Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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449. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the number of fibre to the premises, FTTP, connections in County Monaghan; the number of new connections that have been made in each of the past four quarters; the average connection cost; the eircodes connected; his plans for FTTP connections in the next four quarters; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40337/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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There has been significant progress in relation to broadband rollout so that today, approximately 1.5m or 65% of premises in Ireland can get high speed broadband of a minimum of 30 Megabits per second. The National Broadband Plan has been a catalyst in encouraging investment by the telecoms sector, which is continuing to expand this footprint.

On 4 April 2017, I signed a commitment agreement with eir in relation to its plans to provide broadband to an additional 300,000 premises in rural areas on a commercial basis. Eir has committed to doing this work over a 90 week period . The 300,000 figure includes some 4,650 fibre to the home premises in County Monaghan.  Progress made on eir’s planned  rural deployment, on a county by county basis,  is available at the following link:http://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/communications/topics/Broadband/national-broadband-plan/commercial-investment/Pages/Rural-Deployment-Progress.aspx 

My Department will be monitoring this rollout to ensure that eir meets its obligations under the Agreement.  A copy of the Commitment Agreement is available on my Department's website www.dccae.gov.ie. A total of over 80,000 premises has been delivered against eir planned rural deployment as at end of August 2017.  Of these, I understand that some 10,000 connections have been made to date. The nature of the retail services, including price, offered by commercial retail operators to customers over this new high speed broadband infrastructure is determined in a liberalised telecoms market that is subject to competition.  

There are some 32,800 premises in County Monaghan of which over 17,200 premises including eir’s planned rural deployment can now or will be able to access a high speed broadband service through commercial providers by the end of 2018. The remaining 15,600 premises will be covered by the State led Intervention.

My Department is engaged in an on-going procurement process to select a company or companies who will roll-out a new high speed broadband network for the State led intervention. That procurement process is now at an advanced stage, with “Detailed Solutions” to be submitted  to my Department by bidders today 26th September. Further information about the NBP including the interactive map, the Mobile Phone and Broadband Taskforce Report, and other initiatives are available on my Department’s website at www.broadband.gov.ie

For information ComReg compiles a quarterly report of key data on the Irish Communications Market. The full publication is available at the following link: .