Mr. Patrick Neary:

That is something we are doing. In 2019, we changed the designation of nearly 40,000 premises across the country from blue to amber because we recognised issues in those locations. It is from our analysis and from queries raised with the Department that we carry out investigations. Like that, one house can trigger a whole area being redesignated and that is what happened in 2019 in our latest change to the map. Previous to that, we brought 84,000 premises in during 2017. That is an exercise on which a team of people are working. We use a conduit of the broadband officers to highlight many issues such as that, consumers email the Department and on a case-by-case basis, we look through what operator we believe should be serving those premises. It is an important item to raise and to give visibility to and we will continue to work on it.

We are seeing that as NBI surveys an area, this triggers all the people in that area to check the map to see if they are in the intervention area. To date, 145,000 premises have been surveyed by NBI and those areas have been active in contacting the Department. There is a process in place that is triggering consumers to contact the Department in that respect. That is a key area of focus for the Department going forward.

The scheme we have today is based on a 30 Mbps test. That has been the basis of our state aid application. While that remains the test, we are seeing that the commercial activity is far and away beyond that in the blue areas. The NBI intervention project is delivering a 500 Mbps service as standard. We are seeing that the investment from industry on its services is outstripping that 30 Mbps dramatically. Commercial operators across the country are delivering a 250 Mbps and 500 Mbps service. Our test is still a 30 Mbps one and that is based on where our state aid decision was made.