Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 13 January 2021
109. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the degree to which the national broadband plan continues at pace including the linking up of the various areas throughout the country in which the greatest efficiency occurs; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1890/21]
View answer112. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the degree to which high-speed, high-quality broadband is available throughout the country as a percentage of the total requirement; the progress towards dealing with the areas most poorly served at present; his anticipated targets by year end; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1893/21]
View answer114. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the extent to which he expects to meet the targets set for the provision of a satisfactory broadband service in all areas throughout the country; the measures being taken to address locations of particular deficiency in this regard; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1895/21]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 109, 112 and 114 together.
As of December over 153,000 premises across all counties have been surveyed by National Broadband Ireland (NBI) which is ahead of the full year survey target of 120,000 that had been projected by the company.
Nationally, NBI has construction underway on the first 19,237 premises, covering townlands in Carrigaline, Cavan, Galway, Limerick and Ballinasloe. The first connections to the NBI network have already been made as part of a test and trial phase in Carrigaline, which in some cases include successful integration with a Retail Service Provider (RSP), with additional trial premises planned to be connected in January. NBI is targeting construction to have commenced in all 26 counties at the end of 2021, with construction actively underway in 41 Deployment Areas, covering approximately 130,000 premises.
As a wholesale provider, NBI will work with RSPs to provide connections directly to customers and a list of all providers will be available on NBI’s website – nbi.ie/where-can-i-buy – once a connection can be ordered. In the meantime, NBI encourages people to register their interest via the website, so they can be notified with the latest information.
Broadband Connection Points (BCPs) are a key element of the NBP providing high speed broadband in every county in advance of the roll out of the fibre to the home network. As of December, some 241 BCP sites have been installed by NBI and will be connected with high speed publicly accessible broadband through a service provider contract managed by the Department of Rural and Community Development. School BCPs will be provided with high speed broadband for educational use and some 70 schools will be connected by the end of January through ‘service provider' contracts managed by the Department of Education.
The Programme for Government has committed to seek to accelerate the roll out of the National Broadband Plan. In this regard, my Department continues to engage with NBI to explore the feasibility of accelerating aspects of this rollout to establish the possibility of bringing forward premises which are currently scheduled in years 6 and 7 of the current plan to an earlier date. NBI has established a dedicated team to investigate acceleration of the rollout from its current contracted schedule of seven years. Substantial work has been completed by this team to date with further actions scheduled over the coming months. This includes an assessment of the potential to utilise the ESB Network for certain areas and this work is on-going. The technical feasibility of whether the ESB network is compatible with the NBI solution has been the primary focus and NBI have undertaken site surveys and developed a detailed design for a pilot area using the ESB network, with the aim of establishing from this pilot exercise, the feasibility of using the ESB infrastructure on a broader basis.
