Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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61. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will carry out mapping of broadband speed-up, downtime and latency, by geographic area; if he has investigated mapping based on data, rather than reported speeds; his views on whether speeds reported are consistent with speeds received; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44797/15]

Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
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The National Broadband Plan (NBP) 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 combination of commercial investments and a State led intervention in areas where commercial services will not be provided.

Measuring speeds based on user experience, is challenging. Different technologies deliver different speeds and are impacted by a range of factors including the number of users at a given time and the services they are accessing, distance from a cabinet, line-of-sight issues, and in-house factors including wifi. I understand that the telecommunications regulator, ComReg, recently concluded a pilot study on broadband speeds to 1,000 homes. Arising from that study, I understand that ComReg is considering the merits of establishing a permanent broadband speed test, conducting an annual survey or making available a software tool to the public to support expanded data gathering. It is also considering consulting on the possibility of including contractually binding minimum speed into contracts. I also note the new transparency provisions under Article 4 of the new European Regulation which lays down measures concerning open internet access. I look forward to developments in this area which I hope will increase the transparency of services offered by commercial operators.

The proposed State Intervention under the National Broadband Plan sets out specific speeds that will be expected from any State funded network. It also specifies the minimum speeds deemed necessary in order to define an area as "commercial", and therefore exclude that area from the proposed State intervention.

The draft Intervention Strategy, published in July, specifies at a minimum, download speeds of 30 Mbps and an upload speeds of 6 Mbps with latency of no more than 25 milliseconds. A “High Speed Broadband Map 2016”published in 2014, shows the extent of industry commitments to end 2016 and indicates that 70% of addresses in Ireland will have access to high speed broadband within that timescale. The balance of 30%, approximately 757,000 addresses, represents the current target for the proposed State intervention.