Broadband rollout gathers pace with 100,000 homes ready to be connected

National Broadband Ireland (NBI), the company charged with the roll-out of the €3 billion National Broadband Plan, has ‘passed’ more than 102,000 homes, meaning that they are now ready to connect to the network.

It was originally planned that 204,000 premises would have the fibre network installed and ready for connection by the end of January 2023. The Government revised this target downwards to 102,000 premises by the end of this month due to construction delays caused by Covid-19.

However, Mark Griffin, secretary general at the Department of Communications, told the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee last October that NBI was likely to meet that target one month ahead of schedule.

New figures released on Monday by NBI confirm that 102,888 premises – including homes, farms and businesses – had been passed with fibre optic cables by December 16th, enabling them to connect to high-speed broadband.

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A total of 27,148 have actually been connected so far, an increase of more than 3,000 since NBI’s last update in late November 2022. Premises in each of the 26 counties have now been connected to the network with the first premises in Longford having been added recently.

Peter Hendrick, chief executive of NBI, said the roll-out is showing “real momentum”.

He said: “We have achieved our target of having construction under way in over 40 per cent of the National Broadband Plan intervention area and we are now seeing a ramping up of premises moving from the construction phase to the order phase.”

Some 559,000 premises are included in the designated intervention area, parts of the country where private operators are not currently providing high-speed fibre broadband. NBI said that 245,533 premises are now under construction, roughly 44 per cent of the total intervention area.

The Government has fined NBI in excess of €250,000 due to construction delays and performance issues associated with the project, which is roughly one year behind schedule.