National Broadband Ireland (NBI), the company rolling out the new high speed fibre broadband network under the Government’s National Broadband Plan (NBP) today announced that construction has commenced to deliver high-speed broadband to over 800 premises in the Tallow deployment area in County Cork. Additionally, a further 1,600 Cork premises in the Mitchelstown deployment area have completed surveying works.
82,000 premises in County Cork are included in the State’s Intervention Area, which will see NBI deliver minimum speeds of 500 megabits per second to homes, businesses, farms, and schools. As the biggest investment in rural Ireland since rural electrification, County Cork will receive €314m of Government investment under the National Broadband Plan.
Having completed the Survey and Design phase of the project, 858 Cork premises in the Tallow deployment area are now under construction to have high-speed fibre. When these works are completed, homes, businesses and farms in the areas will be ready to connect and order broadband from the NBI network.
A further 1,626 premises in the Mitchelstown deployment area have recently completed surveying works. These initial works pave the way for the next stage of deploying fibre on poles/ducts and includes the erection of poles, unblocking of ducts, and the insertion of sub duct into existing ducts, for the fibre to be installed.
Works have already been completed in other parts of Cork and there are 19,816 premises that are available to order or pre-order high-speed, reliable broadband across the county, with 5,385 connections already made to the network. National Broadband Ireland is calling on people to visit nbi.ie/map/ and enter their Eircode to see if they are ready to connect.
Peter Hendrick, Chief Executive Officer, National Broadband Ireland said: “Our teams are working tirelessly on the rollout plan and considerable progress has been made on the developments in Cork.”
He continued: “The project is now at scale and we are confident that we can continue to accelerate the rollout and move even more premises through construction and into the order phase. We are currently partnering with retail service providers, and other stakeholders, to connect homes in Cork. Minimum speeds of 500Mbps will be available.
“Our goal is to improve digital connectivity across the country. Digital connectivity has become a huge part of our everyday lives, and this new Fibre-to-the-Home network will be a key enabler for the sustainability of local businesses and communities.”
National Broadband Ireland’s website is regularly updated to show estimated connection dates. Signing up to the NBI email notifications at https://nbi.ie/eoi/ is the easiest way to get the most up to date status of premises during the rollout and when premises will be ready for order.
Under the National Broadband Plan, 559,000 premises nationwide are included in the Intervention Area, which was established by the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications to identify areas where commercial operators are not currently providing access to high-speed broadband or do not intend to.
Keep up to Speed!
NBI is encouraging people to check their eligibility and register for updates at www.nbi.ie to receive regular notifications related to their own premises as works progresses in their area.
In advance of the Fibre-to-the-Home rollout, the NBP provides for the delivery of Broadband Connection Points (BCPs) nationwide. 602 of these sites, including Public BCPs, are now ‘live’. Public BCPs – which include sports clubs, community centres and tourist sites – will provide free public access to high-speed internet in the rollout area. Other BCP categories include schools and marts.
BCPs will pave the way for rural communities to receive the benefits of broadband, from mobile working, e-learning and mobile banking, to digital tourism. You can view BCPs at /bcp-map/. An example of some of the locations of Broadband Connection Points in Cork include Castletownkenneigh Community Centre, Caheragh Community Hall and Clogagh Community Hall. Primary schools in the Intervention Area are also being connected for educational access as part of the NBP.
