National Broadband Plan Implementation

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 28 May 2019

Tuesday, 28 May 2019

Questions (342)

Willie Penrose

Question:

342. Deputy Willie Penrose asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the number of cases in which he estimates that connections will cost over €5,000 in relation to the national broadband plan; the proposed additional payment in such circumstances beyond the flat €100 fee suggested; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22810/19]

Written answers

Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Through the analysis conducted to date, National Broadband Ireland (NBI) does not anticipate that there will be many premises that will involve a high cost to connect. The Department and NBI have completed high level designs to determine the quantities of existing infrastructure that can be re-used and quantities of new infrastructure that will need to be deployed to deliver the NBP State intervention. In addition, NBI has completed a number of low-level designs to corroborate the assumptions made in the high level designs. My Department has separately completed several network models and associated cost models down to the premises level. The high level designs take into account the various passive infrastructure databases (i.e. buildings, poles and ducts) as well as the Eircode database of premises. This analysis indicates that nearly 99% of the premises in the intervention area are 150 metres or less from the road and the vast majority of these are less than 50m.

Once the deployment commences a detailed design process will be conducted by NBI which is referred to as the low-level design. This low level design includes a detailed site survey of each route and each premises to be served on that route. The site survey will confirm what infrastructure is in place and what infrastructure will be required in order to enable a connection to be made to each premises. Every effort will be made to reduce costs by utilising existing infrastructure. In cases where there are ‘difficult to serve’ premises that could involve a high cost to connect, NBI will consider alternative solutions to deliver the high speed broadband service.