The Government’s National Broadband Plan (NBP) outlines the Government’s commitment to deliver high speed broadband availability across the country. This is being achieved through commercial investment and through a State Intervention in those areas where commercial investment has not been fully demonstrated.
Facilitating commercial investment is a critical element of the Plan and to date industry has invested over €2.5bn on broadband and communications services. As a result, over 1.4m premises across Ireland has access to high speed broadband services from commercial service providers and further commercial investment is expected. Telecoms operators are beginning to roll-out fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) services in Ireland - a technology which was not envisaged on any scale in 2012. At least two operators have announced ambitious fibre-to-the-home roll-out plans, one of which, SIRO, involves the use of the ESB network, which was facilitated by legislation introduced by my Department as part of the broader NBP policy. In April 2017, I announced additional commercial investment, this time from eir, who undertook to roll out high speed broadband in rural areas to over 300,000 premises, primarily using FTTH. Eir's commitment to deliver on this promise is underpinned by written Agreement. A copy of that Commitment Agreement is available on my Department's website www.dccae.gov.ie.
Commercial investment is a matter for commercial operators, is not part of the State Intervention envisaged under the National Broadband Plan, and is not subsidised by the State.
