National Broadband Plan internet service to reach final rural Tipperary communities next year

Fibre broadband is now available to over 25,300 or 83% of the rural Tipperary premises identified as requiring the high speed internet infrastructure under the National Broadband Plan with the final communities scheduled to get it in the first half of next year.

That’s the update National Broadband Ireland’s Chief Commercial Officer Joe Lavin gave to councillors and management at a recent meeting of Tipperary County Council.

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

READ NEXT: Folk singers invited to enter Tipperary's Clancy Brothers Festival singing contest

It involves an investment of €118m in county Tipperary alone. Its goal is to ensure every home, farm and business in rural Ireland has access to high speed broadband.

A total of 31,000 rural premises in the county were identified as requiring fibre broadband under the National Broadband Plan.

Mr Lavin reported to councillors that the fibre broadband network is now available to order or pre-order for 25,372 or 83% of these premises and work is underway on rolling out the infrastructure to the remaining 4,894 (16%) of premises.

A total of 7,568 or 30% of the 25,372 premises have connected to the fibre broadband service so far.

Almost 3,000 rural premises in the Templemore Deployment Area are the latest to get the go ahead to avail of the newly installed fibre broadband service in early April.

Two more fibre broadband network build projects to make the service available to 1,103 premises in the Newport area and 635 Tipperary premises in the Birr area are due to be completed and ready for order between October and December this year.

Final communities

The final rural Tipperary communities to get the broadband service will be 390 Tipperary premises in the south west of the county that are part of the Mitchelstown Deployment Area and 2,330 premises in the Littleton Deployment Area.

The building of the fibre network is currently in progress in these areas and Mr Lavin reported its anticipated the service will be available to order between January and June next year.

National Broadband Ireland doesn’t directly sell broadband services to customers. Instead, NBI offers 68 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 Fibre and Tipperary Broadband.
Fianna Fáil Cllr Sean Ryan from Littleton told the meeting he was regularly asked at community meetings when the fibre broadband will be available locally.

They were told it would be rolled out between January and June next year but were later told the roll out was being speeded up and the service would be available earlier than anticipated. He asked if that was still the case?

Newcastle Independent Cllr Máirín McGrath said one issue constantly brought up with her were cases where the fibre broadband was available to one ‘premises but not yet to a neighbouring premises 200m down the road.
‘Extremely frustrating’

Clogheen Fine Gael Cllr Marie Murphy highlighted how a number of her constituents have gone onto the NBI website to see whether the service was available in their Eircode area.

The website stated it was available since March 2024 but that was not the case.

“It has happened in a number of places that additional poles are required for them to be able to connect to the broadband and it seems to be taking an inordinate amount of time for the poles to be put in,” she explained.

“It’s extremely frustrating for those people. The website states one thing and the reality on the ground it another thing.”

She also asked when the NBI fibre broadband will be available to premises in the Ballyporeen, Skeheenarinky and Burncourt areas.

Some residents had access to the high speed broadband but it wasn’t available to others only 80 yards away, she poined out.

Meanwhile, Independent Cllr John O’Heney from Lattin thanked National Broadband Ireland for engaging with Lisvernane Community Hall where a community hub for people working from home was being established.

He said the community group spearheading the project was trying to source more IT equipment so the project could commence. He asked if the NBI could engage with them in relation to that issue.

The NBI Response
Mr Lavin responded that the group should speak to Simon Howe, Tipperary County Council’s Broadband Officer or the Department of Rural & Community Development which ran the Connected Hubs Programme.

He explained the NBI’s role was purely to install the fibre broadband network.

In relation to Littleton, he explained some communities had to be at the end of the programme roll out.

He said hopefully all the activity in installing the network to be seen on the roads will give confidence to the community that the service will be rolled out to this area soon.

Turning to the issues raised by Cllrs McGrath and Murphy, Mr Lavin said he suspected premises that don’t have a date for the fibre broadband being made available to them may be new premises and requested they send on the relevant Eircodes onto him.

He explained a build had to be complete before it was added. NBI worked with An Post to get the new Eircodes of new premises in rural communities.

In cases where the network passed a lane where houses were located, he explained the NBI has to get a wayleave agreement with the landowner or owners to lay the fibre in or over the land. There are cases where permission isn’t given by a landowner and the route had to be redesigned.

He said the roll out of fibre broadband to premises in the communities Cllr Murphy highlighted that are in the Mitchelstown Deployment Area are on track to get the service early next year.

He indicated it was likely the service will be available earlier than that estimated date.