Broadband rollout for county announced

Every house in the country is being promised a high-speed broadband connection by around the end of the decade, through a scheme announced Minister for Communications Alex White today.

‘The plan is expected to require the State to invest hundreds of millions of euro to connect more than 700,000 premises across the country, which are in areas that are unlikely to ever be served by commercial high-speed broadband operators,’ reports RTE.

Ulster has the most premises in the country not covered by private broadband operators - 54% - which the State hopes to cover. In contrast, Leinster has just 19% not covered.

Cavan is listed under the plan as having 1,979 townlands and 24,179 commerical premises coming under the National Broadband plan. It has one of the highest levels - 57% - not covered by commercial operators, who do cover the remaining 43%.

For a full list of the townlands click here.

The morning’s news from Doolin, Co Clare, is likely to receive a cautious welcome from country dwellers and those living in rural towns and villages who have struggled with poor connectivity for years.

The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources has produced an online map showing areas commercial broadband providers aim to deliver high-speed broadband to by the end of next year.

The maps will now be open to consultation until the end of February, after which a strategy will be drawn up mapping out exactly how the project will be delivered.
The plan will also have to apply for and receive approval from the European Union that it complies with State aid rules.

According to the Government, procurement will start around the end of 2015, with construction due to commence in late 2016 or 2017.

Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Alex White said he anticipates that every house in the country will have high-speed broadband around the start of 2020.
Mr White said discussions have already taken place at Cabinet about funding the plan, but a wide range of sources of finances could be utilised, including the European Investment Band and the Government’s Strategic Investment Fund.

Earlier this year, the then Minister for Communications, Pat Rabbitte, said €355m to €512m would be spent by Government to fund the rollout of high-speed broadband to 1,000 towns and villages.

The minimum speed that each premises will be able to receive under the plan will be 30Mbps, but Mr White said the infrastructure will be future-proofed to enable the provision of improved speeds in the future.

Cavan-Monaghan FG TD Joe O'Reilly said: 'In Cavan, twenty communities are in the process of being enabled with high-speed broadband, with towns like Bailieborough, Ballyjamesduff, Cavan, Kingscourt and Virginia currently having live access to the service. The majority of other towns in Cavan are on course to become fully live by 2016 or sooner.
'The issue of a quality service for rural Cavan and Monaghan is a very important one and I raised this with the representative from Eircom. They assured me that Eircom is in full support of the Government’s National Broadband Plan initiative and are currently involved in detailed discussions with the Department of Communications, in a bid to identify the precise areas that the National Plan will cover. The next step for Government is to finalise the details of the rural broadband project, get funding approval and proceed to tender in 2015.

'The absence of high speed broadband has been a significant problem in rural areas, and is hampering job creation. Eircom has committed to roll-out high speed broadband to 1.4 million premises by the end of next year, with a possible extension of that figure to 1.6 million. This is promising news and I will continue to make a strong case for rural Cavan and Monaghan in the coming months,' he said.