Broadband For Schools

I said last night that I had a way to fix the current broadband issues that the rural commuinities have at the moment especially schools. Schools in Ireland have given access to 5 online encyclopedias including Britannia for free but what use is that if most of the schools cant access it. First lets see what is available to them,

1. 56 kb/s Dial-Up, this connection is best described by, A picture may be worth a thousand word but I would much rather download the words. This connection just doesn't cut it anymore, you can go on wikipedia for the day and answer a few emails but god help you if you have a gmail account. This is what most schools in rural areas are using.
2. Satellite Internet, this can offer speeds of up to 10 Mb/s which is about the standard being offered by companies outside of the major cities. It also has the ability for more so that 10 Mb/s is not an upper limit. The main problems with this connection is the start up cost, some companies were charging €3,500 for the service to be installed. So unless you have money to burn then its just not a viable option. There is also the problem with line of sight to the satellite, if there is heavy cloud cover or there is no satellite over head then your out of luck, no internet for you. Not a good idea for schools who cant afford the start up costs.
3. Mobile Broadband, this is offered around the country but the coverage deteriorates as soon as you leave a built up area. The download limits mean its not really viable for what is now considered medium usage. 1 Movie per night will have surpassed most of the limits after 22 Days. Not practical for schools as only one device may be connected at a time.

The last mile is the problem here, there is no problem getting the information to the local exchanges, its getting it from these exchanges to the houses or schools. In rural areas the most common reason for this is that they dont have line of sight to the exchange. There are two available solutions that would require some work from councils and some private companies who I am sure would love the extra customers.

First Solution:
Follow the Limerick County Council plan and place transmitters on top of the counties water towers. This would give line of sight to 95% of people, 100% if it was done properly but I am being realistic here. This would mean that every company offering broadband services would have the ability to provide it to anywhere in the county. So there would be fast reliable internet and healthy competition.

Second Solution:
WiMax, if you haven't heard of this already then Google it for more details or go to www.imagine.ie, they have a lot of details on it. This method promises fast reliable always on broadband and telephone services without the need for lines all that is needed is a base station. These base stations are 2 x 2 x 2 Feet boxes that can be easily installed at the schools around the county again providing a fast reliable service to nearly 100% of the rural areas. This though would have to be done only with imagine and there may be competition law issues or something, but it is cheap and doable on a very short timescale.

So these are two solutions that are cheap, quick and very very doable. It doesn't take much initiative to ring Eircom or Chorus and say "Any chance you want to tap into the forgotten about rural customer base", but alas I imagine my ideas are falling on deaf ears again but should any of the TD's I have suggested this to reply I shall inform you.