Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 May 2019
539. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the unit price of cable per kilometre in the context of the national broadband plan; the number of optic strands per cable line; the price of infrastructure rental; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21654/19]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe unit price of cable per kilometre is information which is commercially sensitive within the telecommunications sector, as this fibre is sourced on the open commercial market. To disclose such information could allow suppliers to gain an unfair advantage and be disadvantageous to the National Broadband Plan (NBP) State intervention as a whole. The design of the NBP State intervention network calls for both overhead and underground sections of cable and the final 'drop' cable used to make the final connection to premises (either overhead or underground). The number of fibre strands in a particular section will depend on the route design. Each route is specifically designed following a detailed site survey and the route cables are dimensioned to cater for existing and planned (at the time of deployment) premises. The cable dimensioning will include an additional fibre allowance to cater for future capacity requirements.
NBI have proposed to rent infrastructure from eir and enet as part of their deployment plan. The main categories of infrastructure involved are; poles, ducts, and co-location space. The rental price of the eir infrastructure to be used for this project is set by ComReg.
Both eir and enet publish a range of rental prices on their websites. For example, the cost information relating to eir's rental cost co-location space is available at the following link: https://www.openeir.ie/Reference_Offers/?selectedtab=aro. enet has published its permitted maximum pricing for ducts, co-location etc. at the following link https://www.enet.ie/wholesale-pricing.html)
Information on the cost of renting eir's poles and ducts is available in the recent ComReg Decision notice, available at the following link:
https://www.comreg.ie/publication/pricing-of-eiras-wholesale-fixed-access-services-response-to-consultation-document-1567-and-final-decision/
