Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Question 22: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the average broadband speeds available to residential and business customers in towns of less than 10,000 persons and in the open countryside; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2640/12]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Telecommunications service providers are required to provide certain statistical returns to the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg), the independent market regulator. ComReg publishes quarterly statistical reports, based on these returns, which can be accessed on its website www.comreg.ie . Some of the information returned by service providers to ComReg is market sensitive and is published in aggregate form only. My Department does not have access to these returns other than in the form published by ComReg.

The reports published by ComReg provide statistical information at the national level only, with no further breakdown by geographic region or town size. The most recent report published by ComReg is the Quarterly Report for Q3 2011, i.e. up to the end September 2011. It reports that the number of customers contracting for broadband service more than doubled from 793,000 to more than 1.6 million between Q3 2007 and Q3 2011.

As regards broadband speeds, the Quarterly Report for Q3 2011 reports that the number of customers contracted at slower Internet speeds, using dial-up Internet service, reduced from 383,000 to 28,000 over that four year period. In terms of moving to higher speeds, at the end of September 2011, 73.2% of residential customers and 88.8% of business customers were using speeds of between 2mbps – 10mbps. I should also highlight that some businesses in regional and rural areas receive their broadband services via "leased lines" which are capable of providing "ultra fast" broadband speeds, e.g. 1Gbps (Gigabits per second), which is 1000Mbps (Megabits per second).