Industry news

Ireland's broadband connections are up

The number of broadband connections in Ireland has doubled, but the figure for businesses connected falls short of the European average, according to new statistics.

Figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) reveal that Irish business connections are up by a tenth to 68 per cent.

However, despite more than two-thirds of businesses having broadband connections, this figure is below the European Union (EU) average of 77 per cent.

The CSO also announced that home connections were up from 13 to 31 per cent in the first quarter of last year.

In 2007, 55 per cent of businesses made some purchases using e-commerce, while 27 per cent had them.

Firewalls were used by 81 per cent of companies and nearly half backed their data up offsite.

Kathryn Raleigh, director of ICT Ireland, said: "Ireland needs to focus on important issues, such as the use of technology by the public sector and government.

"In these areas, we fall well behind the EU average, which is unacceptable for [a] country which claims to be a knowledge economy."

Total revenue in the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors in 2006 reached 4.3 billion euros (£3.3 bn)