The contract to deliver the National Broadband Plan (NBP) State led intervention was signed in November last with National Broadband Ireland (NBI). The NBP network will offer those premises, a high speed broadband service with a minimum download speed of 150Mbps from the outset. By the end of next year, NBI plans to pass in the region of 115,000 premises, with 70,000 - 100,000 passed each year thereafter until rollout is completed. All counties will see premises passed in the first 2 years and over 90% of premises in the State will have access to high speed broadband within the next four years. Design work is complete or ongoing in target townlands across 17 counties and steady progress is being made with over 40,000 premises surveyed to date. Further information on deployment activities associated with the rollout can be found on the NBI website www.nbi.ie.
I am aware that there are many premises in the Amber area that are close to premises that are passed by eir’s fibre network.
Eir’s 300k network is primarily focussed on rural towns and villages and the premises on their outskirts. Where this commercial operator's network ends is where the subsidised network being rolled by NBI in effect commences, to ensure that nobody is left behind. I appreciate the frustration of those individuals who are living so close to a fibre network but cannot get a connection to that network, particularly given the heightened importance of connectivity during the Covid-19 pandemic. The NBP will ensure that in all such cases a future proofed high speed broadband network will be built to serve these premises and work to deliver on this commenced earlier this year.
The Government is committed to delivering high speed broadband to every home, farm, business and school in Ireland and my Department continues to engage with NBI to explore the feasibility of accelerating aspects of this rollout to bring forward premises which are currently scheduled in years 6 and 7 of the deployment plan to an earlier date.
To support remote working and rural connectivity, locations for up to 300 Broadband Connections Points (BCPs) have been identified by Local Authorities. The BCP delivery project is well underway and connectivity is being provided to each of the sites by National Broadband Ireland (NBI). Subsequent to this, the sites, other than schools, are being Wi-Fi enabled by Vodafone under a contract with the Department of Rural and Community Development. This work also involves the local authorities and site owners determining the services that will be provided for end-users at each site. For the 75 schools that are also part of this project, enabling these schools with Wi-Fi is being led by the Department of Education following NBI providing the connectivity to the schools.
