The Corkman

CLLR JOHN PAUL O’SHEA HOPES MINISTER NAUGHTEN KEEPS HIS WORD

- MARIA HERLIHY

AT last there is a slice of good news for people trying to get on the informatio­n highway in Duhallow as 30,000 premises are to get access to commerical high speed broadband.

The villages of Kiskeam, Rockchapel, Cullen, Meelin, Lyre, Derinagree, and Nadd along with the villages of Churchtown, Cecilstown, Milford, Tullylease, Kilcorney, Glantane and Bweeng will have high speed broadband by the end of 2018.

Cllr John Paul O’Shea (Ind) said he sincerely hopes that Minister Denis Naughten will keep to his word on this as high speed broadband is vital for the deveopment and future growth and sustainabi­lity of rural Ireland.

Minister Naughten said that the agreement which he has signed with Eir means one house every minute of every working day will get ‘fibre to the home’ high speed broadband over the next 90 weeks.

“300,000 more rural premises will have access to high speed quality broadband – that’s an extra 500 houses every day. Over the last four years commercial operators have invested over €2.5 billion upgrading telecoms networks services. This is a clear indication that the state’s commitmetn to Broadband is driving investment from the commercial sector,” he said.

Cllr O’Shea also said in 2016 only 52% of premises in Ireland had access to High Speed Broadband (HSB), with this latest developmen­t 77% of premises will have access to HSB by the end of 2018.

He also said it was good to see so many new premises and villages across Norht Cork now included in Minister Naughten’s announceme­nt, such as Kiskeam, Rockchapel, Cullen, Derrinagre­e, Rathcoole, Kilcorney, Lyre, Nadd, Glantane, Bweeng, Churchtown, Cecilstown, Milford, Tullylease and Meelin.

The revised National Broadband Plan invention map will be available on the Department’s website www.broadband.gov. ie and peole can chekck their premises. The High Speed Broadband Map identifies locations and premises as being amber, blue or light blue.

Amber are the target areas for the State Inteventio­n of the National Broadband Plan. The mobile phone and broadband taskforce has indentifie­d measures in the short term to improve broadband connectivi­ty including in the amber areas where work is underway to implement these measures.

The blue areas means were commercial operators are delivering or have indicated plans to deliver high speed broadband services. Operators are continuing to enhance their services in these areas to improve access to high speed broadband and to increase speeds to meet consumer demand.

Finally, the light blue areas means new areas where commercial operators have committed to concrete plans to deliver high speed broadband in rural areas.

The commercial rollout to these areas is primarily via ‘fibre to the home’ (FTTH). By 2018, all homes and businesses in these light blue areas can expect significan­t improvemen­t to their broadband services.

 ??  ?? The broadband map identifies locations by colour.
The broadband map identifies locations by colour.

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