Local Enterprise Week 2022

Kildare resident TJ Malone is heading up the build programme for the National Broadband Plan. In this interview, he discusses progress on the State’s “biggest investment in rural Ireland ever”

Q. The National Broadband Plan is the largest infrastructure project the State has ever undertaken. What do you think the impact of the project will be?

TJ: Connectivity has quickly become a vital part of our lives. For work, education, entertainment, and even socialising, we all have a growing demand for reliable, high speed broadband services. In most urban areas, this is taken for granted. But for over 1.1 million people living in more rural parts of Ireland – myself included - it can be an everyday struggle.

We’re not alone. Across Europe the European Commission is on a mission to ensure every household has gigabit connectivity by 2030. It’s a bold and transformational move, but one that will propel every nation in the right direction to take on everything the future holds and it’s an exciting prospect that Ireland will ultimately lead the rest of Europe in this regard.

Proudly connecting Ireland, community by community

sets us on a path to be the leading country in the provision of high speed broadband to 100% of the population, providing equal access and equal opportunity to every home, farm, school and business.

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly underlined the criticality of reliable, high speed connectivity, which has become essential for so many aspects of our lives. Such is the demand for bandwidth, that internet usage has grown by over 40% compared with pre-pandemic levels.

Q. What’s the size of the challenge?

TJ: Conveying the size, scale and complexity of an infrastructure project of this nature can be challenging to articulate. It can only be likened to rural electrification, but with arguably far more complexities.

Taking on the challenge, our team at NBI is deploying fibre on approximately 1.5 million poles – many of them new, over 15,000 km of underground ducts, using up to 142,000 km of new fibre cable, and will run along almost 100,000 km of the road network.

Stretching across 96% of the country’s land mass, we’re laying enough fibre to go around the world nearly four times. This is about radically changing the broadband landscape across the country to ensure every single person has access to high speed broadband, no matter where they live or work.

In only two years, our team has grown to have over 1200 people working on the rollout of the National Broadband Plan – either directly with NBI or through our network of specialist contractors.

Q. The National Broadband Plan takes in all 26 counties. To what extent will Kildare benefit?

TJ: In Kildare, there are 14,849 premises in the Intervention Area, which includes homes, farms, businesses and schools. This equates to over 46% of all premises in the county, so the impact is really significant. Under the National Broadband Plan, Kildare will see an investment of €53M in the new high speed fibre network, which will make a big difference to people’s lives.

As a Kildare resident, I’m very familiar with the need for the new high speed network and can’t wait to see the benefits that it will bring to communities across the county. For too long, modern-day technologies that offer huge advantages to our lives have not been accessible for rural communities, whether that’s to allow e-learning, e-health initiatives, better energy efficiency in our homes, being able to work remotely, or even remote monitoring of livestock in farming. We’re going to be enabling people to consider these for the very first time in many cases. These facilities – which include GAA clubs, community centres and tourist sites – will provide free public access to high speed internet in the Intervention area, paving the way for rural communities to receive the benefits of broadband directly to their door. Locations of Broadband Connection Points in Kildare include Back Gate Lodge at Kilkea Castle, Cookstown Further Education, Training and Community Centre, Bigstone Community Hall, and Lullymore Heritage Park.

Q. What’s the status of your national rollout plans and what can we expect?

TJ: Work on the National Broadband Plan continues at pace with our teams working in every county across Ireland. Over 298,000 premises – 55% of the entire Intervention Area - have now been surveyed nationwide. Over 252,000 of these premises are already designed or progressing through detailed design work. Collectively, these are critical components which pave the way for fast and effective construction work.

Right now, we have surveys underway for nearly 5,000 premises across Ballylinan, and Curragh Camp including Athy, Ballitore, Narraghmore, South Kildare, the Curragh and surrounding townlands – which is a critical first step in rolling out the network and involves our crews physically walking the routes where fibre will be laid. We have the network under construction for over 2,000 premises across Blessington, Carlow, Dunboyne and Clonee including Ballymore Eustace, Brannockstown, Castledermot, Celbridge, Johnstown, Kill, Naas, Newbridge and Straffan. We also have over 900 premises available to pre-order their connection.

In advance of our fibre to the home roll out, we’re also delivering Broadband Connection Points nationwide. As of today, construction work is underway for over 150,000 premises across the country and approximately 55,000 premises are now able to order services via their preferred Retail Service Providers (RSPs), with minimum speeds of 500 megabits per second on offer. With around 50 RSPs ready to sell services on the NBI network, this is going to be game-changer, bringing 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.

Visit www.nbi.ie for more information, including to find out if you’re in the Intervention Area and to receive Eircode specific updates on the rollout progress.