Eir's broadband roadmap for County Cavan.

Blackspots soon to have high-speed broadband

Just weeks after the ownership model for the National Broadband Plan (NBP) was approved, pledging high-speed internet services to 1.9 million premises by 2020, one of the major emerging bidders for the lucrative State contract claims to be within weeks of completing its own planned roll-out in the county.
Eir, formerly Eircom, has informed The Anglo-Celt that it’s within touching distance of connecting Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) broadband technology to the villages of Butlersbridge and Stradone. Recent figures from ComReg show only about 10,000 homes and premises in Ireland are directly connected to fibre broadband, the gold standard of the industry, and while the new Eir service for Butlersbridge is expected to go live by September, Stradone has faced delays of up to a year. Eir’s next generation service upgrade, Fibre to the Home (FTTH), is already available in Cavan and Monaghan towns and is due to connect Virginia by the end of September.
By next March, Eir claims the service will also be available in Blacklion in west Cavan and Carrickmacross in Monaghan, with the rest of the county, except for Arva, Butlersbridge, Cootehill and Redhills, to be linked to FTTH before 2020.
“For anyone not covered by our commercial roll-out, then by definition they will be covered by the NBP,” a spokesperson for Eir informed the Celt last week.
“The Government’s NBP is designed to subsidise the provision of service to all premises who will not directly benefit either from Eir’s investment in fibre or from the investment of other operators. This project, the tender for which is expected to be issued before the end of the year, will provide services to all households in your area that do not benefit from the Eir services rolled out in the interim period,” they added.
Eir, Enet and Siro, which is a joint venture between the ESB and Vodafone, have all been told by the Department of Communications they can proceed to the next stage of bidding for the €500-600m, 25-year broadband contract.
However Barry Wilson of local broadband provider, Eurona Arden, says that other wireless providers have “earned their place at the table” within any unfolding national strategy.
Describing Minister for Communications Denis Naughten as a “breath of fresh air” in terms of pushing the broadband roll-out agenda, Mr Wilson said: “The NBP from a wireless perspective, we’re very much in favour of it. That’s not just us as an individual company here but among operators across the country of which there are 80.”
However, Mr Wilson is keen that the government not forget the role that wireless broadband providers have played in expanding services across the country. “To put it simply, there would be no business in rural Ireland currently if it wasn’t for those efforts. We have single-handedly put our hands in our pockets to provide a service where not only was there none, but the big players didn’t even want to touch,” he said.
He added: “We feel we have justifiably earned our place at the table, and in this market to continue the input we have had in a market that was totally abandoned by the Eircoms and the other big providers. The only interest they have now in rural Ireland is the €500 million plus of taxpayers’ money they’re looking to get their hands on.”
With 1,979 townlands in Cavan, just over 24,000 premises are covered by the NBP, with 57% of those covered within the intervention area. The remainder fall within those to be serviced by commercial operators.
The NBP rural roll-out is set to begin in summer 2017 and is expected to take up to five years to complete. But, once built, the network, which will be future-proofed and guarantees a minimum of 30Mbps download and 6Mbps upload, will be considered a jewel in Europe’s telecoms infrastructure crown.

'Serious mistake’
However, not everyone is enamoured with the NBP roll-out strategy. Fianna Fáil TD Niamh Smyth expressed disappointment with the Government’s decision to sell off the ownership of the proposed State-sponsored broadband infrastructure to private operators after 25 years.
“The Government is making a serious mistake in handing over the long-term control of our national broadband network to the private sector. While customers may not be worried about who owns the infrastructure once they see an improvement in their service, the fact that the network is being sold off could have a very serious impact in the medium to long term,” she expressed.
Fine Gael Senator for Cavan and Monaghan, Joe O’Reilly also raised the issue, making stern calls for price controls should the private sector become involved in national roll-out of broadband.
“While I understand the rationale behind Minister Naughten’s approach to provide a private sector model to roll-out the National Broadband Scheme which has the potential to free up €1 billion for other expenditure, I have called upon him to ensure that, should such an approach be utilised, price controls are put in place to make sure consumers receive value for money in availing of broadband services,” he said.

Imagine’s 'game-changer’
Two consortia, Imagine and Gigabit Ethernet, were told they were unsuccessful in their applications to make the NBP shortlist.
Despite this, Imagine, has itself recently announced the wait for homes and businesses across Cavan’s broadband black spots for high-speed internet connection could be over quicker than they think, with 110 townlands earmarked for their own specialist LTE Fibre Network.
Initial Cavan townlands being covered include Bailieborough, Carnaville, Dunroe, Mullagh, Moynalty, Tunnyduff, Tierworker, and Caddagh, with more to be announced.
Describing wireless LTE as a “game changer” in the delivery of high speed broadband service to Regional and Rural Ireland, Imagine’s commercial director Brian O’Donohoe told the Celt: “In Australia, Germany, France, China and Japan LTE is used as an alternative or to replace existing copper lines to deliver NGA broadband services and is the quickest and most efficient way to meet the demand and need in rural and regional Ireland.”
An Irish owned telecom company with operations across Europe since the early 1990s, Imagine also established and ran a very successful venture called Gaelic Telecom with the GAA for many years.
Now aiming to provide minimum internet speeds of over 30Mbs to homes and businesses in rural areas, the Dublin-based Cavan-native adds: “The feedback from our sites currently live in Kildare, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Wexford and Kerry is that this is life changing for families, businesses and rural communities. We are excited about bringing these benefits to rural communities in Cavan.”