Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 14 November 2023
80. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications whether his attention has been drawn to a matter (details supplied); and to detail what work his Department are conducting to address this issue in Bandon and across rural Ireland during the rollout of broadband. [49919/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraIn December 2022, my Department published Ireland's Digital Connectivity Strategy which supports the ambition outlined in the National Digital Strategy and sets out a number of ambitious targets, including that:
• all Irish households and businesses will be covered by a Gigabit network no later than 2028
• all populated areas will be covered by 5G no later than 2030, and
• digital connectivity will be delivered to all schools and broadband connection points by 2023
These targets will be achieved through commercial operators investing in their networks, complemented by the State’s National Broadband Plan intervention. When taken together, all premises in the State will have access to high-speed broadband in every part of the country no matter how remote.
The premises referred to in the question is connected to open eir’s cabinet number BND1_005 and is capable of getting 100Mbps. However, our data shows that this cabinet is full meaning there are currently no high speed broadband(HSBB) ports available too allow connection for the premises. While it may have been the case that the previous home occupant had broadband access via connection to the cabinet, once they moved out they ceased their service and the port allocated to this premises was given to another premises.
Open eir have informed my officials that they no longer upgrading capacity in copper cabinets as they are 100% focused on delivering fibre to these areas. The premises referred to was added to the open eir fibre upgrade plan in March 2023 and eir have advised that it should become fibre enabled in the coming 2 years (unless there are access issues).
I would advise the end user could raise a query via the DECC webform at secure.dccae.gov.ie/forms/NBP-Customer-Service.aspx and officials in my Department will escalate into open eir to try and get a port freed up but requests for this are not always successful due to the high demand for HSBB in these cabinets. In the interim your constituent could explore other options such as wireless broadband providers that can offer very good basic broadband while your constituent is waiting for the eir fibre connection.
