Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

It has the ability to cater for increased speeds over time. The 22-month period mentioned is the time it will take for the infrastructure to be put in place to cover all the districts to be covered. The cost to people will be similar to costs for what is available in the rest of the country and a cap will be set above which costs cannot go during the five year period. I cannot give the cost details of the contract until contracts have been signed, in the next week or so.

One of the key benefits of the contract is that it does not restrict other operators from developing services such as opening exchanges, providing cable, mobile or fixed wireless solutions. This is a further step towards a competitive, universal, ubiquitous service throughout the country. This is significant.

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