National Broadband Ireland (NBI), the company responsible for delivering the Irish Government’s National Broadband Plan (NBP), has been recognised for excellence in the field of fixed network evolution at the Glotel awards, celebrating innovation across the global telecoms industry.

Responsible for delivering one of the most ambitious fibre rollouts in the world, NBI was praised by the judges for demonstrating innovation that delivers new levels of service quality for customers, something that was also highlighted in a recently published review of the project by EY. This report stated that NBI has achieved high levels of service quality for connected premises, delivering broadband speed and reliability that is equivalent to, and often surpassing, the levels experienced in commercial areas.

Since being awarded the contract for Ireland’s National Broadband Plan in November 2019, NBI has made high-speed fibre broadband available to almost 315,000 homes, farms and business in some of the most rural and remote locations in the country, including the Black Valley in Co. Kerry, famously the last place in Ireland to receive electricity. NBI is also praised for delivering its complex and large-scale rollout on schedule and on budget.  

Accepting the award, David McCourt, the founder and Chairman of NBI commented: “The size and scale of Ireland’s National Broadband Plan, which spans 96% of the country’s land mass, is matched by NBI’s ambition to create a blueprint for the rest of Europe to follow. Not only is the survey, design and construction of this new fibre network on time and on budget, our customer take-up is exceeding the policy goals and other international comparisons.

“By focussing on excellence as an open-access, wholesale operator, NBI has attracted 72 broadband providers to sell service on our network. Every decision we have made has brought innovation to the physical design of the network and the software platforms created to ensure seamless experiences for our customers – the retail service providers. In turn, this ensures end-consumers have real choice about the products and services they can select, and it’s helped us quickly reach the major milestone of over 100,000 connected customers. We are delighted that the Glotel awards have recognised the results of this innovation.”