Dublin City Council is considering introducing a free city wide wireless network in order to make broadband internet services available to more people throughout the city.
The council hopes to provide the service on a free basis, but said that the quality of service would not compete with commercial providers in terms of speed and download capabilities. Naoise O'Muiri, a Fine Gael councillor and member of the task force for this project, said that the service would allow people to carry out basic internet tasks, such as browsing and email.
On the other side of the telecommunications divide between rural and urban areas, some 100,000 phone line faults have been reported in the last two months. Speaking on RTE radio this morning, president of the Irish Farmers' Association Padraig Walsh said that the slow repair of line faults in rural areas by service providers is unacceptable.
He said that some of his organisation's members have been without a phone line for about two months. Walsh said that such services should be restored within a matter of days.
