The Government’s National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to ensure that every citizen and business, regardless of location, has access to a high quality, high speed broadband service. This will be achieved through a combination of commercial investments and a State led intervention in areas where commercial services will not be provided.
The Broadband Intervention strategy for Ireland available at http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/communications/en-ie/Pages/Publication/Ireland's-Broadband-Intervention-Strategy-update.aspx sets out a detailed service specification including a requirement that the State-funded network must:
- be capable of delivering high-quality, high speed broadband of at least 30 Mbps download and 6 Mbps upload to all citizens;
- be capable of catering for higher performance in the future so as to keep pace with consumer demand; and
- ensure the availability of high quality wholesale services to allow retail competition to develop.
In addition, the intervention strategy also requires measures to meet the specific needs of businesses as well as ensuring scalability in terms of future anticipated growth in demand for bandwidth. Bidder(s) will therefore be invited to put forward minimum speeds for businesses, which can be built into the service standards of the winning bidder(s) contract. The Department will not prescribe future speeds which may not reflect future market developments and technology evolution. As an alternative the winning bidder(s) network will be subject to periodic reviews on a 3-5 year basis to ensure that it is keeping pace with demand.
On 22 December 2015, I formally launched the procurement process for the State intervention to provide high quality, high speed broadband to all premises in Ireland that may not be served through commercial investment.
The formal procurement process commenced with the publication of the Pre-qualification Questionnaire and Project Information Memorandum. Five responses were received from prospective bidders to this stage of the competitive procurement process by the deadline of 31 March. The responses are now being assessed in line with criteria set down by the Department with a view to selecting qualified provider(s) to proceed to the next stage of the procurement. This second stage in the process will be a formal Invitation to Participate in Dialogue (ITPD) to shortlisted bidders.
The Government is determined to ensure that the network in the AMBER area is built out as quickly as possible and engagement with industry stakeholders has indicated that this could be achieved within 3-5 years of the contract award.
The NBP proposes that through the combination of commercial investment and State intervention, 85% of addresses in Ireland will have access to high speed services by 2018, with all addresses passed by 2020.
The State’s intervention strategy under the NBP will ensure that whatever network is built, can be scaled up to meet current and future demand, with 30 Mbps as a minimum rather than a ceiling for consumers.
