Longford-based milliner Wendy Knight has problems getting paid if her broadband signal is too weak.
"I use a phone app for credit card payments and sometimes it won't work" says Knight who has a workshop at her home near the Longford-Leitrim border.
When the broadband is slow, private clients have to go to an ATM and then deliver cash to her home in the townland of Cloonteagh, near Newtownforbes, Co Longford.
It’s a family issue as Wendy’s husband Seán Keighran runs a garden design company and his clients routinely send him large architectural files – 3D images of their homes – to allow him plan their outside spaces.
The angst for the couple's five sons of having just one corner of the house with broadband can only be imagined. Netflix, iPads and other such distractions are low on the list of priorities if a work email has to be sent or received. "Sometimes we have to tell them to turn everything off and you know this is their world. There is an expectation that they will have it [broadband] and their world crumbles if it is not there" says Keighran.
Wendy's work is widely available – under the Wendy Louise Designs brand – at Jennifer Rothwell's boutique in the Powerscourt Centre in Dublin, as well as in Kildare Village and the Leitrim Design House in Carrick-on-Shannon, but her clients probably don't realise how difficult keeping in touch can be.
“I have a workshop at the bottom of the garden but I have to run up to the house to send an email,” she says.
Keighran has often given up and gone to coffee shops in Longford just to get some work done. "It is very stressful. We do feel abandoned," he says. "We pay taxes but the roads are full of potholes and we can't get proper broadband. In England people pay taxes and then everything is taken care of."
The couple now have wifi with Imagine Communications but say neighbours who live just 200m from them get a service from Eir. "There are potentially eight houses down our lane who would avail of Eir broadband if they brought it here," says Keighran who has been told that the problem is that the line is split. "We got wifi last October and I sometimes wonder when the leaves are back on the trees in another month, will it be affected. We are just winging it".
Eddie Shanahan lives about 10 miles from O’Connell Street in Dublin but it’s broadband hell as far as he is concerned. As one of the best known faces in the Irish fashion industry, there are days when he has to transmit up to 150 images for a project.
“I just can’t get reliable broadband so I have given up and I now use a Vodafone dongle,” says Shanahan, who is chairman of the Council of Irish Fashion Designers.
It’s even more frustrating because his nearest neighbour does have decent broadband and, after 15 years living on the Meath-Dublin border near Ashbourne, he’s unsure why he has such problems.
‘Different exchange’
“I’m told it’s because I am on a different exchange but it’s hard to get a satisfactory answer” he says. “It’s not as if I am living at the foot of Carrauntoohil. This is a plain, 10 miles from the main street of the capital city. It’s not just people in rural Ireland who are affected by this, it’s also people at the heart of the action”.
Regarded as an authority in the realm of marketing and branding, Shanahan says it’s embarrassing when he tells Irish or international clients an image is on the way, and they ring five minutes later wondering why it has not arrived.
“You just stare at the screen sometimes waiting for a file to go”.
Shanahan, who is also a director of the Leitrim Design House, has talked to Eir many times and has had his line tested and told it is not suitable. He says promises about the roll-out of national broadband don’t reassure him.
“It’s going on and on and on. This is a country in the western world but it’s a third world service.”
He used to take a trip into town when he needed to transmit large files but since he got a 4G dongle the speed is better.
Moving back to the city is not an option. “I like where I live. I made a conscious decision to build a house here. I cannot understand why, when we live on the edge of western Europe, we should have to make a decision to move in order to work.”
