The Policy Paper ‘Next Generation Broadband — Gateway to a Knowledge Ireland', which was published on my Department's website on 22 June 2009 has, as one of its actions, the establishment of a one-stop-shop to provide service providers with flexible and open-access to existing and future State owned infrastructure suitable for telecoms services.
Leveraging publicly owned ducting has the capacity to significantly reduce costs for private sector investors in rolling out fibre to the regions and thereby improve competition in the electronic communications market.
My officials have worked with the relevant State agencies in the energy and transport sectors to compile a data-base of the supply of publicly-owned-infrastructure, which currently or potentially can support high speed broadband networks.
Following this process, maps have been compiled, which provide an indicative depiction of the supply of relevant State infrastructure including the Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs). These maps were published on my Department's website in conjunction with the policy paper and can therefore be accessed on the website.
It is important to note that the readiness of this infrastructure to support high speed broadband networks varies between agencies and can depend, for example, on whether an agency is already involved in the telecom sector and, if so, whether existing contractual arrangements may restrict the infrastructure being available on an open-access basis.
The next step in developing the one-stop-shop is to decide on an operational model and I expect to make a decision on this shortly.