Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am advised by NBI that, as of 28 October 2022, over 97,000 premises can order or pre-order high-speed broadband connections. More than 87,700 premises have been passed and are ready for immediate connection. Construction is under way across 26 counties. This demonstrates that the project is reaching scale. NBI has advised that over 3,334 premises in County Louth are passed with a high-speed fibre broadband network and available for immediate connection.

The area referred to in the question is covered by the Riverstown deployment area. NBI advises the survey is complete in this area and it is due to be connected between January and June of 2024. The network roll-out for the national broadband plan is divided into 227 deployment areas across the country. Each area is approximately 25 km in radius. In total, the areas involved cover 96% of Ireland's landmass. The architecture of the network design is specifically based on the design of the NBI network coming from the Eir exchanges or the metropolitan area networks. It is based on an engineering design that allows NBI to reach every premises as quickly as possible working within the confines of how fibre networks are built. Villages, townlands and counties may be covered by a number of deployment areas, which means there are differing time scales for the roll-out across county areas. As already indicated, BCPs are a key element of the national broadband plan. They provide high-speed broadband in every county in advance of the roll out of the fibre-to-the-home network. Some 778 BCP sites have been installed by NBI to date, including eight in County Louth. While well over 3,000 premises in Louth can already be connected to the national broadband plan network, the BCPs offer the opportunity to connect to a high-speed broadband service for those whom the network has not yet reached.

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