Happy Net1 Customer in Meath

[As fast as a v.fast thing]

Enough of ISDN from eircom! And thank goodness for Net1.

I swapped over in August and I'm still trying to get my head round blinking and missing a Google search page change after clicking "Next".

What I've got (Net1 HOME/SOHO) is advertised as 2.2Mbps (€47.00 per month). What I'm getting is anything between 1.3Mbps and 6.2Mbps with a mean of 3.6 Mbps. I have to say that the upload speed has been worsening steadily (last test just 155 kbps) but, all in all, I'm extremely satisfied with both the service level and the support.

There are clearly massive problems with broadband provision in Ireland. Bertie just stands there and does his best Pontious Pilate impersonation and lets so many well meaning individuals set up broadband ISP companies apparently without a cent's worth of help.

It's no surprise, then, that many suffer poor quality of service, higher than advertised contention rates and poor support - and then crash like a Microsoft operating system (although admittedly not as frequently).

There can be no excuse for this from the big boys - eircom, NTL - but it's a bit rich claiming we're a "young, thrusting, high tech country" from one side of your mouth and basically saying "eff the lot yis wantin' yis taxes spent on 21st century communications" out of the other side of your mouth.

As with so many other things going on around us; the health service, transport, e-voting, anything remotely connected to IT, our government insist on persisting with international worst practice and inflicting BAD MANAGEMENT on us from all sides.

It's our fault.

Since the inauguration of the "Free State", via the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, and the general election in 1922, we have never had a government that has not been dominated by one or other of the two parties formed from the split of Sinn Fein into the pro-treaty (ultimately) Fine Gael and anti-treaty (ultimately) Fianna Fail.

When you have a country that has moved away from being massively influenced by the Catholic church and where local travel was mostly by donkey and cart, to one where Podge and Rodge display the latest sex toys on RTE and everyone wants an "aportment" near the "Dort" in "Dorkey", there may be an argument for changing from a, frequently dynastic, political system based firmly around a civil war that ended more than 83 years ago to one where the young, thrusting and high tech citizens can vote for young, thrusting and high tech representatives with at least a vague notion of what to do after an economic miracle has occurred.

As with most things that affect our lives, it's in our own hands to change them. The question is, are we bovvered?