Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 28 September 2023
89. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the extent to which sufficient progress is being made in the provision of broadband throughout the country in both urban and rural areas and in such a way as to meet the ever-growing demands in a competitive worldwide market; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41802/23]
View answerIn December 2022, my Department published Ireland's Digital Connectivity Strategy which supports the ambition outlined in the National Digital Strategy and sets out a number of ambitious targets, including that:
• all Irish households and businesses will be covered by a Gigabit network no later than 2028;
• all populated areas will be covered by 5G no later than 2030, and
• digital connectivity will be delivered to all schools and broadband connection points by 2023.
These targets will be achieved through a combination of commercial investments and through the State investment in National Broadband Ireland (NBI).
Commercial operators’ fibre rollouts are progressing at pace. Open eir, as part of their IFN fibre programme currently rolling out nationwide, plan to connect over 1.9m premises to their commercial fibre network by 2026. Open eir have already connected over 47,700 homes and businesses to gigabit services in Co. Kildare, with a further c.28,660 planned connections over the next 2 – 3 years, bringing their total fibre-based investment in the county to over €35m. Other commercial operators are also continuing to increase their network footprint right across the State, with SIRO recently reaching a milestone of enabling 520,000 premises for full fibre, and Virgin Media announcing plans to bring 2Gbps services to 345,000 premises through upgrade and expansion of their own network.
Along with the progress made by commercial operators’ in expanding their next generation networks throughout the State, the National Broadband Plan intervention contract provides for the roll out of a high speed and future-proofed broadband network to primarily rural areas. The intervention area covers over 1.1 million people living and working in over 560,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with some 679 schools.
I am advised by NBI that, as of 15th September 2023, 182,250 premises are passed across 26 counties and available for immediate connection. 53,695 premises are already connected to the NBP high-speed broadband network. In the Deputy’s own county of Kildare, over 4,000 homes and businesses have been passed by NBI and are available for immediate connection, with c. 1,260 of those now connected to the NBP State Intervention network.
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 15th September some 950 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 for publicly accessible sites and the Department of Education for school BCPs. Further details can be found at nbi.ie/bcp-locations/.
Recent ComReg data shows that Quarter 2, 2023 saw a 7.4% increase in fibre broadband subscriptions compared to the first 3 months of the year, and a 33.7% increase when compared to Quarter 2 of 2022. This demonstrates that take-up of fibre connectivity for homes and businesses is increasing massively as it is deployed to areas where it had previously been unavailable. The same ComReg data also indicates that c.40% of homes and business throughout the State now have access to gigabit services through either fibre (576,856) or cable (359,669) infrastructure.
