Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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448. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the progress on the roll-out of fibre broadband on a county basis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38872/16]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to deliver high speed broadband services to every city, town, village and individual premises in Ireland. The Programme for Government commits to the delivery of the NBP as a matter of priority.  This is being achieved through a combination of commercial investment by the telecommunications sector and a State intervention in those areas where commercial investment has not been fully demonstrated.

The High Speed Broadband Map, which is available at www.broadband.gov.ieshows the extent of the State Intervention area:

- The areas marked BLUE represent those areas where commercial telecommunications providers are either currently delivering or have previously indicated plans to deliver high speed broadband services.

- The areas marked AMBER on the High Speed Broadband Map represent the target areas for the State Intervention, which are the subject of the current procurement process.

The breakdown per townland of areas covered by both State Intervention and commercial providers are available on the Department’s website. For the Deputy’s  convenience, I have included a County-by-County breakdown in the following table. This breakdown covers current and anticipated roll-out by commercial telecoms providers (BLUE) and premises in the proposed intervention area (AMBER). The commercial roll-out includes a mix of technologies including fibre-to-the-home, fibre-to-the-cabinet and cable:

My Department is now in the formal procurement process to select a company or companies who will roll-out a new high speed broadband network throughout the State Intervention Area. 

The procurement process for the State Intervention aims to identify an entity or entities to build, roll-out, operate and deliver high speed broadband of at least 30 Megabits per second upload and 6 Megabits per second download speeds to all premises within the intervention area. The procurement process also requires that the solution be future proofed, this is important if we are to find a solution which works for the 25 years of the contract. 

The three bidders in the procurement process have indicated that they are proposing a predominantly fibre-to-the-home solution for rural Ireland under the National Broadband plan intervention meaning that much higher broadband speeds of up to 1000 Megabits per second may be achievable.

The Programme for Government also commits to measures to assist in the roll-out of the network once a contract is awarded. In this regard, Minister Humphreys is leading on the establishment of two regional action groups, working with Local Authorities, Local Enterprise Offices and other relevant agencies to help accelerate the broadband network build in rural Ireland, once a contract(s) has been awarded.

In a further positive initiative, last July, I established a Mobile Phone and Broadband task force with Minister Humphreys to address immediate issues in relation to the quality of mobile phone and broadband coverage. I expect the task force to report by end 2016.

I recently signed Regulations allowing ComReg to proceed with an early 2017 auction of the 3.6GHz radio spectrum band, to provide an 86% increase in total  spectrum available for mobile and fixed wireless services. I have also secured €8m for RTE which will allow it to free up the 700MHz spectrum band, to provide enhanced mobile services.  

In the meantime, my Department continues to liaise closely with industry and relevant other Departments and agencies to assist in the removal of barriers to assist in commercial deployment of telecommunications networks.

These initiatives should assist in significantly improving the quality of broadband and mobile phone services across Ireland, putting Ireland to the forefront internationally in terms of connectivity.