Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The national broadband plan will deal conclusively with rural connectivity issues so that current and future generations will have guaranteed access to high-quality, high-speed broadband. The network we wish to see built will, therefore, have to be scalable and capable of meeting future anticipated traffic growth. Whatever the technology used, it must ensure that users have a minimum service of 30 Mbps.

In line with EU competition rules, we must observe a policy of technology neutrality in any State intervention in a competitive market. However, the scale of the Government's ambition regarding the level of service we wish to see available in rural areas, the step change in broadband quality demanded by the European Commission's state aid guidelines, the exponential growth in demand from consumers, the ongoing significant improvement in services that are now available to many urban dwellers and businesses through commercial investment, and the current fibre deficit in much of rural Ireland all point to a major role for fibre in resolving this issue.

In line with the provisions of the state aid guidelines, we are likely to adopt an approach that will see fibre networks as close as possible to end users. Through a variety of technology platforms, retail telecommunications providers would then be able to use this wholesale network to offer services to the final customer. Last April, the then Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, announced that as a first step it was clear that at least 1,100 villages, 78 of which were in Donegal, would require fibre backhaul connectivity. Since then, Eircom has announced that two of these villages, Carrick and Gweedore, will be covered under its eFibre roll-out. The remainder of the villages in Donegal remain firmly part of the programme. There are 2,644 townlands in Donegal and 52,004 premises, of which 52% will be covered by State-led intervention and 48% will have received high-speed broadband from the commercial sector by the end of 2016.

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