Written answers

Wednesday, 15 February 2017

Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources

National Broadband Plan Implementation

Photo of Thomas PringleThomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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261. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will address the persistent lack of progress in the provision of broadband to a location (details supplied); if his attention has been drawn to the fact that, to date, two companies have cited lack of broadband provision as the primary reason the site was not chosen as the location for their business; the action he will take to prevent further decline in companies locating to Inishowen by targeting any prohibitive costs involved in rolling out broadband to specific sites in the region; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7495/17]

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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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 has not been fully demonstrated.

This commitment by Government to deliver the NBP has also served as a catalyst for industry in bringing forward investment in new infrastructure in towns, villages and rural areas of Ireland. Currently, approximately 1.4m premises in Ireland can get high speed broadband  from commercial service providers and investment by the telecoms sector is continuing to expand this footprint.

The Broadband Intervention Strategy sets out a detailed service specification 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 upload to all citizens, be capable of providing for higher performance in the future so as to keep pace with consumer demand and ensure the availability of high quality wholesale services to allow retail competition to develop.

The High Speed Broadband Map, which is available at shows the extent of the State Intervention area:

- The areas marked BLUE represent those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have previously indicated plans to deliver high speed broadband services. The Department continues to monitor the commercial deployment plans in the BLUE area 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 which are the subject of the current procurement process.

The map provides information on a county by county basis with a breakdown of coverage across the townlands in every county including County Donegal. Individuals can check whether their premises is in a BLUE or an AMBER area by scrolling through the map online or entering their Eircode. The Department also has a dedicated mailbox and anyone with a query in relation to the Map should email the Department, quoting their Eircode, to Based on information provided by commercial operators and represented on our broadband map, coverage in this area is mixed.  65% of the area of Lisfannon Business Park in Lisfannon, Buncrana, Co Donegal falls within the BLUE area i.e. within the commercial operator(s) coverage area.  The remaining 35%, falls within the AMBER area and will be covered by the State Intervention.

A formal procurement process is in train to select a company or companies who will roll-out a new high speed broadband network within the State Intervention Area. 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.

The procurement process is being intensively managed, to ensure an outcome that delivers a future-proofed network that serves homes and businesses across Ireland, for at least 25 years. Intensive dialogue with bidders is continuing and the three bidders have indicated that they are proposing a predominantly fibre-to-the-home solution. This provides for a future proofed solution for the 25 years of the contract and beyond.  A fibre-to-the-home solution means that householders and businesses may get speeds not just of 30 Megabits per second but much higher, potentially up to 1000 Megabits per second. 

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. During the Department's extensive stakeholder consultations in 2015, telecommunications service providers indicated a 3-5 year timeline to rollout a network of the scale envisaged under the NBP.

As part of the competitive process, the Department will engage with winning bidder(s) on the best rollout 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 rollout 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 rollout plan for the network will be published once contract(s) are in place.

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, in the absence of such published prices, prices already set or approved by the Regulator, ComReg.

The Programme for Government also commits to measures to assist in the rollout of the network once a contract is awarded.

In this regard, I and Minister Humphreys established a Mobile Phone and Broadband Taskforce in July 2016.  The findings of this Taskforce 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 the allocation of spectrum in the 3.6GHz band, in early 2017. This will 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.  

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

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