National Broadband Ireland’s Slow Connection

Delgany prepares for the 21st century JUNE22

ppearing before an Oireachtas Committe this week, the company behind the National Broadband Plan had some sorry figures.

National Broadband Ireland (NBI), the company delivering the National Broadband Plan (NBP) on behalf of the Government, admitted that, out of 540,000 houses on their list for connection, only 64,000 had been passed and readied.

Back in September, NBI stated that they had construction underway to bring fibre to 2,836 premises in the townlands in the Kilcoole Intervention Area, which includes Greystones, Newtown Mount Kennedy, Coyne’s Cross, Newcastle, and Freynewtownhill among others, all of which are already eligible to order services on the new high-speed fibre broadband network.

Once these premises are available to order these, they added, customers can choose their broadband services from a retail service provider (RSPs) of their choice. This is expected to bring significant benefits directly to consumers and businesses where competition between RSPs will ensure quality bundled packages offer choice around voice, broadband, TV and mobile at competitive prices.

Which still leaves the likes of GG and many others stuck in something approaching dial-up speeds, with no date in sight when we might finally be able to join the late 20th century.

In advance of the Fibre-to-the-Home roll out, the NBP was designed to provide Broadband Connection Points nationwide. These facilities – which include sports clubs, community centres and tourist sites – are there to provide free public access to high-speed internet in the rollout area. There are nine Broadband Connection Points in Wicklow, six of which –  Ballycooge Community Hall, Ballinacor GAA Club, Wicklow GAA Centre of Excellence, Brockagh Resource Centre and Wicklow County Campus – were connected last year.

In total, there are 15,781 premises in the Intervention Area (IA) in County Wicklow, which includes homes, farms, commercial businesses and schools. This equates to 23% of all premises in the county. Under the National Broadband Plan, Wicklow will see an investment of €59M in the new high speed fibre network, with 500 megabits per second.

The Kilcoole Deployment Area was successfully connected earlier this year, an area that includes Calary, Delgany, Greystones and Powerscourt, among others.

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