Intranets in "No-where Land"

A story straight from Intranets in "No-where Land". A situation I witnessed recently:

An international company decides to delegate reponsibility for deciding how much bandwidth should be bought by a country and of course, asks the countries to pay for it from their local budgets.

(The company has imposed significant cost reduction goals for everyone.)

The same company sets three levels of priority for bandwidth: (1  = highest priority)
1. email
2. applications
3. intranet

Senior management in the same company state that the intranet is a must, that it is the primary driving force for enabling the company to achive it's goals, building a shared culture, and working efficiently together.

The communications department - in charge of the intranet - did not even know that the IT department had established the priorities.

Users in outlying countries - far from headquarters - say the intranet is too slow.

When asked if they would have problems if the intranet were down for one day, most say no.
Which of course if fortunate for them, because if the intranet had business critical information for their work, and was last priority for bandwidth -- good luck doing their jobs!

This is a real story.