Éamon Ó Cuív Presses for Faster Rural Broadband Rollout

Minister, you know I am a great proponent of the levelling effect that rural broadband is going to have and it is important in rural areas. I was just wondering what progress has been made with the rollout of the national broadband plan in 2020. Has it now really got up and running? How many houses will be connected this year? How many will be surveyed? How many are going to be connected? The national broadband plan will be delivered by national broadband Ireland under contract signed last November. As I outlined in my reply to Deputy Murphy earlier, the national broadband plan network offer a high-speed broadband service with a minimum dial-down speed of 500 megabytes per from the outset. This represents an increase from the 150 megabytes per from the outset. The deployment plan forecast premises passed in all counties within the first two years and over 90% of premises in the state having access to high-speed broadband within the next four years. As of the 15th of September, design work is complete or ongoing in target townlands across 21 counties and steady progress has been made with over 91,000 premises surveyed to date. This activity is increasing week on week and by year-end, National Broadband Ireland expects to have completed some 120,000 surveys. This activity involves physically walking the routes and documenting the images, notes and measurements of the poles, cables and underground ducts in each area. This is informing design solutions for provision of the fibre network. This detailed design is then used to initiate the make ready project with air for the area where air ensure any poles and ducts being reused are fit for purpose. It's also used to initiate works with the subcontractors deploying the actual fibre in the area. The laying of the fibre should commence shortly with the first fibre to the home connections expected around December this year. The National Broadband Plan has delivered significant employment opportunities with National Broadband Ireland directly employing some 140 staff and over 500 people are now working on the plan either directly or indirectly. Broadband connection points BCPs are the key element of the National Broadband Plan providing high-speed broadband in every county in advance of the rollout of the fibre to the home network. Some 144 BCP sites have been installed by National Broadband Ireland and the high-speed broadband service will be switched on at these locations through service provider contracts managed by the Department of Rural Community Development for publicly available sites such as those owned by the Department of Education and Skills for Schools. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Minister, would I be correct in thinking that the way they're rolling this out is kind of from the centre outwards. They're starting at the periphery of towns and cities and working outwards in the densely populated urban areas and therefore that the least populated areas will have to wait until the end. Now you say that 10% won't be done within five years. I take it there the 10% in the mountains and the hills and the kind of place I live in myself. Can you tell me is there any way that that could be expedited because are we always going to be the end of the line for everything and it's hugely beneficial to rural areas to have it. And could you ask me, could you answer me also, are the islands in the last 10% off the coast of Ireland, are they in the, because we'd like to ensure when you go on your holidays that you'd have good broadband. Thank you. First, you know, my understanding is that there isn't a decision to go from the centre out to the periphery. In fact, the whole nature of the broadband plan is that it will have to jump over most actually villages and towns where Air, under a previous arrangement, agreed to provide high speed broadband in that area. So this whole project is actually straight into the heartland of rural Ireland and there will not be any one county or any one area in any one county that should be disadvantaged in that. The first areas I understand that are looking for me to roll out on the domestic area include areas in Cavern and in rural Cork. I fully agree, the work that's been done at the moment, the surveying work, is done to make sure that we get the design right. And that will determine, not on the basis of which is closest to the centre or which is further out, it's actually designed to make it the easiest possible delivery. Thank you. Included in that could be the use of ESB poles instead of air poles, are looking at different options of delivery. Thank you. But this whole project is designed to support rural Ireland, the most rural areas, in my mind, have just as much priority as anywhere else. Thank you, Minister. And to answer your question, that 10 per cent, wherever they may be, yes, the whole purpose, as I said, in response to an earlier question, is to try and accelerate the programme so they are delivered within the five years, not thereafter. Minister, my role is to accelerate the time so we get as many questions as possible within the time. One minute. Minister, would it be possible for the Department, in consultation with the National Broadband Plan who have got this fantastic state contract, to maybe get an outline of how they plan rolling out this particular project and how they intend carrying out the surveying? And it will then give the answer to the question that I still believe that they are doing the easy pickings first and the more densely populated first and the people out in the hills and the mountains will be left to last. But would it be possible, Minister, for you to get the National Broadband Plan to actually brief us on these, since it is a totally funded scheme? The second question on that is, could you also tell me, have you any information in the growth in the connections of fibre to the house, where it is already passing the house under the air scheme in recent times? Has there been a significant pick-up per hundred houses passed of people actually taking fibre to the house? Yes, to give to Minister O'Keefe one of the few hostels, if there are any... Minister, I beg your pardon Minister, Deputy O'Keefe wish to come in, I beg your pardon. No, just a follow-up in relation to it. Obviously, I would agree with what Deputy O'Keefe has said, that if we could have literally a statement in relation to this rollout, particularly from a point of view of what surveys need to be done and then the timeline. I also accept there is a difficulty in relation to possibly the most difficult 10%. I want to know how much fluidity there is in the plan in relation to being able to piggyback on previous technology that has already been put there and also looking at new technological solutions that may arise during this period. But also, just a straightforward scenario, I think we need to have a breakdown in relation to the particular areas, the number of surveys, the plan in relation to the survey and then getting from survey to actually delivering a service to people. Thank you. Just to answer that question, those two questions first, I said, in the application of fibre, I suppose there was a strategic decision, the vast majority of this will be delivered by fibre. It's only the very last percentage, the most distant from an accessible pole where fixed wireless may be used. But I believe that is the technology of the future, that is the technology we're going to need for the highest possible standard. So I don't see technological developments with that. And unfortunately, the reason these areas are selected, they're in the Amber region, is because there wasn't existing infrastructure other than the existence of telegraph poles or telephone, the wooden poles, air poles and our other ESP poles. So it's using that existing infrastructure, yes, but it's not availing of the other fixed wireless or other wireless technologies that may be in those areas because the strategic decision was made to use fibre. Just to answer Deputy O'Keefe's point is my understanding that there has been an increase in the uptake of broadband in those areas, which is either on the, being provided with the SIRO network or the AIR network or other suppliers, that because of the COVID-19, the level of remote working, the level of application, yes, there has been an increase in uptake in the demand and I think that will strengthen the case and accelerate the rollout and development of the national broadband plan, because the need for it is ever more clear by the day. Thank you, Minister. I'm going to move on. Thank you. Thank you.