Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 7 November 2023
180. Deputy Jennifer Whitmore asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications if he is aware that the delivery of the National Broadband Ireland plan has been beset by further delays in rural Wicklow; if the new timeframe advised in October 2023 will be adhered to; and if he will conduct a review on the management of the plan, given NBI’s repeated failure to deliver the service to schedule. [48811/23]
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 commercial operators investing in their networks, complemented by the State’s National Broadband Plan (NBP) intervention. When taken together, all premises in the State will have access to high-speed broadband in every part of the country no matter how remote.
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.
National Broadband Ireland (NBI) advise that as of 27th October 2023, 191,146 premises are passed across 26 counties and available for immediate connection. 58,332 premises are already connected to the NBP high-speed broadband network.
Furthermore, as of 31st October 6,836 premises in County Wicklow have now been passed by NBI with a high-speed fibre broadband network and available for immediate connection, with 1,800 premises now connected.
However, NBI has faced a range of challenges due to the sheer scale and complexity of rolling out fibre to the home in a rural environment. These include significant tree trimming works to ensure cable can be placed on overhead poles, remediation of ducting that has been in place for many decades, the co-ordination of hundreds of contracting crews and addressing the many issues arising week on week which could not have been foreseen until the build crews commenced work on the ground. And while NBI were able to bring forward the completion dates for a number of deployments around the country, there were other instances, such as in the case of Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow where there was no other option but reschedule the build dates for those areas.
Further details are available on specific areas within County Wicklow and can be monitored via nbi.ie/reps. A county update can be selected to provide the overall number of premises in the Intervention Area, the overall NBP investment in the county, the number of premises passed and connected to date and the status of each of the Deployment Areas with the anticipated date for connection over the lifetime of the project. NBI has a dedicated email address, reps@nbi.ie, which can be used by Oireachtas members for specific queries.
Commercial operators’ fibre rollouts are progressing at pace. Open eir have already passed over 26,000 homes and businesses in Wicklow with gigabit services, with plans to pass a further c.26,150 homes and businesses over the next 2 – 3 years, bringing their total fibre-based investment in the county to over €23m. Other commercial operators are also continuing to increase their network footprint right across country, with SIRO recently passing over 520,000 premises for full fibre and is on track to reach 700,000 premises by 2026. While Virgin Media have passed over 69,000 premises, and have announced plans to bring 2Gbps services to 345,000 premises, through an upgrade and expansion of their own network, and to bring gigabit broadband upgrades to 1 million premises.
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 businesses throughout the State now have access to gigabit services through either fibre (576,856) or cable (359,669) infrastructure.
