Anne Rabbitte
Question:1265. Deputy Anne Rabbitte asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment when a location (details supplied) will receive an improvement in broadband speed. [54441/17]
View answerTuesday, 16 January 2018
Questions (1265)
Written answers
The Government's National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to ensure high speed broadband access (minimum 30 megabits per second) to all premises in Ireland, regardless of location. The NBP has been a catalyst in encouraging investment by the telecoms sector so that today over 67% of the 2.3m premises in Ireland have access to high speed broadband and this is set to increase to 77% (1.8m premises) by the end of 2018 and to 90% (2.1m premises) by the end of 2020.
In April 2017 I signed a Commitment Agreement with eir in relation to its plans to provide broadband to an additional 300,000 premises in rural areas on a commercial basis. A copy of the Commitment Agreement is available on my Department's website www.dccae.gov.ie. The Eircode referenced by the Deputy forms part of this deployment.
While the full programme of work is due to be completed by the end of 2018, more precise information on eir's planned rural deployment is available from eir at http://fibrerollout.ie/eircode-lookup/. Citizens can access this website to determine the connectivity availability status for their premises using their eircode. The website also provides a list of retail service providers who offer services using high speed fibre network in the area.