Information and Communications Technology.

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 February 2010

Tuesday, 23 February 2010

Ceisteanna (458)

Paul Kehoe

Ceist:

515 Deputy Paul Kehoe asked the Minister for Education and Science the steps he will take to address the situation whereby schools being served by satellite broadband are not achieving reasonable speeds; his views on the fact that the students and teachers in schools without access to high speed broadband are being disadvantaged vis-à-vis their peers in other schools, in view of the fact that his Department should only be used as a last resort; his further views on the fact that it is therefore incumbent upon him to address this disadvantage; if it is possible for him to liaise with the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to have Eircom exchanges digital subscriber lines enabled for schools that are currently experiencing very poor speeds with satellite broadband; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9023/10]

Freagraí scríofa

Minister for Education and Science (Deputy Batt O’Keeffe)

All broadband contracts under the Schools Programme were retendered last year and new contracts were signed from September onwards. Under these new contracts it is expected that there will be approximately a 50% decrease in the number of schools reliant on satellite. The exact number of schools that will be reliant on satellite will not be known until the migration to the new services is complete and the level of technology failure is known.

For those schools that remain reliant on satellite, where a wireless or DSL solution becomes available they will be migrated to the improved service as soon as is practicable. Furthermore some schools on satellite should also see an improvement in their service as bandwidth speeds to a number of schools has been increased depending on their size.