Thomas Gould
Question:155. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications whether a distribution box could be installed to supply broadband to a house (details supplied). [42569/23]
View answerTuesday, 3 October 2023
Questions (155)
Written answers
In 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).
The Question refers to a premises located in the AMBER area on the National Broadband Plan (NBP) High Speed Broadband Map which is available on my Department's website broadband.gov.ie The AMBER area represents the area to be served by the network to be deployed under the NBP State led intervention.
NBI will roll out a high speed and future proofed broadband network within the intervention area which covers 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 22 September 2023, 182,250 premises are passed across 26 counties and available for immediate connection. 54,474 premises are already connected to the NBP high-speed broadband network. Furthermore, as of 31 August 22,036 premises in County Cork are passed with a high-speed fibre broadband network and available for immediate connection with 6,545 premises now connected.
NBI have advised that surveying for this area is pending. Surveys are needed to establish the condition of existing poles and ducts, to ascertain whether repairs are needed. NBI’s contractors walk the fibre route to inspect infrastructure and gather detailed information on local conditions and this work is on-going. Following survey work, NBI will carry out detailed designs and work on upgrading poles, ducts and rolling out the fibre cable will be carried out over the next twelve months. NBI’s current forecast date for delivery of the network to this premises is January 2025 – December 2026.
NBI have set out indicative dates as to when residents in this area will have full fibre broadband available to order. The detailed surveys and designs have not yet been completed and therefore it is not possible to give a definitive date for connection. As NBI are working across all counties and as the fibre deployment must start at the local exchange and work its way out towards more rural areas, it is not possible for NBI to accelerate the rollout to this Eircode to a date that is sooner than the estimated date.. However, every effort is being made to rollout the network as fast as possible.
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 15 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. In County Cork all 24 BCP’s have been installed.
The closest Broadband Connection Point is located at Courtbrack Community Centre, Cork, T23 NH22, which is now connected to high speed broadband. This is located approximately 0.21 km from premises referred to in the Question and provides an option for local residents to access quality broadband for free. Further details can be found at nbi.ie/bcp-locations/.
Further details are available on specific areas within County Cork through the NBI website which provides a facility for any premises within the intervention area to register their interest in being provided with deployment updates through its website nbi.ie. Individuals who register with this facility will receive regular updates on progress by NBI on delivering the network and specific updates related to their own premises as works commence. NBI has a dedicated email address, reps@nbi.ie, which can be used by Oireachtas members for specific queries.
In County Cork all 31 schools have been installed by NBI to date for educational access. My Department continues to work with the Department of Education to prioritise schools with no high speed broadband, within the Intervention Area. Further details of schools in scope are available on the NBI website at nbi.ie/primary-schools-list/.
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.