Broadband in Ireland is even worse than in the UK.......
I think the story could have been developed somewhat to emphasise what happens when an incumbent (Eircom in this case, but equally as valid BT in the case of the UK) is privatised and does not have the incentive to supply decent reliable services to their end users in a cost effective manner that people are willing to pay for. It may seem unbelievable- but broadband provision in Ireland is even worse than in the UK........
In Ireland for example- the incumbent is only really challenged by BT, who are far and away their big competitor in ADSL provision nationwide. However- they insist on changing your phone number if you change providor, and even then it can take weeks to change providor, possibly with several days without landline telephony at all- so, is it any wonder that the public in Ireland view internet access with a glacial attitude?
What we need in the UK and Ireland is the provision of Wi-Max or similar technologies cheaply to the masses, whenever and where-ever they want it. I have to use a 2.4Ghz external aerial to pick up a HSPDA signal where I am writing this at present- and I am less than 10 miles from the centre of Dublin (I dumped my landline altogether a long time ago- following my attempts to report a line fault to am imbecile who was clearly reading a script from a computer screen and had no intention to send an engineer to sort it).
The only thing of any interest to the public at present- given that we have largely given up on hopes of cheap reliable ADSL, is the new products that are being developed by the mobile phone companies. Unfortunately try telling the mobile companies that a 2Gb per month (or even 10Gb) allocation is unlimited though........