Ms Mairead Cullen:

A number of questions were asked about differences between operators and the different experience people have in their homes. While all of us represent the industry, our companies also compete. Network differentiation is one of the key aspects on which we compete and it is one that we signal to our customers. For this reason, customers will experience differences because the companies provide services in different locations. While all the companies are all rolling out new and innovative technology, how this is done and at what specific locations it is done may differ. We are being continuously pushed by our customers to extend both our reach and our new technologies. Customers will, therefore, experience differences.

A question was asked about certain areas that are still not served by broadband. We have outlined the barriers that have faced us for many years as we seek to address some areas. I assure members that technology is evolving, particularly on the mobile side, and one of the new innovative technologies available to us is to reuse spectrum that was previously used on 2G and re-purpose it on 3G technologies. The laws of physics dictate that one achieves a much greater reach than previously when one uses this lower band spectrum. It is possible to do this from existing sites and while we face barriers, technology is also helping us to evolve from our existing sites. As this technology rolls out, coverage will be extended to areas that have not been served without new sites being added to the network.

A highly technical question was asked on down-link and up-link speeds and ping times. On typical applications such as the speed tests that are available on mobile devices, the down-link and up-link speeds represent the throughput rate one is able to receive. What this means in terms of packages is that video use requires a higher throughput speed to enable the data to go up and down. A higher upload speed is required to facilitate, for example, the uploading of photographs to a Facebook site. The ping measure represents the latency on the network, in other words, how responsive the network is to packets of data going from one destination and coming back. Typically, we seek to improve this measure because it needs to be highly responsive for interactive types of services such as gaming services. The effect of these metrics on a customer's experience will depend on the service he or she is using.