There has been significant progress in broadband roll out and broadband quality over recent years. According to ComReg's latest Quarterly Report for Q4/2009, 68% of residential subscriptions in Ireland and 75% of non-residential subscriptions are in the 2-10 Mbps range. Only 19% of the non residential subscriptions and only 25% of the residential subscriptions are in the 1–2 Mbps range. Higher speeds, in some cases up to 50Mbps are also available to residential and SME customers in urban areas. Speeds of up to 24Mbps are becoming more generally available from DSL providers and 30Mbps products are available from the main cable operator.
The provision of telecommunications services, including broadband services, is a matter for electronic communications service providers who operate in a fully liberalised market. In cases of market failure the Government will intervene, where appropriate and possible. Government policy pertaining to the electronic communications market in Ireland is set out in "Next Generation Broadband — Gateway to a Knowledge Ireland", which I published in June 2009.
The Government has undertaken a number of initiatives to bring broadband to those parts of the country where operators have been unable to offer services on a commercial basis. In the case of the National Broadband Scheme (NBS), 3 is progressing its network roll-out and NBS broadband services are now available in more than 60% of the 1,028 designated Electoral Divisions (ED) to be covered under the Scheme. Under the NBS contract, all EDs in the NBS Coverage Area are required to have broadband connectivity by end September 2010. It is accepted that even after the full roll-out of the NBS there will still be isolated incidents of premises outside areas covered by the NBS scheme that will not be capable of receiving broadband services. This is primarily due to technical and other reasons (suitability of a telephone line, distance from an enabled exchange, no line of sight, etc.).
The European Commission has set aside a portion of the European Economic Recovery Plan (EERP) funding for rural broadband initiatives and given State Aid approval to a rural broadband scheme. In this context, my Department is currently progressing the detailed design and implementation of such a scheme which would be available to unserved rural premises outside of the NBS areas.
