BROADBAND COVERAGE ‘PATHETIC’ IN MANY PARTS OF KERRY

SMALL, rural businesses are trying to work with ‘pathetic’ broadband services, according to Cllr Brendan Cronin.

At the monthly meeting of Kerry County Council on Monday, the Ballyhar councillor called on council management to assist in identifying badly affected areas so more pressure can be put on providers to deliver a proper service. Cllr Cronin said frustration was growing among the high numbers of people who now work from home and can’t get an efficient broadband service.

“All I hear is broadband is being rolled out, but from what I can see it isn’t rolling very far. People have contacted me to say they have no service whatsoever due to poor coverage. It’s time more was done. All I can see is a lot of amber areas on the high speed broadband map,” Cllr Cronin said.

The motion was seconded by Cllr John Joe Culloty who said he believes the lack of proper broadband coverage was “definitely holding us back in terms of job creation.”

In response, council management took issue with the slight against the rollout of broadband saying 21 areas in the county were identified as being of economic importance and 17 of these have broadband connection.

The Eir roll out will see an additional 25,000 properties in Kerry with access to high speed broadband before the end of 2018. Once completed, 67 per cent of properties in the county will have high speed access.

An online map of broadband coverage (www.broadband.gov.ie) currently denotes three phases of high speed connection levels across the county. Blue signifies the ‘Commercial Coverage’; Light Blue identifies ‘Planned Rural Development; while Amber denotes areas covered by the ‘National Broadband Plan’ (NBP), which equates to roughly 29,090 properties in need of broadband for which the council have appointed broadband officer, Diarmuid Reilly, to oversee.