Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 25 June 2019
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment
National Broadband Plan: Discussion (Resumed)
Ms Carolan Lennon:
No. If extra fibre is not being strung onto that network, fewer poles will need to be replaced. There is some confusion about this but it is not incremental revenue. We make money out of copper customers on that network today. We will lose that revenue when those copper customers migrate onto NBI's fibre network. If that happens, we will be making no money in that intervention area to maintain those poles and ducts. We will make that money through renting the poles and ducts to NBI and, over 25 years, we will get paid €1 billion and will spend €900 million, so we will make a small return.