Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 23 May 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Commission for Communications Regulation Performance Review: Discussion

5:00 pm

Photo of James LawlessJames Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Mr. Godfrey can explain to me how that person can get in contact. The difficulties certain rural areas face are well established, as is the criticality of having broadband in all of these areas. Something that strikes me is the inconsistency in the map. I represent a constituency on the periphery of Dublin, namely, Kildare North, which in many ways could be considered part of the greater Dublin areas and is very much part of the commuter belt. We have huge gaps, so it is not just an issue for very rural areas. From studying the broadband map and the national broadband plan map, which will be discussed in later questions, there are lanes, boreens and rural roads which one might anticipate may still have difficulties, which I hope are being addressed, but there seems to be no particular logic as to why one road has service provision and one does not. In the national broadband plan map, some boreens are in light blue areas and others are in amber areas. ComReg does not provide the service but it regulates how it is provided. Is ComReg aware of why an operator runs fibre up one rural road but not the road beside it and does not have plans to do so? We have heard about geographic coverage. I would have thought an area would be covered in totality before an operator moved on to another area, but it seems to be very much hotchpotch and I am trying to understand how this arises. Is there anything ComReg can do to give a direction that one area is finished before another is started?