I would like to thank the Chair and the Committee for the invitation to speak with you today. We are only too pleased to discuss the latest update on our overall progress with the National Broadband Plan (NBP), as well as to provide a more detailed view of some specific areas that the Committee members may be interested in – such as network resilience and the NBP’s role in supporting Ireland’s Gigabit future.

I’m TJ Malone, CEO at National Broadband Ireland.

I am joined by Jenny Fisher, who is CEO of NBI Deployment and leads the team building the NBI network. In addition, we have Mairead Meyer, our Chief Operations Officer, as well as Barry Kelly, NBI’s Chief Financial Officer.

As the CEO of NBI, I am incredibly proud of the teams’ work ensuring that the NBP is being delivered  on time and on budget, particularly considering the fact that we started the build at the outset of Covid and are delivering approx. 30,000 more premises than at the time of the contract signing.

As a reminder for the Committee, currently across all 26 counties there are over 564,000 premises in the rollout area, known as the Intervention Area. NBI is providing world-class, high-speed fibre broadband infrastructure in these designated areas; and while our infrastructure encompasses 96% of the country, other operators manage their respective networks in other areas of the country.

Since our establishment in 2020, NBI has built an organisation to deliver the project with predictability and pace, and 2026 will see the completion of the main infrastructure build programme.

The rollout of the NBP is almost unrivalled in its ambition and complexity, and we are extremely proud of the progress that is being made across every aspect of the rollout, which I can summarise as follows: 

  • 100% of premises have been surveyed and designed.
  • 100% of premises are either built or in build.
  • Over 425,000 premises (c.75%) are now ready for service on the NBI network, and approx. 440,000 will be ready for service by year end.
  • Over 151,000 premises are already connected to the NBI network, representing c.36% of all premises passed.
  • It might interest the Committee to note that take-up is c.60% in deployment areas that we passed with fibre some 4 years ago; and we therefore believe this is a much more insightful metric. We predict, over time, take-up on this network will be north of 80%.
  • To put this into perspective, the levels of take-up that we are driving not only surpass the targets for this project but also exceed all other international comparisons.
  • 955 Broadband Connection Points (BCPs), have been installed by NBI, 672 of which are located in schools.    
  • BCPs are public locations that have been chosen to receive high-speed connectivity as part of the NBP for community use.
  • These locations have been selected by local authorities and include public areas such as community halls, libraries, sports facilities, enterprise hubs, tourist locations and other public spaces.
  • We have increased our minimum speeds from 150 megabits per second, mandated in the contract, to offer 500 megabits per second as the minimum speed.
  • To support Ireland’s goal of achieving a Gigabit Society and meeting EU Digital Decade targets for universal high-speed connectivity by 2030, we also offer a 1 Gig, 2 Gig and now a 5 Gig product to our customers, the Broadband Providers.

As an open-access, wholesale network operator, NBI does not sell or have a contractual relationship with end users, rather NBI has some 50 Broadband Providers actively selling services on the NBI network. This brings significant benefits directly to consumers and businesses where competition between these Broadband Providers on our network ensures better quality and an increased range of products – all being offered at competitive prices.   

This progress is directly supporting the Government’s ambitions under Project Ireland 2040 — driving balanced regional development and ensuring that every community, regardless of location, can participate fully in Ireland’s digital economy.

In our view, building this world class infrastructure now ensures that all people and businesses – no matter how rural or remote – will have access to a broadband network capable of supporting the communications, information, education, tele-medicine and entertainment requirements of current and future generations. This is especially true in the context of Copper Switch Off, which is the planned, systematic decommissioning of the old copper network. This is a progressive step to ensure that all premises can access a modern and future proofed fibre broadband infrastructure and is comparable to when analogue tv was switched off in 2012 and the beginning of a fully digital era was launched with digital terrestrial tv services.

I would now like to turn my attention to an area that the Committee signalled their interest in – namely network resilience which coincidentally would also be improved by the decommissioning of copper cables from the pole infrastructure.

The NBI Network is built to the highest standards and future proofed technology and typically operates with 99.95% availability.  To meet the requirements of our contract with the Department, as well as the State Aid decision, NBI is obliged to use existing infrastructure (i.e. poles and ducts), as this provides a balance between speed of programme delivery with value-for-money for the State. There are also sustainability benefits in reusing existing infrastructure. 

It’s important to note a number of factors that contribute to network resilience:

  • Fibre networks are designed in rings, and this inherently assists with resilience because data can travel either clockwise or counterclockwise around the ring.
  • If there’s a break or fault in one part of the ring, the system automatically reroutes the data the other way — so services can continue with limited interruption.
  • As we are still building the network, not all rings are closed. However, when the main build project is completed, this will close all rings, and therefore, add further resilience to the network. 
  • A comprehensive EMR or Eir Make Ready Programme is in place to test and replace poles on the Open Eir network, ahead of any NBI cabling works. To date, in excess of 135,000 poles have been replaced, approximately 13% of the poles we use.
  • NBI has 205 Exchanges, all with battery backup to ensure that these critical sites can remain operational for a period even if deprived of mains electricity.  
  • Furthermore, NBI has a number of generators at our disposal that can be deployed to exchanges to supplement battery backups to further assist continuity of power pending the restoration of mains electricity.
  • Since Storm Eowyn, NBI has significantly invested in software development focused on network analytics and automation to give increased visibility and notification of network issues enabling faster resolution times.
  • Also, since Storm Eowyn, the industry (NBI included) has been liaising with the ESB to discuss the prioritisation of restoring electrical supply to exchanges in the event of power outages. These efforts should mitigate some outages that are purely related to electrical supply; or at least support a quicker restoration to impacted users.

At NBI, we have continuous improvement programmes whereby we pull in all lessons learned from these extreme weather events.  The lessons learned will range from network maintenance, internal resourcing, 3rd party contractor support, right across to customer communications.  Specifically on communications, it should be noted that we use our monthly industry forum to provide feedback to our customers, the Broadband Providers, on areas that are going to be improved and timelines to implement. 

I would like to conclude by saying that at NBI, we are acutely aware of how vital reliable, high-speed broadband has become to our everyday lives. We are excited to see how it will be used over the coming years.

We’re justifiably proud of the work done to deploy the infrastructure on time and on budget; and equally proud to say that we have built an organisation that can plan for, mitigate the impact of and respond to extreme weather events; and that gives us confidence in the long-term operation of the network for the duration of our contract with the State.

We welcome the opportunity to take questions from the Committee and look forward to your continued support in the delivery of this project for the citizens of Ireland.