Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 16 July 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

National Broadband Plan: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Marcus Matthews:

To revert to the question on what infrastructure would be required, we are talking about the base station units themselves and a hybrid of backhaul broadband radios, which are slightly larger and bulk transport data from the site to the nearest access point. In some cases, if there is a particularly large number of premises in a given area, fibre would be run to the site. That is the beauty of the model. We are talking about fibre extension, not building huge swathes of network infrastructure. If one fibre extension is brought to the right geographical area, multiple broadband radio sites can be loaded on. Each one could have 160 to 200 customers. Very quickly, therefore, a large number of premises can be covered with the next generation access speeds we are talking about in a much more flexible and efficient way.

With regard to infrastructure, it is very scalable. That is the simple answer. It is not necessary to take up every road. Separate fibre extensions are installed and then technology of the kind I have referred to is used. It can be put up in an afternoon. One can connect a home in two hours. I refer to the antenna. One can see from the equipment I have to hand the antenna at the top of the stand. That is the sum total of it. One can run all the broadband services over the top of that. I refer to high-speed Internet access, a telephone service, television and whatever one wants. That is the sum total of the infrastructure.

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