Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 16 June 2016
10. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources his plans to expedite the roll-out of genuinely high-speed broadband to rural areas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16119/16]
View answerAs the Minister knows, the most urgent step in rural areas is the rolling out of real high-speed broadband. I look forward to getting details from the Minister on the progress made since he entered office. I seek assurance from him that we will not be told a speed of 30 Mbps is high-speed broadband in the modern world. I hope he will be aspiring for at least 100 Mbps, and ideally 1 Gbps.
The national broadband plan aims to deliver high-speed services to every city, town, village and individual premises. A programme for a partnership Government commits to the delivery of the plan as a matter of priority. This is being achieved through private investment by commercial telecommunications companies and through State intervention in areas where commercial investment is not forthcoming. The formal procurement process for the State intervention commenced in December 2015.
The high-speed broadband map, which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie, shows the extent of the State intervention area, which is the subject of procurement. The areas marked blue represent those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have previously indicated plans to deliver high-speed broadband services. The Department continues to monitor the commercial deployment plans in the blue area to ensure those services are delivered. The areas marked amber on the map represent the target areas for the State intervention. The map provides information on a county-by-county basis with a breakdown of coverage across the townlands in every county.
More than 750,000 premises are the focus of the procurement process, which formally commenced in December 2015 with the publication of the pre-qualification questionnaire and the project information memorandum. Five responses were received from prospective bidders to this stage of the competitive procurement process by the deadline of 31 March 2016.
The second stage in the procurement process will be a formal invitation to participate in dialogue to short-listed bidders. I expect that my Department will move to this stage in the next month. The third stage of the procurement process involves the issue of final tender documentation which follows the dialogue process. Following the submission of final tenders by bidders, a winning bidder or bidders will be selected for the contract which will comprise one or two lots, as set out in the national broadband plan intervention strategy. The Department will then enter into formal contract negotiations with the winning bidder or bidders. It is expected that a contract or contracts will be awarded by June 2017.
As part of the competitive process, the Department will engage with the winning bidder or bidders on the best roll-out strategy in order to target areas of particularly poor service, business needs and-or high demand. This will need to be balanced with the most efficient network roll-out plan. A prioritisation programme will be put in place in this regard in consultation with the Minister for Regional Development, Rural Affairs, Arts and the Gaeltacht. A detailed roll-out plan for the network will be published once the contract or contracts are in place.
The programme for a partnership Government commits to measures to assist in the roll-out of the network once a contract is awarded. In this regard, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, will lead on the establishment of county or regional broadband teams, working with local authorities, local enterprise offices, Leader groups and other relevant agencies to help accelerate the broadband network build in rural areas once a contract or contracts have been awarded.
I thank the Minister for the large amount of information he provided. The amber on the map may no longer be amber because one telecommunications company has indicated it intends to cover a significant part of the area in question privately and commercially, starting this year. Will this be taken into account when the contracts go to tender, as proposed next February, because it appears the Minister is aiming at a moving target? Will he confirm that the Department still considers speeds of 30 Mbps high-speed broadband and that the tender will seek minimum speeds of 30 Mbps? While I accept that the speed can be increased, is it the case that the Department will legally accept 30 Mbps under the tender? Does the Minister consider such a speed adequate in the modern world given that all the providers have far exceeded it? For example, all the advertisements feature broadband speeds of at least 100 Mbps. We should seek to have speeds of 1 Gbps available to every premises and get the job done once and for all.
Have the Minister's officials indicated to him when the final house will be connected through the national broadband scheme? I have asked a series of specific questions to which no doubt I will receive specific answers.
The minimum requirement is 30 Mbps. The contract will include a provision for a review every three to five years. If, therefore, in five or ten years demand in Cornamona is for 40 Mbps, 50 Mbps or 60 Mbps, it must be possible to achieve these speeds under the contract. This process is future-proofed for the next 25 years. In 20 years, 100 Mbps may be completely inefficient and speeds of 1 Gbps may be required to meet needs. The contract will allow for such flexibility.
The Deputy also asked a question related to areas where an operator is rolling out the broadband network. Any operator which has announced plans to roll out high-speed broadband services has been invited to submit details of its plans to the Department in order that they can be assessed. The criteria for assessing these plans were published on the Department's website in October 2015. Any operator seeking to have its plans reflected in the high-speed broadband map in the amber areas must sign a specific commitment of agreement, the heads of which have been published on the Department's website. If contractors are prepared to sign a contract to deliver high-speed broadband to house A, B and C, we will amend the map. However, not one single operator has signed such a contract.
The time for the question has expired.
I have one final brief question.
I will allow the Deputy to put his question because I allowed the Minister great latitude. However, I do not want to exhaust other Deputies' time.
The minimum broadband speed of 30 Mbps provided for in the plan is utterly redundant and I am disappointed the Minister is buying the Department's line on the issue. Why are all the companies opting for speeds of 100 Mbps? What will happen if a company does not sign a commitment to deliver high-speed broadband but subsequently provides broadband services?
The Department has been engaging directly with all of the commercial providers, not one of which has been prepared to commit. Deputies have all been given promises that broadband would be provided in particular villages by particular dates and it has not happened. Many of us have ended up with egg on our faces. We are willing to amend the map but if we are to do so, a contractor must put pen to paper. It is as simple as that. Wireless and wired operators may be advertising speeds of 100 Mbps but Deputy Ó Cuív should ask people living in the areas concerned whether they are getting this speed. The Department has set a speed of 30 Mbps as a minimum requirement. Some people have asked me to examine the model in place in the United Kingdom. The requirement for rural areas of the UK is only 10 Mbps, which is completely inadequate.
