Prof Paddy Nixon – Chair of ‘Ireland’s Broadband Future: Policy for the Next Generation'
The critical importance of the availability of broadband to Ireland’s economic growth and success is beyond question. So much so that broadband availability has gained considerable momentum in recent years in the arena of official debate.
Forfás, Ireland’s policy advisory board for enterprise and science is currently undertaking a review of Ireland's long-term broadband needs and the actions required for meeting them. A major contributor to this review was a policy debate which was held in Dublin this week, entitled "Ireland's Broadband Future: Policy for the Next Generation". The debate was chaired by Prof Paddy Nixon, SFI-funded Professor of Distributed Systems in the School of Computer Science and Informatics at UCD.
Opened by Noel Dempsey TD (Minister for Communications Marine and Natural Resources) and Martin Cronin (CEO Forfas), this policy-focused event targeted an invited group of national policymakers from the communications industry and enterprise. It also provided international perspectives on the future for Next Generation Networks (NGNs) and concluded with a debate on policy options for Ireland.
Setting the scene, Professor Peter Cochrane, Telecommunications Futurist discussed Future Broadband Trends and Implications, while Dr Eoin Gahan of Forfás looked at policy options for the next generation.
A number of international speakers also outlined NGN developments and the policy approaches taken in other countries. These included KPN’s John Quist who spoke about NGN deployment in the Netherlands and Jaroslaw Ponder, Policy Analyst and manager of projects at the Strategy and Policy Unit at the International Telecommunications Union (SPU/ITU).
“The output of this debate is very important and will drive the next stage of government policy on this area”, said Professor Nixon.
