Written answers

Wednesday, 1 February 2017

Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources

Broadband Service Provision

Photo of Brendan GriffinBrendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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313. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources further to Parliamentary Question No. 161 of 19 October 2016, his views on a matter (details supplied) regarding broadband; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4810/17]

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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As  I stated in reply to Question No. 161 of 19 October 2016, the Government's National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to ensure that every citizen and business 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.

The Broadband Intervention strategy sets out a detailed service specification including a requirement that the State-funded network must

- be capable of delivering high-quality, high speed broadband of at least 30 megabits per second download and 6 megabits per second upload to all citizens.

- be capable of providing for higher performance in the future so as to keep pace with consumer demand.

- ensure the availability of high quality wholesale services to allow retail competition to develop.

The Plan envisages public investment in the capital costs of building the necessary infrastructure to support high-quality affordable broadband services similar to those already available in cities and towns.

Insofar as the issue of cost is concerned, this network will be made available to service providers on a wholesale basis and it is the intention that the wholesale prices for comparable services within the intervention area will be no more than the average published wholesale prices that prevail in other more competitive areas of the country or the European Union or, in the absence of such published prices, prices already set or approved by the Regulator, ComReg.

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