The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
Tourism businesses are losing “invaluable” free publicity because of the poor phone and broadband coverage in the county. According to John Connolly of Hazel Mountain Chocolate, “Social media can generate such momentum behind a business” and poor internet access prohibits people from “advertising your business for free”. Mr Connolly added that, for many businesses, strong broadband is necessary from a basic operational level. “We have had every provider in the country come to us and no one was able to offer us guaranteed internet. We ended up using satellite broadband, which is just fast enough for the visa machine, if you stand in the right place in room. Last year we went to a cocoa plantation in Costa Rica; they had broadband and phone coverage and they didn’t even have a flushing toilet,” he said. The phone coverage is so bad in some parts of the county that a local priest asked one mobile operator if erecting a mast on …
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