National Broadband Ireland (NBI), the company rolling out the new high-speed fibre broadband network under the Government’s National Broadband Plan (NBP) today announced that build works in several areas of Tralee, Co. Kerry are well underway.

NBI contractors have been on the ground across the country for twelve months and over 196,000 premises nationwide have been surveyed to date. This will enable network design solutions for the provision of a fibre network to every premises in the Intervention Area – a map of over 544,000 premises nationwide identified by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communication (DECC) – as not being served with adequate broadband speeds.

In Tralee, over 3,167 premises have been surveyed to date and network designs completed to deliver the new Fibre to the Home (FTTH) network there. NBI crews have started initial works for the build in townlands surrounding Tralee including Ballingowan, Ballyfinnane, Corbally, Farna, Martara and Ross.
These ‘make ready’ works pave the way for the next stage of deploying fibre on poles/ducts, and include the erection of poles, unblocking of ducts, and the insertion of subduct into existing ducts, for the fibre to be installed. All NBI contractors will also carry official ID cards and essential worker letters, and have received training on adhering to all Covid 19 guidelines. They will have vehicles, PPE and signage with both their own, and NBI logos.

In Kerry, there are 26,905 premises in the “Rollout Area”, which includes homes, farms, commercial businesses and school. This equates to 30% of all premises in the county. Under the National Broadband Plan, Kerry will see an investment of €107M in the new high-speed fibre network. This will enable e-learning, remote monitoring of livestock or equipment, e-health initiatives, better energy efficiency in the home, and more remote working.

NBI chief executive Peter Hendrick said the company was pleased with the progress being made: “We started physical work on the ground in January 2020 and despite the challenging environment caused by Covid-19, we’ve grown and mobilised the team to have over 800 people working on the project across all 26 counties and making good progress. We are acutely aware that people want access to high-speed broadband as soon as possible, and our goal is to deliver that.
He continued: There are 227 deployments areas across Ireland – in every county- that NBI will be delivering this new high-speed fibre broadband network in, across 96% of Ireland’s land mass. We are currently working closely with retail service providers, and other stakeholders, to connect the first homes in Tralee in mid-2021. Speeds of up to 500Gb will be available.

“Our mission is to end the digital divide across the country, and high-speed broadband access has never been more critical in how we live our lives. Digital connectivity is critical to many of our activities right now, and this new Fibre-to-the-Home network, will be a key enabler for the sustainment of local businesses and communities.”

Broadband Connection Points (BCPs)
In advance of the fibre to the home roll out, the NBP provides for the delivery of BCPs nationwide. 152 of these sites are now ‘live’ and have both internal and external broadband access. These facilities – which include sports clubs, community centres and tourist sites – will provide free public access to high -speed internet in the rollout area.

These will pave the way for rural communities to receive the benefits of broadband, from mobile working, e-learning and mobile banking, to digital tourism. You can view BCPs at /bcp-map/ Primary schools in the Intervention Area are also being connected for educational access as part of the NBP. Locations of Broadband Connection Points in county Kerry will include Tureencahill Community Centre, Kielduff Community Centre, Killenagh, and Chapeltown Community Centre.

NBI’s website www.nbi.ie has a search tool to enable the public to check whether their premises is within the rollout area, and to show indicative dates for areas being surveyed. There is also a facility to register for updates on this. Detailed designs for the fibre area network are drawn up following these surveys. The network build has started in parts of Cavan, Cork, Galway and Limerick. NBI’s contact centre can be reached at 0818 624 624 (lo-call) or contactus@nbi.ie