Fibre broadband now available to more than 40% of rural Tipperary premises

High speed fibre broadband has so far been been made available to more than 12,500 of the 30,000 rural Tipperary premises identified as requiring the service under the National Broadband Plan's €118m seven-year investment in the county.

And rural Tipperary householders, businesses and organisations that find their premises are bypassed for the fibre broadband roll- out are being advised to lobby the Department of Communications to get included in the NBP Intervention Area.

That was the message National Broadband Ireland’s Chief Operating Officer Donal Hanrahan gave at Tipperary County Council’s monthly meeting where he gave a presentation on the progress of the delivery of fibre broadband to rural communities in Tipperary.

The seven-year programme began in late 2019 and is due to be completed by the end of 2026.

In relation to Tipperary, he said the NBP covers 30,500 premises in the county identified as requiring fibre broadband.

By mid-October, NBP fibre broadband was installed and available to order or pre-order for 12,506 or 41.6% of these premises.

Just over a quarter of these 12,506 premises – 3,263 (26.1%) - had connected to the fibre network by mid-October.

Meanwhile, installation of the fibre broadband network is in progress for a further 7,397 or 24.6% of Tipperary premises.

NBI estimates fibre broadband build will be complete for just shy of 60% of Tipperary premises identified as needing it by the end of next year.

Some communities like Littleton are at the end of the programme’s roll-out and won’t have NBI fibre broadband available to them until 2026.

Mr Hanrahan stressed National Broadband Ireland doesn’t directly sell broadband services to customers. Instead, NBI offers 56 retail service providers access to the network and they sell the broadband service directly to customers. They range from well known names like Vodafone, Eir and Sky to local providers like Premier and Tipperary Broadband.

He also pointed out that NBI is responsible not just for building the fibre broadband network but running it over the next 25 years.

He praised Tipperary County Council for its “goodwill and positive engagement” with NBI during the roll-out of the broadband infrastructure.

Cllrs Maírín McGrath and Cllr Marie Murphy highlighted how the restoration of roads in their constituency area after the NBI fibre broadband installation were sometimes unsatisfactory.

Cllr Murphy believed works carried out by NBI contributed to recent bad flooding in the Ballylooby area. She said the NBI should check on the quality of road reinstatement works.

In response, Mr Hanrahan said there was no excuse for reinstatements not being completed properly and indicated they would get contractors to look at an issue in an area if they were notified of a problem.

“We are working with the local authorities and road engineers to agree re-instatement and we will ensure the works are completed as intended.”

Cllr McGrath and Cllr Siobhán Ambrose also highlighted that some constituents were frustrated at seeing neighbours getting fibre broadband but they can’t connect to the network.

Mr Hanrahan advised these people to get onto the Department of Communications and make a case for their premises to be included in the NBP “Intervention Area”. The NBI can’t install broadband infrastructure for premises outside the Intervention Area.

He also responded to a query about premises that require ducting being laid through another person’s property in order to connect to fibre broadband. He said there was nothing the NBI can do if the landowner doesn’t give permission.

Cllr Sean Ryan from Littleton asked if the roll-out of the programme could be accelerated so communities like his could get fibre broadband quickler.

Mr Hanrahan said the programme was back on schedule after running behind during the Covid pandemic “There is the same enthusiasm to get it moving ahead of schedule. We are working with Eir to get more poles processed. We totally get the frustration. It's frustrating when you are last.”

The public can find out the status of when fibre broadband will be available to their premises by logging onto the National Broadband Ireland website and typing in their Eircode.