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 over 200,000 premises have been surveyed across Ireland to date.

Surveying
NBI contractors have been on the ground across the country for thirteen months. This involves physically walking the routes and documenting images, notes and measurements of the poles, cables and underground ducts in each area.  This will enable network design solutions for the provision of a fibre network to every premises in the Intervention Area to over 544,000 premises nationwide as identified by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communication (DECC). The first premises have already been successfully connected under the NBP in parts of Cork and Cavan.

In recent weeks and months, NBI crews have made substantial progress with surveying works in the townlands around Dundalk (2,770 premises), Midleton (8,446 premises), Mullingar (4,109 premises), Tipperary (3,316 premises), Clonmel (2,143 premises), Drogheda (4,173 premises), Gort (2,618) and Skerries (2,437 premises). You can find out additional information about areas that have been surveyed to date by visiting the NBI website at /rollout-plan/ .

These initial surveying works pave the way for the next stage of the build process, including the erection of poles, the unblocking of ducts, and the insertion of sub duct into existing ducts, for the fibre to be ultimately installed.

Progress on the ground
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 teams of 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. Reaching the milestone of over 200,000 premises surveyed demonstrates the progress being made on the ground by NBI crews.”

“Surveying and producing detailed designs are an important part of mapping out how every home, farm and business will be connected, as these will provide the blueprint for how the NBI fibre is deployed.

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