Denise Mitchell
Question:78. Deputy Denise Mitchell asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications when a location (details supplied) will have access to multiple broadband suppliers. [8751/24]
View answerTuesday, 27 February 2024
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Written answers
In December 2022, the 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 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 High-Speed Broadband Map, which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie, shows the areas included in the National Broadband Plan (NBP) State led intervention, as well as areas targeted by commercial operators. The map is colour-coded and searchable by address and Eircode. Premises in the AMBER area will be provided with high-speed broadband through the State led Intervention via National Broadband Ireland (NBI). The BLUE area represents those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering, or have plans to deliver high speed broadband services.
Marino, Dublin 3 is in the BLUE commercial area. The Department defines high-speed broadband as a connection with minimum speeds of 30Mbps download and 6Mbps upload. The activities of commercial operators delivering high-speed broadband within BLUE areas are not planned or funded by the State and the Department has no statutory authority to intervene in that regard.
If a person lives in the BLUE area and after contacting their Retail Service Provider are told they cannot get access to greater than 30Mbps, they should raise a query via the DECC webform at: secure.dccae.gov.ie/forms/NBP-Customer-Service.aspx and DECC will escalate with open eir to investigate this matter further.
Commercial operators’ fibre rollouts are progressing at pace. Open eir have already passed over over 1.1 million homes. SIRO has recently reached a milestone of enabling over 545,000 premises for full fibre and is on track to reach 700,000 premises by 2026. Virgin Media recently announced a €200 million investment plan to upgrade its cable network to bring full fibre to up to 1 million premises over the next three years, to date it has passed 252,000 premises with full fibre.
Recent ComReg data shows that Quarter 2 of 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 substantially 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.