I propose to take Questions Nos. 48, 49, 54, 57, 73, 79, 81, 560, 566, 576 and 587 together.
The National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to deliver high speed broadband services to every city, town, village and individual premises in Ireland. The Programme for Government commits to the delivery of the NBP as a matter of priority. This is being achieved through a combination of commercial investment by the telecommunications sector and a State intervention in those areas where commercial investment has not been fully demonstrated.
A key principle of the NBP is to support and stimulate commercial investment through policy and regulatory measures. Commercial investment since the publication of the NBP has considerably exceeded expectations. To date, the commercial telecommunications sector has invested over €2.5 billion in upgrading and modernising networks which support the provision of high speed broadband and mobile telecoms services.
There has been significant progress in relation to broadband rollout so that today, approximately 1.4 million or 61% of premises in Ireland can get high speed broadband of a minimum of 30 Megabits per second. The NBP has been a catalyst in encouraging investment by the telecoms sector, which is continuing to expand this footprint.
The High Speed Broadband Map, which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie shows the current extent of the State Intervention area:
- The areas marked BLUE represent those areas where commercial telecommunications providers are either currently delivering or have previously indicated plans to deliver high speed broadband services,
- The areas marked AMBER on the High Speed Broadband Map represent the target areas for the State Intervention, which are the subject of the current procurement process. It is intended that premises within this area will have access to services of at least 30 megabits per second when the procurement process is completed and the network rolled out.
Of the 186 premises in Ballinora, County Cork, 160 are within the Blue area that will be served by commercial operators.
In the case of Tullyallen, Co. Louth, 86% of the premises in the townland identified, including the individual address mentioned, fall within the Blue area, with the remainder to be covered by the NBP State Intervention.
The map indicates that the townlands of Piercetown, Toberultan and Garistown in Co Meath are within the AMBER area and will therefore, be included in the State Intervention procurement process under the NBP.
There are c. 82,000 premises in County Meath, of which approximately 31,000 (38%) are located in the Amber area on the Map, and will benefit from the NBP’s State Intervention. The remaining 51,000 (62%) premises are located in the commercial blue area and will be served by commercial operators.
Approximately 41,000 (49%) of the circa 84,000 premises in County Tipperary are located in the Amber area with the remaining 43,000 (51%) to be served by commercial operators.
Individuals can check whether their premises are in a BLUE or an AMBER area by accessing the High Speed Broadband Map and entering their Eircode.
My Department is actively monitoring commercial deployment plans in the BLUE areas to ensure that all households and businesses can get access to the services. My Department is also actively monitoring developments of commercial operators that might impact the Intervention Area. This is being done in accordance with procedures set out by my Department in December 2015.
I should add, however, that the provision of telecommunications services, including broadband services, is a matter for the service providers concerned who operate in a fully liberalised market, regulated by the independent regulator, the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg). I do not have a statutory authority to require commercial companies to rollout services to particular locations.
A formal procurement process is in train to select a company or companies who will roll-out a new high speed broadband network within the State Intervention Area. My Department will shortly update the High Speed Broadband map to finalise the Intervention Area for the Procurement process, taking into account industry investments that have not materialised in Blue areas, together with new industry investments within the proposed State Intervention Area, along with concrete and credible commitments by industry for further new investments within the Intervention Area.
The procurement process is being intensively managed, to ensure an outcome that delivers a future-proofed network that serves homes and businesses across Ireland, for at least 25 years. Intensive dialogue with bidders is continuing and the three bidders have indicated that they are proposing a predominantly fibre-to-the-home solution. This provides for a future proofed solution for the 25 years of the contract and beyond. A fibre-to-the-home solution means that householders and businesses may get speeds not just of 30 Megabits per second but much higher, potentially up to 1000 Megabits per second.
The timeframe for the procurement continues to be dependent on a range of factors including the complexities that may be encountered by the procurement team and bidders, during the procurement process. During the Department's extensive stakeholder consultations in 2015, telecommunications service providers indicated a 3-5 year timeline to rollout a network of the scale envisaged under the NBP.
As part of the competitive process, the Department will engage with winning bidder(s) on the best rollout strategy, in order to target areas of particularly poor service, business needs and/or high demand. This will need to be balanced with the most efficient network rollout plan. A prioritisation programme will be put in place in this regard, in consultation with the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. A detailed rollout plan for the network will be published once contract(s) are in place.
The Programme for Government also commits to measures to assist in the rollout of the network once a contract is awarded. In this regard, Minister Humphreys is leading on the establishment of two regional action groups, working with Local Authorities, Local Enterprise Offices and other relevant agencies to help accelerate the broadband network build in rural Ireland, once a contract(s) has been awarded.
In a further positive initiative, last July, I established a Mobile Phone and Broadband Taskforce with my colleague Minister Humphreys to address immediate issues in relation to the quality of mobile phone and broadband coverage. The Taskforce report which was published in December, is available on my Department's website.
I have signed Regulations allowing ComReg to proceed with the allocation of spectrum in the 3.6GHz band, in early 2017. This will provide an 86% increase in total spectrum available for mobile and fixed wireless services. I have also secured €8m for RTE which will allow it to free up the 700MHz spectrum band, to provide enhanced mobile services.
These investments should assist in significantly improving the coverage and quality of broadband and mobile voice and data services throughout the country.
