Mr. Patrick Neary:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to address it on matters relating to broadband and mobile coverage in rural Ireland. My name is Patrick Neary and I am the chief technology officer in the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications. I am joined by my colleague, Mr. Fergal Mulligan, who is programme director for the National Broadband Plan. We look forward to discussing these matters with you today.

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of high-speed, quality, reliable broadband and mobile coverage to ensure that citizens in rural Ireland can participate in remote working, online schooling, shopping, critical video calls - both business-related and social - and a plethora of other online activities which most now take for granted.

With respect to mobile coverage and in order to assist mobile network operators, MNOs, to meet demand and maintain service levels during the pandemic, regulations were made in April under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1926 enabling ComReg to release additional rights of use for the radio spectrum on a temporary basis. This framework, established with the consent of the then Minister, enabled mobile network operators to create additional capacity across their mobile networks and accommodate the increased demand which arose earlier this year, particularly in suburban and rural areas. Licences were issued to the three mobile network operators, Three, Vodafone and Eir, on a temporary basis for three months. A further temporary licensing framework was put in place in October enabling licences to be issued for three months and ComReg is currently considering applications under this framework to allow licences to continue into March 2021.

Also in April this year, the main electronic communications providers signed up to a common set of commitments to assist and help their customers to stay in touch and work from home during the Covid-19 Pandemic. In light of the pandemic, operators, both fixed and mobile, reviewed their network capacity against the voice and data traffic demand and put in place measures to mitigate the risk of network congestion. As a consequence, and to the credit of the industry, the networks have remained stable throughout this period with their infrastructure remaining resilient despite being tested in an unprecedented manner. As members will appreciate, providing telecommunication services, including mobile services, is a matter for the relevant service providers operating in a fully liberalised market regulated by ComReg as independent regulator.

As set out by our colleagues from the Department of Rural and Community Development to this committee on 2 December last, the mobile phone and broadband taskforce has been a driving force for improving access to telecommunications services nationwide from the commercial sector. It has completed over 70 targeted actions to alleviate connectivity barriers and enhance information provided to consumers, and continues to tackle issues impeding the roll-out of essential infrastructure in rural areas.

With respect to broadband, of the 2.4 million premises across Ireland, 77% of premises now have access to high-speed broadband of more than 30 Mbps. National Broadband Ireland, NBI, is now tasked with addressing the remaining premises through the National Broadband Plan State intervention. In many parts of the country, very high capacity networks are now becoming the norm. For example, 40% of subscriptions are for services offering speeds in excess of 100 Mbps. There are more than 225,000 fibre subscriptions across the country, representing a 55% increase on last year. It is encouraging to note that a number of industry players have announced further investment plans in high-speed broadband. This includes Eir which has said it will roll out fibre to a further 1.4 million premises, bringing their fibre deployment to some 1.8 million premises. SIRO is currently completing the first phase of its fibre deployment which will see 375,000 premises passed with gigabit services. It is actively considering the scope of phase 2 of this project. Virgin Media is offering 250 Mbps as a standard offering with 500 Mbps and 1 Gbps available to many of their customers across the more than 1 million premises that they cover. It too is continuing to invest in upgrading its network. Many other network operators and telecom service providers across the State also continue to invest in their networks.

I will hand over to Mr. Mulligan who will outline the position on the National Broadband Plan.