A small local community in Co Cork is pleading with billionaire businessman Elon Musk for help with poor broadband in the area.
A group of business owners in Rossmore outside Clonakilty say they want to be able to work from home but are being hindered by poor speeds.
They claim to have to travel to higher ground to get enough signal to send an email.
Rossmore residents are hopeful the Tesla founder can help them after he already pledged to provide reliable internet access to the Black Valley region in Co Kerry.
Emma Fitzpatrick, an acupuncturist who lives in the area, explained to Newstalk Breakfast what the community is hoping to achieve from its appeal to Musk.
"We are a small community of residents 7km from Clonakilty and what's particular about our situation is that we're three small business owners, women and mothers in business, wanting to work from home, wanting to operate our businesses, but having to deal with really poor broadband speeds," she said.
"We called Elon Musk out of desperation because basically, we haven't been able to operate our businesses."
The business owners moved their operations online during the pandemic, and Emma has been offering Shiatsu sessions to remote workers and people at home, in particular.
"The problem is that we need good connectivity and for me to operate my sessions, I need a good upload speed of around 10 Mbps," she said.
She is currently contending with speeds of 0.7 Mbps, which is "very frustrating".
"We sit down to send an email and we think it's sent and at at the end of the day it's still not sent so for me to be able to deliver my classes, I've had to use a premises in the local town for me to be able to keep my classes going," she added.
Emma acknowledged that the government has recognised that rural communities need internet support through its rollout of the National Broadband Plan.
However, she feels that the process is too slow and her community doesn't know when the programme will reach them.
File photo. Credit: Rui Vieira/PA Wire/PA ImagesThis is why she chose to reach out to the SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
"I had tried changing different providers and we eventually had to go back to our initial fixed lined broadband and the engineer said he couldn't install it for us because we are too far from town," Emma explained.
"So I started the petition and we started this online campaign for fibre broadband to be rolled out and as I was going on my rounds gathering petitions, gathering signatures, it was a neighbour who suggested to ask Elon Musk.
The group haven't heard anything yet, but Emma sent an email to his company yesterday so she is hopeful that he will get back to her soon.
"We would be delighted if he could come and pilot [the broadband programme] in west Cork," she added.
