Welcome to National Broadband Ireland

Mairead Meyer

CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER

Mairead is responsible for the Design and Deployment of the network. This encompasses all network activities from Survey, Design, Eir make ready coordination and network build for both the overhead and underground network. The role involves partner and stakeholder management.

Prior to joining NBI Mairead was the MD of Openreach in Northern Ireland where she led an end to end business responsible for all activities including the Design, Deployment and in life provision and repair activities in Northern Ireland. Mairead spearheaded the Openreach Northern Ireland teams commercial investment in Fibre Broadband and during her time moved Northern Ireland from lagging behind in broadband coverage to being the leading fibre to the premise region across the UK and Ireland with over 70% coverage. Mairead held various roles within BT across the UK and Ireland across Networks, IT and Customer Solutions leading teams of 1000 plus people across diverse geographies and skillsets.

Mairead has played a very active role in Northern Ireland in STEM activities in Northern Ireland promoting apprenticeships and encouraging females into STEM careers. Mairead sat on the board of Business in the Community in Northern Ireland for the last 5 years. She is also a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.

Mairead holds a 1^st class Masters in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Queen’s University, Belfast as well as a postgraduate Diploma in Business Improvement from the University of Jordanstown. Mairead is a certified Prince 2 practitioner.

Derek is an Operating Partner at Asterion Industrial Partners, having joined in 2021. He brings to the team over 37 years of industrial experience in the telecoms sector, having worked at BT/ Cellnet and O2 / Telefonica in senior management positions as well as holding non-executive board roles in a number of telecoms infrastructure and digital platforms in the UK. During his time at Telefonica UK (O2), he served as the Chief Information / Technology Officer and latterly as Chief Operating Officer of the £12bn EV group.

In his decade long role as COO, he led a team of 2,500 professionals with responsibility for Network, IT, Customer Service, Business Transformation, 5G, B2B Service Management and Customer Operations, Corporate Fraud & Security, Supply Chain and Property. This included among others the oversight of an important cross industry initiative to increase collaboration and engagement with government and the regulator, driving policy change to increase mobile connectivity across rural UK in support of 5G, the delivery of major initiatives such as network rollout, growth and the government’s Smart Metering initiative. He also served as the chairman of CTIL, Telefonica’s network sharing JV with Vodafone, Enterprise Customer Advisory Board and the retailer Shop Direct’s Digital Advisory Board.

Derek holds a MSc in Telecom Business from University College London.

Michael is the Commercial Director with NBI Deployment, responsible for commercial management on the project. Michael joined NBI in 2020, he is a Chartered Quantity Surveyor with 26 years experience. He has worked across all sectors of the Building and Civil Engineering branches of the Construction Industry, working on Contractor Design and Build projects and on Client Design Projects dealing in areas of commercial, contractual and dispute resolution. Prior to joining NBI Michael was Commercial Director with a contractor operating across Ireland and the UK.

Kate-Lynn is an Associate at Asterion Industrial Partners. She has over 8 years of experience in the financial services industry, both in investment banking and on the investment side, including 2 years of energy and infrastructure investing experience.

Before joining AIP, she was a senior associate at HarbourVest Partners in Toronto focused on investment activities in the real assets space (energy & infrastructure). Prior thereto, she worked in the Investment Banking division of Scotiabank, first covering energy in both Calgary and London before moving to the global M&A team (based in Toronto). She started her career at a Canadian advisory boutique, focusing on energy.

Kate-Lynn is a Canadian national and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree (Finance concentration) from the University of Calgary.

Sebastián is a Partner at Asterion Industrial Partners, having joined Asterion at inception in 2018, as a Senior Director. He brings a wealth of knowledge, experience and networking in Telecommunications through a 26-year career across investing, M&A and industry positions.

Prior to joining AIP, Sebastián was Group Head of Strategy & Alliances at Telefónica, where, from 2012, he initially led Strategy and was a member of the Executive Committee of Telefónica Latinoamérica, based in Sao Paulo.

Formerly, Sebastián was an Executive Director within the Investment Banking divisions of Nomura & Lehman Brothers, focused on European Telecoms, Media & Technology M&A, based in London. Previously, he was a Senior Portfolio Manager at Norges Bank Investment Management, the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund, where he ran a Global Telecommunications Portfolio, based in London. Sebastián is a Chartered Financial Analyst and holds a M.Sc. in Telecommunication Engineering by the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros at Universidad de Sevilla. He has served as Board Member of several companies in the telecommunications space in Spain and Latin America.

Winnie is a Founding Partner and member of the Investment Committee at Asterion Industrial Partners. She has over 20 years of experience in the financial sector and infrastructure.

Prior to founding AIP, Winnie was a Director at KKR Client & Partner Group Europe, where she spent close to 10 years. She was the product specialist for Infrastructure & Private Equity in Europe, responsible for the strategic positioning of the funds as well as helping to drive the co-investment process for the specific deals. She also oversaw the capital raising efforts in several European markets across the entire KKR product range with specific focus on Private Equity and Infrastructure.

Formerly Winnie worked for JP Morgan as a Telecoms Analyst and in Specialist Sales for European Equities, covering the pan-European Telecoms universe. Winnie held her studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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After the designs have been approved, work can start on the ground. This includes everything from readying existing infrastructure to laying fibre.

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NBI’s detailed design process covers infrastructure, power and footprint required, drawings, openeir works, Local Authority requirements and revised cost analysis.

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Physical surveys are required to examine the existing pole and duct network for inclusion in the design.

