Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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606. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources further to Parliamentary Question No. 515 of 22 November 2016, if he will provide an update on the stage the procurement element of the national broadband plan is at; if he will provide a breakdown of the 750,000 premises to be connected, by residential or business and by county, in tabular form; if the county by county roll-out will be carried out by one winning tender or a selection of winning tenders; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6998/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The procurement process to select a company or companies who will roll-out a new high speed broadband network within the State Intervention Area is in train and is being intensively managed, to ensure an outcome that delivers a future-proofed network, for at least 25 years of contract and beyond. Intensive dialogue with bidders is continuing and to date there have been over 300 hours of competitive dialogue. The timeframe for the procurement continues to be dependent on a range of factors including the complexities that may be encountered by the procurement team and bidders, during the procurement process.

The three bidders have indicated that they are proposing a predominantly fibre-to-the-home solution.  A fibre-to-the-home solution means speeds not just of 30 Megabits per second but much higher, potentially up to 1000 Megabits per second.

The High Speed Broadband Map, which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie shows the extent of the commercial roll-out and the State Intervention area. The areas marked BLUE represent those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have plans to deliver high speed broadband services. The Department continues to monitor the commercial deployment plans in the BLUE area where commercial operators have committed to providing services, to ensure that those services are delivered. The areas marked AMBER on the High Speed Broadband Map represent the target areas for the State Intervention.

Information on a county by county basis with a breakdown of coverage across the townlands in every county is available on my Department’s website at and I will arrange for a single summary table to be included at this link with the total number of premises in each individual county.  

My Department will shortly update the High Speed Broadband map to finalise the Intervention Area for the Procurement process, taking into account industry investments that have not materialised in Blue areas, together with new industry investments within the proposed State Intervention Area, along with concrete and credible commitments by industry for further new investments within the Intervention Area.

When final tenders have been submitted a winning bidder(s) will be selected for the contract which will comprise one or two lots as set out in the NBP Intervention Strategy.

As part of the competitive process, the Department will engage with winning bidder(s) on the best roll-out strategy, in order to target areas of particularly poor service, business needs and/or high demand. This will need to be balanced with the most efficient network roll-out plan. A prioritisation programme will be put in place in this regard, in consultation with the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. A detailed roll-out plan for the network will be published once contract(s) are in place.

In the short-term I am working to ensure measures are put in place to assist in the roll-out of the NBP State Intervention network once a contract is awarded and to improve mobile phone and broadband access in Ireland.

In this regard, I and Minister Humphreys established a Mobile Phone and Broadband Taskforce in July 2016.  The findings of this Taskforce, published in December, recommends practical actions that can be taken to remove barriers to and improve mobile phone and broadband access in Ireland. The Taskforce report is available at the following link: .

Minister Humphreys has established two regional action groups, working with Local Authorities, Local Enterprise Offices and other relevant agencies to unlock barriers to investment in mobile and broadband services.  Since July, there has been significant progress made in discussions with the key stakeholders including local authority management representation, Government Departments and State agencies, as well as interaction with ComReg and telecoms operators.

I have 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 commercial deployment of telecommunications networks. The commercial telecommunications sector has invested over €2.5bn in upgrading and modernising networks which support the provision of high speed broadband and mobile telecoms services.

These investments should assist in significantly improving the coverage and quality of broadband and mobile voice and data services throughout the country.