"Earlier this year, before I came into office, the Department announced that it would be June 2017 before contract(s) were awarded under the NBP," Minister Naughten said in response to a parliamentary question from Fine Gael Kerry TD Brenand Griffin. "The bidders in the process have recently indicated that they may need more time to conclude the procurement process."The minister added that the need for more time arose from around 150 hours of meetings between his department's officials and the three companies shortlisted to roll out broadband to rural homes and businesses under the NBP, " with considerable more interaction to follow over the coming months".
"Earlier this year, before I came into office, the Department announced that it would be June 2017 before contract(s) were awarded under the NBP," Minister Naughten said in response to a parliamentary question from Fine Gael Kerry TD Brenand Griffin. "The bidders in the process have recently indicated that they may need more time to conclude the procurement process."
The minister added that the need for more time arose from around 150 hours of meetings between his department's officials and the three companies shortlisted to roll out broadband to rural homes and businesses under the NBP, " with considerable more interaction to follow over the coming months".
The three shortlisted bidders are Eir, Enet and Siro, the joint venture between ESB and Vodafone.
End of 2022
With the awarding of the contracts pushed into the second half of next year, and the construction of the network expected to take around five years, the last farms to receive a broadband service may have to wait until the end of 2022. "It is, however, open to bidder(s) to suggest more aggressive time scales as part of their bids," Minister Naughten said.
He added: "The three bidders in the procurement process have formally indicated that they are proposing a predominantly fibre-to-the home solution for rural Ireland. This means that householders and businesses can expect speeds of not just 30Mbps but up to 1Gbps with businesses availing of symmetrical upload and download speeds, in a solution that will endure for 25 years and beyond."
The download time for a typical 2GB movie is under 20 seconds on a 1Gbps connection, compared with 10 minutes at 30Mbps and up to several hours on the connections currently available from isolated rural addresses. Symmetrical upload and download speeds mean that subscribers can send data as fast as they receive it.
In the meantime, the minister said that the Mobile Phone an Broadband Taskforce established jointly with Rural Affairs Minister Heather Humphreys last July would bring proposals to Government by the end of this year and "recommend practical actions that can be taken in the short term to improve mobile phone and broadband access in Ireland".
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