David McCourt

Chairman

David McCourt is the Chairman of National Broadband Ireland and Chairman and CEO of Granahan McCourt Capital, the worldwide investors in technology, media and telecommunications. The Economist describes him as processing “impeccable credentials as a telecoms revolutionary”.

McCourt has held senior roles as CEO, President or board member at some of the world’s biggest telecom network operators, including Level 3 Communications, MFS Communications, Corporate Communications Network, MCI WorldCom as well as well-respected regulated operator, Commonwealth Telephone Enterprises.

Science Foundation Ireland awarded McCourt with its prestigious ‘St. Patrick’s Day Science Medal’, celebrating his significant contribution to technology and innovation across academia, research and industry. The White House also presented McCourt with its first-ever C-flag award recognising extraordinary accomplishments by private sector businesses.

W. David Scott is the Chairman of Tetrad Corp, a multinational conglomerate & privately owned holding company with investment interests in Energy, Agricultural, Telecommunication, Banking & Real Estate segments. He has served on several public boards including MFA, Berkshire Energy, Home Services, Inc. and IRET. In addition to serving on several private boards, he has been involved in numerous civic organizations within his local community.

Aidan is a former international rugby player and current transformation consultant in innovation, leadership, neuroscience, culture & digital infrastructure, having set up and developed the digital infrastructure for Communicorp Media. He is a keynote speaker, author of “Undisruptable” and host of the Innovation Show. Aidan developed and delivers modules for Trinity Business School in Emerging Trends and Technologies and Transformation Management for Business and Life. Aidan brings a fresh focus to sustainability and identifying opportunities in enterprise risk management.

Paul Haran is the former Secretary General of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Haran has served as a Director of the Bank of Ireland, as a member of the board of Glanbia and the Mater Private Hospital. He has also chaired the Irish Government’s Working Group on Legal Costs, and is a member of the Forum of the ESRI, a Council member of the IMI (Irish Management Institute), chair of Forfas Taxation Advisory Committee, a trustee of the Millennium Trust and a member of the board of the UCD Michael Smurfit School of Business.

Ms. Bernie Gray is a management consultant and executive coach. She is an accountant and formerly held a number of senior management positions in Telecom Eireann, and was latterly HR Director. She is currently Chair of Coillte plc, and a member of the Accountability Board of the Civil Service. She has held a number of non– executive roles including former Chairperson of Eirgrid plc, and member of DCU Governing Authority, Irish Payment Services Organisation, Public Appointments Service and Telecom Eireann (now eircom).

Don McAuley serves on the Global Infrastructure team at Twitch, looking after the EMEA region. He has over 25 years’ experience of the telecoms industry, in the equipment vendor and carrier businesses, from both sales and procurement sides of large infrastructure projects.
McAuley’s previous roles have included heading up sales engineering and infrastructure products. He served as the VP of Global Sales for Interoute (now EXA Infrastructure) and played a key role in the rollout of the UK’s regional dark fibre.

Mike Adams is the former Chief Operations Officer and Chief Customer Officer for Rogers Communications, the largest facilities-based cable and wireless carrier in Canada with over 9M wireless customers and over 2M broadband internet customers. In his distinguished career, he has managed an employee base of over 10,000 people internally and over 11,000 third party contractors.

Hamid Akhavan is a Partner at Twin Point Capital, a growth oriented private equity firm based in New York, NY and Palo Alto, CA.

He was previously a Partner at Long Arc Capital, a private equity firm specialising in disruptive technology investments. He has also served as a Principal at Telecom Ventures LLC, an investment firm with a dedicated portfolio for telecommunications and related information technologies. Akhavan served as Chief Executive Officer of Unify Inc. (formerly Siemens Enterprise Communications) and held the roles of Chief Operating Officer of Deutsche Telecom and Chief Executive Officer of T-Mobile International.

Musa Sönmez shares primary responsibility for managing Oak Hill Advisor’s (OHA) European operations, as well as for portfolio management of OHA’s European investments. He serves on the board of a number of OHA’s portfolio companies. Musa previously worked for Strategic Value Partners (SVP) where he focused on European investments. Prior to this, he worked at Lehman Brothers’ European Leveraged Finance Group in London and Lazard’s M&A advisory business in Germany.

How is the National Broadband Plan being rolled out?

NBI is rolling out the largest infrastructural project in rural Ireland since rural electrification, stretching across 96% of Ireland’s land mass. It will bring high-speed broadband to 23% of Ireland’s population (including 69% of the country’s farms) over a seven-year period. NBI will be responsible for the management and maintenance of the NBI™ network for the next 25 years.

It is anticipated that the NBI™ network will require approximately 146,000km of fibre cable, 15,000km of underground duct networks and over 1.5 million poles. Where possible, overhead lines and existing poles will be used to carry the fibre cables.

The network build is divided up into 227 Deployment Areas. Each of these Deployment Areas is centred around a regional or local exchange. These exchanges house all of our technology, and provide high-speed connectivity to data centre locations.

We’ve started the rollout in the 33 Deployment Areas across Ireland that have a regional exchange. This is because regional exchanges already have an established connection back to the main data centres, which is necessary for a live network. Regional exchanges are mostly located in urban areas, and once they are built, we then extend the network build out to Deployment Areas that have a local exchange.

NBI’s construction and design partners include Entegro, KN Group, Secto, Indigo, TLI and Actavo. NBI is also working with infrastructure owners such as openeir and enet.

Welcome to National Broadband Ireland

We are connecting

564k

1.1m

65k

44k

672

Benefits of Fibre

Benefits of fibre

Making the most of your connection

What’s involved in the network build?

Phase 1

Surveying

Phase 2

Design

Phase 3

Build

Phase 4

Order

Phase 5

Install

Our progress so far