Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 4 July 2023
159. Deputy Marian Harkin asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications for an update and a timeline/date for the roll-out of Broadband in an area of County Sligo (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32371/23]
View answerThe Question refers to a premises located in the AMBER area on the National Broadband Plan (NBP) High Speed Broadband Map which is available on my Department's website www.broadband.gov.ie The AMBER area represents the area to be served by the network to be deployed under the NBP State led intervention.
I am advised by National Broadband Ireland (NBI) that, as of 23rd June 2023, over 148,100 premises are passed and available for order and immediate connection. Over 44,700 connections have already been made to the NBP high-speed broadband network. To date, the level of connections is increasing on a daily basis and is in line with projections, with some areas exceeding expectations.
NBI has advised that as of 23rd June, 2,900 premises in County Sligo are passed with a high-speed fibre broadband network and available for immediate connection with 1,134 premises connected.
Further details are available on specific areas within County Sligo can be monitored via nbi.ie/reps. A county update can be selected to provide the overall number of premises in the Intervention Area, the overall NBP investment in the county, the number of premises passed and connected to date and the status of each of the Deployment Areas with the anticipated date for connection over the lifetime of the project. NBI has a dedicated email address, reps@nbi.ie, which can be used by Oireachtas members for specific queries.
The network rollout for the NBP is divided into 227 Deployment Areas (DAs) across the country. These are typically an area of approximately 25km in radius and in total they cover 96% of Ireland’s landmass. The network is specifically designed based on the NBI network coming from the eir exchanges or the metropolitan area networks (MANs) which allows NBI to reach every premises as quickly as possible. Villages, townlands and counties are covered by a number of DAs which means there are differing timescales for the rollout across county areas.
National Broadband Ireland (NBI) has faced a range of challenges due to the sheer scale and complexity of rolling out fibre to the home in a rural environment. These include significant tree trimming works to ensure cable can be placed on overhead poles, remediation of ducting that has been in place for many decades, the co-ordination of hundreds of contracting crews and addressing the many issues arising week on week which could not have been foreseen until the build crews commenced work on the ground. And while NBI were able to bring forward the completion dates for a number of deployments around the country, there were other instances, such as in the case of your constituent’s area, where there was no other option but reschedule the build dates for those areas.
Given the scale and complexity of delivery of the new gigabit broadband network under the NBP, any dates provided by NBI on its website are based on the best available information at the time and may be subject to change. And whilst any disappointment that date changes may cause is entirely understandable, NBI’s deployment strategy is based on delivering the best engineered solution possible. Deploying infrastructure of this scale is complex and from an engineering standpoint, the fibre route lengths and housing density must be factored in to ensure that a future proofed optical budget (bandwidth) is available to every premises in the Intervention Area.
This means that your constituent’s premises will receive the highest quality of service on the NBI network and that the service will be able to scale to meet future demands over the lifetime of the network.
If your constituent requires further details about the changes in connection date for their premises, NBI will be happy to provide this. They can contact the call centre at 0818 624 624 or email contactus@nbi.ie with any queries they may have in relation to the delays or the rollout in general.
