Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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In December 2022, my Department published Ireland's Digital Connectivity Strategy which supports the ambition outlined in the National Digital Strategy and sets out a number of ambitious targets, including that:

• all Irish households and businesses will be covered by a Gigabit network no later than 2028
• all populated areas will be covered by 5G no later than 2030, and
• digital connectivity will be delivered to all schools and broadband connection points by 2023

These targets will be achieved through commercial operators investing in their networks, complemented by the State’s National Broadband Plan intervention. When taken together, all premises in the State will have access to high-speed broadband in every part of the country no matter how remote.

The BLUE area represents those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have plans to deliver high-speed broadband services. The Department defines high-speed broadband as a connection with minimum speeds of 30Mbps download and 6Mbps upload. The activities of commercial operators delivering high-speed broadband within BLUE areas are not planned or funded by the State and the Department has no statutory authority to intervene in that regard. There may be a choice of operators offering this service in any given area. Further information in this regard is available at www.comreg.ie/compare/#/services. ?

From the records made available to the Department, the premises in question should already be capable of receiving speeds of up to 30mbps through commercial means. This premises is also included in openeir’s Fibre to the Home upgrade programme, which is expected to be complete by the end of 2026.

If a person lives in the BLUE area and after contacting their Retail Service Provider are told they cannot get access to greater than 30Mbps, they should raise a query via the DECC webform at secure.dccae.gov.ie/forms/NBP-Customer-Service.aspx and DECC will escalate with open eir to investigate this matter further.

The Department expects that the majority of the Blue area of the NBP Map will be served with high-speed broadband from commercial operators. The European Electronics Communications Code (EECC) requires a broadband Universal Service Obligation (USO) to be implemented by Member States, which provides an assurance that all premises can access a high-speed broadband connection. This provides another tool to help deliver upon the NBP’s policy objectives that every home and business in the country will have access to high-speed broadband.

The EECC legislation now transposed into Irish Law provides a broadband USO, which will designate a Significant Market Power (SMP) for broadband in specific areas. Therefore, premises that do not have access to “adequate” broadband will be covered by the USO. The timeframe for implementation of the USO is yet to be finalised, however it is likely to provide some safeguards to citizens in the commercial areas, ensuring they get access to adequate broadband services from operators in these areas.

Commercial operators’ fibre rollouts are progressing at pace. Open eir have already passed over 43,100 homes and businesses in Meath with gigabit services, with plans to pass a further c.24,900 homes and businesses over the next 2 – 3 years, bringing their total fibre-based investment in the county to over €32m. Other commercial operators are also continuing to increase their network footprint right across Meath, with SIRO recently passing over 34,600 premises for full fibre, and Virgin Media passing over 22,300 premises.

Recent ComReg data shows that Quarter 2 of 2023 saw a 7.4% increase in fibre broadband subscriptions compared to the first 3 months of the year, and a 33.7% increase when compared to Quarter 2 of 2022. This demonstrates that take-up of fibre connectivity for homes and businesses is increasing substantially as it is deployed to areas where it had previously been unavailable. The same ComReg data also indicates that c. 40% of homes and business throughout the State now have access to gigabit services through either fibre (576,856) or cable (359,669) infrastructure.