Written answers

Tuesday, 28 January 2014

Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht

National Broadband Plan Implementation

Photo of Brendan GriffinBrendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

467. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if his attention has been drawn to the serious number of complaints regarding the lack of proper broadband provision under the national broadband scheme in the area west of Dingle, County Kerry; if he will intervene with a view to having the service improved, as per the obligation of the provider; if he will state whether a company (details supplied) is doing its job in monitoring the implementation of the national broadband scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3944/14]

Photo of Pat RabbittePat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The broadband service under the National Broadband Scheme, NBS, is a basic, affordable, scalable product in keeping with EU State aid clearance for the scheme in September 2007. Under the terms of the contract with Hutchison 3G Ireland Ltd (trading as “3”), which is overseen by my Department, the NBS mobile wireless service currently offers minimum download and upload speeds of 2.3Mbps and 1.4Mbps respectively, subject to a maximum contention ratio of 18:1.

My Department has well-established monitoring arrangements in place to ensure that the NBS delivers the minimum specified service or better to all users. The NBS contract guarantees service levels and imposes a service credit regime on “3”, with significant financial consequences in the event that minimum specification service levels are not met. The NBS contract also provides that where NBS customers do not receive the minimum guaranteed service, as set out in the terms and conditions of their contract, they are entitled to service rebates.

As part of 3’s network operations oversight, traffic and utilisation performance data, including site availability across the entire NBS network, is reviewed by "3" on a continuous basis. Remedial action can be taken remotely or 3’s field engineering staff will resolve performance issues at individual sites, depending on the nature of the incident. Annual site maintenance inspections are carried out by "3" on each of its sites.

I understand from "3" that the sites serving the area west of Dingle have experienced planned and unplanned outages on intermittent occasions. Most recently, the adverse weather conditions and electricity outages over the period 18 December to 6 January last caused intermittent service availability difficulties. "3" have advised my Department that these sites have performed as expected since then.

In addition, some of the NBS customers in the Ballydavid area experienced intermittent service disruption late last year as a result of an external interference disrupting signals from the serving site. “3” received assistance from ComReg and deployed additional external engineers to help identify the source of the interference. I understand that the problem was fully resolved on 02 December last.

Should any NBS customer experience problems with the NBS service, they are advised to contact 3's customer care centre, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by phone at 1913 (free of charge), via email to or by post to 3 Customer Services, Hutchison 3G Ireland Limited, PO Box 333, Dublin 2.

My Department has a role where customers have fully utilised the established complaints process and consider that their complaint has not been resolved. My officials operate a dedicated NBS mailbox, which NBS customers can contact by email at , with any comments or complaints they may have about their NBS service. My Department will then liaise with “3” personnel at its Head Office in Dublin to ensure that any service performance issues, which are brought to its attention, are addressed as quickly as possible.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.