I propose to answer Questions Nos 73, 74, 78, 83, 91, 95, 98, 101, 102, 106 and 108 to 110, inclusive, together.
The National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to deliver high speed broadband services to every city, town, village and individual premises in Ireland. The Programme for Government commits to the delivery of the NBP as a matter of priority. This is being achieved through a combination of commercial investment by the telecommunications sector and a State intervention in those areas where commercial investment has not been fully demonstrated.
A key principle of the NBP is to support and stimulate commercial investment through policy and regulatory measures. Commercial investment since the publication of the NBP has considerably exceeded expectations. Since 2012, the commercial telecommunications sector has invested over €2.5bn in upgrading and modernising networks which support the provision of high speed broadband and mobile telecoms services. As a result there has been significant progress in relation to broadband rollout so that today, approximately 1.4m or 61% of premises in Ireland can get high speed broadband of a minimum of 30 Megabits per second. This footprint is continuing to expand.
In April, eir signed an agreement with me committing them to follow through on their commercial plans to provide new high speed broadband infrastructure to 300,000 premises in rural areas. Eir has committed to doing this work over a 90 week period with an average of 500 premises passed per day. In line with the published Agreement there are regular Review Meetings the purpose of which is to monitor this rollout and ensure that eir meets its obligations under the Agreement. A copy of the Commitment Agreement is available on my website www.dccae.gov.ie. The decision by eir to invest in infrastructure to deploy high speed broadband services to an additional 300,000 premises in rural Ireland was taken by eir on commercial grounds. Neither I nor the Department have a statutory authority to direct eir in this regard.
Quarterly updates on progress of the eir 300k rollout will be published on the Departments website. The Q1 figures have been verified by my Department and the eir rollout is in line with the Commitment Agreement.
In April I published an updated High Speed Broadband Map which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie. This map finalises the State Intervention Area for the procurement process and is an important milestone in the procurement process. The Map shows the extent of the State Intervention area and also the areas targeted for commercial services.
- The BLUE areas represent those areas where commercial telecommunications providers are either currently delivering or have indicated plans to deliver high speed broadband services,
- The AMBER areas on the High Speed Broadband Map represent the areas that will require State Intervention and are the subject of the current procurement process.
The following table details the number of premises to be covered by the State Intervention and through commercial investment in the areas identified by the Deputies and sets out the position at end 2016.
* These figures will reduce as the rural deployment is rolled out.
There are approximately 2.3m premises covering Ireland’s 26 counties, of which approximately 542,000 (23%) premises are located in the AMBER area on the Map. These premises will require State intervention and are the focus for the State Intervention procurement process. The remaining 1.8m premises are located in the BLUE areas and will be/are served by commercial operators. Of the 1.8m premises, 1.4m are already within a high speed broadband area and a further 300,000 premises fall within eir’s plans to deliver rural high speed broadband between now and end 2018 (Light BLUE on map). Information on eir's planned rural deployment is available at http://fibrerollout.ie/eircode-lookup/.
My Departments High Speed Broadband map www.broadband.gov.ie. provides information on a county by county basis with a breakdown of coverage across the townlands in every county. Individuals can themselves check whether their premises is in a BLUE or an AMBER area by accessing the High Speed Broadband Map and entering their Eircode.
My Department is running a formal procurement process to select a company or companies who will roll-out a new high speed broadband network within the State Intervention Area. The State Intervention network will be a wholesale network and retail service providers will be able to use the network to provide enhanced broadband services to their customers.
The procurement process is being intensively managed, to ensure an outcome that delivers a future-proofed network that serves homes and businesses across Ireland, for at least 25 years. The three bidders have indicated that they are proposing a predominantly fibre-to-the-home solution. A fibre-to-the-home solution means that householders and businesses may get speeds not just of 30 Megabits per second but much higher, potentially up to 1000 Megabits per second.
With the finalisation of the map and following extensive dialogue with bidders, the procurement is progressing to the next stage. On 20 June 2017, my Department wrote to the three bidders in the NBP procurement process inviting them to submit their “Detailed Solutions” by 26 September 2017. The 'Detailed Solutions' will then be reviewed before the final tender is issued. The NBP procurement process will then move to the next stage where a preferred bidder will be appointed.
The timeframe for the procurement continues to be dependent on a range of factors including the complexities that may be encountered by the procurement team and bidders, during the procurement process. During the Department's extensive stakeholder consultations in 2015, telecommunications service providers indicated a 3-5 year timeline to rollout a network of the scale envisaged under the NBP, once contracts are in place.
The Department will engage with winning bidder(s) on the best rollout strategy, in order to target areas of particularly poor service, business needs and/or high demand.
The rate of demand for data services has increased exponentially in the last four years and this presents a continuing challenge for telecommunication operators, regulators and policy makers both in Ireland and internationally. Recognising this challenge, I specifically included in the Programme for Government a commitment to a Mobile Phone and Broadband Task force. In July 2016, I established the Task Force together with Minister Humphreys to identify immediate solutions to broadband and mobile phone coverage deficits and investigate how better services could be provided to consumers, prior to the full build and roll-out of the network planned under the National Broadband Plan State intervention. The report of the Task Force was published in December and is available on both Departments' websites.
In producing this report, the Task Force worked with Departments, local authorities, ComReg, State agencies, the telecoms industry and other key stakeholders. The report contains 40 actions that will alleviate some of the telecommunications deficits across Ireland and the implementation programme on mobile phone and broadband access identifies 19 of these actions as areas where immediate and direct action by Departments and State agencies can ensure accelerated benefits to consumers.
In order to maintain momentum created by the Task Force, I, together with Minister Humphreys, established an Implementation Group. This group is driving and monitoring the implementation of the actions, bringing together all key stakeholders identified in the Task Force report with responsibility for delivery. This group will be formally reporting every 90 days on progress made on all actions. I published the first such quarterly progress report on 13th June 2017, which is available on my Department's website at www.dccae.gov.ie/documents/Taskforce%20Q1%20Progress%20Report.pdf and which shows that considerable progress has been made, particularly in relation to the implementation of actions identified for Q1 2017.
The work of the Task Force will also assist local authorities in preparing for the roll-out of the new NBP network once contracts are in place.
In addition, following regulations which I signed last year, ComReg recently announced the results of its auction for the 3.6GHz radio spectrum band, which means an 86% increase in spectrum capacity to meet the growing demand for mobile and wireless broadband services across rural and urban areas. The Regulator has awarded 15 year licences for the rights of use in this band which will provide a degree of stability and create future investment certainty. Spectrum was also awarded in lots covering 9 urban and rural regions across the country.
In my Department's Estimates for 2017, I have secured an €8 million provision for RTE to allow it to free up the 700 MHz spectrum band. ComReg in turn will make plans to allocate this spectrum to provide for significantly enhanced mobile coverage. The 700 MHz band is particularly suited to rural environments where the signal can travel long distances.
These initiatives should assist in enhancing the quality of mobile phone and data services across Ireland and particularly in rural Ireland.
There is no universal service obligation (USO) for high speed broadband provision or mobile voice services in Ireland. The current EU and national regulatory framework for telecommunications relates solely to voice telephony and Functional Internet Access (28.8 kilobits per second) and is provided for under the current EU regulatory framework governing telecoms. In September 2016, the European Commission published an ambitious proposal for the regulation of the European telecoms sector, which aims to incentivise and encourage increased investment in high speed broadband networks. I have raised the issue of a USO for high speed broadband at EU level and I am seeking inclusion of a specific provision in the new framework that would allow Member States to apply a USO for high speed broadband, where such networks are available.
