Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 18 April 2012
766 Deputy James Bannon asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the reason there is a lack of quality broadband in rural areas, particularly County Longford, despite the promises of the national broadband scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18970/12]
View answerIreland's telecommunications market has been liberalised since 1999 and since then has developed into a well-regulated market, supporting a multiplicity of commercial operators, providing services over a diverse range of technology platforms. Details of broadband services available on a county-by-county basis can be found on the Commission for Communications Regulation's (ComReg) website at www.callcosts.ie.
The State is not a provider of services, except in instances of clear market failure such as in the cases of both the National and Rural Broadband Schemes. Such interventions are always subject to EU State Aid clearance to ensure no unacceptable level of market distortion takes place.
In keeping with State aid clearance for the Scheme, the broadband service contracted under the National Broadband Scheme (NBS) is an affordable, scaleable product which currently offers minimum speeds of 1.6Mbps download and 1.2Mbps upload subject to a maximum contention ratio. As regards service quality, my Department has well-established monitoring arrangements in place to ensure that the NBS delivers the minimum specified service or better to all users. The NBS contract guarantees service levels and imposes a service credit regime on 3, the NBS service provider, with significant financial consequences in the event that minimum specification service levels are not met.
Should any NBS customer experience problems with the NBS service, they are advised to contact 3's customer care centre, 24 hours a day 7 days a week, by phone at 1913 (free of charge), via email to nbssupport@three.ie or by post to 3 Customer Services, Hutchison 3G Ireland Limited, PO Box 333, Dublin 2. I should add that my Department also has a role where customers have fully utilised the established complaints process and consider that their complaint has not been resolved. My officials operate a dedicated NBS mailbox, which NBS customers can contact by email at nationalbroadbandscheme@dcenr.gov.ie, with any comments or complaints they may have about their NBS service. Where a customer has unresolved problems with their NBS service, they can contact my Department who will then liaise with 3 personnel at its Head Office in Dublin to remedy their service performance issues.
While my Department has previously dealt with a small number of individual complaints from NBS customers in County Longford, there is no evidence to suggest that there is widespread poor quality service delivery in NBS areas. Such a scenario would be of concern to my Department.
The Rural Broadband Scheme (RBS) was launched last year in recognition of the fact that despite the widespread availability of broadband throughout Ireland, there still remained individual premises that were unable to receive affordable broadband provision, due to technical difficulties such as line of sight issues. In total, there were 221 applications from persons living in County Longford.
The response to date by industry suggests that virtually all eligible applicants are capable of obtaining a broadband service from a supplier using one of the available technology platforms, i.e. DSL, fixed or mobile wireless, cable or satellite. Obviously, where a commercial service is shown to be available, the State cannot intervene with a subvention for alternative services as to do so would be a breach of State Aid rules. I expect that over the coming months, those remaining eligible applicants under the RBS, of which there are 81 from County Longford, will be receiving offers from the commercial providers who are participating in the scheme and I am hopeful that all of them will be offered a commercial service.
The combination of private investment and State interventions means that Ireland will meet the EU Commission's "Digital Agenda for Europe" target of having a basic broadband service available to all areas by 2013.
The Government accepts that the widespread availability of high speed broadband is a key requirement in delivering future economic and social development. With basic broadband services now widely available across Ireland, the challenge is to accelerate the roll out of high speed services. The Next Generation Broadband Taskforce (NGBT), which I convened last summer, is currently finalising its deliberations which are expected to identify how best to deliver wider customer access to high speed broadband generally.
The next steps, following completion of the NGBT report, will be to bring the report to Government before consulting with the wider public for their views. Building on the work of the Taskforce, it is my intention to publish a National Broadband Plan for Ireland later this year which will set out a range of policy commitments and actions aimed at accelerating the rollout of high speed broadband across Ireland.
