Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 18 January 2018
261. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment when fibre broadband will be installed in an area (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2593/18]
View answerThe 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 I published an updated High Speed Broadband Map which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie . This map shows the areas targeted by commercial operators to provide high speed broadband services and the areas that will be included in the State Intervention Area under the National Broadband Plan (NBP).
The Map is colour coded and searchable by address/eircode:
- The AMBER areas represent the target areas for the proposed State led Intervention under the NBP and are the subject of an ongoing procurement process.
- The BLUE represent those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have plans to deliver high speed broadband services.
- The light BLUE areas represent eir's commercial rural deployment plans to rollout high speed broadband to 300,000 premises by the end of 2018 as part of a Commitment Agreement signed with me in April.
According to the High Speed Broadband Map there are 2 AMBER premises in the townland of Gortahoosh which lie in the NBP State led Intervention area, 1 LIGHT BLUE premises which will receive a connection as part of eir’s planned rural deployment and 45 BLUE premises which have already been passed as part of said deployment.
My Department is in a formal procurement process to select a company or companies who will roll-out a new high speed broadband network in the State intervention or AMBER area.
For those in the LIGHT BLUE area, information on eir's planned rural deployment, including rollout timelines, is available at http://fibrerollout.ie/eircode-lookup/.
Those BLUE premises which have been passed by eir as part of their ongoing rural deployment can visit http://fibrerollout.ie/rollout-map/where-to-buy/ to see a list of the providers which are utilising the new rural deployment to deliver connectivity to high speed broadband.
