National Broadband plan is on track, insists Communications Department

The Government’s National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to ensure high speed broadband access (minimum 30 megabits per second) to all premises in Ireland, regardless of location.

According to a Department of Communications spokesman last week, the Government is in the final stages of a procurement process to appoint a company to rollout high speed broadband to all houses and businesses in every area of the country.

“The NBP remains on track, with a final bid expected from the enet consortium in the coming weeks.

“The E-net consortium has reaffirmed its commitment to the NBP and timelines around the procurement process,” he said.

The statement followed news that Enet’s construction partner (SSE) quit for reasons it won’t disclose. This will undoubtedly stall the entire rollout process.

The Government doesn’t know yet who will back up Enet’s construction plan.

But it is confident the deal is in the final stages: “Today, 7 out of 10 of the 2.3million premises in Ireland have access to high speed broadband. By 2020, 9 out of 10 of all Irish premises will have access to high speed broadband connection,” the spokesperson continued.

“This is not only in urban areas - Eir’s commercial rural deployment plan commits to providing high speed broadband to over 300,000 premises, predominantly in rural areas and including the west of the country.

“Although figures for the second quarter of 2018 have not yet been verified by the Department, it is understood that eir have passed a total of 175,000 premises as of June 2018.”

In terms of funding, he said: “The Government has allocated an initial €275 million for the initial years of the network build-out. This represents an initial stimulus for the first five years.”

But he said that significant further funding will be required over the lifetime of the proposed 25 year contract.

“The total value of the State subsidy has yet to be finalised and will only be known after the competitive tender process has concluded and final tender has been received,” he added.