Στις αρχές του 2007 έγραφα για τις αστείες, τότε, διαφημίσεις της Forthnet που μιλούσαν για Triple Play όταν ούτε καν Double Play δεν ήταν διαθέσιμο, για τη τραγική κατάσταση της ευρυζωνικότητος στην Ελλάδα σε σχέση με προηγμένες — στον τομέα — χώρες και, εν ολίγοις, το γεγονός πως εταιρίες και κυβερνήσεις των οποίων η ρητορική αλλά και οι κατα συρροή καμπάνιες επαναπροσδιορίζουν τον όρο ‘θέατρο του παραλόγου’.

Σήμερα, δύο χρόνια αργότερα, αρκετά πράγματα έχουν ουσιαστικά αλλάξει, όμως με θλίψη παρακολουθώ πως κατά βάση η ίδια νοοτροπία, η ίδια τεμπελιά/απραξία/ανικανότητα αλλά και η ίδια προσβλητική ρητορική παραμένουν κύρια χαρακτηριστικά της Ελληνικής ‘Κοινωνίας της Πληροφορίας’, του κράτους και των εμπλεκόμενων εταιριών.
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I was just about ready to go to bed when I read this transcript from a session in the Greek Parliament regarding ADSL. (it is in Greek). I thought it is time to revisit the subject.

I’ve got ADSL in Greece since this summer when it was announced. I can safely say that for as long as I used it (i.e. while I was there) the service was okay, albeit at a very high cost.

The obligatory purchase of a modem from OTE costing around €200 (cf. the Netgear DG834G 802.11g AP/Router/ADSL modem/4port switch in the UK which costs considerably less) — imposed presumably due to the financial interests of the company as well as the incompatibilities arising from the use of inferior Intracom/Alcatel/Siemens DSLAM devices in many exchanges as well as the very high cost of connectivity (more than €70 + VAT for a 384/128Kbps connection) still make is prohibitive for the Greek market.

Many people here (in the UK) believe that the UK too is lagging behind in the internet connectivity/access ratings. And indeed maybe it does, compared to countries like France, Germany, Italy and of course most of the Scandinavian ones. But if the UK is lagging behind, Greece must look like a Genuine Third World Country (if not a zoo) and certainly not an EU country that will host the 2004 Olympics.

In the middle of the summer I sent a letter to the Hellenic Oftel (EETT) regarding the situation touching upon the price, equipment provision and service availability of broadband connectivity in Greece and they too gave me a standard content-free reply that avoided to touch upon any of the issues I had enquired about and merely gave reassurances regarding the Committee’s efforts.

With ADSL having been overdue for three years before being finally widely available for the public this summer, extremely high prices, clueless technicians, lack of choice in modems and slow speed options (compared to the rest of Europe and the US) one would definitely expect a different (more apologetic) response from the people in charge of this fiasco. I just cannot believe how someone in the highest position of the Telecommunications Ministry and with the burden of this ridiculous state of connectivity in Greece falling upon his shoulders for the most part, can be so arrogant, ignorant and corrupt and still have no sense of dignity that would lead to his resignation, even when others (from any political background/party, social group etc.) specifically and accurately criticise the governments fundamental faults and indifference in dealing with such important issues like this.

It’s a different world.

It is not the first time I am writing about my frustration with internet connectivity in Greece. In a country such as Greece, with more than 60% of its land being in the form of islands or mountainous terrain, making human communication and transportation difficult, one would think that advanced telecoms would be available to the masses; one would also reasonably expect that those services would be cheap, so that most people could enjoy them. Unfortunately, this is far from true; Despite being an EU country, I am sorry to say that Greek transportation and connectivity is among the worst I’ve seen in *any* western country. The roads are neglected as much as a road can be, several not tourist-friendly places are extremely hard to reach — especially islands — and, last but not least, communication services are years behind the rest of Europe. And mentioning ‘Europe’ does not limit this to the EU: Even countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Cyprus, some with much smaller ‘target markets’ than Greece, where people have much lower income and are not at all acquainted with technology the way Western people are, enjoy much better telecommunications, be it for data or voice. Something like this is completely incomprehensible to me.
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I am in my room in Madrid in a hotel that provides free ADSL to every and each one of its rooms. I must admit I was impressed. Downloading files, checking email and surfing was generally a pleasure with transfer rates ranging between 16 – 55KB/s (something pretty impressive considering at least one other person in the hotel was using the service!)

The sorry state of Greek broadband options for consumers along with the fact that Greece is the only out of the European “15″ states (and one of the few out of the European “25″ of the future) that does not have ADSL and Cable solutions for fast internet coupled with the ever reducing prices of fast internet access all over Europe are certainly concerning. In Spain, ADSL adoption is growing rapidly, perhaps as fast or even faster than the UK. Other countries enjoy fast and cheap DSL and cable connections for at least three years. Greek ISPs and the formerly nationalised Telecom provider (OTE) has delayed the roll-out of ADSL services for at least two years: Why?

Adoption of high-speed DSL or cable solutions to consumer internet access is costly. Not only is the roll out, purchase, configuration and training for setting up new equipment such as ADSL AMs etc. expensive — something of an increasing importance in the post-e-commerce bust era — but bandwidth costs for such providers is still prohibitively high for small providers. Moreover, the income from DSL connections is certainly lower as compared with the income from PSTN or ISDN based internet access.

In the UK, as well as other countries, laws and provisions for broadband services adoption force ISPs and Telecom companies to ease the tarrifs and increase their offerings, both in terms of cost and variety. In 2003 a standard 512/128 DSL connection in the UK cost from about £20 – £30 depending on the provider.

With companies such as Vivodi offering ADSL services in Athens (with much more limited bandwidth) for twice or three times the price, things look as bleak as ever. Intraconnect a pioneering company offering DSL — in several ‘pilot’ programmes, failed miserably to convince of its maturity or expertise; low quality services were the typical during the first year of their offerings with demand for their product dwindling fast, after acquiring such a bad reputation. Big internet providers, such as Forthnet and Otenet have merely mentioned DSL as an upcoming service in the near future, whereas smaller ones haven’t even done that.
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