Oldtown proves superfast path to rural broadband is possible
If electricity could be supplied to villages in the 1940s, then it is time the endless delays came to an end, says Timmy Dooley
OLDTOWN is a small village nestled into the fields beyond Swords where the horizon is dotted by the rhythm of planes floating in and out of Dublin Airport. A few weeks before the Great Blizzard of 1947, which held the country in the grips of an ice-bound siege for months on end, something truly remarkable happened there.
The opening lights of the rural electrification scheme that would transform the countryside over the coming years were switched on in the village centre. Oldtown was the first rural community to get “the electric in”. As remote homesteads struggled in the dark of winter to overcome towering snowdrifts, the village of Oldtown was illuminated by a bold, new national scheme. One million poles, 100,000 transformers and 75,000 miles of cable later, the scheme stretched into the depths of the most isolated parts of the country.
In the aftermath of World War II we designed and rolled out the biggest transformation our island had seen since the land wars of the 1880s. Broadband is the rural electrification scheme of our generation, a struggle to bridge the digital divide that has swallowed up so much of the country. However, somewhere along the line we lost the kind of ambition that brought bright lights and running water into almost half-a-million homes across the countryside.
Last Thursday week, Denis Naughten drove the final nail in the coffin of the National Broadband Plan tender process when he resigned over a number of inappropriate meetings with a key player in the scheme.
It’s difficult to imagine any alternative outcome from the current review other than the end of the tendering mechanism.
The Department of Communications in effect has continually broken its own rules and with that reckless behaviour it has jeopardised the entire plan.
Further staggering along this compromised path would ultimately lead to a legal challenge, undue expense to the State and further delays to an already-restless public. It’s the latest episode in a sorry saga to bring broadband to homes which has already been beset by difficulties and a mounting series of missed deadlines.
First Fine Gael promised to deliver fibre to 90pc of homes by 2015, and then in 2012 it committed the Government to providing 100pc broadband provision by 2020. Next, in 2016, Fine Gael committed to providing high-speed broadband to at least 85pc of premises by 2018 and to 100pc of premises by 2020.
No sooner were goalposts set up than they were removed and shifted further down the time line. This chronicle of missed deadlines was accompanied by the disintegration of the bidding process. Bidders ESB, Vodafone, Eir, SSE, enet and John Laing all withdrew one by one, disappearing like victims in an Agatha Christie novel — and then, in effect, they were none. This drip drop of administrative failure risks sinking the entire ship, broadband silence by a thousand cuts.
Forgotten in all this is the impact it will have on businesses and families across Ireland. Broadband is a basic requirement of any modern businesses but it’s also an integral part of the social infrastructure of families. From Netflix to Facebook, high-speed internet connections are a cornerstone of how we live today across every generation.
For the hundreds of thousands of homes and premises waiting on a vital piece of infrastructure to connect them to the cut and thrust of the world, the plan cannot be allowed to linger in an administrative limbo. Rural Ireland cannot be condemned to a technological purgatory due to governmental mismanagement.
Going back to square one would be a complete disaster for rural communities struggling to stay viable. After more than five years of work we should take stock of what is valuable and draw on that to inject fresh urgency into rolling out the plan. We need to build on what progress has been made in mapping out the country as well as the detailed designs of the project bidders.
The department should re-engage with ESB, Vodafone, Eir and SSE with a view of setting out a fresh path forward for the plan. This may well have to involve a radical re-think of the role of the State in the entire process. The breakdown of the competitive dialogue approach means the State can no longer simply be a referee watching the game and occasionally blowing its whistle. It needs to be the central player on the pitch.
The State must have a greater role to play in projects that are essential to the country’s future. Whether it’s getting to grips with the housing crisis, addressing childcare costs or bridging the digital divide in rural Ireland we should not be afraid to show ambition and put forward the resources to back that ambition up. We need the State to tackle head on the pressing challenges of our time. The ESB was able to transform rural Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s — why can’t we do it again?
It’s not too late to save the National Broadband plan and the hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses depending on it. The Government needs to step up to the challenge. The story of Oldtown and the countless homes that were transformed by rural electrification show that we have done it before.
‘Broadband is the rural electrification scheme of our generation’