Ireland: It’s all about connections as Irish users take the digital lead

How much is your internet connection worth to you? According to a new study, the average person would have to be given €130 to compensate for giving up their broadband at home. That’s about €100 additional than the average monthly broadband bill, giving a general idea of how significant the technology has become to us.

Work, leisure, education, spending – it’s all done online. Businesses can be additional productive and are becoming additional positive as a result.
Retail sector
Ecommerce is revolutionising the retail sector. Mobile services are offering increasingly higher data speeds too as next-generation mobile services are rolled out throughout Ireland. And as smartphones and tablets become increasingly popular and our lives ever additional linked online, the price people put on their broadband connection is probably going to increase.

It’s all happened in relatively quickly. Less than 15 years ago, most Irish households were stuck with dial-up internet connections, with “always on” broadband a far-off dream. At the same time as broadband services arrived, they were expensive for the average consumer and limited in where they were available.

But a statement this week by entertainment and communications company UPC on Ireland’s digital next shows just how far we have come.

It’s the second time UPC has issued such a statement; the initial research was unveiled in 2012. That statement made a number of predictions – some that were probably obvious conclusions – inclunding the increase in online spending and a pick up in broadband speeds.

“Internet usage in Ireland is growing rapidly. Consumer bandwidth and content requirements are growing constantly. Ireland ranks highly part the world’s most digitally advanced economies,” said UPC Ireland’s chief executive Magnus Ternsjo.

“The country performs well within the average standards in Europe for internet adoption and well beyond the average standards for higher internet speeds.”

It seems that things have changed at a slightly faster pace than anticipated, particularly at the same time as it comes to how much the internet can benefit Ireland and its economic increase.

UPC’s new statement shows that Ireland’s digital economy is set to be worth €21.1 billion by 2020, up from a projected €8.4 billion this year. The new figures, almost double what the sector was worth to the economy two years ago, show that the digital economy is on track to reach the €11.3 billion that the previous UPC statement estimated it would be worth by 2016.
Consumer spend
Back in 2012, UPC’s initial statement predicted that consumer spending online would reach €5.7 billion by 2016. The updated research shows that we have by presently breached that figure two years ahead of schedule.

Consumers will spend €12.7 billion online by 2020, up from €5.9 billion this year. And that will create 150,000 jobs, either due or not instantly, which is good news for the economy too.

“Since our 2012 statement, we have seen real evolution as Irish consumers, entrepreneurs, investors, the private and the public sector respond to the new opportunities that are presented by digital technologies,” UPC said in its statement.
Part of that could be attributed to how the infrastructure has developed in the intervening years. Broadband speeds in particular have taken a leap in the completed couple of years.

Additional than 44 % of Irish homes can presently get broadband with a top speed of 200Mbps, up from 50Mbps in 2012, according to the statement, and 68 % of people are happy with their broadband service.

The popularity of video-streaming services such as Netflix and on-request video services from pay TV providers, such as Sky and UPC, is providing impetus for this.

Investment from operators over the completed few years has yielded benefits. Not only does UPC offer its own “fibre powered” broadband to the home, but Eircom has as well got in on the act. That added infrastructure has allowed the telecoms incumbent to offer its own TV service, eVision, which it launched last October.
Quad play
That made Eircom the initial operator to offer quad-play service – broadband, landline, mobile and TV – to Irish consumers, although UPC is set to follow suit at the same time as it launches its anticipated mobile service in the near next.

ESB, meanwhile, is set to start rolling out its own fibre infrastructure, which will bring fibre due to the home, instead of just to the cabinet.

It was revealed last July that ESB was planning the network, which will involve a €400 million investment , and in February, Vodafone was named as its preferred partner to roll it out.

We have from presently on to see any definite deals, but with ESB intending to operate the network on a wholesale basis, the potential benefits for internet access around the National are huge.

Irish users intend, it seems, to make the majority of those high-speed connections. At the same time as it comes to internet-enabled devices, Irish users are outstripping the competition, with an average of 4.7 devices connected to their home network. That compares with an average of 2.6 devices in Germany.

Improved connection speeds make us additional generous, it seems, and the faster our internet connection is, the additional likely we are to share our wifi password with friends and family at the same time as they come to visit.

It’s interesting to note that rather than be a follower, Ireland has by presently moved ahead of the rest of Europe in some aspects of the digital economy– at least, according to UPC’s research.

Thirty % of Irish adults presently have access to broadband speeds of additional than 30Mbps. That’s above the EU average of 18.2 %, and up from 10 % here in 2012. “The landscape is additional competitive as additional broadband providers have presently entered the market providing consumers with a wider range of choice of providers and services,” UPC said.
‘Digital next’
Things are picking up pace, but there are still some things of which we need to be aware. “While Ireland’s economic fortune has turned a corner for the better in the completed two years, we cannot afford to take anything for granted,” UPC said. “We have to plan and work for the next that we want. The same is authentic for our digital next.”

Online shopping, for example, still goes outside the country, with only 40 % of web shopping kept here. And half of shoppers still do their research in real-world stores but pick up products cheaper online.

Although that has come down from 58 % in 2012, it’s a still worrying trend for retailers who are losing out to suppliers abroad.

But it’s not just the digital economy that is being affected by digital devices.

“Family life has been transformed by the emergence of multi-screen patterns of behaviour,” UPC said. “Meanwhile our working lives have witnessed a blurring of the boundaries between business and personal spaces, in terms of time use, location and even devices.”
Work-life balance
Although most people view that as a positive thing – they can work from home to a better degree than before, with half saying their work-life balance had been improved – there is still a minority that feel it has affected them negatively.

About 15 % said they disagreed that technology had been positive for their work-life balance. How a lot of times have you checked your email at home, or been sucked into working late hours because an significant email just had to be dealt with straight away?

There are other things to consider too. Privacy has become a hot topic, fuelled by revelations of government spying programmes and intelligence agencies taking chance of a society additional willing to put data out in public.

People are rowing back on what they are willing to divulge as they realise their digital footprint is not only something that can be easily accessed, but could follow them around for some time.

The recent European Court of Justice ruling in a case against Google on the right to be forgotten may go some way to assuaging those fears, but with the data still available online, its impact can only be limited.

But in general, the shift to a additional digital life is being viewed as a positive thing. “The additional that a society is exposed to, and the additional it uses, digital technologies and services, again the additional concerned that society will be about becoming increasingly digital,” the statement said. “It is a virtuous circle that can contribute to improved levels of increase, prosperity and wellbeing for society and the economy.”