broadband 1 mbps, I am on a carrier line like so many of us, so upgrading to a faster speed is a non runner, so if America is 24th at an average speed of 5.1 mbps then we must be somewhere between Ant-Artica and Outer Mongolia.

When will the Irish Government wake up to the situation with Broadband and stop trying to bluff their way by tendering for 100 mbps connections to schools when homes and business are struggling with 1 mbps connections or inadequate WiFi / WiMax connections.

Congratulations to Cork base technology company Azotel, who I recently read in an article at Silicon Republic which explained that they were breaking into the American market and rolling out the SIMPLer system across the states. Although this is a great success for Azotel it raises the question of the deplorable broadband access in Ireland as a whole.

In these times we should be facilitating business and homes across the country with adequate  broadband speeds and not trying to ignore the reality that a sizable portion of the country is still without any broadband service. Government police seems only to be giving those who have good broadband services better broadband services, although this is justified, it has to be done with the rest of the country and not ignoring it.

Read the full Silicon Republic Article :