Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

843. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources following the publication of the national high-speed coverage map for 2016, if he will provide a national high-speed coverage map representing the latest areas connected and not connected to high speed broadband Internet access connectivity, of at least 30 Mbps; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23732/15]

Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The National Broadband Plan aims to ensure that every citizen and business, regardless of location, has access to a high quality, high speed broadband service. This will be achieved through a partnership between Government and commercial telecommunications companies.The commercial telecommunications sector is currently investing approximately €2.5 billion in network upgrades and enhanced services with approximately 1.6 million of the 2.3 million premises in Ireland expected to have access to commercial high speed broadband services over the next 18 months. These very significant investments represent a step-change in the quality of broadband services available.

Last November I published a national high speed coverage map for 2016 This map is available at . The map shows Ireland with two colours Blue and Amber. The colour amber depicts the areas to be covered by State intervention. The BLUE area represents those areas targeted for commercial investment by end 2016. The map does not contain specific details of premises connected at a given time, as ongoing investment programmes by operators mean that towns are continuing to be connected on a month-by-month basis. I can however confirm that services are now available to approximately 1.2m addresses in Ireland. By the end of 2016, services will be available to 1.6m addresses.

The AMBER areas show the target areas for the State intervention. All premises within the AMBER areas will be included in the State's intervention.

eircom recently announced an investment that may address a further 300,000 premises with fibre-to-the-premises technology. My Department will be rigorously examining the assurances from eircom in relation to these new plans, which is a requirement for all operators, and will review how this impacts the proposed intervention area.

New planned commercial next generation access investments may be added to the national high-speed coverage map, once it is established that these plans are definitive and meet the relevant criteria required to be put on the map. i.e. that they will deliver high speed broadband service to end users. It is envisaged that the map will be updated on an ongoing basis from now until the award of a contract or contracts relating to the State intervention.