I recognise how vital telecommunications services are to citizens for so many aspects of their daily lives, including remote working, studying and staying in touch with family members during the Covid-19 crisis. In April of last year, all major telecommunications providers in Ireland committed to a number of measures to help people stay in touch and work from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, a number of operators have implemented further supports for consumers, such as for students in education, who require a high data usage package, by increasing data limits on many existing packages and by the introduction of new packages with very high, or unlimited data offerings. As a result, the market for mobile packages with very high, or unlimited data offerings, is becoming increasingly competitive, which is a positive development for consumers.
Those commitments were further supported through regulations made under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1926, enabling ComReg to release additional rights of use for radio spectrum on a temporary basis. Ministerial consent was granted for this framework proposed by the regulator to provide flexibility for mobile network operators to create additional capacity for mobile phone and broadband services and accommodate the increased demand due to Covid 19 related working and studying from home. Licences were issued to three mobile network operators and renewed on a number of occasions with the most recent renewal valid until 1 April 2021.
The National Broadband Plan (NBP) State led Intervention is being delivered by National Broadband Ireland (NBI) to roll out a high speed and future proofed broadband network within the Intervention Area which covers 1.1 million people living and working in the nearly 540,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with 695 schools.
The NBP network will offer users a high speed broadband service with a minimum download speed of 500Mbps from the outset. The deployment plan forecasts premises passed in all counties within the first 2 years and over 90% of premises in the State having access to high speed broadband within the next four years.
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 3 March, 287 publicly accessible BCP sites have been installed by NBI and the high speed broadband service will be switched on in these locations through service provider contracts managed by the Department of Rural and Community Development.
Bringing connectivity to remote rural locations is central to promoting regional development and BCPs represent an important delivery in the early stages of the National Broadband Plan.
