Thanks to Bernadine Joselyn for passing on the recent article on the economic development and broadband (Lack of broadband hampers new business start-ups) from Silicon Republic.

The article talks a little bit about something I know – business startups in Ireland could be higher if access to broadband was better. Apparently less than 90 percent of Ireland has access to broadband.

Bartley O’Connor, associate director of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Ireland claims, “This is affecting business start-ups, not just end users. There could be hundreds more businesses in the country if not for the lack of broadband. People are losing out.”

Well, I live in suburban Dublin (or as my husband who grew up here says, “an urban village”) and I have broadband – but I can tell you that I can upload only one minute of video to YouTube at a time. So the broadband even in this pretty upper scale suburb ain’t great. I work with a couple of businesses here and it’s quite common for them to mail me CDs with graphics for their web sites rather than email them because the email just can’t take a few attachments.

I can’t imagine what it’s like in rural areas. Now I just reported that I did find broadband in the Aran Islands and it’s tough to get more remote than an Island off the coast of Galway – but that is an area heavily invested in tourism. I know we drove through many areas that were not served well.

In some ways I think that Ireland still wrestles with the romantic view of thatched cottages and sheep farmers – and they are still here – but it’s tough to run a business based on that vision. To sell the sheep you need to be online these days.

I do read more about the need for broadband in the popular press here. They do have a national strategy, even if it has yet to be implemented. The government plays a larger role in day to day life here – providing everything from TV shows to garbage collection so in some ways I think that the road will be smoother for them when they do get serious. They won’t have the challenges that we have in the US of vendors who are invested in the market’s status quo.