Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The State-owned metropolitan area networks, MANs, have played an important role in driving competition in the regions and have facilitated large and small retail service providers operating in a fully liberalised market in providing high-speed broadband services without having to build their own networks. The MANs provide a link between national backhaul networks and the so-called last mile access networks that deliver telecommunications services to citizens and businesses.

The 88 MANs, which cover 94 regional towns and cities, are managed, maintained, marketed and operated under a concession by a management services entity, MSE. The MSE provides fibre-based services and products to licensed telecommunications operators on a wholesale, open access basis. The MSE operates on a commercial basis and the cost of connecting to the MAN must be recovered by the MSE. The MSE works with operators to encourage them to use the MANs to provide downstream services. The decision, however, to avail of the MANs is ultimately based on the operator's own commercial business case.

Under EU state aid rules, the State can only intervene in cases of clear market failure. Any question of subsidising connections to the MANs would come within the area of state aid. The current focus of policy is to deliver high-speed broadband services through a State-led intervention in the broadband market where market failure has been demonstrated. The proposed intervention will not be targeted at any individual operator or infrastructure. Instead, minimum service standards will be determined and operators such as e-net may bid to provide the infrastructure to deliver those services.

The mapping exercise under the national broadband plan shows that all MANs towns will have access to commercial high-speed broadband by the end of 2016. In this regard, under EU state aid rules, the State cannot further subsidise services in these areas. While take-up of the MANs by service providers was slow in the initial stages in part because the MANs were ahead of their time, the MSE has worked with service providers to enable them to connect to the MANs in a cost-effective manner and take-up has improved significantly over recent years.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

The number of connections to the MANs has more than doubled in recent years and more than 60 service providers are using the MANs infrastructure. It is estimated that in excess of 600,000 individuals and business users currently benefit from the MANs infrastructure. These end customers include industrial estates, multinationals, SMEs, State entities and educational institutions, as well as fixed and mobile customers outside Dublin.

While two of the 88 MANs - Banagher and Knock – are not currently in use, they are available and ready to meet demand for services as they arise. Demand for bandwidth continues to increase exponentially with the development of the digital economy, and this increase is expected to continue. As service providers bring optical fibre closer to their end users to meet this demand, the MAN networks are well-placed to serve the needs of service providers and their end users throughout their regional footprint for the foreseeable future.

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