Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

I expressed concern for technical reasons. There was real difficulty about how to provide the last mile access and the backhaul. I always acknowledged that these were long-term investments and that the fibre on open access would be widely used and that is starting to happen. I do not want to refer to any particular commercial contract because there are a series of new customers going onto the MANs but one of our largest mobile telephone companies is making a statement for the future by entering into a detailed contract with a management service company on those first phase MANs to start providing that last mile access and link into the MANs. These are long-term investments and such is the speed and increase in data traffic volumes ahead of what anyone expected that the fibre network will be a major long-term asset. That is starting to happen.

There are still difficulties.

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