Mr. Conal Henry:

The technology used to provide the service is always changing and 4G mobile, known as LTE or long term evolution, will be very impressive technology. It will be available in Ireland after the upcoming spectrum auction.

We are not involved in that at all so I am not at liberty to talk about it. We do not have any horse in that race. What I describe will allow mobile operators to deploy the next generation of fast broadband. I am not a technologist so the members would need to talk to one. I do not have much visibility beyond what I have outlined.

It is important that the members understand the role of fibre. Fibre, although a technology of sorts, is actually a means of distributing the technology. There is nobody in communications globally saying the position of fibre distribution will always remain the same. Traffic is gathered, largely wirelessly these days from a Wi-Fi or mobile network, and distributed in a wired way over fibre. Fibre uses the physics of light. One fibre the width of a human hair could carry all the voice traffic in Western Europe. With regard to physics, fibre is exponentially better than certain other technologies. Deploying fibre will create the capacity for whatever types of technology are being used by the consumer. The more fibre, the better the quality of all the networks. MAN networks, WiMAX broadband, 3G broadband, LLU broadband and cable television broadband are all coming onto the fibre networks. Fibre is critical to all the technologies.