Map: farming in Ireland's broadband black spot

Paul keeps 90 suckler cows and is a Fine Gael member of Longford County Council. “A lot of farmers here have to register their calves online. If you have no broadband and an on-the-spot inspection comes up, you’re in trouble,” he told the Irish Farmers Journal.

His bank is also pushing him to use online banking, but this is not an option.

Up until 4am

For other farm tasks, he is able to circumvent slow internet speeds: “Ordering tags online is OK because we can do it by sending an email,” he explained. Yet, even emailing is not always plain-sailing: when organising a fundraiser for the local GAA club recently, Paul says he stayed up until 4am to send the sponsors’ logos in time for printing the leaflets.

Paul gets his broadband through a wireless connection with Meteor. The speed fluctuates unpredictably: “Once it gets popular, it gets oversubscribed. This morning I had 16Mb/s, but it can be 1Mb/s in the evening when kids come back from school and start downloading TV,” he said.

With average speeds of 1.98Mb/s, Legan came last in a survey of 27,000 connections across the country published by Switcher.ie this Tuesday. Co Longford was also the slowest county, at 7.25Mb/s on average. By contrast, the average speed in Co Dublin was 44.85Mb/s. “It would take someone living in Legan over three and a half hours to download a two-hour HD movie, while people in Drimnagh in Dublin 12 can do this in just under six minutes,” Switcher.ie calculated.

Paul’s neighbour cannot receive any mobile broadband signal at all. As for fixed telephone lines, he says that several exchanges in south Longford were never upgraded to provide broadband. To make things more infuriating, providers keep contacting him to try to sell him the non-existent service.

Before buying or renting a home here, people check the broadband

Farmers are not the only ones affected by the lack of broadband. Paul says some Legan residents have had trouble having their bins collected since the local refuse collection company switched to online billing.

The broadband situation makes the whole area less attractive. “Legan is one hour from the M50, 15 minutes from a train station, housing is cheap compared with urban centres,” Paul said. “But before buying or renting a home here, people check the broadband.”

Opportunities

With the large Center Parcs holiday village planned in nearby Ballymahon, Paul says local people are hoping for business and job opportunities. “But not having a broadband connection makes us less competitive,” he added.

Paul met Minister for Rural Affairs Heather Humphreys earlier this month. He places hope in the fact that she and Minister for Communications Denis Naughten are rural TDs. But when he hears about the National Broadband Plan going to tender next year to roll out broadband to areas like Legan by 2021 or 2022, he gets worried. “It can’t come soon enough for us,” he said.

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