If you go to the Irish Government Broadband or the ISP Association of Ireland websites you'll see dozens of Irish Internet Service Providers (ISP) listed but don't assume that this means that all of them are available in your area. I spent about a week researching internet providers only to find that 3 out of the 4 providers I was interested in didn't provide a service where I live. For the record I live in a larger village in Dublin so we're not talking about a sheep farm in the middle of nowhere here.

Since I haven’t got a phone line in the house I was looking for a provider which includes a phone installation fee in the broadband cost, so I short listed digiweb, smart telecom and perlico.

Digiweb claimed that their broadband doesn't use a telephone line instead they install a receiver on the roof, which I'm assuming means this will be a wireless internet connection. Nonetheless they supply you with a telephone set and free phone calls, which again I'm assuming means you're using some sort of Voip but I'm not sure. Make sure that you have got permission and access to the roof, before you even start considering Digiweb.

Smart telecom use the same lines as Eircom do, but the phone fee is included in the broadband package and compared with the Eircom package it works out to be free. Interestingly enough today in the news they mentioned that Eircom restored smart telecom's lines after cutting them earlier cut off this week following a billing dispute.

After evaluating the different packages and options from these providers I was informed that neither service is available in my area. Before I started looking at the perlico options I made it a point to check its availability, to learn that it isn't available either.

The remaining options considered were BT, Eircom and Net Source. Eircom have a good telephone sales service, great website, and fully facilities which make them a potentially reliable option, however the prices are way too high. BT have good deals and potentially the best value for money packages but the customer service and sales team doesn't do much to help with queries, and I found problems with bill payment flexibility which left me with only one option after all, Net Source.

For more information and suggestions about broadband in Ireland visit the boards.ie broadband forum.

P. S. This exercise evidenced one of the advantages of living on 'the dot'. Full coverage is a foregranted commodity.