Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 8 October 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications

Mobile Telephone Coverage and High Speed Broadband Availability: Discussion

9:30 am

Mr. Kevin O'Brien:

Yes. The slide on display gives a high-level overview of the communications market today. We have an active and vibrant communications market. There is a rapid pace of change with operators continually making available new products and new applications. On the slide now on display, members can see some of the statistics that capture marketplace trends. We have a high penetration of mobile phones and smartphones are becoming increasingly popular. We consume digital content in a myriad of ways. The marketplace has become much more competitive with approximately 50 active operators. While basic broadband generally is available to all households, the current step change is in the shift to high-speed mobile and fixed networks.

The next slide in some ways represents progress over the past 18 months. When I spoke to the committee on these issues in March 2013, we were at the beginning of Eircom's roll-out of next-generation access.

As of a few weeks ago, Eircom has passed 1 million premises with its high-speed fibre product and it has a target of 1.6 million by the end of 2016. It is worth mentioning there are approximately 2.3 million addresses in the country. At this stage, Eircom's stated ambition is to get to 1.6 million with the high-speed service. The UPC network with which many of the members will be familiar now passes 850,000 houses in the country, with 90% of these being offered high-speed broadband. The committee will be familiar with the entry of Sky into the marketplace. A long-time provider of satellite television, Sky now offers retail broadband services.

BT not longer sells directly into the residential market but it plays an important part in investment behind the scenes where it reuses a lot of the Eircom infrastructure. That BT platform in Ireland is now offering a service to 65% of households.

Members will be familiar with the proposed joint venture between Vodafone and ESB, which was the subject of legislation passing through the Oireachtas a couple of months ago. The stated ambition of Vodafone and ESB is, in the first phase, to provide a service to 500,000 homes outside of the Dublin area and into more regional and rural areas.

Members will be familiar with ComReg's spectrum auction in late 2012. The auction raised over €840 million for the Exchequer. Importantly, there were four winners of spectrum at that stage, resulting in a competitive landscape and allowing those operators to move to start to roll-out 4G mobile networks. Something significant that was finalised a couple of months ago was the merger of 3 and O2, two of the mobile operators in the marketplace. It will be interesting over time to see the results of that merger.

As I mentioned, 4G has commenced. Already, there are 300,000 4G subscriptions in play in the country. The final point on this slide relates to Wi-Fi. How consumers digest broadband is changing. They are doing it much more on the move, with smart devices. The growth in public Wi-Fi hotspots reflects this change in how we consume telecommunications services.

I will hand over to my colleague, Mr. Jeremy Godfrey, to present a number of slides on the fixed-line sector.