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:

Yes. As we covered in our statement, we currently make revenue on our copper network in the intervention footprint in rural Ireland. We use that revenue to maintain our ducts and poles. When NBI rolls out its fibre network in the intervention footprint, our copper customers and the revenue they generate will migrate from our copper network onto NBI's network. NBI will get the revenue but we will still have to maintain the ducts and poles on which NBI is to build its network. That is where the €1 billion over 25 years for maintenance of ducts and poles comes from. If we were to build the fibre network we would still use our ducts and poles so the revenue we lose from copper customers would be recovered from fibre customers. We would use that revenue to maintain the ducts and poles as we do today.