reality BYTES
This week, telecoms company Imagine will launch its Wimax-based broadband service. The network’s roll-out, which has €100 million in investment behind it, will be phased over three years, finishing in 2012. By that time, it will cover ‘‘90 per cent of the country’s population’’, according to company bosses. Coverage will begin in Dublin, Athlone, Wexford and Sligo.
Imagine, which will also market the service under its Irish Broadband subsidiary, is coy about how much it will charge for the service. But it is likely to start at around €25 for a low-speed broadband offering of under two megabits per second (2Mbs), rising to about €45for an 8Mbs package, its top service.
This will also likely include a phone package, with features such as voice mailboxes.
What is clear is that Imagine has declined the opportunity to become a broadband speed leader. At its launch last week, the company demonstrated speeds of 15mbs on a range of devices. But that’s the only time we will see those speeds.
Because the company has decided to cap its speed offering at 8Mbs.The main reason for this deflating approach is based on the existing Irish market structure. The Irish market will likely not pay more for a 15Mbs service than it will for an 8Mbs service. So why rock the boat? Leave the higher speed for some future marketing strategy.
‘‘Most people will tell you that they want broadband to do a few things for them,” said Sean Bolger, Imagine’s chief executive. ‘‘Email, social networking, YouTube and browsing is what most people want.”
Commercially, it is entirely reasonable for Imagine to adopt this modest, traditional market approach.
From a broadband leadership perspective, it’s a little deflating. Especially when the service is clearly capable of delivering twice the speed allowed to Imagine’s customers.
On the plus side, the technology roadmap for Wimax is solid. By the time the network is fully rolled out, attainable speeds should be in excess of 30Mbs.Whether Imagine will allow its customers the benefit of such speeds is another matter (it probably won’t).But it’s nice to know that, should someone else start forcing higher speed competition, that Imagine can respond with high speeds of its own.
With Imagine putting itself firmly in the ‘family bundle’ market, who will now drive the broadband speed market? Increasingly, that looks set to be Chorus NTL. While Eircom tinkers with marginal network upgrades, the cable operator will soon finish a major upgrading program which will, its chief executive, promises, see broadband speed offerings of up to 100Mbs for the first time in the Irish market.
There are two other elements in the high speed broadband stakes. The first is the mobile operators, who point to the development of Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology within the next two years. This, they say, will bring 3Gbroadband speeds closer to 30Mbs or 40Mbs.
However, there are no announced investment plans yet. Until there are, it’s all hot air. The second player to claim the high speed mantle is Magnet Entertainment, which offers fibre broadband direct at big speeds. Unfortunately, this company’s fibre service is hardly available anywhere in the country, making it irrelevant in discussions about national broadband.
Imagine may yet be pushed into a high speed broadband offering to beat its competitors.
For now, it will concentrate on becoming an everyday alternative to standard Eircom packages.
