As set out in the Programme for Government, ensuring access to high-quality connectivity for people across Ireland is essential to the development of all parts of our country, socially and economically.
A key principle of the National Broadband Plan (NBP) is to support and stimulate commercial investment in telecommunications infrastructure. Since the publication of the NBP strategy in 2012, the commercial telecommunications sector has invested over €3 billion. This was primarily on upgrading and modernising networks which support the provision of high speed broadband and mobile telecommunications services. Today over 1.78m or 75% of premises in Ireland can access commercially available high speed broadband services. At end Q2 2020, fixed broadband subscriptions had increased to 1.49million, an increase of 3.4% compared to the same period in 2019. Of these, over 200,000 were fibre to the premises subscriptions, representing 13.5% of total fixed broadband subscriptions, reflecting an increase of 8.8% when compared to the same period in 2019.
Furthermore, and in respect of commercial development, eir has indicated that it is currently delivering fibre to the home services to 576,000 premises and have announced plans to increase this coverage to approximately 1.8 million homes over a 5 year period; SIRO has already passed over 340,000 premises with fibre to the home and plan to provide coverage to 365,000 by the end of this year; and Virgin Media now provides high speed broadband to almost 1million premises and are continuing to expand its services.
Significant additional investment is expected over the coming years which, in addition to the rollout of the NBP, will ensure that Ireland continues on an upward trajectory in terms of the high speed connectivity necessary to support the continued development of our digital economy and society.
