Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 15 July 2021
141. Deputy Anne Rabbitte asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications if he will provide details of the way new builds are incorporated into the National Broadband Plan if they do not have an Eircode at the time of initial rollout planning and are therefore not included in plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38716/21]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe National Broadband Plan (NBP) State led Intervention will be delivered by National Broadband Ireland (NBI) under a contract to roll out a high speed and future proofed broadband network within the Intervention Area which covers 1.1 million people living and working in over 544,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with 695 schools ensuring no premises is left behind. The NBP network will offer those premises in the Intervention Area a high speed broadband service with a minimum download speed of 500Mbps from the outset. It was a requirement of the Contract to provide high speed broadband services to all premises in the Intervention Area, including new premises built over the lifetime of the Contract. Therefore, NBI will be required to both pass and connect new premises in the Intervention Area over the 25 year term of the Contract.
The NBP High Speed Broadband Map which is available on my Department's website www.broadband.gov.ie shows the areas covered by the State led intervention as well as those targeted by commercial operators. The AMBER area represents the area to be served by the network to be deployed under the NBP State led intervention. BLUE areas are not included in the State intervention area covered by the NBP, as commercial operators are already providing high speed broadband or have indicated future plans to do so. My Department defines high speed broadband as a connection with minimum speeds of 30Mbps download and 6Mbps upload. The activities of commercial operators delivering high speed broadband within BLUE areas are not planned or funded by the State and my Department has no statutory authority to intervene in that regard.
An Post collects information on new and existing buildings, as well as changes to existing addresses, and Ordnance Survey Ireland provides the geo-locations for these buildings. An Post GeoDirectory issues a new release of the GeoDirectory database file on a quarterly basis to the Department which enables a process to update the NBP map to take account of new builds in the intervention area. Any new premises that is captured in the GeoDirectory file that is located within the geographic area of the intervention area will be captured in the scope for the NBI rollout regardless of whether an eircode has been assigned.
