Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I cannot avoid the conclusion that many parts of rural Ireland are going to be left with mobile broadband. One of the few good things the Government did was set out a legislative basis for using the electricity network to provide fibre wrapped broadband throughout the country. In respect of state aid rules, surely the Government could decide to provide a fibre wrapped network to every house and connection on the ESB network, which would then be made available to all the commercial operators. This would be similar to the way in which the Eircom network was unbundled. That option would ensure that the broadband deficit would be dealt with in a way that would give equal access to everybody in this country to the benefits of broadband. At this stage, speeds of 30 Mbps are nearly obsolete. We need to be looking at 100 Mbps or more to deliver an adequate broadband service. The only way of meeting this objective is by fibre wrapping the electricity network and subsequently opening it up to market forces, or whatever forces one wants, to provide the end service to consumers.

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