Ireland is still behind our main trading partners in terms of rolling out high speed next generation broadband networks, the latest report shows.
The benchmarking report from Forfás does, however, note the significant progress in improving levels of broadband coverage and take-up in the last two years.
Forfás is the country's policy advisory body on enterprise and science.
Today's report says that broadband connections now account for 90% of internet connections, compared to 58% in the first quarter of 2007.
Ireland has 21.4 broadband subscribers per 100 people. This compares to the OECD average of 22.4. Market leaders like the Netherlands and Denmark have figures of 38.1 and 37.
While download speeds have greatly improved, they too still remain below the fastest speeds available to customers in other OECD states. Just 0.6% of total broadband connections here are fibre connections, compared to 11.3% on average in other OECD countries.
The report says that the speed and cost of broadband services are improving. It says that DSL business services of up to 12 Mb/s are now available in many urban centres, and up to 24 Mb/s in a very limited number of locations in Irish cities.
But it says businesses in other countries can get much faster services for the prices charged in Ireland, especially for 12 Mb/s services. It points out that some residential customers in South Korea, France, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands get can speeds of over 100 Mb/s.
'Advanced broadband services are essential to underpinning entrepreneurship and innovation and are need to position Ireland for export led recovery,' states Forfás CEO Jane Williams.
'Greater investment in telecommunications infrastructure is required if Ireland is to converge towards leading countries in terms of high quality broadband availability,' she added.
