Tuesday 19 March 2002

Wired News: Irish Fitted for Broadband Rings. The country hopes that the rings, funded 90 percent by the Irish government and 10 percent by local authorities, will help vault the country out of last place in the domestic broadband race of Western Europe. [Tomalak's Realm] This came as a surprise to me when it popped up in News Aggregator. It hasn't exactly been big news here in Ireland. Our main telcom had originally planned to launch an ADSL service back in October last year but was forced to delay because of pricing concerns by the Regulator. I'm currently a member of a trial panel, but there's still no official announcement about full launch.       Before that we had NTL take over our main cable provider and guarantee the same Regulator that they would provide cable modem facilities within a stated period. Roads were dug up all over the place, and then plans were quietly abandoned (apparently because of cost consoderations). My experience with ADSL over the past couple of months will almost certainly result in my subscribing to the service when it is finally available, but it will certainly be good to have an alternative not too long down the road -- but that this mean that still more digging will be involved? 8:58:55 PM  Your view

U.N. Rights Enforcer to Step Down. Mary Robinson, who has not shied away from criticizing the United States, Russia and China in her tenure as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Monday she will step down in September even though supporters have urged her to stay. [AP World News] Hopefully I'm not being prejudiced here, but it's going to be very hard to find someone of similar quality to Mary Robinson to fill this post. Mind you, I think here original preference when deciding not to run for a second term as Irish President (she would probably have been un-opposed) was as High Commissioner for Refugees. If the rumours are true about US input affecting her decision to step down in September, then by inference Bush & Co will want to approve her successor, which more or less means that the new incumbent will be immediately tainted. 8:52:08 PM  Your view

		© Copyright 2002 Jim MacCormaic . Last update: 29/09/2002; 06:02:36 am .